This is probably my shortest post, but I hope it’s as helpful to others as it will be for me as I need to remember how to auto start a program in Gnome 3.

1. press: alt + F2
2. Type: gnome-session-properties
3. Click on “+ Add”
4. Name: Application Name
5. Command: Application command e.g: skype
6. Click “+ Add” and you are done.

Technorati Tags: applications, auto start, configuring linux, Gnome, Linux, OpenSUSE, startup

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• December 22, 2008 -- Using Zypper

Open SUSE 12.1 comes with the completely redesigned Gnome 3 desktop, which in my opinion is the best one so far. I have been using Gnome for a few years now and even though I like the clean design of Gnome 3, I still like to have some desktop icons. To Show your Desktop icons on Open SUSE 12.1 is a very simple procedure,

1. Go to Applications > Advanced Settings
2. Select Desktop
3. Set option “Have file manager handle the desktop” to ON

For other Versions of Linux you may need to install dbconf

Technorati Tags: Desktop icons, Gnome 3, Gnome settings, Linux, Open Source, Open SUSE 12.1

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If you are a thinker, a mad scientist in the making or just a curious ADD person like me, the Arduino boards are just what you are missing in life.

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple micro controller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer .

Arduino hardware can be used in Windows, Mac or Linux. The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased pre-assembled and the open-source IDE (programming environment) can be downloaded for free.

There’s a great starting guide at http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage, but I have also been recommended this book:

30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius

This guide shows you how to program and build a variety of projects with the Arduino microcontroller development system. Covering Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, it gets you up to speed with the simplified C programming you need to know–no prior programming experience necessary.

You can find more books and arduino boards and components on here.

Examples of what one can accomplish with Arduino:

Technorati Tags: Arduino, arduino projects, C Programming, DIY geek, geek gifts, IDE, Linux, Mac, muti platform, Open Source, Programming, robbots, Windows

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I have been using Spotify on Linux for quite a while now, under Wine. Suddenly it decided not to work a any more.  I was getting the following error when trying to run the new 0.6.2 version.  “The program Spotify.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close.”

Trying to run it from the command line showed me yet another error message: “wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0×00000068 at address 0x7bc368b5 (thread 0042), starting debugger…”

UPDATE: Please first try the WinHTTP.dll fix posted by Nick in the comments section.

My simple solution: After searching in various forums and blogs and trying a myriad of  “fixes” that took me nowhere. The simplest answer I found was to remove the Spotify app from Facebook. I can now listen to my Spotify  play lists on my Open SUSE Linux. It does mean that you will be without the Facebook integration, which for me is not a big deal.

To delete Spotify from your Facebook account go to Privacy Setting >> Apps and Websites >> edit (Spotify) >> remove application

Spotify does have a Linux version of its software, which is currently in preview version and only available for Debian/Ubuntu  paid subscribers.  On their website they said: “As we haven’t found a reliable way to display ads yet, this version (Linux Preview) is only available to Spotify Premium and Unlimited subscribers. “  Fair enough I would say…

Technorati Tags: error, Facebook app, installation, Linux, Privacy settings, Spotify, Spotify.exe, wine, wine: Unhandled page fault on read access, WineHQ

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• December 21, 2011 -- Auto start a program on Gnome 3
• December 14, 2011 -- Show Desktop icons in Gnome 3 on Open SUSE 12.1
• November 7, 2011 -- Arduino the Open Source hardware
• April 22, 2011 -- Has the iPad really overtaken Linux?
• April 8, 2011 -- Linux turns 20

According to numbers from StatusCounter,  the iPad has bypassed Linux in terms of web surfing in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and The Netherlands.  As a Linux enthusiast I find it disturbing but at the same time it makes complete sense.

The OS battle is between Windows, Apple and Linux. Windows and Apple dominate but Apple has a very strong grip in the market, due to its great fan/user base.

