Anything that helps the fight against the Evil Empire (EE) is a good thing in my book.

It's too late in the morning (or is that early) for me to rant about Micro$oft, so suffice it to say that I relish all true competitors that step up to the plate. Novell has been trying to do so for years but continually missed the boat where having an integrated client was concerned. Now, it seems that someone bought a clue over in Provo. I wish I was at Brainshare this week to see the unveiling of the new technologies; one of those being Novell Linux Desktop. Sigh, maybe next year or so.

Anyhow, with all their European troubles and more to come, Micro$oft had better not sit on their laurels and think that pedestal cannot be rocked. I personally believe, truly, that if Steve Jobs would only get his head out of his butt, and grow a sturdier pair, he could take on the EE head on. All he has to do is port the current Mac OS X to Intel/AMD hardware AND make it work seamlessly like it does on Apple Hardware. If he even did it solely with the top tier vendors to ensure compatibility and quality, he would open up a huge market and give some true options to replacing the EE bugfest.

And when you think about it, you have to ask why can it not be accomplished. I already can download a Knoppix distribution and boot on my laptop or desktop and it works. I will concede that the main issue is that it has trouble with wireless devices especially (Linksys adapters will NOT work with anything I have tried and it is a known problem that Checkpoint/Linksys refuses to address) and various hardware in need of Linux drivers, but the majority of existing hardware simply works.

Anyhow, check the link out you gearheads and enjoy.

Nite

EDITOR's NOTE: For more creamy (read FREE) Linux goodness, please check out the following links:

Linux - a good place to start to enter the world of Linux
Linux.org - this site contains links to download most of the known working Linux distributions
The GNU Project - all things about GNU, though none of them named Gary
Linux Journal - one of the leading magazines that I subscribe to
Linux Today - another good magazine resource
UNIX - if you want to step up, so to speak, this is the next level
SUN Microsystems - you cannot mention UNIX and not list the arguably single most successful implementation company
UNIX Guru Universe - serious propeller head territory you are entering now

Oh, go reward yourself for all this learning at ThinkGeek. You deserve a new toy, er, tool!


ZDNet: Printer Friendly - Novell announces small-business Linux bundle