Bill's Blog

1 - Okay - did a Ghost backup of my windows machine;

Installed Fedora core 4. Spent 45 minutes figuring out how to install the NVida 1900x1200 drivers (lots of "kill"'s...)...

Installed an MSN chat, and Skype.. Boo - no video.

But hey - the MSN - it had SPELLL CHECKING on by default.. Cool or what.

And I did a "yum update". Which updated EVERYTHING on my machine - os, applications, the LOT.. Coool or what ?

Its 4am, and I'm now scaring people. Damien K- if your ever read this - I'm sorry, okay ?

---* bill

2 - Note to self: F8 brings up a menu within vncviewer under linux, in which you can send a ctrl-alt-del (or control alt del for those googlers) to a windows box.

45 minites for that one. ouch.

---*Bill

3 - Bill,

My understanding of the OS X on Intel move is that there will still be hardware restrictions. So you'll be able to install Windows onto a PowerBook (or whatever) but won't be able to install OS X on a plain old Wintel box.

Can't wait though, think I'll be getting a new PowerBook when they come out.

Matt

4 - Matt - absolutely right.

However, I do live in hope. You see, as soon as it hits the streets, then the market will demand this on existing intel PC's - and apple will either have the option to involve themselves in a stupid-no-win "spy vs spy" war with the crackers (one that Sony is losing with the PSP, and one that MS will lose very soon), or just bite the bullet and sell the damn thing to the folks that want it. I'm guessing by August..



---* Bill

5 - ah so that explains our conversation at 04.30 this morning - either one of us is going to bed way too late or one of us is getting up way too early.

Weather/Travel Report - Minus 7 logged ouside overnight but no snow as yet. Trains to London empty cept for a few of us poor wage slaves. Rail track repairs has resulted in trains doing a lap of honour prior to reaching Waterloo Station which is a dream to stroll through. London looks like a ghost town (well I am no-where near the sales)

6 - So far, the oddest things have been hard, and the hardest things have been easy.

For instance, Fedora 4 comes with an IM client that supports MSN,AOL,AIM,ICQ, etc. So it was just a case of remembering some passwords from the crypt.

Ghosting my 60gig laptop took about two hours, and "importing" that ghost into a vmware imagine is taking at last four hours. Which is painful.

The OpenOffice stuff that shipped with Fedora core 4 is as good as Office 2003 IMHO in terms of what *I* use them for - mostly just proposals, manuals and the odd presentation.

So far, so good. Just waiting for the vmware image build to complete, then I can start getting my Notes stuff up and running.

7 - Dang, you're brave.

I looked at doing this a while back, and quickly found that it just wasn't practical for me. I just rely upon too much software which is Windows only, and would have great difficulty going cold turkey like this. The loss of the desktop equivalents of software on my Palm PDA alone would be a major inconvenience...

I keep meaning to take one of my home servers and switch it PERMANENTLY to Linux, but haven't gotten round to it yet. Actually, only one of those servers is ever on these days anyway, and I'm thinking that I should just get it over with and buy a second server machine, ultra-quiet, and put Linux on that. Minimum disruption, maximum fun!

However, I have other priorities this next year I think. Pity. I'd enjoy doing this...

8 - Bill,
Not sure if I should feel faltered by you calling me a marketing guy. because I'm not.
I am in a solution sales role within MS Netherlands. Ofcourse you could argue that all sales people are marketing people but I'd hate that to be honoust ...

Sorry by the way I made you do this ... during your holiday.
Might also be cool to give Windows Vista a try (or is anything Microsoft to be banned in your future)
Did notice you also have MSN on there right besides Skype. I could try getting you on the Live Messenger Beta. The UK also has telephony capabilities in this beta ...

9 - Och, dont feel bad about this Peter - I see this as a "geek" rites of passage thing. It had to be done.

What I do like about this process is that by the end of the DVD install, you have a fully featured workstation with IM client, openOffice, etc, thats ready and willing to act as a replacement for a windows workstation.

Unfortunately, the "Ghost image" then import into VMWare didnt work out. Well, it probably did, but the Ghosted copy of my laptop refused to start up within VMWare. I couldnt even get it to boot in safe mode.

