Musix Linux: Sweet Strains Jarred by Sour Notes

As a general OS, Musix sounds a few sour notes. It has a meager collection of text editors, word processors and Web tools. You can do some real work with the software that is provided, but you might resort to manually installing some of the programs typically available in distro repositories but missing here. Musix also provides a poor user experience with its menus.

The Musix Linux distro is a specialty OS with an impressive collection of tools for users with a passion mostly for audio and music production.

The Musix distro turns the Linux OS into a sound studio in a box.

That same collection of tools should be included for video, given the blending of music and video popular in distributing entertainment on the Internet today. Yet it is missing from Musix.

If you have a passion for a well designed, general purpose Linux OS, Musix will leave you tapping a beat for something else. More is neglected in musix that would make this distro more suitable beyond music mania.

For instance, Musix lacks its own software repository. It also is too lightweight out of the box to serve typical non-artistic computing tasks.

The installed software covers the basics. Newcomers to Linux, however, will be at a loss for support in getting problems solved.

Part of this is the result of the Musix developers not having much of an active user forum

Musix Primer

The Musix distro is based on the Debian Wheezy distribution. It is designed for music production, graphic design, and audio and video editing, and it includes some general purpose applications.

Musix's core community of developers hail from Argentina. A major grouping of its support community is located in Spain, Mexico and Brazil. The initiator and codirector of the project is Marcos Germán Guglielmetti. Thus, Musix has a community of users who speak Spanish, Portuguese and English.

The main language used in development discussion and documentation is Spanish. This may contribute a bit to a language disconnect among English-speaking Musix users.

This is more of an annoyance than a problem, though. In several sections of the menus and support files, descriptions of visual displays and demo files are in Spanish.

Under the Hood

Musix 3.0.1 was released in late March. It is mainly a bug fix release, but several significant improvements are included in this latest version.

It now runs Kernel 3.4.14-gnu-RT23, which is still a bit out of date. That could explain why it could not detect the wireless firmware in two of my test laptops. The ISO image now supports booting from USB or DVD media. However, there is no UEFFI support, so installation is trickier on some of the latest hardware. This is particularly a problem if you plan to install Musix in a dual-boot setting.

Without its own package management system, Musix relies on the Aptitude Package Management system. This is a text-only process that runs in a terminal window. Another installation option is the Synaptic Package Manager.

This arrangement makes it more inconvenient to keep Musix updated. The distro lacks its own software center and software update process. Even with a fresh installation of this latest version, much of the bundled software is not the latest versions. For example, LibreOffice is version 3 rather than the current available version 4.

Environmental Options

Musix has a confusing assortment of desktop environments. Some of them have a specialty Musix theme. Others do not. This gives a mixed user experience. Even the default LXDE desktop is barely recognizable as such.

Musix's default desktop is LXDE with an unconventional top panel bar.

Other desktop options include Fluxbox, IceWM, KDE/Plasma Workspace, KDE/OpenBox, Openbox and GNOME/Openbox. It is nice to have so many options available from a common installation ISO. Not having to do separate downloads to try out each version is a nice touch that other multidesktop distros no longer do.

Selecting the desired desktop is simple from the log-on screen. Just click on the down arrow.

Look and Feel

The LXDE default desktop is the best option in Musix. It is the most theme-integrated of the available options. Once you get used to its anomalies, it is the most pleasing user interface included.

The LXDE panel bar sits at the top of the screen and can not be moved. Its appearance is not typical. The menu hides behind a script letter M in the far left corner of the panel bar.

A series of different colored block-style icons launch a software category. Clicking on a block icon puts the icons for applications in that category on the desktop.

For instance, h for Help screen, o for Office applications, r for General, m for Midi, i for Internet, g fro Graphics, a for Audio. This is similar to the concept underlying the KDEdesktop, but the design is much different.

