Linspire 11 SE

 

Some of our education customers have asked us if we can expect a new release specifically aimed at the education market.  Linspire 8 EDU has gotten a little long in the tooth and was released 4 years ago.  With the next release of Linspire in March we are introducing Linspire 11 SE.  Which is aimed specifically at the education market.

Some of the improvements include.

Fully up to date stack based on the latest LTS.

It has two modes; Full install which most schools will use for IT staff, administration and public library systems which includes Web Browser, e-mail application, Office Suite multimedia players etc.  Then we have the minimal install which schools can use on the student PC's which includes only 2 applications.  The web browser and Zoom.  The minimal install is great for school systems who use PWA's and Internal web apps.  It also fully supports all Intel based Chromebooks.  This also keeps us from having to support two different ISO's for our customers.

Security is paramount and we have made some changes to the way the OS works.  Under the full install school staff has access to every application and can install apps through the software center.  The minimal install allows students to only access the web browser and Zoom.  They cannot install apps and command line access is restricted.  On the minimal install apps can be installed through the Admin Console by a system administrator.

Application lineup highlights include; KDE 5.18.8, Microsoft Edge 98, Thunderbird 91, OnlyOffice 7, Timeshift, Deja-dup backup, Zoom, Juk, DragonPlayer and DISCOVER software center.

Current subscribers will get the new release for free through us or their current IT consulting firm.  We will have a dedicated page for people who want to purchase the new release. 

Chrome OS Flex and what it means for desktop Linux distributions

I got tons of e-mail and messages about this and people asked me my opinion. As you guys know Google is making Chrome OS available for older PC's and Macs through a new OS they call Chrome OS Flex and thats good for them. Its based on CloudReady made by a company called Neverware that they purchased a couple of years ago. CloudReady is going away and my thoughts on that is that this opens up the market. What do I mean by that?  Chrome OS Flex has one of two ways it can go and we will talk about that in a second.  In the meantime I have downloaded Flex and it is nice. Its really a good attempt. If you want to browse the web and watch YouTube its a perfect solution. If you are a developer or tinkerer you are shit out of luck. You cant access the command line at all, Shell Access has been removed. Android app support is not there yet IF ever and if your PC is older than 2 years you cant run Crostini and without shell access ChromeBrew is gone so once again this has one of two ways this can go. If they bring Android apps to Flex, if they enable some kind of developer mode yeah it has the potential to be a bullet in the head of desktop Linux distributions. If they dont, and I dont think they will because Google cant do basic math,  and they stay on the current path they are on.  Well, Flex will fail and will wind up in the Google Graveyard of what could have been within a year or two because Google is a company that likes to shoot itself in the foot, repeatedly until it cries for mommy. Google has had opportunity after opportunity to get ahead in everything but its core markets and hasn't and that is because they like to blow off their own toes which is why almost NONE of their past projects ever got past ad revenue, browsers and search.  My bet is Google graveyard in 12 months.  Google is its own worst enemy and its going to torture itself and then come to the realization it failed. Google has basically delivered to us Chrome OS 2009.  Sorry guys the industry and users decided that that was NOT ENOUGH.  Thats why Neverware never really caught hold with developers and why even its users didnt standardize on it.  We run parallel with Neverware in many of our school systems.  They used Neverware on a lot of their throw away old laptops so if a kid didnt return it at the end of the year or the systems got stolen it was not a huge loss.  Now for those of you who are tech savvy you can get into the command line environment by configuring GRUB and if you dont know what that is Im not going to tell you because you can fuck things up BIG TIME. 

Google has missed the general rule of software and product development. Listen to your users. Google gives its customers what Google wants and then gives their customers the middle finger and that is why they fail in everything BUT search. But, I think you will see a ton of downloads by people who are curious and people will want to use this thing for grandma and Stacy's mom who do nothing but check e-mail, do banking, general web browsing and watch YouTube and Netflix but for your broader tech consumer they are going to see very quickly how totally fucking useless this thing is in its current incarnation and reinstall Windows just like they did with CloudReady.  Bring Android and developer mode, watch this thing become the brightest star in the tech industry.  Make it CloudReady 2.0 and watch it crash and burn in a spectacular fashion.  Some of us will have fun with that everyone loves a trainwreck.  But based on Googles past performance in moving beyond its core market, Im not optimistic.

Those are my thoughts everyone have a nice day!!!

Why we dont just modify Ubuntu and support that?

