Linux hits the world
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Message boards : Politics : Linux hits the world
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From some general surfing around, here's a typical two examples from a strong PC advocate magazine: | |
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There's a lot of good going on in the Linux world, far too much to comment on. | |
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OK... Having enthused about Gentoo just now, here's a quick way to try it out for yourself: # Special Features:
* Writable AUFS support so you can emerge new packages!
* Persistence for $HOME is available; press F9 for more info!
That little bit means that there is a 'special' file system used that uses the compressed (read only) file system on the DVD, and then transparently overlays a writeable file system on top that is (temporarily) stored in RAM so that you can transparently add to the DVD read-only file system. That means you can add new files and install additional software to try. The 'persistence' bit is a feature to let you save your changes somewhere, to a memory stick for example. For the downloads: x86 (32-bit) x86_64/amd64 (64-bit) Download the "iso" file that you wish to try. That can then be burnt to a DVD or written to a USB memory stick. You then boot from that. Gentoo is very highly customisable and is considered to be 'elaborate'... A more straight-forward version of Linux to try is Ubuntu (Mac-like desktop) or Kubuntu (Windows-like desktop). Spoilt for choice? IT's all what we make it! Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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Whilst on the aspect of Linux screenshots... I guess a good wide set of examples can be seen on: | |
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Is this why Microsoft is now reduced to merely playing a game of FUD? | |
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For a whole new look: | |
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For a whole new look: ... And so it happened: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" Available: What's new? The release of Ubuntu 11.04 has seen the arrival of a new look and feel for Ubuntu. A whizzy, new launcher and dash, and a clever workspace manager are some of the biggest changes. Take a look at what’s new and then feel free to choose... Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" Available: Features Your Ubuntu, your way Enjoy the simplicity of Ubuntu's stylish, intuitive interface. Fast, secure and with thousands of apps to choose from... The website 'experience' looks to be suffering a little from too much exposure to the same sort of media types that have put together the presentations for other big corporate websites... Such is the penalty for populist conforming for the masses I guess... A less glossy and more readable announcement is given on: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" Available The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 11.04, code-named "Natty Narwhal". 11.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. For PC users, Ubuntu 11.04 supports laptops, desktops and netbooks with a unified look and feel based on a new desktop shell called "Unity". ... And it is the new 'unity' look-and-feel which is generating quite a lot of controversy. Myself, I think it is an excellent idea for giving a unified and workable look-and-feel across a wide range of mobile and desktop devices that Linux so readily supports. It's good to have a good choice! It's also good that there continues to be a lot happening in the Linux world: DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 403, 2 May 2011 Ubuntu 11.04 made its appearance as scheduled last week and all the talk on many Linux forums is about upgrade experiences and the new Unity desktop. As always, opinions vary widely... * Reviews: Gaming with Trine * News: OMG! Ubuntu! publishes Unity guide, Lubuntu nears "official" status, Mageia releases first live CDs, interview with wattOS' Ronald Ropp * Questions and answers: Choosing the right distribution and software * Released last week: Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware Linux 13.37, OpenBSD 4.9 * Donations: Calibre receives US$300.00 * New distributions: Icefeast Linux, Remix_OS * Reader comments Over Easter, I decided to take a look for myself at a fistful of Linux distributions and... Some are certainly a little rough and ragged but on the whole, the quality and presentation and flexibility is impressive. One that I rather liked that is shaping up nicely is the Magia spin-off from Mandriva. Note their dire warnings for their continuing development being very much continuing. Even so, I've found their LiveCD development Beta to be pretty good. However, a little knowledge of what it does is needed to appreciate it and something that needs adding to the startup introduction that is displayed upon bootup. Mageia: Live CDs are now available for tests! It took more time than expected but here they are: live CD ISOs for Mageia beta2. You will find, for now, 2 ISOs; one for each of KDE4 and GNOME. ... You can burn the iso image to CD or you can directly copy it to a memory stick as an image to automatically create a bootable device. There's some very clever formatting in there that makes the same image work for both cases. For those using *nix or cygwin, you can use for example: dd if=mageia-livecd-1-beta2-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M where "sdX" is your memory stick to directly write the image. There's also various nice graphical ways to do it. For the not-so-geekie, burning the iso image (and not as a file) to a CD using your familiar burn software is by far the easiest! I also stumbled into some of the cleverness in the Linux kernel for the 100ns resolution event timers and how the entire system can go to sleep between events. It's all an old development now but I'm always pleasantly surprised by the level of detail and thoughtfulness that goes into the code. All good stuff! Enjoy... IT's all what we make it! Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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Now here's an interesting idea, and quite an apt comment on what is taught in schools: | |
