Linux Monday: Kernel Check

Linux Monday: Fine-Tune The Kernel

One of the advantages we Linux geeks like to claim over competing operating systems is the flexibility of the system. We're not talking about changing your screen saver--we're talking the guts of the operating system itself.

The most basic, core level part of an operating system is called the kernel. The term "kernel" is generally used to refer to the Linux kernel, but more accurately every OS has a kernel. This piece is slightly dated but has a still sound description of kernels:

The kernel is the first part of the operating system to load into memory during booting (i.e., system startup), and it remains there for the entire duration of the computer session because its services are required continuously. Thus it is important for it to be as small as possible while still providing all the essential services needed by the other parts of the operating system and by the various application programs.

As small as possible. That's where you come in.

Every operating system kernel contains a lot of extras that a just a tiny share of the market needs. Sometimes it's code for backward compatibility, other times it's highly specialized (for example, ham radio software), or things that only programmers need.

Problem is, we have no idea what's embedded in the Windows or Mac kernel, because it's proprietary and locked in place. Thus your Windows system is doing work that you don't need and can't stop. But the open-source Linux kernel can be fine-tuned to your system's specs and for your style of use.

This used to be at the high end of geeky. But KernelCheck is a relatively painless way to optimize your kernel.

I first mentioned, and used, this little gem a few months back. I've managed to speed up my personal benchmark, detecting aliens, about 60% with a somewhat optimized kernel.

But unfortunately, not too long after I discovered it, the site that maintains the downloadable kernel code moved some file directories and KernelCheck stopped working. Some geeks put together patches, and after a couple tries I figured out how to use those (after some command line voodoo). But now other geeks have put together a downloadable file with those patches already installed. Installing in Ubuntu or another Debian-based system is easy: download and click.

First, make sure you have an old kernel backed up in case something goes wrong. (Ubuntu already did this for me). You can make sure this is available be rebooting and looking at your GRUB menu (that's GRand Unified Bootloader). If you dual-boot with Windows and Linux, you'll be familiar with this. If not, hitting Escape on bootup usually works.

KernelCheck showed up on my Ubuntu menu under System Tools. Start it up and you'll be prompted for your password. Follow the series of fairly intuitive prompts. Eventually you'll get to a big tree diagram with a lot of checkmark. The first time you may just want to leave all these at their defaults and close the checkmark screen.

That'll start the build of your new kernel. The screen will tell you this takes two to four hours. The higher-end the machine, the faster this will go. Once you're done, reboot and make sure everything's in one piece.

If that was fun, you can try it again and uncheck some stuff to make a smaller, faster kernel. You need to be careful the first time you try this not to take too much stuff out. I had to go back and re-do one when I accidentally disabled my external hard drive. This piece has some good suggestions of what's safe.

So proceed carefully, but check it out.

Cardella's Calling

Guess Who's Calling

The phones started ringing tonight with the robocalls from Republican Lori Cardella's campaign. Not sure who they're calling; my phone remains dead but my wife got a call despite her Democratic affiliation and the Rettig sign in our yard snowbank... where it's frozen so firmly that I won't be able to get it out till the June primary.

One Deethblog reader reports that the robocall message included complaints about "stolen" yard signs. The implication, of course, is that The Democratic Machine is behind it, with a subtext of Tea Party martyrdom. First the Obamabots took our country away, now they're taking our signs.

My experience with signs in my high-visibility location is that there are direct relationships between sign damage, home football, weekend bar traffic and proximity to the sidewalk. In 2007 I thought someone had it in for Mike Wright when I lost two of his signs (one was actually burned and melted into a little green globule like a Spinal Tap drummer). When I got my third one I rotated my signs, moved Mike in toward the house and Matt Hayek next to the sidewalk--and then it was Matt who got trashed. That points toward passer-by stupidity more than political malice.

I also remember chasing one of my signs--I think maybe a Land Water Future--a block and a half down and across Benton Street on an especially windy Sunday last fall. So check the bottom of your snowdrift for your Cardella signs.

Both the robocalls and the complaints about sign stealing are reminiscent of the conservation bond fight last year. Robocalls are easy when your campaign manager and husband owns a telemarketing firm. But be careful, Tom; corporate contribution laws are different for a candidate campaign than they are for a ballot issue campaign. Looking forward to the campaign finance report.

One last thought on signs: My yard has been pretty lucky in 2 1/2 years on West Benton. The only losing signs I've put up here are Jeff Shipley--which given his chances and the outcome was really just a big middle finger gesture--and Save Roosevelt School.

Delegation Notes

Congressional Delegation Notes

National Journal's Hotline drops some lists on DC, full of mosts and leasts, and some Iowans merit mentions.

When asked "Which voice in your party would you most like to mute?" the GOP members of Congress surveyed ranked Steve King in the league with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. (King's constituents may think that's a good thing.)

The Reg notes that Bruce Braley is on the "prightest future" list.

And while none of the Congressional delegation is on the list of those surveyed, the "political insiders" list seems to have more than its share of Iowans. Gotta love those caucuses.

One other note: Charlotte Eby picks up on grumbling that GOP congressional candidate Jim Gibbons has carpetbagged into the 3rd CD to run against Boswell. I must, yes I must, note that Leonard Boswell himself is a carpetbagger. He was placed in what's now the 5th CD in 2001. As a proud Blue Dog, he might have held on--and even with his pre-Fallon primary voting record he would be a great improvement over Steve King. The 5th is the kind of district where a Blue Dog is acceptable.

But instead he took the easy pickings of Des Moines and muscled Matt McCoy, already up and running, out of the open seat race (that was the year Greg Ganske was running against Harkin). We got a Blue Dog where we should have gotten a progressive. So basically, Leonard's got no room to complain about carpetbagging.

