I remeber sometime ago seeing the price point of UnitedLinux server with support to be in the $1800 region, this is comparable to Redhat Advanced Server Premium at $2499. It is however much more than SuSE SLES 7 for IA-32 at $599.95 which compares to Redhat Advanced server (base) at $799. I know from experiance that SLES for other platforms is significantly more expensive.
It looks to me that there will be three broad catagories of Linux distribution:
Home use - Low cost / Freely Dowloadable e.g. Debian, Gentoo - Comminity Support
Desktop - Medium cost e.g. Xandros, SuSE - Commercial Support
Commercial Server - e.g. RH Advanced, UnitedLinux - Commercial Support
The Commercial Server versions will be competing against Solaris/HP-UX/AIX Propriatory Unix operating systems. Intersting to sree how it will all shake out
UnitedLinux have commited that the base distribution CD will be freely downloadable for "Non commercial use" in thier FAQ.
Will users be able to download free versions of UnitedLinux for non-commercial uses, similar to how Linux is freely available today?
Yes, UnitedLinux sources will be made available for free download as soon as version 1 is released.
UnitedLinux is intended for commercal use, rumours have it that the original name was going to be United Business Linux, until 9-11 made the UBL TLA unviable.
Therefor it will be free but not,as you say, open source.
As SCO/Caldera and SuSE are the two big development companies in the consortium such a mix is what I would expect. Presonaly I found it to be mainly SuSE. From some of the presentations I have been to, the two other members of the consrtium Turbolinux and Conectiva have mainly contributed language support and will be actively marketing thier distribution in thier individual regions as they have branding.
One of the isues with VMware is that to be legal you still need a licence for the guest operating system, so there is no saving in licence fees. In fact as VMware desktop is chargable there is net cost increase.
VMware does have a place in the market, I am currently evaluating the ESX versoin
CrossOver Office + Plugin bundle is $79.95 ( On sale, usual price $99 )
From Acronis OS Selector $44.99
SuSE 8.1 boxed set Personal $39.95, Professional $79.95
This looks like a net cost saving for the bundle to me.
According to an article on The register the version of CroseOver which comes with Xandros is not supported by CodeWeavers.
Having said that, you need to know that Crossover is not supporting the version that comes with Xandros. For support, you'll have to pay extra. The nice thing is, you probably won't need any support. "It just works," is what Xandros CEO Michael Begos told me. Now that I've had the chance to install Xandros and run it, I have to agree. .
And where are you going to get an XP licence, retail on amazon is $176.99 for an upgrade and $269.00 for full, this is after rebates. With corporate bult licencing you will get this down by 20-30% but SuSE will almost certainly do the same.
Re:There's more to it that just frequency
on
Cellphones On Airplanes
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is a real issue, way back when I was in University the Student Union had a radio station. They did not have a registered frequency, such things have only recently become available in the UK, so istead they used induction loops which staid within leagal rage limits. However one of the buildings which was metal framed with glass paneling did not recieve the broadcasts, even though loops were clearly visable. It may have been a Urban Myth, but it was said that when live the harmonics broadcast conflited with a distress frequency in the North Sea.
Don't take it personaly. I have summited articles 2 or 3 times that have been rejected, but the topic has been put up by somebody else. My best guess is that I was too far down the queue and the version that got posted was reviewed first. Or it could be that somebody doesn't like me:-)
I would like an option on the post to request a reason for rejection, if rejected, at post time. Just a few option, "bad Spelling", "Insufecient Detail", "Duplicate" etc. would suit me.
There is already a minuature disk format especialy for music. The Sony MiniDisk format. This clips the hight and low frequencies to make the file size smaller, and with a slight lose in quality five or six albums can be fited onto a single disk. The one I have only alows real time transfer, but more recent models allow data transfer form a PC.
I have been looking for this for quite a while, with no luck. I haen't even seen any prototypes or development ideas.
The solution would be reasonably complex and expensive as two bluetooth devices would be required, either a modified player, or a BT tramsmitter that connects to the headphone jack, and the headphones / earpiece itself. Both of these would require an independent power source. I would also wonder about the quality of the audio, as the current BT headsets are for voice and not HiFi quality music.
I would love to be able to keep my minidisk player in a backpack and listen to it without trailing wires, and have the phone interupt the music if someone calls. But at the moment vibrating alert will have to do.
