Archive for the 'Ubuntu' Category
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
Bob Sutor goes 100% Linux on the desktop; Mac surges; where’s Windows?
Nice to see Bob Sutor has made the complete switch to Linux for laptop use at work. I remember the day I wiped out my Windows partition on my laptop - it was memorable. I then went an entire year booting Windows in VMWare only about 3-5 times.
It’s great to see the transition starting to happen everywhere. Even if some of the transitions are to Mac, it’s greater choice.
This is all going to be even easier as technologies like Firefox, OpenOffice/ODF and open standards start to permeate the set of options available to users.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
The Register Open Season Podcast
This was another interesting podcast. I’m obviously a fan of Mr. Vance (has anyone ever called him “Mr.”?) - maybe I’m the first. I also need to meet Matt Asay at some point… have much to discuss.
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition is here
Ubuntu has officially released its MID Edition. There is a KVM image you can download to try it out. I haven’t seen any news on what devices or vendors will be bundling MID, but I’m sure Mark has some ideas for that.
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4429818312.html
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Shameless Plug: IBM Next Generation Linux Event in NYC
If you’re in the NYC area, IBM is hosting a great “Next Generation Linux” event at the Hilton on Church St. It should be a great day of speakers discussing where Linux is heading, what makes Linux unique and “special”, and what workloads are great for running Linux. It’s a packed session from 9-12 (breakfast at 8 if you’re an early riser).
You can register here:
https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp017.nsf/agenda?openform&seminar=692H5MES&locale=en_US/
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| 8:00 am | Registration & Continental Breakfast |
| 9:00 am | Welcome & Introduction |
Linux and Innovation
|
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| Break | |
Linux for Business-Critical Workloads
|
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| Break | |
Breakout Sessions
|
|
| A Customer’s Perspective: Linux for Business Critical Workloads | |
| 12:00 pm | Wrap Up & Q&A |
| RSVP for Lunch! Take this opportunity to chat with the speakers and to network |
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
Greetings from Hardy Heron
The good news: Hardy Heron is fantastic.
The complicated news: there appears to be a bug in the Wubi installer that can set the drive path incorrectly. It doesn’t ruin anything, but it could be tricky for novices that run into it. More on this tomorrow.
Download your Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron ISOs today!
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” arrives tomorrow
Unless you’ve been without internet access for days, you should know by now that Ubuntu’s next release is due tomorrow and that is always an exciting time. So fire up your fastest mirror tomorrow and see how much bandwidth you can grab before a billion others do the same ;)
I really like the direction Mark is taking with Ubuntu on the server. One, it offers a competing model for the industry compared to the RHEL/SLES model, two Ubuntu is pushing the technology further (e.g. KVM) and making it very easy for users to adopt (ala Microsoft Windows), and finally, it’s one platform that does well in many circles from desktop to server (ala Windows). So while Red Hat, Novell and Oracle fight over what’s left of Sun’s Solaris install base and grab some of the Windows opportunity, Ubuntu is driving straight into the Windows Vista SP1 Party with a fresh alternative. Now let’s just get those “Apple-like” Ubuntu systems we need with all the Adobe apps on them ;-)
Ubuntu article: http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/042108-ubuntu-linux-takes-on-enterprise.html?page=1
P.S. I claim absolutely no insight into what amount of sheer stupidity or drunkenness led to that Microsoft video link. I think sogrady said it best with just, “words fail me”.
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
Swiss Education System to migrate 9,000 desktops from Windows to Linux
Great news for Linux as a desktop platform as the Swiss Education System signs up 9,000 desktops for the move.
http://www.linuxwins.com/9000-swiss-education-computers-drop-windows-for-linux/
From the Google translated page, it appears these desktop were in dual boot setups and are now going to be straight Ubuntu Linux.
What is the use? Candolle In college, it was anticipated the guidelines of DPI. Après des années de « dual boot , c’est-à-dire d’ordinateurs équipés d’un double système d’exploitation Windows/Linux, les machines tournent désormais exclusivement sous Ubuntu, une «distribution» de Linux. After years of “dual boot, ie computers equipped with a dual operating system Windows / Linux, the machines are now exclusively under Ubuntu, a” distribution “of Linux.
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04’s “Install inside Windows” option
It’s been one of those things were I kept hearing “Ubuntu” and something about making it easy for “Windows” users but I never really thought it would be much more than some basic migration tool no one would ever use. However, I just read this article and now I get it. Ubuntu has made dual boot without disturbing your NTFS partition in Windows absolutely foolproof. I’m amazed at the simplicity. Now Ubuntu has a huge advantage over Apple… think Apple.. I know Mark doesn’t think the business model works, but being then “open” Apple is the way to go. Sleek desktop deals, Ubuntu-compliant peripherals, Adobe supported apps, Lotus Notes for enterprise users, Zimbra for SMBs…
Sorry about that, I went off course. Take a look at this article which includes the play-by-play screenshots for running Ubuntu “inside” Windows. (and it works with Vista)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1570&tag=nl.e622
Monday, March 10th, 2008
NVIDIA Quadro Driver runs fastest on… Linux? What, not Windows??
