I am writing this in an internet cafe in Khartoum Sudan.
I had to bite into this one. Nicolas Negroponte is a brilliant guy but I think he has been listening too much to RedHat.com executives. They think only in terms of Gnome or KDE desktops which are bloated. After all Red Hat mainly produce for Multinational Businesses who can afford state of the art hardware. You can run lighter desktops such as fluxbox or xfce.
Incidentally the Chinese might beat Negroponte to the finish. They are looking like making a linux laptop for US 187 already:
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/A-Linux-Laptop- for--187-/story.xhtml?story_id=10000B5Y3P5W
Plus this:
http://cebitvideo.com/?p=20
I can tell you my Local Sudanese Security Officer would give anything to have my HP laptop multi-booting Ubuntu/Fedora/FreeBSD and dare I say it Windows. At the moment teaching him the Linux Professional Institute tutorials from the IBM website. The guy is a sponge for information. Probably try to get him a job at my organisation in The Hague so he can afford an education at Leicester University's Security Management Program by which time he can go back into the UN System as a Professional Grade Officer. He will probably finish up being my boss!
I have been surprised by the number of Linux/BSD nerds I have met in the
internet cafe!
Two sites of interest for Low Resource Linux for the third world or poorly funded non-profits in the developed world:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/http://www.rule-project.org/
There seems to be a lot of Americans on this site who think all Africans live in mud huts and are all starving. There are a lot of smart people here and a when the government gets out of the way quite a lot of entrepeneural skill. Africa's problem is predominantly corruption and our Western Governments are pretty much responsible for that. In particular big oil companies. There are a lot of evil people in government here...but the same could be said of the USA, UK and Australia for that matter. For the record I am dual/national Australian/British and if I could I would denationalise altogether.
I used to work in a prison before moving into INFOSEC. One old prison officer gave me some good advice regarding prisoners. "Give them nothing and take them nowhere." I think the same regarding users on a Unix system (or a Windoze system for that matter. Give them nothing.
Its been said previously on/. that the best thing to do is make your password the same as your cats name. Mine is 25@jDWQ0! and I change her name every thirty days.
I am pretty low in the corporate food chain. The reason I wear a suit is I have to tell people more senior than me how not to be stupid with their data and how to keep it secure. If I wear a suit senior people listen. If I came to work in my "cd/pub more beer" T-shirt I would spend my day arguing about what my grade and what right I have to tell them stuff instead of the content of my advice.
Inwardly I am laughing at them for being so shallow. But it makes my day easier. Personally I find it ammusing that in 2005 men are still wearing clothes developed in the 19th century.
The woman writing the article is clearly a narrow minded airhead.
For an amusing look at a similar story see The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/25/otto_cloth es/
I personally think this document is one of the reasons Ubuntu is so popular. Anybody who can cut and past and read well enough to understand a cookbook can install, update and secure Ubuntu. Plus all the info is in one place. Not all over the net. Fedora are similar with their Fedora FAQ. I've seen a similar document for Mandake (now Mandriva). No surprise these are popular distros.
As an Australian I am getting tired of this lack of standardisation in the English language. So I propose that a proprietary language be developed. Microsoft can develop the language and we can all buy a copy. Inevitably some irresponsible person who hasn't bothered to use their antivirus will become infected and the English language will crash. Then we will all speak French! Or Finnish perhaps!
Pedal power, Linux gets Ugandans talking
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=489
Contrary to the views of some of the more ignorant posters on this site tech and opensource have a great role to play in development.
First I think the book will be a great way to introduce Linux to new people.
I am by no means a computer expert. More of a user really. I now have on my Laptop Ubuntu (as my main working system, Windows XP for doing lab experiments from the SANS Security Essentials Toolkit book, and Fedora Linux also for experiments and so I learn how to use rpm's as well as Debs.
Basically I used a Knoppix cd and QTParted to create an NTFS partition (/dev/hda1), two EXT3 (/dev/hda5,/dev/hda6) partitions and a Swap partition/dev/hda7). I then install WinXP first. Then Ubuntu. When it asks where to put grub in my case I put it on/dev/hda6. Then I install Fedora. In my case during the Fedora install I format the/dev/hda5 and make it the / root partition. When it comes to the part about the Boot manager you need to Add/hda/6 and name it Ubuntu. I chose to make Ubuntu my default.
Then You need to follow the steps in the www.ubuntuguide.org to get your multimedia working. About a half hour of cutting and pasting. For Fedora this may help: http://fedoraguide.org/fc2/fc2beginnersguide.html
"Really, it's meant to be run off of the CD (and only one CD per sysadmin)."
Knoppix is free and open source software you can make as many copies as you want.
I ran knoppix as a hard disk install for one year with no problems. Dare I say it, it basically becomes Debian. Still Kanotix is probably better as a hard disk install. Less tweaking to do after installing. Personally these days I am running Ubuntu.
I fix my friends computers and get paid beer and dinner. My usual repair methodology is to back-up their important word, photos and music and remove the malware infecting the computer.
