Good Samaritans Choose Linux 148
blowdart writes "According to this article on the BBC news site the charity Samaritans has chosen Linux to provide it with more secure and powerful computer systems. The installation was supplied by Trustix with IBM providing network security. 'One of the great challenges for computing in any charity is to provide more for less,' said Mike Hermon, Information Systems Manager at Samaritans. According to the Trustix press release the installation is limited to security hardware only, "Samaritans is installing a four zone Trustix Firewall on an IBM eServer x305 and a Trustix Proxy Server on an IBM eServer x300 server.'" Oddly enough, today's Word A Day is Good Samaritan.
Good thought for the day (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good thought for the day (Score:1)
Does they use it only for server, or also at desktop too?
--
Stefan
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Re:Good thought for the day (Score:1)
*tch* Anarchists
oh, okay? (Score:5, Funny)
But I thought Windows was cheaper than Linux [slashdot.org]...
This is good (Score:5, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:This is good (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, as opposed to the free technical support calls you get from Microsoft? :)
Re:This is good (Score:2)
Re:This is good (Score:1)
Oh really? Are you sure? =P
Re:This is good (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, wouldn't this be an ideal opportunity for one of the big distros (Hi, Redhat!) to stand up and volunteer *free* tech support for this worthy charity? Free publicity and all that.... *hint, hint!*
Re:This is good (Score:1)
Now, wouldn't this be an ideal opportunity for one of the big distros (Hi, Redhat!) to stand up and volunteer *free* tech support for this worthy charity? Free publicity and all that.... *hint, hint!*
So their OS is free, now you want their services to be free as well? How will they make money, sell their shoes?
Business Model:
1. Develop Free Product with Free support
2. ???????
3. Fail to Profit
Re:This is good (Score:2)
Read what I wrote. I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that they provide (a limited?) free support service for *this* charity. Normal punters get to pay for support. Hence;
Business Model:
1. Develop Free Product
2. Charge for support.
3. Provide free support for a worthy cause.
4. Win karma points from the populace & sell more service contracts
2. ???????
3. Profit!
See?
Re:This is good (Score:1)
Samaritans' choices (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Samaritans' choices (Score:4, Funny)
You think the the logo [slashdot.org] is just for looks...
Bad Samaritans! (Score:1)
um... (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:um... (Score:1)
What in Gods name are you talking about? Some sort of jive?
Re:um... (Score:1)
good s..
ohh!!!!
Re:um... (Score:2)
Internal networks in charities (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's just blown 99.9% of the arguments for keeping Windows on the desktop out of the water.
If the support is there, and it's done intelligently, then this is a brilliant move that all similar charities should seriously think about adopting - especially if they're just setting up and haven't paid any money out for Microsoft Open Licensing yet.
-Blacklaw
Re:Internal networks in charities (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Internal networks in charities (Score:2, Insightful)
They've already shown a willingness to try FOSS solutions, and I think it very likely that the next call centre that gets set up (especially if it is outside the UK/US) will be running GNU/Linux on the desktop.
It's a blow for the Open Source boys that TS are still using Windows on the desktop, but that's probably simply because they've already paid for it. If you've just shelled out £200 per computer for an operating system, you don't turn around and say "Right! Let's ditch it and install a free version instead!". It's the same reason why any attempt on my part to get a few machines switched over to Linux (to give the kids experience of other operating systems) have been met with apathy and, from the beancounters, fear.
-Blacklaw
Re:Internal networks in charities (Score:1)
"The charity is already using SuSe Professional Linux distribution."
Better giving it to MS... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Better giving it to MS... (Score:1)
suicidal tendencies (Score:5, Funny)
Baz
Re:suicidal tendencies (Score:2)
Re:suicidal tendencies (Score:1)
Re:suicidal tendencies (Score:1)
Re:suicidal tendencies (Score:2)
Nice call, btw. You might be able to help me with a quick misfits trivia: is 138 a police code, and is it juvenile delinquents?
