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Of all the open source operating systems, LINUX heralded an era of freedom from licensed softwares and signalled the end of the road for monopoly softwares from the giant Microsoft. With the arrival of LINUX and its many versions, users got themselves liberated from the shackles of Windows operating systems and soon found that they could edit and tinker with LINUX to generate new versions of the famous OS. Linux has gained an unexpectedly large amount of interest in the home market over the past two years. This could be due to any number of reasons including, it’s both free and open source, almost all applications are free and open source, the stability is unsurpassed, the code is constantly revised, updated and added to by a numerous amount of programmers across the world. Linux is undisputable a giant in the OS world, with just the name Linux being a symbol of stability and security. With the interest in Linux growing, many new distributions have surfaced offering easy installation and configuration. Well-established distributions such as Redhat are also striving to meet the same goals.

Linux is an operating system and therefore is the basic set of programs and utilities that make the computer run. Some other common operating systems are Unix (and its variants BSD, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, and others); DOS; Microsoft Windows; Amiga; and Mac OS.Linux is Free Software. In a nutshell, software that is free in the sense that Linux is distributed along with its source code so that anyone who receives it is free to make changes and redistribute it. Users are free to make copies of Linux and give them to friends, it’s also fine to tweak a few lines of the source code.The only catch is that the user who modifies it has to necessarily make available the source code to all users. Linux is not owned by anyone. One misconception many first-time Linux.com readers have is that this site, Linux.com, is similar to Microsoft.com, which is owned and controlled by the company that produces the Windows operating system. No one company or individual “owns” Linux, which was developed, and is still being improved, by thousands of corporate-supported and volunteer programmers all over the world.

Users are generally provided with Linux distribution that contains not only the basic Linux operating system, but also programs that enhance it in many ways. Anyone who wants to put together his or her own Linux distribution is free to do so, and we know of more than 200 different Linux distributions that fill special “niche” purposes. But we advise new users to stick with one of the five or six most popular general-purpose Linux distributions until they know a little about what Linux can and can’t do. You can get Linux from a number of online software repositories, including the official Web sites for each distribution. It helps to have a fast connection and a CD burner so you can quickly download an .ISO image of the distribution and burn it onto a CD. You then can load the bootable installation programs that lead you, step by step, through the process of getting Linux on your computer.

The more popular distributions are available in many computer stores and directly from each distribution’s publisher. The convenience of a distribution on CDs, including manuals, generally makes your first installation so much easier that it is well worth the money.

Linux boasts of some of the best free online support for its operating system.Take advantage of some free, expert technical support: the Linux Users Group, or LUG. The heartbeat of Linux support, and of Linux itself, is the LUG. There are LUGs in almost every country in the world, where you can get Linux advice and help from people who live near you, speak your language, and are willing to donate their time so that new users can learn about Linux without going through any more head-scratching than necessary.Each LUG operates independently and has its own style and meeting schedule. Note that if there is no LUG close enough for you to conveniently attend meetings, most LUGs maintain email lists you can join and use to get answers to any Linux questions you have.

The best-known corporate GNU/Linux distribution is REDHAT. Mandrake Linux

was the first Linux distribution that worked hard to make Linux easy for ordinary desktop users. Freely downloadable version available; commercial versions have pre-integrated sofware packages and are easier for first-timers to set up than the download edition. There are other distributions like Fedora, Debia, Knoppix,Suse, Slackware, MEPIS, Gentoo and so on.

Open source means practices in software product development by a group of volunteers who work together in a highly collaborative way. There are some steps involved in the open source software development process. Let’s learn how open source is beneficial to users and developers:

Software created by open source volunteers differs from commercial software sold by vendors in many ways. The key difference is that open source software is released under certain licenses that enable users to download, inspect and modify the source code for their own benefits freely. Some open source softwares have some added provisions concerning rights of the original developer, rights to use it for any purpose and derivative works.

How Open Source Projects Benefit Developers?  

For developers, open source has many advantages. Developers who have a successful online software development project to their name enjoy many benefits in the form or recognition and fame. They even have the opportunity to earn money through consulting or through various other sources.

Most developers see open source as problem-solving tools and also see them as a continuous learning process. But, for some it is a software development methodology that has many collaborative benefits.

How Open Source Software Benefit Users?

Users who have downloaded open source software have many benefits including freedom to use the program for their own purpose as well as choice. There are number of open source programs like OpenOffice.org that are to download and can be used by anybody.

For software and development experts, relying on pricier programs can make their projects costly. There are many such open source projects that help them create bespoke software without spending funds on costly commercial software. Some users also use their skills to modify the source code of the software to suit their development process.  

The best part of open source software is that it does not cost money. However, some projects may charge subscription money, or may encourage you to upgrade to premium versions.

Setting up an open source proxy server isn’t the only solution to setting up a proxy but it is definitely the best.  The problem is, however, that there are many different kinds of open source proxy software providers on the net.  Are you aware of the differences between them and what you should be looking for in features if you want to setup your own proxy?

The first and perhaps the most important thing that any proxy server software must be able to do is provide anonymity.  People using a proxy want to do so to remain anonymous online.  Some proxy servers are not anonymous and are instead transparent.  While you can use these proxies to surf the internet, anyone who examines your connection to their website can see your IP and not the IP of the proxy you are using.  Make sure that your open source software provides 100% anonymity.

