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Ubuntu 11 10 Oneiric Ocelot is Just 2 Seconds away from Instant Boot!

Yup, according to the tests done by crn.com experts, the recently released Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 2, although, still in the earlier beta versions still its significantly faster than the current 11.04 Natty Narwhal!.

There are few ups and downs at the moment since its in alpha stage but in their own words...

"...judging by its early �alpha� version. It has the fastest boot-time we�ve seen on an HDD-based PC, shows snappy performance between applications..."

Although not entirely sure if the adaptation of the Kernel 3.0 RC+ has anything to do with it but it seems that the removal of GDM and replacing it with LightDM has done the trick. In any operating system, one of the early-loaded GUI services is the log-in manager, and since...

LightDM...

GDM has been criticized by many developers saying that it has about 50,000 pieces of codes while LightDM only has 5000, thats at least 10x lesser amount of software code thus it should have helped.

Anyhow in their test PC (Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.00 GHz and a usual hard disk, not a SSD drive, other hardware unknown) the Ubuntu 11.10 alpha was able to boot up (from the moment of switch on to log-in screen) within just 12 seconds!.


Thanks to Google Chrome type operating systems, there is now a "standard" that says any OS that has about 10 or lower seconds of boot up times is considered as an operating system with an instant boot, so in that sense, Ubuntu 11.10 is just 2 seconds behind and most importantly it has been able to achieve that not using a SSD drive (which is significantly faster) but by using a SATA HDD!.

Another key improvement is the Ubuntu Software Center since Ubuntu decided to remove Synaptic from the official CD/DVD (but still available through the official repositories), starting with the 11.10 version.

Its about time that they started to pay some serious attention to improving the USC, because from the beginning USC requires a lot of system resources (CPU actually, although RAM usage is not that high, pretty much closer to Synaptic according to my experience anyway) and the new improved USC in the 11.10 Alpha 2 seems to be quite responsive and fast than the one in the 11.04. 

Anyhow its really interesting what this means at the end because as any developer knows, since Ubuntu has no interest in targeting the "hacker" and rely on the "actual PC users", which I think will help them immensely in the future because its this change of "attitude" (for good or bad) that has put them up there at the top.

If I remember correctly it was actually Ubuntu who was one of the first GNU/Linux (is it really?) distributions to speed up the boot up times where in the past GNU/Linux was painfully slower as well. 

Anyhow, this should send some "alarms" across other distributions (or may be not) + we also have a little Gnome OS thingie going on at the moment, so it should be really interesting whether the other distributions have the ability to compete against this "Ubuntu trend".

Because a trend is a far more powerful tool which, if properly used can easily let you pass through the popular "players" easily, which can be seen a bit too much to dream about right now (oh I didnt made up that statement all by me own, saw something similar somewhere recently :D). But the rest assured, whether you love or hate Ubuntu, interesting times ahead, it seems.

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UEFI Secure Boot Controversy Explained

Theres been a lot of buzz and hyperbole spread out over the Internet regarding a new UEFI specification called secure boot. The concern isnt with secure boot itself but with its potential to prevent computers from running any operating system other than Microsoft Windows 8. Ive discussed, read, and debated this issue quite a bit and wanted to throw formalize the situation as I understand it. I hope that this explanation is clear, factual and not favoring any political agenda.

Secure Boot is a new feature where a computer will only boot an operating system that contains a digital signature known to the motherboard. But what does that even mean? In digital cryptography there is an idea of what is called a public key and a private key. The author of a digital file can sign that file with their own private key. This key, as the name suggests, is private to the author. Only the person with that key can sign the file as long as that key stays private. Once it is made public the game is off.

The public key can be used to authorize the file. Using the public key I can verify that it is indeed signed by the person claiming to be the author. To play that explanation back to the real world, Microsoft would sign its Windows 8 operating system with its private key. Any operating system with this signature attached to it must have come from Microsoft as only they have the key. The computer hardware itself would have a copy of Microsofts public key, which it can then use to verify that the operating system is genuinely from Microsoft. It any unauthorized modifications have been made to it the verification process would fail, and the computer would fail to boot. This would both insure that a malicious program hasnt modified Windows 8 in a way that is harmful to the user, and would also help verify that the system is not pirated.

Heres where the controversy comes in. What if I buy a machine configured with secure boot and I wanted to run something else, such as a GNU/Linux distribution, Solaris, BSD, or my own homemade operating system? I couldnt, unless it was signed with a private key, and the computer had the public key to verify it with. Or, if the user could simply disable secure boot, then they could run a different operating system. Lets pause for a moment now. Secure boot can be a good thing. Ensuring that a verified operating system is running on your machine can only be good for you. Boot sector viruses can cause all sorts of mayhem. You only want on your machine the things that you have authorized to be on your machine. If something gets installed on your machine that you didnt authorize, the fact it found a backdoor into your machine is a good sign that was only put there with malicious intent. With that, lets continue.

So lets explore the option of disabling secure boot. The first problem with this is that the ability to disable secure boot is not a requirement, and it is likely that many vendors will ship hardware without this option. The desire to disable secure boot to install something other than Windows is, admittedly, a niche desire amongst consumers. Vendors have a tendency to not cater to the niche. They focus on delivering the pieces that the masses will want. How this will really play out is yet to be seen. Perhaps all PCs shipping with secure boot (which is likely to soon be all PCs) will have the ability to disable it, but it seems reasonably likely this may not be the case.