Re:suicidal tendencies (Score:1)
from what i could find (you piqued my curiousity) police code 138 just means that the officer is available. nothing exciting there. ;^)
-m13b
LWN article (Score:4, Informative)
Just FYI
One quarter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One quarter? (Score:1)
Re:One quarter? (Score:3, Informative)
Regards
Re:One quarter? (Score:2)
At long last, someone starts making sense. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Linux is great anyway, but I'm glad that people are realising that most people in a business use 1-3 applications 95% of the time.
Make sure those are nice, easy to use, and look pretty much like the ones you've replaced, and you're laughing.
I thought Trustix was a strange choice though - why would someone choose it over the more widely accepted distros, such as RedHat, Debian, SuSE etc?
Still, good for them that they chose something different - even if they probably did it soley due to the fact that they are a charity, and money spent on Microsoft/Sun/any other commercial OS is money they can't spend elsewhere helping suicidal people.
Re:At long last, someone starts making sense. (Score:5, Informative)
Because out of the box Trustix is strictly CLI and has only packages that they feel are secure. They try to keep it as simple as they can. The thing that I like the most is when there is a security patch (remember the BIND bug a few weeks ago?) one command later and it is fixed (I also got some Apache fixes that I had forgotten to do.......) Just clean and simple. Easy to keep Locked down.
Re:At long last, someone starts making sense. (Score:1)
Remember that zlib vuln a while back?
One apt-get upgrade and I was clean. Done in about 4 seconds, compare to recompiling every package under the sun (what some of my friends had to do). Debian life is sweet.
Re:At long last, someone starts making sense. (Score:2)
Of course it works on Suse and Mandrake as well, so overall all of the major distros are moron proof to upgrade. One apt-get upgrade fixes them all.
/. sensationalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Good Samaritans Choose Linux
First sentence (all the ADHD infliced slashbots can read before posting drivel about great wins for Linux:
According to this article on the BC news site the charity Samaritans has chosen Linux to provide it with more secure and powerful computer systems.
Final sentence (and the crux of the article):
Samaritans is installing a four zone Trustix Firewall on an IBM eServer x305 and a Trustix Proxy Server on an IBM eServer x300 server.
How is some organization implementing a Linux firewall/proxy server earth shattering news?
Re:/. sensationalism (Score:2, Informative)
A press release telling the truth? Oh the irony
Re:/. sensationalism (Score:1)
Hmm, I thought this site was described as "News for nerds" and not "Earth shattering news for nerds"..
Don't like the news? Move on to the next article.
Re:/. sensationalism (Score:1)
Re:/. sensationalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually no.
As a new article is posted in a section, the front page is update to have that article in it. So whatever acrticle is newest in Technology will be in the Technology section of the front page.
Why is this Troll modded up? (Score:4, Interesting)
Any win for linux especially higher profile ones are worth mentioning. You also seem to forget that Slashdot is read by the majority of the tech community. I'm sure most people reading Slashdot don't even run linux. But the more articles there are about companies using linux, means its more likely that the readers of this site who don't run Linux will consider running it.
You seem to be forgetting that all combined the advertising power of all the linux companies is pathetic. Contrast that to the hundreds of millions that Microsoft can spend on not only traditional print, radio, and tv ads, but also on paid salesman who go company to company making sure your using windows.
Somehow I don't think a little PR on Slashdot, who btw is a big believer in linux in case you forgot, hurts anyone. In fact its good for the community and the more "migration stories" the better.
linux market share (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:linux market share (Score:2)
Re:linux market share (Score:2)
>Wow, that's pretty high. Anybody know where their numbers are coming from?
Everyone knows that 73% of all statistics are wrong.
Obviously, those numbers are part of the 99% of all statistics which are either pulled from thin air or (mis)quoted out of context.
This may sound odd (Score:1)
Quick Question (Score:4, Interesting)
So why do we prefix the word "Samaritan" with the word "Good" ? Is there any particular reason for it other than the bible story ? Can you get such a thing as a "Bad Samaritan" ?
This is just a curiosity thing so please dont take it as flmaebait.
