As a long-term user of a number of different Operating Systems and as SME Owner for the last 15 years I have overseen the gradual replacement of a number of proprietary software solutions with FOSS Alternatives. With the beginning of the new financial year however, we are planning to go another step further and are starting to change our default Operating System to Ubuntu (from MS Windows).

It is worth pointing out that I don’t have an issue with paying for software (after all we are partly in the software development business). We also happily pay quite a number of SaaS suppliers for their services (see list below) and support. My main issue is why I should pay license fees for standard software (i.e. Office Productivity Tools) when there is so many excellent community developed products out there that do the same (in some instances better, in some instances just adequate) job ? It is hard enough running a small business in the current climate.

One major benefit of changing over to a web-based (FOSS) approach to our back-end systems has been the ability to operate from anywhere. This has dramatically increased productivity for myself as well as staff being able to work from home more often. This is mainly due to changing back-end systems to browser based software, but also due to the fact that you can access the web-based software also on personal devices (such as phones).

Since licensing fees are only one part of the cost of running software it has to be said that support for users in the early days is certainly higher than just keeping the ‘stuff they know’ and have been taught at University / TAFE / Schools. Different tools will always require some learning curve to get familiar with the new environment.  However in the long run we have not seen a significant difference to the previous scenario.

For Software development reasons we still have to maintain a license for some of these systems for testing purposes, however it has been quite a while since we have actually done so for actual production purposes.

Advantages

• No license and reoccurring upgrade fees (other than service fees)
• Community support

Downsides

• Drivers (some drivers for Graphics Cards can still be a bit of a challenge)
• Accessories / devices (if you run a lot of (b)leading edge devices such as USB accessoroes, it can be a challenge to get appropriate Linux support)

It generally pays to check user forums (for Ubuntu there is a list of certified hardware) before buying accessories. However most common hardware (such as major phones and personal audio devices) have good support.

Show-stoppers / Challenges

In previous attempts when contemplating the phasing out of Windows as the Standard Operating Environment in our business we were faced with some show-stoppers such as our Accounting Package that was not available at all in a non-Windows environment. However we have since migrated all of our mission-critical applications into web-based & off-site hosted environments. With these changes the need for client-based software has rapidly diminished and the focus has shifted to web-browser support of critical systems.

Some challenges remain with new staff needing to be trained and sometimes convinced that there is other things out there than the packages they are familiar with. I have been advocating for changes in our Schools to teach the concepts of software rather than certain tools – ie. teach the concept of Word Processing rather than Microsoft Word. But I am realistic that these changes will not be implemented soon if at all.

One area we have not been able to change is Graphic Design. Whilst I am personally not convinced that GIMP/Inkscape are not able to replace the Photoshop/Illustrator combo I do not have the personal knowledge in that field and have hence given up trying to change this. Life is too short to be wasted listening to Graphic Designers whining to you daily that they need Adobe for XYZ.

Myths

I very often hear the following arguments:

“If you use this FOSS stuff that is owned by nobody you will not be supported”

One of the longest standing arguments and the easiest to answer. Most FOSS operating systems now have a number of commercial operations supporting.

As for community support there is an extremely active community around Ubuntu with a local Australian Team and literally thousands of community volunteers world-wide. And for those less comfortable relying on community support there are a growing number of commercial operations willing to support Open Source OS’s.

“If everybody can see the source code – isn’t that insecure ?”

Again one of the oldest FUD arguments. There is a detailed Wikipedia entry that explains the concept of Open Source Security and why most independent experts will assert the exact opposite.

“Proprietary OS’s are streamlined and much more efficient”

We found this one to be correct in some areas and completely false in others. To the contrary a number of tasks (such as adding network printers or network connections) are much more efficient on Ubuntu. Whilst the User Interfaces on proprietary systems are much more polished (eye-candy) they are not necessarily contributing much to an effective work practice. And when it comes to setting up new equipment there is no comparison whatsoever. It generally takes up to an hour to have a developer system configured with Software installs and other config tasks thanks largely to Linux package management tools (such as apt-get) which can be completely automated with a few lines of script. A similar developer system on Windows can take hours of idle install time and reboots galore.

