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I just wanted to say that the “Keeping Fedora Ship-Shape” article was absolutely incredible. I personally think that most desktop Linux distros don’t have enough in the way of regular updates, nor do they have a proper mechanism for keeping software current. Your article proves that someone really is doing something to get Linux on the desktop.

Since the article appeared, I have reinstalled two of my four boxes with Fedora Core 2, and now have them running the latest and greatest kernels and software. I even plugged in DAG (http://dag.wieers.com/packages/apt/) and was able to pull down all of my favorite not-included-in-the-distro software.

This is a really long winded way of saying thanks. So… Thanks.

I agree with the main point of the December 2004 “Shutdown” column: it is the applications that matter. An operating system is pointless without applications. To wit, just look at all of the applications that Microsoft and Apple bundle “for free” with their commercial operating systems. Similarly, Linux is fairly useless without bash, Apache, Samba, Firefox, KDE, GNOME, and so on.

However, I find the conclusion of the column flawed. Open source and free software aren’t about ease-of-use and convenience. They’re about freedom: freedom to choose, freedom to change, and the freedom to control ultimately how the chips and circuits inside your computers act. Forsaking Linux to move to Mac OS X is no different from forsaking Linux to run Windows XP. You may gain much in convenience, but you compromise your freedom.

That said, I do appreciate your desire to use a Mac. I recently purchased a laptop and had trouble choosing between a “PC” and a Mac. In the end, though, I chose a HP Compaq nx7010 and Fedora Core 3 (FC3). Had I purchased a Powerbook though, I’d be running Yellow Dog Linux.

Getting Linux to run on a laptop isn’t always easy. Even the very modern FC3 is lacking and I’ll have to patch this and that to get a number of features of my laptop working. But then I create knowledge that can be shared with others. I could even go as far as developing specific packages or scripts to help other Linux laptop users, or can contribute to important kernel and system level projects to help solve laptop-related issues.

I believe that contributing is far more important in the long run, more important than the more immediate convenience I’d enjoy running Mac OS X or Windows. Doing what is convenient and easy never nets you anything worthwhile.

The September 2004 “On the Desktop” column converted gobs of Outlook Express email to Linux using Microsoft Outlook. But there was an easier way to convert the email: install Thunderbird for Windows and let Thunderbird import everything. Thunderbird even leaves the original Outlook Express data intact, just in case. Then, just copy the thunderbird data directory to Linux. Done.

And what about backups? If Fat Guy is a lawyer that needs to keep everything (not just email) for years and years for legal reasons, well… maybe something like a Net Integrator server would be best for him. Visit http://www.net-itech.com/ and check out the idb backup system, and the IMAP, DNS, web email, file, print, and web serving services it can provide.

In the December 2004 feature on XUL, Listing Four should be corrected to be L=”resource:/chrome/bouncer/content/. Funny what one little extra slash can do.

The September 2004 “Guru Guidance” column on creating custom RPM s was good, but, as I see all of the time, you chose to use static information. Instead, use macros.

$RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/sbin would become $RPM_BUILD_ROOT%{_sbindir}.

Of course, using the macros makes the code a little more difficult to read, but then again, the code is much easier to maintain.

The February 2005 “Shutdown” column did not mention that OpenOffice is dual-licensed under the Lesser General Public License and the Sun Industry Standards Source License (http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/sissl_license.html), another open source software license created by Sun.