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Posts Tagged ‘Open Source’

Cisco declares war, embraces open source

Cisco Systems doesn’t seem to know how to color inside the lines.

The networking-equipment giant has been foraging in a diverse set of new markets lately, taking on Microsoft in the collaboration and unified-communications markets, but now sticking a finger in the eye of longtime server partners Hewlett-Packard and IBM by jumping into the server market, as The New York Times reports.

Is Cisco reckless, or simply smart?

Whichever the case may be, Cisco just took on a host of powerful competitors. All at once. Sun Microsystems’ Zack Urlocker notes that Sun, among others, is jumping into Cisco’s profitable network equipment market. It was bound to happen that partners would become competitors to Cisco, as they sought to eke out a living in a recessed economy.

What wasn’t certain is just how grand Cisco’s ambition could be and how fast it would happen. As CNET’s Marguerite Reardon writes, Cisco isn’t going halfway with its new Unified Computing push:

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company’s new data center server strategy, announced Monday, is fueled by a grand vision to not only help its corporate customers improve efficiency and reduce costs, but also (to) transform how average consumers can access loads of cool new applications on cheap devices.

Few companies have the luxury to make such bold moves. Cisco, as well as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, is one that can.

Intriguingly, Cisco’s Unified Computing initiative puts it into close collaboration with Linux leader Red Hat, as the two are collaborating to ensure that Cisco’s new servers run seamlessly with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). While VMware and Microsoft got a lot of coverage in the Cisco announcement, my conversations with executives behind the scenes reveals a different picture:

Cisco has been working on this project for more than a year, and it initially figured that it could cover the market with VMware for virtualization, and Windows and RHEL as the operating systems. However, when the company talked with early prospects roughly nine months ago, the vast majority reported that they were using VMware or virtualization in only 5 percent to 10 percent of the workloads Cisco was targeting for its Unified Computing push. They weren’t using Windows, either. Virtually all of them were using Unix or RHEL, with a large swath embracing RHEL.
RHEL, in fact, is expected to claim 80 percent to 90 percent of Cisco’s Unified Computing customers: those using VMware for virtualization but running RHEL as a guest server operating system, and those not yet comfortable using virtualization in high-end computing workloads, will use RHEL as their base operating system.

While Cisco’s Unified Communication technology is hardly open source–Cisco has built its own proprietary Ethernet, for heaven’s sake!–the initiative will largely depend on open-source software. In my conversations with executives involved in the initiative, Red Hat, specifically, and open-source proponents, generally, are deemed to be critical to its success.

This isn’t surprising, given how integral open source is to Cisco’s other new initiatives, such as its push into collaboration, which involved the acquisitions of PostPath (which also includes Zimbra’s open-source Web client in its offering) and Jabber, as well as a variety of open-source projects from the Apache Software Foundation and elsewhere.

HP’s vice president of marketing for enterprise servers and storage, Jim Ganthier, dissed Cisco’s foray into his market with a dismissive hiss:

It may have looked like a really great idea on paper, but as they start to wade into the water, they may find out that there are some things in the water that they don’t like.

Maybe. But Cisco has the heft to completely dam HP’s river and fill a lake. That’s the plan. And open source will play a major role in making it happen.

How Linux Can Finally Rise Above Microsoft

Recently I had a chat with another member of the Linux media about what Linux really needs to do in order to finally reach the masses. It was a long discussion that meandered in and out of various topics. But ultimately one topic won out over all others as being the be-all, end-all means for Linux to gain large scale support in both the end user and enterprise crowds.

The conclusion? The Desktop. Why the desktop? Linux has already conquered the server market. All it needs to do for that portion of its audience is to continue to scale upwards and keep creating incredible, usable servers. What Linux has failed to do yet is to show the world exactly what a desktop can do for the user.

You might have noticed lately that I have been preaching a lot about the desktop. In some circles I have made it my primary (and often only) focus. Recently I read an article on Infoworld where a writer was challened to take the age-old Linux challenge. Near the very beginning of the article the writer spouts off saying “Give me a break! Desktop Linux is nowhere”. That same author informs the reader that it had been nearly a decade since he had fired up a Linux distro.

A decade.

This is a writer for a tech-based news source. Nearly. A. Decade. Yet before he took this test (and admitted how long it had been since he had seen Linux) he spouted off that “Desktop Linux is nowhere.” That, my friends, is a problem. Why? Because desktop Linux is far from no where.

I realize that a vast majority of my readers are IT pros who could care less about how cool the desktop is. That cross section of users want their desktop to simply work. I get that. But the average user is not so concerned with how efficiently their desktop works or how much bloatware their operating system has (nudge nudge, wink wink Jaqui). The average user likes eye candy. And if the average user can be woo’d by Microsoft Vista, imagine how Compiz (or Elive Compize) would affect that same user.

