Use LTSP. Depending on the amount of clients, one or more servers and then many clients. - LTSP clients are cheap, and they don't need client side maintenance except for hardware failures. - Startup time for the computers is very small. With normal computers it can take 15 minutes to start up the computers, with LTSP it is a minute or less. This is important, because it is taken away from the school time. - LTSP clients don't have hard drives, so they dont' break so easily. - LTSP clients need less electricity, so you will save in electricity bills. - You will be practically virus free - Students can use any computer in any class (if you have them in several classes) and always get their own desktop. - New clients are cheap and easy to add to the netnwork (unless you add so many that you need to add servers also, but that is not very hard either) - Teachers can control the clients and easily e.g. disable them when they should not be used. - Maintenance is cheap as pretty much only the server needs maintenance. - Software licenses are free with Linux, OpenOffice.org etc. - It has been used in schools before and total savings in costs have been 70% compared to Windows desktop computers. (Note this is only one study and it contains the expenses from transforming a Windows environment into Linux environment)
From TFA: "Also, there's no SCP or SFTP feature that I can find comparable to SecureCRT."
I don't know what SecureCRT is like, but you can use the file manager as SFTP client and bookmark pages if you want to. Or you can install Filezilla (the new version can handle SFTP also). Not sure what version comes with Ubuntu 8.04.
How many tabs you have open? How often you use back button? Do you save tabs? How often you restart your browser? etc. This information can be used to optimize Firefox for YOUR needs. Assuming you belong to the majority.
Just because you have to rewrite something doesn't mean that it doesn't help you. E.g. I recently joined an open source project which was very good because of what it did, but very poor because of its code structure. So I did a massive refactoring for it, making changes to hundreds if not thousands of lines. This took about an week, but it would have taken much more if I had written the application from the scratch.
> If Wine works well, why should I, (a developer) want to port my appz to *nix?
You should write them portable from the beginning. Use cross platform libraries, Qt (desktop applications/Games), wxWidgets (Desktop applications, license suits closed source apps also), SDL (2D games, very portable, but not very OOP), Irrlicht (3D games, easy to use) etc.
There libraries, e.g. wxWidgets, Qt and Irrlicht are easier to use than MFC and DirectX, so there is really no reason to write closed source applications. It is more expensive and it is not portable.
> but in all these years I've NEVER been asked about a Linux port
I quite rarely ask, especially if I see that the app has been written in MFC or Visual Basic, because I just know that they will never port it. That doesn't mean that I would not need Linux port. Instead I might write my own solution, release it as open source and become a competitor to you, with version that is portable and free.
No it doesn't. It is fast enough, it does all the work I need. It is even easier to use than the alternatives I have tried and it doesn't cost me anything.
> OSS doesn't have anything that competes with Microsoft Project.
That is because OSS is mostly designed and implemented by the developers and developers don't see Microsoft Project and tools like that as an advantage or benefit. They only slow down the project. If you are a project manager and want to pick the best tools for your team, don't pick the tools, let the developers do that for you.
I thought that they won't be releasing next version before they are fixed. And even with optimal speed it looks like it would take at least 1,5 months to get them all fixed.
> I don't work for free. I never will - I rather become an electrician than consider becoming a linux developer
I've got paid for developing software for Linux. There are software companies that write software just for Linux. Just because Linux is free doesn't mean that you could get money when writing software for it.
Also if you must write software for Windows, you can still do it with free cross platform libraries and get support for other platforms for free. Sometimes you can even save in development when choosing these libraries, because they are so good.
At work I use Windows because I'm asked to. At home I use Linux. I write software at work for the company, but at home I write it for the world.
If you jump from a plane. During the first second your altitude decreases by 10 cm. So within an hour you are 10 cm * 60 * 60 = 360 m lower. So if you jump from 1 km altitude, it will take almost 3 hours to get down to the ground.
> Didn't wikipedia just take a hit for being wildly inaccurate?
