Unexpected inspiration

This is more of a general computing entry than it is a technical one.

A large portion of my job is supporting guest speakers and special events. Every Friday we have an astronaut come in and speak to the public. This past Friday was no different. I was asked to support Colonel Jerry L. Ross during his presentation. My actual task was to simply insure that his microphone and power point worked properly. During these events it can be easy to focus on the technology more than the speakers message to their audience. This event was technically simple, therefore I was able to listen to his message. I am thankful I was able to, I took something away from it that you all may appreciate.

During the middle of his speech Colonel Ross talked about how early he became interested in the US space program. When he was very young he scrap booked about the space program and by the age of ten he decided he was going to be a part of it. This was not just a kid committing the "When I grow up" cliche. You know, the "I want to be a doctor" or "I want to be a scientist". Prior to this point he had daydreamed about it. From this point forward It was a calculated decision. That is rather ambitious for a ten year old if you ask me. He then informed the audience that he was not the best student. That may strike you as odd. Many people, including myself are quick to assume that brilliant people, such as astronauts, must have been good students. What he said next really resonated with me. I wish I had wrote down exactly what he said but I will try to poorly paraphrase it. When you fail you don't quit. Take a step back and look at the situation. See what you can do differently and keep at it. He informed us that he often had to do that academically. It was a real challenge for him that he had to work through.

When I thought about what Colonel Ross had just told us and then paired that with his career, two things stood out to me. He really did practice what he had just said, when he met challenges and failures he did not quit. He kept at it, trying different approaches and solutions until he succeeded. It was also very obvious that the man has incredible resolve. He decided at the age of ten he was going to be an astronaut and he absolutely accomplished that and then some.

You may be wondering what that has to do with us. I know there are plenty of readers here who have already made the switch to a free/open/secure OS. Now I am going to speculate that there may be readers here who are still on the fence about making the switch. Maybe you have one foot in the pool but you often get intimidated or aggravated. I would say that I am still in a journeyman phase myself. I have an x86 Debian Wheezy Machine at work and two PowerPC Debian Wheezy Machines at home, all of which are daily driven. With that being said I am not a master by any stretch of the imagination. Challenges still arise for me. It is easy to get aggravated and maybe even think thoughts such as "This is a lot easier on Windows or OS X" or "I'll never figure this out." This where Colonel Ross's words really apply to me. When you fail you don't quit. Take a step back and look at the situation. See what you can do differently and keep at it. When I heard him say that I thought to myself, "That's a great way to look at challenges." and "If I applied that same resolve to computing could anything really stop me?" I can already tell you from first hand experience, there is nothing like the feeling of meeting a computing challenge head on and coming out on top. The learning and experience you gain as result is priceless.

That is what I really want to impress upon you all. I know taking the plunge from an easy environment like Windows or OS X into the world of free and open source software can be intimidating. I have experienced that first hand, I still hit bumps in the road. When you take the plunge it will be challenging. If you want to make the transition to becoming a more empowered user, start by simply making the decision. Decide that no matter what, you will become an empowered user. If any challenges arise you will meet them head on. Research them and keep attacking them until you overcome them. Not only will you accomplish your goal, but you will have learned and experienced so much along the way.

I really enjoyed the message and figured that you all might enjoy it as well. I hope it as enjoyable for you as it was for me.

A final push against TPP

I'm sure many of you know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam have been working on for almost 10 years.  Well, they have recently been trying harder than ever to get it passed, but thanks to over 3 million people speaking out against it so far they have agreed to meet with OpenMedia, an international nonprofit that fights for internet rights and freedoms.

OpenMedia are making a final push to get an online petition and feedback from people to help guide them at these meetings with the TPP people.  You don't need to live in one of the nations above to sign the online petition and share your thoughts.  The link is below.

OpenMedia - Face to Face with Internet Censorship


The TPP will increase internet censorship and decrease privacy, so have your say while they're listening.

Tackling BSD

Before I head off in a couple weeks, I wanted to deal with a question I tend to get every 3-4 months.  The question is why don't I write a BSD guide, or can I help them install BSD from scratch.

These questions are a bit ridiculous, since that is not at all how one should approach BSD for the first time.  It is the type of thing that you read a book about before you even attempt using it.  There are BSD install guides out there, but that won't teach you most of the fundamentals you'll need to get by.  The main problem with install guides is that you don't really grasp what you're doing.  You're really just going through the motions that someone else figured out for you.  You can approach Linux like this in limited ways, but not BSD.

If you really want an install guide then use the ones on the BSD sites, but I won't be linking to any, since I cannot promote that way of learning if you're coming to the table with a totally blank BSD slate.  Instead, I will link to BSD books you should read first.

BSD is actually less user accessible than Linux, and that is saying something.  You need to use it to truly understand that.  It's not that it gets in your way, but more that it's just on another level.  BSD is the closest modern remnant to true UNIX.  Linux on the other hand is a UNIX-like OS, but in an off on its own sense; which means it's based on many of the same concepts and ideals, but not the same code or direction.  BSD is also technically UNIX-like, as it's not the original AT&T version, but it is the truest form of UNIX today.  The most proper thing to call BSD is a UNIX clone.  GNU/Linux was designed by largely UNIX people to be more user accessible, and include features those developers couldn't get into UNIX at the time; for whatever reasons.  GNU literally stands for GNU's Not UNIX.

These days things are a lot more open in the UNIX/BSD world, and there are multiple BSD variants that have been released in the last couple decades, but it's still BSD; the Everest of operating systems.

This is not an OS for the lighthearted user.  You've been warned.

