20 years ago today, a programmer named Linus Torvalds from Finland posted a message on a newsgroup on the 25th August 1991:
Hello everybody out there using minix -
I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things)…
Check out the article in ExtremeTech. All I can say is, Linux is a godsend. Thank you Mr Torvalds!
I have been accused of being many things: an uncompromising SOB, a person who wants to do things his own way, someone too frank and outspoken. At first I thought it was just me. Truth be told, I would rather have it out in the open than carry hidden agendas. In short, I do not beat around the bush and so I may seem like I am too much of an “in your face” kind of person. Well, I would hardly consider that a virtue…until I came across this passage above
Now, before all you guys accuse me of being an Apple fanboi or zealot…I am not. I do not own a Macbook, Mac Pro or even an iPhone. My wife has an iPad that I play with occasionally but that is about it. I have always been a PC guy with a strong interest in Linux and open-source. But i do give credit where it is true. It does not mean that I hate Steve Jobs. On the contrary, I admire him. I have got nothing against Steve Jobs…its his fan club that I cannot stand
Anyway, the passage above resonated with me. I have been a rebel and I acknowledge that. I am not the easiest of people to work with but I am to the point and I hate back stabbing. If I do not like what you propose, I will tell you straight-off. But I also believe in thinking out of the box…going against the grain…doing what no one else would do. And so, I conform to the kind of person that the Apple message above is referring to.
Read it…and be inspired. I know I was.
Budgets are always tight when running a small business. You need computers, laptops and etcetera, not to mention servers. While servers are absolutely essential to store data, they can wait. What cannot wait is for your workers to hit the ground running. So you need to get the PCs and laptops first. And that is where Dell come in with their incredibly low-priced Vostro desktops, in this case, the Vostro 230
From the reviews I have been reading, this desktop is pretty good. There are heaps of things you can change and add, like for example, the hard disk drive. You can change it for one with more capacity. RAM also can be changed. It comes with Windows 7 Professional too! The Vostro 230 slim tower for one has an online price of $619. It comes with 2Gb of RAM and a 320Gb hard-disk drive. The Dell Vostro 230 minitower is out of stock at the moment and Dell confirmed that with me through a phone call but I dare say it will be cheaper. And if you do not like Widows, install it with a Linux os like Ubuntu. These Vostros are Ubuntu-friendly
I can almost hear the geeks saying, “Build your own!” Yeah…I agree, but to a certain extent. I always build my own PCs but to a business owner who just needs the goods here and now, this offer cannot be beat. And if you, dear reader, are starting a business, remember, if you cannot get a server, do backups of your data every day. I cannot stress how important backups are to any business.
This is specially targeted at the SMEs who can save some money on making your own fileserver. HowToForge has a a very good link here on how to make a very simple SAMBA file server that will suit your needs and more. If you have an old computer that you have no use for anymore, why not replace the hard disk with a bigger one, load Linux and make that the file-server? I have tried the tutorial before so I know it works fine and I have set up one in my office as well. It will not cost you much…just three hours of your time and you will have a robust and stable file server for your business
We have a few of these old Compaq Evo d510machines in the company, taking up space in store rooms. So what I did was to get a few of them and place them in the offices as caching DNS servers, running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and running dnsmasq. These little baby just keep humming on 256Mb of DRAM and a 20Gb hard disk drive each. Ubuntu Server chugs along happily with no issues and I can also make an intranet in each of the offices running the LAMP features on these boxes! Cheers to Ubuntu!
