Open Source Solutions for Small Business Problems

The Linux Link Tech Show (TLLTS) has a great segment dissecting the criticisms/wild flames put forth on a series of shows on the TWIT network. Wanted to add a couple comments missing from their discussion.

First of all, the Mac Break Weekly show apparently spends some time bashing the open source community, calling out Drupal, and how difficult it is to solve “simple” problems like uploading images for blog posts. In practically the same breath, the hosts claim that the open source community never has any innovation behind it. Irony drips:

• In the world of content management systems (CMSs), most of the innovation starts in open source projects these days, and Drupal is at the cutting edge of this with its powerful system of taxonomies, and hundreds of add-ons freely available.
• I can think of a grand total of 2 proprietary CMSs that have anywhere near as widespread use as most of the open source CMS systems. One has turned open source itself: Movable Type. The other is Sharepoint, and it’s widespread because Microsoft has shipped it out on lots of its server products.
• Complain about usability all you want, but name a proprietary product as powerful as Drupal, that’s easier to install, administer, and configure.
• The TWIT.tv site itself is running on Drupal.

So let’s talk a little about innovation. While Photoshop may still dominate the world of graphic design, but the lines aren’t so clear when it comes to animation. The Blender project recently released its second short animated film, Big Buck Bunny. While you might argue about the strength of its story, you cannot deny that the technical effects are as stunning as any major animated film coming out from the big studios. And it was created by 7 people in 9 months, using open source software. Even the big studios like Pixar, Dreamworks, and Industrial Light and Magic rely on open source software to deliver their magic, such as CinePaint, POVray, and several others.

On the subject of innovation, KDE4 is breaking new ground and stirring up controversy, laying a bedrock that promises the ability to do things beyond the standard “Desktop” paradigm that was invented over 30 years ago and we’ve all used ever since. Meanwhile, the GNOME team is working on creative ways to embed web applications into your desktop.

But the real innovations of the open source community are all a few layers deeper in the application stack, all the plumbing that powers the Internet. Microsoft itself borrowed its early networking stack from BSD, one of the earliest open source operating systems. Domain Name Service (DNS) and email were first implemented on the Internet using open source software (BIND and Sendmail).

The open source community tends to snicker whenever Apple claims to be innovative. Its core “innovations” were all invented somewhere else:

• The Mac Desktop interface borrowed heavily from Xerox PARC labs
• OS X uses BSD under the hood
• “Spaces” were in use in Unix systems for a decade before they arrived on the Mac
• The “Time Machine” functionality in Leopard is standard in many source code management tools

To its credit, Apple polishes these features better than anybody else, making them easier to find and use by normal people. But many, if not most of its innovations come from somebody else.

Read the previous post for more discussion about Linux support.

I started writing a response to a discussion in the latest “Linux Link Tech Show” episode, but ended up with something far too long, so I’ve split it up into 4 posts. The next post is about the TLLTS vs TWIT debate, and introduces this set of post. The previous two are about open source support–a true story of a support incident I had, and the unwritten rules of open source support. In this post, I analyze the fundamental differences between Windows, Apple, and Linux when it comes to support.

Dann and Linc had a quite spirited debate about the merits of having a company hire low-end tech support with scripts (Dann) versus having an experienced, savvy, tech professional able to really solve the user’s problem (Linc). Dann’s point was that it can easily be more cost-effective for both the support company and the end user to go straight to reinstalling a system if rebooting doesn’t solve the user’s problem, while Linc seemed to think a savvy tech person could get to the root of the issue much quicker, and brought up the point that there’s a cost to the frustration of users being put through the whole front-line support nightmare.

I’d suggest the situation is even more complex than that, but it also differs greatly between the open source projects and proprietary operating systems. First, let me make a bold statement:

Linux support is far better than Windows or Mac.

But it also has a completely different set of rules. Learn those rules, and you’ll be able to solve your problems more satisfactorily than it’s possible to do in the proprietary world. Let’s talk about these differences, looking specifically at a who, where, what, and how long.

Who can help with your problem?

