alll about linux

• What makes a Linux distribution to be what it is?
• What does “Enterprise Linux” mean?
• How to choose “the best distribution” for you? What to consider?
• RHEL vs. SLES, openSUSE vs. Fedora Core…
• Why you should use 2 (two) main distros, not one, and not three!
• Special guest star: CentOS.

All this and much more, in a presentation by the Brazilian IBM consultant Avi Alkalay: The Best Linux Distribution.

The original page, also featuring the .SXI (ODF) presentation.

-via

My recommendation, as always - try and use what better suites your needs and requirements and which you find friendliet with your “attitude”

The “Linux vs Windows” debate generally revolves around the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) issue. Decision-makers rely heavily on their assessment of TCO—which includes hardware, software, installation, maintenance and business process costs—when making IT purchases. Fresh fuel has now been added to the debate of which software system to choose, following a Frost & Sullivan study which indicates that high-priced Windows has a lower TCO than the “free” Linux. The problem of course is that this is a Microsoft-commissioned study. As it happens, in an independent study earlier this year of over 200 Linux enterprises, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) argued the opposite. Sophisticated management tools, the research argued, allow Linux management to be fast, effective and inexpensive, with far lower acquisition costs.

It is important to understand the dynamics of different segments of the market. The fact is that Linux on the desktop (with a mere 5 per cent share) has never been a serious competitor to the Windows OS (operating system) that has a market share of over 80 per cent the world over and in India. But Linux is not without its successes: Life Insurance Corporation now has nearly 70,000 Linux desktops, which may reach the one lakh figure soon. Prominent banks like HDFC and Canara are toying with Linux desktops. Besides, every major hardware player is bundling Linux as the primary desktop OS to save costs (it’s another matter that the OS is replaced by users with a pirated Windows OS). If Linux is to build on these successes, it needs better hardware support, improved compatibility with Windows and Mac applications, support for Active X and multimedia applications, and more drivers for hardware (especially for laptops) like soundcards and printers. Besides, Linux installation is still not a breeze for the uninitiated.

It’s on the server side (read enterprises) that Linux is no underdog. UTI Bank’s call centre handles over 7,000 calls per day and uses Linux for its core business applications. Nearly 10,000 customers are online at any point of time on Indiabulls’ internet trading platform—which runs on Linux. Central Bank of India has installed Linux in nearly 3,000 branches. Even the governments of Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal are welcoming Tux (Linux’s official penguin mascot). This list is not exhaustive, and IDC has consistently reported Linux as the fastest growing OS in the world. The Unix market (dominated by Sun Microsystems) is also huge. And it’s this market that Linux is attacking more than Microsoft. The major companies are standing aggressively by Linux—IBM, HP, Oracle, Red Hat and Novell, for instance. Meanwhile, Peerstone Research indicates that Linux is expected to have 15 per cent of the ERP market by 2007; 55 per cent of all companies deployed Linux by the end of 2005, states AMR Research; there are over 1.2 million developers with Linux skills, reports Evans Data Corp; IBM has more than 7,000 services professionals working with Linux; and the Robert Francis Group (IBM-sponsored research) found security levels in Linux generally exceeded those in Windows. IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker (August 2006) states that Microsoft Windows servers continued to grow 4.6 per cent year over year. Linux servers now represent around 12 per cent of all server revenue and Unix servers experienced a 1.7 per cent decline in factory revenue year over year. Tux, it would seem, is marching on in style. -Business Standard

As you remember, in one of my previous posts I mentioned that Corel announced that is would be bundling Firefox with its new office suite dubbed Corel WordPerfect Office X3. Now they have announced that it’s next release of its flagship Corel WordPerfect Office suite will provide open, view and edit support for ODF – and for Office OpenXML (OOXML), the format submitted to Ecma for adoption, as well. The announcement states that the new functionality will be just a “first step towards a comprehensive set of functionality for both formats,” but does not specify what actions might follow, or when. The new release will reach the market in “mid 2007.