Patchwork of Options

By default, four virtual workspaces are accessible in most of the desktops. Just click the numbered space on the Workplace Switcher applet in the center of the bar. The Cntrol + Alt + left or right arrow keys also navigate to each workspace.

The right side of the LXDE bar has displays for connection status and system performance. Hover the mouse over each area to activate the readout. Depending on what environment is running, the time/date display and logout button hug the far right corner of the panel bar.

The Fluxbox desktop environment has a more basic appearance. A much more basic bar sits at the bottom of the screen. It lacks all of the Musix look of the top bar in the other desktop options. Use the right-click anywhere on the desktop or bar to access the various menus.

The KDE desktop uses a non-Musix theme as well. It is the least appealing option. Some of the labels on the KDE panel bar are in Spanish. This occurs in some of the menu options as well.

The IceWM desktop lacked much differentiation from the default LXDE environment. It had a very similar look and feel, especially with the design of the panel bar and the workspace.

Software Sway

As a specialty OS for musicians and sound editors, Musix strikes a pleasing chord. For production tasks involving text and graphics, though, the selection of bundled programs falls a bit flat. The same goes for video.

Musix's strength is in its audio production and mixing tools.

The best stuffed software menus deal with audio and music tools. For example, packages include music notation tools MuseScore and Rosegarden. Recording software offers Ardour Digital Audio Workstation, Audacity and Qtractor. Sequencing software includes Hydrogen and Muse.

Eight more titles handle sound synthesizing tasks. Plus, Musix includes eight more sound-mixing tools. About one dozen additional sound specialty programs are included.

The specialized audio apps in Musix are professional quality.

The video toolkit is disappointing, however. The only major video-editing package is Kdenlive. Other graphics packages include Blender, Okular, Inkscape and GIMP.

Standard Wares

As a general OS, Musix sounds a few sour notes. It has a meager collection of text editors, word processors and Web tools. You can do some real work with the software that is provided, but you might resort to manually installing some of the programs typically available in distro repositories but missing here.

For example, Musix comes with Iceweisel, Konqueror and Chromium Web browsers. It has older versions of KWrite, LibreOffice Suite, Knotes and Leafpad. The accessories menu includes some low-end note taking and organizing offerings. System tools are paltry as well.

Menu Maze

One area where Musix provides a poor user experience is with its menus. They are poorly designed and repetitious.

For example, in the default LXDE menus, only two main categories are in the primary list. These are Musix and Debian. Musix opens into general categories, most of which have nothing to do with the specialty packages of the distro.

The Debian category slides open to a similar list of software categories. The result is a repetition of the same software catalog as found in the Musix main trunk. The same menu overlap exists in the other desktops as well.

Bottom Line

Musix is a mixed melody of offbeat and hip software. It would have potential for better adoption among musicians and multimedia users if its tool set were broadened.

If you check it out, be sure to go to the link provided above. Another Web URL in some search engines will take you to an outdated Musix GNU+Linux website that is no longer maintained and does not have the latest download.

Even to load the live DVD session, you will need the user name and password. If you do not carefully read the entire website's two-column layout in Spanish and English, you might miss the clue. So here it is: The user name is "user." The password is "live." Do not include the apostrophe marks

MIT'S BITCOIN DREAMS

MIT goes BITCOIN - Wild

Every incoming MIT undergrad will get a little bit of bitcoin to play around with upon entering the university this fall. The idea is to create a community of virtual currency users who can experiment with the nuances of this new type of economy on a small scale. The project's goal is to spur both academic and entrepreneurial activity in a tech-savvy group of individuals.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Bitcoin Club plans to distribute US$100 worth of bitcoin to each of its 4,528 incoming undergraduates this fall, in an attempt to create an ecosystem for digital currencies at the institution.

Club founder and president Dan Elitzer and sophomore Jeremy Rubin have raised more than $500,000 for the MIT Bitcoin Project from MIT alumni, as well as the Bitcoin community.

