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+1

We could use more men like these guys.   

Sorry to be so late to the party. 

The question is too generic.  Is Linux a Desktop (aka PC) hobby?  That seems to be what you're discussing.

Is it a hobby OS for Fortune 100 Companies?  Not hardly.  I work for a F-20 company and was the first Linux guy they hired in 2009.  By 2010 they decided to start a Unix to Linux migration project and kick out every Unix OS in favor of SuSE Linux.  Linux was the first OS to pass internal audit.  And we did it our first try.  >95% of our business critical apps run on Linux.  We have one of (if not the) largest SAP installations in the world, all running on SuSE.  We're at 1500+ and growing servers.

Sorry to disappoint the MS FUD Teams... Linux is a real, enterprise class OS.

 

   Yes.  Want!

Meh.  I've had a seven inch...  ... .... tab for 18 months.  Samsung Galaxy Tab.  It's a great 7" tab.  Works great for Nook, Kindle, ePub reader and Angry Birds.  Not really great for laptop replacement at work.  Browsing sorta sucks.  Email and schedule are OK using Touchdown, but it's not great for taking notes.  I think a 10" tab works much better for laptop "replacement" during meetings, etc.

Where's the freaking "Indifferent" smiley?   

We'll just go with this: 

I'm sure I've asked this before.... Where's Buttercup?  Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup?  Duh! 

   I have a Raspberry Pi B Linux Computer in my possession.

 

Master of Similes was not given without thought.

I've been a highly functioning alcoholic for about 4 months now.  I know it's bad, I also know that when I find my girl, I will become normal again.

In the mean time, if you are a social drinker and like vodka.  I've tried all of the "Top Shelf" vodkas, VOX, Grey Goose, Kettle One, Three Olives (2nd shelf IMHO) and Absolute (2nd shelf).  The good news about these is that you can find them in most American (or at least Ohio) bars.  Svedka (Vodka of the year in 2033) is my #1 by far.  5x distilled and filtered.  Tastes great, extremely low hangover quotient and OMG Cheap!  USD @ 23.00 for a 1.5 liter bottle.  That's the big bottle for the uninitiated.  Normal bar bottles are 750ml.

Just thought I'd share. 

Self confession:  I am an Android phone whore. 

In Dec. I "upgraded" to a Samsung Nexus (google phone) on Verizon.  I despised the battery life and bought the "big" battery.  It was OK with careful monitoring.  Radio's seemed weak.  So I imitated my Profile Icon one night and "lost" it.  Turns out it was just dead on my couch (found it next day), but I needed a phone so I headed to VZW and picked up a RAZR Maxx.  I'm in love.  Best phone I've owned since my thumbwheel, monochrome blackberry. 

It doesn't have ICS yet, but I don't really care.  Batt. life is sick.  Radios seem much better than Nexus.  I was able to root and install No-cost Wifi Access point with minimal effort after visit to XDA-Developers.

I'm not sure if that helps our friends over the pond, but I hope it helps someone. 

These were not my first two 'droids.    

   These have been on back order for months. 

I think I ordered mine in Feb.  It's due to arrive this month.   One of the guys @ work had his in the office the other day.  It was running XBMC.  Pretty neat. 

 

Just run as root.  All the kewl kids are doing it. 

VLC will not let you play movies as root. 

Welcome to the club SuperboyAC

Please be aware that Linux is not perfect either.  It does give you the opportunity to get very involved in the details of your OS, but it has it's own pitfalls*.

I've got a working Fedora Core 13 Image that I can't move away from.  I've tried.....  Just tonight I tried openSuSE (make up your own pronunciation) 12.1 as a replacement.   It doesn't recognize my RealTek 1G NIC.  Of all the things to not get... Sheesh.  So play with some different distro's.  I've previously had very good experience with PCLinuxOS, but they have yet to release their 64 bit version.

MintOS seems like a good place to start for former Windows users.  I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu and/or Ubuntu based distros, but Mint seems pretty cool.

