[LINK] RFI: Cross-Media Publishing under Linux/OO

[Roger Clarke]

At Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:53:35 +1000, Tom wrote:
And at 19:40 +1000 5/8/11, Craig Sanders wrote:
... lots of useful material re this;  and Craig re passwords too ...

Thanks to Craig, Tom and several others for valuable background and advice.

My current thinking is below.


1.  Avoid 'dual booting', because only one OS is alive at a time, it 
costs a lot of time to re-boot from one to another, and it precludes 
context-switching between OS.

2.  Use a host-OS that supports multiple guest-OS.

3.  I don't want to use OSX as my host-OS, because it will become 
less like an OS and more like a vehicle for Apple's ownership of 
everything the device does and stores.  And of course I wouldn't 
touch Windows.

4.  I gather that there are no stripped-down OS designed specifically 
to operate as the host-OS for existing user-oriented OS (i.e. Win 
family, OSX family, Linux family).  But I also gather that there are 
some stripped-down host-OS for servers - which I understand are 
Linux-based.

5.  So there seem to be two possibilities:
-   run a server host-OS on what is essentially a user device.
     This would demand expertise and effort, and incur overhead
-   run Linux, and the best available VM, and OSX and Win under that

Needless to say, I'd need a fast processor, some solid-state memory 
for swapping, and a lot of main memory as well.  But I'm not much of 
a graphics-user so I can economise in that area.  (:-)}

A 27" iMac with 8GB memory, a 256GB Solid State Drive  and a 1TB 
Serial ATA Drive would set me back just under $3,000, or $3500 for 
16GB memory:
http://store.apple.com/au/configure/MC813X/A?select=select&product=MC813X%2FA&mco=MjIwNTQzMjY

Given the kinds of prices I've paid every 2-5 years since 1984, and 
the (enormous) value I get, I'm not at all traumatised by that.

I'll worry later about how I achieve a workable portable solution.  I 
may just have to leak more when I'm on the move.  It would be a pain 
not to be able to prepare and publish documents while I'm travelling.

**********
* *But* are you able to deny guest-OS access to the Internet?
* (And to do so easily, and reliably, of course).
*
* All guest-OS need sub-net access, for printing, file-transfers and
* backup and recovery;  but I want to block the 'phone-home' behaviours
* of both the guest-OS and the apps running under them.
**********

Re applications:

For docs I would then use OO primarily, and MS Office where 
necessary, which would be essentially for clients' files where the 
format conversion is simply too horrible.

Accounting would be either MYOB under Wine or gnucash.  I've had two 
recos of gnucash, one a lengthy and valuable one from a linker 
off-list - which is available on request of course if anyone else is 
interested in that aspect.

I don't have a solution to my key question of how to conveniently 
publish to all of .doc, .rtf, print/PDF while using controlled styles 
and meta-formatting for the Web.  (It's extraordinary that this is 
unavailable, well over a decade after we knew a lot about cross-media 
publishing).

One remaining possibility is to find a suitable PowerPC emulator, and 
run that under the host-OS and/or a guest-OS, and thereby sustain my 
existing, quite satisfactory cross-media publishing environment, 
1994-style.


As always, feedback and advice gratefully accepted!!


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University