Neither Rubin nor Elitzer has any connection to Bitcoin in any way. "Our investment is simply in our time, and belief in the benefits cryptocurrencies could bring to society," Rubin told the E-Commerce Times.

They will work with professors and researchers across MIT to study how students will use the bitcoins they receive. The project will seek to spur academic and entrepreneurial activity within MIT in the field of virtual currency.

"We think Bitcoin and [other] cryptocurrencies have a place on the global stage, and MIT is the institute to show the world what can be done," Rubin said.

"The MIT project will raise the profile of Bitcoin in an already digitally informed MIT student class," Jeffrey Garzik, Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist at BitPay. "Bitcoin is a natural fit for teenagers who have for years been connecting with their peers via smartphone and tablet."

Why Bitcoin?

Although several other cryptocurrencies are available, Bitcoin was selected because "we ... think that the network effects of Bitcoin are critical," Rubin said.

Further, research currently is being conducted on how to augment the features of other current cryptocurrencies into Bitcoin directly, "as they are mostly modifications into the core Bitcoin code, with a few notable exceptions," he pointed out.

Alternate cryptocurrencies "are interesting," BitPay's Garzik remarked. "The barrier to entry is low ... . Many alt-coin creators do not fully understand the technology they are using, and do not treat their software as mission-critical financial software securing millions of dollars."

Bitcoin exchanges have been hacked, most notably the now-bankrupt Mt. Gox, but "the network security of Bitcoin is quite literally 1 million times greater than any other alt-coin," Garzik pointed out.

More on the MIT Bitcoin Project

To promote the project, Rubin and Elitzer, along with several partners, will present the MIT Bitcoin Expo on May 3. These areHackMIT, the MIT Society of Women Engineers, the MIT Bitcoin Club, and the College Cryptocurrency Network.

The expo will feature presentations and technical workshops involving prominent Bitcoin community figures.

Various MIT faculty and staff support the project.

Rubin and Elitzer are working out details of the academic studies and logistics for disbursing the bitcoins. MIT's Big Data Living Lab will be involved in the research.

"The details are still being figured out, but almost everything will be opt-in," Rubin said.

Bitcoin's price, as listed on Coindesk, currently is around $450. At that rate, each MIT undergrad would get roughly a quarter of a bitcoin -- but that may change as the currency's exchange rate against the dollar fluctuates.

Might Privacy Be a Concern?

"Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies pave the way for personal data to be recognized as a new digital asset class. The MIT Bitcoin Project is a truly exciting venture that will provide the foundation for research into other classes of digital assets," said Thomas Hardiono, executive director of the MIT Kerberos & Internet Trust Consortium.

That could raise some privacy concerns over how the MIT experiment is conducted.

Governments already are leveraging Big Data to spy on their citizens, and Google, Facebook and online advertisers see personal data as a digital asset to be exploited. Could the MIT Bitcoin Project formalize this view and open the door to further degradation of online privacy?

"We are currently thinking about this [privacy issue] and have not yet reached any conclusions," Rubin remarked.

"The privacy issues here depend on the extent to which MIT is tracking the use of the students' bitcoins," said Gautam Hans, consumer privacy fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

"They say that they're going to be monitoring the ecosystem that develops as a result of the project, but that could create privacy issues if MIT plans to track on the individual transaction level," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"If they are going to be researching the broader set of products and services that develop, that would be less of an issue," said Hans. "In either event, steps should be taken to anonymize personal data that's collected for research, to the extent possible, and to ensure that the data is secure and that unauthorized parties can't get access to it."

All Things Appy: Top 5 New or Improved Android Apps

Enpass syncs and stores passwords and other details, like ATM Personal Identification Numbers, or PINs, and financial account numbers using AES-256 encryption. Introduced last fall, Enpass's latest revision, released earlier this year, includes a brand new, built-in browser with autofill that lets you open a website in Enpass with your User ID and password already filled in.