Re:Quick Question (Score:5, Informative)
I guess that saying "Good Samaritan" is actually a bit of a disservice, since it could suggest that Samaritans are normally otherwise -- which was the prejudice that Jesus pointing out as false.
While we're on biblical outgroups... (Score:2)
I hear that "Palestine" is a modern European mispronunciation imposed on the area during the colonial period and that the people there, to this day, pronounce it (as their ancestors did before them) "FILL-ih-steen".
As in "Philistines".
That conflict has been going on for a LONG time.
Re:While we're on biblical outgroups... (Score:1)
Re:Quick Question (Score:2)
Re:Quick Question (Score:1)
Re:Quick Question (Score:2)
if you want a modern context.
To say "Good Samaritan" is to reinforce
a prejudice against Samiratans and Canaanites.
These people were the offspring of conquerors and indigenous tribes. When the Jews returned to Canaan to create Israel, the land was not empty and deserted; rather, it was populated by many races. These people were murdered and displaced under a divine mandate, whether you take the judeo-christian view or not... Even the Jewish tradition acknowledged that they conquered the land and took it from people who were living there. (Perhaps you read the divine command to murder the Canaanites, let's say, Deuteronmy chapter 7, as something more benign... But you'd need to be a pretty skilled spin doctor to soften "Do not leave alive anything that breathes... Completely destroy them [Hittes, Canaanites, etc.] as [God] has commanded you..."
Well, I'm guessing that was written long AFTER the genocide and occupation was done, as a justification, like a schoolgirl justifies sleeping with "motorcycle boy" instead of the "nice guy", after the fact...
This was a major political problem 2000 years ago, and continues to be a primary cause of unrest in the region today.
They have also some new policies.. (Score:3, Funny)
"Can we offer you help?"
"Would you like to know more?"
Yes, I need help, I want to know more!
RTFM!!! *click*
ducks..
Re:They have also some new policies.. (Score:2)
Re:They have also some new policies.. (Score:1)
They should be running DOS! (Score:5, Funny)
1. Tons of free abandonware programs!
2. The OS is abandonware itself! Go crazy, fileswappers!
3. Totally consistent text-mode CLI!
4. Lightning-fast on today's hardware!
5. Lack of support for big partitions = built-in anti pr0n controls!
6. Works with ANY hardware you can throw at it -- hey, even if it doesn't do anything 99% of the time, at least it doesn't throw up a thousand bitch-boxes about how it can't find drivers!
7. Split seconds from boot to command line!
8. Easy management tools! Bad partition? FORMAT C:!
9. Over 20 years of research and experience behind it!
and last but not least...
10. Everyone will think you're running Linux!
Re:They should be running DOS! (Score:1)
10. Everyone will think you're running Linux!
It's funny you should mention this, but I live a lot of my working life in a cygwin bash session. One day the technician saw me doing that, and asked: "why are you running DOS?"
It's hard for some people to realise that the command line is *far* more powerful that the gui, if you know what you're doing.
Re:They should be running DOS! (Score:1)
freedos exists though.
tip for ac's, karmawhoring is so easy there's no need to do ac'ing..
Don't forget those URLs! (Score:1)
so you're saying i can go and buy ms dos6.22(or whatever was the latest) from ms and get support for it? or dr dos? freedos exists though.
To find them:
FreeDOS [freedos.org] (GNU GPL, still under active development.)
DR-DOS [drdos.com] (still "closed source", not sure about development future.)
Re: (Score:1)
Make your own "Guess who's using Linux?" story (Score:5, Funny)
"{company name} has switched all {number} of their servers to Linux. 'They say Linux is for {adjective} people, but I'm a {noun} and I find it much easier to support and to {verb}. I hope to save {large number} this year.' Oh, and Microsoft is very {adjective}."
Re:Make your own "Guess who's using Linux?" story (Score:1)
Has any organization ever said "Yeah, we tried the Linux thing. Didn't work so hot. We're back to Windows now"
Quote of the day: (Score:5, Funny)
- Bill Gates, 2002
"Samaritans! Sanitarians! Satanists!"
- Steve Ballmer, 2002
The parable of the Good Samaritan (revisited) (Score:5, Funny)
"What is written in the FAQ?" Linus replied. "How do you read it?"