Corel is positioning itself as a neutral in the current format competition between Microsoft, on the one hand, and a band of disparate allies on the other that support ODF: Major vendors IBM and Sun, each with an ODF-compliant offering, various proprietary and open source office suite vendors that support ODF, Google (with its Writely-based on-line services), and a variety of other supporters most easily identified by viewing the membership list of the ODF Alliance.

Corel’s press release explains its new positioning as follows:

Supporting both ODF and OOXML places Corel in a unique format-neutral position, independent of Microsoft, Adobe and other vendors’ efforts to propagate their respective standards. This format-neutral approach allows Corel to focus directly on addressing the needs of customers, whose adoption choices will determine which formats will become most relevant. Corel is the only vendor to take such an approach.

Because it is free, truly open and certified as an ISO standard, many customers see ODF as the most promising format for the future of office productivity. Yet upon the debut of Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft OOXML will immediately experience broad dissemination. Corel’s unique format-neutral approach ideally positions WordPerfect Office to address demand for both formats, giving us the ability to serve customers in a way other vendors can’t.”

This announcement is good news for ODF.

-Source

Link to Google Map site

You have to get the other document’s content into a Writer document. Then insert that Writer document into the master document.

How you do that depends on the document type.

• With spreadsheets, you can do a Paste > Special that will link the spreadsheet to the Writer subdocument.
• With drawings, you can insert the drawing so that it too is linked, though editing is a little funky. (You might be better just exporting the drawing to a JPG or PNG and inserting that graphic in the Writer subdocument. There’s no link, but if your drawing doesn’t get updated that often, then that’s fine.)
• With presentations, there’s no link, but it is at least possible to paste in all the text into a Writer subdocument and reformat it by applying styles. The only real benefit here is that you can copy and paste the text content. It’s essentially nothing but hard work and elbow grease.

Bringing a spreadsheet into a Writer subdocument

Just copy and paste the spreadsheet into a Writer document. You need to make sure you’re pasting in roughly the right width of data, since spreadsheets are generally a lot wider than eight inches.

Pasting a spreadsheet
1. Create a new Writer document and import any styles you’re going to need. Press Return a few times to give yourself some room for headings later.

Note: You don’t need to create a new Writer document every time; if you want several spreadsheets to be consecutive or a spreadsheet followed by a relevant drawing, then just paste or insert your content into an existing Writer subdocument.

2. Select the number of columns that will fit into a standard width Writer document.

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Do you agree with the following list. Me not completely. I can start explaining why, but unfortunately I have some important work to be done and leave the comment section open for you guys to speak out. One OS I would definitely put in that list, and which is missing, is the SLED 10 (well, distribution technically), as I consider this OS upgrade a milestone in Linux family targeted towards enterprise (also great for home and mobility use) users. He also mentions LindowsOS on his list …. again completely disagree. Instead some BSD could have been better in that spot. Yes, XP was definitely great upgrade over crappy Windows 95/98/ME. And he mentions - “But what the heck: I think Robertson deserves credit for setting out to build a Linux for normal people, not geeks.” What geeks, Linux today can be used by anyone, it is that if you were using Windows for years, it will take time to understand the ins and outs of Linux, same what you did when you started using Windows or MacOS/OS X.

And WTHell he means by saying “normal people“?  If speaking technically again, the problem is that Windows is definitely made for so called “normal people”, while Linux with it’s philosophy of openness is simply “made for people” …

Want another nudge, Linux has far better support for disabled people, people with medical problems, than Windows does … am I right with this statement?

