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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Adobe Breathes AIR into Linux
3 years, 10 months ago
Adobe has launched its AIR 1.5 software for Linux. Supported distributions include Fedora 8, Ubuntu 7.10, and openSUSE 10.3. This enables companies and developers to easily target users using all three major OS -- Windows, Linux and Mac -- with a single code base. -
IBM Lotus Strategist Sees Linux on Netbooks Making Inroads Vs. Windows in 2009
3 years, 10 months ago
Linux and open source will start to chip away at Microsoft Windows desktop software thanks to their popularity on netbooks, those ultralight, low-cost laptops. IBM Lotus strategy director predicts this as a major trend in 2009, as well as the proliferation of messaging and collaboration technologies asa function of UCC, SAAS, cloud computing, enterprise social networks and Web services. -
The Range of Linux Distributions
3 years, 10 months ago
A comment from Tezzer to my recent blog post about Two New Linux Beta Distributions got me thinking. Tezzer mentions using Debian, but looking at PCLinuxOS and others for systems that have "issues" with some Linux distributions. I have heard the same comments on other blog posts, and in fact I have seen the same sort of "issues" with my Lifebook S2110 (often because of the ATI display adapter). -
Indian Express Switches to Red Hat Solutions
3 years, 10 months ago
Red Hat , a provider of open source solutions, announced that The Indian Express Group, a media firm in India, has switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 from Novell (News - Alert) Netware, to provide a cost-effective scale with accelerated company growth. -
TI adds ARM9, Linux to sound chip
3 years, 10 months ago
Texas Instruments (TI) is shipping a third-generation "Aureus" digital audio processor platform with a Linux software developer's kit (SDK). Available with an evaluation module (EVM) from Spectrum Digital, the DA830 and DA828 system-on-chips (SoCs) combine an ARM9 core with a digital signal processor (DSP). -
AMD Linux 2008 Year in Review
3 years, 10 months ago
Last year when publishing our AMD Year in Review article there were numerous new features to account for, including but not limited to the new OpenGL driver, support for Compiz, and the AMD Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition. This year has been another interesting year for AMD's Linux efforts on both the open and closed fronts. We are focusing on their Catalyst driver efforts in this article, which has picked up support for CrossFire, is now capable of being overclocked with OverDrive, and AMD is now delivering same-day Linux product support. In this article we will recap some of the highlights from the Catalyst driver releases this year as well as set out on a benchmarking extravaganza. -
Teacher claims Linux 'holding back the kids'
3 years, 10 months ago
A US student has landed in hot water with an irate - and apparently ill-informed - teacher for handing out discs of Linux. -
How is Microsoft with Vista like the Big Three automakers?
3 years, 10 months ago
For more than a decade, if you owned a PC, you ran Windows and, far more often than not, Internet Explorer was your Web browser. In fact, for a while, the only three things you could be sure of were death, taxes and Microsoft. Things have changed. -
The EE Gender Gap Is Widening
3 years, 10 months ago
Walk into a classroom of environmental engineering students and, odds are, nearly half of them will be women. Now head next door to an electrical engineering class: you’ll likely find eight men for every woman. -
Windows needs a Linux package manager
3 years, 10 months ago
Windows users have a real problem when it comes to updates. Sure they have Microsoft Update and certainly many applications include their own update mechanisms. Yet despite that, there seems to be a problem with Windows users actually updating. -
Slackware 12.2 Release Announcement
3 years, 10 months ago
Well folks, it's that time to announce a new stable Slackware release again. So, without further ado, announcing Slackware version 12.2! Since we've moved to supporting the 2.6 kernel series exclusively (and fine-tuned the system to get the most out of it), we feel that Slackware 12.2 has many improvements over our last release (Slackware 12.1) and is a must-have upgrade for any Slackware user. -
"Ubuntu has the strongest chance to take Linux mainstream"
3 years, 10 months ago
Jeremy Allison's contributions to the free software world are legion, and yet the project he's best known for continues to be Samba, the open implementation of some of Microsoft's most important networking protocols. -
Hey Karen, welcome to (hell control W) the community.
