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Nixstaller is conceived as an installation kit for Unix systems and conducts dependency tests and supports UTF-8.

The merge window for the Linux 2.6.30 kernel is now open and Linus has already accepted a horde of new patches for this next quarterly Linux update. Among what has been pulled in so far is the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) support for a new Intel chipset. This new Intel IGP is described by Intel's Shaohua Li as "a G33-like desktop and mobile chipset." The patch adds in two new product IDs (0xa001 and 0xa011) for the desktop and mobile version and makes some clock-related changes. Within the code, the chipset is referred to as just an IGD (Integrated Graphics Device) rather than being more descriptive like the I945GM, I965GM, and GM45 defines.

The new version 9.1 of Adobe Reader brings some improvements regarding the command line interface and printing features.

As many LinuxJournal.com readers will know, a number of the Linux Journal crew hail from Houston. Thus we were particularly pleased to learn that the Houston Zoo has just installed Firefox — but not quite how you think.

My 2nd set of ScreenShots, this time it is Xubuntu 9.0.4 Beta based on the New Jaunty Jackalope Beta Release of Ubuntu 9.0.4. I absolutely love Xubuntu since it uses the very light and efficient Xfce 4.6. Granted usually I am praising the fancier Ubuntu based distros, but I do love the simpleness and the fast loading of Applicationsin Xubuntu. Xubuntu also comes with Abiword and Gnumeric, which is the equivalent of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.The other Ubuntu based distro's have been coming with Open Office 2.4 or Open Office 3.0

Some of the similarities are scary...

Every now and then you stumble across a blog that is run by a so-called Linux enthousiast. Some of them claim to have been using both Linux and Windows for years, so they have balanced and objective view on the advantages and disadvantages of both systems. But when you start to look a little closer, you will see that they spread the SOFUD. Some have a real gift for writing and are so credible that you see no need to investigate their claims.

In late December AMD had released open-source R600/700 3D code and a month later they released the 3D documentation that covers these Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 series graphics cards. The initial code drop didn't do much good for end-users as they couldn't do much more than render a couple triangles, but over the past few months the open-source developers have been working on the proper Mesa support for the R600/700 graphics cards in a private code repository. Now this code may finally be pushed out to the general public in the near future.

Only four freshmen showed up at the University of Virginia in 2007 without a computer of their own, and the school has decided that it's no longer worth the expense of running campus computer labs. What's the point of running a university computer lab when all the students bring laptops anyway? That's a question that schools have been asking themselves as computer ownership rates among incoming freshmen routinely top 90 percent. Schools like the University of Virginia have concluded that the time has come to dismantle the community computer labs and put that money to more productive uses.

Gnome 2.26 didn't got a lot of attention when it got released. This blog post is reviewing some of the interesting changes in Gnome 2.26 and gives a opinion about them.

Bootloader Syslinux developer Peter Anvin, since 1992 kernel developer, gives an insight into his work.

Thanks to Ed Cherlin for your reference to the OLPC trials in Ethiopia and and the challenge of a rote-learning based culture per Eduvision's Ethiopia Implementation Report. This is a very useful report. As I read it I found myself thinking -I recognise what they are saying - it could have been written for Nigeria.

When it comes to putting Ubuntu Linux on mobile devices, Canonical has two flavors of their popular Linux distribution to suit the needs of vendors and end-users: Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Ubuntu MID. The former targets netbook computers (hence its name), particularly those with Intel Atom processors, and brings a unique interface atop GNOME. The Ubuntu MID edition is targeted for very small netbooks and mobile Internet devices. Particularly, Ubuntu MID aims to be on handheld devices and those with 4-7" touch-screens. Beyond having a different user interface, Ubuntu MID is spun with LPIA packages instead of the i386 package-set. LPIA is quite similar to i386, but targets the Low-Power Intel Architecture with different compile-time optimizations. With the low-power focus, will this distribution extend your battery life? Yes, our results today show that the power consumption can be cut down by greater than 10%.

Microsoft today sits comfortably atop the growing netbook market, with Windows garnering 90% of netbook sales in November, December and January, according to research firm The NPD Group. What about Linux? With just 10% netbook market share, the open-source operating system is a toothless tiger for now. But Linux-based netbooks may encroach on Microsoft's success in the near future. Two looming threats: Google may decide to run its operating system, Android, on netbooks and low-power processors from smartphone chip licenser ARM may take off in netbooks.

Here is my first of many ScreenShots of the 9.0.4 beta Jaunty Jackalope series of ubuntu Based Distros. Enjoy the screen shots below...

Device and hardware makers are discovering the flexibility of the Linux stack as the foundation of a platform for mobile applications that bring value to the wares they want to sell. Complications exist, but manufacturers are working through them to further drive the adoption of the Linux stack.

It's hard to write a bash script of much import without using a pipe or two. Named pipes, on the other hand, are much rarer.

Installing Ubuntu (or any other Linux) on a Macintosh is a slightly different process than installing Ubuntu on a more traditional PC. Various differences in the hardware, particularly the use of the EFI firmware system, mean that some extra effort is required to get your favourite distro up and running on your favourite hardware.

While the Catalyst driver for Windows was released a number of days ago, the Catalyst Linux driver was missing. It has, however, been released today. AMD's Linux engineers ended up delaying the Catalyst 9.3 release so they could spend additional time tuning this driver, since it will be the last release that supports the R300 through R500 series as the support is being dropped. The significant feature that was pushed back into the Catalyst 9.3 Linux driver is improved Composite support.

Everybody has a version of Windows that's their favorite. What version it is depends a lot on your age. Some of my older colleagues swore blind that Windows 95 was the pinnacle of computer science, at least when it was released. For most people, XP is their favorite Windows. Somehow Microsoft got everything just right with XP, but it's extremely hard to quantify exactly what. Ubuntu is like that. It's like a warm pub on a cold night -- inviting and welcoming to everybody. If you switch to Ubuntu you're still gonna have to learn stuff. That's just the way computers are. But Ubuntu also has that magical "Windows XP factor" -- it's as functional as you need it to be, yet is still accessible. It 'just works'.