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Moving to the Linux Business Desktop
M. Gagné, a writer for The Linux Journal, does not assume you're going to use any specific distro for Linux. He gives instructions and examples for the most common ones: Fedora (Red Hat), Mandrake, SUSE, Debian, etc. KDE is the primary desktop, but GNOME is covered fairly well, too. I have to admit that, as a long-time Red Hat user, I was well entrenched in the GNOME world. However, after reading Marcel's book, I've make KDE my default environment, and I've been very happy with it.
This book is broken up into three major parts: Getting to Know Linux, Administration and Deployment, and The Linux Business Desktop. Each part is packed with information in an easy-to-follow format. In fact, I found it hard to just read and not fire up my Linux to follow along.
Part One (Getting to Know Linux) covers the essentials of installing Linux and customizing your desktop. As I remarked earlier, Marcel covers multiple distros. He includes instructions on how to install using Mandrake, Fedora Core 1, and SUSE. For those of you who just can't wipe Windows from your hard drive completely, M. Gagné covers setting up a dual-boot environment clearly enough that you will be able to have the best of both worlds.
The second part (Administration and Deployment) assists in setting up a fully functional business environment. In Chapter 7 (Installing New Applications), Marcel covers the various installation programs available across the distros. SUSE's YaST2 installer, Mandrake's urpmi, Kpackage (from the K Desktop Environment), rpm (the shell program), dpkg (Debian's package manager) and apt-get are all covered. In addition, he gives a clearly written explanation of how to build from source (The Extract and Build Five-Step -- page 124) that dispels any anxiety a newbie to Linux might have.
The next chapter covers the device support in Linux. When I started using Linux, device support was spotty at best. Now it's tremendously improved. Marcel shows you the basic of Linux's support. He then goes on to explain about network and Internet connections. Unfortunately, there is one major piece of errata in this area of the book. During his explanation of the difference between Class A, B, and C IP addresses, the information for class A was inadvertantly switched with the class C info. I've been informed that the errata is corrected on his website (www.marcelgagne.com) and in future editions of the book. Outside of that one unfortunate error, the rest of the book is pretty clean.
Later chapters dig into the topics of Backup and Restore (the most important and most underutilized functions), printing, email, web servers, file sharing (both Windows-like with Samba and Unix-like with NFS), thin clients (server-side and client-side) and desktop remote control. He even includes a chapter on installing and configuring LDAP (something rarely written about, but becoming more and more important).
The third and final part of the book covers the usual business applications. Email, arguably the "killer app" for office environments, is addressed first. Focusing on KDE, Kmail gets the lion's share of the coverage, with Evolution following behind. Desktop organizers come next, with Korganizer the favorite and Evolution (again!) nipping at Korganizer's heels.
The web-browsing chapter focuses on Konquerer, KDE's jack-of-all-trades application, and Mozilla. Most notably, significant coverage is given in the next three chapters to OpenOffice and its basic applications Writer, Calc, and Impress. For working with images, digital cameras and USB scanners are covered, with The GIMP as the preferred image editor. On-demand contact via instant messaging and video conferencing rounds out this marvelous book. Kopete and GAIM are discussed in depth for the IM arena, and GnomeMeeting for the VC work.
As with most Linux books, a CD is supplied. However, this book does not give you a specific distro for installation. Instead, Marcel chose to include a branded copy of Knoppix, the CD-bootable Linux. The idea is to let you play around with the various aspects of Linux using Knoppix before committing yourself to the actual installation.
All in all, this is a valuable book, covering most of the areas a business user wants to address. Notably lacking was coverage on how to try to run Windows applications under Linux. At the top of the review, I mentioned I keep trying to steer away from Windows as much as I can. Unfortunately, I usually have a couple of applications that I need but don't come in a Linux version. Even though VMWare, Win4Lin, and Wine were mentioned briefly, I would have liked to have read some examples of running a Windows application using them. In addition, the major snafu with the IP address space marred an otherwise excellent book.
You can purchase Moving To the Linux Business Desktop from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
PROPOSITION 911
U.S. citizens have a reason, a right and a responsibility
to demand the whole 9/11 Truth from George W. Bush.
