Has Linux's time come?

One word: mono.

Cross-platform portability between umpteen operating systems. Marvellous stuff, not completely working yet, but we use it. Its .net under windows.
 
WinstonWolfe said:
Every now and again I trial the latest Ubuntu release.
Am running 9.04 off the cd currently.....
wow......they have really moved things along.....

anyone else got an opinion about unbuntu or linux?

My main concerns still relate to commercial compatibility with MS Office.
I don't even know if there's a version of Office for Linux.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Ubuntu is awesome. I've been using it for 3 years now. In fact, I've been using Linux since 1999. I sound old. Ubuntu is by far the best easiest Linux to use. Download the LiveCD, boot off it and try it out before installing Ubuntu for real.

Ubuntu is progressing in leaps and bounds. You can easily connect to smartphones and use their Bluetooth 3g modems as an internet connection now. The latest version is Jaunty Jackelope. :)

We have Ubuntu installed on our home laptop with a Windows virtual machine inside it, in case I need to use windows. This is only to submit my ATO wihholding variations or to run PIA. :) This also solves the Office problems others have mentioned here - just install Office inside a windows VM and you're set!
 
Tried Linux (red hat) in 1996 & it blew up my hard drive when I ran xwindows so I shelved it.
Tried it again 10 years later (ubuntu) on a new PC & it wouldn't connect to the internet (didn't like ADSL and told me to change) so I shelved it again.
Tried again last year with a boot disk & it took ages to start (>10 minutes).
Maybe I'll give it another go sometime but it was just too much work in the past.
 
joeExpat said:
Tried Linux (red hat) in 1996 & it blew up my hard drive when I ran xwindows so I shelved it.
Click to expand...
Linux doesn't "blow up hard drives". Your hard drive would have just given up the ghost.

joeExpat said:
Tried it again 10 years later (ubuntu) on a new PC & it wouldn't connect to the internet (didn't like ADSL and told me to change) so I shelved it again.
Click to expand...

About 5 minutes of Googling ADSL + Ubuntu would have found you an answer.

joeExpat said:
Tried again last year with a boot disk & it took ages to start (>10 minutes).
Click to expand...
:eek:

DER!!!!

Of COURSE the LiveCD is going to take ages to start. It's *on a CD*. It's just the installer, but is actually a fully-blown graphical environment complete with Office + Browser so you can try it.

joeExpat said:
Maybe I'll give it another go sometime but it was just too much work in the past.
Click to expand...

Wow. If I gave up every time after hitting a small snag, then I don't know where I'd be today.

Give it another go. :D

http://www.ubuntu.com/
 
The newer versions of Ubuntu are fantastic, and the Live CD is a great way to try it with out making any changes to your PC, its so simple to use that i have even managed to get the mother in law using it.
 
I've now stuck the Ubuntu 9.04 cd into an Dell and HP notebook and run it no probs ..... internet access and browsing wasn't a problem....

Great technology....

One dream of mine is to be able to transfer a working environment (data and apps) between computers, with little consideration for hardware and drivers.

That's the way DOS used to work. Linux could get back there.
 
mja said:
Cloud computing. Your operating system sits on a server somewhere on the Internet (aka "in a cloud"), and you access everything remotely with very little stored locally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
Click to expand...

yeah had heard of this....sort of like a big server and every user is a dumb terminal, with just the screen output being sent back to the user.

the big issue would seem to be you are totally dumb if your net access goes down :)
 
The reality is that Linux isnt making any real headway into businesses. Windows is easy to use, functional and reliable. No need to download heaps of things to get it to work, or google for a solution to a problem and then implement the fix.

Windows...works. And if it wasnt for Microsoft we'd probably all be running different operating systems and IT would be a nightmare.
 
tubs said:
.............. and IT would be a nightmare.
Click to expand...

Hey, 2 weekend's ago, I spent the best part of a day trying to get rid of a stack of viruses and trojans off a friend's son's windows computer. I gave up after 5 hours, sent it to a tech, and he sent it back saying it was resolved, when it wasn't. To be continued.

Wasn't made any easier by XPs default set up of dispersing data and personal settings amongst the OS partition.....nor a built in partition backup and restore capability, nor a decent built-in backup scheduler .

Microsoft deserve brickbats for not prioritizing OS and data safety.
Anyone who does anything productive on a computer should not touch a system that cannot have the OS or data faithfully restored to several points back in time. Windows attempts at this give a false sense of security.
 
