Got a question for Shadowman? Email him.

The entire world asks:

So Dell decided to ship Ubuntu on the desktop. Doesn’t that bother you guys at all?

To which Shadowman responds:

Let’s go back a few years, to the dawn of the Linux desktop.

Some of you may remember a guy named Havoc Pennington. Those of you who can remember the murky past of the Linux desktop will recall that Havoc was one of the founders of the GNOME Foundation. He was also its first chairman. He also founded freedesktop.org, to help bring together the GNOME and KDE communities through the shared and comforting love of open desktop standards. He was kind of a rock star.

It’s not like Havoc went anywhere. It’s not like he retired from the game, like some sort of geek Sandy Koufax in his prime. He’s still at Red Hat. Which might make one wonder: if Havoc Pennington is still at Red Hat, then why isn’t Red Hat like, totally owning the desktop?

Funny thing about experience, and how it shapes your beliefs. Nobody spent more time trying to bridge the divide between Linux and Windows than Havoc Pennington did. And after all those years, what did Havoc conclude?

His widely circulated quote on the matter: “It’s easier to win on user value than it is to match technical castles of unbounded size.” You can Google it.

So what does this quizzical expression mean? To Shadowman, it means a couple of things.

First, it’s the articulation of a view, gained through years of experience, that matching the incumbent feature-for-feature is inherently a losing proposition — especially when there are a number of areas where Linux will never, ever completely catch up. How many of you, gentle readers, still dual-boot Windows systems to play games? And has that changed substantially from five years ago? Ten years ago?

Second, it’s a compelling argument that the real way to win the battle for “the desktop” is to change the battleground itself, and not necessarily to a ground where current Linux users will expect. The best desktop minds at Red Hat are now focused on pursuing Havoc’s line of inquiry: “win on user value”.

Where is “user value” now? Online, that’s where. And moreso with every passing day.

Example number one: One Laptop Per Child. Example number two: Mugshot. The goal of each: to fundamentally remake the “desktop” experience to exploit the “always connected” reality of computing today.

Crazy ambitious? Yep. But you should have heard Brian Stevens talk about that ambition this morning, and how single-mindedly Red Hat engineers are pursuing it.

Chris Blizzard and Havoc Pennington both did their time as champions of Ye Olde Linux Desktop. Now they are leading the way to the New Online Desktop: Mr. Blizzard in OLPC-land, and Mr. Pennington in Mugshot-land. And if this means that Ubuntu claims a perceived high ground in Ye Olde Linux Desktop — at least for now — then so be it.

To many, this sounds like surrender. It’s not. Shadowman is continually amazed by the people who assume that Red Hat just doesn’t care about the consumer desktop, and how easily people assume that Red Hat doesn’t have the chops to compete for the consumer desktop, and how Red Hat isn’t smart enough to see Ubuntu coming.

When Shadowman hears about the Dell survey that (allegedly) led to Dell’s decision to preload Ubuntu, he can’t help but think of the old quote from Henry Ford: “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.”

Microsoft is not afraid of Ubuntu, folks. They are afraid of the pretty green toy that will teach kids a fundamentally new way of using technology. They are afraid of online services, and the explosion of collaboration that those services will enable.

Look at the big Microsoft stories in the news recently. Big story number one: Windows licenses for $3 in the developing world, trying to counter OLPC. Big story number two: the potential purchase of Yahoo, trying to counter Google and their gigantic lead in online services.

So let Ubuntu take the lead in building the better horse. They’ve earned that lead, and good on them. Meanwhile, at Red Hat, the desktop engineers are working day and night to invent the automobile. And the first model T is almost ready to roll off the line.

Ubuntu fanboys: flame away. Shadowman loves you all regardless. And you know this, man.

People fear change, though. Shadowman respects this, so we’ll all take this Web 2.0 thing nice and slow. Once we’re all settled in, Shadowman will kick it into gear. He will fully Ajax his Rails for you. He will define your folksonomies with a mashup of tag clouds. And then, if you’re lucky and very clever, maybe he’ll buy you a T-shirt.

Of course, the old ways still have their charms. If you’ve got a question that you’d like Shadowman to answer, you can always just ask him.

Ratay asks:

Shadowman, I just updated my RHEL4 system using up2date. It installed an updated kernel. It says to reboot to test the new kernel. The reboot doesn’t do it for me… Should I be typing the tab key during bootup to stop in grub and see the new kernel that was installed? It doesn’t show up. There’s no /boot/grub.conf file on the system. The /etc/grub.conf link is broken. What’s the deal??? Am I booting off a hidden partition or something? Your help would be greatly appreciated oh wise one.

To which Shadowman replies:

Shadowman loves his readers, and helps them when he can, but sometimes he wonders how helpful he can actually be. Doing tech support via email is a lot like rebuilding a car’s engine via the tailpipe. So if the following advice isn’t the least bit helpful, Shadowman won’t be surprised. But it may help somebody.

The first thing that Shadowman questions is whether up2date *actually* installed a new kernel at all. A lot of people don’t realize that, by default, up2date will *not* install new kernels. There’s a knowledgebase entry that talks about this.

If Shadowman had to guess — and since he’s got .01 percent of the necessary diagnostic information, he does have to guess — he’d guess that the kernel update failed, for some reason you failed to notice, and consequently the new kernel isn’t showing up in grub because there isn’t a new kernel available. Running rpm -q kernel is another surefire way to tell.

As far as the /etc/grub.conf link being broken, I have no idea. Maybe a qualified Red Hat support person could give you a better answer. You’re entitled to talk to one of those Red Hat support people; that’s what your paying for. Because you are paying, right? Of course you are.