Proposition 911
An initiative to factually establish, and effectively compell official public response to the confluence of the following justifications that U.S. citizens could rightfully claim as reason to pressure the press to press the president to present the "9/11 Truth" (i.e. Facts relating to the under-examined topic of Bush's 9/11 failures and fortunes.):
REASON - The case for probable cause to compell the 9/11 Truth from Bush.
RIGHT - The constitutionally-guaranteed citizen Right to the Truth in Government.
RESPONSIBILITY - The duty to verify that the U.S. has NOT been comandeered in a covert coup d'etat by a powerful and profoundly corrupt Bush family network.
Whereas, since 9/11 was the best thing that could have happened for the Bush administration, it is dangerously illogical and ill advised to leave unresolved, the issue as to whether the situation is coincidence or conspiracy. The de facto operating assumption of most Americans is that 9/11 was just a convenient coincidence for Bush. Closer examination of the issue reveals probable cause to conclude otherwise. The following facts and analysis reasonably constitute a compelling case to be made for demanding that this issue be embraced and advanced as legitimate news.
THE CASE - Team Bush possessed the means, method and motive to enable 9/11 Fulsome perspective on Bush begins with his family history in business and government involving defense, intelligence, energy, Saudi rulers and deceptive practices as described by Kevin Phillips, in his book, American Dynasty - Aristrocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush. It paints a portrait of a family which could possess the means, method and motive to allow the attackers' success, knowing it would justify pre-existing plans for war profiteering.
EXHIBIT A - Agenda: Proof of Premeditation of Profit Motives
The Project for a New American Century(PNAC) is a think tank founded by Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush Administration officials. Precisely one year prior to 9/11, on page 51 of a policy paper titled Rebuilding America's Defenses, PNAC accurately predicted that advance of their agenda would only accelerate after a "catalyzing and cataclysmic event...like a new Pearl Harbor.
EXHIBIT 'B' - Behavior: Gross negligence of duties as Commander-in-Chief
The video clip made famous by Michael Moore, shows Commander-in-Chief Bush inaction in the class room. He was the only human who could have authorized use of military force against domestic commercial aircraft. Interestingly, the command chain for those orders had been re-routed April 2001, to go through Donald Rumsfeld, who was also apparently oblivious to the meaning of black smoke streaming from the twin towers. Bush failure to perform on 9/11 and ever since, in his duty to seek answers and accountability for the many mysterious breakdowns, is simply suspect.
EXHIBIT 'C' - Cover-up: The pattern of secrecy is a clear and present danger
Not only did Bush not try to find and fix the flaws and failures that enabled 9/11, but the administration actively undermined investigation, stone-walled and covered-up. The Bush White House whitewashed the 9/11 Commission and discouraged investigation at every step that it could. The administration also over-classified the 9/11 Congressional inquiry report, redacting 28 pages about 9/11 plot support by Bush associates in Saudi government, as detailed in a book by Senator Bob Graham.
RESOLVED,
That, the People of the United States who challenge the official story of 9/11, hereafter referred to as Team Truth, having just cause for concern about the state of the Union, hereby declare as jus
At the risk of my karma, here I go. . .
Linux is a great idea for the desktop, but everything to which it aspires has already been accomplished by Apple with Mac OS X. You get a *nix based desktop OS, an open core, a raft of compatibility through standards adherence, and almost as many OSS projects. On top of that, industry standard apps like Office and Dreamweaver and Photoshop all run on Mac OS X -- not some spin off. Plus, it's wicked easy to setup and deploy. I worked for a small liberal arts college managing their Macs. All of them. I could easily handle the deployment and administration of 800 computers myself.
If the goal is to get away from MS (and Office), Mac OS X can help ease the transition. Until OpenOffice becomes everything you need, you can use MS Office. Once OO does the trick, drop MS Office like a bad habit!
Yes, there is also the issue hardware, but companies cycle their hardware relatively frequently. And what about the price? Even Linux Insider had something to say about that:
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/36120.html
In the end, Mac OS X does what Linux is still struggling with -- making *nix desktop computing and administration easy.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Accoun`7s for less