linux

Bob Sutor goes 100% Linux on the desktop; Mac surges; where’s Windows?

Nice to see Bob Sutor has made the complete switch to Linux for laptop use at work. I remember the day I wiped out my Windows partition on my laptop - it was memorable. I then went an entire year booting Windows in VMWare only about 3-5 times.

It’s great to see the transition starting to happen everywhere. Even if some of the transitions are to Mac, it’s greater choice.

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

The Register Open Season Podcast

This was another interesting podcast. I’m obviously a fan of Mr. Vance (has anyone ever called him “Mr.”?) - maybe I’m the first. I also need to meet Matt Asay at some point… have much to discuss.

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition is here

Ubuntu has officially released its MID Edition. There is a KVM image you can download to try it out. I haven’t seen any news on what devices or vendors will be bundling MID, but I’m sure Mark has some ideas for that.

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4429818312.html

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Ubuntu-fi is Finland’s Linux Contributor of 2008

Today, the Finnish Linux User Group[1] announced their yearly Linux Contributor Award. The Winner: Ubuntu Suomi! Translating from the press release (Finnish PDF).

The volunteer community has taken care of translations, arranged events around the country, promoted Linux and Free Software to legislators and, above all, provided user support through its web forum.

Source: the new topyli standard

Shameless Plug: IBM Next Generation Linux Event in NYC

If you’re in the NYC area, IBM is hosting a great “Next Generation Linux” event at the Hilton on Church St. It should be a great day of speakers discussing where Linux is heading, what makes Linux unique and “special”, and what workloads are great for running Linux. It’s a packed session from 9-12 (breakfast at 8 if you’re an early riser).

You can register here:

https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp017.nsf/agenda?openform&seminar=692H5MES&locale=en_US/

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” arrives tomorrow

Unless you’ve been without internet access for days, you should know by now that Ubuntu’s next release is due tomorrow and that is always an exciting time. So fire up your fastest mirror tomorrow and see how much bandwidth you can grab before a billion others do the same ;)

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Swiss Education System to migrate 9,000 desktops from Windows to Linux

Great news for Linux as a desktop platform as the Swiss Education System signs up 9,000 desktops for the move.

http://www.linuxwins.com/9000-swiss-education-computers-drop-windows-for-linux/

From the Google translated page, it appears these desktop were in dual boot setups and are now going to be straight Ubuntu Linux.

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Ongoing Ubuntu Backup with Tar, Cron, FTP and Now Gzip

In an ongoing effort to document my Ubuntu Linux backup strategies, I felt I should post my latest evolution in my daily cron script. I have modified the stock script I found and have documented in earlier posts to use compression via gzip. I also have modified the script to write the daily file into a subdirectory that is then uploaded to an Ubuntu FTP server via a crontab entry and a FTP macro in my .netrc file.

Source: BigMac Ubuntu Blog

Ubuntu 8.04’s “Install inside Windows” option

It’s been one of those things were I kept hearing “Ubuntu” and something about making it easy for “Windows” users but I never really thought it would be much more than some basic migration tool no one would ever use. However, I just read this article and now I get it. Ubuntu has made dual boot without disturbing your NTFS partition in Windows absolutely foolproof. I’m amazed at the simplicity. Now Ubuntu has a huge advantage over Apple… think Apple.. I know Mark doesn’t think the business model works, but being then “open” Apple is the way to go. Sleek desktop deals, Ubuntu-compliant peripherals, Adobe supported apps, Lotus Notes for enterprise users, Zimbra for SMBs…

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

NVIDIA Quadro Driver runs fastest on… Linux? What, not Windows??

It’s true, the NVIDIA graphics driver for Linux appears to best Windows and Solaris - and by a wide margin. I think the “Linux support” issue can be somewhat put to bed finally - except for ease of updating with kernel revs… now that is usually a pain still. I am somewhat amazed at how strongly Windows secured a last place finish… I wonder how much is due to the driver and how much to the OS…

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

NYLUG’s Jim Gleason Presents on KVM

It’s great to see Jim hitting the streets in his new gig at Qumranet. Hopefully my schedule will allow me to travel between IBM sites and make it out next Wed. Note that you will need to rsvp at the NYLUG site.

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
6:30pm-8:00 PM
IBM
590 Madison Ave, 12th Floor
corner of 57th Street
** RSVP Closes at 4:30pm the day of the meeting (sharp!) ***
Please RSVP for EVERY meeting at this time.
Register at http://rsvp.nylug.org/

PLEASE NOTE: This meeting is at IBM, not Google!

Jim  Gleason - on - The Next Wave of Virtualization

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Very cool: automatic screen rotation with ThinkPad X61 tablet

Very cool idea to use data from a hard drive accelerometer to drive automagic screen orientation on a tablet pc. Very cool.

http://www.krizka.net/2008/02/13/thinkpad-x61-tablet-automatic-screen-rotation-under-linux/ 

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Ubuntu goes with KVM as default virtualization choice

Awesome news from the Ubuntu team. I like this move and I hope this only adds to the growing community backing KVM and working on maturing the management of the technology in the developer community.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue76#head-ae07153a350b0c9e5da6b4c84d8fca9fa1d7ab7a 

We’ve chosen to settle on KVM as our main virtualization focus. KVM is a special version of QEMU which utilizes the new virtualization extensions that both Intel and AMD have added to their newest CPU models.

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

Top 50 proprietary applications and open source alternatives

A couple of these are dated (NVU…), but Jimmy Atkinson put together a great rosetta stone for those looking for open source alternatives to their proprietary desktop apps.

http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-proprietary-programs-that-drive-you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/

Source: Michael Dolan Dot Com - Ubuntu

3000+ Good Reasons to Dump Windows. Every day…

Everyone knows that there are lots of Viruses, Malware, Spybots and the like out there….

But now, according to the BBC these malicious programs have reached unprecedented levels.

Reports vary but some estimates suggest there were five times as many variants of malicious programs in circulation in 2007 compared to 2006.

Security company Panda Software said it was getting more than 3,000 novel samples of so called malware every day.

And it gets worse…

Source: The Open Sourcerer