Dean P. asks:

It’s too bad that some folks use this space to rant, but what can you do… I’m looking forward to the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. What cool Shadowman things can we look for under the hood?

To which Shadowman replies:

First of all, if you thought the ranting was bad before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Now that the hordes can respond directly and publicly to each and every one of Shadowman’s idiocies, you can probably expect to see some truly quality rants.

As far as “cool stuff under the hood” for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5… well, it all depends on your definition of cool, doesn’t it?

Some people think that virtualization is insanely cool. Shadowman’s friends who do QA for a living have always loved virtualization; the ability to conjure a virtualized test system out of thin air is mindblowingly cool, especially if building that test system takes you an hour otherwise. It’s only cool if it works, though, so the virt gnomes are still busy tinkering.

But really, Shadowman is a sucker for the pretty spinny things. AIGLX and Compiz are extremely cool. Look, wibbly wobbly windows effects! Look, the screen spins when you switch from console to console!

More coolness: it’s based on a distribution called Zod. Muwahahaha! Tremble, Earthlings, for Zod will soon be Enterprise Ready! Whereupon he will change his name to something more suitably businesslike.

Hey, decide for yourself what’s cool. Read the release highlights for Fedora Core 6. That may be the coolest thing of all: transparency. We’ve been building the components of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in public for two years now; if there are any surprises at this point, it’s only because you haven’t been paying attention. Save the surprises for Christmas morning.

Prads asks:

How does Shadowman work on any case and what is required for a person to be a detective?

To which Shadowman replies:

Shadowman googles, Prads. Shadowman googles like a madman.

Is this the same Zod who has political aspirations? Or is the Zod who loves the children of the world?

Shadowman does not know the answers to these questions. Shadowman knows only that the people behind Fedora Core 6 have united with one voice to provide the name — a name that commands profound respect. Awe, even.

Oh, and remember: bittorrent is the best way to download Zod. The big reason: it’s probably the fastest way to get it right now, until the demand for Zod subsides a bit. Another reason: it’s a great way to make it clear to the RIAA that bittorrent has legitimate, important uses besides copyright infringement.

Got a question that you’d like Shadowman to answer? Ask
him.

Bob asks:

You recently espoused that only 45% of RHCE exam takers pass the test. How
many (in percentage or total) score 100% on the test, as I recently did?

To which Shadowman replies:

Well, Bob, if the people who come bragging to Shadowman about their RHCE exam scores are any indication, it seems that everyone who passes the RHCE gets a perfect score on it.

Honestly, Shadowman has no idea. And Shadowman will refrain from asking the nice people in Global Learning Services — they’ve got enough to do without stroking your ego, Bob.

(Nice job, though. Seriously.)

Chris asks:

Hello I’m a current student with an interest in Red Hat Linux. Although I know my way around Red Hat I’ve still never had that real world experience with it. My main question: Do most admins usually install the gui when setting up Red Hat in an enterprise setting, even though they usually manage the network through the terminal?

To which Shadowman replies:

Shadowman has shared frosty beverages with a lot of sysadmins in his day, and his informal survey is pretty conclusive: sysadmins have a pretty serious hate-on for installing GUIs on servers. No GNOME, no KDE, no X Windows, no nothing, if they can help it.

Why is this, exactly? A lot of reasons. One good reason, oft-cited: it’s just another potential security hole. Every application that is installed unnecessarily is just a threat, waiting to be exploited. Sure, Linux is ridiculously secure in comparison to some other operating systems we could name — but one of the reasons for that is that good Linux adherents overprotect their systems. Good admins protect passwords. They ensure that users have only the permissions they need. They run SELinux and firewalls. And they don’t leave code hanging around that they don’t need.

Shadowman will admit that this is a highly unscientific survey with a handful of data points. So let’s make it a highly unscientific survey with lots and lots of data points. What about it, sysadmins: do you install X on your servers? Why, or why not?

gangsta nation asks:

Hi! I found 5 Accumulatoer and i collect 120 dartk souls but i didn’t know what can i do?

To which Shadowman replies:

Shadowman just can’t resist replying to a letter that is as friendly (”Hi!”) as it is baffling (”dartk souls”? “Accumulatoer”? What?)

There’s a reason everybody in the world uses Google. Plug in “accumulatoer dartk souls,” and after a helpful spell check (did you mean “accumulator dark souls”?), we have an answer.

Apparently, there’s a game for the original Playstation called “ShadowMan.” And apparently, there are still cheat codes and tips available for this game. So, in the spirit of loving kindness. Shadowman will relay some helpful advice from this site:

“To cover Shadow Man in flames, follow these steps. Make your way to the very last room in the Temple of Life (it holds the Baton). Next, move to the last small room on the right, and press Action at the altar. Shadow Man will offer your Cadeaux in exchange for an energy upgrade. Press Action again at the altar. Shadow Man will say something about the Loa moving out of that altar. Run out and head to the altar next to the one you were just in. Press Action at the altar. If everything goes well, you should see a “Cheat Activated” message flash accross your screen (in the way Luke’s teddy bear does). Go into your inventory and you should see a new item, the Book of Shadows. Select it and your cheat should be there. At the time I found this, I had 24 Dark Souls, and that might make a difference, but I don’t think so. Play as Ollaflagebbies. Kill the attacking beaver in level 7. After doing this lay down by pressing the L2 button. It will take you back to the altar. When you get here quit and start a new game. When you begin you will be playing as Ollaflagebbies.”

Just for the record, this makes even less sense to Shadowman than the original email did — and also for the record, Shadowman really doesn’t like the idea of being covered in flames.

Best of luck with that, Ollaflagebbies.