2012 August 14 archive at Robert Pogson

Archive for August 14th, 2012

How Many Holes are There in That Other OS, It’s Office Suite and InternetExploder?

Published by Robert Pogson August 14th, 2012 in technology. 25 Comments

“Microsoft has fixed 26 vulnerabilities in its software products, including several considered critical, the company said on Tuesday in its monthly security patch report.”

That’s the kind of news we hear every month from M$. It gives a clue to the magnitude of the insecurity of that other OS. Suppose there are a dozen critical vulnerabilities in that other OS that are fixed each month. Presumably those were all present on Day One of the release but some could be introduced in other patches. The odds are that they all existed from the last release though. If the product lasts a decade, 120 months, then we are looking at ~1K critical vulnerabilities.

Compare that with the world of FLOSS where the bug-count for a whole repository and all kinds of bugs is less than 1K…

Amazing isn’t it? For a lot less money you get to use better code. Use FLOSS. It’s the right way to do IT.

see Microsoft patches critical security holes in Windows, Office, IE | ITworld.

- Robert Pogson

Building Computer Labs for Free

Published by Robert Pogson August 14th, 2012 in Linux in Education, Teaching and technology. 13 Comments

I found an article about a teacher building a computer lab on $0. That’s mostly what I did for years refurbishing whatever PCs were in storage or not being used in schools where I taught. GNU/Linux is very flexible and installs on a wide variety of machines without concerns about drivers for the particular machine since most drivers needed to boot are part of the Linux kernel.

“With the help of his local LUG, he got Linux up and running on his 18 donated machines. Suddenly, they were fast. They were clean. They worked well in the classroom. Robert was invigorated, as were his students.”

Of course there are challenges particularly for a newbie to GNU/Linux not knowing how to do much at first but it’s all been done before and Google is your friend. Apparently this guy set up thick clients which is OK but there’s nothing better than LTSP for schools if at least one decent/modern/resourceful machine is available. It’s found in several distros. e.g. Debian GNU/Linux.

It’s not difficult to get old/donated PCs in many places thanks to Wintel’s built-in obsolescence. The hard part is getting things like monitors, keyboards and mice which survive a step on the Wintel treadmill. Sometimes you just have to have a bit of money. I once equipped a whole school with fine HP USB keyboards with a hub and optical wheel mice for $10 a set. Some recyclers will donate equipment rather than having to dispose of its materials. That is a liability for a school in many places but it’s still cheaper than buying new.

Thanks to the flexibility of GNU/Linux and its licensing, schools have no excuse for not having one or more computer labs and some PCs in every classroom.

see How One Teacher Built a Computer Lab for Free | iFixit.

- Robert Pogson

Close Encounter of the Wrong Kind

Published by Robert Pogson August 14th, 2012 in technology. 42 Comments

On the spur of the moment I downloaded M$’s 32bit preview version of “8″. Try as I might, I could not get it to run:

On the first go, I got Error 5D, which was correct. I was using a 64bit VM and had a bunch of required features turned off.
On the second go, the installer could not find any drives and could not find any drivers on the CD even with the “show all drivers” option.
I tried yet again selecting a popular Intel CPU option for KVM. No drivers again.

So, that was a complete waste of time (including entering the authentication code multiple times), bandwidth and storage…

I was not impressed. Debian GNU/Linux does the right thing for me every time. I guess M$ is not serious about running PCs in the real world. If this is the best they’ve got, the world will soon be safe from M$’s OS.

- Robert Pogson

Basques at the Leading Edge of FLOSS Thinking

Published by Robert Pogson August 14th, 2012 in technology. 0 Comments

The Basques are an interesting people. They are nominally part of Spain and France but fierce local nationalism survives within. Not surprisingly, fierce independence in software is exhibited by a recent change to their laws:

“"The Basque Country decree takes national laws and European regulations one step further", explains Cenatic’s spokesperson. "These laws and regulations are about promoting sharing and reuse of public administration software. The Basque decree amplifies openness and reuse of existent and future public body applications."

The decree instructs public administrations to make public everything involved in their software development, says the spokesperson. "That includes purchasing and the maintenance process. It should all become open data."”

via 'Basque Country's open source law challenges other Spanish regions' | Joinup.

Chuckle. I think Wintel is losing its grip on Spain/Europe. Openness does not promote monopoly. Openness trims the horns of Wintel. Wintel has thrived on divide-and-conquer secrecy. Openness makes all plain with no opportunity to buy off segments. FLOSS is the right way to do IT.

- Robert Pogson

Canalys on Chinese Smart Phones

Published by Robert Pogson August 14th, 2012 in technology. 30 Comments

Recently Canalys reported phenomenal growth of Android/Linux smart phones in China.

“Android has become a major growth driver in China, running on 81% of the smart phones shipped in China in Q2 2012.”

That’s 10% more than the share globally. Further, globally Apple is in second place with only 19% compared to 68% Android/Linux share of units shipped in Q2.

Of course, China is a huge market with the most potential in the near term to soak up many millions more units in the coming year or two. Eventually everyone in China who wants one will have one but by then the rest of the world will be in high gear and it won’t be to buy more expensive kit.

I think this phenomenon is not lost on OEMs of all kinds. FLOSS has a natural advantage in the market, price, all else being equal. The myth that Chinese-made products for Apple are wonderful while Chinese-made products with Android/Linux are second class is not sustainable. I think more gadgets will be produced with */Linux and some of them will be desktop/notebook PCs. Expect that later this year when M$ attempts to flog “8″ on the world. */Linux will be price-competitive and since M$ is announcing the viability of ARM, that will be a major vector for GNU/Linux onto retail shelves. Of course, */Linux has a price-advantage for notebooks/desktops/tablets and thin clients too.

Apple’s tablets are clinging to their popularity but many cheaper units are selling. Apple has a good grip but not a monopoly there. I think */Linux will have traction when more tablets sell. At the moment the market for tablets is still very young. The world does not need $600 tablets as much as it needs $100 tablets. Apple cannot produce those but the world can with FLOSS.

see Stellar growth sees China take 27% of global smart phone shipments, powered by domestic vendors | Canalys.

SJVN has just posted on the tablet wars:
“As we head toward the 2012 holiday season, I expect iPad to finally have serious competition from Android tablets. I suppose it’s possible that Microsoft, with its Surface and Windows 8 tablets running on x86 processors and Windows RT tablets running on ARM processors, could be a contender as well, but I don’t foresee that. Android and its various hardware vendors have just spent the past two years showing how hard it is to compete with Apple in the tablet market; Windows is too late to the game to compete in this round. It might catch up later, but right now the story is Android.”

see Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Are Android tablets ready to take on the iPad?

- Robert Pogson