Linux Apps

[midwest]

http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

Xara has come out with an OpenSource version of thier extreme graphics application. It lacks a few features of the comercial windows app but with develpment by the open source community it will soon catchup and surpass the windows app in functionality.

This is another reason to grab a copy of linux and use it for practical purposes. This app coupled with GIMP will make linux and open source perfect for all but the most demanding graphic professional, few of which even begin to use all of photoshops features. For the average web graphics this is an app that will have no rivals. Text based graphics are apsolutely great with bevels, shadowing and bending that beats any commercial app. For great fonts grab the free ttf dejavu fonts. http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Deskt...nts-6282.shtml
But dont stop there, Linux can use any ttf font and any recent release installs fonts as easily as windows.

The install is via a .package file making it even easier to install than the average windows app.

Just MHO and little bit of Linux evangalism.

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[Jim]

It used to be if you installed it you hoped it would boot up without 3 hours of problems. Most distros go in easier than Windows now.

[midwest]

Yup. I started about ten years ago with the Debian Hamm flavor. It took about four install trys before I got it to boot. Now things go so good that installers work flawlessly and as you said, better than windows, and no driver worries for the most part you can forget even needing the CD or to dig around for drivers. Things just work for the most part.

Linux is right now a viable alternative for almost any user, yes, some things take a bit of RTFM"img but ya gotta learn somewhere. If everyone used linux the zombie nets, worms, trojans, malware and virus would be history. I just love to open email and look at the binary time bombs and laugh.

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[Jim]

I bought a copy of Windows Server to test out a server on what it would take to get a server running w/ the next "big thing" they have coming out. I can't remember the name of the big thing right now. But it will not install without a floppy drive for the 3ware driver. It will not allow the use of the cdrom to give it the driver. I hooked up a usb floppy drive thinking, ok here we go.... no, it doesn't know what a usb floppy is. Meanwhile, while waiting on the special 1u floppy drive to be shipped, installed it on a desktop computer. Checked it out, priced everything out. To to it you need Windows Server $800, The big thing software, I THINK $6000, you need a team of lawyers to figure out the exact licensing cost. The server for it all $6000, if you want to run the big thing software, plan to get another $6000 server, and put a $6000 copy of MSSQL server on that. And hook it up to the Internet at probably $250/mo. After that they want $99 per user after the first five. When all the numbers were worked out at the going rate competing prices Microsoft was getting about 2/3rds of the money. The floppy arrived, I went to install it in its intended computer and got a message to call Microsoft, where I had to call - go through operators until finally getting a direct connection to India, and tell them where I bought it, why I was installing it again, got the 20 digit number to put in. Now I'm thinking, I won't be offering that. It would be a heck of a procedure with the server physically sitting 400 miles away. It was bad enough 10 feet away.

On the same hardware, linux installs in ten minutes, and doesn't need the 3ware driver. It already has it. But if it DID ned it, it will get it either through the USB floppy, or cdrom. And if I had to reinstall it I don't need to call and hope for permission.

[edwurster]

There is a great article at Forbes.com called "The New Barbarians." I'm reading it in print as "The Cheap Revolution" which is more descriptive of the theme. The article is mainly about how businesses are taking advantage of open source and plummeting costs of hardware. The conclusion is that Micro$oft, Sun, Oracle, Cisco and others are in big trouble as executives have left those companies in droves to be part of the new tech that takes advantage of open source and other innovations. To paraphrase, the best talent does not want to be part of creating 20-year old software from 15-year old software.

For instance, Chicago Mercantile Exchange switched servers over from from Sun ($300K each) to Linux ($4K each). New server processes a transaction in 1/4 the time.

[midwest]

Thats mostly old news, linux has already pushed those servers out. But what is likely not told is that it is linux clusters that are doing the work, not a single box. While a single linux server may be faster than a sun box it cannot come close to handling the same number of simutanious users, hence the linux clusters.

Where MS has to watch out(well not much they can do about it) is the desktop. Within the next year expect to see a serious errosion of the MS base to linux. Check out this http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8523030175.html
Linspire is the old lindows. This is what is installed on the cheap linux boxes sold at wally-world and other places. Other desktop styled distros will soon include the client. This in turn will quickly cause the few remaining manufacturers to either write drivers or open their code to the open source community.

This is something that MS understands and is activly preparing for as they develop new models of revenue streams. Notice how they are making lots of noise lately about online applications. The other vendors you mention dont have all that much to worry about.

Oracle is one of the leading db and will continue to be a leader at the enterprise level, no open source app comes close. Even the free SAP software cant matrch Oracle and MySQL and Postgress will never manage to touch Oracles base.

Cisco will never lose their grip on routers and appliances, while a linux box can be used to duplicate what Cisco does a linux box will never make it for the backbone or major ISP level, again it comes down to scalability. A linux box is fine to plug a T1 into and route but it chokes on a DS3 so it will never make it to a OC48.

Sun OTOH is and has been in serious trouble for a number of years. Only its past domminence and installed customer base is keeping it afloat. Their attempt to gain with solaris has been seen as a joke within the linux community. No one want to run it even if its free.

[edwurster]

It sounds like you disagree with many of the points.

For instance, "All these guys that sell proprietary hardware with proprietary operating systems and massive margins, they're all dead." Simon Lok, founder of Lok Technology.

What did you think of the article? I thought it went far enough to explain the tech side, while specifying who these new barabarians are, and why they'll succeed.

[cmyksteve]

...an interesting thread. I ordered a freespire CD to give Linux a try.

[midwest]

I do disagree with the gist of the article. Sun has been dying for years and just wont go quietly. The rest mentioned are not like the earlier monoliths that went under. They are run by people that see the light and are changing. That a few bigger corps are going over to the new boys in town does not foretell a collapse of the tech world to be taken over by "new barbarians". As the companies mentioned in the article revamp to use newer off the shelf chips and pare down their bloated they will be competive. They are not dinosaurs but intelligent managers and are still the movers and shakers of the industry. Whats more, they still have the reserve to weather the "new barbarians" as they develop more cost competetive models to survive.

While I severly dislike MS(as if you couldnt tell) even they will not collapse and die. The established players do not shout out the the world all of their R&D projects, especially the one that will alter their business model, shareholders tend to get scared of change. They instead wait and develop what they need to stay ahead and be competative and the roll out their new product as needed, and the stockholders then wipe their brows and are glad they dodged another one. What will the old customers do? Most will stay right where they are, they know how things change and will stay with what kept them happy and safe in the past and trust them for the future. The established players have no desire to buck the trends and go extinct, neither are they going to dump their present revenue streams untill necessary no matter that the new hardware is ready to go. The trick is knowing when to change, for both sides.

And in honor of all hard working people everywhere, HAPPY LABOR DAY!

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