Episode: 1736
Title: HPR1736: How I run my small business using Linux
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1736/hpr1736.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 08:25:49

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This in HPR episode 1,736 entitled, How I Run My Small Business Using Linux.
It is posted my first time post-beginning and is about 19 minutes long.
The summary is, How I Use Linux For My Business.
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Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code, HPR15, that's HPR15.
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Hi everybody, I'm just going to go through some of what I use to run my small business.
This is my first podcast for Hacker Public Radio and so far it seems like it's going to
be too easy to do and I'll probably do some more after this.
After seeing how low the queue is and how much I enjoy the show and maybe thinking that
I might have one or two things to be able to add, I decided to make a couple of podcasts,
so here's number one and it has to do with how I use Linux to run my small business.
I'm going to go over a little bit about the hardware I use, the applications I use and
just in general how I make it work.
First of all, I'm not going to say this is the best way, I'm always open to other ways
and the list if you want to comment and give me some other application tips, I'm always
willing to learn.
I've only been using Linux for about two years now, maybe three, and ever since I got
into it I was like, well that's it, that's all I want to do.
When does this off all my computers in the house now?
That's how the type of impression I got, just not just from the type of applications
and how good they are but also the freedom that you get with it and not just the free
of cost but also the actual how you can change everything and learn how to make everything
work.
I've learned a lot about how computers work and it's actually made me a lot more marketable
as a consultant.
So like I was saying a little bit about my business, I'm a consultant, I work for different
types of companies in laboratory space, biopharmatics, quality systems management, project management
for laboratory information systems, making some servers, all types of stuff, I'm trying
to do a lot of different things and now try to have a really breath of knowledge.
And so I started my own business and I said I'm going to run the whole thing on Linux
so how am I going to do that?
So a little bit about the hardware that I have, I have a System76 Gallagher Ultra Pro
from about two years ago, I guess a year and a half ago.
I also use a Signology Detection DS213J and I use that as the back and for my syncing
and to host some file shares for some clients and you know they have an Android phone and
I run my whole business you know through my System76, my Synology NAS and my LGG.
But some of the applications I use, I only right now use two pieces of proprietary software
which are the Synology Cloud Station which is one of the companion applications that come
with the NAS itself to sync my applications, sync a lot of my documents and stuff.
And I was using BitTorrent Sync for a while instead of Synology Cloud Station but with 2.0s
release, I've now come back to Synology so I'm like well if I'm going to be using something
proprietary I might as well use something that's heavily integrated into the system already
I'm already using that has a native Linux client that works really well, it's integrated
into NARLIST into THUNAR and into I haven't tried it in KDE but I'm pretty sure it works
in KDE as well.
So the second proprietary piece of software uses a wireframe sketcher, it's called wireframe
sketcher and allows me to make mockups for different applications that I might be working
on or that I might be creating as a part of a team.
And I've also used Balsamic, they also have a client but it relies on Adobe Air and I
didn't want to have to install Adobe Air since Adobe stopped supporting Linux and there's
only a 32-bit client that works and I've put it on a 32-bit system and it works but
I'd rather have something that was native on the 64-bit for Linux and that's cross-platform
and so it runs on top of Java so that works just fine.
For free software I use a lot of things, first of all I write almost all my documentation
and markdown first so I might change it from that format to other formats including
for my website but I use markdown for a lot of things so I also use a pan doc which
is a way to transform files of one type to another so I use it for markdown a lot so to
go from markdown to HTML and markdown to doc or docx or ODT or to go from other way around
to bring stuff over to markdown from other formats.
I also use discount which is a markdown to HTML command line tool as well.
I use both Firefox and Chrome or Chromium for browsing the web and there's a lot of web
applications that I use I'm not really going to go into right now.
I use GVim and also just use regular Vim on the command line to do most of my text editing.
I was using a root pad for a while but now I've gone back to just GVim because it's
a lot more flexible in terms of you know once you start to get into the Vim way of doing
things you start to miss it when you're not in that program.
I usually wear office to open office documents I usually don't write anything in a labor
office.
I will every once in a while sometimes for like spreadsheets and stuff all right stuff
in a labor office but any of my work processing I just do in GVim.
I also use planner which is a native project management software and I've dabbled in a
couple other ones but this is the one I use for my own when I make my own projects some
other ones I use to open up other like when people send me stuff that's in Microsoft
format but when I'm making my own projects I use planner.