The second most important feature for any open source software is that of the ability to cloak.  Some proxy servers may provide anonymity to anyone using it, but they can not cloak themselves.  This means that your connection from a proxy server can be detected as one coming from a proxy.  True proxies never reveal themselves as a proxy and instead are able to cloak themselves.  The best proxy software is able to offer this cloaking feature.

Make sure you setup an open source proxy server that is truly anonymous and is able to cloak or hide its identity as a proxy server.  Such features like this are found only in the best proxies, such as elite proxies.

The concept of open source can be defined as offer of free or unlock access to the source of the product for the purpose of designing, developing, and distributing. In the terms of web development open source conception has taken rise with the development and use of internet frequently by the people.

In the world of web development there are various open source products available for the creation of dynamic websites and other business promotion online tools. In the global online business environment many web development companies offer the professional services for the development of online business tools. Listing up some popular open source products includes, Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, CakePHP, Oscommerce, Ruby on Rails, etc. Most of the products are used by the developers for the dynamic presentation of businesses from various industries in customized manner in form of websites, templates and other online presentation tools.

Counting all benefits of using open source products will turn into long list, collection of most important advantages include Cost effectiveness which  is one of the most significant benefits as all open source product’s source code are freely available on the net. Any internet user can access the source code of these products for development of websites and other open source web development tools. Using open source products in website development helps the developers at great extent for the dynamic presentation of the content as well as modification and integration of new features to the websites is possible by using open source technologies. Using open source products in the website development makes the websites more interactive, great user interface, strong administrative rights and smooth functionality.

Customized website development is one of the most popular advantages of using open source products in the web development market and active technical and non technical support from the communities which help the developers for the development of web. Adaptability factor of open source helps the developers to provide innovative products as open source allows the changing business environment and developers use to enjoy more flexibility and freedom in the website development. Open source products offers simplicity factor such as easy to find, easy to implement and easy compatibility with other technologies. To improve the system reliability and security experienced developers prefers use of Open Source Software (OSS) which is also very cost effective.

Content management is also another big advantage of using open source products and there are browsers like Mozilla Firefox, operating systems like Linux comes under open source phenomenon. Open source is very useful in specific business operations and other office related works and thus they are widely used by big and small organizations all over the business world.

Power of open source concept in the web development has changed the form of global online business environment.

Get your business up and running online using a free open source shopping cart.

Open source software provides a low cost alternative to traditional proprietary software.   Merchants have the ability to customize open source products to meet their specific business requirement.  When trying to select a shopping cart system, to run your online store, business owners must evaluate and assign value to the technical and operational specifications before deploying to production.  Since one size does not fit all; merchants must choose the best product based on their unique requirements.

So how do you choose the best open source shopping cart software?  First we’ll start by listing the major players in the small business market.  In order to make my list the open source shopping cart must meet the 10 minimum requirements listed below.

Required Features:

Centrally controlled source code An active developer community Mature third party extensions (including PCI Compliant payment gateway extensions) Support Linux and Microsoft Windows hosting environments Software download must include all features listed on website (e.g. not crippleware or demoware) Documentation may be available as a PDF document or as an HTML file. Installs on a standard SSL certificate Provides a custom notification email to the merchant and customer Provides timely bug fixes and safe upgrade path Installs in a dedicated and shared hosting environment

In my opinion, the top open source shopping carts for the small business market are:

Magento Commerce VirtueMart osCommerce ZenCart CubeCart UberCart AbleCommerce

Each of the open source shopping carts listed above can be downloaded, installed and configured at no cost to the merchant.   However, since most open source product installations come with a standard (non commercial quality) user interface most merchants will want to upgrade the GUI (graphical user interface).  In order to upgrade the GUI and improve the end user experience merchants can choose to hire a web developer or simply purchase a custom template from sites like templatemonster.com.  Template Monster (and others) provides thousands of affordable custom templates so merchants can easily deploy great looking online stores.



In order to ensure you’re selecting the best open source shopping cart for your business merchants should consider the following:

Capacity – The merchant must know and understand the product capacity limitation.  For example, if you have a product catalog of 1000 products but the shopping cart has a 900 product limitation then that solution is not for you.  Note: All of the open source products listed above have an unlimited product catalog.

Performance – If your ecommerce web store is slow customers will simply shop someplace else.  Therefore, you must check performance with high user loads and with increased data loads.  Both scenarios can bring a web store to its knees.

Community Support – Verify a strong development community exist.  Review the online forums to see if the product has an active community of developers.  Look for online questions then see how long it took for the user to get a response.

Technical Support – Ensure technical support is available via an active developer community or as a fee paid contract.  There is nothing worse than having a production issue and waiting 5 days or more to get an answer.

Payment Gateway Support – In order to accept and process credit card payments the open source shopping cart must provide third party payment gateway extensions.  Free Payment Modules from Planetauthorize.Net Payment Gateway (and others) are available for the leading open source shopping carts.

Search Engine Friendly URL – Once you deploy your ecommerce web store you must submit your web store to the top search engines.  In order to be indexed by the search engines your online store must have search engine friendly URLs.

For more information visit us online at planetauthorize.com.