Once Windows is removed I install the Linux of their choice, run the Bastille script and give them a quick tutorial on the basics of the file structure usually setting up a download, documents, music and photos folders for them. I show them where Firefox, OpenOffice.org, gaim and how their multi-media works. Then how to keep it patched.
I have done this for everybody from an 80 year old neighbour to a Philipino family who just been introduced to computers. Once the system is up and running I rarely get called.
I suppose if I was a good businessman I would reinstall windows and get more beer. But they are my friends after all!
I think the actual names of each release are part of the problem. Someone else notes that its pretty hard to sell to management " want to run your business on Debian Unstable".
How about:
stable = server
testing = testing
unstable = desktop
A few of the big Linux Companies have applied for the Common Criteria for IT Security Evaluation certifcation. If you want to use software in a lot of government agencies you need this certification.
It is a pity that HP, IBM, Xandros and Canonical and companies like that don't get to gether to put Debian though the Common Criteria.
Info on Common Criteria:
http://csrc.nist.gov/cc/
Check out the IBM website for the windows to Linux Roadmap and LPI Tutorials for $ Free!!
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-roadmap1.html
I am working my way through these with a view to taking the exam at FOSDEM in Belgium next year.
If your company pays I would do the Red Hat training. Then do the LPI/IBM training for free. You could potentially end up with two Certs.
www.fosdem.org
HP supports debian.
See this url:
http://www.hp.com/hps/linux/lx_debian.html
You might be able to use this fact to convince them it is not a mickey mouse product. find out which organisations are using it at enterprise level.
I just installed Debian on my next door neighbours computer along with giving her my old RAM and 6 gig harddrive. She is retired and cannot afford a new computer so she was running an old Pentium II that had a 600 megabyte hard drive and only 16 meg of RAM that her son had given her.
All she needs is a computer that will be used:
-To Read Email
-To Use Office (or other word processing/spreadsheet/presentation application)
-To Surf the internet.
-To play solitare and mahjong!
She does not care if it is Windows or KDE as long as she can do the above.
There are a lot of elderly and poor people who cannot afford the hardware to run WindowsXP.
Linux does the job for them. As for security for the average home user running the Bastille script will lock them down better than any Windows computer.
The computer she had was running Windows 98.
When I told her security support for Windows 98 was to be discontinued in 2006 and explained that she would never have to buy software again she was easily sold on the idea.
Plus running as an ordinary user she doesn't break things. I spend less time fixing her computer!
With Windows you need to be constantly upgrading hardware and software. With linux you can tailor it to your hardware and needs.
And try and convince me that somebody will NOT find a way to port Doom3 to linux!
Slashdot Mirror
....its the only way to be sure.
I am writing this in an internet cafe in Khartoum Sudan. I had to bite into this one. Nicolas Negroponte is a brilliant guy but I think he has been listening too much to RedHat.com executives. They think only in terms of Gnome or KDE desktops which are bloated. After all Red Hat mainly produce for Multinational Businesses who can afford state of the art hardware. You can run lighter desktops such as fluxbox or xfce. Incidentally the Chinese might beat Negroponte to the finish. They are looking like making a linux laptop for US 187 already: http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/A-Linux-Laptop- for--187-/story.xhtml?story_id=10000B5Y3P5W
Plus this:
http://cebitvideo.com/?p=20
I can tell you my Local Sudanese Security Officer would give anything to have my HP laptop multi-booting Ubuntu/Fedora/FreeBSD and dare I say it Windows. At the moment teaching him the Linux Professional Institute tutorials from the IBM website. The guy is a sponge for information. Probably try to get him a job at my organisation in The Hague so he can afford an education at Leicester University's Security Management Program by which time he can go back into the UN System as a Professional Grade Officer. He will probably finish up being my boss!
I have been surprised by the number of Linux/BSD nerds I have met in the
internet cafe!
Two sites of interest for Low Resource Linux for the third world or poorly funded non-profits in the developed world:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
http://www.rule-project.org/
There seems to be a lot of Americans on this site who think all Africans live in mud huts and are all starving. There are a lot of smart people here and a when the government gets out of the way quite a lot of entrepeneural skill. Africa's problem is predominantly corruption and our Western Governments are pretty much responsible for that. In particular big oil companies. There are a lot of evil people in government here...but the same could be said of the USA, UK and Australia for that matter. For the record I am dual/national Australian/British and if I could I would denationalise altogether.
I used to work in a prison before moving into INFOSEC. One old prison officer gave me some good advice regarding prisoners. "Give them nothing and take them nowhere." I think the same regarding users on a Unix system (or a Windoze system for that matter. Give them nothing.
Its been said previously on /. that the best thing to do is make your password the same as your cats name. Mine is 25@jDWQ0! and I change her name every thirty days.
I am pretty low in the corporate food chain. The reason I wear a suit is I have to tell people more senior than me how not to be stupid with their data and how to keep it secure. If I wear a suit senior people listen. If I came to work in my "cd /pub more beer" T-shirt I would spend my day arguing about what my grade and what right I have to tell them stuff instead of the content of my advice.
Inwardly I am laughing at them for being so shallow. But it makes my day easier. Personally I find it ammusing that in 2005 men are still wearing clothes developed in the 19th century.
