http://www.ohiolinux.org

Henry Keultjes
hbkeultjes(at)earthlink(dot)net

Henry Keultjes wrote:

Wow, wish we had something like that in southern California. Maybe we
do and I just never noticed.

Congratulations and Good Luck Henry!!

Tony

Yeah, it's Tuesday nights at El Toritos, isn't it?

Mark


"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

Thanks! The growth of Ohio Linux Fest has just been amazing. Over
1200 people had registered as of a few weeks ago and I am sure there
will be more than 1000 in attendance.

In line with Henry's PowerPC and Pick interests
http://www.ncolug.org/ppc.htm , I showed a PowerPC based CD-ROM sized
server with an IBM PowerPC based Thin Client in 2003. In 2004 I showed
two Mai Logic systems with IBM chips under the IBM banner.

Early this years, the Database Scientifics project received a Motorola
G4 class system which is the system that Tom deLombarde ported OpenQM
to.

We wanted to show OpenQM but this year but Chris Hicks, IBM's POWER on
Linux specialist, and other Linux specialist are participating
directly. I hope that they will surprise all of us with some new 970
(64-bit) based desktops running off the IBM 710 Linux server that is
also 970 based and . . . that we will get some of that hardware to port
OpenQM to.

Henry Keultjes


Tony Gravagno wrote:

It's interesting that you're talking all about iron that Linux runs on
- very good for solid business applications. Linux shows used to be
all about the OS itself. Asking a real hacker what distro he ran was
an insult because real hackers ran from pure source, built their own
kernel and assembled their own libs. When it came to hardware the
trick was to get Linux to run embedded in a PDA other mobile device
due to its low profile. Now it seems to be legitimized into what
commericial hardware will allow Linux to shine the brightest. The
standard commercial distro that most people will load onto their
system requires as many GB as a modest Windows installation - and you
know my opinion regarding lib incompatibilities looking just like DLL
Hell (I know, I know, try Debian...).

This is just an observation and not intended to go anywhere, but it
seems the Linux world is like a child rebelling against the adult
world, but as it matures it's becoming more and more just like the
generations before.

Time to go find a Linux show I guess.

T

csigline (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote:

Hi Tony,

<SNIP>
And just an observation on your observation:
That is an interesting take, I guess that I will never quite understand
from whence you come on this.

I have been using Linux as a live server platform since 1996. Far from
being a rebellious child, it was as mature then as were the commercial
UNIX products that it was replacing (SCO, Interactive). Very shortly
thereafter it became rapidly _much_ more mature: more stable; efficient
and flexible.

Only in the last couple of years have I been using it (as opposed to
experimenting with it) as a desktop and the gingerbread is now coming
of age.

Or just build a box and play ;-) I can send you a mondo CD with all of
my favorite toys (now including openQM). And ... yes it will be Debian
so you can enjoy a successful implementation of package management. LOL
-Tom

"Tom deL" <ted (AT) blackflute (DOT) com> wrote:

I wasn't too clear, sorry. My observation was of the Linux market as
well as the software.

Regrding the software: I fully agree that Linux as a platform is quite
stable and robust. But it is still highly susceptible to "DLL hell"
in terms of lib dependencies. It's entirely unstandardized when
considering RPM, Yum, up2date, and that there are different binaries
required for every distro and subrelease imaginable. Don't want to
deal with a binary? Get the source and just try to configure and
make/install on your own - everyone seems to have a different opinion
about how to build from source and in the end it's usually
system-specific - not an activity for the average user who has no
problem running InstallShield or a Windows MSI process. Sure with
tiny packages its easy, with "real" software fergetaboutit.

About the market, consider LinuxWorld Expo and how it there used to be
a bunch of kids - unshaven if they were even of age to grow a beard -
and lots of discussion about the cool factor of some new distro. Then
notice how it became more commercial. Big names started dominating
the shows, mostly hardware providers who had something to gain by
bundling. It became and still is very commercial. It's that maturity
to which I refer, like a high school kid progressing to college and
then getting a job in the business world.


My time is spent installing the least amount of software I can so that
I can satisfy the requirements of my clients and prospects. I don't
have a single client running or wanting Debian and I've never had a
single inquiry about it. It's therefore off the radar - and that's
unfortunate because I trust that it's a better distro. I do run
CentOS, and while I've been very supportive of them, I'm finding I get
no responses for a long time on minor issues. This is probably
because I'm running v3.5 and they're off to 4.x. Do I want to
completely reinstall my OS, configs, and software just to have the
right to ask questions in a forum? Not really. Wasn't this what the
new RHEL was supposed to prevent? Hmmm.

The latest issue is that yum fails to load about a hundred updates
because it can't find the dependency for one lib that I never use and
never intentionally installed anyway. Of course I can see the single
dependency file is there but I don't know where yum is looking.
Efforts to eliminate this package and its dependency from the update
have failed. As a user is it really my responsibility to look at the
C source code to figure out what's going on in there? How the hell
would someone debug an intricate process like that anyway? If
Microsoft is the anti-christ because they have bugs and don't provide
source, how is Linux any better that it does provide tiers and tiers
of source in a low-level language, unreadable to any common user, and
which even the distro providers are unwilling to support? Why do I
need to be an expert with the internals of these dinky packages to
just use the system? In this respect Linux is highly immature and I
semi-patiently look forward to improvements.

All this said, remember from our prior discussions on this - I like
Linux in principle, I'm just not afraid to point out its problems. Am
I confusing the inadequacies of the CentOS/RHEL platform with the more
general "Linux" OS? Probably, but I've standardized on the platform
that everyone else in our market has adopted for business use. Some
here would say "fergetaboutit, use Debian!". I don't have much of a
choice than to go with the industry leader and all of their problems.

Regards as always,
T

Tony Gravagno wrote:
snip....

I guess OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, gnucash, kismet are all
tiny packages, then? (Well, kismet maybe.)

Sorry Tony, I couldn't resist! ;-)

Art

Goo'day,

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 23:39:26 GMT, Art Martz <artmartz (AT) triad (DOT) rr.com>
wrote:

Yeah, but I' think you've missed the meaning......

What you've listed are "applications". I understand the "packages"
to which Tony refers to be thed nix-style "packages" that go toward
the implementation of the OS.....

And, in that, I'd have to agree with T...... the linux world really is
still "geeks gone mad"..... Every geek and his dog has a different
idea about where they're going (them and liniux) and what's required
to get there.... The "applications" you refer to are about the only
nearly sensible bits for linux, but have you bothered to read the
fights/pros and cons/queries and insults that emanate from some of the
so-called support sites?????

I firmly believe there's a lot of growing up to be done..... and
perhaps, the "freebie" notion is responsible for my dilemma -
everybody gets a vote - or gets to do what he wants.... with
absolutely no control over the many and varied end-results....

I really do have concerns for the long-term COMMERCIAL future for
linux......

Bruce Nichol
Talon Computer Services
ALBURY NSW Australia

http://www.taloncs.com.au

If it ain't broke, fix it until it is....

Bruce Nichol wrote:

Art Martz wrote:

Dare I argue with someone who agrees with me? LOL. In this case I
was indeed talking about building anything from source,
package/utilities as well as apps - tough to categorize them
sometimes. Maybe both of you thought I was just questioning major
applications or OS components, I dunno.

As you said, everyone has a different way to build some lib or app,
lots of times they don't bother to tell you the right way how. Makes
it real tough to play the game.

Hear hear.

And as if they read CDP: The cover story for InformationWeek magazine
this week says "Open-source software, led by Linux, is barreling into
big business". See what I mean? It's a bull in a china shop.

T