Tag Archives | Linux

Why NOT to Upgrade Your Linux System

By Ted Roche on December 19, 2004 in Home Page

Why NOT to Upgrade Your Linux System. Nathan Willis writes, over on NewsForge, “I’m not upgrading my Fedora Core 2 machine to Core 3, even though the new version has been out for a couple of months. There’s not anything wrong with FC3 itself, it’s just that system upgrades are both a blessing and a curse.” Link via OSNews

True of every operating system out there, machines tend to build up cruft over a period of time, and a clean wipe-and-reinstall are called for. However, the incremental difference between FC2 and FC3 can be addressed by careful upgrades of only those applications you need, rather than a haphazard upgrade from one distribution to another, I think

New study predicts growth of Linux market

By Ted Roche on December 15, 2004 in Home Page

Linux Looms Larger Than Thought. “The overall Linux market is far larger than previous estimates show, a new study says. In an analysis of the Linux market released late Tuesday, market research firm IDC estimated that the Linux market — including servers, PCs and packaged software — is expected to register a 26% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over five years, reaching a whopping $35.7 billion by 2008.” Source: OSNews

Copying lots of stuff from there to here

By Ted Roche on December 12, 2004 in Home Page

On a weekly basis, I back up a bunch of stuff from the file server by burning CDs on one of the local workstations. Some of the stuff doesn’t change a lot. Copying gigabytes, even over a high-speed network, takes time. Since I’m copying files from a Linux server, I found a quick solution that works regardless of the destination: Linux, Mac or Windows. The Mac is busy making its own backups Sunday morning, so I thought I’d find a way to do it on Windows. Using CygWin, the UNIX simulator and bash shell, I could use the rsync command to copy only the files that had changed, reducing a long copy to a few minutes.

rsync -vr tedroche@the.server.ip.address:/the/source/directory /cygdrive/c/destination

With ‘v’ for verbose and ‘r’ for recursive, copying all the subdirectories. Piece of cake. Doesn’t interoperability rock? Working well with others is A Good Thing.

One of these things is not like the other…

By Ted Roche on December 5, 2004 in Home Page

Paul McNett’s Weblog asks “Which Of These Articles Is Doing It’s Own Thing?
Can you pick out the article that just doesn’t seem to fit?
Here’s the link to the eWeek page:
http://www.eweek.com/category2/0,1738,1252525,00.asp?kc=ewnws120204dtx1k0000599“

Linux Servers: Over $1 Billion Sold, last quarter

By Ted Roche on November 30, 2004 in Home Page

InfoWorld reports “Linux server sales top $1 billion in Q3.” Pretty impressive for a free operating system! The article is filled with statistics, many of which are interesting. Linux appears to be shipping on nine percent of new servers sold.

Microsoft v. Linux patent update

By Ted Roche on November 23, 2004 in Home Page

Meant to update last week’s posting, but it slipped through. In eWeek on Saturday, the author of the original study on Linux and possible patent violations took Microsoft to task for misrepresenting the findings of that study:

“Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software. The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does.”

NoSoftwarePatents.com

By Ted Roche on November 23, 2004 in Home Page

Oppose EU Software Patents The web site of NoSoftwarePatents.com presents strong arguments why patents will badly damage the software industry. Copyrights are an appropriate mechanism to protect source code. Patents are for unique inventions, not the evolutionary progress that characterizes the progress of software.

Slashdot highlights the appeal from three of the key leaders of the Free and Open Software movement: Linus Torvalds of Linux, Monty Widenius of MySQL and Rasmus Lerdorf of PHP. Patents prevent progress.

Throwing down the gauntlet

By Ted Roche on November 18, 2004 in Home Page

Did Ballmer Drop the Linux Patent-Violation Bomb?. “Did Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer say that Microsoft believes Linux violates 200-plus software patents? Or was Ballmer simply citing a study claiming that same fact? In either case, Ballmer found himself on the Linux hot seat for remarks he made to a group of Asian government leaders in Singapore on Thursday.” From Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley

The irony is that Microsoft is likely to violate just as many patents, if not orders of magnitude more, but that’s a lot tougher to determine with closed-source software.

Microsoft claims they will indemnify their customers, but the limitations of that indemnification make it look pretty flimsy to me. Big tip of the hat to http://www.groklaw.net for the insight into this one and many other legal issues.

First, Microsoft dissed Linux as amateurish. Then, Linux was “viral” and “un-American.” Next, Microsoft twists studies to “get the facts.” Now, they have resorted to threatening their customers. I find this trend disturbing. What’s next?

Novell "Truth" vs. Microsoft "Facts"

By Ted Roche on November 18, 2004 in Home Page

Novell has posted a web page “Unbending the Truth: Things Microsoft Hopes You Won’t Notice” to counter Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” campaign, which I’ve ridiculed before. Microsoft’s campaign includes paid research that uncovers such startling facts as “five Dell servers cost less than a mainframe” to argue for Microsoft’s advantage in the Windows vs. Linux debate.

Microsoft EULAs and Benchmarks

By Ted Roche on October 30, 2004 in Home Page

Get the Facts on Microsoft Benchmarks. “Now that Steve Ballmer and company have given you all the facts you need to compare Windows and Linux, allow me to add just one little tidbit.” Posted at Ed Foster’s Gripelog

Older posts Newer posts

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Navigation