Whilst I welcome this as both a RedHat and IBM user I wonder what is happening with SuSE.
SuSE is the current "preferered" distribution for both PPC iSeries & pSeries platforms in addition to the mainframe zSeries. With the imminent release of UnitedLinux at the same kind of cost the SLES version distribution seems to be competing with the consortium.
It might be worth looking into BNC networking, the cables are heavier and less flexable but it is entirely passive. For a small ad-hoc network the low bandwidth and maintenance issues can be overcome. Older PCMCIA cards should be realtively easy to find, I have one in a box somewhere myself and there is one on ebay or there are converters.
Whilst I haven't actualy used it. I have talked at some length with Caldera and SuSE about what they are trying to do. The various companies are intending on having thier own distributions which will be "Powered by United Linux". This will most likely be the disk set currently in beta. This will be included on every distribution and will be identical, apart from logo's artwork etc.
Where they intend to differentiate is with add-ons, which will be on additional disks. e.g Caldera/SCO may bundle some of thier Volution products, SuSE may put out a "with Lotus Notes" edition.
I see this for the good, as ISV's will have a wider installed base, and therefore more incentive to port to Linux.
Not intending to get into a flame war, I beleive you misinterpreted my comment. In no way do I claim English beer is the best, in fact I was saying thet the English beer that has made it to America is a poor example of what is available.
The German beer standard ensures great quality and Belgium beers are amongst my favourites as Hogarten and Leff are reasonably "findable" in the UK.
As a drinker of real beer I feel abliged to aplogise for the week excuses for beer that have managed to get across the pond from old blighty.
However I have found that good beer can be found in America, at least in Boston where I spent a very cold winter. Check out the brewpubs if you have any in your locality. The beer was better and so was the atmosphere IMHO.
There are a number on non TiVo PVR's available in the UK a selelection of which can be found at pvruk . As some of these are non-subscription may be candidates.
There are probably better forms for discussing this DP review for example. However what I and a number of others have done is to learn with 35mm film to a certain extent, which entails expendature on lens, tripods, flash etc. Then the movement to a Digital SLR, whilst expensive, makes use of previous investments.
I know of one person sarted on digital, progessing throgh point and shoot to SLR, and then purchased a medium format film camera as his confidence and ability has dramaticaly improved.
Also, no matter what you may have heard digital SLR's cannot produce large prints to the same quality as a 35mm frame.
There was a company called Silicon Film which produced this. The disadvantage was that each unit was unique to the camera, i.e. no swaping between Nikon and Canon or even within Canon between models. DP review has an article from September last year that operations have been suspended.
With the cost of Digital SLR's comming down people seem to be opting for a new camera body to match thier lens collection.
I seccond this, whilst cheap and reasonably efficient at delevery if something goes wrong ( and it often does ) there returns policy and backup support is terrible.
A friend bought a "bare bones" system and it arrived without heatsink and fan for the CPU, being a relative novice she didt't realise it was requred and and overheated the machine frying the chip. It took consumer law threats to get it sorted.
Slashdot Mirror
It looks to me that there will be three broad catagories of Linux distribution:
Home use - Low cost / Freely Dowloadable e.g. Debian, Gentoo - Comminity Support
Desktop - Medium cost e.g. Xandros, SuSE - Commercial Support
Commercial Server - e.g. RH Advanced, UnitedLinux - Commercial Support
The Commercial Server versions will be competing against Solaris/HP-UX/AIX Propriatory Unix operating systems. Intersting to sree how it will all shake out
Will users be able to download free versions of UnitedLinux for non-commercial uses, similar to how Linux is freely available today?
Yes, UnitedLinux sources will be made available for free download as soon as version 1 is released.
UnitedLinux is intended for commercal use, rumours have it that the original name was going to be United Business Linux, until 9-11 made the UBL TLA unviable.
Therefor it will be free but not,as you say, open source.
As SCO/Caldera and SuSE are the two big development companies in the consortium such a mix is what I would expect. Presonaly I found it to be mainly SuSE. From some of the presentations I have been to, the two other members of the consrtium Turbolinux and Conectiva have mainly contributed language support and will be actively marketing thier distribution in thier individual regions as they have branding.
VMware does have a place in the market, I am currently evaluating the ESX versoin
Or you could use Sun's StarOffice included in ProOffice from SuSE.
