Open Source
"Open source" means that some entity holds the copyright to the
source, but it is open to inspection, and to some extent, modification
by others than the copyright holder. If the copyright holder goes
belly-up, you can still fix or modify the source code, recompile it,
and continue to use the software.
GPL
"GPL" refers to the General Public License (sometimes called a
"copyleft") which means that anyone can sell, rent, or give away some
given software, but they must provide the user, on request, the source
code for it. Further, the user can similarly modify the code, and
sell or give it away, but they must also provide the source
code.
Why should I care?
What this means for you is that such software tends to get bugs fixed
sooner, and in the hands of the user, usually at no additional cost,
than with commercial software. In general, most such software is
freely available (no restrictive licensing), costing little more than
the price of the media and shipping. In fact, I can install the
latest version of Linux (the operating system), a suitable windowing
system, and a suite of applications and tools on your computer(s) without
violating any licensing restrictions.
With commercial software, you pay up front for a license to install
the software on one or more computers, and that may include some
limited customer support, but not usually for long. Bug fixes are
usually part of the next version of the software, assuming the seller
owns up to the bugs. And, of course, the next version upgrade will
usually cost more money.
Ok, so what is your angle?
What we are selling is our expertise in installing and using Unix
(Linux is a variant of Unix) and the associated applications and
tools. We charge by the hour or by the project, depending on the
customer's needs.
What do I gain?
- Lower upgrade costs, and usually lower installation costs.
- Freedom from the threat of viruses.
- No more "blue screens" or spontaneous or "therapeutic" reboots.
You need to reboot only for an operating system upgrade.
- Choice of a wide variety of window managers.
Ok, I'm interested, but be honest. What's the downside?
You may not be able to replace some of your specialized applications
that are designed to run on the Windows OS. But most Linux
distributions come with several word processors, spreadsheets, web
browsers, and email applications. There's even a freeware work-alike
for Quicken. But, if you must have your Microsoft-based application,
you can set up the computer to have both Windows and Linux installed,
so that you can either boot to one OS or the other, or you can install
a commercial product, VMware,
to allow both OSs to run simultaneously.
Do you do custom software?
We certainly do, as long as it's for a Unix or Linux platform.
At the risk of overworking a phrase, "We don't do Windows."
We work primarily in C and Perl (and Perl/CGI, Perl/Tk, and Perl/DBI),
but can probably craft something for you in Java or PHP.
I take it I can replace Windows on most of my workstations. How
about my:
mail server?
Yes. Most Linux distributions include services for incoming and
outgoing mail, using sendmail for SMTP, and servers for both POP and
IMAP.
file server?
Yes. There is the standard NFS server as well as an SMB server that
emulates an NT server.
web server?
Absolutely. The de facto standard of web servers is Apache, and is in
use in more than half of the web servers in the world. This system,
of course, is using Apache. If you are serving up HTML, CGI, PHP, or
Java, Apache will handle it just fine. If you are doing ASP or some
other proprietary arrangement, it won't work, but can probably be
converted to another (better?) method.
database server?
If you are running Oracle, Oracle will be happy to sell you a license
to run it on Linux. Most other databases will need to be converted to
something that runs on Linux, like MySQL or PostgreSQL, but that's not
rocket science.
Do I have to convert everything in my enterprise?
Absolutely not. You can convert a workstation or one server at a
time. As mentioned before, you can add Linux to
an existing Windows workstation so you can work either alternately, or
back out if you change your mind. Most linux-based word processors,
for instance, can import .doc files.
Well, you're biased. Does anyone else think Linux is that great?
IBM has thrown their marketing power behind Linux, and, in fact, has
ported Linux to their "big iron" mainframe computers, and ported their
big-time database application, DB2, to Linux.
Oracle has started to convert
all of their corporate computing to Linux, and heavily
supports Linux.
You're familiar with the Google search site? It's all Linux servers.
The US Postal Service is converting all its office computing
to Linux.
What's your experience level with Linux and Unix?
I've been doing Unix-based projects as a contractor since 1992.
One of my most recent projects was to port a major application
from HP-UX (Hewlett-Packard's variant of Unix) to Solaris (Sun's Unix)
and Linux. I've been running Linux for over five years, and currently
have five machines running Linux, including my workstation, my
notebook, and our company's web/mail server, file server, and
firewall.
For a comprehensive listing of my qualifications and
accomplishments, see my resume.
I'm interested. How do I get started?
Give us a call at 800-929-5513, and let's have a chat about your needs
and what we can provide. The initial consultation is free.
Email also works. See the links at the bottom of this page
I'd really rather do it myself.
Ok, you may well be able to handle it.
Here are some helpful resources.
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Text vs. GUI login
Q. I don't want a GUI login screen, just plain text. Where is that determined?
A. In /etc/inittab. There is a line that says
id:5:initdefault:
Use an editor (vi or pico or emacs) to edit that file and change the "5" to
"3", then save and exit the editor. Then either reboot or
telinit q
The 3 and 5 are called runlevels. Here are the runlevels supported in
Red Hat Linux:
0 - halt
1 - single user (maintenance)
2 - multi-user, minimal networking
3 - multi-user, full networking
4 - not used
5 - multi-user, full networking, X login
6 - reboot
Once you are in runlevel 3, you can bring up an X session with startx.
Connecting to your Linux box.
Q. I can't telnet or ftp to my Linux machine from another machine.
A. That is a Good Thing(tm). See the discussion of security.
Backups
Q. What should I back up, and how?
A. I recommend backing up
/etc/ (your configuration files),
/root/ (if you have anything important in there),
/var/ (spools and other configuration things),
and /home/ (arguably the most important).
I use cpio using this script
#!/bin/sh
TAPE=/dev/nftape
mt rewind
mt reten
cd /
find etc home root var | cpio -oBc >$TAPE
mt rewind
I consider the system stuff restorable from the distribution disks.
I also have a /u partition, but I consider everything in there as
replaceable or expendable.
I put this script in /etc/cron.weekly.
If you don't want to lose more than a day's work, consider doing incremental
backups every day to diskette or another disk drive.
If you want anything more sophisticated, I recommend Amanda.
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