So I've had to unstitch the backup, and copy down the files individually to the laptop. This does give me a great deal of space to play with, thankfully.

Ironically, I've actually spent more time converting one of the "loft" servers from SUSE Enterprise 9 to Fedora Core 4 - it took SIX installation attempts to get that converted across - mostly becuase each time the installer didnt want to update the "Grub" boot loader. So in the end, a completely wiped primary hard drive fixed the issue.

So. As I said before, odd things were simple, and simple things were odd.

---* Bill

10 - Bill,

A serious questionn ...

Once you have achieved all of this (basicly banning MS ...) what will you have gained ? ( i know this will be a long list ) but I think I should ask.

Will it be more stable ?

Does Open Office provide you with unique features or just the plain necessary things ?

Does it run all your software / provide you with more flexibility ?

Will you TCO be lower (less patches / miantenance). Mind you that secunia (www.secunia.com) often has a list with Unix / Linux flaws twice the lenghth of MS'.
Also Firefox is not totally without necessary updates although maybe less than IE, I don't know.
i.e. How do you keep track of updates / patches on all of the "moving parts"on your machine. Is there like a Windows Update for Open Source ? (Yes this true is a honoust question)

My point basicly, you have proven that it can be done, but does it provide the benefits you expect (besides banning MS)

11 - What can you achieve ...

How much does a Windows + Office license cost ? And how much is it for Linux + OpenOffice ? Well at least you saved that ...

And what doesn't it offer that a common user needs, except Lotus Notes (wine doesn't really count in my opinion) ... but that will be solved next year

And updates, ever heard of apt-get, yum, emerge ... updates of installed applications, libraries and the os with one command line entry !! Try to beat that ...

btw: did you know that microsoft hired the man that developed 'emerge' ... money buys it all, doesn't it

Does it benefits, yes it does

12 - @11
Christophe, I did not know about emerge, nor that MS hired the person that developed this.

As for the license cost discussion : not buying that argument really. Out of pocket expense and TCO are different things. Free software is not necessarily cheap.

13 - Peter - to answer your question - why? And what benefit will it bring ?

"Why" is easy.

MS is now the very same slow moving, complacent, possibly evil monster that IBM was 15 years ago. MS now take years to release seemingly feature-free releases (SQL, Exchange 12), charges a lot of money, and has a stranglehold on the market.

Just now, just as it was easy to say "No-one gets fired for buying IBM", the phrase today is "no-one gets fired for buying Microsoft". In fact, its now the case that buying non-MS software is difficult.

This is of course, good for Microsoft, and good for MS employees such as you. But I dont know if you've noticed, but the customers absolutely hate being forced down this path. Look at the rebellion that occurred with Licencing 6 - look at all the time being given over to open source projects. Look at the success of Java, Firefox, Linux, PHP, "proper" portals (thats JSR168-compliant ones, not sharepoint).

So as a technology evangelist, I absolutely have to be seen to be leading my customers, And when they say "We're sick of being ripped off on price on windows server" or "its a PITA to visit each desktop", then we have to respond.

So. MS is stagnant. This is reflected on the turgid share price. This is reflected in the lack of delivered innovation. Sure, I'm sure that the pipeline is magnificient - but thats what MS was saying about Vista three years ago - before they did the so-called reset and flushed 12,000 man years (three years, 4000 developers, right ? ) effort down the pan.

So MS has lost its mojo, and is now just reacting to market pressures. To be honest, this is what MS has been doing for years - new groundbreaking MS product just hasnt happened. Its always been cloned, assimilated, or in the case of the Intuit scandal - worse.

Perhaps thats why microsoft has had to pay BILLIONS in court damages over the years. And thats perhaps why the marketplace is NOT holding its breath waiting for Vista (or XP Service pack 4 to be entirely honest) to finally lumber into being in 12-15 months.

So -the benefits. Well, firstly, I'm a technical evagelist. Its my job. Being caught with a laptop full of MS software no longer impresses or pursuades people that I'm on top of my game.