Let’s take a look at who can help with your problem:

The bottom line here is that while you probably know fewer people personally who can help you with Linux, there are more options for commercial support, and you can reach people who can do more to solve your problem for free, than you can with either Mac or Windows.

The fundamental reason for this is that anybody can read the raw source code of any open source product out there, and with enough skill and talent, can solve your problem without needing to pay anybody for the right to do so. In the proprietary world, only one company can help beyond a certain point: for Windows problems, that’s Microsoft. For problems in an application, it’s the application developer.

So the next question is:

Where can you get help?
Again, let’s compare the options:

The main point of the table above is that in the proprietary world, the harder your problem is to solve, the fewer people can help you solve it. You quickly get down to one place to go, and if it’s in the operating system, it might be expensive or not possible to fix. In the open source world, it’s nearly the opposite case–it can be harder to find the simple quick answer to your question, but the harder and deeper your problem, the more places you can go to get help.

Where do you look for help first? This is the single stumbling block for most otherwise tech-savvy users new to Linux. To learn Windows or Mac you can take a class, talk to neighbors and friends, and find lots of very low-end help that way. For Linux, unless you’re friends with some hard-core geeks, you need to go online to find help. Once you’re there, it really depends on where your problem lies.

For just figuring out how to use a system, go to the forums for your distribution. The Ubuntu forums are a great place to ask general questions. Be specific about what you’re trying to do and you’re more likely to get help. Remember that this level of support is free, and people helping you are volunteering their time and knowledge. While you’re there, see if you can answer somebody else’s question–the more help you give, the more you’ll get in return.

The other fantastic place to go for help, especially for quick questions, is IRC. IRC is a system that provides chat rooms and instant messaging. Most open source projects with any community behind them have a chat room on irc.freenode.net. Install an IRC program like Chatzilla, Konversation, Pidgin, or any number of others, connect to irc.freenode.net, pick a nickname to use, and join the channel for the program or distribution you’re having trouble with. Ask your question nicely, and if you don’t get a response immediately, keep your chat program open for a few hours–not everybody is watching the channel every minute.

What kinds of problems can you solve?
Let’s look at the same types of problems as before, and look at the resolutions:

What’s the key thing in this section? Addressing actual problems is within your control, when you’re working with open source. In the proprietary world, you’re entirely at the mercy of a single software vendor. If your problem is in the interaction between two different applications, you’re really stuck — there’s nothing you can do.

But in the open source world, there’s always something you can do. You can hire anybody with the skills to solve your problem, and fix it in the software itself. You don’t need any blessing from any single software vendor.

Open formats are perhaps more valuable than open source software, for most businesses. Because this is such a compelling advantage of open source software, many proprietary programs are beginning to open up their formats to allow other software to read them–their customers are demanding it.

How long will it take to solve your problem?
I’m not going to bother with a table for this one. The answer is nearly always “too long,” regardless of the operating system.

Actually, that’s not quite always the case–it depends on whether somebody has already solved the problem or not, as well as whether the solution is a fix or a workaround.

Many, many problems in Windows are not really fixes, they’re just workarounds. The only real “fix” for a virus-infected machine is the workaround of reinstalling your operating system. The only fix for lots of other minor issues that cause your system to slow down over time is to reboot. These are not fixes, they’re workarounds.

Real fixes take a lot longer, and need acknowledgment that the problem is real. Workarounds are band aids to get you through until there’s a real fix. And there are some real differences between the entire approaches of each operating system around these fixes.

Windows is chock-full of workarounds. Because Microsoft has gone to great lengths to maintain backwards compatibility of just about everything that’s been released for Windows since Windows 95, it’s full of workarounds to keep the old behavior. Rather than fixing behavior that might really be undesirable, they’ve had to patch it with workarounds because too many existing applications turned out to depend on that bad behavior. That, fundamentally, is why Windows is so big, bloated, slow, and painful to work with.

Apple suffers a different problem: changing their closed libraries too quickly for external developers to keep up. Each release, they break lots of things, and don’t always tell 3rd party developers ahead of time. This means the number of third party developers of Apple software is shrinking–they’ve managed to alienate quite a few. So their polish and high quality comes at the price of having a healthy thriving developer community outside the walls of Apple. There’s little transparency in this process, so developers outside Apple are always playing catch-up, and having to work around these changes in behavior.