“You will not save any money”

This point is the least exact and hardest to answer as it will largely depend on individual circumstances, in-house IT knowledge and support. For our part we have certainly saved cost in software licensing. However we generally have invested this in either being able to afford additional IT work done (custom workflows) or being able to invest in systems that would have been outside of budget.

Project Listing

As a practical exercise I thought I would share our Standard Operating Environment (SOE). Whilst not all of the software listed is Open Source (as the title obviously suggests) a substantial majority is.

Operating Systems

• Ubuntu 10.04 / 11.04 – default – http://ubuntu.com/

• Fedora 14/15 (mainly for our Sysadmin purposes as most of our Servers run on RHEL / CentOS)
• Windows (XP & W7) for hardware that can not be utilised on Ubuntu
• (OSX (single machine for testing & iOS compilation purposes))

Browsers

• Mozilla Firefox (preferred) – http://mozilla.org/firefox/
• Google Chrome (preferred) - http://www.google.com/chrome
• Microsoft Internet Explorer (testing only via Virtual Machine) http://microsoft.com/ie
• Apple Safari (testing only) - http://www.apple.com/safari/

Directory Services

• OpenLDAP
• Samba

Office / Productivity

• GoogleApps (with local backups)
• Webmail (nobody actually uses a desktop mail client these days)
• Webcalendar (shared calendars & resources)
• Open / Libre Office - http://www.libreoffice.org/

Multimedia

• OpenShot - http://www.openshotvideo.com/
• Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Graphics

• GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)
• Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/)
• Xara (http://www.xaraxtreme.org/)

Utilities

• Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) FTP Client
• 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) File Compression
• KeePass (http://keepass.info/) – Password Manager
• PWGen (http://pwgen-win.sourceforge.net/) Password Generator

Development

• SciTE / Notedpad++ (a lot of our tech staff prefer text editors for smaller projects) - http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html / http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
• Eclipse (http://eclipse.org)
• Subversion - http://subversion.apache.org/
• Git - http://git-scm.com/

Backend Business Systems

• Zendesk Helpdesk Management(we have tried a number of self-hosted FOSS alternatives over the years, but opted for a fully supported SaaS solution) – http://zendesk.com/
• SAASU Finance – http://saasu.com/ (and I was glad to say good bye to MYOB)
• SugarCRM - http://www.sugarforge.org/
• Home-grown admin database system based on MySQL/PHP

Sysadmin

• PuttySSH - http://www.putty.org/
• Virtualbox – http://www.virtualbox.org/
• Nagios System Monitoring - http://www.nagios.org/

I came across QuteCom (formerly WengoPhone) and from first testing it seems to work quite well. The install is easy as it’s part of the Ubuntu Community Software (Universe) and that means it can be installed via apt-get, Software Center or Synaptic.

So far the early testing has been very positive and the interface seems quite workable as well as having a number of other instant messaging options available.

The default Mono Distribution on Ubuntu (V11 Natty) is missing a few dependencies required for KeePassX

apt-get install libmono-accessibility2.0-cil libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-data-tds2.0-cil libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-management2.0-cil libmono-messaging2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil libmono-sqlite2.0-cil libmono-system-data2.0-cil libmono-system-messaging2.0-cil libmono-system-runtime2.0-cil libmono-system-web2.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil libmono-wcf3.0-cil libmono-webbrowser0.5-cil libmono-winforms2.0-cil libmono2.0-cil mono-2.0-gac mono-csharp-shell mono-gac mono-gmcs mono-runtime ubuntu-mono

You should be able to start by:

mono KeePass.exe

Further info: http://keepass.info/help/v2/setup.html#mono

• Catch Notes (previously 3Bananas) – mobile note taking the most critical component. Whenever I get a new device – this is what has to be installed as one of the first actions. For those not familiar with this software – it’s like Evernote without the bloat.
• TwiDroyd – mobile Twitter / Status.Net client. This could be replaced by similar Twitter clients
• GoogleReader – RSS reader client
• Flickr – image upload and sharing
• FourSquare – location based sharing

These are the main applications I use pretty much constantly, however here are some other useful services I use regularily:

