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http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/09/29/1827208.shtml?tid=39&tid=150&tid=132 |
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High-tech social enterprise reaps free software's benefits |
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The CTO uses Gentoo and talks about it, but the whole business couldn't |
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use it because it was too hard to roll out: |
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Ball's personal desktop is a Gentoo Linux box. "I've used Gentoo for |
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years, because it was a lot of fun and it taught me a lot about how to |
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administer a machine," he says, noting its unique |
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choose-and-compile-everything philosophy. But he also says that you're |
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not caught out on a limb when you use it -- the people who use and |
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support and develop it are there to help you. |
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"The community is really strong and they're responsive at different |
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levels," he says. "Other [free software communities] are responsive |
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maybe at the newbie level or way out at the expert level, whereas Gentoo |
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is there across all levels -- they don't flame you with Eric Raymond's |
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URL and tell you to get lost." |
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While Benetech had previously chosen Red Hat and Gentoo for its |
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desktops, today they're all running Ubuntu. Ball cited Ubuntu's ease of |
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setup and installation as the reason for the switch. "If you have to |
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roll out 10 or 15 machines, Gentoo's [inconvenient]. Most of our |
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machines are Kubuntu, but there are a couple of GNOME people in our |
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organization." |
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