Five of the top free Android apps that either have been introduced for the first time or significantly updated this year are in the categories of password management, Web browser compression, lock screen functionality and media.

Google's Android OS apps can be obtained in Google's Play Store. Browse to the Play Store -- you'll find it in your device's app drawer. Then search for the app.

The latest versions of Android automatically update installed apps by default. You can switch off this auto updating or adjust settings so that Android will update only over WiFi. Look for the vertical three dot icon in the Google Play app header.

No. 1: Enpass

Enpass claims 10,000 to 50,000 installs and has an average Google Play Store rating of 4.3 stars out of a possible 5 from 384 reviewers.

Enpass syncs and stores passwords and other details, like ATM Personal Identification Numbers, or PINs, and financial account numbers using AES-256 encryption.

Introduced last fall, Enpass's latest revision, released earlier this year, includes a brand new, built-in browser with autofill that lets you open a website in Enpass with your User ID and password already filled in. This app offers a limited feature set for free.

No. 2: Google Chrome

Google Chrome claims 100,000,000 -- 500,000,000 installs and has an average Google Play Store rating of 4.3 stars out of a possible 5 from 1,452,807 reviewers.

Google's latest Chrome Browser update for Android not only syncs across all your devices -- including PCs -- but also compresses data.

You can reduce data usage in Chrome by up to 50 percent, according to Google. This offers advantages if you're paying for buckets of wireless data.

However, be aware that most heavy data use accumulation is from consuming multimedia rather than comparatively lighter Web pages

No. 3: Cover Lock Screen

Cover Lock Screen claims 500,000 -- 1,000,000 installs and has an average Google Play Store rating of 4.4 stars out of a possible five from 35,317 reviewers.

Still in Beta, this app starts to learn your most used apps based on where you are -- like car, home or workplace.

It then cleverly places those location-specific app launcher icons on the lock screen, so you can launch them from the lock screen instead of digging through numerous home screens.

Work apps are easily available when you're working, and leisure apps when you're at home. Genius

No. 4: Pandora

Pandora claims 100,000,000 to 500,000,000 installs and has an average Google Play Store rating of 4.5 stars out of a possible five from 1,428,721 reviewers.

Now with an alarm clock, the music streaming service Pandora's newly updated app lets you pick a favorite station to wake up to. Alarm clock meets the 21st century.

Features include the ability to customize alarms throughout the week up front. Importantly, there's a snooze function too

No. 5: MTV

MTV claims 100,000 -- 500,000 installs and has an average Google Play Store rating of 3.9 stars out of a possible five from 5,590 reviewers.

MTV's recently launched on-demand app lets you view entire episodes of MTV shows, including Teen Wolf and Real World. However, that's only if your cable provider is listed in the app.

Participating providers are limited and don't include majors such as Comcast's Xfinity, Dish and Charter. Hence, the runner-up No. 5 position in our All Things Appy Android roundup.

Polishing the Rare Gem That Is Linux

"Love is blind," as the old saying goes, and that can be just as true when the object of love is a thing -- an operating system, say -- as a person.

Case in point? Linux. Fans of the operating system love it, perhaps even to the point where they can no longer see its -- gasp! -- imperfections.

Fortunately, the Linux community includes clear-eyed observers and thinkers such as Ken Starks, who recently penned a piece entitled, "What Would You Do to Improve Linux?"

Once FOSS fans got beyond the initial shock of the very suggestion, they had plenty to say -- on FOSS Force, LXer and beyond. Down at the Linux blogosphere's Broken Windows Lounge, Linux Girl got an earful.

The Ease Factor

"I would make Linux more user-friendly for normal, garden-variety users," Google+ blogger Rodolfo Saenz told Linux Girl over a fresh Tequila Tux cocktail.

"We are used to tweaking and making Linux our own, but the rest of humans -- Windows and Mac humans, to be precise -- want an OS that is easy to use and live with without the need to touch the OS from inside or use the terminal."

How would that goal be achieved?