• Delicious – Online Bookmarking (this is an old one, but a good one). Unfortunately there are not a great deal of mobile interfaces for Delicious as Yahoo has publicly stated that it is trying to offload the project
• Pixelpipe – universal uploader (upload to multiple services such as Flickr, Picasa, Youtube from mobile)
• BeyondPod – podcast client
• GoogleGoggles – image recognition software to allow searches based on camera input
• Zxing Barcode Scan – open source barcode scanner (QR codes as well as EAN type)
• WordPress Client – mobile client to edit wordpress blogs
• Sketchbook – mobile drawing application from Autodesk (you need a reaonable screen for this – tab preferred)
• UStream Broadcaster – streaming video producer from mobile handset

One thing worth noting is that this is very much the “CURRENT Mobi-PLE”. The one sure thing with mobile tech in general is that it tends to change quickly over time and with need.

Looking forward to hearing about things I am missing – comments welcome !

Having tried several different Linux SIP clients (Ekiga, Twinkle, …) but all discarded them because of weird UI’s and/or problems with stability I noticed that there is a Linux version of XLite available. Unfortunately on current versions of Ubuntu (10.04) it needs a deprecated version of a library.

Download XLite Linux: http://www.counterpath.com/x-lite-3.0-for-linux-download.html

Dowload libstdc++.so.5: http://packages.debian.org/lenny/i386/libstdc++5/download

[you will need root permissions for all of the below]

Enjoy calling from your Ubuntu machine !

EDIT: Since upgrading to Ubuntu 11 (Natty) I have switched to QuteCom

Unfortunately the new Huawei K3765 would not be recognised as a valid modem by the network manager. After a fair bit of searching it turns out that you only need to install one additional package (usb-modeswitch) to make this modem work (be recognised) on the current stable 10.04 release:

sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch

For the command-line challenged here is a quick screenshot on how to do it using Synaptic Package Manager:

Hope this might save some time for people trying to make this modem work on Lucid.

Happy roaming !

I can see the form factor and the tablet style with a cut down (mainly web-browser based) Operating System as useful in a number of settings not least in educational institutions and libraries.

Here is the findings so far:

EDIT: I have re-published the list as a Google Spreadsheet to enable submission of new items. Please ENTER YOUR OWN if you found an item not on the list.

If you are purely looking for a tablet as an electronic reading device there is a good Wikipedia comparison chart to look at.

I will add further devices as I discover them. Please leave a comment if you find other tablets / devices that have similar features, but are more open and do not require iTunes lock-down.

One thing I don’t need on the road (as a matter of fact on none of my equipment) is having to install & maintain some client/server mail client. Here is a workable solution to have your browser default ‘mailto:’ links to Google Apps.

Howto

System –> Preferences –> Preferred Applications

Chrome:

perl -MURI::Escape -e '$to = shift;$to =~ s/^mailto://i;exec("chromium-browser", "https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.tld/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&cmid=22&to=".URI::Escape::uri_escape($to) );' '%s'

Firefox:

perl -MURI::Escape -e '$to = shift;$to =~ s/^mailto://i;exec("firefox", "https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.tld/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&cmid=22&to=".URI::Escape::uri_escape($to) );' '%s'

Note: do not forget to replace ‘yourdomain.tld’ with your actual Google Apps domain

Here is the link to the original blog entry by David Davis (xantus77): http://xantus.vox.com/library/post/howto-use-gmail-for-mailto-links-linuxubuntu.html (Kudos !)

However – in terms of Operating Systems I am now on my 3rd OS (despite initially telling myself that I will stick with the default and avoid tinkering) and it looks like I still have not found what I am looking for.

With the XP version of the EEEPC not even on the list of choices because of the sluggish performance on models I tried I survived on the default Xandros install for about 1 month until it’s ‘Easy Interface’ just got too painful in the number of clicks it took to get anywhere.

So I changed the Xandros install to ‘Advanced Mode’ which made some things easier, however the lack of any locking mechanism and the fact that installing nearly anything that was not officially supported (via other Debian packages) broke something else, forced me to look for a more standard Linux distro.