"The result was that Wikipedia had about 4 errors per article, while Britannica had about 3. However, a pair of endevouring Wikipedians dug a little deeper and discovered that the Wikipedia articles in the sample were, on average, 2.6 times longer than Britannica's - meaning Wikipedia has an error rate far less than Britannica's." http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/12/15/1352207.shtml?tid=95&tid=14
Branching is what Git is about. I have never seen a system where branching would be so easy. Every time you start working with a new idea or fix, you make a branch and start working with it.
But I found out that it is impossible to tell people what Git is about, you need to hear it from Linus to understand it (sorry MrFreezeBU for stealing your link, but I have seen it earlier and I think it really explains it well): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8
> To me, there is still a whole lot of confusion revolving around "free software" and "open source"
It is very simple actually. I represent you two C++ IDEs which are both build using the same technology and are build to do the same job. Older one of them is closed source but free. New one is free and open source.
The difference: The development of the closed source version stopped few years ago. Users asked the maintainer to release the sources so they could fix the bugs themselves, but that never happened, so they decided to build a new version in open source. Now the open source version has several developers and it is constantly improving and bugs are getting fixed.
I don't have to do fix the bugs myself, I don't even need to compile it myself, I can just use the open source version and yet it is better than the alternative, just because it is open source and _others_ can do the work.
I don't usually look version numbers, instead I look at the version history. How old is the first release, how many releases have been after it and how often are new releases made. I also look at bug database, are the reported bugs getting any attention.
Slashdot Mirror
Use LTSP. Depending on the amount of clients, one or more servers and then many clients.
- LTSP clients are cheap, and they don't need client side maintenance except for hardware failures.
- Startup time for the computers is very small. With normal computers it can take 15 minutes to start up the computers, with LTSP it is a minute or less. This is important, because it is taken away from the school time.
- LTSP clients don't have hard drives, so they dont' break so easily.
- LTSP clients need less electricity, so you will save in electricity bills.
- You will be practically virus free
- Students can use any computer in any class (if you have them in several classes) and always get their own desktop.
- New clients are cheap and easy to add to the netnwork (unless you add so many that you need to add servers also, but that is not very hard either)
- Teachers can control the clients and easily e.g. disable them when they should not be used.
- Maintenance is cheap as pretty much only the server needs maintenance.
- Software licenses are free with Linux, OpenOffice.org etc.
- It has been used in schools before and total savings in costs have been 70% compared to Windows desktop computers. (Note this is only one study and it contains the expenses from transforming a Windows environment into Linux environment)
From TFA: "Also, there's no SCP or SFTP feature that I can find comparable to SecureCRT."
I don't know what SecureCRT is like, but you can use the file manager as SFTP client and bookmark pages if you want to. Or you can install Filezilla (the new version can handle SFTP also). Not sure what version comes with Ubuntu 8.04.
How many tabs you have open? How often you use back button? Do you save tabs? How often you restart your browser? etc. This information can be used to optimize Firefox for YOUR needs. Assuming you belong to the majority.
> The web browser situation doesn't make much sense to me.
There are a lot of laws that make no sense, but everyone needs to obey them all. Even Microsoft.
Just because you have to rewrite something doesn't mean that it doesn't help you. E.g. I recently joined an open source project which was very good because of what it did, but very poor because of its code structure. So I did a massive refactoring for it, making changes to hundreds if not thousands of lines. This took about an week, but it would have taken much more if I had written the application from the scratch.
> They are pretty much the standard in most large sized organizations.
Standard doesn't mean good. Windows is also pretty much the standard in most large sized organizations.
Many companies shut down entire sites, not because they don't make profit, but because they make too little profit.
> If Wine works well, why should I, (a developer) want to port my appz to *nix?
You should write them portable from the beginning. Use cross platform libraries, Qt (desktop applications/Games), wxWidgets (Desktop applications, license suits closed source apps also), SDL (2D games, very portable, but not very OOP), Irrlicht (3D games, easy to use) etc.
There libraries, e.g. wxWidgets, Qt and Irrlicht are easier to use than MFC and DirectX, so there is really no reason to write closed source applications. It is more expensive and it is not portable.