What other benefits ? Well, the shocking benefit I've realised in the last 48 hours is that now my monster laptop is NOT running the bloated, sick XP and all the security layers to make up for shoddy coding (anti-virus, decent firewall, the anti-spamware stuff, the inevitable sync software, etc), my machine is running - or so I perceive - twice as fast.

Stability ? No blue screen of death so far. For sure, playing with WINE and Notes 7 - I've had to kill WINE a few times. But Linux itself - solid as a rock. Far more so than XP. In XP, a couple of hung processes usually means a machine reboot at some stage.

Disk space, My XP programs and windows directory consumed 5gb in the end - 5gb. My Fedora core 4 space only takes up three - and that INCLUDES all the OpenOffice, firefox, and IM client stuff that ISNT included on the windows figure above. Amazing. When you only have a 60 gig (fast, though) drive on the laptop - that does make an immense difference.

I can update ALL packages - all software, basically - by typing in "yum update" or scheduling it as a job every day. No fuss. No viruses. No millions of screens to click through. No inevitable demands for a reboot.

Ironically, the one thing that I really need XP for right now is my Lotus Notes clients. AS you know, there are NO native linux clients. WINE is fine for checking on mail, etc, but I'm not happy with the stability yet. Its early days though.

Oh. And the biggest joy ? Hibernate and suspend actually work! They *never* did on XP - and thats over three absolutely standard DELL laptops. Invariably, something would pop up and say "Actually, no I'm not going to allow you to hibernate". Usually after the lid was down, and the laptop was in the bag. Causing it to start up again and overheat, In the bag.

You see, because you're meant to be an MS cheerleader, you just dont appreciate how absolutely crap most of the MS code being churned out is. You dont appreciate the sheer joy on folks faces when they're presented with another operating system that ACTUALLY works. Like Tiger. Or linux.

So. Churning out overpriced, shoddy, insecure software for years, treating customers (and the european courts) as ignorant cash-cows, slipping deadlines all the time whilst ripping out features, and then having the sheer gall to agressively attack and dismiss all other software on the market. This is my perception of the MS way.

Its a very immature way to act - and in a market such as ours, the customers - you remember them - the guys actually funding all this - dont take too well to this. And they *will* walk with their wallets when they feel that the risks can be mitigated.

My feeling is that the market sentiment has went against Microsoft in the last couple of years, and in a big way. Look at Firefox. Look at the penetration rates. Perhaps up to 10% overall. But look at the PEOPLE who are using it. BoingBoing reports a 40-50% firefox usage.

Peter. Folks who visit BoingBoing are precisely the people that MS need to influence for corporates to buy into the next rip+replace cycle with Vista and Office 12. But those are the folks talking about Firefox, Tiger, Skpe, Blackberry, Linux.

Now a company - even one who loses in court as much as Microsoft- sitting on a $30b cash mountain - doesnt have much to fear. And perhaps that explains much of the arrogance.

Mini-Microsofts' blog (link on the left) suggests a smaller, leaner and more focused MS - which I agree with. However, nothing is going to happen with the BillG and Balmer partnership at the top. This is why whilst I have high hopes for the Ozmeister, I feel he'll fail. He's the only non-billionaire at that party.

We shall see. It'll be an interesting three years ahead.

---* Bill

14 - well last year i got tired of re-installing windows as it grinds to a halt every year with the amount of software i install and de-install on a machine.. .so i switched to osx ..... such a sweet move, totally bitten by the whole mac thing , it just all gels together so nicely. only real thing i notice is that you do need to buy some extra ram with it to get the most from it but its really made my life sweet (in computing terms anyway). I can highly recommend it and if your worried about not finding the apps you need .... don't. I don't have anything that I can't find a program in mac to replace it with. I do confess to having (for sanity and safety) a version of office on the mac and also an xp virtual machine so i really can still switch to windows if i needed to. The only thing that really sucks on the Mac is Notes client (no designer or admin available yet) it works ok but requires tinckering with the notes preference editor to get the fonts into a semi-readable state.
But after all is said and done its still worth forking out for an apple . I choose to do this as i kept trying to find the time to learn linux and failed miserably everytime, so i choose the easy route. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with MS as such, I just happen to be seriously impressed with my apple ... so if you didn't blow all your money on drink over christmas go and treat yourselves

15 - Ok I asked for it

Although I can not validate some of the benefits you cite, I trust you for it.

