Showing all newswire headlines

"First of all I want to make clear that I always liked http://FTP. And I still prefer it over uploading my files through a web-interface, but I now have found quite a big reason why FTP really really sucks. And here it is: FTP has clearly not been designed to upload 7000 files."

There are dark areas of the kernel where only the bravest hackers dare to tread. Places where the code is twisted, the requirements are complex, and everything depends on ancient code which has seen little change over the years because even the most qualified developers fear the consequences. Arguably, no part of the kernel is darker and scarier than the serial terminal (TTY) code. Recently, this code was getting a much-needed update, but it now appears that a disconnect within the community has brought that work to a halt and thrown TTY back into the "unmaintained" column - at a time when that code has known regressions in the 2.6.31-rc kernel.

Linux distributor Novell is reorganizing: from now on, one developer team will dedicate itself entirely to openSUSE.

With the Oracle VM Template Builder, Oracle is opening up its virtualization technology to build software appliances for any type of software. Sitting underneath the hypervisor technology is Oracle's JeOS, which Kumar explained is a version of Oracle's Enterprise Linux tailored specifically for Oracle VM template. "Basically, it is something that is only applicable for building Oracle VM templates," Kumar said. "It is not something that we directly support for users to deploy as an operating system."

There's plenty of programs available for anyone who wishes to write stories. Most often, the program used is a word processor such as OpenOffice.org Writer or M$ Word. Those programs are good choices, but are heavyweights. What if you need something simpler, and yet more capable? Then, let me introduce you to the Zim Desktop Wiki.

Dell has delivered a dose of reality for both Microsoft and the Linux community on the subject of netbooks. Speaking at OpenSource World, a Dell executive deflated Microsoft's enthusiasm for making a case out of the number of Linux netbooks returned by unhappy customers. Todd Finch, Dell senior product marketing manager, said the number of Linux returns are approximately the same as those for Windows netbooks. He categorized the matter of returns as a "non-issue".

Open source software company Inverse released the version 1.0.4 of Scalable OpenGroupware.org (SOGo) and also released Lightning "Inverse Edition" v0.9.6.

Have you ever feel frustrated when Mozilla releases a new build for their software (especially Firefox) and you are still stuck at the previous older version, simply because Ubuntu did not (and do not intend to) add the newer version of software packages to the repository? The truth of fact is, Ubuntu does not update its repositories for newer version of software packages, with the exception of security fixes, until the next release of Ubuntu. For example, the default version of Firefox for Ubuntu Jaunty is Firefox 3.0 and it won’t be upgraded to Firefox 3.5 at least until Ubuntu 9.10. In most cases, especially when it comes to browsers and various Web application, it is always better to upgrade to the newest version due to the new features and security improvement. This is where Ubuntuzilla comes into play.

Trains, planes, and automobiles: Juliet Kemp has been romaing the planet for months, while supporting remote servers and writing Linux howtos for LinuxPlanet and Serverwatch. It's a tough life: "...lying in my tent with a cup of tea and a stack of chocolate biscuits, watching TV series downloads on the laptop."

Another issue which become increasingly apparent was the education factor. Although I loved the tech behind it, OLPC was always clear in that "It's an education project, not a laptop project", which I agree is essential. And yet, it became clear that the primary objective of Negroponte and friends was simply to get this laptop into kids' hands. And I vehemently disagree with that. The XO cannot exist on its own. Without proper guidance from teachers well-versed in the applying and troubleshooting the technologies involved the project would fail, or become something else entirely. To allow such a situation would be contrary to any responsible educational goal. A technology is only as good as its user's wisdom.

According to a newspaper report, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia plans to equip future high-performance phones with the Maemo operating system. The report (German language link) in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD), says the company is expected to launch its first Maemo smartphone within the next few weeks. Symbian, Nokia's OS of choice to date, is said to be far too cumbersome to compete with modern operating systems, according to the report from Nokia sources. A Nokia spokesperson declined to comment on "speculation".

A Texas court has banned sales of Microsoft Word and copies of Microsoft Office containing word until a final decision is reached in a copyright infringement trial. Microsoft has 60 days to cease sales.

[At first I thought it was on The Onion. Also note that it says "copyright" but means "patents". -J.]

This tutorial shows how you can prevent unlimited login attempts and hence brute force attacks against your SquirrelMail web login by using fail2ban.

The openSUSE project, which creates the Linux development distro that ultimately ends up being Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise in desktop, server, and other variants, is mothballing an old development release. The project icing just as it has taken another step toward meeting its goal of delivering a new release this fall.

So, my HDD went bust. I have been using GoboLinux since its launch, and there has yet to be a new release since 014.01. Try as I might, I couldn't switch distributions. So, I installed. This isn't an easy task. The install CD is so old that you will have to do a lot of updating to install anything new. So where to start?

This is the third article in the Bash tips series, you can find the other two here and here. 1. Use cd - to go to the previous working directory

When Windows 7 comes to market, the Starter Edition will be conceived especially for notebooks. As they did for Windows XP, Microsoft has come up with a list of technical limitations.

The most beautiful part of being a linux user is the choice you have, whatever issue it is. Like any other Linux distro, Ubuntu is infinitely customisable with any number of themes and applications. This include login window themes or gdm themes also. Here is select set of login window themes that i think are really worth a look.

Microsoft and Nokia have announced an alliance to bring the software giant's services to smartphones made by the world's biggest mobile phone firm. The deal means that the latest versions of Microsoft's range of products, such as Word and Excel, will be made available on Nokia handsets.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on How To Run Multiple X Sessions Without Virtualization, which demonstrated how you can run multiple desktop environments at the same time on the same computer, and switch between them at the push of a button. I admit, this was somewhat of a warmup for the real show – how to run multiple Linux distributions at the same time without having to deal with the drawbacks of virtualization software. Today, we’re going to be using chroot to treat certain parts of your Linux filesystem as (almost) completely isolated systems. This can let you do all kinds of interesting things, like run a full Gentoo system from inside your Ubuntu system with little to no performance loss.