Linux

Cheap Linux PC

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This looks pretty nice – a $200 PC with Linux. I may get one. I wonder if Lycoris is a decent server OS, since it seems to be sold as a desktop system.

Server Change

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I plan to replace Mac OS X Server on my B&W G3 with Mandrake LinuxPPC after I put in a bigger drive. I’ve been fighting with Apple’s IMAP server for the last day trying to get it to let me log in, even though I have mail enabled for my account. It would be easier to just use a normal IMAP server.

Update: I wasn’t able to install Mandrake Linux. It doesn’t appear compatible with my KVM switch. I now think a better solution would be “normal” Mac OS X with a third-party IMAP server and standard administrative tools such as Webmin

Why Microsoft should build the next version of Windows on top of Linux

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I, Cringely | The Pulpit

The idea of Windows as an operating system is purely a product of the Microsoft marketing department, and not some law of nature. When Windows 1.0 appeared, it was a separate program you loaded on top of MS-DOS. Same for Windows 2.0 and 3.0 up through MS-DOS 6.22, the last standalone version of DOS sold by Microsoft. That way, they thought at the time, if Windows ever proved to be a commercial failure (this was far from certain and it is easy to claim Windows WAS a failure before 3.0), it would have been easy for Microsoft to punt back to MS-DOS.

Gates gives $100m to fight HIV, $421m to fight Linux

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From The Register:

In addition to the much trumpeted $100 million Billg has donated to India’s fight against HIV, he’s funding the Microsoft jihad against Linux to the far more impressive tune of $421 million. That means that Linux is more than four times worse than AIDS to Billg and his happy Redmond family. God forbid any of them should learn the bitter truth the hard way and start talking sense.

Billg’s personal $100 million goes to health initiatives over ten years, while $421 million of Microsoft’s money goes, over a mere three years, to support MS-friendly development and ‘educational’ initiatives. And being a monster MS shareholder himself, a ‘Big Win’ in India will enrich him personally, perhaps well in excess of the $100 million he’s donating to the AIDS problem. Makes you wonder who the real beneficiary of charity is here.

Oh, and let’s not forget the five, count ’em, five, vanity puff-pieces appearing in the New York Times this week glorifying Billg’s generosity, one of which he wrote himself. That’s worth quite a lot too, in PR brownie points for both him and his company. It’s far better than free advertising; it actually looks like news and therefore has immensely more persuasive value.

Interestingly, the NYT neglected to mention the gargantuan MS marketing tie-in and obvious bribe against, and obstacle to, Linux adoption in India. Certainly they’ve been falling all over Gates in their eagerness to give him ink, so we’re at a terrible loss to explain why they could find no place, among those thousands of words, to plug in a brief mention of the $421 million in anti-Linux ammo he’s delivering.