Technology Tidbits: Linux as server, video players, financial tools

Even though OS X (Mac) is a Unix based system, it is a little different than other Unix based systems in ways that might matter for the administration of a web server. Johannes Truschnigg offers us Three reasons why GNU/Linux is better for Web servers than OS X. They sound reasonable (but not bone chilling horrific or anything) to me.

Echoes reviews Eleven Video Players for LInux.

And Jody Gilbert reviews Top 10 Linux Financial Tools. I point you specifically to one of these:

#1: Gnucash

I start off with this application simply because it’s my financial application of choice. Gnucash is released under the GPL so it is fully open sourced and is available for Linux, BSD, Solaris, OS X, and Windows. Gnucash features double-entry accounting, stock/bond/mutual fund accounts, small-business accounting, customer/vendor/job invoicing, QIF/OFX/HBCI Import/Transaction matching, reports/graphs, scheduled transactions, and financial calculations. Gnucash is incredibly easy to use and handles multiple accounts. Importing QIF files is simple, and entering transactions is intuitive. Gnucash can export to TXF format for tax preparation programs.

Comments

#1 Armchair Dissident
July 2, 2008

I would add to the OS/X list, Perl and MySQL. When I used to host a website on an OS/X box (10.2, if I recall correctly), setting up Perl to properly talk to MySQL was – how shall I put this – hell.

Glad to see the good old Netinfo database get a mention though. I love my mac, but I’ll never understand what Apple were thinking when they put that in to OS/X!
#2 daenku32
July 2, 2008

I’ve drifted away from Linux for a while, considering I haven’t ran a server or felt like messing with Wine just to play the old games on our second computer, and I do remember that the last time I tried to go back to it, I had issues with the troublesome media thing. Getting the right codec’s, just seems difficult. I guess I’ll have to give it another try.
#3 Greg Laden
July 2, 2008

It is getting easier and easier all the time.

There is a special version of Ubuntu just for you. I’ll have a blog post coming up on it shortly.