Yesterday I visited the local Software Freedom Day event here in Dundee, and I was impressed with what was available. I think that the whole web industry is moving towards open source software, and went along to see what things were on offer. We all know that the biggest and most common instance of open source software within the internet industry is Mozilla Firefox, but there is so much other items of software available.
It was interesting to see the wide range of software packages available, which ranged from graphics packages to office software and everything in between. The most interesting outcome of the day for me was when I received a Linux Ubuntu disk, as I’ve very little experience of that particular operating system. I’ve seen people use it and have obviously read about it over the years but I’ve little personal experience. One technique I picked up was to install it using a Virtual Box, which enables the new system to be installed on a machine virtually so that it doesn’t affect the original operating system. This seems like a good way of trying out Linux knowing that I can always revert back without too much risk.
What do the current Linux users think? Should I jump over from Windows?
Drupal
Wordpress
MacBook Pro
Photoshop CS3
Damn, I was going to go to that but a had the start to the fresher’s flu… I remember seeing that a few plurkers were going to that on Saturday including Hazel (you would have recognised her… big dreads) were about.
I’ve been really interested in linux since last year but have still not moved over. I’m building a test server that will be using ubuntu but I’m not exactly ready to jump ship until developers of larger platforms realise that this is a competing market.
Are you going to visit the Fresher’s Fayre on Thursday? It’s most of the day and you’ll be able to find out more - including a lot about the Linux society. They basically have people ranging to die hard addicts to simple people just testing out ubuntu. I was tempted last year to join but I’m definitely considering it this year.
All in all, if you can live without the software that makes things easy for you know and choose open source alternatives, then it works great. But I need some apps which I can’t run anyway else - like photoshop.
That being said, my laptop is totally ubuntu.
Comment by Craig | fusedreality — September 24, 2008 @ 1:01 am
Hi Craig,
Yeah it was good actually, was there for about an hour or so over lunchtime and learned a few things. I got a copy of Ubuntu which I need to get round to installing via VirtualBox so that I can have a wee play with it.
Yeah I’ll be heading to the Fresher’s Fayre on Thursday to see what’s happening and will probably have another chat with the guys. I’ve seen Linux used before and always fancied a shot with it to see how ti compares because I’ve only ever used Windows before. Let us know how you get on with the test server, sounds interesting.
Comment by Graeme — September 24, 2008 @ 4:30 pm