What's the smallest laptop with VT on the market?

Howdy all-

In the course of the Ubuntu Server Team's development of the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud and Eucalyptus, we'd like to travel with a prototype "cloud" in our luggage.

What's the smallest laptop you know about that has Virtualization Technology (VT) extensions on the CPU?

I currently have a couple of 12" Thinkpads (x200 and x61) with VT. Looks like the Dell Vostro 1220 is another 12" with VT.

Have you spotted anything smaller than 12"? I'm only interested in laptops/netbooks (must have built in keyboard/video), it must have VT, and it must be smaller than 12". Suggestions?

:-Dustin

Byobu on a Palm Pre

Having owned Palm Treos 600, 650, and 755p, I finally bought a used Palm Pre off of Craigs List earlier today. And although I've had the phone less than 24 hours, I already love it!

Following a couple of guides online, I obtained root on the device without a problem. This is where the real fun begins...

I was absolutely delighted to find that GNU screen is installed by default on the device! Which, of course, means that byobu should run too ;-)

I had to fix a few things in byobu, since I had never tested it on ARM, or inside of busybox, but it's working quite well! See this screenshot:


So within the first 12 hours of owning this little miracle, I've managed to:

• sync all of my contacts and calendars from Gmail and Facebook
  
• obtain a root shell
• run screen
• install and run byobu (using byobu-export from the unreleased byobu-2.33)
• install and run an ssh server
• ssh to the device
• tether (working perfectly with Ubuntu, writing this blogpost tethered right now)
• actually lower my monthly service plan with Sprint
• sign no contract since I bought used via CraigsList
  

But the best part... Real Linux, with a root shell, running on my phone. I've been waiting for this day for over 10 years. I'm choking back tears. Wow.

:-Dustin

Solar Installation - Part 4

As of September 1, 2009, all 38 panels are now on the roof, and hooked up to the inverter, thought it's not yet turned on.

I had my inspection with Craig of Texas Solar Power Company, and David of Austin Energy today.

We spent about an hour going over the entire system. They turned it on for a few minutes, verifying the functionality. David went over every aspect of the design and installation. He noted a couple of things he wants to see updated in the CAD drawings and documentation. Craig is supposed to send those over to David as soon as possible, at which point my installation should be approved.

Now, I'm waiting 2 weeks for Austin Energy to come back out to my house to replace my current electric meter with one that can handle the PV junction. At that point, Austin Energy will actually turn on my system, and I will be generating Solar Power!

And then my rebate will be submitted for processing. I hope to see that rebate check in 6-8 weeks.

Many people have asked for more details about how the system works, and how my electric bill will be calculated.

The PV system will only generate electricity when the sun is out. Many factors will affect how much electricity is generated, including cloud cover, cleanliness of the panels, ambient temperature, length of the day, and the time of the year.

My system consists of 38 panels that are rated at 175 Watts apiece, for a theoretical maximum of 6650 Watts of output. The 38 panels are divided into two separate arrays. The Southwest-facing array consists of 3 strings of 9-panels apiece. These strings generate 357 Volts, 356 Volts, and 355 Volts apiece. Note the subtle difference in voltages. This ensures the direction of the flow (electricity always flows from higher voltage to lower voltage).

The amperage varies with the quality of the sunshine, and affects the output wattage. More sun yields more Amps, and thus more Watts. The other, Southeast-facing array consists of a single 11-panel string, which generates 439 Volts.

It is the job of the inverter to combine these two arrays and produce an AC current. My particular inverter is rated at 96.5% efficiency, so during the best hours of the day, I should see somewhere around 6400 Watts of electricity. During yesterday's test around Noon, with partial cloud cover, the system was generating 5550 Watts -- and this was far more electricity than I was consuming at that time.

The inverter is tuned to produce an AC voltage that is slightly higher than the power coming from Austin Energy's utility pole. This ensures that I use my solar generated power first, and any remaining flows back into the city's grid.

Now 6400 Watts is far more energy than I will be consuming during the daytime. However, at night, I won't be collecting any sunlight. During the day, the surplus will be used by others on the energy grid, and Austin Energy only buy that electricity from me at 40% of the price that I pay them for the electricity I use at night ;-) Such are the breaks... They pay the rebate, and thus they get to make the rules.

So we'll need to adapt our electrical usage model in order to maximize our savings. It will be in our best interest to run our laundry, dishwasher, and hot water heater during the daytime.

On a separate note, I'm quite eager to play with the serial data output on the Aurora inverter. Of course, my inverter came with a CDROM of Windows software that is worthless to me. Thankfully, someone out there has written a GPL application that communicates with the inverter's interface. I can't wait to play with it, once my system is turned on. Assuming it work's, I'll get it packaged and included in Ubuntu Karmic+1!

For other articles in this series, see:
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/search/label/Solar

:-Dustin

qemu-kvm-0.11~rc2 uploaded to Karmic

The upstream qemu and kvm projects have released the second release candidate of qemu-kvm-0.11, the stable series of the accelerated virtualization hypervisor for Linux.

I have merged and uploaded this package for Ubuntu Karmic. Please test on your systems, and file bugs with: ubuntu-bug qemu-kvm

Karmic is rapidly approaching Beta, RC, and GA status. Please help test kvm!

Cheers,
:-Dustin

Encrypted $HOME Now Offerred at Installation

I'm pleased to announce that the Ubuntu Karmic Alpha5 image now offers home directory encryption as an option to all installing users!



We introduced Encrypted Private Directories in the Ubuntu 8.10 release, using eCryptfs (an enterprise cryptographic filesystem in the Linux kernel) on $HOME/Private. This release helped "prove" eCryptfs, and helped us identify and fix a number of issues. This new approach to encrypted private data in Ubuntu provided a safe folder where users could store confidential information, automatically mounted at login, and unmounted at logout.

In Ubuntu 9.04, we retained the Encrypted Private Directory feature, but additionally offered Encrypted Home Directories to advanced users, through the alternate installer and a special boot parameter. This release generated quite a bit of interest in the feature and a healthy user community. Many, many thanks to the Ubuntu users and developers who used this feature, helping to file and fix bugs along the way.

So far in Ubuntu 9.10, we have:

• fixed a number of bugs and usability issues (changelog)


• provided AppArmor rules


• enabled the shell scripts for localization/translations


• and most importantly, set up encrypted swap in the installer if you enable home directory encryption

I believe Ubuntu now provides the most user-friendly personal data encryption solution in the industry.

So secure your data in Ubuntu! Get those Karmic home directories encrypted!

:-Dustin

p.s. I authored an article for Linux Magazine that should be published in an upcoming issue discussing the technology in much greater detail. Stay tuned!

Solar Installation - Part 3

Alright, so with the rails up, we're ready for Part 3...installing the panels. The panels are mounted on the aluminum frames, and connected to a DC voltage collector, which feeds into the AC-DC power inverter.

We have a total of 38 modules going on the roof, in 3 separate "strings" or "arrays" (solar guy's terms). To those of us that are programmers:


power_t *solar1, *solar2, *solar3;
// versus
power_t solar1[16];
power_t solar2[11];
power_t solar3[11];


Heh, okay, bad joke!

A little over half are installed now. We're waiting on the shipment of the rest. Hopefully, the rest should be installed by the end of the week. Stay tuned...

For other articles in this series, see:
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/search/label/Solar

:-Dustin

qemu-kvm: call for testing

If you're running Karmic and you use KVM, I'd appreciate your help testing the qemu-kvm package.

sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm

And then just use KVM as you normally do. Please file bugs at:

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qemu-kvm/+filebug
  

Thanks,
:-Dustin