computoman

Having been an administrator, my job was to keep software updated and running. At the time the OS we used was just upgraded and many applications no longer worked. Of course you were on the phone with the vendor. The answer we got most was we have to wait an see what the OS vendor was going to do. That is not the answer students want to here when not being able use the software to get their class es done. One particular vendor had software I could fix if they would let me modify it. The application vendor threatened to sue my employer an me if any changes were made. Between a rock and a hard place. All was eventually worked out but quite a few students wanted to strangle the IT team. That really happens with proprietary software. With open source software in most cases it is not a problem. You can modify the source code to solve issues quickly and effectively. Most of all the major distros have source code repositories for just that. Also to consider: ...

The one thing, I like about linux is that it is on so many hardware platforms. Source code can easily in most cases used on all the platforms. Also known as portability of code. That gives you a lower cost of software and it's support. Another company that used to brag about its return on investment (aka ROI) has fallen silent on the subject. I can still run up to date software on my older machines via linux and bsd without in most cases getting new hardware. That is great for keeping it IT budget controllable. Now that 32 bit systems are being phased out that may not be so true, but I can keep cranking a bit longer with my so called obsolete systems.

Started with Slackware linux and decided to go back and look at it.  In this case, I plan to use qemu to build a virtual machine. You will need to have a stable internet access for this project. You also need to have a fast machine with over a gig of memory.  You will not need to download and burn a cd or dvd.  You will need a floppy, usb, cd, or a network interface card that supports gpxe (ipxe). You will want to go to romomatic,net to build your image to put on your boot device. Though with Qemu you can just use the image without creating boot media,  Though I do recommend using 256 megabytes of ram. Be sure to set up the virtual drive for your install. Once you have everything the way you want then you can launch the install. Eventually you will get to a login and the you can start the the good old install; AAh, at home again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slackwar...

Just an idea or two, My brother is an awesome guitar player and he said I could download the audio of him playing. Export files as .mp3 and then move them to the server.

Caveat: Use at your own risk. Though I use several versions of linux, I like to use Slackware on really old systems.  Generally those systems do not have cdrom and in some cases no usb. Slackare is so versatile that you can boot from just a floppy to install slackware via gpxe from the internet,  I did an install that way with 14.1 on a p1. Now to try this with slackware 14.2.  So far so good. You can do this on other versions of linux. To me one of the most amazing things is to install linux from the internet instead of using local media. Generally if you wanted to do an install of linux, from the net, you would need a dhcp server and an tftp server with special settings. Gpxe gets around all those limitations. Quite often I will start a internet based install from a local web server. Now that the internet is slightly more dependable we can do an install from the host linux distribution sites. Today I will show you how to do it with Slackware 14.2.  More I...

  What happens when computer people get together much like old car talk. What's in you machine? You want to say more than I don's know. The newest devices such as the touchpads, some netbooks, and etc. today are pretty much unfortunately throwaways. As for desktop computers,  at least for a while you can upgrade them. It is very useful to know what equipment and and in some cases what software is on the inside. For insurance purposes, you would be well advised to have such a list tucked away in a safe deposit box or where ever. So I went on a little research expedition to find out what might be used to find out what is in my computer. Macintosh OS/X: (textedit to view) You can go to the system profiler and output a text list of the hardware. More info at: http://www.intego.com/...

As mentioned in a recent Linux foundation video, there is so much software available for the open source world it boggles the mind. The software is not just for the desktop but servers, embedded systems, routers and whole lot more. Not only that you get the source code in most cases so you can change it yourself to fit your needs. Everyone knows that one size does not fit all. Take for instance the proprietary world where you get nickeled and dimed to death with every software add-on. Excepting until recently even the proprietary operating systems required a tax so to speak. Open source has the competition changing their tune. so they can compete. Then you can consider open source options. Options you can install with linux without paying an extra penny not to mention the terminal server also, $ tasksel --list-tasks i desktop    Debian desktop environment u web-server    Web server u print-server    Print server u database-serve...

Original article: Windows fanboy: Of course MSWindows has more users. Its designed for simplicity so simple minded people can use it..... Actually just easy and more effective at its job than anything else. Linux is high on difficulty because you have to Terminal install drivers and Applications that aren't in the store they provide. Only form of Linux I've been running Lately is Chrome OS, haven't touched full blown Linux or Windows in awhile, it just collects. Enjoy using my Chromebook to much lol but hey everyone prefers different things. I went from rocking a Windows 10 Technical Preview laptop to a Chromebook and I enjoy it even more than Windows or actual Linux. My answer: With all due respect, Most people do not have to deal with mswindows install issues because they usually get ready built machines. If you get a properly set up prebuilt linux machine, the issues if any would be no different.  No you do not have to install drivers via the ...

One of the things I like to do is port software from one system to another. That is take the source code of a program and allow it to work on another system. Why reinvent the wheel if yo u have something that works. Just because you have a new and different system should keep from using that software. Coming from a school that says within reason if it is not broke, do not fix it then you know what to do. If I have a perfectly working system why convert it to a virtual machine and not know what the challenges might be. If I did not have an existing system, then off to the races to build a virtual machine. What is this all leading up to. With the terminated support of Microsoft Windows XP.  XP per se is no longer viable. Mainly because of security issues. Everyone says upgrade or chunk the system. Invested too much in the system to lightly just chunk it and like most upgrades old software just no longer works after the upgrade.  So using a virtual machine does not always wo...

Before you start, make sure the operating system you want to upgrade to will work on your computer. General steps for operating system upgrade. 1. Backup    A. Save data files and program settings.    B. Make a system image aka duplicate if possible.  (requires special software)    C. Get list of installed files. 2 Get operating system.    A.Traditional method.     1, Download new media. (up to several gigabytes.)         In some cases this could take several hours.     2. Burn new operating system to media.     3. Install operating system,  B. Ipxeboot. (MSWindows may require a special server, but Linux and BSD do not)      1. Boot with minimal media. (i.e. floppy, usb stick, or minimal cd)      2. Downloads and installs minimal OS for install control.      3. Downloads and installs the rest of the OS a...

Couple of definitions first. Some people may disagree with this. Network hub: A network hub is a network device that a single network of the same  media types. but paths are intermingled (obsolete) Network switch: A network switch is a network device that a single network of the same  media types. but paths are separated. Network bridge: A network bridge is a network device that connects a single or multiple network segments of different media types. Network router: A network router is a network device that connects multiple network segments of the same media types. Now to get confusing. Many network devices can be a combination of the above. Take for instance what a lot of people call a router is actually a combination of of a bridge and a router. These we all pretty much know about, but what if we wanted to connect some legacy devices such as dumb terminals so they would have virtual access to the network. Actually they are just acting as an ex...

Goal of this article is to give you a couple of tools to remotely manage multiple systems without having to do all the sneaker support. Managing Multiple clusters with ClusterSSH also known as CSSH. (Parts of this article adapted from: https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/413853:managing-multiple-linux-servers-with-clusterssh ) If you're a Linux system administrator, chances are you've got more than one machine that you're responsible for on a daily basis. You may even have a bank of machines that you maintain that are similar — a farm of Web servers, for example. If you have a need to type the same command into several machines at once, you can login to each one with SSH and do it serially, or you can save yourself a lot of time and effort and use a tool like ClusterSSH. ClusterSSH is a Tk/Perl wrapper around standard Linux tools like XTerm and SSH. As such, it'll run on just about any POSIX-compliant OS where the libraries exist — I've run it on Linux...