Do you use Linux?

[shirwa_24]

I tried out latest ubuntu Linux release and i was quite impressed. Its a shame that not alot of IT student try or learn Linux/UNIX because in real world IT is not all about Microsoft or MCSE although their have big market share.

 

Linux and open source software can bring many advantages to our country because its stable, secure and its free, i dont think any somali organisation, schools or business can affort MS tax.

 

 

 

 

[Abu-Salman]

Asc Akhi, it has been a while...

 

 

I've actually managed to set up Mandrake alongside Windows on my last pc and a Linux OS

has been chosen for the so-called "100 $US laptop" made available in some countries.

 

It seems linux is ok for web browsing and office applications which are anyway the most essential ones for companies and the public sector.

 

However, issues of compatibility with Windows files and apllications need to be adressed before convincing most of the general public, technologically naive, particularly when it comes to multimedia (without implying that this really matters).

 

Now, Linux would be just as good for creating and managing Websites (after all both popular Apache and Drupal are open source too).

 

Of course, we need to be aware of all the latest trends for our numeric Da'wah to operate even more proactively.

[shirwa_24]

W/C/S Ahki

 

Linux run well on the back-end servers whether it is web server, database, email etc. Front-end clients, most companies or public sectors need access to core applications such emails app, word processor etc. multimedia such as video editing is not great but you install proprietary codecs on linux such as .avi, real media, etc.

 

Europeans countries can afford MS product because their have the money, but i think linux can bring benefits to countries like ours.

[Geel_jire]

shirwa is this the hardy heron i was hearing so much about.

 

i have used ubuntu, red hat , slackware ... but only ubuntu in the last 2 years ...

 

I love linux but there a few things that unless they are solved will not be adopted by the general masses

 

1- as abu-salman mentioned compatibility most of the applications are written for ms platform.

 

2- wireless and audio drivers are terrible getting ndiswrapper to work is hell

 

3- dual moniter support is torture i got it to work on a ubuntu fiesty fawn by manually editing the xorg.ocnf file it took me 3 hours ...but when i updated to gutsy gibon it lost all configurations.

 

i have it runing on vmare player ... it uses the wireless NIC of xp via NAT and all the other hardware drivers ... i also have it on dual boot on a few machines at home ...

 

EDIT: Excellent blog !

[shirwa_24]

Its nice to hear that you brothers use Linux, i wished their was somali Linux community to share my interest with, i'm sure their are alot of them but not exposed.

 

its true that most of the applications are written for ms platform but linux user base are growing, companies are starting supported Linux platforms.

 

Wireless support is not great either but its getting their, i'm glad my T-Mobile 3G modem is working on Linux.

[Conspiracy]

Shirwa lot of people on this forum use linux alot!! got to say though Geel duqa

 

1.compatibility most of the applications are written for ms platform. ( when you got a distor that comes with over 2000 apps you will find alternatives and still there i wine and codeweavers you'd still run ms soft without virtualization )..

 

2- wireless and audio drivers are terrible getting ndiswrapper to work is hell(which distro you talking about?! i ran opensuse on lot of machines and normaly it pick up and install all of them i hardly had to install any drivers!)

 

3- dual moniter support (same as above) .. again it all depends on the distro you using....

 

The problem with linux its buit and designed by geeks!!! not enough user interface research which kind of turns off alot of people even though Compiz-fusion is helping to bridge the gaps !!

 

I saw this article @ digg a while ago might be little bit useful Five Common Misconceptions About Linux

 

check out point 3!! ..

[Geel_jire]

^ the distro i was talking about was ubuntu ... i'll give opensuse a try if it can detect wireless nics .. but from what i understand the problem is with the hardware vendors not giving the specs/API to the linux developers or not writing drivers for the linux OS.

 

-ndiswrapper emulates windows in that it makes the wireless nic think it is running in a windows environment it has worked for me a few times but i cant get it to work on my latest update.

 

- regarding the compatibility issue it's getting better for example if you use Open office instead of ms office you can now save word documents in the .doc format instead of the native .odf ditto for .xls this is why i use open office but still save in windows file formats... for commonly used win apps you can probably find a work around but games and custom built software have a lot of catching up to do.

 

another positive is KDE and GNOME have gotten much better as a result the learning curve for the average person migrating from windows is not that steep

[Jacpher]

Those ndiswrapper are no fun. It took three days to work with my laptop.

 

Speaking of Linux, I've used Ubuntu but them Live CDs come in handy when you're in trouble. I keep couple different ones near my desk. You never know when you're gonna need them for data recovery or something else. The only live cd that works well with wireless and graphics I've seen so far is PCLinuxOS. I don't know how popular it is but it worked flawlessly.

[shirwa_24]

Linux became more user friendly compare to couple of years ago and its becoming less geek OS. it took me couple of months to switch over completely, i'm glad i switched, no more anti-virus, spyware paranoia.

 

opensuse is nice distro, its user friendly etc. but i like more ubuntu because i love apt-get, i think its the best package management system in world.

[Geel_jire]

^ I think it is called the synaptics package manager although it's command line equivalent is 'sudo apt-get install' (at least in the BASH shell) the GUI is excellent

 

but i agree it is the single best part of ubuntu the entire repository at your finger tips