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Today enterprise users have two new choices in desktop distributions. Mandriva Corporate Desktop 4.0 is an all-new version of Mandriva's enterprise workstation, while White Box Enterprise Linux 4 Respin 2 incorporates the recent OpenOffice.org and OpenOffice.org 2 updates.

Who thought a 233 MHz laptop with 64 MB of RAM -- one purchased for $15, mind you -- could run so damn well. I've been using Firefox to handle my e-mail (and now to post this entry), with Damn Small Linux 3.3 as the Linux distro, and I must say that I am very, very pleased with the way everything's working.

Some good ideas are too good for this world. Is this one of them?

[Sowing the seeds of despair, nice try Mike. - Scott]

LXer Announcement: 21-Jun-2007

Scott Ruecker will begin serving as LXer's new Editor-in-Chief effective immediately.

A free Flash viewer is one of the last major gaps in GNU/Linux desktop functionality, so last week's news that Gnash, the free Flash player, had reached the stage where it could play YouTube and Lulu.tv videos seemed too good to be true. Unfortunately, it was.

Mandriva is proud to announce the release of Corporate Desktop 4.0, the brand new version of its enterprise-dedicated work station.

Last week, at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit held at the Googleplex, some of Linux's top kernel developers discussed the state of the Linux kernel today, and where it might be going. Among the kernel developers present were Andrew Morton, James Bottomley, Chris Wright, Ted T'so, and Greg Kroah-Hartman. About the only top Linux kernel developer who wasn't present was Linus Torvalds, the originator of the kernel.

Xandros today announced it will join Microsoft and other companies to build and ship open source translators between documents stored in Ecma Office Open XML and Open Document Formats. The translators, being developed through the Open XML/ODF Translator project, will be made available to Xandros users via the Xandros Networks update facility.

This is a detailed description about how to set up a Fedora 7 server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of Fedora 7, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well.

The Flock project has been building a"social Web browser" since 2005. The upcoming Flock 0.9 release adds new blogging features, integrates media streams into the browser, and includes an overhaul of the Flock bookmark system. It's not perfect yet, but Flock 0.9 is a big leap forward.

Instead of being that stodgy old technology giant focused primarily on delivering old-school solutions, IBM is knee deep into Web 2.0 solutions.

If you don't read Filesystem Weekly, you might have been having trouble figuring out what all the hype over Sun's ZFS file system -- to be supported by Mac OS X 10.5 and now in Linux as a FUSE module -- is all about. APCmag.com's Ashton Mills has taken the jargon and translated it into plain English.

After a number of years of public hibernation, Freemed-YiRC is out with a new release, Beta0.99. This is expected to be the last release before V1.00. Freemed-YiRC has been developed with Ohio's agencies in mind, however it is modular and can be adapted to other states/countries.

Earlier this year Dell Inc. announced it would begin offering consumers computers with a pre-installed Linux operating system - later revealed to be Ubuntu. The idea came in response to the company's IdeaStorm website, where users can suggest things they'd like the computer company to offer. Interestingly, the Ubuntu/Linux crowd isn't quite done telling Dell how to run its business. In fact, it's probably safe to say they've completely taken over the IdeaStorm website.

When I first saw the list for the eWEEK slide show, Ten Reasons Not to Buy Open Source, I couldn't believe what I was reading. So here are my answers to these "reasons."

Server-monitoring firm's research claims Apache-based websites benefit from faster load time and greater uptime than those based on Windows.

IBM anticipates that the enhanced EAL4 security certification earned by Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 5 earlier this month will further its adoption by businesses and government entities worldwide.

The CA-Browser forum, a group of leading Certificate Authorities and web browser developers, has approved the first version of Extended Validation certificates for use with web browser and other applications to certify a higher level of identity verification. This is a great step forward for security and trust on the web, and KDE is proud to have been a part of the process from the beginning to the end.

Microsoft has launched a "fact rich" program to help customers understand why they should "proceed with confidence" in rolling out Vista across all their PCs. "Some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release," the company said in a newsletter. "To help partners and customers get the real story, Microsoft has created a comprehensive set of fact-rich materials illustrating how Windows Vista is ready today and tomorrow." Despite the "fact-rich" materials being designed for both "partners and customers", the link supplied by Microsoft goes to a website which is available only to computer makers who are prepared to sign up to a non-disclosure agreement.

[Its not about FOSS but it is funny, at least I think it is. - Scott]

In another thread discussing the tracking of kernel regressions [story], Linux creator Linus Torvalds noted that the kernel is evolving so quickly it is inevitable that bugs will be introduced. He used a git query to determine that there are an average of over 65 patches being committed every single day, "that translates to five hundred commits a week, two _thousand_ commits per month, and 25 thousand commits per year. As a fairly constant stream. Will mistakes happen? Hell *yes*." He continued on to add, "and I'd argue that any flow that tries to 'guarantee' that mistakes don't happen is broken. It's a sure-fire way to just frustrate people, simply because it assumes a level of perfection in maintainers and developers that isn't possible