> but in all these years I've NEVER been asked about a Linux port
I quite rarely ask, especially if I see that the app has been written in MFC or Visual Basic, because I just know that they will never port it. That doesn't mean that I would not need Linux port. Instead I might write my own solution, release it as open source and become a competitor to you, with version that is portable and free.
> The problem with that is that OpenOffice sucks.
No it doesn't. It is fast enough, it does all the work I need. It is even easier to use than the alternatives I have tried and it doesn't cost me anything.
> OSS doesn't have anything that competes with Microsoft Project.
That is because OSS is mostly designed and implemented by the developers and developers don't see Microsoft Project and tools like that as an advantage or benefit. They only slow down the project. If you are a project manager and want to pick the best tools for your team, don't pick the tools, let the developers do that for you.
What about release critical bugs? Currently there are 173 of them:
http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/
I thought that they won't be releasing next version before they are fixed. And even with optimal speed it looks like it would take at least 1,5 months to get them all fixed.
And some estimate that it would be 2009-06 before the release happens:
http://blog.venthur.de/2008/10/07/lennys-release-date/
Now it is helping the poor Nigerians.
I bet you have no windows in the basement?
GPL prevents only those who want to prevent others.
> I don't work for free. I never will - I rather become an electrician than consider becoming a linux developer
I've got paid for developing software for Linux. There are software companies that write software just for Linux. Just because Linux is free doesn't mean that you could get money when writing software for it.
Also if you must write software for Windows, you can still do it with free cross platform libraries and get support for other platforms for free. Sometimes you can even save in development when choosing these libraries, because they are so good.
At work I use Windows because I'm asked to. At home I use Linux. I write software at work for the company, but at home I write it for the world.
My friend did that.
If one client can do that, then the server seems to have an issue. But Miranda should not be there because it is not cross platform as was requested.
Yes Debian has that feature also.
If you jump from a plane. During the first second your altitude decreases by 10 cm. So within an hour you are 10 cm * 60 * 60 = 360 m lower. So if you jump from 1 km altitude, it will take almost 3 hours to get down to the ground.
> Didn't wikipedia just take a hit for being wildly inaccurate?
"Experts rate Wikipedia's accuracy higher than non-experts"
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061127-8296.html
> Didn't wikipedia just take a hit for being wildly inaccurate?
"The result was that Wikipedia had about 4 errors per article, while Britannica had about 3. However, a pair of endevouring Wikipedians dug a little deeper and discovered that the Wikipedia articles in the sample were, on average, 2.6 times longer than Britannica's - meaning Wikipedia has an error rate far less than Britannica's."
http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/12/15/1352207.shtml?tid=95&tid=14
Branching is what Git is about. I have never seen a system where branching would be so easy. Every time you start working with a new idea or fix, you make a branch and start working with it.
But I found out that it is impossible to tell people what Git is about, you need to hear it from Linus to understand it (sorry MrFreezeBU for stealing your link, but I have seen it earlier and I think it really explains it well):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8
> To me, there is still a whole lot of confusion revolving around "free software" and "open source"
It is very simple actually. I represent you two C++ IDEs which are both build using the same technology and are build to do the same job. Older one of them is closed source but free. New one is free and open source.
The difference: The development of the closed source version stopped few years ago. Users asked the maintainer to release the sources so they could fix the bugs themselves, but that never happened, so they decided to build a new version in open source. Now the open source version has several developers and it is constantly improving and bugs are getting fixed.
I don't have to do fix the bugs myself, I don't even need to compile it myself, I can just use the open source version and yet it is better than the alternative, just because it is open source and _others_ can do the work.
> kicking around databases with terrabytes of data. How many Postgres boxes have you seen at that scale?
Yahoo claims that their 2 petabyte database is largest in the world. Guess what they are using? Yes, Postgre.
I don't usually look version numbers, instead I look at the version history. How old is the first release, how many releases have been after it and how often are new releases made. I also look at bug database, are the reported bugs getting any attention.
But I only look at open source software.