"More efficient software engineering oriented to the end user," Saenz said. "Simple, yet difficult to implement in a FOSS world.

'Why Not Try to Look Professional?'

A unified software installation method is what Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone would add.

"Add to that OEM and software maker support, and Linux would take over the desktop overnight," he opined.

"My opinion is that Linux is ready, and has been ready for some time, for the average person's desktop computer," Stone explained. "The only thing that stands in the way is availability of some software and its image as a geek toy. If the software was there and it came installed like Windows currently does, Windows would be a thing of the past.

"Oh, one more thing: I'm sure everybody loves the name 'utopic unicorn,' but try selling your boss on the idea that you want to put that one your server," he added. "Why make things harder than they have to be? I love the names too, but why not try to look professional?"

'Get Key People Together'

Consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack "would spend more time making things actually work together," he told Linux Girl. "A lot of work is needed on the basic nuts and bolts."

To wit: "It's great that CUPS can automatically find a printer but pretty bad that in the case of some printers, it goes on to create a config that it then cannot use to access the very printer it autodetected," Mack pointed out.

Similarly, "I think what this 'ecosystem' needs now is to get key people together -- from more than just two distributions! -- deciding some standards for the sake of the dissemination of Linux in the corporate and home-office world," suggested Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C.

'I Need Windows to Run X'

Applications were the main issue noted by Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien.

"Linux itself is fine as it is," O'Brien told Linux Girl. "When you talk to people about why they don't use Linux, you will always hear, "because I need Windows to run X...'"

People who can do what they need to do just as well in Linux as any other OS "are doing just fine, and that often includes people who are not hackers or even computer sophisticates," he pointed out. "If my mother needs to read e-mail, surf the Web and get on Facebook, any Linux distro does that fine. But my wife, who needs to use Adobe Creative Suite for her work, cannot use Linux, even though she is a very sophisticated user."

'We Need People to Solve Problems'

There are "some real challenges with the Linux kernel," offered Chris Travers, a blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project. For instance, "ACPI hasn't worked on my laptop since I upgraded from the 2.6.x line; some additional guarantees of support and assistance would be helpful."

What's really needed, though, "is a larger number of developers out there looking at the problems that people have and writing code to solve them," Travers suggested. "Forget about high-level concepts like interoperability or dynamically working with other services -- that's not the issue. We need people to listen to users and solve problems, and ideally to do it for money, because that means you can have people doing it professionally instead of as a hobby."

It's that idea, in fact -- "that we have the potential to make software development into a trade instead of a job" -- that can "transform the market and bring Linux to the next level," Travers concluded.

'A Stable Driver ABI'

"How about a 'roll back drivers' button -- a tool that will let you roll back bad updates a la System Restore and a simple way for a user to ask for and get remote help when something is wrong," suggested SoylentNews blogger hairyfeet.

Such tools have long been available in Windows, he noted.

At the same time, "most of these problems would probably go away if only Linux had what BSD, Solaris, OSX, iOS, Android, Windows, WinRT and even OS/2 have, which is a stable driver ABI, so that every time there is a kernel update, the whole thing wouldn't fall down like a house of cards," hairyfeet added.

'Just About Perfect'

Blogger Robert Pogson saw it differently.

"GNU/Linux is just about perfect for end-users: ~100 percent uptime, little or no malware, $0, FREE ... what more could an end-user want?" he told Linux Girl. "I don't know any users who could not find a package/window/display/file-manager they liked going down the list of popular distros on DistroWatch. The kernel is very solid. I don't have any hardware that doesn't work with it."

The one sticking point for any particular user might be "some application, but that's an illusion," Pogson added. "That application does something. There's no problem finding an application that will do just about anything in GNU/Linux. Browsing, office applications, multimedia players ... are all covered well. We could all use improvements in software applications, but I honestly don't have anything that's a show-stopper, and I do a lot with GNU/Linux."