A 3D desktop? Wow!

It would be very difficult to argue the point that Linux has made leaps and bounds in the desktop area. Think about where it was 10 years ago (you know, the last time that Infoworld writer fired up Linux) to where it is now. Put FVWM up against KDE 4 or GNOME with Compiz and see how it fares. You can look at font rendering alone and see how far the Linux desktop has come.

And this is how Linux can finally rise above Microsoft. The desktop. But how can it be put into action? There was a slight window of opportunity missed when Wal Mart was selling the gOS-based desktop machines. The problem was the fact that they used gOS as the distribution/desktop. Don’t get me wrong, I am fond of gOS, but that doesn’t mean it was the right distribution for the task. Instead what should have been used was a desktop that, out of the box, looked and behaved similarly to whatever version of Windows was couture at the time. With a bonus. Now this bonus would have raised the price of the machine just a bit. But add to that desktop (either KDE or GNOME) Compiz and you give the user something familiar with an added twist and you’ll have users oo’ing and ah’ing at what their new Windows-like desktop can do.

I’ve grown rather tired of hearing those self-same pundits who haven’t touched a modern Linux desktop since, what, GNOME 1.x say that Linux isn’t ready for the main stream. Linux is ready for the main stream and the main stream is ready for Linux – it’s only a matter of getting the two of them together in the right way.

Now, how do we do it? I’m sure everyone here has a suggestion or two. So put fingers to keys and help the Linux community to figure out how to get the Linux desktop in front of the end users.

Browser boosts, open source on Microsoft’s list

Microsoft hasn’t had appreciable competition for its two cash cows, its Office productivity suite and its Windows operating system, in more than a decade. Recently, however, Apple’s Mac OS X and Linux for Netbooks have given Windows a run for its money on the desktop, and Google, Zoho, and other software-as-a-service providers have mounted a challenge to Office.

But the real competition is in the browser, which increasingly displaces the traditional desktop operating system, and through which businesses and consumers reach their preferred applications. This is perhaps why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer highlighted Microsoft’s need to improve Internet Explorer to Wall Street analysts on Tuesday, as Mary Jo Foley reports.

Or perhaps it’s related to the European Commission veering toward a decision that would force Microsoft to bundle competing browsers like Mozilla’s open-source Firefox with Windows.

As Google and others enter the Commission fray to ensure a level playing field for competing browsers, Microsoft will quickly have to figure out winning innovation strategies, and not merely distribution strategies.

All else being equal, if users have real choice in their browser, they’re unlikely to choose IE, at this point, unless IE 8 can catch up with Firefox’s extensibility and Safari’s or Google Chrome’s speed. Microsoft clearly needs to compete again through product innovation and partner innovation.

Intriguingly, an emerging strategic priority for Microsoft may do both: open source. Microsoft is now inviting open-source developers to participate with the company in building out Visual Studio 2010, as The Register details, just as Microsoft is seeking open-source add-ons for its customer resource management offering.

No, Microsoft is not magically morphing into an open-source company, but it’s increasingly an open source-savvy company. Microsoft increasingly seems to grasp the “open core” strategy that JasperSoft CEO Brian Gentile recently explicated on his blog. It’s a way for companies like Microsoft (and IBM, Oracle, and others) to participate in open source without abandoning their investments in their existing license-based business models.

As Microsoft moves into browser-based delivery of more and more applications, I think we’ll see even more browser innovation and open-source innovation from the Redmond giant.

How to install Ubuntu : The Ubuntu Installation Guide

When it comes to installing Ubuntu, there are so many useful snippets of information on blogs and guides all over the internet. If you Google “How to install Ubuntu”, you’ll see what I mean.

For an Ubuntu beginner or curious Windows intermediate user however, there’s no single, simple source of information when it comes to trying out your first Ubuntu installation. One thing I have noticed is that there’s a lot of technical jargon and sometimes unnecessary terminal commands in lengthy forum posts, but no simple “how to” guides, which I think might put some people off! A shame, when you think about how easy Ubuntu is to install, use and tweak to look really cool!

This post will talk you through your first Ubuntu installation, hopefully teaching you everything you need to know to give Ubuntu a try without breaking or removing your existing Windows installation.

The guide uses Wubi to install Ubuntu, from Windows. That way, if you decide you don’t like it, you can uninstall Ubuntu straight from Windows add/remove programs! If you decide that you want to keep the install, there’s a method to move the wubi installation onto its own partition. I’ll be blogging about that soon.