From the various sites
CrossOver Office + Plugin bundle is $79.95 ( On sale, usual price $99 )
From Acronis OS Selector $44.99
SuSE 8.1 boxed set Personal $39.95, Professional $79.95
This looks like a net cost saving for the bundle to me.
Or follow this link
According to an article on The register the version of CroseOver which comes with Xandros is not supported by CodeWeavers.
Having said that, you need to know that Crossover is not supporting the version that comes with Xandros. For support, you'll have to pay extra. The nice thing is, you probably won't need any support. "It just works," is what Xandros CEO Michael Begos told me. Now that I've had the chance to install Xandros and run it, I have to agree. .
This could account for the price difference.
And where are you going to get an XP licence, retail on amazon is $176.99 for an upgrade and $269.00 for full, this is after rebates. With corporate bult licencing you will get this down by 20-30% but SuSE will almost certainly do the same.
This is a real issue, way back when I was in University the Student Union had a radio station. They did not have a registered frequency, such things have only recently become available in the UK, so istead they used induction loops which staid within leagal rage limits. However one of the buildings which was metal framed with glass paneling did not recieve the broadcasts, even though loops were clearly visable. It may have been a Urban Myth, but it was said that when live the harmonics broadcast conflited with a distress frequency in the North Sea.
I would like an option on the post to request a reason for rejection, if rejected, at post time. Just a few option, "bad Spelling", "Insufecient Detail", "Duplicate" etc. would suit me.
There is already a minuature disk format especialy for music. The Sony MiniDisk format. This clips the hight and low frequencies to make the file size smaller, and with a slight lose in quality five or six albums can be fited onto a single disk. The one I have only alows real time transfer, but more recent models allow data transfer form a PC.
The solution would be reasonably complex and expensive as two bluetooth devices would be required, either a modified player, or a BT tramsmitter that connects to the headphone jack, and the headphones / earpiece itself. Both of these would require an independent power source. I would also wonder about the quality of the audio, as the current BT headsets are for voice and not HiFi quality music.
I would love to be able to keep my minidisk player in a backpack and listen to it without trailing wires, and have the phone interupt the music if someone calls. But at the moment vibrating alert will have to do.
SuSE is the current "preferered" distribution for both PPC iSeries & pSeries platforms in addition to the mainframe zSeries. With the imminent release of UnitedLinux at the same kind of cost the SLES version distribution seems to be competing with the consortium.
It might be worth looking into BNC networking, the cables are heavier and less flexable but it is entirely passive. For a small ad-hoc network the low bandwidth and maintenance issues can be overcome. Older PCMCIA cards should be realtively easy to find, I have one in a box somewhere myself and there is one on ebay or there are converters .
If you are not UK resident ( very probable on slashdot :-) all the bits should be available elsewhere if you find what you are looking for.
Where they intend to differentiate is with add-ons, which will be on additional disks. e.g Caldera/SCO may bundle some of thier Volution products, SuSE may put out a "with Lotus Notes" edition.
I see this for the good, as ISV's will have a wider installed base, and therefore more incentive to port to Linux.
The German beer standard ensures great quality and Belgium beers are amongst my favourites as Hogarten and Leff are reasonably "findable" in the UK.
However I have found that good beer can be found in America, at least in Boston where I spent a very cold winter. Check out the brewpubs if you have any in your locality. The beer was better and so was the atmosphere IMHO.
There are a number on non TiVo PVR's available in the UK a selelection of which can be found at pvruk . As some of these are non-subscription may be candidates.
Consider this pedantic but, money is not the root of all evil, it's the LOVE of money. Check out this for more information.
I know of one person sarted on digital, progessing throgh point and shoot to SLR, and then purchased a medium format film camera as his confidence and ability has dramaticaly improved.
Also, no matter what you may have heard digital SLR's cannot produce large prints to the same quality as a 35mm frame.
With the cost of Digital SLR's comming down people seem to be opting for a new camera body to match thier lens collection.
The Register has an interesting article on how to set up a works drink vending machine.
I seccond this, whilst cheap and reasonably efficient at delevery if something goes wrong ( and it often does ) there returns policy and backup support is terrible.
A friend bought a "bare bones" system and it arrived without heatsink and fan for the CPU, being a relative novice she didt't realise it was requred and and overheated the machine frying the chip. It took consumer law threats to get it sorted.