As for the "no one ever got fired ..." you almost make it seem that IBM has left this behind them, I don't quite agree with that.
That these new technologies become a competitive factor in the coming years I fully agree with that.
It's a good thing, because companies like Microsoft may have become lazy in certain area's. I think I've said it a few times before, becoming the number one player / a large player is one thing, but staying on top is something else.
Mini Microsoft although in a to cynical way highlights that for sure.

We'll see if Microsoft has got what it takes, I for one strongly believe they do and will certainl put in my share.
to be contunued ...

16 - @14 - absolutely, Jules. I have high hopes for Tiger on Intel. A mate of mine - a professional photographer - has a windows-based six-machine 2-terrabyte setup in his shop, and a single mac. Guess which one gives him the most pleasure ?

Oh - as well as being completely at home as a photo-editing tool.

Perhaps thats another quantifiable gain. The reduction in dentistry bills as I stop grinding my teeth in daily frustration at Windows XP.

One certain quantifiable benefit of the linux switch and openoffice of course is the ability to save anything as a PDF without having to print it first. Something that should have been in Office 97 for fricks sake, and something promised (but not yet delivered) in office 12...

---* Bill

17 - @13 Great stuff Bill, absolutely right on almost all counts.

I'm another technical evangelist that abandoned MS a year or so ago.

Tried Linux first, but just hit too many hurdles... devices not supported, apps not available etc. Bought a 3-year old Powerbook 500MHz for the missus - wow it may be slow, but it JUST WORKS! No crashes, no app hangs, OS support for PDF, built in photo/dvd/music management, wireless that just works etc. No training required, no extra stuff needed.

So then came the all-singing, all-dancing powerbook for me - use it for all customer meetings where possible (my employer forces an IBM Stinkpad on me, running XP, but I have permission to use the Mac). It starts so many conversations - "Why Mac", "What is that - it's so cool", "wow can you use Word on there?" etc. I recommend it wholeheartedly. We're now a 5-Mac household!

On the more serious notes of your message - MS lost the lead and the mindshare 18-24 months ago. The work of Ed Brill and many others at competitor vendors is finally beginning to turn the ship, Linux is biting away at the server end, Mac/Linux/OpenOffice/Firefox/Thunderbird etc. at the desktop. The huge numbers of vendors that live on the MS bandwagon are also helping out - Symantec with their security holes (why run an OS that forces Anti-Virus packages that themselves have security holes?) etc.

It's happening, really it is... Peter and others in MS need to recognise the danger that MS is in, and force the management to make serious changes, else 10 years down the line MS will have lost its Windows and Office cashcows and will be fighting for its life. Well here's hoping anyway!

Stuart

18 - @13 Great stuff Bill, absolutely right on almost all counts.<br><br>I'm another technical evangelist that abandoned MS a year or so ago. <br><br>Tried Linux first, but just hit too many hurdles... devices not supported, apps not available etc. Bought a 3-year old Powerbook 500MHz for the missus - wow it may be slow, but it JUST WORKS! No crashes, no app hangs, OS support for PDF, built in photo/dvd/music management, wireless that just works etc. No training required, no extra stuff needed.<br><br>So then came the all-singing, all-dancing powerbook for me - use it for all customer meetings where possible (my employer forces an IBM Stinkpad on me, running XP, but I have permission to use the Mac). It starts so many conversations - "Why Mac", "What is that - it's so cool", "wow can you use Word on there?" etc. I recommend it wholeheartedly. We're now a 5-Mac household!<br><br>On the more serious notes of your message - MS lost the lead and the mindshare 18-24 months ago. The work of Ed Brill and many others at competitor vendors is finally beginning to turn the ship, Linux is biting away at the server end, Mac/Linux/OpenOffice/Firefox/Thunderbird etc. at the desktop. The huge numbers of vendors that live on the MS bandwagon are also helping out - Symantec with their security holes (why run an OS that forces Anti-Virus packages that themselves have security holes?) etc. <br><br>It's happening, really it is... Peter and others in MS need to recognise the danger that MS is in, and force the management to make serious changes, else 10 years down the line MS will have lost its Windows and Office cashcows and will be fighting for its life. Well here's hoping anyway!<br><br>Stuart

19 - For two days now, I`ve not had sound on the Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 Portable (Blingmaster). And it was driving me nuts!

