My Windows 7 machine is ready for a rebuild (remember when Windows 2000 was going to eliminate Windows crud so we didn't have to rebuild our machines?) so I need, at least, something to use while the Win 7 machine is out of commission. Since I've been getting equal complaints from my users with Mac OS X and my users with Windows I thought maybe I would try a third course. I wiped a ThinkPad X60s and installed Open SUSE 11.4 with GNOME.
I've built a number of Linux servers over the years but every time I try to set up a Linux desktop it seems to be an adventure. The good news is that it's getting better. And it's even possible I'm starting to figure it out to some degree. But it's odd what you find whenever you step out of your zone of comfort and familiarity. The Open SUSE install went smoothly, with no hardware discovery issues. Little details work, like the volume up and down buttons not only work but show an on screen display. The install includes LibreOffice, Firefox, and most utilities you would expect. Installing other software ranged from very simple to weirdly complex, depending mostly on whether it was packaged specifically for SUSE. Lotus Notes 8.5.2 installed very easily. The one odd thing was that it installed without Sametime support, which installs as a separate package. I had installed FP2 before discovering this, and had to uninstall the fix pack in order to install Sametime. The Novell Client won't install on Open SUSE; it's specific to SLED, SLES and RedHat. But I can access the OES server as if it were a Windows server, which is how the Macs are using it already. The only other things I felt a need to install immediately were Adobe Reader, Adobe Air, TweetDeck and PandaBear (Quickr access). Printer setup is easy and simple -- as long as you have HP printers. I downloaded the software for a couple of Xerox printers but could find no way to install them. There were ppd files but when trying to set up a printer with them they were reported to have errors. Sticking with generic postscript for now. One nice thing for me was that the Linux versions of most software behaves much more like the Windows version than does the Mac version -- just open up Notes, Firefox or LibreOffice and work as you normally do. Although on both Linux and Mac I miss having a whole field automatically selected, very noticeable in the address window in Firefox for example. Fairly impressed so far; time will tell.
IamLUG, St Louis, May 6-7
Wed, May 1st 2013 1:34p David Schaffer I will be attending IamLUG in St Louis, MO on May 6-7, 2013.
I look forward to seeing you there. [read] Keywords:
Wishing I could be in Orlando this year
Sun, Jan 6th 2013 12:14p David Schaffer I’ll be missing everyone at Connect 2013 in Orlando this year. As a budget measure there are no professional development funds available from my employer.
This may be a “be careful what you wish for” story. All of the great resources available at no charge these days, both online and in person, have clearly led management to see paid training as expendable. And in the IBM collaboration solutions world in particular the reality is that given the great content available at no charge IBM [read] Keywords: collaboration
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We’re here…
Fri, Jan 4th 2013 12:15p David Schaffer As you can see http://davidschaffer.us has been moved to WordPress.
It’s a new platform for me so comments and suggestions are encouraged.
David Schaffer [read] Keywords:
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Web site migration
Fri, Jan 4th 2013 9:14a David Schaffer For new posts please visit http://davidschaffer.us
Permalink
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Personal Branding
Fri, Dec 28th 2012 9:12a David Schaffer I'm preparing to move my blog again since Posterous may be getting serious about winding down (having just introduced their tool for backing up your existing posts. Thanks Mitch Cohen for the heads up on that one.)
Which gives me a nice opportunity to struggle with the issue of personal branding. The blog you're currently reading is available at http://davidschaffer.us, which redirects to http://theremustbe.posterous.com. I suspect most folks reach it directly via the latter url, which is wha [read] Keywords: collaboration
domino
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Hurricane Sandy
Mon, Oct 29th 2012 10:09a David Schaffer As anyone following the news knows, the east coast of the United States is being hit with what is being called Frankenstorm, a perfect storm or the ever-popular storm of the century. Connecticut is expected to get some of the worst coastal flooding, due to a storm track that will funnel water into Long Island Sound, combined with the normal high tides from the full moon.
Please take this one seriously and I hope everyone is safe.
Some resources to follow along:
Official notices from the CT st [read] Keywords:
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When requesting technical assistance...
Wed, Sep 19th 2012 6:09a David Schaffer Could you please provide:
Here's what I did
Here's what happened
Here's the message/error/screen I got
Ideally it would be nice to know how long it to took from taking the action to getting the result, does it happen every time, does what you were trying to do in the first place actually happen or is this a failure?
Sending me a screen shot or a non-delivery message with none of the above will not get your problem resolved unless it's something really simple or really catastro [read] Keywords:
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Linux vs Windows coming out of sleep
Mon, Jul 23rd 2012 9:16p David Schaffer I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X61s running Linux (Suse 11.4). When it comes out of sleep mode it takes what seems to be a long time to grab a network connection, and it usually finds WiFi before it finds the wired Ethernet.
I've used lots of ThinkPads with Windows XP and Windows 7, including this same model, and I've never seen this lag there, and it's almost always the wired network that's picked up first or as default when coming back from sleep.
With both operating systems I'm just closi [read] Keywords: linux
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Blackberry and BYOD
Wed, Jun 13th 2012 7:13a David Schaffer Much of the interest in "bring your own device" is, admittedly, driven by employees' interest in adopting devices other than Blackberry. But Blackberry isn't dead and employees sometimes want to connect a personal Blackberry to the company BES.
This is a quick post to point out that most wireless carriers do not include permission to connect to a BES in the normal consumer data plans, and the personnel in the stores and on the phone may not even understand the distinction. I just had a user [read] Keywords: bes
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