LINUX NEWS
http://www.Cramsession.com
August 22, 2002 -- Issue #95TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) Sean’s Notes
2) Linux News
Mandrake Calling In Warrants
Join the Discussion: Unix on the Desktop?
Sophos Anti-Virus for Unix
Work For Red Hat!3) Linux Resources
Space Penguin
Learn Cryptography With Simple UNIX Command
Ready for LPI?
Kiss BIND Goodbye
PHP Tutorial: References4) App o’ the Week
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1) Sean’s Notes
Linux World seems to have sparked an interest in Linux on the Desktop again, or maybe it’s just a full moon. Either way, I’ve found myself in a few discussions of Linux for the corporate desktop as of late, both on and offline.
Notice that I said “corporate” desktop. I think a distinction should be drawn from the home user and the corporate user. For one, the corporate desktop is usually under some form of control by the information systems, both from a hardware and software standpoint. While games and the latest P2P sharing utilities go on a home PC, the business has an interest in keeping only approved software on, and controlling the interactions between packages.
On the home desktop, there’s not much point at the moment. People will buy the most obscure hardware because it’s cheap. They want the latest video games, or don’t want the restrictions associated with running a true multiuser system.
But, for the business interested in providing a controlled environment to its employees, Linux is an attractive option. There is a wealth of software available to give to your users. The desktop can be customized as much as you need; if you want, it can even be made to look like Windows.
Likewise, rolling out the software itself, imaging boxes, and remote support are very easy. Since each user’s profiles are stored in their home directory, profiles are available at any machine the user logs in to.
One might say that Windows already does all of this, and you’d be right. However, Linux is free. It’s open. You might need a more experienced person to run the operation, but their time will not be spent chasing down the obnoxious little things that plague the Windows desktop (not to mention that the number of viruses is almost nil).
A big sticking point, though, is the office suites. Interoperability is a big thing. Most companies probably have a lot of .doc and .xls files floating about, not to mention the Access databases.
From my experience, though, about 90% of the MS Office
attachments I get are from internal sources. So, move the company over to something like Open Office, and 90% of those incompatibilities go away. Of course, that doesn’t do anything for the legacy Word and Excel files floating around. I’d argue that most of those documents can at least be opened partially, if not completely, by Open Office.
Also, look at recent advances in the WINE project by the CodeWeavers team. I’ve happily done some work in Word running under WINE with no ill effects. Since it’s an X application, it can be run over the network, limiting the number of places you have to deploy and maintain the software. The price is also very reasonable–even if your company wants to adopt Linux but stay with MS Office, you’ll still be ahead of the game on licencing costs, not to mention ongoing support.
So that begs the question “Can Linux and Microsoft products coexist in the same environment? I’d say “Yes”. Truth be told, I like some Microsoft products such as Exchange and SQL server. It’s mainly the OS and the anticompetitive behavior that I don’t like.
I think it’s high time we stopped saying “Next year, Linux will be big on the desktop”, and start to give it a try – now. Take your cue from the city of Largo, Florida, or even the Manitoba Legal Aid department who took the leap, and moved over to Linux. It saved them a bundle, not to mention made everyone more productive. Linux makes a perfectly fine desktop, and many people have been using it every day for years. Give it a shot… you might find that you’ll be kicking yourself for not trying it sooner.
Long live the Penguin,
Sean swalberg@cramsession.com
2) Linux News
Mandrake Calling In Warrants
“The company is attempting to raise capital by calling in outstanding warrants. Warrants are like stock options in that they give the holder the right to purchase a certain number of shares of stock in a particular company, for a pre-determined price.”
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/08/20/140226.shtml?tid=3
Join the Discussion: Unix on the Desktop?
Seems like there is the making of a good discussion here… 60hertz wants to know what you think about MS interoperability and the like holding back the adoption of Linux on the desktop in a corporate setting.
http://boards.cramsession.com/boards/vbm.asp?mb0936
Sophos Anti-Virus for Unix
Though the design of Unix makes virii difficult to spread, having a virus checker might not be a bad idea, especially if you’re sharing files for Windows users. Here’s a review of Sophos.
http://www.net-security.org/review.php?id
Work For Red Hat!
Looking for a job in the Linux world? Red Hat has some career fairs in Raleigh and Westford, and a lot of openings to be filled!
http://www.redhat.com/about/careers/
3) Linux Resources
Space Penguin
Here’s a great way to spend some free cycles! “Hey there, space cadet! Kevin took a wrong turn and ended up lost in space. Use the highly advanced GPS (Giant Penguin Slingshot) to launch him back to the ship!”
http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_penguin/default.ht m
Learn Cryptography With Simple UNIX Command
I find cryptography very interesting, though sometimes the math gets a bit difficult. This article shows you the basic Diffie-Hellman key exchange using a simple command line utility. A great way to learn two things at once!
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sida31&mode=thread&order=0
Ready for LPI?
Courtesy of Sanjay, we’ve got some really good practice tests for the LPI exams. Quite the challenging exam, I found it to be!
http://certify.torolab.ibm.com/icetest.jsp
Kiss BIND Goodbye
Not that I’m eager to get rid of BIND, but TinyDNS sure looks pretty nice. This article gives a good overview of the software components, but leaves you hanging for the installation instructions. It’s a two-part article, so next week you should see them.
http://networking.earthweb.com/netos/article/0,,12083_1446551,00.ht ml
PHP Tutorial: References
PHP, a server side web scripting language, has sure come a long way since its inception. This tutorial on references (pointers) will show you some advanced techniques to make your PHP programming even easier.
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2002/08/15/php_foundations.html
4) App o’ the Week
If you’re looking for a quick way to manage a Public Key Infrastructure on your Linux boxen, take a peek at this Perl/TK solution. Looks pretty handy, even if you’re only managing a few web server certificates.
http://tinyca.sm-zone.net/
(C) 2002 BrainBuzz.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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