Linux has its share of problems, too. Linux does not attempt to maintain “binary” compatibility between versions, though it does its best to maintain compatibility in source code. There is endless debate about the “correct” way to fix a problem, and competition between fixes. The challenge of this is that it can be hard for application developers to keep up, especially if they want to keep their source code closed and only ship software in binary form.

But the process is completely, utterly transparent. Anybody can see the progress on any fixes to any part of the system, and can jump in with their own solution at any time. It’s a true meritocracy, with those doing the actual work and providing the best solutions winning out over time.

The whole open source ecosystem is nimble enough to provide real fixes to technical problems, rather than just simple workarounds. If the source of the problem is design, it can take a long time to get the right design in place and resolve all the issues that changing the design causes in other applications. But when a bug gets fixed, it’s really fixed and usually doesn’t appear again.

What’s extraordinary about the open source community is that this level of support happens all the time, every day, without charge, in hundreds, thousands of projects out there. People that can get to the bottom of a problem and fix it at the source, not just provide a workaround, are directly reachable and motivated to see their software work as well as possible. They’re not hidden away from the public behind a large corporation, unreachable with layers of clueless support script readers stuffed between you and them. Here are some rules for getting open source support directly from the projects:

• Before asking anybody, do your homework. Use Google, read the project FAQ, make some attempt to learn the basics without pestering people with questions they’ve already answered hundreds of times. Nine times out of ten, your problem has already been encountered and somebody has figured out a workaround.
• Limit the scope of your question to the fundamental problem. Get to the point. I’m obviously guilty of being tremendously long-winded at times, but unless your question is right at the top and asked directly, you’ll probably get ignored. Developers are busy, they don’t want to read a novel, but they’re usually happy to answer a question.
• Provide supporting details after asking your question. Many programs will create a log with lots of information that can help somebody diagnose your problem. Find what looks relevant in the logs. Specify what version of operating system, distribution, application, etc. Specify what you were trying to do, what you expected, and what really happened. But provide this stuff after asking your initial question–people aren’t going to wade through a long email to find your question.
• Contribute something. The easiest way you can contribute is by answering other people’s questions. The whole thing works because people help each other, and this help goes both ways. If you always ask questions and never answer anybody else’s, or provide any other sort of contribution, you’ll eventually start getting ignored.
• Always, always, be positive, respectful, and polite when asking your questions. Developers have a lot invested in their project, and insulting it won’t gain you any favors. Developers are under no obligation to help you either–you haven’t paid for it. Common courtesy is valuable. Complements are welcome.
• Be patient. Sometimes the person who has the answer to your question is away from the computer. Usually you’ll get your problem solved quicker than you would calling some tech support line, but there are times it’s going to take a while. If you don’t get any response in a reasonable period of time (judged by how active the list or forum is, reasonable could be a couple hours or a couple days), there are several likely reasons: You haven’t been specific enough in your question; you’re in the wrong forum (e.g. users when it’s a developer question); nobody else is trying to do what you’re doing (in which case you may need to hire someone with the right skills); the project is dead (it happens sometimes–find another one); or the developers are swamped (give them more time, or come up with a new scenario that sheds light on your problem in a different way).

That list describes how we get open source support at Freelock. Aside from a couple unsupported hardware devices, or issues with proprietary programs, we have yet to get stumped, in over 6 years of extremely heavy Linux and open source use. We’ve never paid a dime for this support, though we have provided help to many others in return.

