Category: Ubuntu/Debian

Yesterday I was curious about Google Trends service that I tried several search terms just to get the feel of it. This is one of the interesting trends that I like to share with you, it is about the search term of popular GNU Linux distribution based on Distrowatch.com list.

While this is not an in depth analysis, we can see the relative search term popularity for the past 3 years base on the graph generated from Google Trends.

From there we can see that people started to search for Ubuntu more than Fedora Core around the end of the first quarter of 2005 (around the time of Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog release).

Similarly, people started to search for Mandriva after MandrakeSoft changed it’s name to Mandriva around April 2005 (second quarter), and the announcement of openSUSE project in August 2005 (3rd quarter).

The ‘surges’ on Fedora Core’s line indicates new releases made around the time (FC 2 – May 2005, FC 3 – Nov 2005, FC 4 – Jun 2005, FC 5 – Mar 2006, FC 6 – Oct 2006) [source].

Conclusion : When you see anomalies like sudden ‘surges’ in the trend, then there must be some even closely associated with it. Watch for surges that repeats itself, then you can establish a pattern and understand what causing the recurring trends.

[tags]search terms, search engine, linux, distro, ubuntu, fedora core, trends, search[/tags]

One of the things that I love about Ubuntu is it offers a wide choice of packages. Ranging from basic administration utilities (apt-get, yum,adduser, atop,cpuid) to Networking (apache2, 6tunnel, bind, xchat) and Games (nethack, ppracer, crack-attack).

The official software repository of the latest release of Ubuntu (Edgy Eft) has at least 20,231 packages, the number doesn’t include 3rd party repositories that offer restricted open source software such as lame, faad and libdvdcss.

Previously, I’ve use SUSE as my main distro. SUSE is slightly better than my first distro of choice, Mandrake/Mandriva (which was plague with rpm dependencies and stale packages), but it has certain limitation at that time mainly because it is still considered a comercial distribution and keeping up to date with the latest version of SUSE was a pain.

I’m not saying that SuSE is a lousy GNU/Linux distro, but it just doesn’t fit me well enough, and I found that SuSE lacks some packages that Mandrake/Mandriva offers.

I use SuSE until a friend recommend me to use Ubuntu as it is based on Debian GNU/Linux. Upon trying out Ubuntu, I found that it is an easy GNU/Linux distribution to use for me, an average desktop users.

apt-get does wonders in installing softwares from the internet and performing software and security updates. Moreover, Ubuntu has a predictable release cycle that I could really depend on.

I know some people would argue that shorter release cycle might degrade distro quality but I’m one of those people that like to keep up to date with the latest software release and technology (I’m pretty sure i’m not alone in this).

To summarise it, some of the things I love about Ubuntu is because it has a wide range of software choices, a predictable release cycle and a relatively up to date software releases. What about you? What is your favorite GNU/Linux distro?

[tags]ubuntu,debian,linux,suse,open source, distro[/tags]

A quick tip on how to shutdown your GNU Linux computer automatically,

Suppose you need your Linux pc to shutdown automatically at certain time, you can use this command line :

shutdown -hP 23:55

which instructs your box to power down at exactly 11:55 pm. The ‘h’ parameter instructs the program to halt the computer (init runlevel 6) and ‘P’ instructs it to power off the pc.

Note: You can also add an optional message and 20 seconds shutdown delay,

shutdown -hP 23:55 -t 20 Going to power down, let's call it a day

the delay is useful for you to finish off whatever you’re doing before the pc powers down.

Why do I use this command ?
Recently the doctor diagnose me with low blood pressure and advised me to sleep early and to eat more stuff that contains iron. So by using this command I can limit my online pc time, and let me sleep early.

I’ll show you how to shutdown your computer using countdown timer.

Here’s an example how you can shutdown your pc in one hour with 30 second delay between final warning and the actual shutdown.

shutdown -hP -t 30 60 Please save your work, the lab is going to be closed soon

you can use this command to reboot your computer too,

shutdown -r

Note that you need to have root access in order to use this command. That’s all for now, enjoy the holiday

[tags]shutdown,bash,linux,command line, gnu/linux, debian[/tags]