The Year Ahead: Linux continues to push for the desktop, Dec 31, 2002

The open-source operating system is making slow progress onto the desktop, but recent developments could mean it is there to stay

What's most important about Linux (and its BSD cousins) is being the standard-bearer for the idea of Unix: anything can be fixed, or used to make something new or better. You're given control of all the tools (including everything that was used to make those tools). You're given an industrial-strength platform with rock-solid stability and very high levels of performance. Further: no more Microsoft-style forced upgrades and strategic incompatibilities to rob your wallet. IT departments are only now starting to remember what it's like to control their infrastructure, and Linux is what's reminding them.

Webmaster's note: 'Plague' is kind of a strong verb, especially if you compare Open Source's security record with Microsoft's, but these are actual events that did occur.

But Pointon says that using open source software is often less risky than using pre-compiled, or "closed source" software because users who download open source packages can very easily verify their authenticity through a mathematical process known as an md5 checksum.

About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment that could also run government-mandated Microsoft apps. This let his team of 30 engineers continue to program in a Unixlike environment and create Word documents and Outlook E-mail all on the same PC. This mixed-use scenario is slowly taking hold, encouraged by a growing number of applications for running Linux on PC desktops.

At the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco last August, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told the crowd that Oracle is "moving very aggressively" to run its own operations on Linux.

The reason for the move is simple, according to Ellison: Linux is "cheaper, faster... and more reliable than any other environment around."

Linux hasn't quite reached mainstream status in business computing, but it's coming close. And it has become a major competitor to Microsoft.

The reason? Linux's underlying source code — the guts of the system — is available for free. Developers can download it, tinker with it and customize it for a company's needs. And in a year when words like "monopoly" and "copyright" dominated much of the technology industry, "free" drew a lot of attention.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz handed down a preliminary injunction at the request of Sun Microsystems that will force Microsoft to carry Java. He said Microsoft had "leveraged its PC monopoly to create market conditions in which it is unfairly advantaged.

The Mono project originated during de Icaza's search for better development tools for the other large-scale open source project he leads, the Gnome desktop environment. .Net solved many of the problems faced by his development team, but had two major drawbacks: it wasn't free, and it didn't work on Linux. So de Icaza and others started building their own version.

You'd hope that the open-source movement would have made a wild leap that would get it off the treadmill of featurism and onto something entirely new. After all, we are told that millions of coders on the Web can match and beat Microsoft and its mere 20,000 to 30,000 drones. The trouble is that too many members of the Linux community started out on the x86 Wintel platform. After all, Linux was designed for the x86. This is the simple but overlooked fact of the Linux revolution: Its roots are in Wintel.

At the University of Wollongong, which has about 1700 computer science students, machines in first-year labs that used to boot from either Windows or Linux have been changed to Linux only.

Lindows.com, Inc. today announced the launch of their LindowsOS Reseller Program . The launch marks the beginning of LindowsOS' entry into the retail software marketplace, making it the first time LindowsOS Membership Edition will be available to resellers

Webmaster's note: We'd like to thank the author for mentioning us in his link section at the end of the piece

In this feature, we'll be reporting on the background and history of Linux, and showing you how it looks and works. If you fancy having a go, we'll also be telling you how to get it and install it, and how to find your way around it.

The top technology search term for 2002 was MP3, indicating a continued demand for the compression technology. The mobile phone texting format, SMS, was in second place, followed by the compression tool Winzip, and Linux at number four, beating ninth-placed Microsoft in the Google stakes.

Torvalds is on a 3-day visit to Korea, his first, having arrived on Wednesday. More than 1,000 Koreans, mostly students, crowded in to hear his speech.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz compared Microsoft's treatment of Sun to Tonya Harding's knee-capping attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, as well as a crooked baseball game between Baltimore and New York.

Emotional support charity Samaritans has chosen Linux to provide it with more secure and powerful computer systems.

Microsoft Corp.'s Chief Financial Officer John Connors said on Wednesday that the software giant's future growth would be hurt if the rival Linux operating system was to make inroads onto desktop computers.

Lindows.com, Inc. announced today that it has submitted its final legal papers in support of its pending Motion for Summary Judgment on Genericness, challenging the validity of Microsoft's trademark. Now that both Lindows.com, Inc. and the Microsoft Corporation have completed their filings, the United States District Court in Seattle can address whether "windows" is a valid trademark

Schwaebisch Hall is the first German city to stop using Microsoft programs as part of an agreement between Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily and International Business Machines Corp., a distributor of Linux programs.

... users should fully investigate all compatibilities before purchasing Linux. One way to do this is by using the information resources available online.

Unisys Corp is planning versions of both its ES7000 servers and ClearPath mainframes that are capable of running the Linux operating system, ComputerWire has learned. Unisys has said in the past that it had no plans to support Linux on those machines.

The European arm of Banco do Brasil, the largest bank in South America, is switching from Windows to Linux to cut costs and centralise support.

Seven states dropped out of the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp., leaving only Massachusetts and possibly West Virginia to appeal a landmark settlement between the computer software giant and the federal government.

Massachusetts on Friday appealed a U.S. judge's decision accepting the settlement, which its attorney general criticized as a "loophole-filled deal" that won't affect the software maker's aggressive practices.

The companies that are pushing UnitedLinux have some significant strengths, but community support isn't one of them. Right now, there's no clear way for members of the Linux community to get involved with UnitedLinux directly, and that's a bad thing. While the focus of UnitedLinux is clearly commercial, it's important that these folks remember that the core product they're working on is largely the result of a community effor

MontaVista Software, a company specialising in use of Linux in embedded computing devices, has won an investment from Yahama and sold its software for use in a new video-recording computer.

