Many thanks to Dmitri Popov for the interesting and informative articles over the years. I sure have learned a lot with your help. However, I seem to have come stuck following your guide for setting up business intelligence with OpenOffice Base linked to BambooInvoice. I have a working installation of BambooInvoice, and when I get to testing the connection with the database from the setup wizard in OpenOffice, it won't connect. I have attached a screen dump of the error. I am using bambooinvoice as the database name; the server URL is http://localhost/myname/newco/bambooinvoice, and the port is 3306.
My software versions are OpenOffice 2.4.1 with JRE 1.6.0_07 and MySQL connector 5.1.7.
Kenn Heeley
| LM |
Dmitri Popov writes:
Hi, Kenn:
It's difficult to say what could cause the problem - there are too many unknowns. What version of OpenOffice.org do you use? On what Linux distro? Is BambooInvoice installed on a local server? Assuming you specified the port, you have to check whether your MySQL installation actually accepts connections from external hosts on this port. In many cases, MySQL is set to refuse any connection coming from external hosts. Can you connect to your MySQL server from an external machine?
I recently bought Linux Pro Magazine specifically for the Fedora 9 DVD that was in it (as I've been using Slackware Linux since version 9). However, the udev/hal article and the green PC article were both interesting.
Anyway, the DVD was broken - it was physically fine, without scratches, but I had numerous problems with it. The DVD detected my IDE hard drive as SATA, locked hard when trying to bring up my Ethernet card (Toshiba Satellite A55-S306), and the installer broke at various random packages. I know that there are many reasons why, so I do not directly blame you or Fedora, but I would like to tell you a story that illustrates why this is bad.
I bought Corel Linux in 2000. I was totally brand new to Linux. Corel did not like my laptop's LCD screen at all, and could not use my modem. I lost all my information on Win98SE as well. In any case, I forgot about it until I heard about FreeBSD from a friend. To make a long story short, I installed RH9, then Slackware 9. It wasn't until about a year ago that I found my old Corel Linux install media.
What I hope is that other people who are new to Linux don't just try one bad DVD, then use it as their reason why "Linux sucks," etc. I care about the Linux community a whole lot and would hate to hear that.
Robert Delahunt (aka TwinReverb)
| LM |
Thank you for your comments. You make a very good point that will ring true for many of our readers. Linux installers have come a long way over the past few years, but every installer doesn't always work flawlessly with every possible hardware configuration. Often this is not because of Linux but is due to the lack of Linux support from hardware vendors. The best remedy is for the vendors to understand that Linux is a viable consumer system and to provide better support for it. Some vendors are starting to realize this, and the situation is gradually improving.
The other side of this is that the Linux choice, like any consumer choice, is a matter of costs and benefits. You can usually get Linux working, but it sometimes requires time, and occasionally, replacement of non-Linux-ready components. Microsoft, on the other hand, spends millions and millions of dollars on testing and perfecting their installation tools, but they pass that cost on to the customer.
The Windows Vista Business Edition retails for around US$ 300. You could subscribe to this premium magazine for three years - and get 36 Linux distributions along with 36 insightful issues - for the cost of one Windows DVD that certainly has its own share of technical problems.
And, as many others continue to point out, that "free" Windows DVD in your new PC box is not really so free - the costs are just hidden from your view, or perhaps I should say, hidden from the vista of your purchasing perspective.