This job (I won't say where, not important) uses a mix of operating systems and other hardware. Thank goodness my supervisor is a fan of linux and likes to push for it when he can.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
No new reviews
So that's it PCMag? Give up on linux?
in reference to: Linux - Reviews and Price Comparisons from PC Magazine (view on Google Sidewiki)Best Free of 2009?
You're kidding right? Three linux distros and you're done? So you just put them here to say "see we covered linux". Even for Ubuntu you didn't even have anything from 2009 and the link is for a review of 8.04?
in reference to: The Best Free Software of 2009 - Operating Systems - Features by PC Magazine (view on Google Sidewiki)Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sidewiki
I'm going to try Sidewiki on my home system as well
in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)Monday, October 27, 2008
Teasing PC users
You know, I just love the fact that my wife had to run a defrag on her PC running Windows XP Home and it still didn't complete defrag the drive. Why is that? I have never had to or intend to defrag a linux install. There is no need because the filesystem is just that well created. It is by default a much more security OS as well.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Fat, fatter, fattest
This is an excellent article on the mentality of Microsoft. As hardware gets faster and better, Windows/Office has gobbled up every bit of it and keeps asking for more. If the stories of Windows 7 are true ( and I hope they are ) it might be enough to turn things around. In the meantime Linux and MacOSX have continued to optimize, improve and fill the holes. If the programmers and users of Linux can get together and create an interface that is both easy to use and advanced with automated features; combining the light resource load of XFC, advanced features of GNOME and easy to use interface of KDE; that would be the knockout punch.
Judging by this article the tipping point was Office XP with Windows XP SP1, after that the scales really started tipping down. Adding more code for security to patch holes that should not have existed to begin with. More code added to Office, bigger memory requirements. When Vista was released the hardware requirements were drastically increased by 25% more that previous versions. Seven years is a long time to update an OS. Windows is incredibly bloated. In seven years KDE has updated itself to KDE3 and release five major update, GNOME has pushed itself up to 2.18 and the kernel itself has put out a major update 2.6 and release 20 updates. Mandriva has gone from Mandrake 10 to Mandriva 2008.1 with 7 updates inbetween. Even Debian with it's long dev/testing cycle has managed to release two versions, Sarge and Etch.
What Microsoft added to Vista? DRM, Aero, security, search? Not all that much when you look at it seriously. Apple has consistently evolved their OS. OSX 10 through 10.4; four major updates, increased security, better features; all without increasing the load on the computer itself. I can't say much about it since I don't use a Mac. Linux is releasing new/update version on a more or less six month release schedule. New features added since 2001: udev, compiz, journalling file systems, virtualization, easy to use package management, security features; innovation is coming from the opensource community at an ever increasing pace. Looking at distros from 2001 and today are like night and day.
Judging by this article the tipping point was Office XP with Windows XP SP1, after that the scales really started tipping down. Adding more code for security to patch holes that should not have existed to begin with. More code added to Office, bigger memory requirements. When Vista was released the hardware requirements were drastically increased by 25% more that previous versions. Seven years is a long time to update an OS. Windows is incredibly bloated. In seven years KDE has updated itself to KDE3 and release five major update, GNOME has pushed itself up to 2.18 and the kernel itself has put out a major update 2.6 and release 20 updates. Mandriva has gone from Mandrake 10 to Mandriva 2008.1 with 7 updates inbetween. Even Debian with it's long dev/testing cycle has managed to release two versions, Sarge and Etch.
What Microsoft added to Vista? DRM, Aero, security, search? Not all that much when you look at it seriously. Apple has consistently evolved their OS. OSX 10 through 10.4; four major updates, increased security, better features; all without increasing the load on the computer itself. I can't say much about it since I don't use a Mac. Linux is releasing new/update version on a more or less six month release schedule. New features added since 2001: udev, compiz, journalling file systems, virtualization, easy to use package management, security features; innovation is coming from the opensource community at an ever increasing pace. Looking at distros from 2001 and today are like night and day.
"Sulphur" smells sweet
I recently upgraded to the latest Fedora, "Sulphur". This version/distro of linux really shines. It's worth the download to get the "Everything" edition which is three DVDs. This way you can create a local repository that has everything you could need that isn't bolted down by liscences. The list of features include the latest KDE 4.0.3 and Gnome 2.22 desktops. Improvements have been made to a host of other features including a surprising newcomer the system-config-dhcp. A GUI tool for configuring the dhcp server. Openoffice upgraded to version 2.4, the latest XServer 1.5 beta and Firefox 3 beta 5. This is as cutting edge as you can find. Some might say too close to the edge, I say if the graphic card vendors would provide open-source drivers we wouldn't have a problem. Another welcome sight is the inclusion on Ruby-on-Rails in the package rubygems-rails. Some of the other inclusions include drupal, turbogears, eclipse, gcc 4.3.
As long as Fedora keeps going in this direction I will keep using it.
As long as Fedora keeps going in this direction I will keep using it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)