Blogger/wordpress update -- article:Linux does not need to be housetrained

Apparently Wordpress has some issue with some of my content that I imported from here. bah.
anyway, the address is factorq.wordpress.com, if anyone wants to know. As of right now, though, it is not being used--since I can't post/edit anything there.

I guess I'm stuck with the ol' closed source blogger, for now.

In other news, this is pretty funny:
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4605.html#

Linux converts feel that they must proselytize everyone they know and have them experience the awesomeness of Linux. Well, stop it--it just isn't going to work. Spend your time doing something more constructive and less frustrating. You'll be happier. They'll be happier. Apple and Microsoft will make more money, which will make them happier.

There's no need to convert the masses to Linux. Let them flounder and complain and pay you to fix their systems.

Read more...

Well...crap. My Open Source Quandry

I thought I was all good...until I was reading this (Adventures in Open Source):

It occurred to me that as 2009 rolled around I shouldn’t be blogging about open source on a closed platform like Blogger any more, it was a bit of a contradiction. So I upped sticks and moved to Wordpress on my own server.

Now I am in the same situation (here on Blogger), and have to decide if I care enough about not being on an open source blogging platform (ie WordPress).

It is indeed a bit hypocritical to be an open source enthusiast on a closed source platform. 
On the otherhand, my webserver host SUCKS (rather, it is decent, but does go down pretty frequently - x10hosting.com).
hm...
Read more...

New cool list of linux programs

New cool list of linux programs

Table of Contents:

1. Backup software
2. 1. File backup software
   2. Imaging software
3. Browsers
4. Console (Terminal) utilities
5. Emulators
6. Encryption
7. Forensic tools
8. FTP clients
9. HTML editing
10. Image manipulation
    1. Digital cameras
    2. Image suite
    3. Viewers
    4. Web cameras
    5. Instant Messaging & Video conferencing
11. Live CDs (best choices)
    1. Other useful distributions
12. Mail clients
13. Multimedia
    1. CD/DVD burning
    2. Conversion tools - Audio
    3. Conversion tools - DVD & Video
    4. Conversion tools - all categories
    5. Desktop recording & presentation software
    6. Players - Audio
    7. Players - Video
    8. Players - all categories
    9. Subtitles
14. Office applications
    1. LaTeX-based text processors
    2. Office programs & suites
15. Partitioning software
16. Peer-to-Peer sharing
17. Rescue & Recovery
18. Security
    1. Firewalls
    2. Network scanners
    3. Rootkit tools
    4. Traffic sniffers
19. Virtualization
20. Users' recommendation
21. Conclusion

Read more...

Ballmer: We're cheaper than Apple! (but not Linux)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10301028-16.html

Ballmer talking about MS/Apple/Linux: (emphasis added)

Linux. It's all about Linux. We've been competing with Linux for a number of years. I want to describe our value proposition. We are a high-volume player. We do not, like Apple, believe in low volume, very high prices. Apple's a great company, does a fine job, but their model says high margin, high quality, high price, that's kinda how they come to market.

We say we want big market share, but with big market share you take the lower price.

Well, along comes Linux, and they say, "we have no price," which of course, we know for IP and other reasons, of course they have a price. But they say "we have no price." The problem you have with these so-called free alternatives is there's also not the incentive to a lot of the hard work to build out the ecosystem to support the hardware vendors that is required.

So a model like ours, which is high volume and high value but low priced but not free. You could say are you guys in the middle ground or are you where you want to be? And I say we're exactly where we want to be.

ERRONEOUS! if anything, the Open Source philosophy creates harder working developers, and Linux is not far behind supporting the hardware vendors.

Matt Asay:

Incidentally, these same vendors make up a significant ecosystem around Linux, the very same ecosystem that Ballmer suggests won't form due to a lack of incentives. Apparently he didn't talk to his closest partner, Intel, which is now the No. 2 contributor to the Linux kernel. I guess he didn't realize that there's a lot of money to be made around Linux, and it's money that doesn't have to be shared with Microsoft.

Here is the whole article.




Read more...

Ubuntu's parent company Canonical is launching "switch to Ubuntu" migration services

Including varying levels of desktop support.