Tangent for the personally acquainted: Apparantly the Mediacom email issue was a nation-wide problem--it actually shoed up on Google's hot search terms yesterday. Seems to be kinda working now, but as for the phone, it's still dead. So your blogger is still suffering off-the-grid anxiety.

A poor excuse for a post

A poor excuse for a post

If you don't know me personally you can skip this: By coincidence, both my phone AND my web mail are dysfunctional today (the email appears to be related to some Mediacom upgrades, the phone's just simply not working). So alternative means of communication are necessary. I have a soft spot for smoke signals or semaphore.

Cardella's Conundrum

The Conservative Contradiction

You can't put a pricetag on democracy... but elections cost too much. The people want to vote... but "We think with a low turnout, we can win this." Students shouldn't vote in local elections... but should sign our petition.

There are a cluster of contradictions at the core of Republican Lori Cardella's campaign for the Board of Supervisors. But in a bigger sense, those contradictions aren't unique to her campaign.

Supervisor Rod Sullivan gets bashed for his weekly newsletter's "government is good" feature, but he's merely pointing out the easily overlooked obvious: Government does stuff. And it does stuff that the market economy doesn't do.

It's always been one of my pet peeves when people say government should be run like a business. The goal of government is fairness, equality and service. The goal of business is profit. Maybe that's why conservatives gravitate to business and progressives self-select the public sector.

But if conservatives hate government so much, what happens when they participate in government? The contradiction at the heart of conservative governance is that, if your basic default answer is "no, government shouldn't do stuff," then you're rejecting the whole premise.

There is a model for conservative governance, or at least there was up until the late 1970s. But through the Reagan era, into the Gingrich Era, and now into the Tea Party era, the old paradigm of responsible, frugal stewardship has been abandoned by Republicans. In its place we have a shrill no, no, no cry, couched in Stamp Act rhetoric that was shopworn back when Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan were using it in 1992. There's little more substance than "we hate taxes and we hate anything Obama wants to do."

The late years of the Republican congressional majority were like the last pages of Orwell's Animal Farm. Spending and deficits hit record highs. There were a lot of reasons for that, but one key cause is that the post-Gingrich, post-Reagan Republican Party is ill-suited for governing. We went from Building A Bridge To The 21st Century to building a bridge to nowhere. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again," Orwell wrote, "but already it was impossible to say which was which."

That leaves it to Democrats, supposedly the "tax and spend" party, to be the responsible stewards, to deal with the realities of challenging budgets rather than mere rhetoric. Janelle Rettig joins the Board of Supervisors right at budget time, and keeps telling people, "you're going to be surprises how fiscally conservative I am."

Out on the west side of town stands the old county poor farm. You can tour it and still see the shackles where the indigent mentally ill used to be chained. We don't treat human beings like that any more. But humane treatment costs more money than putting people in irons and feeding them gruel did.

That's an extreme example, but one of many. The bulk of local government budgets are paying for people,and the biggest expenses are safety, health, and education. The patrol cars and plows out on the streets, the H1N1 prevention, the teachers getting a snow day today (don't worry, taxpayers, they'll make it up).

Johnson County voters are more tuned into this than most. We're a public sector town. We teach, we heal, we research. One person's tax cut is another person's layoff. And as one Press-Citizen commenter writes, "given that (Cardella) is a freemarket libertarian who believes that the less government the better, what does she hope to accomplish in a county where the largest single employer is the state?"

Boswell on Republican Retirement Target List

Boswell on GOP "Dem Retirement Assault List"

National Journal:

GOP strategists are putting extra pressure on more than a dozen Dem lawmakers, hoping to convince them to retire rather than face difficult re-elections.

An informal list of 17 members the NRCC believes can be convinced to step down, privately called the "Dem Retirement Assault List," makes clear the party needs Dem incumbents to step aside if they have hopes of taking back the majority. The NRCC has taken pains to attack those lawmakers in recent weeks.

The list includes 14 members whose districts voted for John McCain in '08... (and) Reps. Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Leonard Boswell (D-IA), three members who already have credible opponents but who occupy seats Pres. Obama won in '08.

"Applying constant pressure in combination with the looming threat of a credible challenge is what should make every single one of these guys think twice," said a GOP strategist involved in targeting the Dems.

Hey, Repubs: I'm with ya on this one, but let the record show I was doing it before you were....

Why, Deeth, why? 1) the war vote in 2002 2) chronically underperforms the district 3) doomed to lose a redistricting matchup with Tom Latham but most of all 4) despite a little bit better voting record (thanks, Ed, for the push) he continues to self-ID as a Blue Dog. Quit the Blue Dogs, Leonard, then call me.

Libertarian Elected in Cedar Falls

Libertarian Elected in Cedar Falls

Ballot Access News points me to a footnote from last week's city runoffs: up in Cedar Falls, a bona fide Libertarian was elected to the city council.

The Waterloo Courier covered the election itself, where Libertarian Nick Taiber beat Gary Winterhof in a runoff for an open seat. But they don't even mention the Libertarian angle, focusing instead on Winterhof's endorsements from the mayor and much of the sitting council.

Independent Political Report, in contrast, leads with the Libertarian angle and notes that Taiber is on the state Libertarian Party Executive Committee and campaigned for libertarian Republican Ron Paul and, later, Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr, last year.

Trivia: the job is non-partisan, as are all city councils and mayors in the state. But Iowa law allows for partisan city council elections. The last city to actually do it was Davenport; they voted in 1995 to go non-partisan effective in `97.