I agree about Photoshop, AutoCAD or other specialized apps.
But Ubuntu is quite useful for defined subsets of workers.
And for business-type applications (HR, financials, that sort of thing), it seems prudent to use web-based apps (local or SaaS) even if you're a Windows shop.
http://www.macports.org/ claims the above is an imposter. But the thing is, darwinports.com has a really nice command summary for every individual package. (I.e., go to terminal, type "sudo port install bzr ", etc.) This is better than MacPorts which only has a generic help for all apps.
Nokia just announced its support for Qt as the main platform for all of its smartphones, whether Symbian or Linux-based. (Nokia owns Qt, and it's available as LGPL.) They're coming out with an XML-based GUI and HTML5 scripting, too.
You can develop for mobile, Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms. And you can use your choice of Lin/Mac/Win for dev, too, leveraging FOSS developers knowledge of Qt and Qt Creator.
Does anyone else have a problem with the ugly fonts in Chromium in ever since Ubuntu Lucid came out? It was the same in recent Chromes, which is why I have the version pinned to 5.0.342.7-r42476 .
The problem is that recent Chromiums seem to not use the specified font (DejaVu sans or serif), and instead have a really thin, unreadable font which you have to Ctrl++ many times to be readable, which then widens the web page beyond the browser width.
Sounds great for MS-only shops. If you're FOSS or Unixy, and only have a few workstations with MS software, it would better to just buy one-offs for those, I would suppose.
I don't think the WD green is designed to be near-online.
Besides, isn't the term "nearline" usually used to describe automatic file retrieval by a robot from tape?
That's a lot different from a hard drive which may be a few milliseconds off from the world's record Barracuda drive speed.
I use it as a main drive, and it's basically fine.
And if you almost never retrieve a file, and the hard drive rests as a consequence, will a few seconds really hurt you after retrieving a file after a few weeks?
>Some schools buy networked content servers to save their Internet bandwidth (literally a 250Gb Linux cache with Apache so they access local Flash resources sucked from an online repository overnight),
You wouldn't happen to be referring to caching the Flash-based educational site starfall.com, would you? I had a devil of a time trying to cache that locally, how did you (if you did)?
I don't. And my drives seem to be (pretty much) fine for the last 6 years (1 year for WD green 1TB).
By the way, palimsest (branded as "Disk Utility" in Ubuntu) is an easy way to get SMART disk failure predictions. There's also GSmartControl, which is more advanced.
That sounds just about right. The reason to buy WD, for me, is that their green series runs so cool. It's cool to the touch, while a Seagate next to it is hot.
The only problem I've encountered is it takes a long time (30 seconds) to create a new directory on it (in Ubuntu Lucid), if I haven't created a new folder in the last 5 min or so. Anybody have a clue about that?
I'm surprised on one's mentioned Evergreen State College yet. It's not quite wikified, but a lot closer than any normal college:
Founded in 1967, Evergreen was formed to be an experimental and non-traditional college. Faculty issue narrative evaluations of students' work rather than grades, and Evergreen organizes most studies into largely interdisciplinary classes that generally constitute a full-time course load.
Btw, I don't understand why Samba4 won't do what AD does. Once you have profiles, don't you have what you need?
Or is Group Policy more than that? And if so, could you possibly give a 2-paragraph description so someone could be inspired to write the missing pieces?
Is it stuff like checking a checkbox that says "Can't modify own wallpaper"? I guess something like that would have the frontend look something like a webpage with option/checkboxes, and the backend (for that particular option) would be config dot-files set to read-only, user-root.
I guess Linux is close to solving one of the major pieces of the puzzle (directory services) that has it beat by Windows.
I've always thought that if I ever got together with a few other people to form a company that we'd start out with FOSS right from the beginning and not have any Windows/Word/Excel legacy to worry about.
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Just for curiosity's sake, you can't hibernate without a swap partition, can you?
FYI: Ubuntu has a dark background, light text Lynx setup by default.
If you prefer black text on white background (as do I), do this:
Copy the lynx.lss file somewhere (like a ~/.lynx dir) /etc/lynx-cur/* .lynx/
cp
Edit the lynx.lss file to comment out the 8th and 9th lines:
normal: normal: lightgray:black
default: normal: white:black
Then run lynx with "lynx -lss lynx.lss" or set LYNX_LSS to your personal lynx.lss file.
I agree about Photoshop, AutoCAD or other specialized apps.
But Ubuntu is quite useful for defined subsets of workers.
And for business-type applications (HR, financials, that sort of thing), it seems prudent to use web-based apps (local or SaaS) even if you're a Windows shop.
There's a fair amount of confusion as to the various ports systems on Mac.
http://darwinports.com/ claims to be the "original" Darwin Ports.
http://www.macports.org/ claims the above is an imposter. But the thing is, darwinports.com has a really nice command summary for every individual package. (I.e., go to terminal, type "sudo port install bzr ", etc.) This is better than MacPorts which only has a generic help for all apps.
And then there's Fink, http://www.finkproject.org/.
Anybody want to comment on the best/recommended system?
Pay attention, 6-digit! I learned that a few years ago on Slashdot.
Actually, just typing "ironman torrent" will also get you much of what you want.
Yes, I agree that Nokia has basically made every dumb move it could possibly have made, and lost almost all of its dominant US-market position.
This is basically its last chance. Only time (the next 9 months will tell), but I think they might just pull it out this time.
