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Installing software in Linux is nothing like it used to be, but there are still some pitfalls to watch out for. If you follow this little guide, your Linux life will be made simpler and safer. Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

Novell Wednesday released the beta of its new "Just Enough" SUSE operating system targeted as a platform for Linux-based appliances. The company is releasing the beta in conjunction with the creation of the SUSE Appliance Program targeted at independent software vendors (ISV) who want to package their applications with SUSE Linux on an appliance.

Once upon a time, there were no usable free web browsers for the Linux environment; the binary-only Netscape releases were all that was available to us. For many, the solution to the problem was to be found in the release of the Netscape source code; some years later, we got the Mozilla and Firefox browsers (based on the Gecko rendering engine) from this work. The KDE project, though, took a different route in the late 1990's, developing the KHTML renderer to use with the Konqueror application.

In the last quarter of 2007 AMD was on a spree with their proprietary Linux driver as they introduced their new OpenGL driver, which brought major performance improvements, and that was followed by AIGLX support. This year, however, their Catalyst Linux driver activity has been relatively quiet for end-users. Since switching over to this much-improved code-base, they have been able to deliver same-month product support for their new graphics processors such as the Radeon HD 3650, 3850/3870, and the 780G-based IGP, which once couldn't be said for this company that had taken them a half-year to deliver support for the Radeon X1000 (R500) and Radeon HD 2000 (R600) product families. Today the Catalyst 8.4 Linux driver has been released, and like the 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 drivers, this month's update comes with minimal changes.

The second iteration of the subnotebook will go on sale on 1 May, although the Windows and Linux versions will include differing amounts of solid-state storage.

It's not that Linux isn't fast or efficient, but in some cases fast just isn't good 0enough. What's needed instead is the ability to deterministically meet scheduling deadlines with specific tolerances. In this article explore various real-time Linux alternatives and how they achieve real time—from the early architectures that mimic virtualization solutions to the options available today in the standard 2.6 kernel.

Linspire announced a new version of its CNR (Click'N'Run) software management system that supports the Ubuntu 8.04 ("HardyHeron") release, expected to take flight on Apr. 24. The client enables users to install, uninstall, and update desktop Linux software available on Linspire's CNR.com download site.

CAD Schroer released the Fourth Generation of the globally renowned MEDUSA engineering product suite. Its powerful software tools were developed to work the way engineers do, helping you get product to market faster, and designs to customers quicker and more efficiently. Now MEDUSA4 Personal users can benefit from additional functionality, and support for the current versions of the following Linux distributions: CentOS, Fedora, Mandriva, RedHat, SuSE and Ubuntu. The MEDUSA4 Personal version is functionality nearly identical to the professional MEDUSA4 version but is intended for non-commercial use by private individuals. The product allows you to import but not export data, and sheets are clearly marked as having originated from the personal use version. This workshop describes step by step, how to install MEDUSA4 Personal on an OpenSuse 10.3 client.

So you just bought an external hard drive for backups. Now, with what filesystem should you format it? Ext2? FAT32? No matter which one you choose, there are trade-offs to consider. You face the same choice whenever you buy a USB thumb drive, but for a backup drive, a lot more is at stake. Those backups have to be there and be reliable when disaster strikes. On the one hand, you need to preserve your data and your metadata, so not just any filesystem will do. But on the other, if you're not at your home base, you need to be able to access it from anywhere, so you can't be too obscure.

Sun Microsystems President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Executive Vice President for Software Rich Green run what is now the largest open-source-based IT infrastructure company in the world. Schwartz became CEO of the 26-year-old company in May 2006 when longtime President and CEO Scott McNealy moved to take over as chairman of the board. One of Schwartz's first moves was to rehire Green, who had run Sun's Java and Solaris businesses—among other things—for 14 years, from 1990 to 2004.

Why Debian decided at this juncture to remove the binary blob that supports sound for those with ESS Allegro/Maestro3 chips -- including The $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450) -- I don't know. The problem -- i.e. no sound -- reared itself in the newish 2.6.24-1 kernel that recently rolled into Debian Lenny. It took me awhile before I figured out that booting the previous kernel -- 2.6.22-3 -- brought sound back. But what if I have to reinstall Lenny and don't get the older kernel? Or what if want to use the new kernel ... and those that follow?

The Open Source Census, an effort to pin down hard statistics regarding the implementation of open-source software around the world, gets underway on Wednesday. The census was first announced in December by founder OpenLogic, a vendor of tools and services for managing open-source software deployments. It has provided an automated census tool called OSS Discovery under an open-source license for the project.

The archivemount FUSE filesystem lets you mount a possibly compressed tarball as a filesystem. Because FUSE exposes its filesystems through the Linux kernel, you can use any application to load and save files directly into such mounted archives. This lets you use your favourite text editor, image viewer, or music player on files that are still inside an archive file. Going one step further, because archivemount also supports write access for some archive formats, you can edit a text file directly from inside an archive too.

TheKDE BugSquad is pleased to announce itself! Come and learn the fine art of bug triage. How might one do so? Join us for a BugDay on April 20th (0:00 UTC to 23:59 UTC). The last one was a great success, with 355 bugs triaged, and almost a third of those closed. We would like to finish off more bugs, and could use your help! All you need is a recent version of KDE4, although 3.5.9 could also be useful. That is it!

Mainstream Linux distributions for servers have caught up substantially with Unix in terms of reliability over the past year, while Windows Server 2003 downtime has risen by nearly 25 percent, according to a Yankee Group survey. The research firm's survey also noted a significant rise in enterprise interest in Ubuntu, previously known primarily as a desktop operating system.

"Finally found it ... the patch below solves the sparsemem crash and the test system boots up fine now," announced Ingo Molnar. He described the patch as fixing a "memory corruption and crash on 32-bit x86 systems. If a !PAE x86 kernel is booted on a 32-bit system with more than 4GB of RAM, then we call memory_present() with a start/end that goes outside the scope of MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS."

Switching to Linux can be very daunting, most seasoned Linux users experienced that first hand. After all, at some point they were also “noobs”. However, the Linux community has excelled in making the switch for beginners as easy as possible by providing guides, howtos, tweaks, and general advocacy articles. When I first made the switch 3 years ago, I found the community welcoming me with open hands on forums, IRC channels, and E-mail, I was surprised how helpful these penguins were! For this, I feel obliged to give back to the community that has always been there for me. To pass down the torch to newer Linux generations. Over here I compiled a list of 7 habits that I feel someone has told me when I started out. I believe that getting into these habits will make the Linux experience more secure, convenient, educational, and ultimately more enjoyable.

Organizers of Debian are taking too long too approve new contributors and are threatening the future of the project according to some working on the open source initiative. Many Debian members are using the Planet Debian forum to express their dismay at delays of more than four months in approving new developers. The last new developer was approved in November 2007.

Under its new owner, Sun Microsystems, MySQL will remain true to its Linux roots and won’t be pulled towards Solaris or become overshadowed by the Solaris-distributed Postgres. Former chief executive Marten Mickos told Uberpulse that MySQL would stay focused on Linux, which accounts for the majority of its business (Windows rules when it comes to downloads). The MySQL team will work on Solaris "but in proportion to what it represents in our marketplace."

Novell’s Suse Linux at the desktop is unlikely to be popular with consumers in the next three to five years, according to Novell President and CEO Ronald Hovsepian. The consumer market is taking longer to develop, he said Wednesday. “The market for the desktop for the next three to five years is mainly enterprise-related,” he said. Novell is in the meantime focusing on technology enthusiasts and offering them free downloads of the openSuse distribution.