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David Braben, who co-developed the Elite space trading computer game I remember playing that in 1985 on my BBC B. ... Braben was critical of the ICT classes taught in school these days, which mainly focus on Microsoft centric office skills like using Word, Excel and Powerpoint, instead of teaching the wider skills of computer science. He said college applications for computer science dropped by around 50 per cent in the early 2000s, calling it a shocking indictment of ICT. He hopes that the Raspberry Pi will encourage children to learn more about computer science. ... I've taught MSoffice in College for over 9 years and I have to disagree with Brabens comments. The job of a school or College is to teach students skills that are transferrable to the marketplace and enable them to find employment, or run their own business. The days of typing pools have gone everybody uses a PC and word processing in offices now. With commerce and industry consistently cutting back on expediture to save money, almost everybody has to use a spreadsheet to monitor expenses. Even junior staff quite regularly need to make presentations to managers upon many subjects, hence the use of Powerpoint. There are many companies that don't employ office assistants without at least an ECDL. People don't need to know how a computer works, only how to use it efficiently and correctly. You learn to drive a car, you don't need to know technical details of camshafts and synchromesh etc, just how to check the tyres, oil, and water. This guy co-wrote Elite, so he is a programmer probably at assember or machine code level, and he would need to know about peeking and poking registers, and data buses etc. Kids don't mess around with breadboards these days, or build cats whisker radios in cigar boxes like he probably did. He's only 47, but he sounds like 67! | |
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David Braben, who co-developed the Elite space trading computer game People soon forget just how revolutionary all that was. The BBC home computers were expensive, but they were nothing like as expensive as the 'commercial' small computers of the day. A whole generation were quickly introduced to home computing and lots more... ... Braben was critical of the ICT classes taught in school these days, which mainly focus on Microsoft centric office skills like using Word, Excel and Powerpoint, instead of teaching the wider skills of computer science. He said college applications for computer science dropped by around 50 per cent in the early 2000s, calling it a shocking indictment of ICT. He hopes that the Raspberry Pi will encourage children to learn more about computer science. ... Except that my experience of supporting teachers at school for their IT is that they have no time nor any interest for learning anything new themselves, and so the computer world has left them long and far behind. To use your analogy, that's like still teaching how to blindly drive a model T Ford just because that was the first and cheapest mass produced car. Oh, and Ford cleverly gave away a few models for free to the driving schools to drum up business. Meanwhile, we have moved on a long way. Today's children should be learning about how to use ANY computer desktop so that they can just as easily use anything from any of Microsoft, Apple, Linux, Google, Android, and the various cloud office environments. Why only teach what is already long out of date? Kids don't mess around with breadboards these days, or build cats whisker radios in cigar boxes like he probably did. ... Some cannot even change a light bulb (and not for philosophical reasons either!). I wonder why?... I strongly believe teaching should teach people how to learn and explore and find out for themselves. So for example, they can usefully use any computer regardless of the name on the box. Also, they should be encouraged with enough confidence so that they are not slave to the latest Marketing ploys... Keep searchin', Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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People soon forget just how revolutionary all that was. The BBC home computers were expensive, but they were nothing like as expensive as the 'commercial' small computers of the day. A whole generation were quickly introduced to home computing and lots more... My BBC B cost £399 which is equivalent to £802 today. And that was for a 2Mhz 6502 processor, 32K Ram, and no disk drives! How technology has moved on. At that time our office had a networked Honeywell mini which was the size of two large fridges. Except that my experience of supporting teachers at school for their IT is that they have no time nor any interest for learning anything new themselves, and so the computer world has left them long and far behind. My experience has been at an FE College, so I can't comment upon pre 16 education. But it wouldn't surprise me if in secondary schools and similar, teachers are "allocated" the IT class and just told to get on with it, hence the lack of time or interest that you have experienced. I might also mention that for the last 2 years it has been a Mandatory requirement in the UK, for all FE teachers to enrol as a Member of the Institute for Learning (IfL) which requires 30 hours per year documented Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and pro-rata for part time staff. Meanwhile, we have moved on