My favorite operating system...Linux; together with the
fabulous GNU tools:
- Linux is easy!
- You think, Linux can only be used by adept hackers? Wrong! The
installation is quite easy these days, the software is very reliable,
and here is a list of businesses using Linux
as well as a set of
business case studies.
Linux is computing for everybody. Keep your freedom on your
computer!
- Distributions
- When I started running Linux, I used Slackware, but
then I switched to TurboLinux, and these days I
am running RedHat - I just
installed 7.0 and it looks very good (the most solid x.0 version
from RedHat so far). At the moment, new distributions pop up with
mind dazzling frequency; some of the better known ones are Debian GNU/Linux, S.u.S.E., and a new distribution
called Stampede. Caldera seems to aim primarily at
commercial customers. Here is a good overview.
- Kernel and system-level software
- Newest kernel information at LinuxHQ (aka kernelnotes.org).
Laptop users may find the Linux
PCMCIA page and the Linux-IrDA project
interesting. The SANE
project works on scanner support for Linux. SecurityPortal has useful
information for securing your Linux
system.
- Security Sites
- It should be well known by now that the r-tools (
rlogin
and friends) as well as telnet are disastrous from a
security point of view. The alternative is the Secure SHell
ssh. Unfortunately, the original implementation of
ssh is impeded by increasingly restrictive licenses. On
the bright side, the OpenSSH effort (which is part of OpenBSD) has
developed a version under the BSD license, which is known as openssh. Another
important component ensuring private communication is support for
encrypting and signing emails and other documents. The best choice
here is GnuPG. Moreover, good
security requires a properly setup system. Security risks can, for
example, be assessed using the scanner Saint.
- GUI and desktop environment
My favourite GUI toolkit is GTK+
and I am currently developing a binding to
Haskell for it. GTK+ is used in the
desktop environment project Gnome,
which provides all kind of useful libraries, a component model, and
many cool applications. I am using Gnome in conjunction with the window
manager sawfish
(formally, sawmill) which I am now using for a while and I am liking
it very much - it comes with a Lisp-based extension language, has a
nice feature set, and is very stable.
- Getting extra software
- I often use Linux File Watcher,
TuxFinder and Linux Web Watcher; or of course
freshmeat. You may want to
have a look at Linuxberg and the
software list of
the GNU project.
If you like to use Japanese on your Linux machine, check out the Project Japanese Extensions
and Linux in
Japan - the latter has a lot of information in English about
handling Japanese and is run by the Tokyo Linux Users Group.
- Documentation
- The Linux Documentation
Project
has general documentation about Linux, its tools, and applications,
and the Linux Cross-Referencing
Project provides hypertext-based cross-referencing of the Linux
kernel.
- News
- Read Slashdot and check out freshmeat. There is also a lot
of information at Linux Today
and linux.com.
- Laptops
- If you want to run Linux on a laptop it is even more important than
usual that you check the compatibility of the hardware before
you buy it. There is Linux on
Laptops and its Japanese
amendment plus a list of Laptop
configurations for Linux - the latter is in Japanese, but it
covers many models that I couldn't find elsewhere. Another Japanese
resource is Portable LiNUX
World 'The Hardware' Buyers Guide. There is nice documentation
on PCMCIA
cards under Linux.
- Software Development
- LinuxDev.Net is a promising new
site that aims to be "the first stop for software developers looking
for information related to software development under Linux."
There are many useful links on the Linux Programmer's
BouncePoint.
But if you belong to the dark force...
.~.
/V\ L I N U X
// \\ >Phear the Penguin<
/( )\
^^-^^
|
Generally, open source software
seems to get increasingly popular after Eric S. Raymond published
his
essay The
Cathedral and the Bazaar on the open-source development model,
which influenced Netscape in
their decision to release the source code of their widely used browser
and founded mozilla.org. There is a sequel to
The Cathedral and the Bazaar called Homesteading
the Noosphere...and now also number three of ESR's
series of essays: The Magic Cauldron.
The logos are from Greg Roelofs
collection.
On the Web for the Web
Dictionaries and the like
- A convenient
German/English
dictionary provided by
LEO. There is also a
long list of WWW dictionary pages.
- Denis Howe maintains a
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
of acronyms, jargon, programming languages, tools, architectures,
operating systems, networking, theory, mathematics, telecomms,
institutions, companies, projects, products, history, in fact anything
to do with computing.
- The Virtual Tourist gives you
a
geographically indexed overview of the Earth-wide Web. You can
directly access the European, German, or Berlin
portion. I wonder when we get the Milky
Way Web-Overview...
- The Jargon File
General Index Index
Interesting Sources of Information (Non-computing)
Fun Stuff
- Nitrozac's After Y2K! Very
funny indeed if you are into this kind of geek humour.
- Do you know Iain M. Banks? Anyway, get the
Culture Shock
now. (If not yet done, read his (not anymore) newest science fiction
novel, Excession; it
is simply great -- no, I don't get paid by him.)
- The WELL
- maddog's Studio is a good
starting
point when looking for stuff related to virtual worlds (games and
others), 3D graphics, and so on.
HiTek Vendors
- Red Hat - I am currently using
their Linux distribution and they seem to be firmly committed to free
and open source software
- VA Linux
- Silicon Graphics - a company that
sees the light (if you are in advanced graphics, check out OpenGL)
- IBM - good things are recently
going on at the Big Blue: they have some cool developer pages
- Cray Research - the T3E is a
great super computer, if a little costly *cough*
- Sun Microsystems - I used to like
them, but these days their Java and related politics starts to get
annoying!
Publishers
Electronic Shopping
- fatbrain.com online bookshop
(formerly known as Computer Literacy) - so far, I am very happy with
their service
- AddALL Book Search is a
meta book search service that queries the databases of a large number
of online book stores and allows you to compare their prices
- amazon.com online bookshop
- amazon recently made the news with their hilarious one-click patent:
Boycott
Amazon!
This page is part of Manuel Chakravarty's
WWW-stuff.
