But I’ll bet their videos aren’t as cool as Apple’s. IBM shows off 10 new Linux users. Claims Linux generated more than $1 billion in revenue for IBM in 2002 [InfoWorld: Top News]
Tag Archives | Linux
Post dated 2003-01-10 09:33:04
I’ve used Twiki web content management software several times for in-house knowledge bases, always running on Windows 2000 and IIS. Last night, I installed Apache 2.0 and Twiki onto a Linux workstation I’m learning to use. As I’m a Linux newbie, it took about two hours of flailing with the GUI and command-line commands to get it to 90% functionality. More hacking later this weekend should get it to come around. I hope to be able to publish this as a wireless wiki for a conference I’ll be attending in February.
Post dated 2003-01-08 10:51:47
Tina Gasperson’s review of Mandrake 9.0 is interesting for the lack of technical detail. Are we becoming so inured to the challenges of installation, or is it that changing distributions has become as easy as changing desktop backgrounds? It’s wonderful to see that many distributions (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake) are easy to install and use. But the breadth and richness of the desktop has to be matched with depth as well. In several cases, I’ve been greeted with the equivalent of “I’m sorry, I can’t do that, Dave” when trying to configure a NIC or Samba or users, and when the GUI tool stops, there isn’t a lot of help available. The Answers Are Out There, and I’m not hesitant to Google an error message or RTFM the HOWTOs and FAQs, but I like to think my resourcefulness is beyond that of the “average” user. We still have a way to go to integrate the ease of the GUI with the depths of control Linux offers.
Post dated 2003-01-05 12:25:52
TCO is one of those obscure buzzterms, “Total Cost of Ownership,” that everyone seems to use, everyone claims to understand. But I suspect, the term has falled into public and very loose usage, despite its several trademarks. A new study in ZDNet Tech Update suggests that, while Linux admins may cost a little bit more upfront, the long-term cost of supporting a large number of servers is cheaper with Linux than Windows or Solaris. Interesting reading.
Red Hat disks passed out at Great Lakes Great Database Workshop 2003
Friend and publisher Whil Hentzen runs the Great Lakes Great Database Workshop. I’ve had the privilege of speaking at the conference the past couple of years. This last November, at the closing session, he passed out 3 CDs of Red Hat 8.0 for everyone to learn from. Reaction has been pretty interesting, with a number of people finally getting around to trying out Linux now that someone finally shoved disks into their hands, and they didn’t have to shell out money or spend the time download ISO images and burning CDs.
Post dated 2002-12-29 00:00:00
Sunday, 29 December, 2002
Spent quite a bit of time with folks on Ed Leafe’s new ProLinux list trying to get Samba set up to serve a file share on my Linux workstation. After a few hours of tweaking, I managed to get the network card to refuse to start at all. Not exactly progress in the right direction.
On-again, off-again. Finally got an error message I could track down here, which lead me to conclude the “easy” way to configure my wireless card was not as reliable as the “hard” way. Of course, the hard way was, well, hard. I had to roll back to the previous kernel because the pre-made RPMs weren’t available for my latest kernel, and I didn’t have the source code installed, nor a clue on how to install it, on my current machine. So much to learn!
But the NIC is running again, and that was enough to get Samba up and running. Go figure!
Post dated 2002-12-21 00:00:00
Saturday, 21 December, 2002
Winter Solstice is a favorite day, even though it is the shortest day of the year.
Woke up at 1:30 this morning and knew I was gettting better. Couldn’t get back to sleep until after 3. No problem. I’m a happy guy.
Check out http://www.blogcritics.org. Interesting reviews, commentary and just general stuff. Wasted an hour browsing the site, enjoyed every minute.
The Central NH Linux user group maintains their site at http://www.centralug.org/.
Intertrust Technologies is giving Microsoft a hard time on their ownership of key Digital Restriction Management patents, according to this story. Think Microsoft will just buy them?
Post dated 2002-12-13 00:00:00
Friday, 13 December, 2002
Friday the 13th. No triskaidekaphobia here.
Interesting coverage of the trial of a young man in Oslo, Norway, accused of writing DeCSS, software that will allow “non-authorized hardware” (like Linux computers) to read and play back DVDs. The articles are in english, but the surrounding text and advertisments, in the native tongue, are almost as intriguing.
Tim O’Reilly makes some great points about piracy, copying and shoplifting of books vs. legitimate peer-to-peer sharing in this article.
Post dated 2002-12-10 00:00:00
Tuesday, 10 December, 2002
Tuesday is Trash Day. You thought I was kidding when I said the fun never ended, didn’t you?
Slashdot is carrying a story that Microsoft is going to start selling Linux software. Yikes. Yahoo! has the story here
Post dated 2002-12-08 00:00:00
Sunday, 08 December, 2002
Rebooted Partition Magic directly off the CD and changed the active partition to the Windows partition, rebooted and was up and running Windows.
The wireless card is not as easy. While I think I can use the generic Orinoco Prism II drivers, ifconfig threw an error on startup that “A278Kearsarge” was not a valid command. There’s an ampersand in the SSID just before that, and I think it’s causing the configuration file to choke. I’ll dig around and see if I can find a work-around.
Well, The Answers Are Out There. They are just so hard to find. Searching for the problem with the ampersand in the SSID was a red herring. Finally found this page with someone else’s experience with this card and this distribution, and it was all following instructions after that.
Besides for hobbiest hacking, I’ve got to do some household things on the weekend, or else I fall hopelessly behind. I had the pleasure of writing Chrismas cards yesterday, and I help re-arrange the living room to make room for a tree we hope to install next weekend. I also set up the outside lights on the one pine tree Steve and I decorated years ago.