Why I like my Fed 13:  I have Virtual Box installed and running.  Chrome and Flash work.  I have a terminal window and a bit torrent client.  My 2 TB backup drive is mounted. My SSD works (quickly) and I feel at home.
I really wish I could upgrade, but I haven't found a good replacement yet.  But then I ran Windows XP until 2005 and I still have it on my Work Laptop, so my opinion is skewed.

*Desktop Linux:  I think Linux is 100% perfect for any server installation.

@Rover - you're absolutely right. Thanks for making me smile.

Best response I could hope for.  Wanting to make more people smile is a goal in my life. 

Thanks for saying so.

Once in a while you realize that things are really pretty swell.  Allow me to share:

1) I'm a Linux Engineer, so I get to do stuff I like almost every day.
2) I'm on the Open Source Development initiative at work... we're planning a completely OSS, PaaS solution for Green Field projects. 
3) I'm dating a really nice young lady and we spent almost the whole last weekend together.
4) New (to me) Car!
  - I crashed my 1999 car 2 weeks ago 
  - Ins. covered my rental car
  -  Total loss covered my loan pay off and after my deductable, they're sending me ~$500. 
  - New car is a 2009 w/ 25,000 miles and it is WAY FUN to drive. 
  - No one was injured in the crash
5) I just finished Angry Birds Seasons w/ 3 *'s on every level plus all eggs.

Life is good, sometimes you just need to celebrate the little things.   

I'm sure I'm not the only one happy this week... share the happy! 

Woot!

LMAO... vi vs. emacs... not from me!  It's all personal preference.

Would that all of DC loved Linux as much as some of us do.

I'm just thinking first DC, next the world...

There are some places that Linux falls flat in usability.  Maybe the happy hackers at DC can correct that

I currently work for large, top xx corp where we started rolling Linux almost 3 years ago.  Today we have 1,350+ servers, we have version control, configuration management, central management, etc. 

<tooting my own horn>
We are the only platform to pass internal audit, and we did it the first time around.  Hey -- We had a green field and the whole of google to tell us what to do.  I'm just the guy who took advantage of it
</toot>

Server Linux is 100% ready to rule the world.

Desktop, not so much....  DC to the rescue! 

You could spend some time getting conversant with the Bourne Shell if you're looking for similar functionality. That's what they put it in there for.
 (see attachment in previous post)
And ignore those odd-looking people who will tell you anything you can possibly want to do can be done better and faster in EMACS.
It probably can. But you don't want to start hanging out with that crew.

 emacs is a world unto itself.   You might want to learn vi  just because it's available 99.99% of the time.

node.js seems like it's still pretty young and growing. Best bet is probably on their site keeping up with the changes.

Hey Renegade,

It looks like I'm late to the party.  Good luck with your transition.

Just some thoughts in case they come in handy...
1) OpenSuSE is a pretty solid distro.  It has it's ism's, but YaST makes it a pretty strong player for a new convert.
2) Centos is RedHat.  So is Scientific Linux.  This is important as a LOT of server apps are built for RH.  99% of them can run on SuSE. It just seems that a lot of documentation assumes RedHat and so you sometimes have to translate and adjust slightly.
3) Centos/SciLinux/RedHat do not have a direct YaST replacement.  You can install something like WebMin to take up the slack.  It's really only good for 1 at a time systems, but that probably covers your need.
4) Fedora is not RedHat.  I wouldn't use it for a server.
5) Damn near everything in can be configured in a plain text file somewhere.  Most of the system stuff live in /etc. 
6) Learn the basics of vi.  It's always available and very handy for quick file edits.
7) Do use LVM for partitioning your disks.  Nothing says cool like adding a new hard drive into your existing FS structure.
EXT4 or BTRFS.  EXT4 if you want solid tools.  BTRFS if you want cutting edge. (BTRFS has it's on LVM built in... cool)

PM me if you get really stuck. I can usually find someone who knows the answer   

I'm really hoping this becomes a "pluggable"/"isolated" user validation system.  I currently have Linux validating against AD using Quest (via PAM) and adLDAP.  I'd live a single point to alter for Yii support.  I can supply Group Membership, etc.  I just need 1 point   to change for framework wide authentication.

Party on dudes.

