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Linux @ Cebit
By Prakash Advani <prakash@NOSPAMfreeos.com>
In such a large exhibition which you just cant cover completely without having sore feet, Linux is playing its role too. But you literally have to go and look for it with a microscope. That what I did and what I found were some interesting products. There were several appliances and products on display. Most of them run either Linux or FreeBSD which isnīt very promintent unless you go and ask the vendor, which operating system does this run. There were also a few PDAs which were also running Linux but didnīt see any desktops. Here is a list of Linux products or Linux based products at Cebit. This is in no way comprehensive enough but covers most of the things that I could gather after going through all the halls over the past 6 days and having sore feet. So finally I decided to sit down, give some rest to my feet and write an article. Suse 8.0 - Suse, one of the best Linux distributions around, has said that their latest version will hit the market in a months time. Version 8 is based on Kernel 2.4.18 bundles more than 1,200 drivers. It also has XFree86 4.2 which provides support of the 3D graphics cards. The other updates includes the Web server Apache 1.3.23 and the file and print server for Windows networks, Samba 2.2.3a. For the desktop user Suse has updated to KDE 3 and has the latest stable release of Koffice as well as an enhanced version of Suse Personal Firewall 2. Sharp had its Linux PDA Zaurus on display which is slated to be launched on March 22. The PDA has the best design in terms of engineering and the display is spectacular. It is based on Qutopia platform which makes it very easy to use the powerful underlying Linux system. The Linux Professional Institute was conducting certification exams for its Level 1. This certification covers fundamental system administration activities that are common across all flavors of Linux. Linux International was busy drumming up support by having John Hall (Mad Dog) in their boot as well as giving a few talks. Thin Soft was demonstrating its product Winconnect. Winconnect is an interesting tool that allows a Linux PC/Terminal to connect to a Windows host and run Windows applications . It can connect to Windows PCs or servers running Windows NT 4 Terminal Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP Server and Windows XP Professional. Their demo client was running on a low end Pentium 75 MHz with 32 MB RAM running Linux. Winconnect extends the life of old and outdated PCs and terminals. Such capabilities are offered by other products such as Citrix but Winconnect is a cost effective solutions at 49.95 US$ per user. In addition you would also require to purchase licenses for Windows and the applications you use. Invair Technologies was demonstrating its credit card size Filewalker PDA. Its a very small PDA that fits into a palm and is significantly small than other PDAs in the Market. Its user interface makes it easy to enter text without doing much of typing or even writing. It can synchronise with a PC running Microsoft Outlook and Exchange and will be available next month for about 600 US$. Borland was showing off their Kylix development environement on Linux. With Kylix, developers can compile their Delphi code on Linux with relative ease. This means that all the Delphi applications out there in the market can now be made available by some bit of additional coding. Additional work is required only if Windows specific API code exists, then they have to be converted to Linux. Otherwise most of the applications should compile. Samsung was demonstrating its printers running under Linux. They were showing how easy it was to configure their system using CUPS (Common Unix Printing System). AMD demonstrated its upcoming 64-Bit processor running Linux. The demo has both Windows and Linux but Windows was demonstrated using 32-Bit mode and Linux was the only one running in 64-Bit mode. The processor called Hammer will run both 32-Bit and 64-Bit x86 applications. The processor is expected to hit the market end of 2002. There were serveral other interesting products on display but very few had Linux device driver support for their. Some of them said they plan to have Linux drivers in a few months but most of them had no plans since they said there wasnt any demand. If more people like me go around asking if there is Linux support, I am sure by Cebit 2003 we will see a lot more Linux compatible devices.
Other articles by Prakash Advani
Current Rating: [ 6.83 / 10 ]
Number of Times Rated: [ 6 ]
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