Operating Systems

An Operating System (OS) is a set of software that manages the computer hardware and the user's application programs. Linux, UNIX, Apple's OS X, and Microsoft Windows and are the major operating systems in use today by small and mid-size businesses (SMB's).

Fedora LINUX

PALDOM uses the Fedora open source version of Red Hat's distribution of Linux. It is a very reliable, efficient and well supported OS. It is updated and improved continually. Its improvements are usually later included in Red Hat's releases. Fedora Core 5 has over 2200 software packages included with it.

Fedora is Cost Effective

It does not cost anything to download and there are no charges based on the number of users. It also comes with the Open Office suite of packages. A LINUX server with 10 LINUX workstations costs only the install time. A Windows server and 10 Windows Workstations requires purchase of Windows Server, 10 Windows workstation and 10 or 11 copies of MS Office. This could cost at least $400 per server and workstation, or $4,400 more than the LINUX system.

LINUX Reliability

LINUX, and UNIX also, are very reliable. PALDOM has installed systems which have run for over a year, or more, without stopping for any reason other than for normal maintenance and power failures.

LINUX Background

In 1991, as a student, Linus Torvalds began developing an operating system based on the framework of UNIX, a very stable and well proven OS. However, much of Linux was written from scratch and some of it incorporated publicly available software.

He made it available over the internet so that hundreds of other developers could, and have, contributed to its completion. It is available free of charge to the public and is supported by several development and standards foundations.

UNIX

UNIX has been in commercial use since 1980 and has been in academic use at colleges and universities since 1970. It was developed by Bell Laboratories of AT&T beginning in 1969. It is in use by many large systems in major corporations, including those which use the largest and fastest computers available .

Apple's OS X was derived from the BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) of UNIX, an open source OS.

Open Source Introduction

Open Source software is developed by programmers throughout the world. They make their source code (underlying programs) available to other programs to use, improve, modify and distribute without restrictions.

Open Source Software

This community of open source developers has produced many applications in use by Linux users. Some of the most important applications available and used by PALDOM's customers are:

• The Linux operating system and its included packages.

• Open Office word processor, spreadsheet, drawing and presentation manager programs. These programs rival MS Office in their functionality and are available to anyone, free of charge.

• Firefox web browser from Mozilla.

• Thunderbird Email Reader

Some other general categories of available software include (space prohibits listing all the open source capabilities):

• Backup utilities for tapes, CD's and DVD's

• CD and DVD writers and players.

• Wired and Wireless Networking utilities.

• Security applications.

• Photo management software.

• Multi-media players and managers.

Open Source Financial Support

While some of the Open Source software projects are supported by major corporations, most also receive donations to help their continued development efforts.

Therefore, even though there are no direct charges for Open Source software and it is not mandatory, PALDOM highly recommends that users contribute financially (even if only in a small way), if possible, to the developers of the projects they use.