But even if all PCs shipped with secure boot have the ability to disable it, we still arent in the scenario we want to be in. Remember, secure boot is a good thing. If the only way to install GNU/Linux is to disable secure boot, it means that I am missing out on an important feature of my hardware. Why cant I enjoy the freedoms and security of Linux, and the security of secure boot? Theres no technical reason why this cant happen. But first, my computer needs the public key to whatever third party OS I choose. This leads me into my next piece, and is absolutely the most crucial part.

How does my PC with secure boot receive the public keys that list the operating systems that are allowed to boot? Microsofts recommendation, and requirement to be Windows 8 certified, is for the hardware vendors to provide this. This is called being a certificate authority, or CA. A CA has a list of whitelist, or allowed, public keys and who they belong to. They also provide a blacklist of, or denied, public keys. This puts the hardware vendor in control of what can and cannot run on the hardware they ship. But whats wrong with that? The problem are many, but Im going to only focus on the two major issues.

The first problem is that you own that hardware. You bought it. It is yours and it should obey your commands. If you can only do with your hardware what the manufacturer says, then it hardly really belongs to you. Like having to ask your landlord permission to paint your living room, you will have to ask Dell, or Intel, or whomever anytime you want to do something that they didnt preapprove. This is a horrible way to move forward with technology. It is a fundamental freedom of ownership that you get to do what you want with it, within the limits of the law. If you wanted to run something they didnt preapprove, what kind of hurdles do you think you would run through trying to get in touch with your computer manufacturer and getting them to add new keys, which they could only push out to your machine, because you wouldnt want them to be adding keys for any consumer who just calls in and asks them to do so.

This could have a disastrous effect on the young tinkerers who like to play with hardware and make it do all the things its not supposed to do so that they can one day because the future Steve Jobs and Larry Schmidts of the world. The ability of the young to toy with hardware and software in weird ways is how visionaries are born. The second problem with making computer manufacturers the CA is the barrier it creates to new entrants in the market. Imagine that you created a really great products, say a new operating system, and your just this geek living in your mothers apartment, but you know if you can just get it out there the world will be at your feet. But how? How are you, Mr(s). Nobody, going to convince all the different manufacturers out there to review your software, to make sure you arent just some schmoe trying to get bad things on peoples computers, and then get them all to add your key to their customers hardware? The answer is simple. You wont. And whether or not your idea would have flopped, or transformed the world doesnt matter. You where stopped before you where even allowed to try. This is a horrible artificial barrier to progress and innovation.

The good news is that it is not necessary. All we simply need to do is for hardware vendors to make consumers the CA. This may sound difficult, what does the average human being know about being a certificate authority? People want to spend their time in front of their computer using it, not messing around with blacklists and whitelists for public keys. Thats simply not feasible.

However, it is possible that your computer can have a standard means of accepting and denying keys upon request. Lets start with the scenario of a new PC owner booting up their Windows 8 machine for the first time. The bootup initial bootup process of the installer could request the computer to add the Microsoft key. This would then create a prompt for the user to either accept or deny the key. Most people would just accept it and continue, no big deal. Someone like myself may deny it, I dont want to run Window (actually I wouldnt purchase a PC that even comes with Windows, but thats another story.) For the person who denies it, they may put the CD into their machine that has the installer for their OS of choice. That installer would have its own public key, which would then prompt the user to accept, and then could boot that OS. Its even reasonable that antivirus programs could help the user keep the whitelist and blacklist up to date, requesting the computer to add whitelist and blacklist keys, and each time the user would accept or deny the request.

This puts the user in control. Only the owner of the hardware has the authority to accept or deny software from running on their own system, and it doesnt have to be complicated. It also allows all software vendors to play ball on an equal field.

I hope you find this post to clear and lacking of hyperbole. It is not an attempt to call foul on Microsoft or anyone else. I do not believe anyone is acting in bad faith with secure boot, but I do believe we can have user freedom, security, and robust software competition all at the same time.

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Ultimate Boot CD 5 2 7 Full Version

Ultimate Boot CD 5.2.7 Free Downloads - Ultimate Boot CD is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. Ultimate Boot CD includes network support and allows you the ability to modify NTFS volumes,  create new NTFS volumes, recover deleted files, scan hard drives for viruses, etc.

You need the Ultimate Boot CD if you want to:

• Run Ultimate Boot CD from your USB memory stick. A script on the CD prepares your USB memory stick so that it can be used on newer machines that supports booting from USB devices. You can access the same tools as you would from the CD version.
• And more

Changelog

• Updated CPUStress to V2.3.6 (15 Sep 2013). Thanks to Explorer09 for the update.
• Updated ASTRA to V6.11. Thanks to ady for the update.
• And more

INFO
Home Page : -
Price : / ( Discount Special Offer Click Home Page )
Note : Buy It Original Software select one link
Product Review by : indownloads.com
Download : Ultimate Boot CD 5.2.7 Full Version

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Ubuntu 12 10 Simplifies GRUB Boot Menu

Ubuntu 12.10 features a minor but interesting change in GRUB2 Boot Menu.

Menu entries now have Ubuntu as the first option instead of Ubuntu with Linux (Kernel version). Everything else has been tucked into a new Advanced Options entry which lists older Kernels and recovery mode options.

Here is a screenshot of new boot menu:

For comparison, here is a screenshot of boot menu in Ubuntu 12.04:


New boot menu makes sense as any first time Linux user may get confused by recovery mode option and Kernel versions. A simple Ubuntu entry is enough to tell a user what to do in case he is presented with a boot menu.

By default GRUB menu is hidden and it is only shown when a system fails to shut properly or Shift key is held during boot time.

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Ultimate solution for all GRUB errors and boot repair in Ubuntu

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