I hope my guide makes installing Ubuntu an enjoyable, simple experience. By the end of the guide you should have a dual boot Windows / Ubuntu machine that happily plays music, video, acts as a perfectly usable home office PC and runs Windows XP from inside the Ubuntu OS while looking unique and seriously cool. All of your friends will want Ubuntu! Good luck!

Ubuntu installation guide updated: October 2008

If you’re planning on installing the latest version of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex 8.10) the there’s now no need to download Wubi installer. You can install Ubuntu straight from the CD inside Windows, and the install process takes care of automatically partitioning your hard drive for you. Here’s how

1) Download the Ubuntu ISO from http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download and save to your desktop

2) Burn the ISO image to a blank CD using Roxio CD creator or similar:

burn a disc image with roxio

3) Run the CD from “My Computer” – the CD should ask permission to run at which point you’ll see this option screen:

4) Select “install inside Windows” and follow the instructions. From this point, the screens are pretty much the same as Wubi installer, so you can follow the rest of the instructions below. This process however uses the Grub Bootloader to start Ubuntu.

Here’s what you see next:

Wubi installer

If you’ve got the space on your hard drive, go for 30gb or more for the installation size.

2) Now configure your installation using the simple settings options. You can specify the location of the Ubuntu installation on your Windows partition, the size of the Ubuntu installation, the Ubuntu flavour (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc), your preferred language, and a username and password for the Ubuntu system.

When you click install, you’ll see this screen:

As soon as the files have finished downloading, you’ll see this:

Time to reboot Wubi installer

3) That’s it! Click reboot now, and select “Ubuntu” on the startup screen. You now have a fully functional dual boot Windows / Ubuntu machine.

How to set up your wireless network

Next, we’re going to set up the wireless network. By now you should have correctly installed Ubuntu and after a restart and a login, you’ll see a desktop a little like this:

What next? Before you do anything else you’ll need to connect your PC to a wireless network.

How to connect to your wireless network in Hardy Heron

Connecting to your wireless router so you can access the internet is pretty easy. Here are the steps:

1) In the top menu, click System>Administration>Network – you’ll see a dialogue box like this:

Setting up your wireless connection with Ubuntu

2) The network settings dialogue will appear (that’s the box on the right). Click “unlock” and key in your password. Now, highlight the wireless connection, and click the properties button on the right.

3) The dialogue on the left should appear (wlan0 properties). Click “enable roaming mode” and click ok. Now close the network settings dialogue.

4) Next, you need to click the wireless logo in the top right hand of your screen. A small menu will appear. Click the wireless network you want to join and you’ll see this dialogue appear:

Just key in the WPA / security details of your wireless LAN and click connect. Ubuntu will connect to the network straight away

How to install a Nvidia display driver, and generaly get going with proper graphics performance

Next we’ll look at how to set up your Nvidia display driver, and how to instantly tweak the graphics performance of your new installation.

Nvidia drivers don’t seem to be open source like many other drivers for Ubuntu. All that means is that they don’t share their source code (closed source) in the way that Ubuntu developers need to be able to make things better, more usable and all that other stuff they like to do. Even if I’m wrong about the statement I just made there, Nvidia drivers are referred to as “NVIDIA closed source binary drivers”. That sounds a bit frightening. It might explain why your Nvidia doesn’t have a driver installed and ready to go when you first boot Ubuntu. Either way, installing a driver is easy and not at all frightening.

How to install your Nvidia driver

1) Go to System>Administration>Hardware drivers

I’m afraid you’re going to have to ignore all that “risk” business if you want to trick up your Ubuntu installation…

2) Click on the “Enabled” check box and follow the instructions…

3) Eventually you’ll see this message. Time to restart your computer.

When you’ve restarted your machine, it’s time to start thinking about putting your new driver to good use. Let’s get the default visual effects set up correctly:

4) Go to System>Preferences>Appearance and select the “Visual effects” tab and select Extra

Your machine will instantly “feel” more responsive and you’ll notice the full use of your graphics card is being utilised. Try moving a window – fun, isn’t it! “Wobbly Windows” is a feature of Compiz and we’ll be looking at how tu use Compiz to create a desktop cube environment next.

How to install Compiz Fusion (the 3d desktop environment)

Compiz is a seriously powerful extension to Gnome (basically the GUI for Linux). It’s been possible to create extra desktops in Ubuntu for a long time, but with Compiz you can switch between them via a three dimensional cube, which is actually very usable and seriously cool. Amaze your friends with Compiz by showing them your machine doing tricks like this:

Installing Compiz from hardy Heron is extremely easy. In fact, you already have it installed in Ubuntu Hardy. If you have an earlier version of Ubuntu, follow these instructions. If you have Hardy, read on…

Compiz is already installed but you need access to the advanced settings manager to activate the cube and cube rotation. You’re going to install a package called: compizconfig-settings-manager. Installing it in Hardy is easy -

1) Go to Synaptic Package Manager (System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager) and do a search for compizconfig-settings-manager. Check the install box and click apply.