I would say, with no fear of being wrong, that most users browsing the web with an iPad, do also from their Mac[add here you preference] computer. Without playing down the quality of the product, I believe the iPad is basically taking a piggy-back ride.

Initial source: http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/04/20/ipad-used-more-than-linux-computers/

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPad, Linux, OSX, Windows

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• August 24, 2010 -- HTML5:Up and Running book out now
• March 11, 2010 -- The future of gaming is OpenGL
• May 12, 2009 -- Offline Blogging Tools

The Linux Foundation is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Linux and its influence in our everyday.

Technorati Tags: 20th anniversary, GPL, Linux, Linux Foundation, Open Source

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• June 20, 2009 -- OpenSuse Factory
• April 8, 2009 -- OpenSUSE Build Service will be added to the Linux Developer Network
• January 9, 2009 -- Google Android OS on Notebooks

UK or US

According to Vint Cerf, vice-president of Google and the man dubbed “the godfather of the net”, Europe will run out of IPV4 addresses by mid 2011.  It’s time to switch to IPV6.

IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and is described in Internet standard document RFC 2460, published in December 1998. It has the capacity to provide 3.4×10³⁸ IP addresses (around 340 trillion, trillion, trillion), probably making NAT (Network Access Translation) something of the past.

Are network and system administrators ready for the change over? Are SMEs ready for the change over? It’s time for a bit more reading I guess.

Technorati Tags: ip address, ipv4, ipv6, Linux, NAT, network, systems admin, Windows

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• April 22, 2011 -- Has the iPad really overtaken Linux?
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Has anyone be experiencing problems with USB mobile broadband Dongles on OpenSuse 11.3? Once the device (Huawei E156) is inserted OpenSuse recognises it automatically but after a few minutes it drops the connection and the device is not able to connect again. 

The Network Manager drops the device from the list and then re-inserts it, but for some reason it disables the Mobile Broadband. Removing and re-inserting the device dos not resolve the issue. I used this device very often on OpenSuse 11.2 without any problem. 

Is anyone having a a similar problem? Does anyone have the solution?

Technorati Tags: Connectivity, huawei e156, Linux, Mobile Broadband, mobile internet, network manager, opensuse 11.3

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• December 14, 2011 -- Show Desktop icons in Gnome 3 on Open SUSE 12.1
• November 7, 2011 -- Arduino the Open Source hardware

Echofon has officially announced it is dropping support for Custom build Firefox, so it will no longer work with “minor” platforms. How dare you Echofon!?  This is such short sightedness.

Apparently the previous version (1.9.6.4) of the Echofon plugin to Firefox still works, but I would appreciate suggestions for a different Firefox plugin. I would be happy to ditch Echophon alltogether, it was a good product untill the developers killed it for me.

If you get the error -  Echofon does not support this platform or custom build Firefox. (Can’t get OAuth signer.) / Cc['@naan.net/twitterfox-sign;1'] is undefined (Fx version 3.6.8 / ABI x86-gcc3) – according to the Echofon developers you are using a minor platform, and that includes 64bit build on Mac and Windows..

Technorati Tags: Debian, echofon, Fedora, Firefox, Linux, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Windows 64bit

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The results of the “Just for Fun” Poll  linux.com community have just been released.  You may be wondering what some of those weird names actually mean, so here goes a short guide for those, like myself, who are not up to date with it all.

Best new Kernel Feature

1. Btrfs: is a new copy on write filesystem for Linux aimed at implementing advanced features while focusing on fault tolerance, repair and easy administration. Initially developed by Oracle, Btrfs is licensed under the GPL and open for contribution from anyone.