First, a little praise for Canonical: Now is exactly the right time to promote Ubuntu to individuals and small business owners. The reason: We’re nearing another PC market inflection point, where millions of uses will be forced to decide whether to hold tight to Windows XP or leap to Windows 7. Converting some of those users from Windows to Ubuntu sounds like a logical, timely strategy.

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/07/30/canonical-launching-switch-to-ubuntu-migration-services/
Read more...

Drama in the Linux world Linus vs Cox; trouble at CentOS

After a dispute with Linus Torvalds, the long time developer and Linux kernel maintainer Alan Cox has stopped development of the Linux TTY subsystem. A debate took place on the Linux kernel mailing list over the question of whether changes in the TTY code should, or could, affect the operation of existing programs

Dispute between Linux gurus Alan Cox and Linus Torvalds



Open Letter to Lance Davis

July 30, 2009 04:39 UTC

This is an Open Letter to Lance Davis from fellow CentOS Developers

It is regrettable that we are forced to send this letter but we are left with no other options. For some time now we have been attempting to resolve these problems:

You seem to have crawled into a hole ... and this is not acceptable.

You have long promised a statement of CentOS project funds; to this date this has not appeared.

You hold sole control of the centos.org domain with no deputy; this is not proper.

You have, it seems, sole 'Founders' rights in the IRC channels with no deputy ; this is not proper.

When I (Russ) try to call the phone numbers for UK Linux, and for you individually, I get a telco intercept 'Lines are temporarily busy' for the last two weeks. Finally yesterday, a voicemail in your voice picked up, and I left a message urgently requesting a reply. Karanbir also reports calling and leaving messages without your reply.

Please do not kill CentOS through your fear of shared management of the project.

Clearly the project dies if all the developers walk away.

Please contact me, or any other signer of this letter at once, to arrange for the required information to keep the project alive at the 'centos.org' domain.

Sincerely,

Russ Herrold
Ralph Angenendt
Karanbir Singh
Jim Perrin
Donavan Nelson
Tim Verhoeven
Tru Huynh
Johnny Hughes

http://www.centos.org/
Also on the website, it states:

Facts Regarding CentOS and the Open Letter to Lance Davis
- CentOS is not Dead or going away.

Read more...

Easy Netbook Linux

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Software/8949.html

But Linux's declining popularity on netbooks also had something to do with the choice of Linux versions that PC makers chose to run on their hardware. Acer's awfully-named Linpus Linux was adequate but had none of the coolness of something like Fedora or Ubuntu Linux. And Asus' EEE Linux also failed to sparkle.

Easy Peasy

Now there is a version of Linux that runs exceptionally well on the likes of the Asus EEE, even on the smallest 4G version with its slimmed down solid state drive. Easy Peasy Linux (http://www.geteasypeasy.com/) was previously called Ubuntu EEE and, as its former name suggests, is based on the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.

I installed Eeebuntu (NBR) on my wife's eeePC. Like it a lot, but this looks really similar.




Read more...

"Which linux desktop for you?" and "an open source answer to Google Apps"

GNOME, KDE, and Xfce: Which Desktop is Right for You?

OpenGoo: An Open Source Answer To Google Apps




Read more...

Distro-hopping update (Part 2)

Of everything I have tried so far, my top 3 favorites at this point in time are:

1. Ubuntu
2. Sabayon
3. sidux
4. Linux Mint
   

1. I like Ubuntu a lot, and I have been using it for quite a while. The LTS is stable, and does not give me any problems--or they are few and far enough between that I can't really remember the last issue I had. I use this on my desktop. Pros: stable. just works. Cons: can be a pain to configure with codecs/dvd burn type stuff. Also not always with the latest software.

2. Sabayon is pretty awesome. based on Gentoo, it is definitely powerful, and runs well even on this junky-ish laptop. Entropy is well laid out and handles updates and package dependencies. Also, emerge/portage is available for packages not contained in the Sabayon repositories. Pros: fast. flexible. stable, for the most part. everything works as it should. Cons: have had a couple of bugs, but definitely nothing major.

