YWAM Information Technology - Other - Comments

Licensing, et. al.

Donovan — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:31:46 +0100

Yes, it is funny how these decisions are not just technical, but also in licensing. I would have to say in general that I like the GNU license better. However, the more I read, the more I am intrigued by the technical capabilities of BSD, particularly in a server type environment.... which brings me to another consideration I had.

I think that Linux is superior when it comes to being a Desktop replacement. Ubuntu and OpenSUSE are particularly have configurations which make it attractive for even mobile deployment into laptops. However, I perceive that BSD is not as advanced in this area. There are a couple of offerings, PC-BSD, http://www.pcbsd.org/ being the most interesting to me.

That said, my interest in Linux from day one has always been in server applications. So I suppose that is my primary orientation. For the most part, I'm not concerned about things such as flash support for the Linux version of Firefox or editing high def video. I'm not saying this isn't important, it's just not my area or interest.

However, some of the things that do interest me are:

1. I love their documentation. I cannot tell you how often I have been disappointed in the quality of some of documentation of Linux. If it wasn't for Google and the internet, I wouldn't know half of what I do. Most of the time I don't find an answer that I need from the documentation, but rather some group where the problem is being discussed by users.

2. I like the idea of having a base install, from which you can add what you want. Of course, I am showing my server oriented interests on this one.

3. As much as I like the stability of Linux, I want to push this further... my free software project built on a PII-400 is mostly there in terms of stability, but I think it is possible to take it a bit further and even go a bit faster. I don't mind the idea of compiling things myself to get it there.

So anyhow, I'm going to try to buy a box for a tenner off of ebay and have a play. I thought I might try to put up an IRC server with it, but actually am thinking more that I'm going to have another furray into mySQL. We'll see how we get on...

Another interesting point... I have been reading a lot of great things about Gentoo. I didn't know much about this distro until about a month or so ago. If I had unlimited amounts of time, I would check it out to see what the fuss is.

Unix et. al

crashsystems — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:06:54 +0100

Speaking of various forms of Unix, I'm thinking of testing out OpenSolaris in a VM some time. I've mostly stuck with Linux, due to it being the most wide spread, and with the most software options. However, I read an article last night about ZFS in OpenSolaris, and it looks quite interesting. If only Sun and the FSF could sort out those pesky GPL/CDDL compatibility issues, so that ZFS could be compiled in to Linux!

It's about the freedom

KevinColyer — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:25:35 +0100

Hi Donovan,

Nice article! For me this boils down to one thing: GNU and the GPL.

I think the linked article you pointed to is correct: BSD may be technically better than Linux. I don't doubt for one instance the technical ability and excellent engineering skills of the BSD guys. In fact I am thankful for OpenSSH and OpenSSL and of course the Windows NT networking stack that is taken from BSD's networking stack (Vista is a new MS stack - be very afraid!).

I like the desire to give it all away - the BSD licence gives the code away incredibly generously to others. Wonderful.

BUT... I am more persuaded by the community ideas of Stallman and the GNU folks. (70% of ALL free software projects use a GNU licence. So I think I might be in a majority) And this is my reason: the GNU licence creates a community space for people to work together on code, to continuously improve it for the benefit of a community and not have some commercial body come along, take all that hard work and profit from it thus destroying the community.

I just am not persuaded that the altruistic goals of the BSD community are the same ones I share! I will cheer them on but I think the GPL is the best way to preserve the freedom of the other people I care about.

These are strong feelings. I have yet to release code under the GPL as I am a terrible coder, but it will be my choice for a licence in the future. My current level is "Advocate"!

Good post Donovan!

re: Disadvantages of Linux

neo — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:52:39 +0100

Hi Judge,
sorry, didn't had the time right away and then kinda forgot to write that down. Although you should be happy that I was pretty gracious with the Mac disadvantages there is so much more I could've written down.... ;) But now here it comes. All against Linux.

- driver support not always that good or fast, sometimes drivers are never available, e.g. for the wireless PCMCIA card for my laptop
- the touch pad on laptops are a bit imprecise and/or too sensitive. So, a external mouse is pretty much needed which can be a pain on the road. On top of that I could find an option to disable the touch pad.
- many times Linux is that last version that get updated by software vendors and is therefore hanging behind the Windows and/or Mac version. Skype for example is lacking many features even in the latest beta version compared to long available stable versions of Windows. ⁽¹⁾
- some areas of profession are underdeveloped, like video production, although most programs can do more than the average Joe can do, anyways. ⁽¹⁾
- for very few software is no FOSS alternative available. E.g. if you want to develop something with Flash you need to have Windows or OSX. To date I don't know of anything to develop Flash on any *nix. Watching Flash is no problem though. ⁽¹⁾
- Linux is not really a gaming platform. So, a power gamer would most likely not choose Linux. Or he will have 2 computers or dual boot or Wine ⁽¹⁾ will become a good friend of him.
- specially with the actual distro there so much choice, that is just overwhelming for some people. Then there is not only the distro itself but also different desktop environments, most common probably Gnome and KDE.
- Linux needs just as much system resources as a up-to-date Windows, if not a little more. Many times people think they can try out Linux on their old computer but that then is many times a not so fun experience. It's like trying to run Windows Vista with full blown Aero on a old machine. Although, here is an advantage of the choice part mentioned above. There are light weight desktop environments available so that older computers can run a Linux with an up-to-date kernel but with an not so eye-candy and highly customizable desktop.

