You too can use the preferred OS of the maxi-zoom-dweebie

There are certainly ideal groups of people who are capable of moving towards a 100 percent Open Source or Linux environment in both their professional and personal lives. I’m not really interested in discussing the political and ideological aspects or why someone would want to make that choice.

The greater and more important question is, who CAN switch to Linux?

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That Bear is Seriously High on Eucalyptus

Koala looks like it’s going to be a nice release, I’m looking forward to the final version with all the various buglets and glitches I’ve encountered all cleaned up. For those of you who like to be on the bleeding edge, definitely give the beta a whirl.

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Stallracasaurus Rex

While RMS’s hatred of all things proprietary has fueled the FSF’s and GNU’s mission to create Free software alternatives for what seems like eons, the overwhelming desire for interoperability between open and proprietary systems makes his narrow-minded Cretaceous world view ripe for extinction.

As I have said in previous columns, I live as a citizen of two distinct worlds with diametrically opposing software development ideologies — the world of Microsoft, Windows and 3rd-party vendor developed proprietary software and systems, and that of Open Source and Free Software.

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Summer Doldrums? Listen to the Frugal Tech Show!

While Off The Broiler is primarily focused on food, as many of you know, I also write technology articles for ZDNet, CBS’s technology news site. Over the last few months I have been teaming up with Linux Magazine and DaniWeb columnist Ken Hess, where we broadcast live on BlogTalkRadio every Friday at 6:30PM EST on leveraging technology to save you and your business money. The format of the show is news and commentary for the first half hour, with the second reserved for special guests from the technology industry. This summer we are going to be featuring a lot of Linux and Open Source guests, so be sure to tune in.

The replays of all the shows are available at www.frugaltechshow.com, just in case you miss them.

The Open Source Reptile Hunter

The Open Source Community’s strength has always been in its numbers and the will of developers contributing to projects to drive project initiatives in the direction they desire simply by voting with their time and willingness to contribute. If a project no longer meets their requirements, be it from a licensing or political perspective, they simply cease working on it and go onto other things that interest them instead.

That is the beauty of of Open Source, in that it is pure Social Darwinism and Software Phylogenetics at work. Even if you have a bunch of large natural predators, such as Constrictus Siliconvallis, it’s not possible for them to swallow entire communities, even if they buy the companies that run the projects themselves. And like evolutionary trees, if projects are to be compared to Phyla, they do indeed branch off.

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Cue “Eye of the Tiger” and the Jaunty Jackalope DVD

The fight of the century? GNOME vs. KDE , the two titans of the Linux desktop. Sure there are welter and lightweights that shouldn’t be ignored, such as XFCE, Enlightenment and GNUStep/WindowMaker, but let’s face it, it’s the two heavyweights that rule the roost on all of the desktop Linux distributions that are getting the lion’s share of attention, that being Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE.

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Novell produces its 2002 BMW 7-Series with SLED 11

At first glance, Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SLED 11) is virtually indistinguishable from the company’s Free/Open Source and community supported Linux distribution, openSUSE 11.1. But does SLED 11 have the extra polish and the value add to justify its position as Novell’s premier enterprise desktop OS?

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Linux Magazine: Final Shutdown

I began my relationship with Linux Magazine in the Summer of 1999. My, what a long strange trip it has been.

In 1999, Linux and Open Source’s position in the computer industry was very different. Hell, the entire world was different — Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his presidency, and Windows 2000 was nearing the end of its beta cycle, marking the beginning of the full transition from the old DOS-based PC paradigm on the corporate desktop to the mass-adoption of the Windows NT kernel, which would complete a year later with the release of Windows XP in the consumer space.

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Giving Thanks to Linux and Open Source

When you think of Thanksgiving, what images come into your mind? If you’re a typical American and have visions of Norman Rockwell paintings engraved into your consciousness like the rest of us, it’s Roast Turkey, mom’s doctored Pepperidge Farm Stuffing (Just say no to Stove-Top!), cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, naturally. Which ends of course with the usual gut-busting feeling from over eating accompanied by the eventual belt-loosening and football watching on grandma’s couch. Aaaaaaaaaaah.

But this year, I’ve decided to switch gears. I’m going to be doing my turkey Puerto Rican style — Pavochon Ahumada rubbed with garlic adobo and smoked over hardwood for several hours on my Weber Bullet, ditching the stuffing for Arroz con Gandules, and am giving thanks to a different bird — the Penguin, and everyone who made him possible.

Click to read the rest of this article at Linux Magazine.

Kindlenomics

A few weeks ago I evaluated Amazon’s Kindle. While I really liked the device, the big problem I had with it was that at its current price of $359.00 it was too expensive at this point for mass consumer adoption. I also had a number of issues with the fact that despite being based on Linux, the device is a closed book, literally.

At what point, however, do consumers start ditching their dead-tree books for e-books? And how many books do you actually have to read per year in order for the convenience factor of the Kindle — its light weight, its ability to store hundreds of books in its memory, and the instant gratification of being able to download books via the Amazon Whispernet EVDO Sprint network — to outweigh its costs?

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