Showing headlines posted by scan2006

Both GNOME and KDE recently underwent massive redesigns. GNOME 2 morphed into version 3.0 with a radically different look and feel. KDE 4 is also graphically much different from the KDE 3 lineage. Meanwhile, Ubuntu has added Unity to the mix. The future of all will depend on ease-of-use perceptions and end-user hardware.

To a Windows user, Linux is disorienting not so much because of what is missing but because of the different way one goes about solving problems," said Slashdot blogger Chris Travers. "Windows relies very heavily on commercial, off the shelf software for solving problems." Linux, on the other hand, "tends to rely on more flexible solutions ... . Yes, everyone can use Linux. But at present not everyone will.

It's no secret that the new Unity interface in Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" has been less than entirely successful at pleasing some fans of Canonical's free and open source operating system.

While Linux still has trouble getting a grip on the desktop, everywhere else Linux rules. No where is that clearer than it is in the fastest of the fast: the supercomputers.

"Two days into my Mac experiment I found that while the command line options had me feeling right at home, the chrome metal interface was making me want to gag. Further into the experience, I was bothered to learn that my customization options for OS X were much more limited than I had anticipated.

Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25.

It is difficult to determine the exact date of birth of the Linux kernel . Is she is in April 1991, when Linus Torvalds started actual work on its proposed new kernel? Is it August 25, 1991, when he posted his famous message ( "just a hobby, will not Be big and professional like GNU" ) on the newsgroup comp.os.minix?? Do we remember September 1991 when version 0.01 was made ??on the FTP server of the Technology University of Helsinki? Whatever option is chosen, the year 2011 marks the twentieth anniversary of this amazing project and to participate in the celebrations , LinuxFr conducted an interview with Linus Torvalds, you will find a translation in the second half of the mail.

Ubuntu 11.04 is finally here and you can’t wait to download it, but as is typical on any Ubuntu release day, the mirrors are crawling. Luckily if you have an old Ubuntu .iso you can update it easily with zsync. Zsync is a Linux command that allows you to compare an existing .iso with an up-to-date zsync meta file to download only the missing or out of date parts. Combine those parts with your existing file and what you are left with is a completely up to date iso without spending the time to download the entire file.

How was the transition from SunOS/Solaris to Linux? Any special hurdles you recall? It was nothing, really. I just had to learn a few new names for the package utilities. QRZ always ran on Solaris, and most recently an S-10 (2007) but I used a lot of Linux, mostly Fedora, on other projects. The new QRZ runs the Ubuntu 64-bit server. I’ve been happy with that and I like the Debian package utilities. I really don’t miss Solaris at all.

These stories have prompted a response from Engineering Director of Ubuntu Rick Spencer. Spencer says quite clearly in his blog yesterday that "Ubuntu is not changing to a rolling release"

The Document Foundation has initial plans for the development of office software Libre Office revealed. All components of the application to be rewritten substantially. Among other things, the dependence of Java can be reduced.

Dell has stopped selling consumer PCs preloaded with Ubuntu from its website, and doesn't know when they're coming back.

Even if you need a computer right away, there are plenty of good reasons to build one rather than buy one. You control the parts, so you get exactly what you need at the price you can best afford. You're assured of being able to upgrade any (or all) of the pieces later, when you have more money to spend. And, perhaps most importantly, you get the satisfaction of doing it yourself and maintaining complete control over it from the very instant you open the boxes. No matter how little you want to drop, building your own computer is still the best way to go.

A beta of the Firefox “Lorentz” project is now available for download and public testing. Firefox “Lorentz” takes the out of process plugins work from Mozilla Developer Previews and builds it on top of Firefox 3.6.3. This beta offers uninterrupted browsing for Windows and Linux users when a problem causes a crash in any Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugin instance. If a plugin crashes or freezes when using Firefox “Lorentz”, it will not affect the rest of Firefox. Users can submit a plugin crash report, and then reload the page to restart the plugin and try again.

Last year, the inaugural We’re Linux video contest kicked off a storm of creativity and captured the spirit of Linux and the diversity of its community. The winning video “What Does it Mean to Be Free” was an inspirational piece that communicated the ideals of the open source operating system.

The drivetrain is swappable, allowing racers to mix-and-match packs and motors to suit the circuit and their riding style. The software controlling it all runs on Linux — Hussain says it boots up in less than three seconds — and the system bus for power and data features a USB port.

The GNOME Project is proud to announce GNOME 2.30, the latest stable release of the popular Free Software desktop environment and applications suite. GNOME 2.30 builds on previous GNOME releases and brings hundreds of improvements for users and developers, including enhancements for user management, Web browsing, support for Facebook chat, and new productivity features.

It was not long ago when Microsoft Windows had a tight stranglehold on the operating system market. Walk into a Circuit City or Staples, it seemed, and virtually any computer you took home would be running the most current flavor of Windows. Ditto for computers ordered direct from a manufacturer. In the last decade, though, the operating system market has begun to change. Slightly more than 5% of all computers now run Mac, according to NetMarketShare.com. Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect.

Team Amarok is proud to announce Amarok 2.3.0. It contains many improvements and bugfixes over Amarok 2.2.2 as well as many new features. Areas such as podcast support and saved playlists have seen huge improvements, as has the support for USB mass storage devices (including generic MP3 players).

OpenSSO is one of the best (if it isn't the best one) open source web Single Sign On projects out there. Sun Microsystems on 2008 open-sourced one of their products called Access Manager, and rebranded it as OpenSSO. But it's sad to see how Oracle after Sun acquisition, is slowly shutting down this amazing open source project, marking it as "not strategic" and dismembering the few parts they think are worth for their own SSO product.