   Linux has a wealth of filesystems to choose from, but we are facing a number of challenges with scaling to the large storage subsystems that are becoming common in today’s data centers. Filesystems need to scale in their ability to address and manage large storage, and also in their ability to detect, repair and tolerate errors in the data stored on disk. [extracted from https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page ]

2. Dynamic Tracing: Dynamic event tracing is one of the newest feature on perf/ftrace. This allows users to dynamically add/remove additional trace-events with various arguments in the kernel. This feature consists of kprobe-based event tracer and ‘perf-probe’ user-space command which helps users to find probe points easily from source code by analyzing kernel debuginfo.  Extracted from http://events.linuxfoundation.org/lfcs2010/tracing
   
3. LogFS: is a Linux log-structured and scalable flash filesystem, intended for use on large devices of flash memory. It is written by Jörn Engel and in part sponsored by the CE Linux Forum. [extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LogFS ]
4. Ceph Filesystem: Ceph is a distributed network file system designed to provide excellent performance, reliability, and scalability. [ extracted from http://ceph.newdream.net/about/ ]

Favourite IT Operation Tools

1. Nagios: a powerful monitoring system that enables organizations to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems before they affect critical business processes. http://www.nagios.org/about/overview
2. Snort: A free lightweight network intrusion detection system. http://www.snort.org
3. Bacula: an Open Source network backup and restore solution. http://www.bacula.org
4. OpenNMS: a network management application platform. http://www.opennms.org/about/
5. Zenoss: an open-source network monitoring and server monitoring product. http://www.zenoss.com/product/network-monitoring
6. Munin: a networked resource monitoring tool that can help analyze resource trends and “what just happened to kill our performance?” problems. It is designed to be very plug and play. A default installation provides a lot of graphs with almost no work. http://munin-monitoring.org/

Favourite Browser

1. Firefox (75%)
2. Chrome
3. Opera
4. Konqueror
5. Epiphany

Favourite Open Source Project

1. Apache: The world’s most popular Web Server. Most of the web runs on it. http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html
2. OpenOffice: A multi-platform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites. http://www.openoffice.org/
3. MySQL: MySQL is the world’s most popular open source database software, with
   over 100 million copies of its software downloaded or distributed
   throughout it’s history. With its superior speed, reliability, and ease
   of use, MySQL has become the preferred choice for Web, Web 2.0. http://www.mysql.com/about/
4. MeeGo: an open source, Linux project which brings together the Moblin
   project, headed up by Intel, and Maemo, by Nokia, into a single open
   source activity. http://meego.com/about
5. XBMC: an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. http://xbmc.org/about/
6. WordPress: WordPress started as just a blogging systems, but has evolved to be used as full content management system. http://wordpress.org/about/
7. StatusNet: StatusNet is the open source microblogging platform that helps you share and connect in real-time within your own domain. http://status.net/
8. Hadoop: The Apache Hadoop project develops open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing. http://hadoop.apache.org/
9. Drizzle: Drizzle is a community-driven project based on the popular MySQL DBMS
   that is focused on MySQL’s original goals of ease-of-use, reliability
   and performance. http://drizzle.org/

Best Linux Success Story

1. Overall enterprise Linux adoption
2. Android market presence
3. Red Hat Earnings
4. MeeGo Merger

Hall of shame: Biggest industry Disappointment

1. Playstation ditches Linux
2. Adobe v Apple Stand-off
3. Bilski Decision

Technorati Tags: Apache, Bacula, browser, btrfs, Ceph, drizzle, Dynamic Tracing, hadoop, Just For Fun Poll, Linux, LinuxCon, LogFS, Meego, Munin, MySQL, Nagios, OpenOffice, Playstation ditches linux, Snort, statusnet, WordPress, xbmc, Zenoss

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I have selling on Amazon.co.uk a copy of each of the following books:

Linux Shell Scripting with Bash (Paperback) (SOLD)
by Ken O. Burtch (Author)
Linux Shell Scripting with Bash will help you learn to not only get your system up and running quickly by employing the Bash shell, but it will also show you professional scripting solutions through the use of structured programming and standard Linux development tools. The book focuses on the Linux environment, which the shell relies on to function, and the robust Linux tool set, making this book ideal for learning shell scripting. Real-world scripts are included that are readable, extendable and easy to debug. This book is an asset to any Linux user.