a long way. Today's children should be learning about how to use ANY computer desktop so that they can just as easily use anything from any of Microsoft, Apple, Linux, Google, Android, and the various cloud office environments. I would not entirely agree with you there. Like a lot of my students, you seem to be confusing Operating Systems and Applications. Apple Macs can run MSOffice programs on OS X Snow Leopard just as easily as everyone else can on Win XP or Win 7. Wintel machines account for 90% of the worlds computers so it makes sense to teach students on the most likely equipment they will have to use. Apple Macs are almost exclusively used in the newspaper, magazine, and desktop publishing industries, there are specialist training courses available for that market. Linux is still an OS for enthusiasts, and although gaining in popularity is unlikely to become mainstream. Cloud computing is the modern concept of what we used to kmow as "thin client". It is neither an OS or application, merely a means of networking resources. Why only teach what is already long out of date? What is taught reflects what employers and the marketplace want. We aim to be leading edge, not bleeding edge! Individual employers will provide their own targetted training on their systems. Some cannot even change a light bulb (and not for philosophical reasons either!). I wonder why?... Truancy, ADHT, lack of parental support, ineffective teaching etc etc but that is for another thread. I strongly believe teaching should teach people how to learn and explore and find out for themselves. So for example, they can usefully use any computer regardless of the name on the box. That is always the aim of a responsible and effective teacher. In specific terms of IT, if you have basic mouse and keyboard skills, and an appreciation of running software programs, you shoulld be able to use almost any home or office computer. But I reiterate that an end user is not required to know in detail what goes on under the bonnet. In the early 60's when I had my first car, any self respecting driver could clean and adjust the spark plugs (Champion L10 @ 25 thou) and clean and adjust the distributor points (15 thou). We also decoked the cylinder head and ground in the valves every 10,000 miles as well. None of that now, we have engine management chips, and you just plug 'em in to an expensive diagnostic machine which tells you whats wrong. If school kids want to go on to become the PC designers or games programmers of the future, then fine they can go to uni and take a BSc in computer science,. That level of knowlege is not needed in the classroom. | |
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... I might also mention that for the last 2 years it has been a Mandatory requirement in the UK, for all FE teachers to enrol as a Member of the Institute for Learning (IfL) which requires 30 hours per year documented Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and pro-rata for part time staff. That is pitiful and woefully inadequate for a subject that develops and moves on as rapidly as the computer world. That '30 hours' partly explains why our schools are still stuck on Windows95 and Windows98... Meanwhile, we have moved on a long way. Today's children should be learning about how to use ANY computer desktop so that they can just as easily use anything from any of Microsoft, Apple, Linux, Google, Android, and the various cloud office environments. I used very careful wording to deliberately NOT be OS or application specific at all. That is especially important as we move to a mix of 'desktop' and 'cloud' computing. You never know, the latest push with the various graphics tablets may well push that mix more quickly. Does your answer show some hidden ingrained psychology?... Perhaps Microsoft Office is the last bastion of proprietary lock-in that Microsoft is clinging to. Perhaps their long-time influence in schools will enslave another generation or two yet? Meanwhile, the rest of the world is steadily moving away from obfuscated and secret proprietary document formats so that everyone can much more easily work with one another. There's more than one way to run an office. Students are actually disadvantaged if they only know one blind way of doing things. Perhaps that is why there is the continual cry that schools fail to prepare their students for the real world. Blindly teaching one version of an Office suite is a blind alley and dead end. Much more important is to teach how to use application features in general and how features fit together. Then demonstrate that on a number of applications. I guess teaching is stuck however many years behind for the average age of the teachers, and so teaching general practical computing skills is impossible. Sorry, but you'll quickly need to get up to speed to use 'touch' GUIs. Regards, Martin GUI: Graphical User Interface. The underlying general principles of interaction have developed steadily since first explored at the Xerox Palo Alto R&D site in the 1970's and 1980's... ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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I've taught MSoffice in College for over 9 years and I have to disagree with Brabens comments. The job of a school or College is to teach students skills that are transferrable to the marketplace and enable them to find employment, or run their own business. The days of typing pools have gone everybody uses a PC and word processing in offices now. Teaching office skills is fine in and of itself, though it is not a replacement for computer science and we shouldn't fool ourselves that it is. A student that knows how to use excel is woefully under prepared to support a company's IT department, or indeed to develop new applications for a business to use. I suspect Braben's comments are addressing this gap in current IT courses, which sound suspiciously like a modern version of a secretarial course. ____________ I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...  | |