He answered: "'Keep your kernel constantly patched, and secure your unused ports, and always keep an off-site backup'; and, 'Always share your code freely with your fellow developers.'"
"You have answered correctly," Linus replied. "Do this and your system will remain up."
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Linus, "And who is my fellow developer?"
In reply Linus said: "A man was going down from Seattle to San Francisco to an open source conference, when he fell into the hands of wardrivers. They stripped him of his firewall, formatted his system disk and went away, leaving him unable to access even his webmail.
"An MCSE-certified consultant happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he flashed his headlights and passed by in the other lane.
"So too, an Oracle salesman, when he came to the place and saw him, accelerated his BMW and passed by in the other lane.
"But a Unix developer, as he traveled, came to where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and reinstalled his kernel, pulling out book floppys and data restore CDs. Then he put the man on his own wireless network, took him to SourceForge and upgraded his firewall.
"The next day (for it was a slow network connection) he took out two silver CD-Rs and gave them to the man. 'It is a custom distribution,' he said, 'and should keep you up and running until you can get to your own restore tapes. And here is my SMS number if you need any help on how to install it.'
"Which of these three do you think was a fellow developer to the man who fell into the hands of the wardrivers?"
The expert in system administration replied, "The one who shared his distribution without cost or consulting fees."
Linus told him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:25-37, Revised Internet Version
Re:The parable of the Good Samaritan (revisited) (Score:2)
The victim on the road was a Jew. Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with one another. For a Samaritan to help a Jew would be like a KKK member helping an African (as I understand it).
Your parody would have been more appropriate if you had put the MCSE in the place of the good Samaritan, but you put him in the place of the first passerby who was a Jewish priest!
Here's the implicit analogy=> Jewish priest:Jew :: MCSE guy:Linux geek
Hunnh??
Re:The parable of the Good Samaritan (revisited) (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Powerful... how? (Score:2)
Powerful? In what way? Maybe it's just me but "powerful" == hardware-esque performance. This is like that article a couple of days ago that said you could tweak old gaming systems to outperform newer but untweaked ones.
Of course you could say that powerful refers to utility/robustness/security... but why not say that instead? It is such a nebulous/marketing term that makes it seem that you could drop Linux on your UltraSPARC III workstation and get a twenty-fold performance increase.
Re:Powerful... how? (Score:2, Interesting)
Think about the number of integrated development environments that have been described as 'powerful'. That's how I define it.
Power in a *hardware* sense, though, has to me a different flavour entirely. But that's for another rant.
-Blacklaw
"Good Samaritans choose Linux" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Good Samaritans choose Linux" (Score:2)
Re:"Good Samaritans choose Linux" (Score:2)
Baby oil used to come from babies, but babies are just too small and too lean to meet the demand. So, most baby oil on the market today comes from plump, cute baby whales. For marketing reasons, of course, they can't call it baby whale oil. Too many people care about baby whales, so telling the truth on this would be corporate suicide. So, the baby oil companies just keep on calling it baby oil, and let you think that what you're buying is rendered baby rather than those cute, fuzzy, big-eyed baby whales.
Oh, the humanity!
A new caller for the Samaritans ? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft press release reads: (Score:2)
Acronym for the day (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The thought that sickens me is... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Would you advise the Salvation Army ... (Score:2)
Would you also advise the Salvation Army to leave the locks off the doors to their soup kitchens, stores, warehouses, and refurbishment workshops?
There really are bad guys.
Bad guys who are theives often have no more conscience about stealing from a charity than they do from anyone else. Bad guys who are graffiti artists often have no more conscience about tagging a charity building than any other. And so on.
So why should bad guys who crack systems, for fun, profit, or to use as a DDOS tool, be any less willing to crack a charity's system than a home, business, school, government bureau, or hospital system?
Re:The thought that sickens me is... (Score:1)
more for less? (Score:1)
this article is stupid (Score:1)
Is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)
For that matter, why is it news(worthy) when any company/organization chooses Linux? Just about every day I see one of these "Some Company/Organization Chooses Linux" stories. Is Linux in such a bad state that Slashdot needs to publicize everybody who decides to use it?
