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Since last night's release of Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 2 we have been trying out this latest work from the Canonical camp. While many Linux desktop users would just shrug off X.Org 7.4 as not being too relevant to them -- considering there aren't that many new blatant features -- if you're a faithful Phoronix reader you should already know about much of the recent driver work (especially on the ATI side) and Mesa advancements along with X Server fixes.

Article reviews 10 audio/video players for KDE.

Windows Vista debuted to muffled applause, followed by lackluster sales. Up until June 30, cash-strapped businesses looking to avoid the cost of upgrading to new Vista-compatible hardware could still purchase trusty Windows XP. Now, however, Windows XP is available only as a costly "downgrade" from Windows Vista--if you buy a copy of Vista, you can install the 6-year-old XP operating system using the Vista license.

Mentioned Xen port to CentOS 5.2 (64-bit) brought up daemons libvirtd and dnsmasq at Dom0, providing network bridging and NAT forwarding between Dom0 and DomUs. It also installs on the system command line utility virt-install.

Take a deep breath and repeat after me: A computer is just a tool. It is only so good as it serves to make life better for users. A "better" life is obviously not the same thing for everyone. For me, it means making my Mac more like Linux, as I began to discuss in my last article.

A list I found on the net of some hilarious error messages. Possibly for the Linux and Unix enthusiast only ;)

A vulnerability in the Internet's domain name system left essentially the entire Web open to widespread attack, but the technology community worked to patch the flaw before it could be exploited. Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher, noticed that the DNS was vulnerable to domain cache poisoning, and the discovery amounted to a red alert for the security community.

If your interested in having the speed and stability of a Gentoo based system with the improved ease of use and management of modern desktop, perhaps better than most. Also having the Out of the box functionality that so many users crave with little to no mucking about with things after installation, give Sabayon a try.

So many books like this get 'dinged' in the reviews for not being very accessible by beginners. What people seem to forget is that not every book (on JavaScript or any other technical subject) is written for the beginner. The authors (or probably the editors) make it very clear in the Preface of this text, that this book was written for the intermediate JavaScript coder. 'Intermediate' isn't spelled out as such, but it seems to mean that you're either a person who is well versed in the lessons taught by a beginner's manual, or you know just a little JavaScript, but are quite comfortable in other programming languages (and thus general programming practices). If you haven't written a line of JavaScript in your life and are eager to learn, do not buy this book. You're not ready. If you try to learn JavaScript from jump street using this book, you'll just end up frustrated and unjustly criticize the authors. With that said, if you are familiar with the basics of JavaScript or are otherwise qualified as described above, please continue reading this review and see if this text is right for you (I think it will be).

OpenEMR HQ announced on Thursday that it will begin offering a 'plug and play' EMR appliance as of July 14th, 2008. This last minute announcement came as the company also announced its plans to offer a native OpenEMR client for Microsoft Windows operating system on September, 15th, 2008.

The second alpha for Mandriva Linux 2009 is now available. There is information about the new release in various places:

As a response to recent negativity on the Internet, we've been working with Groklaw to get a story running detailing facts about questions such as "Releasing KDE 4.0 was a mistake", "I am forced to use the kickoff menu", "The whole KDE4 desktop interface is radically new". among others. Thanks go out to Pamela Jones for giving the KDE community a chance to rectify certain points that have recently been said in public. This way, we hope to make it easier for journalists to put KDE's direction, recent decisions and put simple myths into the right light.

One of our long-time writers introduced us to Jaroslaw, a JBoss QA Engineer based in Poland, and mentioned that he’d been working on some documentation we might find interesting. And, boy, do we! This first piece de-mystifies the complex world of rules engines.

Xandros bought Linspire the other day, and nobody really noticed. Neither Xandros nor Linspire has won the hearts and minds of Linux users or developers. Both are sold as Linux for the Windows user. Both sell versions of GNU/Linux that are easy to install and use, and both have tried, with varying success, to break into the business and consumer desktop market that is currently owned by Microsoft.

Microsoft is once again dumping its non-Free software on 11 million children in a country that moves to GNU/Linux

The KDE e.V. and GNOME Foundation today announced that they will hold their yearly conferences, Akademy and GUADEC in 2009 in Gran Canaria. The conferences will be separate events, but co-located and hosted by the same organizers, the Cabildo of Gran Canaria and its Secretary of Tourism, Technological Innovation and Foreign Trade.

It's been a little while since my last report on how Ubuntu 8.04 LTS has been doing on the $0 Laptop. In short, all continues to go very, very well. At this point I could see ratcheting down my use of Debian on this machine and pretty much devoting it to Ubuntu all the way. Why? Everything in Ubuntu works with as little effort as possible.

OpenLogic Inc., a provider of enterprise open source software, wants other open source software developers to shake hands over a partnership program that will give it control over an alliance of support services for other vendors' products. OpenLogic, which already supports 400 open source packages in its certified library, announced its new vendor partnership program on July 8. The partnership program is designed to let commercial open source software vendors share in the revenue OpenLogic receives from its customers for providing support for the commercial software. EnterpriseDB, which sells a relational database based on PostgreSQL, and JasperSoft, which develops an open source business intelligence platform, are among the first to share in the revenue-sharing venture.

Linux opportunities in the South African market are increasing but skills are still a significant stumbling block. This is according to Michelle Beetar, country manager for Novell South Africa. Beetar, who took over as Novell SA head in January, says that South African market has been a little slower in its uptake of Linux than expected but growth in the sector is constant. “There is still significant insecurity about skills in the market,” she says.

Today is Brian Proffitt's last day as Managing Editor of LinuxToday - he's now moving to a new position at the Linux Foundation. Over the years I have written for Brian (LinuxPlanet), been linked by him (LinuxToday) and sat next to him at events in Toronto, Boston and San Francisco. I have always been amazed by Brian's clear understanding of what he writes about/edits/links too and how much he cares about the writers that work with him and the community they serve.