Open source and cloud computing for everyone
By Todd Carpenter | February 14, 2008
You may have seen in the news recently that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo! It’s not the only web advertising play that Microsoft is making either. So why does a software company want to become a web company? Because the days of charging money for software are numbered.
There’s two computers sitting on my desk. One is is a $31 Linux box, the other is $2500 iMac. One can be used to edit photos, browse the web, manage email, act as a CRM/organizer, make Skype calls, or create spreadsheets, word documents, and Powerpoint style presentations. The other one costs $2500.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Mac. I really like Windows computers as well. But the days when linux computing was something that only applied to ubber nerds are long gone. You can buy a linux computer from Wal-Mart for $200. I almost purchased it myself, but decided to see just how cheap I could build a system myself.
I got the computer itself for free. It’s a five year old Dell Pentium III that was running Windows 2000 as an operating system. It’s not powerful enough to run the latest Windows OS (Vista) so it became obsolete to my Brother and his business. He gave it to me, but you might already have a relic like this in your basement. I also scored a spare mouse from him, then headed off to CompUSA’s clearance sale for a monitor. I found a used VeiwSonic 19 CRT that they sold to me for $25. A few days later, I purchased a smaller footprint PS/2 keyboard from from Micro Center for $6. So there it is, a $31 dollar computer that runs eight year old software. That’s where the fun part comes in.
The WalMart machine that inspired this little experiment runs gOS. It’s a very simplified version of linux. The user interface is awfully similar to Apple’s OSX. It’s so simple, anyone will have the hang of how it all works in a matter of minutes. There’s a dock along the bottom of the screen where all your programs are. Double click on the program, and you’re up and running. Installing programs is not as easy as Windows, but it’s no biggy because gOS comes bundled with the following software.
Firefox web browser
Thunderbird email client
Skype Internet phone
GIMP image editor
Open Office word processoror, speadsheets & presentations.
A gazillion games like Solitaire
Plus some movie and music player stuff
The software is free. Yes, it’s not a scam, it’s really free. Each of these programs, including the OS, are open source projects. This means that a bunch of people work together to make a product, each volunteering their time, to build a free product for everyone.
I downloaded gOS from their web site, then burned it to a CD. The cool thing about the software is that you can then boot up your computer from the CD (load the CD, then restart your computer), to make sure the whole thing runs okay before installing it. 
Conversely, you could just buy the Walmart machine and everything will be ready to go out of the box. There’s a notebook coming as well, but it appears to be delayed.
Serious computer junkies will look to more powerful versions of Linux to meet their needs, but for an office workstation, this does just about everything you could want it to. The only real hurdle is that it won’t run proprietary windows software like Calyx Point. But I think it’s only a matter of time before software developers start porting their products to linux.
Now I know what your thinking, “but I need to create MS Word Documents”. I here you. Open Office is basically a free version of MS Office. You can create a “.doc”, send it to someone running Word, and they’ll never know the difference. However, I think there’s an even better way.
I’ve been running tutorials on Google Fu. gOS was built with Google Fu in mind. So instead of encouraging you to use Open Office, they encourage you to use Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Gmail. I agree. This strategy is called cloud computing, and we’ll further discuss this in future posts & tutrials.
Topics: blog |
6 Responses to “Open source and cloud computing for everyone”
Comments
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February 14th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
All I gotta say about this post — FRICKIN SWEET!
February 16th, 2008 at 4:40 am
Great stuff, a bit beyond me but informative to be sure. I am very interested in building my tech skills. It seems crazy to me that I pay $20.00 a month for someone to maintain my web site. I am lost when it comes to HTML. I’m sure I am not getting the biggest bang out of my web site and blog. I am more than willing to do the work needed. Can you point me in the right direction, some must do’s?
Thanks!
April 18th, 2008 at 12:06 am
You broke it down for me. Linux has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. I did here about the Wal-Mart computer. Not a big fan of Wal-Mart. But I am a big fan of the cost barrier for people to get up and running with a kick ass computer. Open Source is amazing. The idea of it being non-bloated when it comes to the add on crap that so many PC’s come with is also a bonus.
April 7th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
It seems crazy to me that I pay $20.00 a month for someone to maintain my web site. I am lost when it comes to HTML. I’m sure I am not getting the biggest bang out of my web site and blog.
May 11th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Always want to try linux, seems good. Lot’s of people swear by it. I guess it depends on what your needs are.
June 13th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
When you are in a not good position and have no money to get out from that point, you will require to take the business loans. Just because it would help you for sure. I get sba loan every year and feel myself good just because of that.