Hmm... I was looking pretty hard a Yii, but then thought Symfony 2 looked a little better.

If I had a "support group" I might be interested in using more

I'm looking for a platform to build some serious (IMHO) web application(s).  It's really one application, with several default views.

[Tax Freedom Day]

In the US, May 30th is referred to as Tax Freedom Day. Because that's the date by which the average wage earner has traditionally made enough to pay all of his or her tax obligations. So for five months out of the twelve, all US taxpayers are basically working for their government. They don't start working for themselves until June 1!

According to The American Spectator however, in 2011, the date is more correctly August 12th...

 

It's interesting to me that we all accept May 30 or Aug 12 as Tax Freedom Day.  And then we think we're paying something less than 41.6% tax.   May 30 equals 41.6% of the year and typically 41.6% of the money I'll earn that year.  

Just something to think about I guess.

@mouser:  If you think this is becoming divisive we should probably lock the thread.

Sorry for not letting it rest.

We're having a nice civil discussion.  No reason to feel sorry.

Although I see your point and actually agree with practically all of it, there is something nagging.

Taken from the U.S. Census bureau:
In 2009 there were 117,181,000 households in the US. The phrase that keeps returning is: "the top 1% controls 95% of the money in the US"
So that leaves a solid 116 million households. How much Federal taxes are for each of those households I don't know, but assume that when on average each of these households pays 1000 USD/year, there would be 116,000,000,000 USD/year on tax revenue.

How can one say that the rich pay the lion share? (yes, I am fully aware that this projection of numbers is way too simple)

Then again, such numbers also mean that taxing the rich more will not make much of dent either. So government spending is the major issue.

Agreed - Gov't spending is the major issue we can agree on.

I think your numbers got scrambled.  According to Wikipedia (the 100% most accurate source in all the world  )  2007 Fed Income Tax was 1.366 Trillion and change.  There were just under 139 million returns filed giving a flat average of ~$9,800 per return.  We don't know if those are households or not.

If I'm reading the graph correctly and it's accurate, the top 25% of all income earners paid 85% or 1.161 Trillion of those dollars.  The bottom 50% of earners paid 0.041 Trillion or 41 Billion of those dollars.  Leaving the top 51-74% of income earners to pay the remaining 164 Billion dollars.

Warren and his other top 1% friends paid 505 Billion of that themselves. 

Hmmm, how many secret agencies you you really need? The US military machine is also quite costly. Spent a few less percentage points (single digit!) less on these and invest that money in infrastructure (more jobs), alternative energy sources (more high-tech jobs).

Everyone is better off for it (incl. the rich, so I truly don't understand why the Tea party gets their knickers in such a twist about tax increases if the need arises).

I'm not in the tea party.  My understanding is they get their knickers twisted for exactly the reason agreed on above.  Gov't spending needs to be brought back in-line.  Until then, raising taxes is out of the question because we've had so many "fake" spending cuts in the past.  e.g.  We'll cut spending by eliminating the cost of the war.  We have plans to be out by 2011.    Then something changes and that deal of off.  The spending cut isn't realized.

If the above makes me a socialist simpleton, so be it. Live and let live.

I never thought that about you.  Hope I didn't imply that. 

I'm all for changing the tax code.  They're are way too many loop holes for guys like WG Buffett.  Why does he only pay 17% and I pay more.
I'm a little on the fence here.

On the one hand, companies that make lots of money also tend to create lots of jobs.  Not always, but usually.  Should we penalize profitable companies with more taxes?    When you think about it, taxes are like insurance or rent.  It costs money to keep the USA safe from bad guys, keep the roads repaired, etc. etc.  Since we all benefit from National Scale perks, we should all share in the cost of those perks.  But how do you fairly distribute the cost? 

Flat taxes have pros and cons, so do sliding scales.

I don't know what's "fair" but I pretty darn sure all the rhetoric from some liberals about "Taxing the Rich" is a distraction and is designed to incite class envy; even more enmity.

I think we all agree things need to change.

Mr. Buffett is free to write a check anytime he feels the need.  If he feels so guilty about all the money he make he should ended his article with "So I'm sending my first payment as a gesture of good faith.  $10 million dollars payable to the IRS."

