Showing all newswire headlines

Like a plus-sized dress on a skinny runway model, Windows just doesn't fit when it's loaded on a netbook. So entrepreneurs are taking a page from the fashion industry playbook, and creating new operating systems that are tailored exclusively to fit the smaller, less powerful and inexpensive netbooks. At least four new operating systems are in the works, all promising to offer a better experience to users struggling with tiny Windows icons on their 10-inch laptops.

Zenwalk 6.0 has shown some real work: the project has separated from GNOME Office and MPlayer, brings a new desktop version and provides numerous optimizations.

The SCO Group has filed an appeal against last years ruling that it did not buy the copyright to Unix from Novell. The company is hoping to overturn the judgement and resume its legal action against IBM and Linux. When SCO started to pursue IBM in court in 2003, Novell said that when it sold its Unix business to SCO in 1995 it retained copyright to the code and merely sold SCO a licence to use it. SCO then sued Novell over that claim.

As Microsoft's TomTom lawsuit takes off, so SCO's winds down. But at least SCO did one good thing: it showed there were no copyright infringements in Linux - if there had been any, it would have used them. That's why Microsoft went after TomTom claiming patent infringement, which is quite different. That's also why we need patent law to be reformed.

Mozilla Labs has released an experimental Firefox extension that brings new functionality to blank tab pages. The Mozilla developers aim to use the extension as a prototype for exploring blank tab features that could potentially be included by default in future versions of the browser. The extension, which was released last week, takes advantage of some of the browser's most recent improvements and is designed to be used with the latest Firefox nightly builds. Mozilla design expert Aza Raskin explained the new project in a blog post at the Mozilla Labs web site. The goal is to add some lightweight navigation elements that are useful, unobtrusive, and quick to load.

Bloggers and their readers continued to pick apart the finer details of Microsoft's case against TomTom over FAT file system licensing. What they found seemed to indicate a greater effort underway at Microsoft to undercut open source software.

Everyone has an opinion on this one. Why do so many people care?

The release of the very nice Asus Eee PC 1000HE signals a turning point in the sub-notebook market and it's one that Linux desktop advocates will not like. It looks like the 10 inch netbook has hit the sweet spot for consumers and that sweet spot includes Windows but not Linux.

Numerous irrelevant issues and feelings about them are ventilated in comments on the case. However, there are only two important issues. One is what the law is, the other is what we think the law should be.

Are Netbook vendors putting Windows where Linux should be?

This tutorial describes how you can install Apache2 with mod_fcgid and PHP5 on Ubuntu 8.10. mod_fcgid is a compatible alternative to the older mod_fastcgi. It lets you execute PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners instead of the Apache user.

Finding a laptop that can run Linux is no longer much of a challenge. As we have shared in numerous netbook and notebook reviews, a majority off the shelf PCs shipping with Windows can easily be replaced with Linux and chances are most -- if not all -- of the components will "just work" on this open-source operating system, while ill-supported parts can usually be configured to work in just a few steps. For those looking to save time or avoid a potential headache, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and other major vendors have been offering Linux notebooks for some time now. One of the smaller vendors though that has been offering Ubuntu Linux notebooks (along with desktops and servers) is System76 Inc. This Colorado-based company not only ensures their hardware is 100% compatible with Ubuntu Linux, but they also preload some popular software packages that are not installed by default on Ubuntu. In this review we are looking at the System76 Serval Professional notebook.

There are a number of methods available to monitor Windows machines with Nagios. This tutorial will show you how to use NRPE and the NSClient++. This is probably the easiest method and provides the ability to monitor drive space, CPU, Memory, etc.

NSLW wrote a application which makes PlayOnLinux more ergonomically usable. The program can be freely redistributed and executed. It is written in GTK and it meets the needs of the PlayOnLinux community.

Plans to introduce modular features in Windows 7 have been welcomed by the European Commission's former Microsoft monitoring trustee. Windows Features allows users to turn off applications such as Media Centre, Media Player and Internet Explorer. Professor Neil Barrett said this would help promote effective competition.

I've turned off the "build" option because ...... the order queue met the "price scaling fulcrum point" (how's that for sesquipedalian pleonasticity ?) :-) In other words, there's now over 50 Illuminato slot pre-orders, which means that starting on Monday, I'm going to start placing all the orders for parts and building them up - Thanks!

I've had bad experiences with training videos before, so I tend to shy away from them. Also, I can read much faster than a person can speak (that's not bragging, it's true of virtually anyone who can read normally) so in the same amount of time it takes to view a video training, I can read and (hopefully) absorb much more content. So what about Wesley Chun's Python Fundamentals videos? Let's have a look.

“Internet Safety” the term has been getting vague with the increasing virus outbreaks nowdays. PC Magazine once conducted a survey in which they asked the participants to rate their broadband ISP services and the results were astonishing. Most of users didn’t completely understand the seriousness of potential threats or how to protect their PCs.

Well, not quite. In fact, it’s been darn cold this week in the Mid-Atlantic USA, with lows down in the single digits Fahrenheit, wind chills below zero. But nevertheless, change is in the air — in this case, the Fedora trademark guidelines. But before I get to talking about those, I wanted to give a nod to Joe Brockmeier, with whom I’ve talked about this subject before. Joe and I share an interest in doing tough grindstone work to enable communities, and one of the things that gets in the way sometimes is the long arm of the law — in this case, trademark law. That’s one reason why I started working last summer with Red Hat Legal to revise our trademark guidelines.

Last week, Google's Marissa Mayer and Eric Schmidt appeared in separate interviews on the Charlie Rose show, and not surprisingly they spoke in one voice where privacy and trust were concerned. They both said that when we use online services, we give up privacy in the process. There it is on the table. They are providing the service, and you're providing the information, and should you be concerned about this trade-off, Schmidt says simply: "Trust us."