Monday, August 3, 2009

Ubuntu vs LinkedIn

As the full story unfolds, this would definitely qualifies as an adventure, but not one of mine!
For some time it has bothered me that I can't use LinkedIn.

... That is to say, I can't use Ubuntu when running Linux.
Update: that really should read "I can't use LinkedIn when running Linux", but I do like the effect!
Oh! I can go to the site and log in. However, any query based request, and things just go to sleep.
??? I thought that the web was supposed to be platform neutral!!!
It is neutral, in theory, although try accessing a site running asp and see how far you get on a non-windows operating system. To even the score, using a Redmond produced browser will give you problems with clever styling (prior to IE 8, at least), and no visibility for any svg images (the latter being the case of a 400lb gorilla squishing a perfectly good standard that most other browsers support reasonably well.)
But why? Think 'Silverlight'
One day, I hope the penny will drop that having a non-neutral net is in nobody's interest! So, to get back to the LinkedIn issue.

For once, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with Microsoft conspiracy theories. Nobody, at this stage, appears to quite know just what the problem is!
I have no solution, but I admire the problem!
Happily, there does appear to be a workaround: just tweak the network layer so:

sudo ifconfig eth0 mtu 1360

I tried it and ... presto!

So I'm happy for now! However, I'm not sure which I find more mysterious: the problem itself, or the process that produced the workaround (which you can read more about on this forum)