During Comdex this week, UnitedLinux officials claimed growing industry momentum for their new Linux platform, which is aimed in large part at giving developers and customers a well-supported alternative to industry leader Red Hat. Red Hat ISV (independent software developer) partners Oracle, Novell, and BEA Systems have already received the "gold" code for UnitedLinux 1.0, along with a number of other ISV players, said Paula Hunter, general manager for UnitedLinux.

Banco do Brasil said today that will consolidate its European IT operations by using three iSeries servers from IBM, and making huge cost savings by implementing the Linux operating system.

Things just keep getting better and better in Linux Land. First a whole slew of desktop-oriented distros and now an upgrade to one of the most popular email/organizer clients – Evolution.

t's not entirely uncommon, one might observe, for suppliers of systems to deny responsibility if the customer breaks stuff through fiddling with the software, but that's probably not what Scope means. Effectively he's trying to raise doubts about IBM's long-term commitment to Linux, and to the customers it supplies Advanced Server to.

Sun Microsystems has teamed up with firewall maker Check Point Software to offer a security appliance based on Linux, the companies announced Monday.

The large-volume trucking division of FedEx recently installed 15 Red Hat Linux 7.2 and 7.3 servers running Apache Web server to act as a front end to its customer service application, used by businesses that hire Freight to deliver multitruckload shipments of goods across the country.

The Japanese government is reviewing the possibility of no longer using Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system as part of its plans to boost computer security within the government, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported Saturday.

Here are ten questions Doc Searls, Phil Hughes and the rest of the gang really wanted answered on the Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise but were afraid to ask

Michael Robertson's latest column unveils a new LindowsOS-based product -- a Tablet PC. To be priced at around $500 (US), the just-announced Tablet PC comes on the heels of Microsoft's unveiling its own operating system for Tablet PCs last Thursday in New York City.

There has always been free software going back 20 years but the success of the Windows platform has come from the overall richness of the platform," Gates told reporters.

"Software by being comprehensive can save money by avoiding having to buy other add-on pieces of software. You can save money in terms of speed of development (and) less expensive hardware."

Would you consider yourself a Linux advocate now?

I consider myself an advocate of whatever allows us to achieve our goals most effectively. And today, for us, that certainly is Linux because it's free; it has a good modular design; you can modify it to meet your needs. There is nothing else that can meet our needs like that.

MontaVista Software announced today that Advanced Communications Co. Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) has based the software platform of their next generation MPEG-4 TV set-top box on MontaVista Linux. The ECCLE5000 features an MPEG decoder that enables home TVs to replay MPEG-1/2/4 high quality video streams distributed via the Internet or cable.

The Australian government has given the go-ahead for its agencies to continue testing and implementing open-source solutions, as long as they meet "fit-for-purpose and value-for-money" criteria.

The Open Source Development Group (OSDgroup), a Linux training firm, and Houston-based network consultancy Westcam have teamed up to release a package that adds a graphical installer and new security settings to the OS released by the National Security Agency almost two years ago.

NEC Corp has announced the European release of its first fault- tolerant Linux server, the Express5800/320La, which has been developed in conjunction with fault tolerant server specialist Stratus Technologies Inc.

Microsoft has dismissed claims that Linux is more cost-effective for businesses, arguing that Windows is cheaper over its total lifecycle.

As Knopper told me, "Knoppix is a real Debian system." I've seen mention of it being used as a rescue CD, as a secure firewall, as a portable network monitor and as a traveling companion that allows you to read e-mail away from home without leaving tell-tale traces on someone else's hard drive. Others have been interested in experimenting with it as a secure Apache server. Knopper has said he is working on a project that will allow it to be used as a terminal server.

Imagine the pleasure with which SchoolNet would initially have confronted a charitable overture from Microsoft involving free software. Now imagine the disappointment of learning that accepting the 'gift' would entail outlays of money in the range of fifteen times the value of the M$ Trojan horse.

US retail giant Wal-Mart has added the Lycoris version of Linux to its menu of budget PCs.

Wal-Mart has become one of the most important mainstream boosters of the open-source Linux operating system and other alternatives to Microsoft's Windows.

Online casino Lasseters is the latest company dumping its Microsoft systems and replacing them with Linux.

The move is part of a broader technology overhaul that has seen the company install fresh storage gear from market leader EMC and look towards the second phase of its disaster recovery plan.

THE OPEN SOURCE Linux operating system is making significant inroads into Germany, Europe's largest economy and home to some of the world's largest corporations.

That's the message being spread by numerous software executives attending the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Frankfurt, Germany, from Tuesday through Thursday.

The Simputer is designed to be a cheap, mass market computing device which will fill a yawning gap in developing countries, such as India, where traditional PCs are still beyond the reach of the population. But PicoPetas' ambitions had seemed set to come to naught, as it struggled to find backing for the project.

There are enormous amounts of information now available about evaluating, and examining Linux for the desktop. Almost every vendor/distribution is making pitches for the desktop. The quality of the software has improved, and continues to improve. In my personal tests, there are still some missing elements that I thought I would convey to you the reader. Some of my points may have answers, and solutions available. I may not be aware of them however, so be aware of this and I look forward to your responses in the comments area below the article.

Stallman posted his candidacy to the foundation-announce list yesterday, qualifying himself for the elections to the GNOME foundation board

A report commissioned by the US military concludes that open source and free software should play a greater part in the infrastructure of the world's remaining superpower. Mitre Corporation's 152-page study addresses the extent of software libre, or FOSS-licensed software use - FOSS being "Free and Open Source Software", an acronym uncomfortably evocative to this author of dental hygiene - in various branches of the military.

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