It’s true, the NVIDIA graphics driver for Linux appears to best Windows and Solaris - and by a wide margin. I think the “Linux support” issue can be somewhat put to bed finally - except for ease of updating with kernel revs… now that is usually a pain still. I am somewhat amazed at how strongly Windows secured a last place finish… I wonder how much is due to the driver and how much to the OS…
By the way, if you’re wondering how a company got away with comparing performance with Solaris (which is not allowed per the Solaris license), you should note that they used the Solaris Express Developer Edition which I can only assume does not have the clause preventing non-Sun licensed parties from publishing Solaris performance results (I have not read that license myself, but am guessing Phoronix did - or they secured permission from Sun…).
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_workstation_perf&num=1
Friday, February 22nd, 2008
NYLUG’s Jim Gleason Presents on KVM
It’s great to see Jim hitting the streets in his new gig at Qumranet. Hopefully my schedule will allow me to travel between IBM sites and make it out next Wed. Note that you will need to rsvp at the NYLUG site.
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
6:30pm-8:00 PM
IBM
590 Madison Ave, 12th Floor
corner of 57th Street
** RSVP Closes at 4:30pm the day of the meeting (sharp!) ***
Please RSVP for EVERY meeting at this time.
Register at http://rsvp.nylug.org/
PLEASE NOTE: This meeting is at IBM, not Google!
Jim Gleason - on - The Next Wave of Virtualization
Kernel-based Virtual Machine and its impact on the desktop Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure and open source hypervisor that provides both full and para-virtualization capabilities for Linux on commodity x86 hardware that contain the virtualization extensions from Intel and AMD. KVM is currently implemented as a loadable Linux kernel module. In late 2006, it was first included in Linux kernel 2.6.20 and and first shipped with OpenSuse 10.1 and Fedora 6.
Since KVM is part of Linux, KVM leverages the scheduler, memory management and other key resources in the Linux kernel, unlike VMware and Xen which must create their own custom mechanisms. Thus, KVM development focuses exclusively on the next-wave virtualization, while Xen and VMWare must also maintain these ‘forked’ non-Linux resources.
All of the core KVM developers, including Avi Kavity, work at the firm, Qumranet, which launched a desktop virtualization solution called Solid ICE that leverages KVM. Qumranet is the creator, maintainer and global sponsor of the KVM Open Source Hypervisor Project. Other high-ranking Linux kernel developers such as Rusty Russell and Anthony Liguori of IBM, Ingo Molnar of Red Hat, and Andrea Archangeli formerly of Novell, devote most of their time to KVM development.
What is the Next Wave of Virtualization?
Qumranet has gone beyond conventional server virtualization and application streaming by completely virtualizing end users’ desktop machines. From a browser on a thin client or PC, users access their desktop work environment over the network via a virtual machine running on a centralized server. The end result is a seamless end user work experience, just like a physical PC on a LAN. This is a high-level talk which will focus on the breakthrough Linux technology KVM, and its impact on the virtualization market.
About Jim Gleason:
Jim has been providing emerging technology to early adopters in the Financial Serivces Sector for the past ten years. Widely regarded as the person who brought Linux to Wall Street, Jim sold the first production Linux cluster to Goldman Sachs in 1998. Jim was also an early Internet pioneer having closed deals for the first official web sites of Charles Schwab, VISA, and all of Hewlett-Packard’s original web sites in 1993. Jim is also the Founder of the NY Linux Users Group and currently works at Qumranet in the capacity of Vice President of Sales.
Meeting Location:
Please note that this meeting will be held at IBM, 590 Madison Ave, 12th floor, corner of 57th Street, and not at Google. This is the building with the IBM logo on the front of the building.
Books!!!
Our friends at Prentice-Hall kindly provide us with review copies of various new titles. One of these could be yours, all you have to do is agree to review the book within a reasonable period of time.
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Very cool: automatic screen rotation with ThinkPad X61 tablet
Very cool idea to use data from a hard drive accelerometer to drive automagic screen orientation on a tablet pc. Very cool.
http://www.krizka.net/2008/02/13/thinkpad-x61-tablet-automatic-screen-rotation-under-linux/
Monday, February 11th, 2008
Ubuntu goes with KVM as default virtualization choice
Awesome news from the Ubuntu team. I like this move and I hope this only adds to the growing community backing KVM and working on maturing the management of the technology in the developer community.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue76#head-ae07153a350b0c9e5da6b4c84d8fca9fa1d7ab7a
We’ve chosen to settle on KVM as our main virtualization focus. KVM is a special version of QEMU which utilizes the new virtualization extensions that both Intel and AMD have added to their newest CPU models.
Monday, February 11th, 2008
Top 50 proprietary applications and open source alternatives
A couple of these are dated (NVU…), but Jimmy Atkinson put together a great rosetta stone for those looking for open source alternatives to their proprietary desktop apps.
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
Coverage on IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution with Ubuntu
Saw a few articles today on IBM’s OCCS announcement with Ubuntu.
Satyadas said IBM thinks that this year, it will happen. “All the stars are lining up,” he said. “Everybody has been saying that since 2001 except IBM. We never said that, but we are saying that now.”