The woman writing the article is clearly a narrow minded airhead.
For an amusing look at a similar story see The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/25/otto_cloth es/
I personally think this document is one of the reasons Ubuntu is so popular. Anybody who can cut and past and read well enough to understand a cookbook can install, update and secure Ubuntu. Plus all the info is in one place. Not all over the net. Fedora are similar with their Fedora FAQ. I've seen a similar document for Mandake (now Mandriva). No surprise these are popular distros.
As an Australian I am getting tired of this lack of standardisation in the English language. So I propose that a proprietary language be developed. Microsoft can develop the language and we can all buy a copy. Inevitably some irresponsible person who hasn't bothered to use their antivirus will become infected and the English language will crash. Then we will all speak French! Or Finnish perhaps!
Pedal power, Linux gets Ugandans talking http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=489 Contrary to the views of some of the more ignorant posters on this site tech and opensource have a great role to play in development.
I install Debian linux. These days I run Ubuntu.
First I think the book will be a great way to introduce Linux to new people.
/dev/hda6) partitions and a Swap partition /dev/hda7). I then install WinXP first. Then Ubuntu. When it asks where to put grub in my case I put it on /dev/hda6. Then I install Fedora. In my case during the Fedora install I format the /dev/hda5 and make it the / root partition. When it comes to the part about the Boot manager you need to Add /hda/6 and name it Ubuntu. I chose to make Ubuntu my default.
I am by no means a computer expert. More of a user really. I now have on my Laptop Ubuntu (as my main working system, Windows XP for doing lab experiments from the SANS Security Essentials Toolkit book, and Fedora Linux also for experiments and so I learn how to use rpm's as well as Debs.
Basically I used a Knoppix cd and QTParted to create an NTFS partition (/dev/hda1), two EXT3 (/dev/hda5,
Then You need to follow the steps in the www.ubuntuguide.org to get your multimedia working. About a half hour of cutting and pasting. For Fedora this may help: http://fedoraguide.org/fc2/fc2beginnersguide.html
There may be an easier way but it works for me.
"Really, it's meant to be run off of the CD (and only one CD per sysadmin)." Knoppix is free and open source software you can make as many copies as you want. I ran knoppix as a hard disk install for one year with no problems. Dare I say it, it basically becomes Debian. Still Kanotix is probably better as a hard disk install. Less tweaking to do after installing. Personally these days I am running Ubuntu.
I fix my friends computers and get paid beer and dinner. My usual repair methodology is to back-up their important word, photos and music and remove the malware infecting the computer. Once Windows is removed I install the Linux of their choice, run the Bastille script and give them a quick tutorial on the basics of the file structure usually setting up a download, documents, music and photos folders for them. I show them where Firefox, OpenOffice.org, gaim and how their multi-media works. Then how to keep it patched. I have done this for everybody from an 80 year old neighbour to a Philipino family who just been introduced to computers. Once the system is up and running I rarely get called. I suppose if I was a good businessman I would reinstall windows and get more beer. But they are my friends after all!
A nation that fears only god....with nuclear weapons.
I think the actual names of each release are part of the problem. Someone else notes that its pretty hard to sell to management " want to run your business on Debian Unstable". How about: stable = server testing = testing unstable = desktop
A few of the big Linux Companies have applied for the Common Criteria for IT Security Evaluation certifcation. If you want to use software in a lot of government agencies you need this certification. It is a pity that HP, IBM, Xandros and Canonical and companies like that don't get to gether to put Debian though the Common Criteria. Info on Common Criteria: http://csrc.nist.gov/cc/
Check out the IBM website for the windows to Linux Roadmap and LPI Tutorials for $ Free!! http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-roadmap1.html
I am working my way through these with a view to taking the exam at FOSDEM in Belgium next year.
If your company pays I would do the Red Hat training. Then do the LPI/IBM training for free. You could potentially end up with two Certs.
www.fosdem.org
HP supports debian. See this url: http://www.hp.com/hps/linux/lx_debian.html You might be able to use this fact to convince them it is not a mickey mouse product. find out which organisations are using it at enterprise level.
I just installed Debian on my next door neighbours computer along with giving her my old RAM and 6 gig harddrive. She is retired and cannot afford a new computer so she was running an old Pentium II that had a 600 megabyte hard drive and only 16 meg of RAM that her son had given her. All she needs is a computer that will be used: -To Read Email -To Use Office (or other word processing/spreadsheet/presentation application) -To Surf the internet. -To play solitare and mahjong! She does not care if it is Windows or KDE as long as she can do the above. There are a lot of elderly and poor people who cannot afford the hardware to run WindowsXP. Linux does the job for them. As for security for the average home user running the Bastille script will lock them down better than any Windows computer. The computer she had was running Windows 98. When I told her security support for Windows 98 was to be discontinued in 2006 and explained that she would never have to buy software again she was easily sold on the idea. Plus running as an ordinary user she doesn't break things. I spend less time fixing her computer! With Windows you need to be constantly upgrading hardware and software. With linux you can tailor it to your hardware and needs. And try and convince me that somebody will NOT find a way to port Doom3 to linux!