linux

Over the last week I have been doing quite a bit of work with SuSE, Samba3 and OpenLDAP. I must say although difficult to setup the first time it is really nice to have all your user accounts managed from one central location. I have just installed a new SuSE server running this combination into a clients office and it is looking very good indeed. All of the basic work is done all that needs to happen now is get all the Windows machines bound the domain and install the printer drivers onto the server for painless printer adding.

Some useful links I have found to help set all this up are:

I formatted my hard drive today and repartitioned it with space for OSX and Ubuntu. Originally I planned on putting in a larger hard disk but cracking open an aluminium PowerBook is like tackling a lobster with a butter knife.
Ubuntu installed effortlessly on the machine with very little input from myself. I was even surprised to find my Apple bluetooth mouse works without having to do anything. Apparently the wireless will not work but that is because the wireless manufacturer uses a closed source driver.

I came across this link lately whilst reading through a newsgroup.
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

The website helps you choose a Linux distribution that suits your needs by asking you a range of questions (such as hardware, technical experience, etc.) and then providing a list of recommendations. The helper is tidy looking and very easy to use. Considering the broad range of distributions out there a tool like this is very helpful, perhaps not for the experienced Linux user but for someone just getting into the fray....

Recently I have been listening to the Linux Radio Show archives and found them quite enjoyable.
Unlike other Linux radio shows these English guys are not so serious and often are fairly brutal about their opinions which is good to hear. Sometimes you also get the feeling they have been smoking something beforehand which just adds to the atmosphere...

Linux Radio Show Homepage

This archive show is quite interesting as they interview Miguel de Icaza, lead developer of Mono and a high up in Novell after their purchase of Ximian in 2004.

Asterix is a Linux distribution intented for use as a PBX in an office with more than a handful of staff. Traditional PBX systems are typically expensive and require dedicated hardware and support in order to function. Asterix changes this by providing a software based PBX system that can run on standard x86 hardware. This software has been forecast to be the next big thing in the Open Source arena behind such projects as the Apache web server, SAMBA filesharing and the OpenOffice suite.

Linux provides an excellent platforms for web, email, file and print services. Whilst extremely effective in larger businesses, distributions such as Red Hat and SuSE/Novell are too extensive and time intensive to be used within small businesses as a general purpose server.

It is great to have all your digital music, movies, email and other entertainment available at your finger tips. In the past I have used a Shuttle PC running Linux to provide this functionality. Coupled with a 19" LCD and a decent sound system the experience is fantastic. Unfortunately there are a few issues I always faced. The first was the notion that Linux is 'free software'. Application wise Linux stacks up well to other operating systems. Gnome is a great graphical environment and applications like MPlayer, Evolution and MythTV are really first class. Whilst the applications and the open-source concept is great there are some areas where things are a bit rough around the edges. Many of these inconsistencies are not significant but I do find them annoying especially in a system you are trying to keep clean and easy to use by all. For example the visual difference in the XScreensaver prompt plus the difference in appearance between GTK/Gnome and Qt/KDE applications to name just a couple.

For a number of months I have been using Fedora Core 2 very happily to run a MythTV/games system. Unfortunately as of about a month ago MythTV development on FC2 stopped and now only focuses on the Fedora Core 3 release. This development freeze left me in the lurch with only a partially working MythTV setup (due to dependency issues). Consequently I took the plunge and downloaded the FC3 DVD. Little did I know this process would eventually lead me to stop using Linux on my home workstation....

The install process went well and it sure was nice not to have to swap CD's at random times during the installation. After installation I was reintroduced to the same old Fedora headache's such as the yum package management system, no mp3 playback and no sound on rebooting. The first two issues were quickly resolved with the installation of Synaptic and a few mp3 libraries. The later problem was more difficult and it turned out FC3 was not storing my alsa.conf settings on a reboot. I resolved this by adding a line to my rc.local file that restored the correct settings. All these things were only inconveniences but still took a long time to resolve. I was happy with FC3's speed, default selection of packages and the pre-packaged NVidia kernel modules.

After stumbling on the FlashLinux website a few nights ago I had been itching to give this USB based distribution a try due to its inherit potential for becoming a truly portable desktop environment. I have been using Live CDs for a while now mainly for system recovery. Whilst useful I have three issues with the CD distributions. Firstly you cannot save preferences/files (unless you use a USB key), secondly they are generally slow because CD-Roms are not fast and thirdly a CD-Rom is just too big to fit in your pocket.

Working Desktop (click to enlarge)

A few of us were talking recently about USB based Linux distributions.
Up until now I had only really seen 'lite' text distros or very cut down Knoppix hacks.
This distribution is aimed for 256meg USB key owners and provides such cool things as Gnome 2.8, Firefox and OpenOffice.

FlashLinux USB Distribution Homepage
 
For old school 128meg key owners like myself it's almost worth going and buying a new key just for the freedom it would provide.