3 years, 10 months ago
So, after listening to people gripe about this story today, and yesterday, on IRC in email, on various blogs, where Mr Starks was talking about an email he received, I got to thinking. Just to give you context if you don't know what I am on about, click here. -
Eight Crazy Nights of Hanukkah and Linux
3 years, 10 months ago
Trying to find something for your gelibte this year? Look no further, my Linux Geek's Guide to Hanukkah will help you make the right decisions. -
OpenSolaris now on Toshiba laptops
3 years, 10 months ago
Sun has reached an agreement with Toshiba to pre-install the OpenSolaris operating system on Toshiba laptops. - More News
Linux.com : Features
Boycott Novell: Champion of freedom or den of paranoia?
Few sites about free software attract more controversy than Boycott Novell. Founded in 2006 in response to the first Microsoft-Novell deal, as its name suggests, the site has evolved more recently into a site for commentary and investigation of any subject that might be a threat to free software. To its regular readers, this subject matter makes Boycott Novell -- like Groklaw, its apparent inspiration -- a defender of the community. But to others, especially those who have been the subject of its articles, the site is full of illogical arguments and undeserved attacks, and an embarrassment that only brings the community into disrepute.
Configuring storage in FreeNAS
The essence of the FreeNAS server is to provide storage that is easily accessible from the network. To this end, it is important to understand how FreeNAS handles hard disks and how they can be configured and used to provide the best and most reliable storage for your network.
Check your disks' health with GSmartControl
GSmartControl presents your hard drive SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) health information in a graphical display. With GSmartControl you no longer have to fish around in /dev/disk/by-id to find the drive you're interested in and then inspect the output of smartctl trying to figure out which SMART attributes have values that you should care about.
Applied regular expressions in PHP: Provisioning the Linksys PAP2T
The Linksys PAP2T is an analog telephone adapter (ATA) widely used in VoIP applications to connect an analog phone to a digital IP network. Some PAP2T units are locked and dedicated to a particular VoIP service. Others are capable of using a process called provisioning to ensure that important parameters remain fixed despite local attempts to change them. By employing open source tools such as PHP and MySQL, you can manage these latter kinds of units while they are out in the field.
How to get VC investment for your open source business
So, you've got the greatest open source idea since Firefox. It's guaranteed to be bigger than TCP/IP. All you need now is some scratch to get your project off the ground. Given the genius of your idea, you're sure you'll have to beat off potential investors with a stick. If you think that's reality, I've got some subprime mortgages to sell you. Getting venture capital (VC) to fund your business is hard work, even if you have a commercial product to sell. The degree of difficulty ratchets up many times if you're an open source developer. It can be done, but it takes such single-minded focus that getting turned down multiple -- maybe even dozens -- of times won't faze you.
New Xfce beta focuses on usability
Xfce version 4.6 is shaping up to be more significant than most minor releases. Besides fixes and enhancements that are invisible to the casual user, the first revision in almost two years of GNU/Linux's third most popular desktop includes numerous changes to applications such as the calendar, mixer, and logout dialog, a new configuration engine, and usability changes to the desktop. Their combined effect is to increase the usability of Xfce without sacrificing any of the speed for which the desktop is well-known.
Three to-do list managers for GNU/Linux
Never forget an important task again with these great to-do list managers for Linux.
Quickly move an executable between systems with ELF Statifier
Shared libraries that are dynamically linked make more efficient use of disk space than those that are statically linked, and more importantly allow you to perform security updates in a more efficient manner, but executables compiled against a particular version of a dynamic library expect that version of the shared library to be available on the machine they run on. If you are running machines with both Fedora 9 and openSUSE 11, the versions of some shared libraries are likely to be slightly different, and if you copy an executable between the machines, the file might fail to execute because of these version differences. With ELF Statifier you can create a statically linked version of an executable, so the executable includes the shared libraries instead of seeking them at run time. A staticly linked executable is much more likely to run on a different Linux distribution or a different version of the same distribution.