I use hamster which is to do not really to do this maker it's more of a way to record
the time that you spend on different tasks is the way I build my clients I use it kind
of as a time sheet I used to do that TXT which is my actual to do less maker for that
and it's a command line tool there's also app windows there's all types of apps for mobile
devices and for all the different platforms and I use it to manage my to do less I use
a new cache for my accounting virtual box for a lot of stuff to spin up windows applications
so I do a lot of stuff with .NET and you know some enterprise i.e. dependent application
development and configuration so I always like to have a couple servers to spin up for
that if you don't know about modern i.e. modern i.e. is a way and that Microsoft provides
so you can just get a 90-day trial for windows and i.e. so that you can do development in
that environment so when it expires you just make a new one it's not a big deal I also
use Thunderbird for email so i manage my personal and work email through that and I've tried
to use Gary and that works just fine but I like to use a nickname and the stationary plugins
for Thunderbird which make it so that my it's more of like a robust system so a nickname
for being able to I don't really use the encryption that much but I use it to digitally sign
important documents that I don't that I want people to know that this is the authentic
version of the email and the stationary plugin to send out professional looking emails
I use California and I think that's by the same people who make Shotwell I use that as
my calendar app and it has looks really nice it's really simple and it can import ICS files
that accompany a lot of those invites that you get and it works just very well I chose
that over Thunderbird's plugin because I think the GUI is better not that the Thunderbird
version doesn't work I just like it better on the command line I also have a couple of
apps I use I use Ranger a lot and I was using midnight commander but I've kind of switched
to Ranger because I can look at all my text files real time and just switch through them
because I keep all my notes in markdown so Ranger is a command line file manager which
has live previews using I think uses either links or W3M as I can as a way to view your
different files that you look at so it's it's very handy if we if we haven't used Ranger
I highly suggest it I use a couple of things on the command line like I said Pandoc discount
to do that TXT I use a lot on the command line too but there's also a plugin for different
systems right now my current setup is Ubuntu 1404 I just switch back to this from Ubuntu
GNOME because I just miss Unity sorry everyone hates Unity I don't hate it I find it really
productive but right to to each his own other some other programs I use I use meld pair
documents and I command line sometimes I just use diff or I'll use vim diff when I'm in
vim but meld is a nice way to compare two documents in a visual manner and a gooey and also
allows you to actually do three I think it'll let you look at three documents at the same time
and also look at directories and see changes in directories as well so if you if you use R
sinkers I'm like that and you want to look at stuff you can use meld to do that too for backups
I'd do back a couple different ways to have different backs in different places so with my lgg2
it came with a 50 gigabyte free storage on box.com so I use Dropbox for a lot of my personal stuff
but I mean I use box for my business to be able to host certain files for some of my clients
since I had that free 50 gig and also I use it to I use deja dup because deja dup has a
ability to the sink through web dev and so I use boxes web dev availability to
leave some a couple of backups I do a weekly backup to box and it's just you know like I said it's
web dev and so it's a client side encrypted before it's sent I use system back daily on a local
external hard drive and I also use rsync because I have an encrypted partition and I back up
that can crypton partition using rsync on another encrypted partition that I keep in a safe
so all my important documents are backed up that way and I don't even keep an encrypted copy
anywhere on the internet that's the majority I want to use I also use it's
technically it's it's gpl license it's a l2p l2tp ipc ipsec VPN client
one of my clients actually more than one use cisco routers and have like a maraki
vpn server and I use this l2tp ipsec VPN client to connect to it they had a ppa and it
for a forward when I tried to install for the first time so I just went to launch pad and found
it and found the dot dev and downloaded it and installed and works just fine I can connect
just fine it's kind of disappointing that it doesn't you know but that's the thing that you
end up getting when you are using a bunch of sometimes sometimes things stop being maintained
and there isn't a 1410 version so that's why that's the other reason why I came back to unity
because I already had to go back to 1404 so I said when we go back to 1404 and go back to
unity at the same time so that's the majority of what I use on a daily basis for what I do for work
I really enjoy using Linux for for work and I whenever I get a chance when I'm in in front of
customers always if I don't bring up Linux in particular there's there's usually a situation
where they're having a problem with one of their vendors and it's a lot of times has to do with
being able to access their data when they want to or being able to to customize or configure
the system in ways that they don't necessarily support and when it's not supported they just
don't let it happen at all and it's locked down and I'll usually try to put in a little jab about
you know this is why you don't use proprietary software which is why actually it has rubbed off
a little bit I have had people use take some of my suggestions and use a couple of other things
I like to use or that I've discovered in my in my day to day so you know I'm not the biggest
diehard you know Richard Stalman follower and and and zealot but I do promote free software
wherever I go not only for its cost effectiveness but also because you know it does the job
just as well if not better than its proprietary counterparts a lot of times and you know it can
be your daily driver and run your complete business I do I have no reason to do anything else I
have a couple of droplets of digital ocean which are you know Linux based that I do syncing to my
and you know learning all this stuff has allowed me to be able to troubleshoot
uh things that I would have never had an opportunity to be able to even know anything about
and so learning Linux on the desktop has helped me learn Linux in the server space
so that's uh going to conclude my first podcast so thanks everyone for listening
if you uh stuck around for the whole thing I appreciate it and uh I'll see you on the next one bye
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