I've noticed over the past week or two, a few of my friends have posted on social media sites regarding issues they're having with the operating system they're currently using. I'm sure when I detail what the problems are, it'll follow that the OS in question is obvious without me naming and shaming it. I thought I'd share in a bit of detail how I think migrating to Linux* might help.

Firstly, familiarity and fitting in with existing working practices. A lot has been said over...

Well, my copy of Ubuntu Made Easy which No Starch Press kindly sent me to review arrived 2 or 3 weeks ago. The book itself is remarkably well put together making it a pleasure to hold and read as well as easy to refer to while working on the 'projects'. No Starch were also kind enough to provide me with a PDF copy which I have shared with a select few people with less (Or different.) Linux experience than myself. So, hopefully future parts of this ongoing review will provide their perspectives...

Recently, at work, I've been involved in/initiated a project to migrate some desktop PCs to Linux. Naturally, I sought advise from various Linux community sources including here. A lot of the responses I got quite rightly pointed out potential pitfalls. A few responses pointed out positive aspects. There were even responses that were, to me, entirely negative and seemed to pooh-pooh the idea that there could possibly be a problem with our current Windows desktops that Linux could resolve....

With The Linux Foundation gaining Samsung as a Platinum supporter, it occurred to me that it's pretty unique how Linux in particular and Free software in general allows all sorts of individuals and organisations to get together productively. Just look at the list of contributors to the Linux kernel and the different organisations involved with The Document Foundation for a couple of examples.

I'd just like to contrast an example of a win and a fail in relation to dealing with security issues.

Win. A student found a vulnerability in Wicd that could result in unauthorised root access. That vulnerability was patched pretty much the same day most sites reported the problem.

Fail! On the other hand, we have the Flashback trojan which apple have only just released tools to fix. I found a report of it's existence going back to September last year...
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