I've worked at two organisations with vastly different IT systems.

The first ran Windows XP/2003 on desktops and Citrix server infrastructure. We had 17 staff looking after these 20-or-so servers, for 250 users.

The second organisation ran *zero* Windows servers or desktops. No Windows in sight, except for 3 accountants who had to use Excel. Sunray thin clients everywhere as desktops (with Ubuntu as their desktop) and Solaris and Linux on servers. We had 400 users. Guess how many IT staff it took to look after this organisation?

3.

And one of them was the IT manager, so he doesn't count.

One helpdesk guy and one sysadmin.

Oh, and the first organisation is a state public service. The second organisation is a $1.2 billion private company.

Windows takes stupid amounts of people to look after it, creates meaningless, redundant work and costs organisations stupid amounts of money.
 
Correct MJ

You'd think after 20(?) years of windows and all the millions of dollars spent on it explorer still wouldnt need to ctrl-alt-delete with heaps of the programs

Word is still the same core program, as is excel. No leaps in thinking with microsoft. The only way they actually come out with something new is to take over another company who's had different injections and ideas which isnt grown in the microsoft culture.
 
Spectre said:
No leaps in thinking with microsoft. The only way they actually come out with something new is to take over another company who's had different injections and ideas which isnt grown in the microsoft culture.
Click to expand...

and one of the best progs I've ever seen has not been picked up by microsoft..... Deep Freeze.

I first saw it around 1996. It protects a partition from permanent writes....so after you do a lot of work, then reboot, the original OS is restored. Any data can go to a 2nd partition or external drive.

This software is now used widely by schools and public libraries....and has slashed admin overhead.
 
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Looking at server logs this week
Windows XP 421 57.99%
Windows Media Center 150 20.66%
Windows Vista 75 10.33%
Windows 2003 19 2.62%
Other 12 1.65%
MacOS X 11 1.52%
Linux 10 1.38%
Windows 2000 9 1.24%
Ubuntu Linux 5 0.69%
Mobile 4 0.55%
Java Platform Micro Edition 3 0.41%
Debian Linux 3 0.41%
Windows NT 2 0.28%
FreeBSD 1 0.14%
Windows ME 1 0.14%

Linux (all variants) already has bigger usage than Mac.
copied my bootable cd to a spare bootable drive, ubuntu is faster than xp on this borderline system,
works great with office xp, drops out with office 2007, or with the compatibility pack loaded
If MS hadnt changed the format of Office files to XML.....(thinking conspiracy thoughts)
 
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You sound like you know what you're doing so dunno why you didn't back up his data on an external drive then format his HDD and then reinstall XP?
Sounds like there was more to it or else you wouldn't waste 5 hrs when you could have done a fresh install in half the time.

WinstonWolfe said:
Hey, 2 weekend's ago, I spent the best part of a day trying to get rid of a stack of viruses and trojans off a friend's son's windows computer. I gave up after 5 hours, sent it to a tech, and he sent it back saying it was resolved, when it wasn't. To be continued.

Wasn't made any easier by XPs default set up of dispersing data and personal settings amongst the OS partition.....nor a built in partition backup and restore capability, nor a decent built-in backup scheduler .

Microsoft deserve brickbats for not prioritizing OS and data safety.
Anyone who does anything productive on a computer should not touch a system that cannot have the OS or data faithfully restored to several points back in time. Windows attempts at this give a false sense of security.
Click to expand...
 
AlmostBob said:
Looking at server logs this week
Windows XP 421 57.99%
Windows Media Center 150 20.66%
Windows Vista 75 10.33%
Windows 2003 19 2.62%
Other 12 1.65%
MacOS X 11 1.52%
Linux 10 1.38%
Windows 2000 9 1.24%
Ubuntu Linux 5 0.69%
Mobile 4 0.55%
Java Platform Micro Edition 3 0.41%
Debian Linux 3 0.41%
Windows NT 2 0.28%
FreeBSD 1 0.14%
Windows ME 1 0.14%

Linux (all variants) already has bigger usage than Mac.
If MS hadnt changed the format of Office files to XML.....
copied my bootable cd to a spare bootable drive, ubuntu is faster than xp on this borderline system
Click to expand...

FreeBSD is *not* Linux. It's BSD. :)
 
thought it was another unix derivant, always think of Linux as 'little Unix', bummer

Apologies to Linus Torvalds
fixed the color
 
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