2) if you go to System>Preferences you’ll see that a new menu item has appeared – “Advanced desktop effects settings”. Open the menu.

This is the compiz settings manager, the place where you activate all of the cool tricks. There are so many fiddly little settings to play with that it would be impossible to write about them all. I’ll leave you to break discover them yourself. There are however some really important ones to switch on that are worthy of note and will provide an important first step:

3) Under “Desktop” check “Desktop Cube”. There are lots of settings inside this module, but for the time being leave it checked

4) Underneath the desktop cube checkbox, check “Rotate Cube”.

If all goes well, then holding down CTRL>ALT and the right hand mouse button should instantly zoom you out and display a three dimensional desktop! Mouse around and it will spin up and down and from left to right. The rest, I leave to you. enjoy

How to install Virtual box and run Windows XP from Ubuntu

Virtualbox is a virtualisation package for Linux originally developed by Sun Microsystems. It’s an incredibly powerful and easy way of being able to run Windows XP or Vista from Ubuntu. The last part of this guide will talk you through the process of installing Virtualbox, after which we’ll look at installing Windows XP. Running XP inside Ubuntu has so many benefits, like file compatibility, using active-x in internet explorer and lots more.

Here’s a few shots of my PC running Ubuntu and Windows XP, BBC Iplayer and Microsoft Office 2007. Click the images for a full size view:

I took the screenshots while Compiz cube was in mid-rotate. Looks good doesn’t it? Performance wise, Windows XP starts up just as quickly if not slightly quicker than a standard installation if you have a powerful machine. Just goes to show what a great operating system Linux can be.

How is it done?

Installing Virtualbox is quite straightforward. There’s a simple process to follow to get up and running with your XP virtual machine. That process looks like this:

1) Install Virtualbox using Synaptic package manager

2) Add your user profile to the vboxusrs group so Virtualbox will work

3) Create a virtual machine in Virtualbox

4) Install Windows XP (from CD in this post) on your new virtual machine

5) Booting your virtual machine from the Windows XP installation CD

Installing Virtualbox using Synaptic Package Manager

Open Synaptic (System>Administration) – search for “virtualbox-ose” and install.

Add your user profile to the vboxusrs group

Once Virtualbox is installed, you’ll have to add your user profile to a group created by the install process called vboxusrs. Time to start using Terminal – here’s the command:

sudo adduser [your username] vboxusers

Create a virtual machine in Virtualbox

You’re now ready to start the application (Applications>System Tools>InnoTek VirtualBox) – here’s how it looks:

Virtualbox in Ubuntu

We’re going to create a new virtual machine called WinXP-2 so you can see the process from start to finish. There are about 8 steps to follow, begin by clicking the “New” button.

The virtual machine wizard dialogue. Click next to get started, give the new machine a name and select the type of OS you’re going to install.

Give the new machine a name and select the type of OS you’re going to install.

Create a “dynamically expanding image” – if you use up all the available space the disk image you’re creating will expand.

Now select the actual size of the image. This is how much virtual hard disk space you’ll have to play with when you first boot the machine. When you click next you’ll be given a summary of what’s happening so far.

You’re now taken to the Virtual hard disk dialogue and your new hard disk has been created and should display in the drop down. Click next. You’re given one final confirmation and that’s it, click finish.

Booting your virtual machine from the Windows XP installation CD

Clicking finish will take you back to the virtualbox user interface. Clicking “start” will initiate the first run wizard. There’s no need to use the wizard, actually it’s quite important to get used to the settings dialogue.

To be able to get your virtual machine booting from an XP install cd, we need to mount the CD/DVD drive. Click the settings button and you will see this window – click the CD/DVD-ROM tab.

Make sure you select the “Mount CD/DVD Drive” checkbox.

While you’re in the settings window, familiarise yourself with the different tabs. Particularly, “Network” – it’s worth taking a look and making sure that the “cable connected” check box is selected – which enables your new virtual machine to get an internet connection. When you’re done, click OK.

Finally, with the Windows XP installation CD in your drive, click the start button. With any luck you’ll see a new installation happening right in front of you!

Once you’ve got XP completely installed, you might want to install the guest additions ISO, which will allow you a full screen resolution and a lot of compatibility between Ubuntu and XP. I’ve just written a post about this here. I hope you enjoy your new Ubuntu PC!