The Qmail Handbook (Paperback)
by David Sill (Author)
qmail is used by hundreds of ISPs and thousands of other sites, including Hotmail since 1997, which has over 30 million users. qmail is popular because of its security, reliability, speed, low memory use, user-controlled mailing lists, straightforward administration, and much more! An Introduction to qmail is designed to guide system and mail administrators of all levels of experience through the installation, configuration, and maintenance of a qmail server.

SSl and TLS: Building and Designing Secure Systems (Paperback)
by Eric Rescorla (Author)
SSL and TLS: Designing and Building Secure Systems offers clear and comprehensive descriptions of these security protocols and their implementation, and also provides “designs”–tried and true templates that suit various scenarios. Armed with this book, you can become well versed in the importance of SSL and TLS, be able to work with them to provide solutions, and furthermore identify an appropriate tested “design” that will solve the security problems of a proposed new network installation.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Books, Email, IT Books, Linux, Linux Shell Scripting, Qmail, Security, Server System administration, SSL. TLS

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• August 22, 2011 -- TrueCrypt tutorial

As a Linux user and Open Source enthusiast I always want to see people moving away from the proprietary stuff and into the Open Source world, but sometimes it’s easier to keep them where they are (stuck to Windows), specially when it comes to gaming. I am not a gamer, and would rather spend my time on other more fulfilling tasks like testing a ClearOS installation, but when it comes to helping people migrate from Windows to Linux, there’s always that dreaded question  “Will my games work?”  The answer could easily be “yes very well, better than before!”  but in reality a majority of the games won’t. Why? The proprietary monster that is Microsoft has allured programmers, graphic card manufacturers and the common citizen into the idea that DirectX is the best, and it could not e further from the truth. While DirectX only runs on Windows, OpenGL offers equal or better results and runs on every platform. 

But don’t let me talk to you about this, as I said I am not a gamer, let those who know what they are talking about tell you. This great article will help you understand Why should you use OpenGL and not DirectX (Wolfire Blog), and you may also enjoy reading this article Commercial Gaming coming to Linux?  from the Linux Magazine.

Technorati Tags: DirectX, Gaming, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, OpenGL, Windows, Xbox

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Microsoft has dominated the small enterprise market with its out of the box feature rich SBS (Small Business Server). Linux has always trailed behind it and although most of the technology to rival Microsoft has been in place, it has always been a mammoth task to setup a server from scratch  to do that.  ClearOS came to fill in this gap.

“ClearOS is a powerful network and gateway server designed for small organizations and distributed environments.  Though ClearOS comes with an extensive list of features  and integrated services, the solution is easy to configure thanks to the intuitive web-based interface.” (extracted from Clear Foundation website)
 
Take a look at how ClearOS’ features match the MS SBS:

Microsoft SBS Centralized Authentication (Active Directory) Mail, calendaring and instant messaging (Exchange) Webserver (IIS) Firewall (ISA) Content management system (Sharepoint) Antivirus (Forefront) Database (MS-SQL Premium version only) Remote Desktop Services Virtual Private Network (VPN)

ClearOS Linux Centralized Authentication (LDAP) Primary Domain Controller (Samba) File and Print Services (Samba and CUPS) Mail (SMTP, POP, IMAP, Webmail) Calendaring (Kolab groupware) Webserver (Apache) Firewall plus intrusion protection (iptables, Snort) Antimalware (Clam Antivirus, Antiphishing, Antispyware) Antispam (Spamassassin) Database (MySQL) Virtual Private Network (IPSec, OpenVPN, PPTP) Web Proxy (Squid)

The Linux Magazine published an in depth article comparing and explaining this “new” Linux distro. 

Technorati Tags: Active Directory, Apache, ClearOS, CUPS, File sharing, gateway server, LDAP, Linux, Microsoft, network server, Samba, SBS, Server, Small Busines Server, Snort

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Google has announced the release of a beta version of its browser Google Chrome for Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/OpenSuse).