Eventually I chose Ubuntu for EEE (now called Easy Peasy – ???) As I have started to use Ubuntu on my VMWare desktops for some cloud-app development. The thought of having the same OS on the desktop and netbook had a lot of appeal. Next to CentOS (our Server platform of choice) I don’t want to deal with more distros than absolutely necessary. However in hindsight this turned out to be missing the key differences between both platforms. They are after all very different animals. While it was nice to have the same interface on both Desktop and Netbook, running Ubuntu on the EEE ended up being painfully slow and the WIFI support was pretty ordinary (which is not something I could say about Xandros). Another issue for me was that the support Huawei USB Wireless Modem E220 was sometimes unreliable and took ages to get working. I often had to reboot the machine to get the Wireless modem working again. And time is a very valuable commodity for me these days.

Eventually (after some research) I ended up with PuppyLinux and at first glance I have to say it was the fastest user interface I have ever seen on the EEE. There are a few oddities, such as running everything as a privileged user (same as Xandros) and as having Seamonkey as it’s browser instead of Firefox (which is a bit annoying for me as I have a few very useful Firefox add-ons I like on the netbook as well). But at first I thought I have found what I had been looking for.

Puppy Linux 4.12

If it wouldn’t be for the problems with network drivers (and how much use is the fastest UI, best functionality without Internet access on a Netbook) I would have dumped all others and stayed with PuppyLinux. Its startup time, speed, no-frills UI is exactly what I need while ‘on the run’. But after a number of hours of tinkering with drivers and various patches reported to work on other EEE versions I gave up. Getting WPA encryption on the WLAN side and the Huawei E220 to work was just too time consuming. Note: I tried to get Puppy 4.12 working. There are some ‘Puplets‘ specificly for EEE’s but mainly for 700 series using and much older codebase .

Currently I am (reluctantly) back with Xandros (although the XEPC version of it) and using PuppyLinux as a ‘secondary choice’ from the internal storage drive in the hope the wireless driver problems will be resolved at some stage. I would love to hear from somebody that has it working on the EEE 900 as I really like this puppy. And I’d be even quite happy to donate some dollars for this purpose.

Conclusions

• There is not yet an ideal distro for me
• PuppyLinux without the networking issues would be the distro of choice
• If you don’t have much time – stick with the default – the amount of time you burn finding something that works will by FAR outweigh the time savings in a fast UI (if you can actually find it)
• And (just in case if Asus is listening and wants some advice) – look at what these guys are doing with Puppy – this is what an alternative Netbook OS should be like – FAST boot, FAST UI, No-frills ….
• If you want to be as close to your desktop with ‘Windows-like ‘ UI – stick with the Original – at least then you can take the slow UI as a fact of life

Update: just found this link to an excellent article in the recent Linux Magazine on alternative OS´s for netbooks

Personally (being a web-app developer for years) I generally prefer browser-based apps over ‘native apps’.  Dont even get me started about J2ME apps. One of the main reasons for this preference is that I tend to switch handsets fairly frequently. This makes installing software on phones a large waste of time. Just copying your bookmarks (in my case I have made up my own custom start page on the device) saves a lot of time.

1) Mobile twitter (http://m.twitter.com)

Being Twitter’s very own interface this is probably the one most people start off with.

Twitter Mobile Screenshot

However the functionality of the mobile Twitter client is very limited and after starting to use Twitter more regularily I found the lack of functionality too limiting and started looking for alternatives.

2) Slandr (http://m.slandr.net)

The Slandr interface looked very nice and functionality compared to mobile Twitter was excellent. I quite liked the ‘Geo’ function in Slandr, however the annoying adds embedded in content put me off this one.

Slandr Screenshot

3) Dabr (http://m.dabr.co.uk/)

Shortly after trying out Slandr I found this client and this is the one I am now using as my default. I find the interface very clean,  the functionality is all I require on the mobile handset and after all it’s an Open Source product which I am happy to support over others.

Dabr Screenshot

4) Others

There seem to be some further alternatives which I did not have time to check out (since I am quite happy with Dabr):

• Tweete
• Twitstat

As for the naming of these clients – who comes up with these project names ? Dabr ? Slandr ?