Have you seen their new C7 and N8 phones?
Btw, what's wrong with Symbian? Isn't it just fine in the latest touchscreen phones?
How's Android any more open than Nokia?
Nokia just announced its support for Qt as the main platform for all of its smartphones, whether Symbian or Linux-based. (Nokia owns Qt, and it's available as LGPL.) They're coming out with an XML-based GUI and HTML5 scripting, too.
You can develop for mobile, Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms. And you can use your choice of Lin/Mac/Win for dev, too, leveraging FOSS developers knowledge of Qt and Qt Creator.
There's an Android port of Qt, too.
You can also contribute mods/fixes to Qt, I'm not sure if that's the case with Android.
>The new Mac App Store is already starting to look like a garden of pure ideology. It will be as problematic as the Ubuntu version of the same idea.
How so? The Ubuntu app store features departures from the ideology (free software). For example, the first app is Fluendo, a $24 codec pack for DVDs.
Does anyone else have a problem with the ugly fonts in Chromium in ever since Ubuntu Lucid came out? It was the same in recent Chromes, which is why I have the version pinned to 5.0.342.7-r42476 .
The problem is that recent Chromiums seem to not use the specified font (DejaVu sans or serif), and instead have a really thin, unreadable font which you have to Ctrl++ many times to be readable, which then widens the web page beyond the browser width.
Anybody else encounter this?
Oh, you mean that you can use a Windows server to control the perms on the CIFS file server, and it just automagically works? Sounds great.
I'll have to look into that, because I much prefer having CD's and DVD's on a hard disk as opposed to optical discs.
Sounds great for MS-only shops. If you're FOSS or Unixy, and only have a few workstations with MS software, it would better to just buy one-offs for those, I would suppose.
I don't think the WD green is designed to be near-online.
Besides, isn't the term "nearline" usually used to describe automatic file retrieval by a robot from tape?
That's a lot different from a hard drive which may be a few milliseconds off from the world's record Barracuda drive speed.
I use it as a main drive, and it's basically fine.
And if you almost never retrieve a file, and the hard drive rests as a consequence, will a few seconds really hurt you after retrieving a file after a few weeks?
Ubuntu does that too (only on certain boards, though). I've had trouble getting it to wake up on older mboards, leading to the REISUB sequence.
Yeah, I hear you. Pining for the old days of Beowulf this, Beowulf that.
Sometimes I feel like a minority here running Linux.
>Some schools buy networked content servers to save their Internet bandwidth (literally a 250Gb Linux cache with Apache so they access local Flash resources sucked from an online repository overnight),
You wouldn't happen to be referring to caching the Flash-based educational site starfall.com, would you? I had a devil of a time trying to cache that locally, how did you (if you did)?
Thanks for the heads up. Is this maybe a problem only with certain revs?
I've had the WD green 1TB for a year, and the cycle count seems to only be 101:
$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 101
The computer is always on, / is on that drive, and I guess that's why it doesn't park (something or another must always be writing to it).
>I'm not sure how non-techies manage it though.
They don't back up. And therefore (to a greater extent) their drives don't fail.
The act of constantly churning through a drive to back it up or rsync it actually causes it to fail.
This is a controversial hypotheses for which I'd love to be able to get/create some scientific data.
Do you ever turn your computer off?
I don't. And my drives seem to be (pretty much) fine for the last 6 years (1 year for WD green 1TB).
By the way, palimsest (branded as "Disk Utility" in Ubuntu) is an easy way to get SMART disk failure predictions. There's also GSmartControl, which is more advanced.
Click here to install in Debian/Ubuntu.
That sounds just about right. The reason to buy WD, for me, is that their green series runs so cool. It's cool to the touch, while a Seagate next to it is hot.
The only problem I've encountered is it takes a long time (30 seconds) to create a new directory on it (in Ubuntu Lucid), if I haven't created a new folder in the last 5 min or so. Anybody have a clue about that?
Thanks for the writeup.
How do you manage user permissions from Windows if the Nexenta server itself is wide open?
And can you install /boot or / to a flash device?
Does it work with Linux? I.e., the chip can't read 2TB, but it only has to read the boot block, and then Linux drivers take over the rest.
Or have /boot on a flash drive.
I'm surprised on one's mentioned Evergreen State College yet. It's not quite wikified, but a lot closer than any normal college:
Founded in 1967, Evergreen was formed to be an experimental and non-traditional college. Faculty issue narrative evaluations of students' work rather than grades, and Evergreen organizes most studies into largely interdisciplinary classes that generally constitute a full-time course load.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evergreen_State_College
OK, I've got it, the solution to all your problems:
LiberaceOffice!
Btw, I don't understand why Samba4 won't do what AD does. Once you have profiles, don't you have what you need?
Or is Group Policy more than that? And if so, could you possibly give a 2-paragraph description so someone could be inspired to write the missing pieces?
Is it stuff like checking a checkbox that says "Can't modify own wallpaper"? I guess something like that would have the frontend look something like a webpage with option/checkboxes, and the backend (for that particular option) would be config dot-files set to read-only, user-root.
Thanks for your insight.
I guess Linux is close to solving one of the major pieces of the puzzle (directory services) that has it beat by Windows.
I've always thought that if I ever got together with a few other people to form a company that we'd start out with FOSS right from the beginning and not have any Windows/Word/Excel legacy to worry about.
Send PDFs to clients, not Word or Writer docs.
And paperless, too.