I know it has been around for a while. I enjoy playing games though so I have stayed away from it. What am I talking about? Linux.

I have grown fond of Slackware. The latest release of 10.2 is nice. No, it doesn’t come with all the bells and buttons that RedHat comes with, but they do follow the K.I.S.S. principle. What is that? Keep It Simple Stupid. The theory of if you don’t put everything into an OS it is less hackable. The core is simple, to an extent. Although it is getting to support more “plug-n-prey” devices, it still sometimes takes work to get it to work with your hardware.

Don’t take that as a downfall. Microsoft had made me lazy. I mean really. If it was not for starting when I did, I wouldn’t know that COM1 is on IRQ4 and COM2 is on IRQ3. I know it seems backwards. I can’t rember the address range off hand, but I think that it is 3F8 and 3E8 or something like that.

I have an old IBM ThinkPad that I have installed Slackware 10.2 on. I have trouble getting it to work with Cisco routers, but that is neither hear nor there right atm. What is atm is installing Perl5. Why? Linux Terminal Server aka LTSP v4.2. I’m working on several things at once. I really hope that my laptop will take the abuse. I need TS running with AD intergration so that I can move most of work over to linux.

Why? There is the cost factor. Most of Linux is free not all of it. StarOffice vs OpenOffice. Wine. A few other programs as well will cost $$. FYI, OpenOffice is free, StarOffice used to be. What does this mean? Could mean another Microsoft. People have worked on some of this code for years on end and have only asked for donations to their organizations. I don’t have to give atm but with the $$ I will save at home every 3 to 4 years trying to keep up with what is new in the MS OS race I should be able to toss some $$ their way.

Let me take a breif moment for accessment. MS TS planning suggest 128MB for each user + mem for apps. Hmm lets see.
IE - depending on the website, java, activeX, and other stuff as Flash and PDFs(if you use Adobe) lets say 40MB
Adobe PDF Reader - avarage files are about 2 to 10MB so that is about 20MB+ to start the program and more for file opening… lets say 30MB for an avarage file.
Office - Outlook, on startup on my system it is 17.6MB depending on how it is setup your could be looking at more. Lets say 20MB for the fun of it.

What does that bring us up to 128+40+30+20=218 or ~220 prob more like 250MB for each user. At work I have 8GB that is 8000MB which is 32 users give or take apps used. I have several problems with programs that people just want to use because they think they can. Part of my problem there is active planning. We have no test invironment into work with on new and up and coming items. I’m thinking that I will just put users on the server and be done with it and deal with the crashes. I’M TRYING TO BE PROACTIVE DAMNIT!!!

Ok no for Linux. Well I currently runn the latest version of Slackware like I stated before. I have a 500mHz proc and 256MB ram crappy video and everything else.

No according to LTSP it will only take 64MB per user plus programs….

That was a Looonggg ass pause. Was working trying to get the perl LWP to work. I do not know if I have it working as of yet but need sleep it is 240 in the morning. One last reboot. Will edit this later to keep it up to date … maybe make it a working document so that I can have a walk through later on.

*** I know people need credit for their work will get to that soon and make it all linky and stuff ***