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.

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 ;)

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.

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…

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…

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…

Saw a few articles today on IBM’s OCCS announcement with Ubuntu.

ComputerWorld

Satyadas said IBM thinks that this year, it will happen. “All the stars are lining up,” he said. “Everybody has been saying that since 2001 except IBM. We never said that, but we are saying that now.”

Matt Asay’s Cnet Blog

I've been using Ubuntu on some of my home machines since around July of this year. First, I loaded Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora 7 on an old Dell 4300 just to see which distro I liked better. As it turned out, Ubuntu was the more comprehensive, easier to use OS. I have MSDN licenses for operating systems, so license fees weren't my only reason for adding Linux to my systems, my job has recently pulled me into the Java world, and in that world, there's lots of Linux and UNIX systems. To keep my edge at work, I had to start playing with the technology.

You have to wonder when Malcolm would agree looking back 10 years from now, Linux hit the “Tipping Point”… when I see ordinary Windows users switching (and liking it), I can’t help but think, it might be tipping right now…

Well the Linux desktop is certainly here and I can prove it because as of today I’m officially an Ubuntu user and even though things aren’t perfect, I feel like I’ve finally escaped from jail.

See my prior post on KVM if you want to get started with KVM setup. Assuming you have KVM working on your system, it takes just 3 easy steps to get started using Windows Server 2008 on Linux in KVM. Before starting, you must have a copy of Windows Server 2008 of course. If you don’t have one handy, you can download and burn an eval DVD ISO from here.

Once you have your DVD ready, just execute the following in a terminal:

My own move from Windows XP to GNU/Linux was quite experimental and somewhat complicated, as I was using a dual-boot system for a while, and as such I don’t have a great recollection of everything I’ve done throughout the switch.

But now I’m in the process of moving my mother (amongst other friends and family members) over to GNU/Linux, so I’ll attempt a more thorough recounting of the process here.

(NOTE: This guide is intended for users who are somewhat independent as I may skim over some obvious detail in order to keep this relatively concise. I hope to piece together a decent comprehensive overview of a variety of things, but if you’re looking for thorough instructions you may want to supplement this with other guides.)

Last week, I decided to install VMware to run Linux (Ubuntu) and Vista on the computer at work. The process was quite simple, installed VMWARE Workstation, configure the Virtual Machines that I want to create, load it up and start installing. After everything installed, I put the VM images on to my USB harddisk and [...]

Today/Yesterday I posted a link to the RLUG Ubuntu Help Blog Titled exactly as this post, it is seriously "The definitive dual-booting guide". Dual booting is not really a fun thing to do, and I think this will make it really not too hard.

here is that link btw http://rlugubuntuhelp.blogspot.com/2007/09/definitive-dual-booting-guide-linux.html

Ok for you people who absolutely must dual boot Windows and Linux here is what I'm thinking is the best how to on running any combination of Windows XP, Vista, and Linux

http://apcmag.com/node/5162/Original Works and Posts by Richmond, IN Linux Users Group (RLUG) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Ubuntu Logo, Ubuntu and Canonical © Canonical Ltd.

This example will involve moving a profile from Windows XP to Ubuntu 7.04, but the basic idea can be used to move profiles around in many other scenarios.

Step 1: Find Your Files

In Windows XP, look in:
Firefox: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Thunderbird: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles

You should find a sufficiently cryptic folder (e.g. “b455b37.default”). You can check inside to see if it has the data you want (ie. bookmarks.html for Firefox, a Mail subfolder for Thunderbird, etc.). That’s your profile folder, the one you’ll need to copy in step two.