Free Linux Shipping

Ubuntu, a great Debian based OS, has a nifty service called Shipit. Just create an account with them and for absolutely nothing they will ship the cds, right to your doorstep. You can order two, or fifty two. The process takes around 5 minutes, is easy and a great way to test out a new OS without having to download the cds yourself.

Check it out at Ubuntu.com.

OpenSUSE.org

Reminding me heavily of OpenOffice.org, openSUSE.org is Novell's latest attempt at increasing the linux desktop market. It's latest site, which is 90% community editable wiki, is aimed at promoting the free and open source version of SUSE Linux as a desktop alternative. The site makes it easier to download, learn about and contribute to the production of each new release.

SUSE 9.3 is apparently one of the fastest growing desktop distributions for linux, and the latest version due on September the 9th (V 10.0 RC) will hopefully be even better.

Check it out at http://openSUSE.org.

Mac OS X Hacked

Today at school I heard the most amazing, un-backed news. Apparently a group of hackers (not in the destructive sense) made some additions or changes to Mac OS X, allowing it to be run from PC hardware, as a pose to Mac hardware.

It loads up more or less as usual, although I imagine there are some huge configuration settings needing to be made before it would get running. The crack, while not exactly wide spread, is hoped to be made available (illegally - shh!) to the public so hopefully we can all try out the "World's most advanced operating system" on our PC hardware. Good work guys.

On a different note: does anyone know why Apple doesn't release their Operating Systems for non-Apple hardware? Is it purely because they need the hardware sales to keep their head above water or are they in fact attempting to also monopolise the computer market much like Microsoft do on a daily basis? - Just a little something to ponder.

Linux shelled

Recently I was looking for resources to help in doing commands through the linux shell (or commonly referred to in windows as "command line"). I came across an absolutely excellent tutorial site at linuxcommand.org.

The site is designed superbly such that seasoned linux gurus can learn a thing or two, and novices can learn in an intuitive process the steps and key terms involved in writing commands and even whole scripts.

For those who don't know the shell is a window used only for typing in commands. Everything is done by text, there are no buttons or other controls which simplify the use of a computer. Shell scripts on the other hand, while they are opened in the shell, perform tasks to save the user time. They may be used to make large scale backups to remote servers, to change the file type of all the files in a certain folder or to do countless other tasks, which would be either repetitive or inefficient to be performed by hand.

So head over to linuxcommand.org and learn the power of the linux shell!