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Been using UBUNTU for 2 years now. It is awesome. | |
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... current IT courses, which sound suspiciously like a modern version of a secretarial course. I think that is the nub of the problem for the miss-naming and pretence with calling the teaching of 'basic computer skills' something far more grandiose... So we need to admit that Computer Science and IT are not being taught in our schools in any meaningful way. Regards, Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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Been using UBUNTU for 2 years now. It is awesome. Thanks, I can agree. However, for Ubuntu there's some controversy over the new Unity interface for the latest Ubuntu release. Some comment that it has been pushed out too soon and may put a few people off. It's certainly quite a radical change. You still have the choice of selecting to use if you wish the Gnome desktop instead of the Unity 'touch screen style' desktop. Myself, I think it is a good and refreshing new set of ideas and a good new look. I hope the updates to polish it up come out quickly to ease the controversy. Meanwhile, there's still a steady stream of new distros and new updates to distros coming out. All very lively. One I've noticed that is looking good is Mageia. They're still working on their first release but that is coming up soon. IT is what we make it! Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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And amongst various developments, here is a good comment on how some of the big manufacturers now view free-libre open source: | |
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Teaching office skills is fine in and of itself, though it is not a replacement for computer science and we shouldn't fool ourselves that it is. A student that knows how to use excel is woefully under prepared to support a company's IT department, or indeed to develop new applications for a business to use. I suspect Braben's comments are addressing this gap in current IT courses, which sound suspiciously like a modern version of a secretarial course. There are generally three levels of computer literacy/ability/training depending upon the requirements of the job. Firstly there is the end user, who needs enough skills to effectively use the major functions of the software at I would suggest ECDL, or NVQ L3. The next category is the IT support department, who not only need more advanced skills than the end user, they also need to be able to repair and support the hardware as well, and in addition administer the local network infrastructure and servers. Either a Novell, Microsoft, or other qualification will be required here Lastly there are the computer systems developers, games programmers, hardware designers etc that will need formal computer science degrees at Bachelors or Masters level or above, plus industrial qualifications. I have no idea what goes on in full time schools for the under 16's, someone else will have to comment upon that area. My experience has been in co-admining a 1000 user building using Novell Netware, becoming a CNA. I also took the MSoffice specialist courses. Later I taught at an FE College, where we had the ECDL for end users, and HNC in Computer Science. Also the HND in Computer Science linked with the local University, with an access route to progress to a full degree. | |
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DING DING DING he just got it. Linux is software so an advertisement for server software isnt marketed towards individuals. As stated before, nice commercials but not important to the general public. As you repeated what I noted, Servers aren't desktops and server software isnt desktop software. It seems clear that the argument isnt about the software but about having the last word. I still don't see the idea of the multitude of OSes making a generic ad actually, the project failed cause it was too costly, and they went back to windows. hups, sorry, yellow flag put me into past, that was answered long ago. but funny, no mention of nokia choosing to use wp 7 and dropping meego. | |
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actually, the project failed cause it was too costly, and they went back to windows. That one looks to be more a game of politics than anything technical or to do with costs. ... but funny, no mention of nokia choosing to use wp 7 and dropping meego. Now that example is a LOT more 'interesting'. One interpretation is that Nokia have been out-developed by new upstarts such as HTC who have taken advantage of Google's Android software system (Linux + Google proprietary bits) and remarkably quickly gained a significant market share. Nokia had nothing ready in time to compete... Microsoft (opportunistically? desperately?) using Nokia, buys into the market for over a billion dollars!... The Win7 mobile non-x86 architecture devices are now two years or so behind the rest of the world using ARM and Tegra cores (and others). It will be very interesting to see how well Microsoft can buy itself into the mobile market. Possibly more worryingly is how rampantly successful the Android-based devices are and how there seems to be simply no competitor to compete against Google. Will Google become tainted by the gained power for world domination? Interesting times... Linux is a tool to be freely used. As with any tool, that can be for good or for bad... IT is what we make it, Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3) | |
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Message boards : Politics : Linux hits the world
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