Well then, here is the list compiled by PCWorld. >>>>>>

Linus thought that he would catch us by releasing 2.6.19 late on Wednesday, but we’re running behind schedule and were ready for him. Says Linus: “It’s one of those rare ‘perfect’ kernels. So if it doesn’t happen to compile with your config (or it does compile, but then does unspeakable acts of perversion with your pet dachshund), you can rest easy knowing that it’s all your own d*mn fault, and you should just fix your evil ways.” For those just tuning in, major user-visible changes in 2.6.19 include the parallel ATA driver subsystem, the GFS2 and ext4 filesystems, a long list of new drivers, eCryptfs, and more. See the LWN kernel API page for a list of internal API changes, and the KernelNewbies 2.6.19 page for vast amounts of detail. -lwn.net

Some more info here >>>>>>

A really cool, rather must have, app that I found a review on, on one of the blogs here at wordpress.com known as Linux FUD. I am definitely going to install it here @work on my SUSE 10.1 Gnome system.

I found this great utility for Gnome that I just can’t keep as a secret! It is called the Desktop Data Manager and includes “a clipboard history for many different types of content” like text and images that sits in your notification area (system tray), and an application to take screenshots of a single window, a region of the screen, or the whole desktop. Being able to select the region of the screen is VERY important to me and it’s a huge time-saver.

The clipboard application is like Klipper, but for Gnome. Wickedly sweet!

Wow! This is the best Linux gem I’ve found in a while!

Blog Post

I was able to install the .rpm package supplied by developer on SUSE 10.1, but not able to run, getting some GLib-GObject *** and Gdk-CRITICAL ** errors. Someone knows how to resolve this?

The Free Software Foundation’s founder Richard Stallman has confirmed that the recent patent covenant between Novell Inc and Microsoft Corp is not a violation of the current version two of the GNU GPL, but will be outlawed under version three.

“What has happened is, Microsoft has not given Novell a patent license, and thus, section 7 of GPL version 2 does not come into play,” Stallman told the GPLv3 Conference in Japan, according to a transcript of his speech produced by the Free Software Foundation Europe.

Stallman’s comments put to rest the suggestion that Microsoft’s promise not to sue Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell’s customers means that Novell has violated the GNU General Public License.

Section 7 of that license states that an agreement that requires royalty payments for the right to distribute GPL software cannot be distributed under the GPL, however both Microsoft and Novell had already denied that is the case, as their agreement is a covenant not to sue, rather than a license.

The FSF’s general counsel, Eben Moglen, has performed his own analysis of the deal. While the results of that are yet to be published, Moglen has indicated that changes will be made to the forthcoming GPL v3 to ensure that the Novell/Microsoft deal could not be repeated. -

Stallman confirmed the plan. “It turns out that perhaps it’s a good thing that Microsoft did this now, because we discovered that the text we had written for GPL version 3 would not have blocked this, but it’s not too late and we’re going to make sure that when GPL version 3 really comes out it will block such deals,” he said.

There is this game, known as Second Life, your second life in virtual world, which actually works nicely on my Linux box. I even transfered $72 to get premium account for this game around a month ago after playing with basic account for few hours. The problem is that after transferring the funds I barely had time to even play it. One thing I would like to see is much better graphics in the game as well as better UI. Think one day I will start … just lil too busy as of now. Do anyone one of you play it?

Here is an article on this game from LinuxJournal:

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last six months, you will have noticed that the virtual world Second Life is much in the news. According to its home page, there are currently around 1,700,000 residents, who are spending $600,000 – that’s real, not virtual, money – in the world each day. These figures are a little deceptive – there are typically only 10,000 to 15,000 residents online at any one time, and the money flow is not a rigorous measurement of economic activity – but there is no doubt that Second Life is growing very rapidly; moreover, we are beginning to see it enter the mainstream in a way that has close parallels with the arrival of the Web ten years ago.

Companies are beginning to set up shop in Second Life, including big names like Adidas, American Apparel, Dell, Nissan, Penguin Books, Reebok, Sun Microsystems, Toyota, Reuters and Wired. Often they choose to create their virtual buildings on self-contained islands, which are essentially three-dimensional analogues of the early corporate Web sites: that is, vaguely pretty to look at, but not very functional.

Article

Maybe we can create an Open Source World spot, something like cafe, a hang out place there and ask distro, project developers to meet there …. and someone will host a blog on this.