3. sidux. another one that is very cool. sidux is based on Debian, so it can use Synaptic GUI with the very powerful apt-get command. the debian repositories are filled with tons of stuff, and .deb packages are very common. this is a rolling release distro, so there are no real upgrades in the normal sense. just run a command and everything is updated to the latest version. neat. Pros: bleeding edge software (and lots of it!). rolling release model means no big upgrades. fast. Cons: things can break when running the latest--the downside of being based off of unstable branch/sid.

4. Linux Mint. This is like a better version of Ubuntu. comes with codecs, video drivers and things preconfigured. all of the Ubuntu repositories are available. Pros: stable, lots of software available. Cons: can't really think of any, unless the style just doesn't suit you.
Read more...

My Distro-hopping journey (part 1)

A while back I mentioned that I wanted to start testing out/reviewing several GNU/Linux and BSD operating systems. I've been doing this, however I have found that it is awfully imprudent (or maybe just overambitious) for me to do a full in-depth review of each one.

That really isn't much my style, anyhow. I don't really observe all the specifics about much of anything. I'm more of a "generalizer."

So, instead of having the goal of writing a full review of each one, what I am going to do is have a personal synopsis of each one, and how well it meets my criterion for being an OS that I like, or could even come to love.

Mainly, the things I would like to see:

• a decent-sized software repository
• a way to get updates (both for newer software, and security) that is not too complicated
• a few desktop environments to choose from
• stability
• support of newer hardware
• speed
• ease of use (this does not necessarily mean "no command line" or "no config files")
  

Obviously, can't really have everything--but that's why I would like to see them, instead of them being "must-haves."

So far I have used:

1. CentOS
2. CrunchBang
   
3. Linux Mint
4. Mandriva
5. openSuse (although I wouldn't say I actually got to USE it)
6. Pardus (2008.2 and 2009)
7. PCBSD
   
8. Puppy
9. Sabayon
10. sidux
11. Slackware
12. Ultimate Edition
13. VecorLinux

Some of these I haven't used very extensively--Puppy and sidux, for example.


My day-to-day distros:

• Desktop: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS "Hardy" (been using this since it came out)
  
• Laptop: Sabayon 4.2 Gnome
  

Of those my top 3 favorites so far are:

1. Linux Mint
2. Sabayon
3. Pardus

My least favorite 3 (1 being the worst for me):

1. openSuse
2. CentOS
3. Slackware

I don't want to get flamed for these. I do not mean that they are bad, or even that I disliked them-- I just would not choose them for my daily use, for various reasons.

I'll write a little more in-depth overview of each as I get the chance.
Read more...

VirtualBox.... is amazing.

I know I'd heard of it before, but i don't know why it has never crossed my mind before to use it! VirtualBox is so cool in that it lets you install any operating system WITHIN your existing operating system through the "virtual box" which is basically like it's own virtual computer. This is SO much easier than doing an actual install everytime I want to test out a new OS.

sweet.





Read more...

5 reasons Microsoft is afraid of Linux

5 reasons Microsoft is afraid of Linux.

Maybe "WILL be" is a better choice of words. Right now the market share isn't too concerning for them, I'm sure. But I bet they are looking forward.







Read more...

Linux Review: Mandriva 2009.1

this was originally posted on July 3rd... I have come back to edit it as I gave Mandriva another shot. Click "read more" to see the update

Mandriva

This was really a disappointment. I really wanted to like this distro, but that just wasn't in the cards.

The liveCD booted up nicely, came up to an attractive desktop. Everything seemed to work right out of the box. However, Firefox did crash a few times--but I figured this would be resolved once the OS was actually installed.



I really liked the "linux control center", and rpmDrake looked pretty cool (click "read more" below for a couple more screenshots).

After playing around a little more, I decided to go ahead and install. It plodded along normally...and then froze. nothing at all was happening, and I had to shutdown. This was a good way along with the install process, too.

Conclusion:
It may have been a hardware conflict or something of that sort, so I will definitely be trying out Mandriva again. In the liveCD, I didn't see anything that would particularly make me want to switch from Ubuntu, but it does look interesting!









