LXer Weekly Roundup for 17-Aug-2008

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on Aug 17, 2008 8:15 PM
LXer Linux News; By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.)


LXer Feature: 17-Aug-2008

This week we have Akademy 2008 reviews, Windows gives a BSOD during the Olympics opening ceremonies, Linus doesn't like monkeys, Derek Knowlton journeys to Sin City to experience DefCon 16, Lawyers who should stay away from Linux and 10 of this, 5 of those, 11% of that..its numbers numbers everywhere!

This week we have Akademy 2008 reviews, Windows gives a BSOD during the Olympics opening ceremonies, Linus doesn't like monkeys, Derek Knowlton journeys to Sin City to experience DefCon 16, Lawyers who should stay away from Linux and 10 of this, 5 of those, 11% of that..its numbers numbers everywhere!

Why Microsoft and Intel tried to kill the XO$100 laptop: Microsoft, makers of most of the computer software in the world, tried to kill it with words, and Intel, maker of most computer chips, tried to kill it with dirty tricks. Of course, they don't admit to being attempted murderers. And when I introduce you to Intel's lovely spokesperson, Agnes Kwan, you'll realise how far their denials go. But the truth is the two mightiest high-tech companies in the world looked on Negroponte's philanthropic scheme and decided it had to die. Yet, 3½ years later, the laptop is clinging on to life.

Linux World 2008 Photos: Here is the collection of photos taken by Scott Dowdle during the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2008.

Akademy 2008 - Day 1: Akademy 2008, the annual KDE desktop summit, officially kicked off on Saturday, 9th July in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium, with a schedule packed full of talks, discussions, and development. Here are links to Day 2 and Integration as well.

10 Coolest Devices Running Linux: As you all probably know Linux is not limited to just desktops. It’s far reaching, actually. Not that you’d have a Terminal app on it or anything, but you could. Some of you may have a mobile phone running Linux and you probably don’t even know it. The most popular phone in the world runs Unix. That’s right. The iPhone runs on Unix. Are there any other cool devices out there running on Linux or Unix?

An Introduction to Linux CLI: A tutorial intended for beginners explaining how Linux CLI works and the basic concepts and commands of Bash.

Canonical Tells VARs: 11 Percent of U.S. Businesses Running Ubuntu: In an effort to rally solutions providers around Ubuntu Linux, Canonical is telling resellers that 11 percent of U.S. businesses already run Ubuntu. That’s impressive, but when will VARs truly jump on the Ubuntu bandwagon?

Make OpenOffice Work For You: OpenOffice is much more than a simple alternative to Microsoft Office... Here, we’ll show you some simple tips and tricks so that you can use OpenOffice in the easiest and most efficient way possible

Windows Crashes During Olympic Ceremony: Microsoft Windows never lets us down when it comes to BSOD amusement and at the 2008 Summer Olympic Opening Ceremonies it struck again. Here is a link to the pic they mention.

10 Essential Linux Applications for Daily Use: Instead of an introduction, I'll answer the question 'Why did you left out wonderful applications like Scribus, Inkscape, Cinelerra, Wine, QCAD etc?'. Well, because the article is about applications which I consider essential for daily use. Of course, some work with those every day, but not the majority. Secondly, if you ask why Amarok and not Banshee, or why KTorrent and not Deluge, well that's a personal preference.

Comcast Gives Cold-Shoulder To Non-Profit School Running Linux: New Generation is a non-profit private school running Ubuntu Linux. During a recent Internet outage, Comcast refused to give tech support, due to their use of Linux.

Wine-Doors for Linux Reviewed: I have been using Wine (WINE) or various implementations of it (Crossover Office and Cedega) for a few years now. What is funny is that I often had more success with Wine proper than I did with the various offshoot products. Go figure! So when I learned this issue...

A Big Day in Court for the FOSS Community: Today those who believe in free content and free and open source software won a major victory in court. The underlying facts, and counsel, were hardly major figures on the commercial landscape: the open source software at issue had been developed for model train buffs under an infrequently used free and open source license, and the attorney was young and inexperienced.

Torvalds on Linux Security, Masturbating Monkeys, Whores and Idiots: Linus Torvalds is a Finnish born software engineer best known for two things: kick starting the development of the Linux kernel, and owning the Linux trademark. Actually, make that three things. Torvalds has recently become very well known for speaking his mind...

DefCon 16: Hackers and a Gag Order in Sin City: In many ways the virtues that have brought Linux from a Unix look alike pet project to a competitive operating system are the same as the ideals behind DefCon. The community stood on each other's shoulders and developed piece after piece of software to fill in the gaps that were found through use. Programmer's built on the ideas of others creating tighter and tighter code to support an increasingly complex framework. Originally that was the theme of this article when I had begun thinking about writing it. The things that I saw at DefCon were every bit of the ideals I went up there to find and more...

10 Best-designed Linux Distribution Websites: Most Linux Distribution websites have been redesigned to sport a Web 2.0 look. To give credit to their talented web designers/developers, I’ll pick 10 Linux Distribution websites that I think stand out from the rest. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you don’t have to agree with me. Anyway, you can always comment later on and share your views.

5 Anti-Linux Sites You Must Follow!: Ever since I read Jeremy Allison’s blog post about why we need to hear criticisms from people who dislikes Linux, I have been thinking a lot about what he said and how it hits very close to my own philosophy about life: In order to improve, you need to be open to criticisms; even from your enemies. One of the (many) things that most people dislike about Microsoft is that they don’t have any real communication between the developers and the users; so when you discover a bug or have opinions about a feature that can be improved or added, there is no real easy way to directly (or indirectly) communicate with a developer.

Why lawyers don't like Linux: Professionals who work on the basis of billable hours rarely take the time out to write an article for publication unless they have a valid reason for doing so. That's why I'm generally a bit sceptical when lawyers come out with articles that attempt to make a case against the use of free and open source sofware. No lawyer would ever be paid the same rates for a third-rate article about FOSS as he/she is paid for listening to a client - hence my scepticism. But, surprisingly, over the past three months two members of the legal profession have taken the time to pen what they, no doubt, consider to be serious objections to the use of FOSS.

Commentary: The Penguin Doesn't Fly, Avoid Linux: This Law.com Legal Technology piece on how awful Linux is for law firms strikes me as the funniest piece of FUD I've read in a long time. If you loved Rob Enderle, you don't want to miss it. Here's just one sentence to give you an idea: "Meanwhile, a Linux DIY installation like a DIY auto repair, is extremely complex, convoluted, time consuming and often dicey, something a lawyer may not want to bet his or her practice on." Legal Technology should really be ashamed to publish such biased inaccuracies. Perhaps they don't know. Lawyers do tend to be Windows users and in my experience not so cutting edge in the tech department.

Lawyer's Funny AntiLinux FUD Turns Out to be Not So Funny: I put this article from Law.com's Legal Technology page, "Commentary: The Penguin Doesn't Fly, Avoid Linux" (http://legaltech.law.com/commentary-the-penguin-do.html) in News Picks because I found it hilarious, in the Rob Enderle kind of way. But then I thought I'd look up the author on Google, and lo and behold, I find he said something that appears to be not exactly true. I'm not talking about the FUD stuff. I'm talking about his assertion that he couldn't get any answers to a request for help from Mandriva Forum:

Windows broken … I’m surprised it took this long: So, in a stroke, two security researchers (Mark Dowd of IBM and Alexander Sotirov or VMware) at Black Hat have set browser security back 10 years and rendered Vista’s security next to useless (PDF of paper here - site currently Slashdotted …).

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