Friday, December 27, 2002

Issues relating to Linux deployments While reading the slashdot discussion for Govt move on to let in Linux, I came across a link to the problems faced by the Mexican government's Linux experiment. One of the deal-stoppers for them was limited device support, especially for WinModems, which are mostly dependent on Windows drivers. Device support for Linux is much much better now in 2002 (soon to be 2003) than in 1998, when this Mexican project was started. I think this project was possibly hamstrung (crippled) by the fact that the PC's were not purchased for this Linux deployment - the PC's could have been spec'd easily to conform to Linux device driver availability. Lack of Linux-trained techs was also a big problem. 11:42:05 AM    comment []

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Largo Loving Linux An update to Largo, Florida's Linux-based network. Although the typical city spends about 3-4% of their budget on IT, Largo spends only 1.3%, thanks to a frugal IT strategy. 1:43:58 PM    comment []

Linux Stories List I'm having my own Adventures in content management thanks to Jon Udell: My Linux Story List 12:00:19 PM    comment []

Sunday, November 24, 2002

Calendaring Integration I installed pHp iCalendar on my webserver - it was remarkably easy. When I post my public calendar file using Mozilla calendar, it is instantly readable from a web browser. Cool! pHp iCalendar even provides an RSS feed. I have created a small primer for using Mozilla calendar. Alarms do not work very well in Mozilla calendar. Ideally, I should receive alarms for events even when Mozilla is not open, perhaps provided by a cron job that runs whenever my calendar file changes. This job would look for any changes and add/delete items from the crontab. When an event comes due in cron, it would trigger a small system beep or biff-like notifier. 5:39:09 PM    comment []

Self-healing documentation: Installing SpamAssassin Installing SpamAssassin. - [Russell Beattie Notebook] - This is an example of why I think blogging is so great! By using weblogs and Google, documentation on the web can become self-healing after a while - people issue their own revisions and caveats to how-to's that are already available. One thing I would like to see is a "documentation mode" for Google - making sure that I see the most recent version of a how-to, as well as ranking and comments/edits by users. A "stale" indicator on pages returned by Google showing that there is an updated version of a particular how-to would also be helpful. 1:53:31 PM    comment []

Thursday, November 21, 2002

Industry Briefs: Tux Fights Bux for the Soul of India An interesting comparison between India's growing interest in Linux and Microsoft's growing evangelism in India. 4:37:22 PM    comment []

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

LEAF Bering 1.0 Released! I have been using LEAF Bering Linux distro for my firewall/bridge for a couple of months. Instead of taking the easy road and using a switch, I'm using the bridging capabilities of Linux to enable my workstations/server/cable modem to connect. (Yeah, I could have bought a $25 hub, but where's the fun in that? Plus, it's cheaper to buy the nics than buy a switch.) I just added a new workstation to the fray, so I had to update some of the modules to accomodate the new NIC. While browsing the docs on Bering, I noticed that Bering v1.0-stable has been released. I plan to test it out real soon... 5:52:19 PM    comment []

Friday, November 01, 2002

The Register: Simputer Linux Handheld for Developing World Finds Builder. "India-based PicoPeta Simputer Private Ltd has struck a manufacturing deal for its Simputer mass market computing device, and expects to have the 1,000 first batch to come off the production line next month..."... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service] 11:52:48 AM    comment []

Thursday, October 31, 2002

Open IT - Govt to rewrite source code in Linux My colleague Gordon e-mailed me this post, which is from the IndiaTimes. the title of the article is misleading - it's really about the Indian goverment's interest in promoting the use of Linux. "The Department of Information Technology has already devised a strategy to introduce Linux and open source software as a de-facto standard in academic institutions, especially in engineering colleges through course work that encourages use of such systems." During my last trip to Belgaum (central India), I visited the local tech college and checked out a nice Linux-based computer lab that used inexpensive black boxes that gave the user GUI sessions that were hosted on a Linux server. The campus had a t-1 connection to the internet. 11:49:39 AM    comment []

€250,000 European Commission Linux migration study In this report on the EC Linux migration study from the Register, "Countries represented included: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain and a representative from the European Commission." Why are they looking at Linux? "Microsoft's recently introduced licensing changes have added weight to this concern but Bleasdale said an even bigger issue was the rate of change that Microsoft is imposing on customers, and many are struggling to deal with it." - Brussels to spend €250k on Linux migration study. Major architectural rethink [The Register] 11:38:24 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2002 Chris Kelley.