Serving up fine Linux and open source software with exceptional wines!

Wine, Linux, Good Food, and Free Software

Chef Marcel at your service!Food, Wine, and Linux may seem like a strange combination, but combining three passions can be a wonderful thing. Those of you who read Cooking with Linux, the multi-award-winning column that appears monthly in Linux Journal magazine, likely agree. With the help of my faithful waiter, François, Restaurant Chez Marcel serves up the finest in Linux and open source software paired with exceptional wines.

In that same spirit, this site features great Linux and Open Source software, ongoing wine tasting reports from myself and other readers, recipes, and the occasional restaurant review from the same folk. In the meantime, if you came here looking to read past Cooking with Linux columns, you'll find newer releases on the front page, a comprehensive list here and under the "CWL, The Column" menu link to the left. A votre santé! Bon appétit!

Beer, Linux and Ontario

One thing that most GNU/Linux users have in common... We love beer. We talk of our operating system and software as being FREE as in beer and FREE as in freedom. There are lots of good microbreweries and brewpubs in Ontario and in October we have the Ontario [GNU] Linux Fest onlinux.ca/
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Hey How About Them Blue Jays?

We are into May and they are still in first place. Sure Boston is only one game behind as I write this, but it is looks like we could be in for a very exciting October in Toronto.

That is nothing compared to the Ontario [GNU] Linux Fest that will be held on October 23 - 24,  2009. Last year's event was a lot of fun and
I am sure that the 2009 event will be great as well.
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The Not So Jaunty Jackalope - Updated 05/02/2009

I had intended to create blog post about my frustration with Vista and how I finally installed Linux on my almost one year old PC.  A funny thing happened on the way to Linuxland, a roadblock whose name is Jaunty.  

So arrives the much hailed Jaunty, destined to be the final stake in the heart Vista.  For the few Windows applications I need, I begin by giving less than half of my disk to the new Vista install, a common clean start to a gradually failing Windows operating system.  Suspecting I wouldn't be using Vista anytime soon, I didn't bother with updates or anti-virus, saving those wonderful tasks for a later date.  The next step was the uneventful install of Jaunty, updates, multimedia codecs, and Virtual Box, nothing unusual.

My first indication of problems were burning a audio CD for my daily commute.  One of the touted features of Jaunty was the much improved Brasero CD/DVD burning software.  After building my list of tracks I began the burning process.  Stepping away and returning to my machine, there sat Brasero with a message “normalizing title...”  After a short on-line search, I found there is a bug with the normalizing plug-in for Brasero, that is installed and enabled by default.  No problem, turn off the plug-in and a audio CD is created, albeit with varying volume between tracks.
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Easy Peasy V1.1 A Quick First Look

I had to send my netbook, an Acer Aspire One, for repair after three months of use. The unit originally came with Windows XP, but had 1Gb of memory and a 160Gb hard drive, a configuration not available on Linux versions. I installed Fedora 10 XFCE respin, but when sending in the unit I knew that Acer would probably re-install Windows XP; Acer was upfront about this. As I suspected the repaired unit arrived with a fresh install of Windows XP.

Netbook Desktop

This leads me to Easy Peasy v1.1, which is based on Ubuntu 8.10. Installing the XFCE respin of Fedora was not uneventful. I had to search the Internet on how to configure the wireless adapter, sound and installing all of the multimedia codecs for video and Internet. It wasn't a difficult task, but took a little time going over different web sites and getting the configuration just right. After the work was done I was happy with the final result. I didn't really want to go through that process again.

 
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SSH the easy way

Introduction

Secure SHell is a wonderful tool for remotely logging in to a system and doing work. Because of it's command-line nature SSH can be a bit intimidating, but it doesn't have to be: some of the graphics tools you might already know and love can be used in conjunction with SSH to make life easier.
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Connecting to SSH with gftp

Hey, what are those folks at the Linux Journal up to now?

It is the Tech Tip Video Contest and you could win a free digital subscription to the Linux Journal.

All you have to do is watch the Tech Tip video every day this week from March 9 - 13 and watch for the "secret letters" that appear in every episode. At the end of the week arrange the letters to reveal the secret message and you can win a year long digital subscription to the Linux Journal.

Everyone with the correct answer who responds by 11:59:59PM U.S. Eastern Standard Time March, Friday 13th, 2009 wins a free digital subscription to Linux Journal -- it's that easy!
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2006 Pipe Down from Organized Crime

This past weekend, a friend dropped in with an interesting bottle of wine she picked up while driving through the Niagara wine region. The 2006 Pipe Down is a blend of 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Syrah, and 10% Petit Verdot, aged 16 months in French oak casks.

The Organized Crime Winery in Beamsville, Ontario, has such an interesting name, you must hear a little about its name and the origins thereof. It seems that in the early 1900s. there were two Mennonite congregations who fought over a rather liberal idea, to play music in the church. The liberal congregation acquired a small organ, an act that greatly irked the more conservative of these two congregations. The outrage was such that on night, the stricter, presumably more God-fearing group broke into the church belonging to those sinful, liberal-minded Mennonites, stole the organ, smashed it to bits, and threw the wreckage down an embankment into a stream below. Oh, the irony.

So, how was the wine? Pleasant. A little cherry and oakiness on the nose. It has a nice deep ruby colour, but it is nevertheless surprisingly light. That said, I would be more likely to recommend it with food than on its own though it is still a fairly nice drinking wine. Dry with a long finish. The cork has the words, "Thou Shalt Not Steal Music" written around its perimeter. You can visit the winery's Website by clicking here.
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Installing OpenOffice 3.0.1 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Here are the steps that I took to install OpenOffice 3.01 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

I created this step by step following the information provided by Stéphane Gaudreault at http://monespaceperso.org/blog-en/2009/02/19/installing-openofficeorg-3-...

Go to Stéphane's blog for information on files to download in other languages and 64 bit versions.

My steps are composed using the methods and corrections found on Stéphane's blog.

Merci Beaucoup Stéphane!!!

Activate terminal.

1. download the openOffice 3.1 file
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Everything I Need To Know About Software I Learnt In Sunday School

Well, that is a bold statement; what can all those ones and zeros, bits and bytes have to do with the lessons taught in Sunday school? They do not teach programing in Sunday School, but two lessons in particular may help guide us to the kind of software we should be writing or using.
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