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This tutorial shows how to set up a PXE (short for preboot execution environment) install server on Debian Lenny. A PXE install server allows your client computers to boot and install a Linux distribution over the network, without the need of burning Linux iso images onto a CD/DVD, boot floppy images, etc. This is handy if your client computers don't have CD or floppy drives, or if you want to set up multiple computers at the same time (e.g. in a large enterprise), or simply because you want to save the money for the CDs/DVDs. In this article I show how to configure a PXE server that allows you to boot multiple distributions (i386 and x86_64): Debian Lenny, Ubuntu 9.04, Fedora 10, CentOS 5.3, OpenSuSE 11.1, and Mandriva 2009.1.

Some days, like it or not, you need a lawyer. For most business purposes, picking the right law firm isn’t usually that big of a deal. Chances are you already have at least an idea of how to find a contract lawyer, a tax law specialist or a real-estate attorney. But what if your programmers are using open-source code that’s licensed under two different licenses? What if you’re concerned with how a patent might affect open-source software your company is already using? Or let’s say a company based in Utah decides that you’ve put its proprietary code into Linux, who do you turn to then? Now, what should you be looking for in a law firm?

A couple of kernel developers at Wine are upset about the current project leadership. Behind the dissatisfaction is so-called bug421 on the missing device-independent bitmap (DIB) engine.

At UDS Karmic, Ubuntu developers will be discussing the possibility of creating a system to allow Android applications to run on Ubuntu, including Ubuntu's mobile versions.

SourceForge, the open-source project host, has removed the pages of the rtmpdump stream-recording software from its network in response to a cease-and-desist notice from Adobe. The program uses the Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) to record not only streamed Flash media but also encrypted streams. Adobe added encryption to its proprietary protocol on introducing Flash Media Server 3 in order to prevent the recording of Flash content, and defined RTMPE (RMTP encrypted) for the purpose. Adobe takes the view that its copy protection can be circumvented by the RTMPE support incorporated in rtmpdump and, in its cease-and-desist notice, invokes the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent the distribution of the software.

As the global economic crisis deepens, companies are considering options they might once have rejected out of hand in order to cut costs. Open source vendors have long waved the lower-TCO banner, and the recession seems to fueling business in the sector. It's not quite clear, though, whether a switch to open source will result in cost savings in the long run.

One of the reasons I admire RMS is because of his complete integrity and consistency. He simply will not compromise on his principles, even if it leads to the loss of support from those who are not so rigorous. I'm also impressed by the steadfastness of his vision: he does not flit from one trendy idea to another, but sticks unswervingly to his core beliefs. But even I am astonished by this July 1986 interview with him, which could have been conducted yesterday..

Netbooks are really becoming a part of the market where all sorts of companies are trying out new things. For instance, earlier this week, we had a review of a MIPS-based Loongson-2 netbook from China, last Monday we reported on Acer implementing a Vmedia drive into a netbook, a while back we had a multitouch LCD touchpad netbook, and we've had more. Now we have one that uses an x86 SoC that doesn't come from AMD/Intel/VIA, and can run on... AA batteries.

BitTorrent is an open source peer-to-peer file protocol for sharing large software and media files. It is a well established protocol which accounts for a significant proportion of internet traffic.

In the UK, it's a public holiday, and The H's editor in chief has been watching a movie and wondering if the Star Trek universe is a useful model for the future of open source... A hostile species finds its source of power destroyed. In an attempt to find détente, it reaches out to the alliance which has defended the freedom of many of other species against the hostile species' own aggressive acts for decades. This is the opening of Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country, but it could also easily be the recent history of Microsoft, open source and Linux.

In February, the Swiss Federal Office for Construction and Logistics (Bundesamt für Bauten und Logistik, or BBL) sealed a deal with Microsoft for an estimated 35-million-dollars worth of licenses. Red Hat, along with 17 other Open Source enterprises, has filed an official complaint.

Microsoft is poised to release its latest search offering Bing to the world and hopes to prop it up with an $80 million ad campaign. I don't see ads substantially changing consumer behavior and it's ultimately throwing good money after bad.

LXer Feature: 25-May-2009

Wine, you can't live with or without it, it seems, the Berkeley Linux Users Group put up a great review of Mephisto Backup v1.5, Juliet Kemp shows one way to protect your root password, and it looks like Sugar is ultimately going to win because no one is buying XO's with XP on them apparently. Google Chrome 2.0 was released this past week, its amazing to me that Chrome already has twice the browser market share than Opera but then we all know about market share statistics don't we?

Intel on Tuesday gave the first preview of its next-generation Atom chip, with a more integrated design intended to improve performance and energy efficiency. The company also launched the beta of version 2.0 of the Linux-based Moblin netbook platform, with a new interface. The upcoming Atom chip, code-named 'Pineview', incorporates the memory controller and graphics chip onto a the same silicon as the processor, a more efficient design that should lower costs for system builders, lower energy consumption and improve performance, Intel said.

A widespread project to equip Spanish primary students with laptops was under attack by the free software community for being an undercover operation from Microsoft to take over the educational system in the country. Now the government is considering a kind of dual booting system.

During the Ubuntu Developer Summit (May 25-29, Barcelona), Canonical’s Netbook team is set to show Google Android applications running on Ubuntu, according to sources that will attend the conference. Why is Canonical so intrigued by Google’s mobile operating system?

Hacker groups have reported that man-in-the-middle attacks can be used to strip away the benefits of SSL security when transacting online. However, says the inventor of SSL, these are a browser problem and, moreso, they're not so black and white.

The team behind the Puppy Linux project has released the first maintenance release of Puppy Linux 4.2, version 4.2.1. Puppy Linux provides a very small, yet complete Linux desktop, with a lot of useful applications, many supported hardware devices and a pleasant user interface.

This one is strictly for the hardcore fan - for the very first time, it says here, you have the chance to purchase a giant poster showing the history and development of Unix. That's right - this 40 foot poster includes over 1,000 versions of 150 different types of Unix. Backed with fractal art by Alan Tenant, the poster is based on Eric Levenez's diagram of the heavy duty operating system.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install VMware Server 2 on an Ubuntu 9.04 desktop system. With VMware Server you can create and run guest operating systems ("virtual machines") such as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc. under a host operating system. This has the benefit that you can run multiple operating systems on the same hardware which saves a lot of money, and you can move virtual machines from one VMware Server to the next one (or to a system that has the VMware Player which is also free).