I can already see Linux geeks out there drooling at the first glimpse of this credit card, which is the result of a collaboration between The Linux Foundation and CardPartner Inc. (in cooperation with UMB Bank). It’s a Visa card and will function just like every other credit card out there. The plus is that when you use the card, you will be helping out a good cause: to promote Linux. The funds that are raised from this program will be used specifically for technical events for the Linux community as well as travel grants for open source community members. Here are some details about The Linux Foundation Credit Card:

1. No Annual Fee.
2. Low Introductory APR on purchases and no balance transfer fees for 6 months.
3. Earn bonus points for FREE airline tickets, merchandise, cash-back and more at participating merchants.
4. $50 donation by the bank when you first use the card and ongoing contributions.
5. Enhanced Visa Platinum benefits, including 24/7 Emergency Customer Service, 100% Fraud Protection, Auto Rental and Travel Accident Insurance and much more.

If anything, the fact that there is no annual fee is already a good deal. I did take a look at the fine print, though, and the APR goes from 0% to 12.99% on your 7th month! I guess it is too good to be true, huh? In any case, if you just want the card and not really use it that much, it’s still a pretty good idea to get one. (You can apply at CardPartner.)

Linux enthusiasts – are you going to apply for one?

Having been subjected to various personality tests in the past, I was glad to find this simple chart that shows you what type of person you are based on the operating systems you predominantly use.

It looks like I’m an “Artsie” (be careful how you pronounce that) though at one time I could have been a graphic designer, or just a plain loser.

Do you fit with this diagram? Pity the Windows users it seems (and just think, you invented it)

Via

I don’t know what they look like where you are, but in Britain, Microsoft’s TV ads extend the “I’m a PC” mantra and now suggest that it’s the users who told Microsoft how to design Windows 7.

“It was my idea”.

Nice tactic, Microsoft.

You see, while Windows 7 is a heck of a lot better than Vista, which we all blamed Microsoft for, when it goes wrong (and it will go wrong), Microsoft can turn around and say “ahhh, but it’s based on your design. It’s your fault”.

OK, that won’t really happen, but when the average user is tearing their hair out because that nifty new taskbar or window snapping isn’t behaving quite right, there may just be a little voice at the back of their head saying “it’s your fault.”

And I’ll add “You should’ve installed Linux”.

“Or bought a Mac”.

Of course, Microsoft has been dissing Macs for a long time, mainly on the basis that they’re too expensive. Thing is, it’s hard to do that with Linux, given that it will run on exactly the same hardware (and in fact, less powerful hardware, too) as Windows bloated OS, and yet is available for free.

I guess consumers who are happy to go to Best Buy on their search for a PC aren’t really too fussed, and perhaps are more willing to trust the viewpoint of the sales staff.

Though Windows 7 is looking a lot better than its predecessors, Vista has really hurt Microsoft. I suppose it has to do all it can to ensure regular consumers don’t consider switching to an enemy system.

Via

Seems that the following graph, though not comprehensive, arrives at one stark conclusion: your choice of operating system is irrelevant when it comes to…

…watching porn:

Via

The original EeePC also came shipped with Linux (Xandros, in the case of Asus), and that added to the novelty of it. Linux enthusiasts were banking on the popularity of Linux-based netbooks, which could supposedly bring Linux closer to the common user (a.k.a. the 90+ percent of us who use Windows).

A lot of things had happened since then. A ton of other manufacturers have come out with their own netbooks. Most of these other brands ship their units with Linux pre-installed. Acer Aspire one has Linpus lite. The HP mini note had SUSE. Dell has an Ubuntu variant. And so forth. However, how big really is the effect of the netbook on the desktop (meaning non-server) market share of Linux? Has Linux gained a foothold on the mainstream market with the popularity of netbooks?

The netbook market was thought to make Linux an attractive option, given the limited resources and lower price. And because users buy netbooks mostly for light tasks that run on web browsers, it was thought that the choice of OS would not be a big issue. However, recent news says that this may not exactly be the case. According to MSI (as featured on LaptopMag), WIND netbooks preloaded with Linux had been returned four times more than those that came with Windows.

Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don’t know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it’s not what they are used to. They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.

LaptopMag went on to interview folks from Canonical (which publishes Ubuntu) and Canonical confirms this.

Well, when we touched base today with Gerry Carr, marketing manager at Canonical (the creator of the Ubuntu operating system) we learned that MSI’s research extends beyond its own products. See his comments below, but it seems Linux’ future on the netbook is bleaker than we thought.