Here are a few facts from the Google Chrome team:

60,000 lines of Linux-specific code written
23 developer builds
2,713 Linux-specific bugs fixed
12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Linux code base, 48 external code contributors

Technorati Tags: browser, Google chrome, Linux

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• December 21, 2011 -- Auto start a program on Gnome 3
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• November 7, 2011 -- Arduino the Open Source hardware
• October 7, 2011 -- Spotify crashes in Linux under Wine

I am currently working on a project to offer an Open Source Linux based Network Tool pre-installed in a very small custom built computer (like the fit-pc or linutop), I want to avoid having a CD drive and want to keep it simple for the client to reinstall the system if needed.  I decided to create a bootable USB Flash Drive to accompany the system, while looking around I found this great application called UNetbootin that will create a bootable USB Drive from any Linux OS ISO image. You can create the bootable USB drive from either a Linux or Windows desktop.

UNetbootin has presets for most major Linux distros and can be also used to load various other systems:

• Parted Magic, a partition manager that can resize, repair, backup, and restore partitions.
• SystemRescueCD, a system repair, backup and recovery tool.
• Super Grub Disk, a boot utility that can restore and repair overwritten and misconfigured GRUB installs or directly boot various operating systems
• Dr.Web Antivirus, F-Secure Rescue CD, and Kaspersky Rescue Disk, which remove malware from Windows installs.
• Backtrack, a utility used for network analysis and penetration testing.
• Ophcrack, a utility which can recover Windows passwords.
• NTPasswd, a utility which can reset Windows passwords and edit the registry.
• Gujin, a graphical bootloader that can also be used to boot various operating systems and media.
• Smart Boot Manager (SBM), which can boot off CD-ROM and floppy drives on computers with a faulty BIOS.
• FreeDOS, which can run BIOS flash and other legacy DOS utilities.

Technorati Tags: Bootable USB drive, Linux, Opne Source, Rescue disk, System restore, UNebootin

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• April 22, 2011 -- Has the iPad really overtaken Linux?

On June 18th 2009 The OpenSuse Project announced that its development factory has been made more accessible to package contributors.  Joe Brockmeier’s post at opensuseNews states…

 ”we’re making it easier for contributors to take responsibility for packages and to contribute directly to openSUSE. This means contributors will be able to be directly responsible for packages, without having to go through a Novell employee to make changes.“

Read more on OpenSuse News site.

Technorati Tags: Development, Linux, Novell, Open Source, OpenSuse Factory, Programming, Suse Linux

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• July 8, 2009 -- Android to iPhone Apps with XML

Offline Blogging Tools let you comfortably write and effortlessly publish new entries to your blog.  I personally like the easy to use Scribefire, a Firefox addon, but there are many others our there.  Here is a shortlist…

Scribefire

Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux

This is an addon for Firefox so you need to be using Firefox (clearly)

BlogDesk

Platform: Windows

BlogDesk is totaly free of charge and optimized for the blog systems WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity and ExpressionEngine.

BlogGTK

Platform: Linux

BloGTK is a weblog client that allows you to post to your weblog from GNOME without the need for a separate browser window. BloGTK allows you to connect with many weblog systems such as Blogger, Movable Type, WordPress, and more.

Windows Live Writer (by Microsoft)

Platform: Windows

WLW is a desktop application for publishing to blogs and works with almost any blog provider in the world including Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, WordPress and more.

Qumana

Platform: Mac, Windows

Great for bloggers on the move. Qumana features include easy text formatting and image insertion, simple Technorati tagging, advertising insertion with Q Ads and more.

Technorati Tags: Blog, BlogDesk, BloGTK, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Linux, Mac, MovableType, Qumana, Scribfire, Serendipity, Windows, Windows Live Writer, WordPress

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• November 7, 2011 -- Arduino the Open Source hardware
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• November 11, 2010 -- IPV4 is almost exhausted.. time for IPV6?

