Showing headlines posted by eracc

The concept of better is a subjective idea. What is better to me is possibly, even probably, not better to someone else. In my case, and in the case of some of my clients, Linux hardware support is “better”.

I am talking about human multitasking here, not operating system multitasking. Every time I have to work on repairing a Microsoft Windows based system for a client I feel as if I am restricted to typing with one finger while blindfolded.

First we had the KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.0 debacle. ... Many people were so upset about radical and broken changes to KDE during this period they left KDE swearing never to return.

A recent article at Fox News (Internet Explorer Users Are Dumber, Study Shows) points out that a study by AptiQuant shows users of the web browsers Camino, Chrome, Chrome Frame, Firefox, Opera and Safari scored higher on IQ testing than most users of versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

So I am reading this article about the big Apple malware fail and see this challenge in the comments: Hey, Linux luvvers: tell me how to install OpenType fonts so they're available to all apps and all users. Go ahead, I have pretty much the whole weekend…I am always up for a challenge.

Here we go again. Some fellow has gotten all whiny about being such a big Linux fan, "… hardcore Linux user …", but he just had to go back to Microsoft to get things done. Why? Because he is tired of having to tinker with Fedora Linux to make things work, or fail to work, with cutting edge hardware … and 64-bit Flash on 64-bit Linux is sucky … and Skype on Linux is sucky … and … and … and. It was all just so painful and time consuming he could not take it any longer and went back to the safe arms of Microsoft to escape the horror that is Linux. Good grief.

I have been watching the Mageia development since it was first announced. As soon as I saw that Mageia 1 had gone from a release candidate to a final release I started the Transmission torrent download of three of the ISO files to keep and used one of them (mageia-dvd-1-i586.iso) to check it out with VirtualBox. ...

If you are interested in a new laptop pre-loaded with Linux or shipped with a bare drive for self-install read on. About a month ago, April 22nd 2011, I quietly posted a "press release" about the laptop line we are using for Linux, FreeBSD and FreeDOS installations. Since we were just getting lined up for offering these laptops and had not actually installed anything on one yet, I did not want to post all over the world until we had a chance to vet one.

I am a Unix / Linux guy writing this article out of sheer frustration, so if one does not like pointed, accurate ranting about that Not A Unix OS to which one may be partial, stop here.

I have a FreeBSD file server sitting in my office that has happily been serving files for a few years now. But the server is built from a conglomeration of very old parts and some of them are now wearing out. I am in the process of building another PC from old parts to replace the existing server. ...

I must admit, I have been a tar + cron Unix guy for over 20 years and never really considered anything else necessary for backups on Unix, until now. ...

Be aware that this client has never had a Linux system in their office before now. I have mentioned Linux as a possible solution to upgrade some of their systems from Windows XP, and that is still on the table at this point.

Have I said lately that I love Linux? No? Okay then, "I love Linux!" I found yet another reason to promote Linux over other operating system software this week. Bad RAM chips. Some of you may now be thinking to yourselves, "What? Is this guy nuts?" I assure you I am completely sane. I will explain. ...

Late in 2010 one of our charitable organization clients, a local church, came to these decisions: 1) The aging XP Professional systems in their office needed to be replaced with new systems. 2) The existing XP Professional systems that were not so old needed to be upgraded to newer operating systems. 3) The existing SBS 2003 system needed to be upgraded to a new OS as well.

In this article I intend to show that a church, or other charity, can financially benefit from a switch to Linux on the desktop and in the server closet.

Here I am at around 12:30 AM local time running updates on a client's PC that was just reinstalled with Microsoft XP Media Center Edition 2005. This reinstall was done to clean up the registry and get rid of the "sluggishness" that had set in over the past 4 years of continual use. While the interminable Microsoft updates ran on that PC sitting next to my desk, I watched a movie on my personal business tower computer that is running Mandriva 2010.1 Linux. The same computer which was also downloading files in the background, periodically checking my e-mail and keeping several other software applications going simultaneously.

I find Linux to be an excellent general purpose computing platform for day to day personal and small business use. I like the fact that Linux does not cost me money. No, my time is not worthless, but I have wisely spent the time I needed learning how to install, configure and use Linux and the free, open source software that comes with it.

This is the first article of at least two articles about this project. The next article will follow once we are further into this project. A possible third article may follow at the end of this project.

I will say again, for the record, I am not a fan of bloated GUI desktops like KDE and GNOME. I am a GUI minimalist and use the fluxbox window manager for my “GUI desktop”. However, I do like some of the applications that are available for both KDE and GNOME. For a long time now I have been using Kmail and then Kontact with Kmail for my e-mail needs. With Kontact/Kmail I have saved a few thousand messages in Maildir format going back several years, have dozens of contacts both personal and professional, and over 200 filters to keep messages organized. I have been pleased with Kontact/Kmail … until now.

How do you do all this and still give yourself that time at home at night when you need to do those after hours management tasks? Enter Remote Wakeup, otherwise known as Wake on LAN.