(1) If there is a desperate need for a specific software or version of software there is a possible solution though. I never tried it myself but I know that there is "Wine" available. No, that's not alcohol in that case. From the developers website: "Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available."
Means, with that it should be possible to run pretty much every software that is available for Windows, including Adobe Flash or Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Games, Quicken, etc. It's kinda a risk of course to buy something and then try it out. So, downloading a trial version is probably a good idea before spending any money.
Wine online:
Official Homepage
Wine at Wikipedia

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

vs. All Three

metamorphousthe — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:07:40 +0100

My wife and I use all three at home. My wife runs a Mac Book OS X with Parallels running XP. I run a Dell Inspiron 6400 Laptop dual boot with XP Pro and Kubuntu.

Without Getting into all the FOSS philosophical issues. I always believe that it leans more towards usability and support.

Usability being: How fast can someone pick up the use and navigation of the desktop to find and run programs. Obviously for a person who has used nothing but Windows, to ask them to now navigate a Linux distro or even a Mac OSX can be daunting if they are not willing to take on the challenge. Some people don't have that kind of patients. The easiest person(s) to take on "any" OS of choice would those willing to take on the challenge or those whom are not ingrained with one type of OS.

Support being: Amount of software available and the support thereof. Whether software at no-charge or even commercially purchased software (which the latter would definitely have the Tech Support end). Drivers for hardware is another issue. It IS true that being M'soft has the majority of the market it will stand to reason that it will have the majority of drivers available for just about any hardware out.

There are many aspects that made M'soft the majority holder of the software market. Without getting into any other issues known or rumored, one of them is that M'soft wanted to make their OS the easiest to use for any consumer. And at that they have.

So, IMHO what are the advantages of any of them:

1. Obviously M'soft would have more. Hook it up, turn it on, and you are ready to go. Let someone sit down and do there stuff. Any *nix distro would mean a little more of being sure that the drivers are available for the peripherals you are using, though most of the forefront popular distros would have plenty unless it is some specialized peripheral. Mac OS X would be right behind M'soft but the majority of the software and is commercially sold which would mean more expense out of your pocket.

2. Obviously any *nix version would have the leverage on software available as just about all the distros come pre-loaded with tons of software. The disadvantage I have always found is this ... if you are trying to draw someone to your distro, don't bog them down with many version of the same thing which can be quite confusing along with the naming of some of the software which can be also confusing.

What would I do if I had the opportunity and time? I would construct a *nix distro with a familiar desktop, obviously mimicking that of M'soft's desktop, design and layout with icons, naming of programs, etc. for all computers on a YWAM campus complete with all the drivers needed for the peripherals used on the campus. Basically making a YWAM Distribution. My reasoning behind this would be the obvious turn-around of staff that a YWAM campus goes through and the need to lessen the amount of training.

Now you might ask why a *nix distro that mimics M'soft and the *nix not having the usual support behind it like M'soft when you can just get the real thing? At that you would typically be correct except for another main issue a ministry like YWAM goes through ... costs of purchasing an OS.

"transformity" not "conformity" then you will understand things as with a new mind

Driver support

KevinColyer — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:48:02 +0000

Lack of drivers support is a problem with Linux, even common hardware like Nvidia accelerated 3D cards wont work out of the box, although drivers are available.

Wireless Cards can be very difficult to get to work too, although most Windows drivers can be made to work with Ndiswrapper, but this is not easy.

The reason is not lack of technical competence but ethics! If the manufacturers would open up their hardware very good drivers would get written very quickly. Linux's openness and freedom for the user are not values shared by many vendors (except IBM, Novell, Sun, HP et al!)

It is useful to check BEFORE you buy hardware for Linux.

However, you would be surprised just how much stuff just works out of the box! If you use a good live distribution on a CD you can test a machine before install. Then you will know!

You will have better success rates with older machines in many cases. One disadvantage with installing Windows on older machines is the hunt around the internet for drivers (assuming the network card works!). An advantage of Linux is the way older machines are supported straight away.

Hope this helps!

Kevin

Disadvantages of Linux

alex.costa — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 20:29:37 +0000

* Softaware instalation & Update (it has gone a long way with Yast2 and Zen Installer, also the famous apt-get for Debian but still there are a lot of library dependency issues and sometimes the best way is still to either compile or comandline RPM). For a normal desktop user it could be a pain.
* Although Linux has one of the best USB support, there are a lot of devices that are not geared towards the linux OS(which is not a Linux problem but affects it's users)

Disadvantages of Linux

conkey — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 18:27:01 +0000

OK, you mentioned the disadvantages of Windows and OSX, but what about the disadvantages of Linux? Is it so perfect that you couldn't think of any?

