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                        LINUX NEWS
                http://www.Cramsession.com
               August 22, 2002 -- Issue #95
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1) Sean's Notes

2) Linux News

	Mandrake Calling In Warrants
	Join the Discussion: Unix on the Desktop?
	Sophos Anti-Virus for Unix
	Work For Red Hat!

3) Linux Resources

	Space Penguin
	Learn Cryptography With Simple UNIX Command
	Ready for LPI?
	Kiss BIND Goodbye
	PHP Tutorial: References

4) App o' the Week


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1) Sean's Notes
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Linux World seems to have sparked an interest in Linux on the
Desktop again, or maybe it's just a full moon.  Either way,
I've found myself in a few discussions of Linux for the
corporate desktop as of late, both on and offline.

Notice that I said "corporate" desktop.  I think a distinction
should be drawn from the home user and the corporate user.
For one, the corporate desktop is usually under some form of
control by the information systems, both from a hardware and
software standpoint.  While games and the latest P2P sharing
utilities go on a home PC, the business has an interest in
keeping only approved software on, and controlling the
interactions between packages.

On the home desktop, there's not much point at the moment.
People will buy the most obscure hardware because it's
cheap.  They want the latest video games, or don't want the
restrictions associated with running a true multiuser system.

But, for the business interested in providing a controlled
environment to its employees, Linux is an attractive option.
There is a wealth of software available to give to your
users.  The desktop can be customized as much as you need;
if you want, it can even be made to look like Windows.

Likewise, rolling out the software itself, imaging boxes,
and remote support are very easy.  Since each user's profiles
are stored in their home directory, profiles are available
at any machine the user logs in to.

One might say that Windows already does all of this, and
you'd be right.  However, Linux is free.  It's open.  You
might need a more experienced person to run the operation,
but their time will not be spent chasing down the obnoxious
little things that plague the Windows desktop (not to mention
that the number of viruses is almost nil).

A big sticking point, though, is the office suites.
Interoperability is a big thing.  Most companies probably
have a lot of .doc and .xls files floating about, not to
mention the Access databases.

>From my experience, though, about 90% of the MS Office
attachments I get are from internal sources.  So, move the
company over to something like Open Office, and 90% of those
incompatibilities go away.  Of course, that doesn't do
anything for the legacy Word and Excel files floating around.
I'd argue that most of those documents can at least be opened
partially, if not completely, by Open Office.

Also, look at recent advances in the WINE project by the
CodeWeavers team.  I've happily done some work in Word
running under WINE with no ill effects.  Since it's an X
application, it can be run over the network, limiting the
number of places you have to deploy and maintain the
software.  The price is also very reasonable--even if your
company wants to adopt Linux but stay with MS Office,
you'll still be ahead of the game on licencing costs, not
to mention ongoing support.

So that begs the question "Can Linux and Microsoft products
coexist in the same environment?  I'd say "Yes".  Truth be
told, I like some Microsoft products such as Exchange and
SQL server.  It's mainly the OS and the anticompetitive
behavior that I don't like.

I think it's high time we stopped saying "Next year, Linux
will be big on the desktop", and start to give it a try --
now.  Take your cue from the city of Largo, Florida, or even
the Manitoba Legal Aid department who took the leap, and
moved over to Linux.  It saved them a bundle, not to mention
made everyone more productive.  Linux makes a perfectly fine
desktop, and many people have been using it every day for
years.  Give it a shot... you might find that you'll be
kicking yourself for not trying it sooner.


Long live the Penguin,

Sean
swalberg@cramsession.com


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2) Linux News
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Mandrake Calling In Warrants
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"The company is attempting to raise capital by calling in
outstanding warrants. Warrants are like stock options in
that they give the holder the right to purchase a certain
number of shares of stock in a particular company, for a
pre-determined price."

http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/08/20/140226.shtml?tid=3


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Join the Discussion: Unix on the Desktop?
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Seems like there is the making of a good discussion here...
60hertz wants to know what you think about MS interoperability
and the like holding back the adoption of Linux on the desktop
in a corporate setting.

http://boards.cramsession.com/boards/vbm.asp?mb0936


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Sophos Anti-Virus for Unix
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Though the design of Unix makes virii difficult to spread,
having a virus checker might not be a bad idea, especially
if you're sharing files for Windows users. Here's a review
of Sophos.

http://www.net-security.org/review.php?id


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Work For Red Hat!
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Looking for a job in the Linux world? Red Hat has some
career fairs in Raleigh and Westford, and a lot of openings
to be filled!

http://www.redhat.com/about/careers/


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3) Linux Resources
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Space Penguin
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Here's a great way to spend some free cycles! "Hey there,
space cadet! Kevin took a wrong turn and ended up lost in
space. Use the highly advanced GPS (Giant Penguin Slingshot)
to launch him back to the ship!"

http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_penguin/default.ht
m


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Learn Cryptography With Simple UNIX Command
--------------------------------------------
I find cryptography very interesting, though sometimes the
math gets a bit difficult. This article shows you the basic
Diffie-Hellman key exchange using a simple command line
utility. A great way to learn two things at once!

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sida31&mode=thread&order=0


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Ready for LPI?
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Courtesy of Sanjay, we've got some really good practice
tests for the LPI exams. Quite the challenging exam, I
found it to be!

http://certify.torolab.ibm.com/icetest.jsp


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Kiss BIND Goodbye
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Not that I'm eager to get rid of BIND, but TinyDNS sure looks
pretty nice. This article gives a good overview of the software
components, but leaves you hanging for the installation
instructions. It's a two-part article, so next week you should
see them.

http://networking.earthweb.com/netos/article/0,,12083_1446551,00.ht
ml


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PHP Tutorial: References
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PHP, a server side web scripting language, has sure come a
long way since its inception. This tutorial on references
(pointers) will show you some advanced techniques to make
your PHP programming even easier.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2002/08/15/php_foundations.html


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4) App o' the Week
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If you're looking for a quick way to manage a Public Key
Infrastructure on your Linux boxen, take a peek at this
Perl/TK solution. Looks pretty handy, even if you're only
managing a few web server certificates.

http://tinyca.sm-zone.net/


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