It’s easy to overlook IBM’s announcement that its Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony suites will run on Ubuntu. I think this would be a mistake. IBM is not a dumb company. It’s not in the habit of wasting resources. For IBM to be partnering up with Ubuntu says something about the enterprise mindset on Ubuntu.
By porting key software to Linux, IBM is looking to give businesses one less reason to buy products from rival Microsoft — which IBM said offers “a proprietary desktop model.” IBM’s Linux efforts will “further address customer demands around choice,” said Inna Kuznetsova, an IBM executive with responsibility for Linux, in a statement.
Monday, January 21st, 2008
Ubuntu and IBM bring enterprise collaboration to a user friendly Linux desktop
I read this news release with great excitement and will take a shameless opportunity to plug what I think is a fantastic partnership. The news? IBM’s Lotus group has announced support of its Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) for Ubuntu Linux. OCCS is a layer of rich client communications apps including IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 (Calendaring, Email), Sametime 7.x (Instant Messaging), and Symphony (OpenOffice in an Eclipse RCP form). I’ve switched to Ubuntu for my primary system at home for well over a year now and while I took a very short break to dabble in Fedora 8, I’m back on Ubuntu again. I’ve been using a RHEL5 base at work for over a year as well but now that we have Ubuntu support coming, I’ll probably switch to Ubuntu once the OCCS solution is released (yes, I work in a strategy group in IBM and I don’t use Windows or MS Office - and most people can’t tell). The thing about working in IBM is that everyone uses Notes, Sametime, and ODF is even becoming more popular so there’s very little that prevents anyone from using Linux (or a Mac). Heck, many users can probably get away with an iPhone.
IBM also expanded the OCCS platform support with Red Hat EL Desktop and announced more partners around OCCS on Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED).
What makes all this even better? Enterprise applications delivered in a rich client environment. Take for instance SAP, who today announced a joint product set with IBM that will be delivered through Lotus Notes (which we now know runs well on Linux)
The product, codenamed Atlantic, will allow users to access SAP’s Business Suite applications for workflows, reporting and analytics through IBM’s Lotus Notes desktop software.
So the ecosystem and vision is starting to come together. It’s early, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention again that 2008 will be the year of the enterprise Linux client ;-) How many users will we be saying this for? :-) (Note, I didn’t say ‘desktop’ specifically, and I said ‘enterprise’). As we’ve been saying all along, there are certain segments of users that can easily do their work on a Linux client (many won’t even know it’s not Windows). Those companies who take advantage of user segmentation have a lot to benefit from both on pure cost alone, but also in the next round of negotiations on your non-Linux client systems ;-)
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
Ubuntu Customer Case Studies
Ubuntu is not just for the enthusiast; check out their case studies page:
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/casestudies
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
Ubuntu Live 2008 - Call for Papers
Mark Shuttleworth posted on his blog today a call for papers for Ubuntu Live 2008 in Portland (Oregon). You can see his blog here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/137
O’Reilly, the organisers of Ubuntu Live, have just issued the call for papers for Ubuntu Live 2008. The theme of the event is “Taking it Further”, which I think is perfect for Ubuntu this year!
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
New Open Season Episode 8
I think Open Season is probably the only podcast session I listen to regularly. What can I say, I’m a sucker for Ashlee Vance’s humor/critique… although I haven’t purchased his book yet…
This episode includes some (dare I say unsupported) speculation on Ubuntu and IBM from Mr. Asay. I guess there’s some evil plot to take over the world in there, but given my job at IBM… I’d probably know :-) I also found it odd that the 1.5 minute speculation bit also became the title (what do you expect from El Reg?). Anyway, listen if for no other reason than Open Season offers Ogg downloads (thanks!).
Anyway, you can listen for yourself here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/28/open_season_8/
Monday, November 26th, 2007
The Register: “Linux desktops grow and grow and grow”
URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/23/linux_desktop_survey/
Initial figures from the 2007 Linux Foundation Desktop survey are coming out. In this article, two items caught my eye:
1) SMB
The majority, 68.4 per cent, of Linux desktops are in small and home office set-ups or small businesses with less than 100 machines. Medium businesses of between 101 and 500 PCs account for 9.7 per cent and companies with between 1,001 and 5,000 account for 6.2 per cent of Linux desktops.
2) Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu
In terms of flavours of Linux the “Ubuntu family” accounts for 54.1 per cent followed by Red Hat versions with 50.2 per cent, while Novell SUSE picks up 35.2 per cent. (Eagle-eyed readers may notice this adds up to more than 100 per cent because many groups have not settled on just one Linux version in their office or organisation.)
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
Has Desktop Linux reached “The Tipping Point”?
You have to wonder when Malcolm would agree looking back 10 years from now, Linux hit the “Tipping Point”… when I see ordinary Windows users switching (and liking it), I can’t help but think, it might be tipping right now…
Well the Linux desktop is certainly here and I can prove it because as of today I’m officially an Ubuntu user and even though things aren’t perfect, I feel like I’ve finally escaped from jail.
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