Some handy tips for users of OpenOffice.org, looking to get away from the mouse…

Ten fantastic keyboard shortcuts in OpenOffice.org

1. You want to make sure nobody will be able to read your documents in 10 years
2. You want to help your buddy who works for Microsoft have enough income to buy a private island in the Carribean, because maybe he would invite you to come for a weekend
3. You feel sorry for the PC on the Mac commercials
4. Your buddy is buying it for you from the Microsoft company store, so you’re actually saving hundreds of dollars! You can’t get those types of deals on free software.
5. You hope that the extra emails it takes between you and your customers, partners, and vendors to get formats that they can open will improve your relationship with them
6. Having the newest software from Microsoft makes you cool
7. You want to extend Microsoft’s monopoly on the desktop, it’s just easier that way
8. You have a big technology budget, and can’t think of any better way to spend those dollars
9. You already spent the money on it, may as well force others to pay their Microsoft tax, too
10. You’re a big fan of Survivor, and like being dropped into an unfamiliar environment and having to figure out all over again how to do the things you need to survive
11. (Bonus!) You don’t know a better solution exists

If your reason for purchasing Office 2007 is #11, drop us an email and ask us how open source software can make your business run better.

Over the weekend, I upgraded my trusty Thinkpad to the new Beta release of Ubuntu, Gutsy Gibbon. Thought I would post my notes so far.

It’s a T43, and I got it around a year ago. The first thing I installed was the beta version of Edgy Eft, and then about a month before Feisty Fawn came out, I upgraded.

This time around, the upgrade wasn’t as clean. First off, my root partition was too full, so I had to do some shuffling to make enough room for the upgrade. Once I did that, it took several hours to download all the packages and start installing. At some point, a Latex package was broken, but the installation continued. When the installation progress bar was about 50% done, the installer crashed with a fatal python error, with the last messages indicating failing to configure Lyx, which depends upon Latex.

The installer couldn’t continue, and couldn’t roll back–I was stuck with a half-upgraded machine. Now you might think this is a serious issue, and for someone without much Linux experience, it might be. But my system never crashed, and I was able to finish the upgrade manually.

If you find yourself stuck half way between an upgrade like this, maybe these notes can help you finish. First off, don’t reboot. As long as your system is running, you’ve got all your tools and Internet access. Here are some things I did to get through, all in a shell window:

1. nm-applet & — restart the network applet, because at some point in the upgrade, the panels had crashed and my system had lost its IP address.
2. dpkg-reconfigure -a — Configure every package that needs to be configured. This took a couple hours, and stopped frequently to ask a question about whether to keep my current configuration of a package, or replace with new. This command failed part way through the first time, but when I ran it again, it made it all the way through (repeating many of the same questions it had the first time).
3. apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade — download system updates, and install. This fixed the broken Latex package.
4. apt-get autoremove — Remove the old packages.
5. apt-get -f install — force installation of packages that still need to be installed. This didn’t do anything in my case, since I had already run dpkg-reconfigure -a, which probably did everything this command would do.
6. apt-get install app1 app2 — there were a couple of applications that were “held back” by the other install commands, not even completing with a dist-upgrade. So I named them directly and apt found a couple other missing packages they depended upon, and installed.
7. Crossed my fingers, and rebooted.

When my system came back up, at first I couldn’t log in. But I was expecting that–one of the key features of Gutsy is a new version of X Windows, with a new configuration system. I had a fair amount of customizations of my xorg.conf file to support multiple monitors, and other things. I used Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to a VT console, logged in, and ran dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, accepting all the defaults. The next time, the X server came up fine, and I could log in.

Now, with Gutsy finally installed, all its new features started to shine. The system immediately asked if I wanted to install the restricted ATI driver for my graphics card. After doing so, and rebooting, it asked if I wanted to enable Xgl, for enhanced desktop effects. I wasn’t expecting this to just work like this–I wasn’t counting on having desktop effects on this laptop at all, due to conflicts with things I need to do with it (multi-monitor, Google Earth, etc).

So I was quite surprised that once I did that, I could enable the Desktop Effects, and soon had all the glitsy stuff working. Well, wobbly windows anyway–the desktop cube didn’t seem to work.

A quick Google search led me to install the ccsm tool — compizconfig-settings-manager, and wow, has this come a long ways. It didn’t seem to work, though–I had wobbly windows but nothing else. Finally, I tried running compiz –replace, and suddenly I have it all. Desktop cubes, Expo, windows that burn up when they close, windows that fold up into a paper airplane and fly off the screen–all the good stuff that can keep you away from productive work for hours!

