Category: Free operating systems
November 22nd, 2009
A Chrome OS Video Tour
Fresh off the Interwebs, here’s a Tech Broiler video tour of the latest build of Chrome OS.
Also See: Chrome OS, Some Early Preview Videos
Have you tested the latest Chromium OS developer code yet? Talk Back and Let Me Know.
October 20th, 2009
EvriChart: A Linux Success Story
Tony Maro, CIO of EvriChart, a hospital records management and archiving business, successfully migrated his company’s Windows-based line of business document management extranet application and his employees’ 40-odd Windows-based desktops to a 100 percent Linux-based server and desktop infrastructure.
Jason Perlow interviews Tony Maro, CIO of EvriChart, Inc.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Tony Maro, who is CIO and an owning partner in EvriChart, a medical records management company based out of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
EvriChart had some unique requirements which included replacing a Windows-based line-of-business application for document management that would not scale with the continuing growth of their business. By migrating to a Linux/Open Source-based Web application, it paved the way for full desktop Linux adoption at his company. I asked Tony to summarize his experience so that I could share it with you in the hopes that you might gain some valuable insight from the process he had to go through.
Next –>
October 11th, 2009
Who is a Candidate for Desktop Linux?
I personally do not fall into the group of people that can easily migrate away from Windows, but that doesn’t mean you or someone you know can’t make the switch.
As I said in earlier post last month, the work that I do in my professional life requires that I still need to use Windows and various Microsoft and 3rd-party Win32 applications, even though I also use Linux. I also use various applications in my personal life that have no true functional Windows equivalents, so I have both Windows and Linux computers at home.
However, my situation is somewhat out of the ordinary. I don’t expect that most regular end-users have or need more than one personal computer at home or at work. Additionally, as an Information Technology professional and as a writer who covers the industry that I work in, I choose to use multiple systems with different operating systems at home for educational purposes and also because I have a genuine curiosity about what is out there in both the Open Source and Microsoft-centric worlds. That’s not necessarily a realistic usage scenario for everyone.
There are certainly ideal groups of people who are capable of moving towards a 100 percent Open Source or Linux environment in both their professional and personal lives. I’m not really interested in discussing the political and ideological aspects or why someone would want to make that choice. That path been re-hashed over and over again and supplies far too much fodder for flame bait. Please take that into consideration when you submit a Talkback on this piece.
The greater and more important question is, who CAN switch to Linux? It should be noted that when I refer to groups of people here, I am for the most part excluding Information Technology professionals, Techies, digital content creation professionals, UNIX/Linux sysadmins and scientific academia who have much more sophisticated or specialized needs and may even be using Linux, the Mac and Windows and or a combination of these already.
As to WHICH Linux distribution any of these target users should be looking at, I am going to treat all of them equally and say that every single one of them will meet the basic usage requirements for the set of folks detailed below. For more information on Linux distributions, check out my Surviving the Recession with Free Linux Distributions roundup.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more
October 9th, 2009
Frugal Friday: The Software of Stallman, Psystar/Apple, Parallels
Frugal Networker Ken Hess and I discuss Ken’s interview with Richard Stallman, Psystar’s newly announced OEM Licensing program for Mac Cloning, the greater implications of hardware and software vendor tie-in, and talk with Jamison Moore of Parallels, the virtualization company.
Click Here to listen to the October 9, 2009 Frugal Friday Podcast.
Disclaimer: The postings and opinions expressed in this podcast are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
October 8th, 2009
On the future of Open Source thought leadership
After over a decade of being in the shadow of the Free Software movement and 30 years of its inflexible dogmatic principles, disruptive new Open Source thought leadership is emerging that is truly able to compromise with the realistic needs of business and end-users without carrying the baggage of strict adherence to an ideology that is by definition a culture of exclusion. (artwork by Spidermonkey, Inc.)
My last article on Richard M. Stallman’s verbal attack on Miguel de Icaza and his continuing crusade against anyone who doesn’t fit the mold of the Free Software community seems to have struck a chord with those who sympathize with that movement’s ideals to the point of driving them to utter histrionics, unjustified hero worship and irrational thought.