No native linux driver for the sound card - until at the bottom of a blog, I found a hint. Use "kmixer" to swich the amplifier on ? Eh ?

KMixer is a character (or "Dos" style) program. Just press right arrow (eh?) until you get to the last item - which is waaaay off screen BTW, and press "M" to switch the amplifier on.

It transpires that the detected intel device is fine. Just go to "detect sound card" now and "play" - and you'll hear the test sound.

So. Again, difficult things have been easy, and odd things have been strange.

---* Bill

20 - Another odd item - or something I initially thought was odd - that my desktop had reset itself to 1024x768 this morning, down from the monsterous 1920x1220... But the driver itself was still properly configured.

Ah-ha. There's a "preferences" part where you SAY how large you want it - and it'll scale DOWN. So if you have partially-sighted users on your workstation - the core driver and settings never get changed, but users can futz with the resolution. Which makes perfect sense. Better than the windows "You cant mess with that" attitude.

(I know of one entity with a lot of partially sighted users who have issues when they require their 19" LDC panel to be knocked right down to 800x600...)

---* Bill

21 - Hey bill, once you have completed this project you might want to try building your own custom linux install with the linux from scratch book -- www.linuxfromscratch.org has all the instructions its a great way to really understand the core of linux. There is also a liveCD to build the system from and a BLFS (Beyond Linux From Scratch) if you want to install a GUI etc...

22 - Build my own Distro ? You jest! I mean, I have NO time left to do ANYTHING.. My poor motorbike badly needs a run, etc, etc.



Another good Fedora Core pointer:

http://www.travelsinparadise.com/linux/

---* Bill

23 - Some final comments on Fedora Core 4.

its free. And for a free operating system, you shouldnt expect much.

However, no. Fedora Core 4 comes with a Logical Volume Manager allowing you to span/raid multiple disks into one logical file system. Very cool - reminded me a lot of the AIX v3 and v4 stuff we used a lot at Phirrips.

So now the house "media center" has 400gig of filesystem for stuff being copied off the tivo..

Found all the laptop utilities - including one that allows me to switch the CPU up and down, and monitor current "stepping" threshold. Far more control than XP.

OpenOffice worked a treat in terms of Powerpoint replacement. Well, almost - that is - some of the fonts got mangled and the block diagrams moved around. I've not yet figured out how to replace a design in OpenOffice.

In terms of "Write" however, it rocks. Beats word 2003 hands down in terms of usability and stability - our 224 page manual was updated with no hassle.

And of course OpenOffice exports natively to PDF. Nice.

Using the GIMP to do screenshots and graphics. So far, so good. Its as impenetrable and apparently as powerful as Photoshop.

So far. No crashes, no blue screens. Very very stable.

After what, a week - am I happy ? Yes. And I get the "ooooh!" moment as I find more and more what Linux can do. As opposed to my "damn!" when XP/Office fails, crashes or asks for more money.

The only hassle I have is ironically with the Lotus notes clients. I could get Notes 6 working with WINE, but it wasnt stable. Notes 7 refused point blank. So they're in a VMWare (again - solid stuff) on Linux hosting a tiny XP partition.

Och, I *wish* there was a native notes client... Must drop hints to Mr Rhonin when I meet him next...

Linux. Well recommended!

----* Bill

24 - Good news: Liferea is as good an RSS reader as Sharpreader. Cool.

Bad news: iTunes. I'm trying out gdkpod as a pod-filler instead, but god I wish apple would do iTunes on linux!

---* Bill