Acer’s all-new ultra-lightweight, ultraportable netbooks were designed to bring you the ultimate in mobile freedom. Combining all the simplicity, quality and ease of use you expect from Acer with everything you need to stay connected, chat and manage you

Box ContainsNetbook, Power Adapters, Warranty.

(more…)

Technorati Tags: 160GB, 8.9inch, A150L, Acer, Aspire, Intel, Linpus, Linux, Lite, Netbook

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• December 21, 2011 -- Auto start a program on Gnome 3
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• April 22, 2011 -- Has the iPad really overtaken Linux?

Tux (the Linux Penguin) is going on vacation for a while to give TUZ (a Tasmanian devil wearing a penguin mask) a season as the official Linux Kernel Mascot. 

It turns out that Tasmanian devils are currently endangered by an especially nasty form of communicable cancer. The lca2009 organizers decided to dedicate the event’s traditional charity auction to the cause of helping research into this disease. This auction surpassed everybody’s expectations, raising some AU$40,000 for the campaign to save the devil.
In the process, it also treated attendees to the sight of Linus Torvalds shaving Bdale Garbee’s beard.

After returning home, Linus decided to help raise awareness of the Tasmanian devil’s plight by bringing in Tuz for a kernel cycle. (extracted from the linux Foundation)

Check out “Save the Tasmanian Devil” for more info and to donate.

Technorati Tags: Kernel, lca2009, Linux, Tasmanaian Devil, Tux, Tuz

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• April 22, 2011 -- Has the iPad really overtaken Linux?

According to the Windows Team Blog the sales of netbooks with Windows has gone from under 10% of unit sales during the first half of 2008 to 96% as of February 2009.   I wonder why that is……

The Windows team Blog arrogantly says : “When they realize their Linux-based netbook PC doesn’t deliver that same quality of experience, they get frustrated and take it back.”

I would question the term “same quality of experience”, because Linux does not strive to give the user same quality of experience as Windows, a Linux user has a completely different experience, and personally it’s a better one, but it’s like switching religion, … “leave your old ways behind” which is exactly what every new Mac User does (this is the only good thing I have to say about them).

Most of the returned Netbooks in 2008 had Linux installed. I don’t think it’s a case of dissatisfaction it’s a case of  “I didn’t research before buying it and just went for the cheapest”. Switching Operating Systems is a process, is a migration. It’s naive to think that you can just jump from one to the other and that’s it, you cannot just assume that the other OS will have the “you are dumb and I will do everything for you” wizards Windows has.

Windows claims to “just work with peoples stuff”

• Windows supports nearly 3,000 printers, more than 700 digital cameras, more than 240 webcams and more than 180 digital video cameras.
• Windows supports the broadest array of PC applications and games.

Well this is down to the manufacturers really. Remember the issue with periferals and Vista? I remember having countless users tell me that their practically new printers would not work with Vista.

Mobile broadband on Linux

I think a big difficulty for Linux users has been with Mobile Broadband, most 3G Mobile Broadband devices will work with Linux but not “out of the box”, and that has frustrated many users. By the ammount of hits I have had on my post about the Huawei E156g I can tell this is a big issue, although the solution is very easy.

I have used Linux for the last 8 years and in my opinion Linux is as good OS as (if not better than) those of Microsoft or Apple. I know what I want a computer to do and I prefer having to go out of my way to make sure it does it the way I want it than having the computer tell me what I need and how I need to do things. My advice for anyone thinking of buying a Netbook or any computer with Linux is:

1. Try it first. Use a live CD on your current machine or use a Virtual Machine.
2. Try different distributions like OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Mandriva, PSLinuxOS
3. Search for specific applications for your specific needs
4. Test your periferals

Further reading: Ten reasons why Linux will oust Windows

Technorati Tags: Huawei E156G, Linux, Mobile Broadband, Netbooks, Windows

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• April 22, 2011 -- Has the iPad really overtaken Linux?
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• March 11, 2010 -- The future of gaming is OpenGL