“We don’t know what the XP return rates are. But I will say that the return rate is above normal for netbooks that offer open-source operating systems,” Carr echoed. Carr highlighted a few reasons why Ubuntu-running netbooks are returned more often. “Unclear selling is happening, typically online. The customer will get their netbook sent to their home and they imagine to find something like a Microsoft desktop, but they see a brown Ubuntu version. They are unwilling to learn it and they were expecting to have Windows.”

Has Microsoft gained the upper hand in this game? Windows XP was supposed to have been rendered obsolete last June, but Microsoft changed its mind, and decided to continue selling and supporting XP, but only bundled with low-cost and low-powered PCs, which is essentially the netbook market.

That definition includes a screen that’s less than 10.2 inches, 1GB of RAM or less, a hard drive with 80GB or less, and no touchscreen devices. You’ll also need a 1GHz or slower processor, although Via’s C7-M processors which run up to 1.6GHz are allowed, as will be Intel’s new Atom processor.

As for me, since my 701, I’ve bought two netbooks–the EeePC 900 and an HP mini note, both of which were Windows variants. The 900 came bundled with XP, and the mini note with Vista Business (since downgraded to XP). I do consider myself an advanced user, and I’m very much a multi-platform individual (running OS X, Windows and Linux on my various computers). But on my netbooks, I find it easier to maintain the same OS, and all my work tools run fine on Windows on these netbooks, too.

From what I’ve been reading in forums (such as the Eeeuser forums, which is a really great resource for Eee enthusiasts), some users buy Linux-preloaded netbooks and install Windows XP anyway.

Force of habit, maybe? Or really just out of convenience, perhaps (no Evernote or Nokia PC suite on Linux!)?

What could really help Linux gain a stronger foothold on the consumer market, then?

The program doesn’t really do much yet, however, if he keeps working on this and someone bothers porting KDE we might have a fully functional graphical Linux OS on our PSPs soon.

There are plenty of tools with which you can check your disk space. However, Linux already has a built in function to show you just what you need to know. Open a terminal window or push (ctrl+alt+F1 to go to console) and type:

# df

You will see something like this(your output may be different, depending on how many partitions/harddrives/cdroms you have mounted):

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3 78012484 17606992 56442660 24% /
/dev/hda1 101086 16400 79467 18% /boot
none 516808 0 516808 0% /dev/shm
/tmp 247919 7339 227780 4% /tmp

This one looks a bit unreadable, because size is represented in 1K-blocks, lets try to make it clean and more readable:

# df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3 75G 17G 54G 24% /
/dev/hda1 99M 17M 78M 18% /boot
none 505M 0 505M 0% /dev/shm
/tmp 243M 7.2M 223M 4% /tmp

Now the size is represented by megabytes and gigabytes … better? :) Now let’s create an executable file to show the disk sizes:

#!/bin/sh

DISC=$1
PARTITION=`df -h |grep $DISC |awk ‘{print $1}’`
SIZE=`df -h|grep $DISC|awk ‘{print $2}’`
USED=`df -h|grep $DISC|awk ‘{print $3}’`
FREE=`df -h|grep $DISC|awk ‘{print $4}’`

echo “Partition: $PARTITION”
echo “Total size: $SIZE”
echo “Used space: $USED”
echo “Free space: $FREE”

Simply copy & paste this script into for example into a file named info.sh(create it with VI or JOE or even PICO). Next, you’ll need to make it executable. To do this, use the following command:

# chmod +x info.sh

Now, to execute the file, you need to run it, and pass it the correct argument. For our example, we are going to use hda3. So, to execute the file, type in the command as below….

# ./info.sh hda3

Tadaaa :)

A guy named Matan Gillon has reported that he has successfully managed to boot up Windows 95 on his PSP by porting an open-source emulator called x86 to the portable system.

According to him, Windows 95 takes about 10 minutes to boot up but afterwards it’s pretty usable and you can even run some applications on it, however, for both Windows and Linux, he says you can only do so much with a mouse only, until someone makes a keyboard for the PSP both OSs are pretty limited.

If you’re interested in infesting your little beauty with Microsoft love check out his site and follow his simple instructions.

Original announcement on PSP-Vault.

Too bad the little processor will never be fast enough to handle Tiger…

I loved to play with my legos when I was younger, but never did build anything cool. I stuck with very simple jets and high-rise buildings. Seeing these types of things makes me wonder how do you even plan something like this?

And where the hell are my legos now?

Only crappy thing is that it requires the manual compilation of some packages, unless of course you have a cool distro that has an awesome package management tool (eg. Debian) then you should be home free.

If I ever get around to doing this I will let you know how it works out.

via Kottke