Over the next few days I am going to be testing out openSUSE 11 (the latest version).

What I’ve liked about openSUSE, in the past, is that it’s been a good preview of what will be included in Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Server releases. I have taken some Novell training courses on SUSE 10.1 so for me it’s one of the easier distributions to use (although Ubuntu is still my fav).

Thus far I have completed the installation of the 64bit version in a virtual machine in VMware Workstation 6. I am very impressed with the installation process. It only took about 5 minutes of my time and then the installation went on auto-pilot. Once it was done I booted into the OS and everything worked as it should.

As soon as I get some more time to play around and use it a bit I will have more of a review to post.

Cheers!
~TheNerd

Sikosis finished up the editing portion of the the Haiku Podcast and has posted it on the site.

This time around we talk about the Google Summer of Code 2008 again, BeServed code being donated to Haiku, the Pineapple News Reader is being resurrected and much more! Of course, I am once again co-hosting the podcast.

I must say thanks again to Sikosis for bringing me on to the show. I’m really beginning to love this podcasting thing

Click here to listen

Sikosis has published the latest episode of the Haiku Podcast. This time around we, once again, talk Haiku and Haikuware news. With the Google Summer of Code coming up and lots of bounty news this should be an interesting episode for everyone This episode is 12 minutes and 11 seconds long.

Haiku Podcast Website

Cheers!
~TheNerd

I now have Haiku running on real hardware with a functioning display, keyboard, and mouse. The hardware being used is a Dell Latitude D600 (Laptop Battery Dell Latitude D500/D600) with Ubuntu installed to use as a build system for Haiku. The unfortunate part of it is that my network interface doesn’t have a driver so I’m left without Internet access for the time being. I was thinking about opening a bounty to create a driver for it but I’m thinking that there are other areas that need bounties before that.

I’ve yet to test the sound because there aren’t any sound files included in the default build. I guess I’m going to have to learn how to used the build script to copy over files during the build process. I suppose I’ll also want to play with some of the other features that aren’t included by default so learning how to configure the build process is not such a bad thing.

I was talking with Sikosis on IRC last night and told him it was time for me to hone my Haiku skills. It seems like I spend more time talking about Haiku and Haiku politics than I do using it. But I guess now that I have Haiku running on real hardware I don’t have any more excuses. I’m hoping that once I can get some more software, video files and sound files on it I could use this system as a demo and show all kinds of people what Haiku is all about. There is a computer swap meet in my area next month and if I can get there I would like to get a table and do a demo. Sadly, I’m pretty sure I’ve been spoken for that weekend so it’s not looking good.

(if I get a chance I’ll take a picture to prove it )

That’s right folks. Your’s truly is now an official podcaster. As of today I am co-host of the Haiku Podcast. I’ve been wanting to get into this for quite some time but never had the chance to until a few weeks ago when I was talking to Sikosis (a prominent member of the Haiku community) and he mentioned that he was looking for a co-host.

Needless to say I jumped right on it. It took a while  for us to meet up on Skype because he lives in Australia and I live in Canada. There is actually a 14 hour time difference between us. We finally met up a few weeks ago to test the skype connection. It went very well and we decided that I would join in on the next episode. This past Friday was the time to record.

Wow what an interesting experience that was. In all my years here on this lovely planet, I have organized events and stood up in front of crowds of people to speak but nothing really compares to this. I know it’s weird but for some reason the fact that it was being recorded and saved forever somewhere was in the back of my mind the whole time. I did manage to get through it and when Sikosis edited all of my “uhhhs and ummms” out of it, it wasn’t that bad.

I can definitely say (well as long as Sikosis agrees)  I will be co-hosting the Haiku Podcast for some time to come. If you want to listen to the episode click here to get to the podcast home page.

Cheers!
~TheNerd

One might wonder why I would like using such a dying technology. The answer is not that simple but I will try to explain some of the reasons I like using NetWare and OES as well, I will describe some of the drawbacks associated with it.

I may as well start off by saying that I am not a network tech or server admin. I work on a help desk where some of my duties include user administration, file management/maintenance, tech support, and other stuff.

So here goes. What do I like about NetWare, OES, eDIR, etc.?

1. Printing with NDPS or iPrint works very well
2. eDirectory is logically designed and the types of objets are easy to understand
3. File management is a breeze
4. eDir and OES can be integratd with other services such as Active Directory and LDAP.
5. User account administration is very straight forward
6. Zenworks for Desktops is great for keeping an inventory of computer systems and software
7. NetWare 6.5 may be the last of the NetWare family but it’s still support fairly well
8. GroupWise is a very good email system
9. Since NetWare is not as popular as MS Windows, there aren’t near as much malware or vulnerabilities directed at it
10. In my experience, people who work with NetWare (and other Novell services) know it well. Probably more than most of the folks who work with Windows based products.

Now that I’ve talked about the good stuff here are some things that I don’t like.

1. ConsoleOne is junk but is needed to administer GroupWise
2. The DNS/DHCP console is also junk but is needed
3. Anyone who’s ever used NetWare knows what happens when it can’t synchronize properly
4. Novell has been promising an “all-in-one” tool for years but has yet to produce it
5. Novell is more focused on Linux now
6. Drivers for new hardware are getting harder to find
7. There are limited online resources where one can find information to help solve problems
8. Less and less software vendors are creating software that is compatible
9. When consulting is needed for big projects it’s harder to find qualified people than it was in previous years
10. Having the extra overhead of the Novell Client on the desktop. This gives us one more piece of software to upgrade, manage, and troubleshoot.

I am sure that there are people out there who will disagree with my pros and cons but keep in mind these are just things I have noticed over the past fours years while employed in the IT sector. If you have been living under a rock and have no idea what NetWare, eDirectory, Zenworks, or anything else I mentioned is click here to get to a Wikipedia article that explains more.