Gutsy Beta initial impressions/issues

• Even though the update-manager failed, everything seems to work fine right now. About the only issue related to installation that I currently see is a bunch of extra stuff in the “Other” menu, most of which is long gone. Have some menu cleanup to do. Also, Thunderbird disappeared, and I had to reinstall it.
• Thunderbird profile moved from ~/.thunderbird to ~/.mozilla-thunderbird.
• Evolution calendars lost all the color coding. Had to reapply a color to each of my calendar, and these didn’t get saved the first time. Now they save, but no colors in the gnome calendar widget.
• Google Earth doesn’t work with Compiz or XGL. (to be expected, and I haven’t tried turning these off yet)
• Suspend no longer works correctly (again to be expected with Xgl–in Feisty, I had trouble after using any video output).
• Subpixel rendering is SWEET… everything looks fantastic.
• Compiz task bar shows applications across all work spaces–cannot seem to limit it to just the current one. Also, the pager doesn’t turn the cube–it seems to track its own work spaces. It minimizes all the windows, then takes you to a clean desktop and you can’t spin back to the old one…
• Tracker seems to be much better at searching than Beagle. After only a few hours, it had indexed everything, and found more relevant searches than Beagle did until recently…
• In the gnome calendar, tasks can be hidden and appointments shown. This is a great improvement for me…
• Every now and then, it seems like a key or a button press gets stuck. I went to close a few tabs in my development program, and after the first few closed, it then closed every tab I had open–not what I wanted.

These are impressions from less than a day of use. I’m sure I’ll find more to talk about soon–overall it seems quite nice, and I look forward to the new external monitor management, perhaps the key reason I upgraded. I’ll probably turn Compiz/Xgl off in a day or so, to get more of a sense of how well suspend and other OpenGL programs work. For now, it’s quite entertaining…

Several others have listed the applications they use on a daily basis. I’ve been using Linux for my desktop environment for several years, and thought I would share what I use constantly.

• Operating System: Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, 7.10
• Desktop Environment: Gnome (though I tend to prefer KDE overall, Ubuntu does a better job with Gnome, especially integrating laptop features like power management, and Gnome has gotten good enough to use as the primary desktop. You’ll see lots of KDE applications listed here, though!)
• Browser: Firefox (what else?)
• Firefox plugins: Bookmarks Synchronizer, Firebug, Web Developer, Forecast Fox, Google Preview, HTML Validator, Sage, SearchStatus
• Email client: Mozilla Thunderbird, occasionally Evolution
• Thunderbird extensions: Asertiva Extension for Sugar, Display Mail User Agent, Enigmail, Lightning, QuickFile, QuickText
• News Reader: Firefox Sage extension for general stuff, Thunderbird for security-related feeds
• Calendar: Evolution
• Address book: SugarCRM (okay, it’s not a desktop application)
• Miscellaneous notes: Tomboy
• IM: Kopete (though I mostly keep it off to avoid interruptions)
• IRC: Konversation
• Networking: NetworkManager with OpenVPN add-on, OpenVPN Admin for connecting/testing client VPN networks
• Development: ActiveState Komodo Professional (almost the only proprietary software on the list!)
• File management: Konqueror (hard to beat this for connecting to almost any type of server out there)
• General editing: vi
• Office software: OpenOffice.org (currently at 2.2)
• Desktop search: Beagle
• Graphic editing: Gimp
• Database editing: Rekall
• Multimedia playing: Kaffeine, Amarok, and DemocracyTV
• Photo Management: F-Spot
• Audio editing: Audacity, though I’m starting to play around with Jokosher
• Disk Encryption: Truecrypt
• Personal Finance: GnuCash
• Repetitive Stress Injury Prevention: Workrave

I use a lot of server software, and spend much of my time in shell (terminal) windows… I usually have two terminal windows, each with 3 or 4 open tabs, all connected to different servers, many with multiple sessions running in screen.

There’s a bunch of other software I have installed, but don’t use regularly, including Scribus, Inkscape, Xara Extreme, and many others. Aside from some specialty industry applications, I have a hard time imagining anything I couldn’t do with my current desktop environment, and out of this entire list, there’s exactly one item I have to pay for: the Komodo IDE I use for development. Everything else here is free.