Re:Is this news? (Score:2)
Must go now, I have about 5 separate stories of different companies/organisations running Linux to be submitted.
I think we see too many of these server switches. When its a company switching to a desktop, that is big news...but every server switch is just one story in a swirling pool. I guess this one was posted though because it is the charity organisation Good Samaritans rather than some small unknown enterprise.
"Good Samaritan" is perjorative! (Score:2)
The Good Samaritan parable would have an excellent modern analogy, let's say, in a Palestian rebel deciding one day to assist a wounded Israeli soldier. But if we started referring to that Palestinian as the "one good Palestinian amid the whole race of evil ones" I think it would escalate the war!
Please consider that the impact of the Good Samaritan story stems from the fact that the Samaritans considered the Jews to be untouchables. What's more, the Samaritan in the story was breaking the law by helping the Jew. The priest and the Levite kept walking, which I imagine they were required by law to do.
What I take from the story is that there were good and bad Samaritans, good and bad Jews, and all lived under a terribly repressive social order. Not unlike the present day.
word a day? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Capitalized? (Score:1)
Re:But the Samaritans take their name from the Bib (Score:1)
So this is a bad thing?
Re:But the Samaritans take their name from the Bib (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But the Samaritans take their name from the Bib (Score:1)
the only connection to any religion that samaritans have is our name. the philosophy / ethos and practical methods we use to help those in distress have nothing whatsoever to do with religion - everything is geared towards befriending the suicidal and the emotionally distressed. this is an avowedly secular organisation. i feel compelled to make these points because someone reading some of the preceding posts might get the idea that we are associated with the bible or christianity - if they choose not to call us because they got the wrong idea from this website the consequences might be considerably worse than any of us might care to imagine. so please take care before you start branding us one thing or the other.
cheers, bdr (ed 4685)
Re:But the Samaritans take their name from the Bib (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.samaritans.org/know/about_principles.sh tm
'nuff said.
Re:But the Samaritans take their name from the Bib (Score:2, Redundant)
Any similarity between The Samaritans and a story from the bible is strictly coincidental.
Re:But the Samaritans take their name from the Bib (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Most Unsecure OS? Yep, It's Linux (Score:1, Flamebait)
"more than 50 percent of all security advisories that CERT issued in the first 10 months of 2002 were for Linux and other open-source software solutions.
Proprietary UNIX solutions were responsible for just as many security advisories as Linux in the same time period.
Ok now lets assume that by Proprietary they mean close source UNIX (like Solaris, AIX, HPUX, ...) if this is the case than Linux + Open source accounted for more than 50% of the CERTS, but Proprietary accounted for as many as linux that adds up to more than 100% without certs from any OS outside of UNIX.
"Trojan horse-based attacks on Linux, UNIX, and open-source projects jumped from one in 2001 to two in 2002."
This is what I find disturbing not only is it lumping Linux and Unix certs together to outnumber MS, is throws all open source projects (eg Apache, Samba, ...) into the same bin. It also give no numbers for **THIS** year (the one MS is supposedly more secure than Linux in), all it say is Linux went up from 1, and MS went down from 6.
Finally there is the following "many Linux distributions lack the sophisticated automatic-update technologies modern Windows versions contain"
Many distros by % of linus market, or by joe blow put a distro out. Redhat, Mandrake, and Suse I know have this feature, and it can run on any Distro if you dl it.
This article provides no numbers, groups together not only multiple operating systems but multiple applications in order to meet is goal (does it cout certs for Apache that hinder windows as being only an open source problem for linux, because that is what is sounds like). Basically its FUD with no substance. If this moron (the writer of the article not the /. poster) wants to make a point I suggest he actually use numbers and not vague referances, he should also learn to compare apples with apples.
Re:Most Unsecure OS? Yep, It's Linux (Score:1)
The guys preparing such Linux FUD should also remember that many open source projects release binaries for Win32, so any report for Apache may also apply to Windows.