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South African open source specialist Obsidian Systems has added Untangle, a commercial-grade open source security solution, to its line up of supported products. Muggie van Staden, MD of Obsidian Systems, says that Untangle is ideally suited to small- and medium-sized businesses wanting to block spam, spyware, viruses, adware and unwanted content from entering their network while still being able to allow approved users remote access to the network.

As part of a small personal project, I've been reading through the court exhibits presented in Comes V Microsoft. One of those exhibits is a chain of internal Microsoft emails discussing how to get Windows XP on the OLPC. In these mails, there is a "recap" (and some later email discussion) of a meeting between Orlando Ayala, Craig Fiebig, and Tom Phillips from Microsoft with Rodrigo Arboleda of OLPCA and Marcelo Calure of Brightstar.

Novell announced it is developing a Moblin-based version of SUSE Linux that is optimized for Intel Atom-based netbooks. In addition, Intel and Novell today announced a partnership to collaborate and encourage original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) to adopt the Linux-based Moblin distribution.

Mozilla has issued a broadside against Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, by claiming it stifles the browser market and gives Redmond’s Internet Explorer an unfair advantage over its rivals. According to the Financial Times, Mozilla’s chairwoman Mitchell Baker said: "Our initial review suggests this is a blatant use of the Windows operating system to change the market dynamics of browser usage."

As the Internet becomes more vast open source communities need to be not only educating potential users on the benefits of open source software but also encouraging them to become part of the community. There once existed a common misconception that, “if we have coped with the tools we’ve used until now, why adapt to something new?” The answer is simple: change. Given the considerable impact that the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies have had on the way governments and businesses operate today, we now have a completely revised approach to sophisticated technology solutions – and need to forget this misconception in its entirety.

Leading Open Source Management Provider adds Deep Linux/Unix Monitoring and Eases Deployment Overhead

Despite the positive buzz generated by Windows 7, it is only a matter of time before Linux takes its rightful place at the top of the operating-system pile. Microsoft's failings are finally catching up with it and will cause the once-unstoppable juggernaut to cede to Linux. A key event was September 14, 2000, when Microsoft set a tiny snowball rolling with the release of the deeply flawed Windows Me. That snowball has been gaining momentum, despite some ups and downs along the way--XP was an up, for example. In many respects, the public mood has already shifted against the operating system that was once considered the heart of personal computing.

Ever wished you could make your friends watch the entire Rick Roll video as soon as they log in to their computer? Now you can.

With a short message on his blog, Debian developer and maintainer Auréllian Jarno has announced a fundamental change in future Debian releases. The EGLIBC (Embedded GNU C Library), originally developed for embedded systems, is to replace GLIBC (GNU C Library).

The ability to control your primary machine remotely can come in rather handy when you need to access your documents and applications using your netbook or laptop. The FreeNX server offers a secure connection that works well even with a slow modem link.

When Google launched Android, its open source mobile operating system, it knew full well that it might have a trademark battle on its hands. Google had been denied a mark for the name "Android," due to possible confusion with the "Android Data" trademark held by the owner of a company that had gone defunct. The case could air some interesting legal arguments but, like most lawsuits, it will likely settle.

I need to extend my programming knowledge, I know as a system administrator, I should automate everything I need to do more than twice and therefore I need more programming skills. I've been thinking of learning shell programming, as it is the most ubiquitous in Linux systems. I already know some shell programming and for most of the simple tasks I can easily write a small shell script. The problem is I really need more to become more skilled, to speed up the things I do and make my life easier.

Unfortunately, maintaining a multi-boot configuration like this can be a pain, especially if you later install an operating system which overwrites the GRUB boot loader you had in place (such as a version of Windows). If your boot loader is overwritten, you could be left with no choice but to boot the most recently installed OS. In this tutorial, I will show you how to restore an overwritten copy of the GRUB boot loader by using a Linux live CD. In this example, my master GRUB installation is on a Kubuntu 8.10 installation, and I’m using an older Kubuntu 8.04 Live CD I have lying around. This tutorial does require you to have some understanding of how your multi-boot system operates, disk partitions and using the command line. If you are not confident, perhaps find a friend who knows Linux more intimately to do this process.

I have used virtualization in many different forms, OpenVZ, Xen, VMWare, for a number of years with great success. One thing I have been interested in doing is moving away from all applications that are not OpenSource. So finding a good solution for the Desktop virtualization has been a process. In that I am now running Debian 5 Lenny for the desktop workstation I thought I would try VirtualBox.

Adeona has been widely touted as the Open Source solution to recovering a stolen laptop or netbook. Adeona helps you track it down when the thief connects to the Internet. But Adeona isn't quite ready for prime time yet; A. Lizard goes into the whys and hows.

I don't write because I think what I have to say is important...I write to draw your comments. That being said, the Deja Vu article drew some notable comments. I wrote it to state that I had the same revelation the "Linux Sucks" author had recently, only several years before. One comment in particular stood out and I thought I would share it verbatim, as a feature article. Thank you Magice for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. I believe they are important.

With three months having passed since the release of ALSA 1.0.19, it is now time for an update to the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. ALSA 1.0.20 was announced this morning and it brings forth a slew of bug-fixes and other audio driver updates for Linux.

Look at what I have running in Xfce 4.4 on my OpenBSD 4.4 laptop. Do you think I should stop some of the Xfce services I have in my panels? There are maybe seven or eight in there that use about 10 MB of RAM each. On this 768 MB system, should I be giving up 70 MB of RAM to panel apps in Xfce?

If there's one fact of life for large companies, it's that small companies and individuals are going to sue to try to get a piece of your much bigger pie. As corporate pies come, Google has a pretty big one, and they've had no shortage of suits over the years from those looking to get their knife in the company's pie-pan. Such is the case again, as according to reports the search giant has been served with a lawsuit over its use of the name "Android" for its popular mobile phone platform.

The developers of the CoreBoot project have released version 0.9,0 of FlashROM, which is able to read, delete, rewrite and verify the flash chips which store a systems BIOS. FlashROM runs on Linux and UNIX derivatives such as FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X and allows re-flashing to take place from the command line on a running operating system. With most manufacturers' flash programming utilities, there is only support for Windows or DOS and they require the user to reboot into DOS, from a floppy disk, or an installed Windows system, re-flash the BIOS, then reboot back into Linux.