Pinderkent

Today I was reading about the "Reduced Functionality" capability of Windows Vista. According to that article, Microsoft has now enabled this capability, which renders a "nongenuine" copy of Windows essentially unusable.

Frankly, I just can't see why anybody would want to use Windows Vista. I'm sure the questionable nature of this sort of functionality is quite obvious to most. And it's also pretty obvious how the misidentification of an installation as being "nongenuine" could be quite disasterous. A completely legitimate installation of Vista locking up accidentally because of such functionality could cost an individual or business a great deal of time and money.

Beyond that, we have readily-available, high-quality alternative operating systems that don't bother with such nonsense. These days, Ubuntu provides a very usable desktop or workstation OS. There are other Linux distributions that are more suited for server-oriented tasks. FreeBSD is another alternative for desktop/workstation and server usage. Of course, there are also NetBSD, OpenBSD, and DragonFly BSD. And we can't forget OpenSolaris.

Using such systems is just the safest thing to do. First of all, you get access to virtually all of the software used on such a system. Even if you have no interest in modifying or redistributing it, having the code available allows for inspection, should that be necessary.

The redistribution of such software is usually allowed, and often encouraged. With ISO images typically available for (free) download from the distribution or project itself, one has to worry little about accidentally obtaining pirated software.

And in terms of functionality, the essentials are all there. For many people, the transition would be quite easy. Those who use software like Firefox and OpenOffice.org on Windows could immediately use those same products on Linux, BSD or OpenSolaris.

The hardware support Linux offers today is excellent. For the past few years, I've encountered far more hardware supported out-of-the-box by Linux than I have with the Windows installations I have performed. The need for installing a separate driver is often nil.

So when it comes down to it, it really just doesn't make much sense why any person or organization would subject themselves to Windows Vista. The benefits just aren't there, and the dangers appear to be many. And what's more, there are free alternatives out there that can perform the same tasks just as well, if not better. It's really a no-brainer: Linux, OpenSolaris and/or BSD is the way to go!

I'm sure that most people who follow developments within the open source community have read about Mark Shuttleworth's high-end, free-software-only laptop idea. While his focus appears to be more ideologically-driven, I think such a laptop would be useful for those of us with more pragmatic concerns.

Understandably, his writing about this topic focuses mainly on the use of Ubuntu-derived distributions on such a laptop. But I think it would also be very valuable for users of systems like FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and even Haiku.

The obvious benefit would be the ability for drivers to be written that have excellent support for the hardware being used. This has been one of the main benefits of buying a system from Apple, where you know the software you're getting has full support for the hardware it is bundled with.

The benefit may not be as great for Solaris. After all, we have been able to buy Sun workstations for decades now, and of course Solaris integrates very well with the hardware being used. While there are UltraSPARC-based notebooks running Solaris available, Shuttleworth's proposed laptop could bring Solaris to a wider audience.

FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD may have the most to gain from such a system. FreeBSD and NetBSD would both provide very usable, general-purpose environments. OpenBSD may even be ideal for such a laptop, where its high degree of security would prove useful when connecting wirelessly to questionable networks at universities, airports, malls, and other public areas. Not having to worry about hardware incompatibilities would likewise make such systems available to a far wider audience.

The realization of Shuttleworth's proposal for a high-end, free-software-only laptop would be excellent for the open source community. It would allow operating systems like FreeBSD and NetBSD to become a far more viable alternative to Windows, and even to Linux to some extent. This is the sort of initiative that we all should support.

Most of us have older PCs that we have little use for. Linux advocates often suggest turning such systems into home data servers. A number of people have written how this can be done, with one recent article suggesting the use of Ubuntu.

Now, I'm all for the reuse of old hardware wherever possible. It's damaging to the environment to improperly dispose of such systems, for instance. In business settings, we can often repurpose older PCs and servers in a number of ways. Older PCs often make excellent firewalls and web proxies. By installing an OS like OpenBSD or NetBSD on such hardware, one can get a secure, affordable and yet powerful system. But I'm not sure this holds true for the home data server suggestions.

The article I linked to earlier contains these lines which form a good basis for the point I will proceed to make: Your old computer likely has enough memory, and a powerful enough CPU to run Ubuntu, however, if you intend to use this server as a major central file server, it will likely need a new hard-drive. You can deal with that on your own.

The main portion we need to focus on is that part about obtaining a new hard drive. While this may not be necessary, it does begin to highlight some of the problems we will encounter when setting up such a system.

One of the main problems concerns reliability. It is pointless to store data on such a server, only to have an older hard drive fail due to wear and tear. So putting in a new hard drive is almost a necessary task. While storage space is quite cheap these days, a new hard drive may be far too much of an investment to put into an old PC.

Now, the use of an old PC for data transmission, rather than data storage, is more sensible. The hard drive of the system becomes almost inconsequential. The footprint of a usable NetBSD installation can be made very, very small, for example, so space shouldn't be an issue. Likewise, there's little loss if the drive does fail due to age. The most that is lost are some configuration files. So that is why such systems often work well as proxies or firewalls; the focus is on passing along data, rather than storing it.

We also have to keep in mind that running a PC consumes electricity. It's a cost that not everybody thinks about. In some places electricity is quite expensive, and that cost alone could far exceed the benefit derived from having a file server. Furthermore, it will generate heat, which may drive up cooling costs in the summer.

So if you do have an old PC and are in need of some storage space, I think the best thing to do would be to go out and buy an external hard drive. This is especially true if you'd need to buy a new hard drive for the old PC anyways. Such external storage systems are quite portable, and use a small fraction of the power of a full-blown PC. As nearly every modern system supports either or both of FireWire and USB, you'll be able to use it with nearly any existing PC you own. In the end you'll get many of the benefits of running another file server, without many of the costs.

Konqueror is a web browser developed as part of the KDE project. KDE is, of course, one of the major open source desktop environments. Over time, Konqueror has become well-known for its high quality and standards-compliance. So I really wasn't surprised when today I read an article stating that KHTML 3.5.6 is the most CSS3-compliant browser. The article does make one comment that I would like to address, however: It really is a shame that only a tiny proportion of web users have access to this excellent browser.

I would consider that statement to be incorrect. Virtually every web user can use Konqueror. All they would need to do is install an operating system like Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, or Mac OS X. For most people, at least one of those operating systems will run on some piece of hardware they have available. And easily enough they'll be able to install KDE, and be able to experience the full benefit of Konqueror for themselves. Of course, that will change once KDE 4, which will likely offer native support for Windows systems, is released.