Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

There is an interesting post at The Open Source Advocate blog - “Win the desktop, and you will win the server“.  Tristan Rhodes, the author of the blog, suggests that in order for an operating system to conquer the server market, it should first conquer (or fight reasonable well for) the desktop market.

I have to admit that when I just read the article, I felt almost like agreeing.  But something kept buzzing me from the inside, so I kept that tab open for a few days.  Now that the post was processed at the back of my brain, I have to say that I don’t agree with that point.

There is, of course, a correlation.  Once sysadmins start using something they like on the desktop, it’s pretty soon that they try to see how well that thing handles server tasks.  So, of course, people using Windows on the desktop were checking out how to make a server out of it.

But.  I don’t think that conquering the desktop is the only way to the server.  Not at all. There are more ways, I somehow feel that those other ways are actually simpler.  For one thing, Linux has never been particularly good with desktops.  However, only the stubbornest and the most ignorant of sysadmins will argue against Linux server superpowers.

Furthermore, real sysadmins (which are, of course, in the minority) clearly understand the differences between a desktop computer and a server.  What’s good for one might not be so good for the other.

And then there is this whole “enterprise” issue.  Big companies (aka “enterprises”) aren’t about desktops.  They are about support services, customizations, and having someone to blame.  If there is someone on the other end of the twisted phone cord, they’ll grab him with both hands.

The historical examples in the Open Source Advocate’s blog post might be related or they might not.  The times were different anyway.  But even if these examples are related, they aren’t as heavy as they seem.  There are many factors to consider (prices, distrubution, documentation, hardware requirements, etc).

What do you guys think?

I have recently upgraded my laptop to Fedora 9.  Those of you who come often to this blog or follow me on Twitter, know that I’ve been waiting for this release like for nothing else.  Two technologies in particular - KDE 4 and Firefox 3 - were the center of my focus.  Of course, I could updated them separately and tried them earlier, but I wanted to follow the path of the distribution.

The upgrade itself went fast and easy.  But starting with the first reboot, I was getting more and more negative towards the new release.  While booting for the first time, I got two messages, notifying me that wpa_suppclient service and CUPS daemon failed to start.  While I don’t care much about printers, wireless connectivity is vital for me, so that was a bit discouraging.

The login screen.  It was changed quite a bit, and I didn’t like it much.  Logging in.  Somehow I ended up in Gnome, even though my desktop environment was KDE for the last 7 years or so.  Logout.  Switch into long awaited KDE 4.  From the first look it was beautiful, even though not quite for my tastes.  Surely, I’d need to reconfigure and change a few things. Not a problem for me at all - even more fun so.

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Theodotos sent me a message, letting me know of the upcoming Ubuntu / Fedora release party that will take place in Frederick University on May 17, 2008. Here is a quote from the announcement:

office furniture in Bulgaria

Taking the opportunity of the new releases of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Linux and Fedora 9 sulphur Linux we are organizing a party to celebrate the event. There are going to be Presentations, Installation workshops and pre-installed systems where you can test the new releases. There are
also free CDs with the new releases for everyone. You can bring your own computer too!
The event will take place on 17 of May, to the Campus of Frederick University in Limassol (near the Polemidia round-about) from 4:00 - 9:00 pm, at rooms 304 and 305 in the first floor

Basically, all you need to know is that there are going to be plenty of Linux geeks. If you need to know anything else, it’s in one of these two PDF files : announcement in English or leaflet.

P.S.: Apologies for an ancient Red Hat Linux image, but I haven’t done one with Fedora yet. Stay tuned though.

Fedora 9 is coming Real Soon Now ©. I mentioned before that I am desperately waiting for this release, since it brings KDE 4 and Firefox 3. One thing that I haven’t seen noticed anywhere until I read this interview is “preupgrade”. It sounds pretty cool:

By now, the “preupgrade” package should be available in updates-testing for Fedora 8. Enable the updates-testing repo and install it. It currently shows up as “Upgrade Fedora” in your Applications -> System menu.
From there, it’s very simple - follow the screens to choose what to upgrade to, wait for everything to download, hit “Reboot”, and the upgrade will begin!

Basically, what happens is that Fedora 9 installer is downloaded together with all the required packages, while you are still using Fedora 8. Once everything is in place, you can simply reboot and upgrade your system, without burning any CDs or DVDs or waiting for long downloads while having nothing to do.