Google

Consider this a Thanksgiving post. I know most of you are away eating, or arguing with family. Up here, in the Great White North, Thanksgiving was back in early October so I'm sort of working today. You might say I'm indulging in a different kind of bird. Just what kind of bird, however, was something I was very curious about.

Like many others, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy of the new killer OS from Google. I wanted to try it out. Kick the tires. Take it for a spin. That sort of thing.

So I downloaded the VMware image on the site and saved it to my disk, then created a virtual machine inside VirtualBox using the VMDK image as the disk file. Then I booted it and started looking around. It took me about 20 seconds to figure out that the login was my GMail user name and password and I was off.

Read the complete post over at the Ubuntu User Website.

There's a provocatively titled article by Robert Strohmeyer over at PC World that professes "The Future of Linux is Google". It waxes prophetically about how Google will eventually dominate all that is Linux and Open Source, and that "it's time for the Linux world to rally". It starts off with a nod to Ubuntu, with the author telling us he used to believe Ubuntu (and Canonical) was destined to lead Linux into the mainstream. The reason I can't seem to get this one out of my mind is because of the whole rallying thing; the idea that Google is now Linux's great hope and that we should all rally behind Google. Forget about Ubuntu and the others. Google is where it's at, even if Chrome doesn't officially exist yet. Seemingly seconds after the article's publication, Chrome OS because available for download, as if fate were doffing its cap to Google's power. It's interesting reading and I do recommend that you check it out.

But let's be honest though. Without Linux, Google might not have grown into the powerhouse you see today. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been a successful company, just not as successful. It sure as hell wouldn't be as profitable as it is if its option was to hand out individual license payments to Microsoft for each and every server it deployed. For the sake of brevity, I won't even start on Linux's obvious superiority as a server OS when compared to Windows.

For the complete article on the Ubuntu User Website, click yon friendly link.