If anything, "Debian GNU/Linux has too many applications," he said. "I've only tried about 2K of their packages, and there are about 38K I have not tried. Until you've tried them all, can you really say you lack something?"

'It's Ready for Users'

Pogson's wish list for Linux is short:

"I would like to be able to set the default styles of charts/graphs in LibreOffice," he said. "That's in the pipe."

"I would like to be able to use a new release of Firefox without having to set per-site zooms to suit my eyes and my monitor," he added. "That's a few seconds to set up."

In short, "I've introduced thousands to the GNU/Linux desktop, and the only complaint I ever got was that it wasn't that other OS," he concluded. "Tough. Live with it.

"I will never forget the student who fell off his chair because GNU/Linux gave him a working desktop in just a few seconds without 'wait, wait, please wait,'" Pogson added. "I will never forget the student who told me that other OS was 'so slow' with a new-from-the-box, 64-bit, dual-core monster.

"GNU/Linux is nearly perfect," he said. "Enjoy it. It's ready for users."

Google’s Innovative Data Center Cooling Techniques

In years gone by, data centers kept temperatures at 68 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit and narrow humidity ranges. According to a recent article in CIO.com, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the organization that issues de facto standards for data center climate, has moved the top recommended temperature range to 80.6° F and increased the peak humidity threshold as well.

This shift to higher temperatures and humidity levels has pushed manufacturers to expand the operating climate range of their equipment. It’s also made data center managers think about employing innovative cooling methods, such as using outside air, water and evaporative techniques.

Google drives down the cost and environmental impact of running data centers by designing and building its own facilities. The company employs “free-cooling” techniques like using outside air or reused water for cooling. Google claims its data centers use 50 percent less energy than the typical data center and are among the most efficient in the world.

Google’s Hamina, Finland, data center is one of the most advanced and efficient in its fleet of data centers. It uses raw seawater from the Gulf of Finland to help cool the data center. The seawater is pumped through heat exchangers and then Google uses direct exchange through those heat exchangers to dissipate the server load heat from the data center.

The heated seawater is returned to a “tempering building” and mixed with fresh seawater to cool it to a temperature similar to the inlet temperature. The cooled water is then released back into the Gulf, minimizing any environmental impact. There is no compressor or refrigerant-based cooling used at the data center.

This is a great example of using innovative cooling techniques to drive down the cost and environmental impact of running data centers. What other cooling techniques have you heard of or used in your data center?

- See more at: http://www.strategicdatacenter.com/52/google%E2%80%99s-innovative-data-center-cooling-techniques#sthash.Dg21mrQv.dpuf

Despite its newfound attitude to play better with others, recent revelations about the intelligence community have significantly degraded the government's credibility in the eyes of many, and made it the target of suspicion for many more. "People now assume that if something bad happens on the Internet, it must be the NSA's fault," James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Smarting from speculation that the U.S. intelligence community hoarded knowledge about the Heartbleed bug that's placed millions of servers and devices that access the Internet at risk, the White House Tuesday gave the public some insight into how it decides to release information about vulnerabilities in computer software and hardware.

"This administration takes seriously its commitment to an open and interoperable, secure and reliable Internet, and in the majority of cases, responsibly disclosing a newly discovered vulnerability is clearly in the national interest," the President's Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel wrote in The White House blog.

"This has been and continues to be the case," he added.

Nevertheless, the decision to disclose a vulnerability can be complex, Daniel noted, because such disclosures may result in a missed opportunity to collect intelligence to thwart a terrorist attack, stop the theft of intellectual property, or discover even more dangerous vulnerabilities being used by hackers or other adversaries of the United States.

On the other hand, "building up a huge stockpile of undisclosed vulnerabilities while leaving the Internet vulnerable and the American people unprotected would not be in our national security interest," Daniel wrote. "But that is not the same as arguing that we should completely forgo this tool as a way to conduct intelligence collection, and better protect our country in the long-run."