Since then, there have been further dust-ups. Stallman, rather than clarify or deny his “traitor” statement that some have posited was simply hearsay, has published a paranoid rant on the supposed machinations of the new CodePlex Foundation without giving the organization the benefit of proving itself, and has added further gasoline to the flames by calling De Icaza a “Apologist”, in reference to his cooperation with Microsoft in joining the CodePlex Foundation and his embracing of Microsoft-originated technologies through the creation of the .NET-compatible, GPL-Licensed Open Source development framework, Mono.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
October 4th, 2009
openSUSE 11.2 M8: What a Fine Lookin' Lizard
Ubuntu’s Karmic Koala isn’t the only hot Linux beta floating around. On October 1, the openSUSE project released Milestone 8 of openSUSE 11.2, which is slated for general release in November, just in time for the holiday season. Milestone 8 will precede two release candidates to be also released in October, but contains the final aesthetic and branding bits for the final version.
Tech Broiler openSUSE 11.2 M8 Video Tour
The openSUSE 11.2 installer, which is essentially the same polished installer from the previous version and needed very little improvement, now installs the KDE 4.3 UI as the default user choice, although GNOME 2.28 can also be selected.
In my last reviews of openSUSE 11.1 and openSUSE 11, I had a number of stability issues with KDE 4.0 and 4.2 which led me to stick with the GNOME interface. However, there had been numerous reports on various mailing lists and community discussion forums that KDE 4.3 is now the fully “baked” version of 4.x, so I wanted to give KDE 4 a go again. I’m glad I did.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
October 1st, 2009
Karmic Koala: That's One Seriously Fast Marsupial
Even though Ubuntu’s servers were absolutely hammered today, I was able to download and test out the latest 9.10 Karmic Koala beta.
Tech Broiler Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 Beta Tour from Jason Perlow
While I would consider Karmic Koala to be an evolutionary improvement rather than a revolutionary one over Jaunty Jackalope and Intrepid Ibex where functionality is concerned, I can certainly see where a great deal of the development time went, and that is raw performance.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more
September 25th, 2009
Frugal Friday: Twitter, Social Networking, Open Source and Women, RMS vs. MDI, Oracle, CentOS
Frugal Networker Ken Hess and I discuss the recent $100M VC investment in Twitter, the perils of Social Networking, the lack of sensitivity towards women in the Linux and Open Source community, Richard M. Stallman vs. Miguel de Icaza, Larry Ellison and his plans for the new Oracle and talk with Karanbir Singh, Project Lead for CentOS, the RHEL-compatible Community Enterprise Operating System Linux distribution.
Click to Listen to the September 25, 2009 Frugal Friday Podcast.
September 22nd, 2009
Watch Out for That Meteor, Stallman.
Richard M. Stallman (RMS) the founder of the Free Software Foundation, has labeled prominent Open Source software developer Miguel De Icaza a “Traitor” for joining the Board of Directors of Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation as well as for his creation of the Microsoft .NET-compatible Mono software development framework. While RMS’s hatred of all things proprietary has fueled the FSF’s and GNU’s mission to create Free software alternatives for what seems like eons, the overwhelming desire for interoperability between open and proprietary systems makes this narrow-minded Cretaceous world view ripe for extinction. (Artwork by Spidermonkey)
As I have said in previous columns, I live as a citizen of two distinct worlds with diametrically opposing software development ideologies — the world of Microsoft, Windows and 3rd-party vendor developed proprietary software and systems, and that of Open Source and Free Software.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
September 20th, 2009
Why I Can Never Be Exclusive to Linux and Open Source on the Desktop
My profession as a Systems Architect requires that I live in both the Windows and Linux worlds. But even if I wanted to run Linux exclusively, the file compatibility of the current productivity stack for Linux and the lack of a few key applications that I need for work requires at least a minimal virtualized Windows environment for me to get my work done.
As some of you may I know, I have been a proponent of the Linux operating system and Open Source for quite some time. I’ve been using Linux on a day to day basis in various different incarnations on both the server and client side since 1997 or so, and I served as Sr. Technology Editor of Linux Magazine from 1999 to 2008 where I wrote a column about using Linux as a desktop OS. However, in all that time, I have never been able to use Linux as my exclusive operating environment, due to practical limitations that have kept me from doing so, and I don’t expect the situation to change anytime soon.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
Jason Perlow is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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