 One of the questions I get often is; Why dont we just modify Ubuntu and support that?  The reason is Canonical.  Canonical owns the trademark on all of their derivatives, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and even Cinnabuntu I think.  Either way, we cannot just take Ubuntu, load our licensed properties and sell that to customers.  Canonical's policy is you have to sell it unmodified.  Its not like with Gentoo and Debian, we sold modified Gentoo for years and never had issues, where they are community based projects and no one really cares.  Canonical is a business.  Just like you cant sell a modified version of Red Hat and you cant sell a modified version of SUSE and its completely understandable.  It's their name.  If someone puts out an Ubuntu OS with malware on it people are going to look for that throat to choke and its going to be Canonical's.  Thats why you see so many derivatives out there with different names and why Ultimate Edition had to change their name and that is why System 76 came up with their own name and derivative, PopOS is a solid, solid distribution stupid name, but regardless Ubuntu is a trusted name.  I get it and Im perfectly OK with it on one hand, on the other though I do think the unmodified bit I think thats kind of silly.  When Microsoft sells their Android phones they sell it with Edge as the default browser and they have their own bits in there and they dont call it Microsoft A/OS or something like that.  The phone when it boots up says Android.  When you buy a new PC its not uncommon to find a different browser, Chrome usually, preinstalled along with other bits and bobs.  Hell even some Chromebooks are coming now with Android apps preinstalled.  So yes in some ways I find that rule completely silly but in the other I get it.  Now with the systems that we sell some people ask for just Ubuntu or Kubuntu and we sell it to them unmodified and we tell them its a vanilla install of Ubuntu or Kubuntu if you want us to modify it we can do it after the purchase and we do support Ubuntu and Kubuntu for customers just like we support RHEL and Oracle Linux for customers. With Linspire and Xandros I prefer to err on the side of caution and just rebrand it. 

Xinuos vs IBM/Red Hat

 

Some of you may have missed this.  I did as I thought this was just a rehash of the SCO wars of the early 2000's.  Xinuos formerly known as the SCO Group is suing IBM/Red Hat for copyright infringement, intellectual property theft and anti-competitive practices.  While this is similar its not the same.  They seem to be focusing on the anti-competitive practices more than the copyright infringement and intellectual property claims.  The copyright and intellectual property claims were pretty much scrubbed by Novell during the first court case and Novell is now Micro Focus so I dont know how thats going to work out in the wash but lets take a look at their other claims; Anti-Competitive practices.

Do IBM and Red Hat practice anti-competitive behavior?  Sure.  But so does every other technology company out there.  Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and IBM have long been engaged in that behavior.  Giving perks to potential customers, giving free hardware and software to potential customers to squeeze small tech companies out of the picture and making crappy software on other companies platforms so they can sell their solution as "optimized" .  Is it shitty? yes.  Is it underhanded? yes. Is it anti-competitive? absolutely.  Does it fucking matter? NOPE.  Look, their claims stem on that they are butt hurt because they haven't sold enough product and they are looking for the bad guy.  What I hate is that they are dragging the Open Source community and FreeBSD into this shit like Preparation H to soothe the pain.  Look, you want to sell product MAKE COMPELLING PRODUCTS!!!!  If you make it, and its good, they will come.  Red Hat is going to implode soon enough Im still saying within 5 years.  But, you cannot blame IBM or Red Hat for your erectile dysfunction predicament because your products lack sex appeal.  You inherited winners with SCO OpenServer and SCO UnixWare both GREAT products for their day.  Where are the 64 bit versions?  Where is your broadened hardware support?  You expect your customers to buy your products, scrounge eBay or Craigslist to find spare parts because SCO UnixWare and SCO OpenServer dont run on any system manufactured after 2002.  Oh wait they can purchase another operating system license so they can run it under VM?  Give me a break.  Now, OpenServer 10 is NOT a bad product.  I actually downloaded it when it was released and still have a VM with it.  Not bad at all.  But its FreeBSD with XFCE.  Where are your actual server packages?  What is it optimized for?  What are your server roles?  You cannot just take FreeBSD remove as much as you can and make a couple of web tools and call that a server.  You have to optimize performance, you have to give customers the ability to clone that setup so they can deploy it to other systems.  Your data sheets and customer docs are almost non-existent and pretty much the worst I have seen.  My 12 year old son could write a better documentation on his worst day.  Oh and BTW customers would love to know what you are working on.  Staying silent for 3 years and popping up to sue IBM and Red Hat one day out of the blue is not a recipe for success.

Im not saying Im the smartest bear in the forest.  Im definitely not the dumbest.  We do pretty decent business.  We make enough to pay the bills, pay the employee's and live.  I have no aspirations to be the next Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Google, Red Hat, SUSE or IBM but we have been pretty successful in what we do and we make a damn decent living.

Not a dig at Xinuos but I think its past time for SCO and the like minded to just die.  The tech industry has evolved and the old ways of doing business are DONE.  You either keep up with the times or you are gone.  Personally I dont think this lawsuit will go anywhere.  But it wouldn't surprise me if IBM just settled it.  My hope is they just go ahead and take a sledgehammer to this case if for nothing more to drive home a point.

Xandros OpenServer 12: What we delivered on and how we can do better

 

 So a few weeks ago we delivered Xandros OpenServer 12 which by far has been one of our most popular server systems.  With downloads approaching the 6 digit mark and I'd say about 80% of our server customers upgrading lets take this time to talk about what we delivered.  That was a solid release but as we listen to customers and users lets talk about ways we make it better because yes, even though we just dropped that release we are currently doing work on the next one.  MR2 which will drop August 3rd BTW a little side note ALL releases will be in lockstep for the next release date.  Users have told us they want a minimal install and as some of you know we have been making it very modular, so yes on MR2 you guys will get a minimal install option that takes out Apache and MongoDB but leaves the rest of it intact.  Next, customers told us they want network install capabilities and that is currently being worked on.  The next thing they want; the capabilities to do images so they can mirror systems and we ARE including that with the next release.  RPM support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/Oracle Linux applications; in the first release it was ehhh, it worked most of the time, in the new release you can install those packages or convert them to debian packages using Alien.  Those were the major ones of course we have little knitpicks we are working on as well.

