David on Linux

Trip down memory lane for Linux users

I found Linux in the fall of 1997. I was in the Best Buy in Savannah, GA looking for something to buy and saw a red box, I hd heard of Linux, and knew about UNIX, plus at that point I was a pretty decent AS/400 user and admin. So I read the box, labeled REDHAT 5.1, and took it to the check out. That day was a very pivotal point in my geek life. I then spent the next few months trying to understand what I had stumbled on. I nevr could get it installed like the back of the box displayed, but it didn’t stop me. When I started working for IBM in Atlanta, there were some Linux users there and they had a mini-convention. I picked up a copy of SuSE Linux 2 or 3. That was when SuSE waqs still owned by the Germans and they were at the convention too.

So here is a LINK to the throw back site. I still have many of the Distros in my office and didn’t like each on for whatever reason, but never gave up the idea of running Linux instead of Windows.

WKOW - Bashes Ubuntu and they end up paying for it

Ubuntu is a decent OS, and by the looks of everything coming out of Redmond (Microsoft) latley it’s starting to look better each day. Maddison, WI local TV station WKOW and it’s local help the people person took up some poor woman assertion that DELL was screwing her out of her college education. While blame is ofter easy to point this was a stretch at best.

The young woman, Abbie Schubert, ordered a DELL Laptop from you guessed it, DELL. I would consider her an uneducater buyer who should have maybe gone into Best Buy and not used and computer to order her computer. You have to go out of your way to find the DELL Ubuntu site and order a DELL with Ubuntu. If she would have gone to the main DELL site and just ordered a laptop no one would know who the hell she is and I would not have a post this week.

So she ordered this DELL Ubuntu Laptop, which t no point said Windows or anything about WIndows when she ordered it. I don’t know how she assumed WIndows would end up on it, unless she is really that stupid, and I don’t want to start calling her stupid, but the question begs to be asked.

Then the reported asserts that the Virizon Software won’t load on Ubuntu…well no duh? It won’t load on a Mac either you dufus. And that it didn’t come with Microsoft Word. The world does not rotate around Microsoft Word. While it’s nice to have Word, you don’t need it. I have not used it on my personal laptop in over 4 years. I have even attended college and turned in “word” documents that were typed on Open Office and no one as the wiser.

Lastly I would like to point out the part of the story that I talk a lot about in my personal and buisness life. Running a computer today is like knowing how to operate the shower, or turn on the TV, or drive and operate your car. You need to be able to use a computer and understand what you are doing. I am not trying to be a super geek or dictate anything, I am just making a point. There is a very large group of young people out there who do undrstand computers and do “get IT” and in the next 10 years they are going to start taking over the work market and the colleges becasue computers are just things in their lives and the OS does not matter and the programs do not matter. They all know what they are doing and they are good. What I have learned bout computers in the past 20+ years they come out of high school with and then move onto college.

The follow up story from WKOW takes into account that a fairly large group of people who get it and stand by Ubuntu made contact with them for the poor light they shed on the poor little OS. I commend the station for being bold enought to do a folllow up peice.
Now if we could only get the IBM i devotees of the world to stand up like that in the work place the next time someone says something dicouraging about he IBM i or even threatens to remove it.

David Vasta - Linux for IBM i: Commands and terminology - PART 2

I hear Linux is hard, and is for geeks… I am not a geek, so is it still for me?

Of course you’re not…

Now that we have cleared that up let’s get into how we’re going to “talk” to Linux. Linux talks to us people using a shell. It’s that green or text-based screen that we i users are familiar seeing. I, of course like the shell sometimes much more then I do some GUI application, but have been known to use a GUI and smile at times. The shell is just a layer that is between you the user or administrator and the kernel.

LINK :: Linux for IBM i: Commands and terminology

David Vasta - Linux for IBM i: Introducing Linux to IBM i people-PART 1

The IBM i is a great platform. Not many of you out there will argue that point. It’s solid, robust and very powerful. Part of that power is just that power or the hardware that we now call Power. The operating system (OS) is nothing unless it has rock-solid hardware to run on. So part of the IBM i’s stability is the hardware. Another fine example of a powerful OS that runs on Power is AIX. The problem is that not everything needs an IBM i or an AIX partition. Sometimes, you just need a file and print server or maybe a DNS or mail router. Of course you could do this all on Windows, but that gets really expensive and it does not run on Power. So, what do you do? Linux on Power: It’s easy, cheap and very powerful, much like its AIX cousin.

The next hurdle is the OS and how it works. If you have never seen Unix or Linux, your first few weeks can be painful. So lets take this one step at a time and talk about Linux, you the Administrator and what to do with your new best friend.

LINK :: Linux for IBM i: Introducing Linux to IBM i people