Linux for Keysers | Adventures in Open Source

It's fairly easy to turn any ISO (such as the Windows 7 Professional ISO from MSDN) into a bootable USB stick using UNetbootin for Linux. However, I just found out today that UNetbootin doesn't support Windows-required NTFS-formatted USB sticks. Therefore, it's impossible to create the bootable USB with the huge (3.8 GB or so) ISO. Luckily, there is a workaround. Follow these steps and you should be good to go. Format your USB stick as FAT32 in GParted . You might have to adjust partitions at this stage, mine was setup correctly. Open UNetbootin (install if not found on your system) and input the options up to where it shows the USB partition to install to. Mine was set to /dev/sdb1 - Don't actually try to create the installer USB from the ISO at this point, however. That won't work because it's set to FAT32, not NTFS. Leave UNetbootin open as is. Reopen GParted if you closed it (not necessary). Format the USB in GParted as NTFS this time. You *might*

I read a while ago that Canonical plans to develop their own xwindows replacement for Ubuntu. Given the long and difficult struggle that the X team has faced over the years in bringing their project into the modern computing era, I'm not entirely against that effort. However, I also know that members of the original X project have started their own modern version of a replacement ( Wayland ) that seems to fulfill all of the requirements Canonical is complaining about in X. So, the question then becomes, 'Why is Canonical attempting to reinvent the wheel with no significant differentiating factors?' It stands to reason that they could leverage the work put forth in the Wayland project. It seems unlikely to me that Canonical would not have known about the Wayland project. Given what Canonical did (or failed to do) with Unity, I'm skeptical that their new project ( Mir ) will be any more successful. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.