A good list of BSD/UNIX books to read can be found here.  The list is a bit OpenBSD dominant, but that is my BSD of choice.  The next closest thing would be NetBSD. 

Hello from Houston

Hello everyone! I am very happy to be with you all. As you may already know, my name is Mark Elliott and I am going to be filling in for Zen while he is working abroad in Europe. I am very honored that Zen asked me to fill in for him. I have been a long time reader of PowerPC Liberation. Zen has been the driving force in motivating me to learn and use Debian. I am truly a better user and technician because of him. When he asked me to join the liberation the only natural answer was yes!

I do have some plans for a project involving my PowerMac G4 that I will be posting about here. My Power Mac is an upgraded Quicksilver. It has a 1.33ghz OWC Mercury Extreme CPU, a flashed Radeon 9800 pro and a PCI SATA controller with two drives attached. I have always wondered if I could improve the internal airflow by adding fans and possibly changing the existing fans with modern ones. I would like to keep the temperatures as low as possible while keeping fan noise at bearable levels. While experimenting I will use these thermometers to collect live data from various points inside of the case. This way we would have hard data to see if any changes made to the fans are helpful or detrimental.

I am absolutely thrilled to be here with you guys, it is going to be fun! If everyone would please join me in wishing Zen a safe, fun and productive trip to Europe.

Why negativity doesn't linger here

Negative things, or negative words, are the kinds of things that do need to be said from time to time, but that isn't the kind of information that should linger around.  This is why virtually all the negative things I have ever said about others, or their sites here, have been removed after a while.

It's the kind of information you get out there, but then ease off once everyone gets the point.  To linger in negativity is to live a negative life, or at least computing life.  I will be the first to admit that I have no qualms about speaking (or writing rather in this case) my mind, and don't mind being the rude but honest guy when I have to be, but the goal is always to do good things for the architecture and its users. 

There are things that need to be said from time to time; that is a fact of life.  After being said though, you should move on.  My goal is always for the well being  of computing on PowerPC, and in 2014 people can't stay in the 2007 bubble that Apple left PowerPC users in.  Because of the Apple culture, there are many people who never want to let it go.  They're addicted to the aesthetic and ease of use.  This has caused a lot of these people who also blog to spread the illogic of staying with 2007 Apple software tech.  Computing from the passenger seat with pride, and encouraging others to do so.  It is because of these people promoting devolution to others that has caused me to react in negative ways.

Since the main goal here is to help the architecture in the modern day, and do it in a way that promotes user evolution, not devolution; I always promote that users challenge themselves.  To push your own personal measuring stick past what you think the maximum length is.  Taking the role I have also requires me to tell the truth about the backward advice of certain blogs/sites.  It's a role that does weigh on me at times, but I am committed.

People who point out the honest and brutal truth are often seen as negative; even when all they're doing is telling truth.  I will admit that I have also added insults here and there, but the ignorant and limited nature of these people upsets my evolved user instincts.

Once these things have been said, whether about individuals, or even companies like CleverFiles, I let them sit here for a month or two, and then get rid of them.  I have done that consistently since I started this blog in August 2012.  The point is to keep the focus here on evolving the architecture and users; getting on with the task of helping more users become capable and self reliant at a computer.  Even if you really do prefer the passenger seat, you first need a thorough test drive in the drivers seat to be sure you made the right choice.  You can never truly have this with Mac OS.  You can still do all the offline things you like on Mac OS, and even online things you know aren't a security risk; like visiting a trusted website.

So in the spirit of keeping the focus on the helpful content here, I never really let negativity linger here.

The only things I have kept here are a fraction of the content that dealt with Low End Mac, and only because of the extreme eagerness of Dan Knight to encourage devolution.  He is the worst of the worst.  That information is on a whole other plane than negativity.  It's more like a legitimate warning to stay away from a devolved cult.

Social change

You may have noticed that the social networking share buttons that were here have all been removed, and it's on purpose.  There have been far too many facebook and other bots clogging up my stats and such.  I am also not at all a supporter of social networking, and want the people who find this place to find it because they intended to, and not because they stumbled upon some link on facebook or twitter.

I am not after pointless hits just to beef up my stats.  I couldn't care less about the amount of hits I get.

My main aversion to social networking is that it brings a lot of the ignorant masses this way; people who compute at a very simplistic and remedial level, and will find nothing of use here for the most part.  This is generally followed by questions from them; questions of the type that if you need to ask it, you won't be able to understand the answer in the first place.  People who just don't get it, and need to ask what is so great about PowerPC.

This place will always serve the more rare user who actually tries to advance themselves; rather than have a user lobotomy like most people give themselves when sitting at a computer.

The main point is that people who need to be spoon fed a link to this place to know about it, are usually (but not always) people who won't be after what is offered here.  There is no Apple fanboyism here, no help on how to stay in the passenger seat at your computer, and certainly no ignorant conjecture, so there is little here to appeal to the typical Apple user who is happy to stay in their user prison.

You still have the right to share the content here on social networks, but I have simply made it harder to do so.  If you find other ways to share it, be sure you follow all of the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that this blog is licensed under.

I have no issue with other blogs or sites linking to me here, as they are typically like-minded; much like the people and organizations I link to in the "Recommended Elsewhere" section of the sidebar here.  It's only the social network sharing of content here that concerns me.

This is not some elitist move to keep out the average user; simply a diversion to keep away most of the people who likely won't want what is offered here to begin with, and a VERY large portion of the social networking user base are these people.


If you're someone who truly wants to advance your ability as a computer user, then welcome home.