Free Republic

I have decided that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles on our anniversary, May 16. I know a lot of you will be unhappy to hear it, so let me briefly explain, because my decision is made and it's firm. In a simple sentence, the reason is this: the crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won. SCO as we knew it is no more. There will be other battles, and there already are, because the same people that propped SCO up are still going to try to destroy Linux, but the battlefield has shifted, and I don't...

For many small business users, all the rational arguments for using open source software like Linux make a great deal of sense: It's free, customizable, compatible, and it's free of vendor lock-in, to name just a few. When it comes down to the wire at purchase time, however, many fall prey to one or more of the frequently perpetuated myths out there, and vague fears of incompatibility or a lack of support or something else drive them right back into Redmond's waiting arms. One way to make the notion of a Linux-based computer less worrisome for such users is to...

Why are you using Linux on your desktop? Before answering this question, consider the advantages and disadvantages and then come back full circle to your own motivation for using Linux. Nearly every week, I find my news feeds filled with the usual generic articles describing rather vanilla reasons for using Linux on the desktop. Why do I have a problem with this? Perhaps because the reasons often being shared are just echoes of other opinions that clearly aren't that of the author. Instead, we are reading the thoughts and ideas of many articles since past. Great platform for the wrong...

One of the best features of the open source Linux operating system is that there are so many distributions to choose from. Ubuntu gets by far the lion's share of the media's attention, it's true--largely by virtue of its top ranking at the top of DistroWatch's popularity list--but there are hundreds of other options out there as well, many tailored to particular kinds of users and situations. I've already looked briefly at several of the Ubuntu derivatives that are available and more specifically at Linux Mint, which is currently third in popularity. Today, however, I'd like to make a pitch...

I took a few days off from writing any articles, partly to try to make a serious dent in transcribing the Comes v. Microsoft exhibits. We're in the home stretch, and a quiet weekend, marking on a curve, is perfect. I know there's lots going on, other than work. I also needed to take some time to think about the recent discovery about Novell taking money from Microsoft and contractually agreeing to show up at Open XML standards meetings and events. Should Groklaw stop helping people like that, I asked? Is it time to shut Groklaw down? If not, is...

VANITY

Yesterday I had a request from a client for a network diagram for a system I’m designing, and normally I create such drawings as a PNG file. But this client said “no, I need it in Visio, or similar style so we can edit it”. I have avoided Microsoft Visio in the past, mainly because of its price tag: $249.99 for the basic version, and a whopping $999.99 for the premium version!**********************************snip********************************************* So I want to share “Dia”, short for “Diagram”. Its detailed, open source, and most importantly, free. It also has a community springing up that is adding shape...

I'm working at a company where our email is handled by Google Apps the usual way. Where we open browsers to http://mail.OURDOMAIN.com and then we type in usernames (tied to our domain) and passwords. My non-technical supervisor came to me and asked me why he can no longer log into the account with the username of "sysadmin", which has important info we need. After confirming that the username and password did not fail as a result of a typing error, I then sent email from INSIDE our domain to the administrator account at sysadmin@OURDOMAIN.com. I got the first "hard bounce"...

We recently gave you a brief history of viruses on the Mac and as requested by a user we wanted to give you a history of viruses on Linux. Given the tight security integrated into Linux, it is difficult to take advantage of a vulnerability on the computer, but some programmers have found ways around the security measures. There are several free options for anti-virus on Linux that you really should use, even if it isn't always running - a weekly or monthly scan doesn't hurt. Free anti-virus solutions include: ClamAV, AVG, Avast and F-Prot. 1996: The cracker group VLAD...

I'm about to start learning Fedora Linux and I'd like to build up an older Dell Dimension I have into a box to play on. I was able to get an old copy of Red Hat to load and boot but it's useless because I can't figure out how to get it on my wireless network and besides, I never could figure out anything useful to do with it. I tried PCLinux and Ubuntu but could never get either to boot. I've been told I can boot Linux from a thumb drive and this might be an interesting option so...

Best of Linux So far, in my look at Linux compared to Mac and Windows, I've covered music players, photo organizers, and video editors. But all those apps – and all the documents they create – are lost if your hard drive crashes, your laptop takes a spill, or some other catastrophe strikes. If you have documents, you must have a backup solution - Mac users at least have the option of Time Machine and Windows offers Live Drive. In this final installment of my look at the Linux desktop, I'll assess how Linux stacks up against backup solutions for...