Mandriva

-----------------------------------------------------------------
July 5th - Re-review

So I decided to give Mandriva another chance. I tried to install again, and it did freeze, but I let it sit for long enough and it unfroze and actually completed installation. However, then I messed up the part of installing the bootloader... Mandriva did not show alongside my Ubuntu installation. Doh! So I went ahead and did the install again, but this time there was no Ubuntu alongside the "linux" entry (which I renamed Mandriva). Luckily I had made a backup of /boot/grub/menu.lst so I added my ubuntu entries back in.







NOW...everything is working normally. So far, no firefox crashes. The updater is doing lots of updates. System is up-to-date.

I don't really use a lot of software, but it seems like everything that I use was already included:

• the Gimp
• Openoffice
• Firefox
• Brasero
• Pidgin

I did have to install gParted, though.

this seems like a pretty solid OS, and it seems to have several things that I like...

• video drivers installed (although not totalliy free [as in freedom], it works!)
• with the "Linux Control Center" it looks as though setting up Samba MS Windows shares and otherwise connecting to MS Windows is made to be pretty easy
• the RPMDrake package manager looks like it works well, as does the software updater
• good amount of software options in the rpmDrake repositories

That's about all I can say, really. It WORKS, and it would do everything I need to do. Although there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Mandriva (aside from the initial install flop), there is not anything that "draws" me to it over any other distro. For now I most certainly prefer Ubuntu (or even Fedora).


Forums/Linux Reviews


Read more...

Celebrating freedom with open source

Celebrating freedom with open source

Happy Independence day to my US readers. This holiday is a celebration of the United States adoption of the Declaration of Independence which declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Of course many countries have similar celebrations serving a similar event in their history. And with this celebration, I thought it would be a good day to remind everyone what open source is all about…at least on a fundamental, non-TCO-ROI level.

Freedom.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/
# Date: July 4th, 2009
# Author: Jack Wallen


Read more...

Linux, anyone? - Part 2

So now I have my stable LTS version of Ubuntu, which I love since it is low maintenance. However, I just keep wanting more. I just LOVE the concept of open source software, and would really like to be more involved. So, henceforth, what I am planning to do is test several different distributions of Linux. This will help me get a good feel for what I want/need, as well as boost my knowledge of how everything works. One day I may even create my own distribution...who knows... That is a lot of work, though.

I have DistroWatch to thank for information, reviews, and links to the different distros.
Also Raiden's Realm for reliable reviews and detailed information.

So... here is the list of distributions I will experiment with, and will try to review as I am able:

• Linux Mint
• Ultimate Edition
  
• CentOS
• Fedora
• Slackware
• Arch

I'm really excited about the last two, being they are the most involved. We'll see how it goes, though. Wish me luck!


edit: I'll even add these to this list!

• openSuSe
• Puppy
• Sidux
• Sabayon
• PC Linux OS (PCLOS)
  

Go here to check out the forums for an updated list of the Linux OSs I am going to try out.
Read more...

Linux, anyone?

I've been using Linux for several years...pretty much since college. Mostly on and off until 2 years ago,though, dual-booting with Windows. Then I went full steam ahead, and no longer use Windows at all (except at work...where I have to).

The first Linux distribution ("distro") I remember using was Red Hat. I think I still have the CDs somewhere. I struggled, and didn't really know what I was doing, but I still had Windows so it was okay.

As time progressed, updates kept coming, and Linux evolved. It got both easier and better.

I stopped using Red Hat, and tried out openSuse. I did not really care for openSuSe at all. I think this was version 10.2

At the suggestion of a friend, I tried Ubuntu. It was great. I was still using off and on at this point, and at one point got pretty into computer games, and stopped logging into Linux for a while. And then I logged in one day and updated. I forget what version I upgraded from/to (maybe 6.10 to 7.04? and then to 7.10?), but it had been a while. The new version was GREAT. the wireless actually worked, the NVIDIA driver worked also. everything was more as it should be, with less customization on my end. I've been hooked ever since. I am currently using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS "Hardy Heron."

The LTS is "long term support", which means it stays stable longer because it is updated less often, while getting security updates and bug fixes for longer. good stuff.

I am going somewhere with this, but I think I'll wait to update tomorrow. keep you hangin ;-)









Read more...