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Good Samaritans Choose Linux
blowdart writes "According to this article on the BBC news site the charity Samaritans has chosen Linux to provide it with more secure and powerful computer systems. The installation was supplied by Trustix with IBM providing network security. 'One of the great challenges for computing in any charity is to provide more for less,' said Mike Hermon, Information Systems Manager at Samaritans. According to the Trustix press release the installation is limited to security hardware only, "Samaritans is installing a four zone Trustix Firewall on an IBM eServer x305 and a Trustix Proxy Server on an IBM eServer x300 server.'" Oddly enough, today's Word A Day is Good Samaritan.
Charities giving money to the poor instead of to Microsoft!
'One of the great challenges for computing in any charity is to provide more for less,' said Mike Hermon, Information Systems Manager at Samaritans.
But I thought Windows was cheaper than Linux...
So good Samaritans choose Linux, and bad ones choose...? ;-)
But surely it would be better for them to give their money to Microsoft... after all, Bill Gates is such a generous man, giving money to India and his charitable foundation, he could probably spend it better than The Samaritans.... :-)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
You mean, as opposed to the free technical support calls you get from Microsoft? :)
"Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
But it' still nerdy, isn't it??
They probably had enough of people wanting to kill themselves because of Windows crashing. And that was just the Samaritans staff!
Baz
"Do you need someone to talk to?"
"Can we offer you help?"
"Would you like to know more?"
Yes, I need help, I want to know more!
RTFM!!! *click*
ducks..
Top 10 Reasons To Run DOS!
1. Tons of free abandonware programs!
2. The OS is abandonware itself! Go crazy, fileswappers!
3. Totally consistent text-mode CLI!
4. Lightning-fast on today's hardware!
5. Lack of support for big partitions = built-in anti pr0n controls!
6. Works with ANY hardware you can throw at it -- hey, even if it doesn't do anything 99% of the time, at least it doesn't throw up a thousand bitch-boxes about how it can't find drivers!
7. Split seconds from boot to command line!
8. Easy management tools! Bad partition? FORMAT C:!
9. Over 20 years of research and experience behind it!
and last but not least...
10. Everyone will think you're running Linux!
I'm more and more convinced that each of these "such-and-such chose Linux" stories is actually done via Mad Lib.
"{company name} has switched all {number} of their servers to Linux. 'They say Linux is for {adjective} people, but I'm a {noun} and I find it much easier to support and to {verb}. I hope to save {large number} this year.' Oh, and Microsoft is very {adjective}."
- Bill Gates, 2002
"Samaritans! Sanitarians! Satanists!"
- Steve Ballmer, 2002
Money for nothing, pix for free
On one occasion an expert in system administration stood up to test Linus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to obtain 99.9999% uptime?"
"What is written in the FAQ?" Linus replied. "How do you read it?"
He answered: "'Keep your kernel constantly patched, and secure your unused ports, and always keep an off-site backup'; and, 'Always share your code freely with your fellow developers.'"
"You have answered correctly," Linus replied. "Do this and your system will remain up."
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Linus, "And who is my fellow developer?"
In reply Linus said: "A man was going down from Seattle to San Francisco to an open source conference, when he fell into the hands of wardrivers. They stripped him of his firewall, formatted his system disk and went away, leaving him unable to access even his webmail.
"An MCSE-certified consultant happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he flashed his headlights and passed by in the other lane.
"So too, an Oracle salesman, when he came to the place and saw him, accelerated his BMW and passed by in the other lane.
"But a Unix developer, as he traveled, came to where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and reinstalled his kernel, pulling out book floppys and data restore CDs. Then he put the man on his own wireless network, took him to SourceForge and upgraded his firewall.
"The next day (for it was a slow network connection) he took out two silver CD-Rs and gave them to the man. 'It is a custom distribution,' he said, 'and should keep you up and running until you can get to your own restore tapes. And here is my SMS number if you need any help on how to install it.'
"Which of these three do you think was a fellow developer to the man who fell into the hands of the wardrivers?"
The expert in system administration replied, "The one who shared his distribution without cost or consulting fees."
Linus told him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:25-37, Revised Internet Version
That could be a bumper sticker!
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Will Bill Gates get all depressed because of all those people defecting to Linux and end up calling the Samaritans ?
They even need a firewall, only a really sick and twisted person would try and hack the computers of people who give time and money to help thoes in need.
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