We’ve needed this sort of thing for a while:
Openoffice.org Label Templates for Ooo Writer free

Looks like IBM is going aggressively up against the Outlook/Exchange juggernaut. Several months ago, they made Domino, their mail server, free for any business who buys the licenses for the mail client, Notes. Now they’re making Notes available for Linux. The Notes/Domino combination is more than just an email system–it’s a complete database system, including calendaring, team rooms, private intranet features, addressing, and much more. While Notes is a lot different, with a fair learning curve, my clients who use it absolutely love it.
IBM unveils Lotus Notes client for Linux

I’m the token computer consultant in a local chapter of a business group, and I provide all kinds of services related to computers. Earlier this week I announced to the group that I don’t fix Windows machines. I know plenty of other computer consultants who make a fine living cleaning viruses, spyware, and fixing Windows issues.
I prefer to address business problems, come up with creative solutions that help businesses move forward, not fix what should already be working. And today I read a fine post by one of my favorite bloggers, which illustrates some of my motivation: Seth’s Blog: “No” to average.

Wow. Here’s a great, lengthy article detailing all sorts of things about using Linux and open source software in small businesses. Linux: A Buyer’s Guide for SMEs–ZDNet UK.

Just stumbled upon a pretty cool web interface to a centralized backup system. You can manage a series of snapshot backups of all the computers on your network. It can automatically send a user an email if there’s a repeated problem of missed backups. And users can restore their own backups through the web site. BackupPC: Open Source Backup to disk.

I found this while reading an article in Linux Journal that also has some helpful hints for setting up a Linux-based backup system: Build a Home Terabyte Backup System Using Linux.

Now here’s something everyone should do, before plopping down a few hundred dollars on Microsoft Office:
NewsForge | NewsForge presents free OpenOffice.org training videos.

With resources like these, the free office alternatives become even more compelling.

Here’s a fascinating interview with Gary Edwards, who was on the committee that developed OpenDocument as a standard. He talks about the participants on the committee, Microsoft’s involvement and then after-the-fact distortions, why Microsoft XML documents can’t compete, and how OpenDocument will change the web. Read it here: :: Interviews : Gary Edwards: OpenOffice.org 2.0 leaping over legacy lockdown with clean XML

This school made 60 Pentium I and Pentium II computers useful for their students, using a Linux thin-client solution, on a tiny technology budget. Check out their story: Rescuing a School Technology Program: Linux Thin-client Overview OP/ED

The New York Times has a story about people throwing away their PCs because the cost of cleaning out the viruses and spyware costs more than a new computer.Corrupted PC’s Find New Home in the Dumpster - New York Times

If you want to dispose of your spyware-infested computers, we’re happy to take them off your hands at Freelock Computing. We recycle them as Linux computers to fit various purposes and put them to good use. Or you can read our latest newsletter for more tips about how to deal with this issue.

OpenOffice.org is a full-featured office suite, with a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, and drawing software. It’s been available at OpenOffice.org for years, for Windows, Linux, Mac, and other operating systems. However, Mac users have not taken to it, mainly because it doesnot support the native Mac interface–the menus are in individual windows rather than on the Mac menubar, cut and paste doesn’t work consistently, and various other issues that break the usability features that make people like Macs in the first place.

No longer. NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice to use the native Mac Aqua interface. They just made their first official release today. Check it out at NeoOffice/J Home.

Here’s an interesting story about things to consider when moving larger businesses to Linux. Linux.com | Windows to Linux Migration Guide.

Tech World is reporting that a migration of 55,000 users to a Linux desktop has been successfully completed. Techworld.com - World’s largest Linux migration gets major boost

As a computer consultant helping small businesses, one of the first things I do is install Firefox on the Windows computers. While there are still a handful of sites that only work with Internet Explorer, universally I find new users like the Fox… Seth Godin has quick instructions, if you need a hand, or another reason to choose Firefox: Seth’s Blog: Fix your computer.