So now he pays 17%.  Still paying 6.9 million per year.  What is that the Federal Government provides that costs so much more to do for Warren Buffet than me? 

The fact still stands the the top few percent of income earners still pay the lion's share (in actual dollars) of the federal tax.

My point is still that the federal government spending is out of control* and needs to be scaled back a lot.    *This is not just the current administration although they are the worst by far.  Spending has been running away since Bush 1.

I do feel the wealthiest people in our country have an obligation to do more.  Bill and Belinda Gates set up a charity to do just that.  It's about only thing I like about Bill.

I do not think it's the federal governments job to re-distribute wealth.  Nor does the Constitution give them power to do so.

I guess we'll see how everyone else feels in Nov. 2012.

Proportionally, the higher your income the more your tax rate.
Some numbers:
$50k annual income pays ~18% Fed tax (that might be way off.. I haven't see the tax tables lately)  Which would be ~ $9,000 taxes
$100k annual income pays ~23% Fed tax (again the % may be off)  which would be ~ $23,000 taxes.
"The top 10 percent of income earners pay the most in federal taxes. Sixty-eight percent of federal revenue is generated by this group."

Except, keep going up the income ladder and the model breaks down. Check out what Warren Buffet and any given hedge fund manager pays (less than 14%), and when the richest 400 Americans make more money than the next 150,000,000 million Americans, they should pay their fair share or go live somewhere else. If you make a million dollars, you won't be paying 23%, I promise you.

I like to see the source for the 14% numbers.  Even if that is accurate, do you not consider someone -- say Bill Gates -- who makes 100 Million giving 14 million to the federal government fair?  I'll never pay 14 million over my life time (or probably my children and grand children).  They pay that EVERY year.

Oh well, I've been all over the income ranges, and I get screwed no matter where I'm at!

Me too!  Nothing like seeing your tax money go to support things you disagree with -- whatever they are.

Which I think is the real problem.  The Fed. Gov't. spends too dang (cleaned that up for the kids) much money.  They spend more than they take in.  The have a standard budget increase built in every year.  Some (not all) of those spending cuts they just approved were actually just increases they didn't make. 

Dave Ramsey has a great article about this:  Federal Budget 

If their household income was $55,000 per year, they’d actually be spending $96,500—$41,500 more than they made! That means they’re spending 175% of their annual income! So, in 2011 they’d add $41,500 of debt to their current credit card debt of $366,000!

That's insane.  All of this pointing fingers to Warren Buffet and "the Rich" is a distraction.  Washington is spending this country into bankruptcy and they want us to support their plan to steal money from "the Rich" to cover it.  It's a basic redistribution of wealth scheme and it is a socialist policy. 

I am against socialism.

Oh and by the way, those Rich People already pay most of the taxes. 

Not proportionally they don't...

Proportionally, the higher your income the more your tax rate.
Some numbers:
$50k annual income pays ~18% Fed tax (that might be way off.. I haven't see the tax tables lately)  Which would be ~ $9,000 taxes
$100k annual income pays ~23% Fed tax (again the % may be off)  which would be ~ $23,000 taxes.

I know that I personally pay more taxes, both in actual dollars and % as I have made more money over the years.

So, I'm not sure I understand your position.

"The top 10 percent of income earners pay the most in federal taxes. Sixty-eight percent of federal revenue is generated by this group."

Article: Guess who really pays the taxes

OP:  That's some scary stuff.

"Tax the rich.."   Wow that sounds great.  Those "Rich."  Except the left a word off... Rich People. They're people;  they've earned or inherited their money.  Why does it belong to someone else?  Oh and by the way, those Rich People already pay most of the taxes. 

According to the principles on which the US of A was founded, You are responsible for you;  Not the government.  It's frightening that so many people want to turn their (or more likely, someone else's) money over to the government for "correct distribution."  The government.  Really?  Isn't this the same wasteful government that we railed about for spending $200 for a hammer? 

These people (see links in the OP) are just manipulating voters to gain more power.  It's sad that so many are ready to blindly follow.