Van Dam Iron Works vacillates between Linux and Windows
When Ben Rousch joined Van Dam Iron Works close to a decade ago, it didn't take him long to move off a proprietary network operating system and start experimenting with a Linux server. He changed horses again, to a Windows server, but today Van Dam is back in the Linux fold -- lesson learned.
First look: Mozilla's mobile Fennec browser
Mozilla released the first workable alpha version of its new Fennec mobile browser last week, showcasing a new interface optimized for small-screen devices. Despite the slimmed-down look, however, Fennec makes use of the same Mozilla technologies under the hood that are well-known in Firefox. In my testing on my own handheld device, I found Fennec an enticing browser with a well-thought-out interface.
STUX 2.0 exhibits major improvements
STUX 2.0, released last month, is a remarkable improvement from the 0.9.2 release I reviewed a couple years ago. While the look and feel of the Slackware-based distribution have stayed pretty much the same, STUX lacks the glaring technical problems that made it unusable on the previous occasion.
Hands-on Hadoop for cluster computing
Hadoop is a distributed computing platform that provides a framework for storing and processing petabytes of data. Because it is Java-based, Hadoop runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris, BSD, and Mac OS X. Hadoop is widely used in organizations that demand a scalable, economical (read commodity hardware), efficent, and reliable platform for processing vast amounts of data.
Indamixx sound box plays on Linux base
Hip hop artists might not be the most obvious target for Linux evangelists, but a little-known distribution called Transmission is making waves. It's what powers Indamixx, a pro audio production system that runs on a customised Samsung handheld computer created by Trinity Audio Group. Developed by 64 Studio Ltd. on a mixed Debian/Ubuntu base, Transmission and its bundled applications are a quintessential open source story.
Minisys Linux: Puppy on steroids
Puppy Linux makes it easy to remaster its distribution, which probably explains the sheer number of Puppy Linux variants, called puplets, in the wild. Some of these puplets differ from the original only in offering different software bundles or use different window managers, while others target specific hardware platforms (for example, Pupeee). Minisys Linux, or Muppy, is an interesting puplet in the form of a modular Linux distro based on a Puppy Linux and Slackware 12 mix.
GIMP 2.6 changes are mostly internal
The GIMP -- the GNU Image Manipulation Program -- is one of the flagships of free software. On October 1 the project released version 2.6, with many new and improved features. Most of the user-visible features are just polish; the real changes are lurking under the hood.
Four password lockers that can help you keep your Web logins secure
It is good practice to use a different password for each Web site you need to log in to. Good passwords tend to be long and contain a wide selection of characters. That can make remembering all your passwords difficult. But you can make things easier on yourself by storing passwords for various Web sites in an encrypted file on your computer. I'll take a look at a four programs that give you easy access to your passwords when you need them and protect the password file itself against compromise.
Indian political party turns to FOSS
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is India's largest political party, with around 20 million Ordinary Members and about 4 million Active Members. In June, BJP announced its goal to become one of the most high-tech political parties in the next two years, and free and open source software (FOSS) will play an essential role in this project.
Vinyl + Audacity = MP3
If you were born before 1975, you may have a collection of records that you want to convert to digital format. Some open source software and a cable are all you need to convert your prized vinyl to something portable.
Inquisitor stresses and benchmarks your hardware
Ever wondered why your new computer feels sluggish -- or afraid you'll blow your overclocked processor to smithereens? The Inquisitor testing platform wraps the best of open source benchmarking tools in special scripts to help you test and diagnose your hardware. It's simple to use for desktop users, and if you are a computer reseller or vendor, you can also use it to stress-test thousands of computers simultaneously before shipping them off.
Perspectives extension improves HTTPS security
Ah, cryptographic security: a boon to those who understand the algorithms, but all too often a lost cause to those who don't. The secure HTTPS protocol for Web surfing is widely accepted, but has one fatal flaw: users ignore certificate error warnings. A Firefox extension called Perspectives aims to close that security hole.