The Judge

"Cheap is good; but free is better!"

advantages of osx

neo — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:53:44 +0000

Hi,
from my experience with Macs....

- Stable
- Boots up very quickly
- Almost no viruses, etc.
- Based on Unix, so you can use Unix commands in a terminal if you're used to them anyways

Some disadvantages:
- With introducing the Widgets and using Safari Apple opened up a potential way for viruses, etc.
- Expensive, some may argue that it's not that much more, however, new versions of the OS come out fairly frequent. So, if I want to stay up-to-date I personally find it pretty costly.
- HD partitioning, at least to my knowledge, not as flexible as I would like to have

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Linux Adv 2

alex.costa — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:33:23 +0000

Just to Add to the above list:

* Very flexible/mangeable
* Secure
* Admin access to raw config files so it's easy to impplement taylor made GUIs/WEB Apps for managing different programmes/servers/services
* Although not widely used (as desktops) it supports a wide range of hardware (including USB)
* Runs on PCs and MACs (good for recovery and troubleshooting)
* Portable (live CD/DVD or USB Device)
* GNU License - will always be OpenSource
* Samba Server makes it easy to network with other OSs
* Instalable in older computers
* Has good "out of the box" solutions for education (mainly primary educ.)
* Easy remote administration GUI or Comand Line (SSH)
* Can run Windows .exe apps with the help of WINE (not an emulator but a Reverse Engeneering of the Windows API)

Windows Adv 2

alex.costa — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:14:04 +0000

Just to add to the above list:

* Easy Software installation
* Lots of "out of the box" solutions
* U can run most Open Source applications on it
* Good for networking

advantages of linux

neo — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 04:10:01 +0000

Hi,
here is what I think is good about Linux.

- It's OpenSource and for free
- Many different distributions fit many different needs
- Almost no virus, etc. are existing
- Almost all programs are OpenSource and for free
- Very large online community can help with probably every problem, the hardest thing is to find the right help in a community that size ;-)
- Server version without graphical interface
- Very stable OS

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

advantages of windows

neo — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 04:02:43 +0000

Hi,
OK here I start off with Windows. This is not necessarily a complete list of what I see as advantage, it's just a start.

- I like the way how easy it is to partition a HD and store different data at the exact spot I want it to be
- It's customizable to the point I need it
- Very good hardware support by because it's so widely used
- Many people can help because it's so widely used

Some disadvantages are:
- Many viruses, etc
- Needs to be re-installed from time to time

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

yes..a missing piece

alex.costa — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:04:28 +0000

Connection & Service

tofirius — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 08:05:34 +0000

First of all, I want to comment once again that I am so excited of the existence of this website where YWAMers in the field of IT can come together & discuss. That's the 1st step to understanding obstacles & discovering creative solutions to better communication, which, let's face it, is the bottom line of IT. After all, if we don't have quality communication among those that are supposed to be offering communication solutions, then it seems pointless to try to "do" communications projects.

Secondly, I want to address Kent's question of where is the leadership? I, personally, cannot lead when I have no idea who it is I should be leading or what those people would want. I mean, some of us have had personal interaction with each other, but, for instance, I have never met any of you. Consequently, save for this website & a couple of personal emails from some of you, I feel very disconnected & have no idea how to proceed with much of anything, except for my own local projects. I'm wondering if there isn't some way all of us who are actively participating in this blog site could get together over GENESIS or perhaps even over just a Skype conference call to maybe pray together & get to know each other a little better. But then again, maybe all of you have already met each other, & I'm just the odd man out.

I would feel that if there were some kind of more personal interaction with each other, we could maybe get a better understanding of what each of our strengths & weaknesses are, pray together & perhaps see if God would unite us in some way through a given vision from Him.

Just for the record, I think the idea of a Summer of Service IT outreach is a fantastic idea because one thing that is ingrained in IT people is pride, which I believe something like an SSIT (as it were) could help change. If IT people are going to go to bases & help in projects, they must do it in the humblest of ways submitting to base leadership & allow that leadership to use their skills rather than push their own agendas as IT people. Really it's no different than a DTS outreach, but I think the pride issue is so much more evident in IT folks (just take a look at the t-shirts over at www.thinkgeek.com). But I digress... the overall point, though, is I believe there are those guys (or gals) whom I know are believers & highly skilled IT personnel who would be very eager to come & make a difference in the Kingdom with their abilities. The reality of making something like this happen, though, is dependent on a) very much prayer & b) those full-time YWAM folks who have a clue of how to prepare something like this, so that those IT folks can be best utilized. I think something like this, as with most successful IT projects, will only be achieved through group communication.

OK, sorry for the length. Thanks for reading.

Chris Bischoff
YWAM Latvia, Communications
www.ywamlatvia.com
www.chrisandlydia.net