What did we get right.  Cockpit.  The change from Webmin to cockpit has been great.  Dont get me wrong, Webmin is a fantastic tool but Cockpit has some features that are just great so that was a winner.  The switch from Oracle VirtualBox to KVM has also been well received.  But overall, this is a good release.  It has some quirks and bugs to work out but overall I am satisfied with how it turned out. 

RIP Red Hat..It was nice while it lasted

 

Last year Red Hat was bought by IBM and there were cheers and lots of bottles of champagne being opened in celebration.  I have a feeling Red Hat Linux will go the way of OS/2.  Now there are several reasons why I think this will happen and it will happen because of IBM.  Some will say "Oh its a subsidiary and things will be OK"  No.  Rot happens from the head down and when it comes to the PC market and Operating Systems, IBM is a bumblefuck.  The original PC what happened? They relinquished it to Microsoft.  OS/2 while there was a lot of excitement and it was an AWESOME operating system IBM just up and one day gave up.  Without warning, without any kind of signals, they just gave up.  Apples Copland which was a joint venture between Apple, Motorola and IBM from people that I know that worked in Copland almost all the fingers got pointed at IBM.  IBM marketing and management doesnt like work.  They want immediate gratification.  They dont want to build.  They just want to be on the top.  If it doesnt happen.  They go the OS/2 route and say it was great while it lasted.  It happens every time.  Look at AIX.  Back in the late 90's/early 2000's AIX was going to be the top of the market for Operating Systems.  Desktop and Server.  Suddenly, sales were blah and the workstations and servers all but disappeared; put in the basement and out of sight and out of mind.

This wont happen overnight and it wont be this year but I suspect in 5 years Red Hat will be gone.  I have seen IBM purchase many companies and they lay off half the engineering staff and put in yes men.  I would say there is not going to be much to worry about until you see that start to happen.  When people start leaving left and right.  Find the off ramp.   After that happens look for IBM to consolidate Red Hat into their main organization and they will call it IBM OS/Linux, IBM A/Linux or some silly shit like that and then the final destination for Red Hat as a company will be relegated to their mainframe business where IBM has had pretty good success to be fair.

Does this mean Red Hat technology will be dead as well?  No.  You have Fedora which is community maintained and they will continue to drive forward and keep putting out excellent releases and developing new technology.  They will continue to be supported by individuals and companies and more importantly IBM doesnt really have a big presence.  Rocky Linux and Oracle Linux will still be around.  But Red Hat the company, Red Hat where awesome Linux engineers are born and nurtured and Red Hat the main driving force in Linux mainstream adoption will be GONE.

And that just massively SUCKS!!!!

Why I like GNOME

People have noticed I started using GNOME as the default interface for Linspire and Xandros and have asked why.  Didnt I use to hate GNOME?  Yes I did for a long time.  This doesnt take away from the other two.  I love XFCE and will always be an XFCE fan as well.  Plasma is good too.  If you are a Windows interface lover you will love Plasma.  In fact Windows 11 took a lot of design pointers from KDE.  The Windows engineers can deny it but you can see it.  There is a lot of KDE influence in Windows 11.  But GNOME.  Why did I hate it and why did I change my mind?

When I first started using GNOME 3, I made the same mistake that a lot of people did.  I used a ton of extensions, 12 to be exact, to try and make the experience better and instead I made it worse.  Whenever I would get sent a new copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux I would always go grab XFCE right after install.  Then Red Hat sent me a boxed copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.  I was so busy working on my other distributions I just did what I normally do.  Install it on a test machine but instead of working with it though I just left it alone because honestly I didnt have the time to deal with it at the time.  One weekend as I was setting it up for deployment and I started using the standard, vanilla GNOME interface.  The more I used it I started to notice the fluidity of the desktop and then I started to get it.  I started to see why the GNOME team made the decisions that they made.  Now this is not a gush fest over GNOME there are still a couple of things that drive me crazy and to fix some of those I use extensions but instead of 12 I only use 3.  An extension to get rid of that stupid spring board animation in the app grid view, one for user themes and  coverflow alt-tab.  Now I havent even looked at GNOME 41 yet.  I probably wont for another year.  This will allow time for bugs and quirks to get ironed out.

But if you had the same experience I did and felt like you needed every extension on the planet to make GNOME more usable go back and disable all the extensions and take it back to vanilla GNOME. Use it for awhile.  It will take some getting used to.  You may even have some frustrations for a minute but give vanilla GNOME a chance and I can almost guarantee that you will see the beauty is in the simplicity and design.  I never thought I would ever say this but I have to say I am a fan.  I'm now a GNOME guy.