How many times have you heard this statement: "It's the year of the Linux desktop." Not recently? Then how about "Linux is making gains on the Windows desktop"? Still leaving a bad taste in your mouth? Bet I know why. For years, both the statements above have been over-used to the point that either idea is now completely meaningless. Not due to anything negative with the Linux desktop, mind you, rather due to inherent differences in how Linux is marketed to the world, who its intended audience is and whether mainstream adoption even matters in the first place. Let's blame...

Average people, the kind you see walking down the street, buying milk at the grocery store and frequenting Walmart, Kmart and other similar retail chains are a very fickle bunch. They are also very demanding. Not one of them would accept damaged goods willingly. If they buy a television and it doesn't work they take it back. If they buy an item of clothing and it is damaged in some manner it is sent back post haste. If they buy a piece of meat and two hours later it is green, that piece of meat is forcefully returned to the...

Open...and Shut For years Microsoft has raged — and whined — against the open source machine, once going so far as to castigate open source as being "un-American". Something must be wrong with a development model, as Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Jim Gray once lamented, that evaporates the possibility of profit in software sales. And yet open source has marched on, eventually claiming mainstream acceptance as it helped highly capitalistic companies such as Google create hugely profitable businesses. While these companies thrive, however, Microsoft remains cautious, as evidenced in its product strategy and in its hiring patterns. As Microsoft has watched...

COMMENTYou may think your day job is demanding, but it's often nothing compared with providing tech support for the family. That's where Linux comes in, says Jack Wallen.The problem with working in IT is that when we go home, our job often continues. Sometimes, keeping our children's computers running can be a bigger challenge than sorting out the adults at work.But if you install Linux at home, you can avoid the headaches. That's because sound reasons exist for migrating young users from other operating systems.1. Viruses and malwareMalware is always at the top of my list. Youngsters are prone to...

A flaw in the implementation of the Reliable Datagram Sockets protocol (RDS) in the Linux kernel can be exploited to gain root (also known as superuser) rights or permissions on a victim's system. Attackers can exploit the hole to get complete control remotely once they have broken into the system. Dan Rosenberg, who discovered the vulnerability, has published an exploit for demonstration purposes; in a test conducted by The H's associates at heise Security on Ubuntu 10.04 (64-bit), it opened a root shell. Kernel versions 2.6.30 to 2.6.36-rc8 are said to be affected. Linux developers have already provided a patch, in...

Big business loves Linux for servers and they seem to like it more than you might expect for the desktop. That said, enterprises still have some concerns about Linux. Here's the top five as picked by people who responded to The Linux Foundation's recent corporate and government end-user survey: "Linux Adoption Trends: A Survey of Enterprise End Users." Before diving into these problems, I'd like to point out something. These are the opinions of business people who, for the most part, are already Linux users. Questions like, whether KDE or GNOME is the better desktop interface or just how cool...

The world is awash in data. This fact is putting more and more pressure on file systems to efficiently scale to handle increasingly large amounts of data. Recently, Ric Wheeler from Redhat experimented with putting 1 Billion files in a single file system to understand what problems/issues the Linux community might face in the future. Let’s see what happened… Awash in a sea of dataNo one is going to argue that the amount of data we generate and want to keep is growing at an unprecedented rate. In a 2008 article blogger Dave Raffo highlighted some statistics from an IDC...

App turns iPad into client for multitasking, Flash by Brooke Crothers A longtime Silicon Valley company says it can turn Apple's iPad into an X terminal, allowing it to run Linux, do true multitasking, and even run Flash-based apps. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based StarNet Communications announced this week that it can transform the iPad into a an X terminal--generically referred to as a dumb terminal because the data processing is done on the server not the client--for Linux, Unix, mainframe, and supercomputers. (See "Update" below for notes about the iPad's keyboard and initial browsing impressions.) StarNet says it can enable the iPad...

Microsoft has been talking smack to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) of late, charging the search giant's Android operating system isn't as "free" as the company says it is and hinting that Android could end up entangled in a patent infringement lawsuit. But talk is cheap. On Friday, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) took a much bolder step, suing Motorola (NYSE: MOT) for allegedly infringing nine of the software titan's patents in its Droid mobile handsets, which are powered by Android. "Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against...