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LXer Feature: 25-May-2007

Visit Dell's home page. Click either the desktops or laptops option. Now tell me if you see anything at all about Ubuntu or GNU/Linux. No? Why is it that Dell hides their Ubuntu option in a menu bar?

Update - Midnight 26 May 2007: Dell's website shows the Open Source PC's listed under "Essential Links" on the left side of the web pages for notebooks and desktops respectively. - dcparris

What do you need to know to get the most out of this book? Practically nothing. What will you learn by using this book? Practically everything about JavaScript and AJAX. Ok, I'm exaggerating... but let me explain. You will need to know basic HTML but if you are planning to use JavaScript to liven up your tired, static website, that's a given. No, you won't learn everything there is to know about JavaScript, but you will learn more than the basics and in fact, if you are patient and stick with the book to the end, you'll be building JavaScript applications by the time you hit the appendix.

How to use Jailkit to create jails quickly and easily.

Red Hat Global Desktop, the company's latest PC-oriented Linux product, is aimed for users in developing nations.

Linux seller bands with open-source allies to sell wide range of server software on the Red Hat Exchange.

A reliable source says the days of Linux sysadmin books have ended. If you can barely sell 5,000 copies, then why bother? Programming books continue to sell at a fast pace, so you can guess where job demand in IT has gone.

The company is trying new tactics in its efforts to scare businesses away from open-source products.

[If he hadn't referred to these old claims (at least as far back as 2004, if not earlier) as 'new' tactics, I wouldn't think he was new to the field. But you still might enjoy reading what he has to say about 'little brother's' tantrums. - dcparris]

Analysis -- Long expected, Dell finally officially released its first line of consumer PCs with pre-installed Linux, Ubuntu 7.04, on May 24. Here's a closer look at exactly what's what in Dell's initial line of Ubuntu-powered desktops and laptops.

Disagreements between developers from the G Palmtop Environment (GPE) project and the administrators of the mobile Linux portal Handhelds.org now include a trademark dispute. Handhelds.org claims trademark ownership of the name GPE, and has demanded control over the GPE IRC channel.

One of my users complained today that automount for USB devices wasn’t working on his machine (running Debian etch). I did a little light Googling, & came across this article on the subject. Which seemed horrendously complicated for something that (surely?) should Just Work out-of-the-box. Hmm. Messed around a bit with the suggestions there, but to no avail. Further googling produced this blog post which suggested a much more simple solution - add the user to the plugdev group. This worked like a charm. My thanks to Matt! I note in passing that this is one of the downsides of central auth - the “emergency” local user is automatically added to this group (& also part of the audio group), but Kerberos/LDAP users unsurprisingly aren’t.

Semaphores are one of those things that most programmers have heard of, but may not have ever used. But if you're using threads under Linux, it's one of the best ways to keep everyone in sync. Vikram Shukla provides a code-rich tutorial on semaphores, including the differences between the System V and POSIX styles.

I bought the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org at the suggestion of Marcel Gagné after posting a blog entry on the topic. The idea was to ask Linux users to join me in calling Microsoft's bluff. Let's get the patent infringement claims tried in court and get this over with. Several people talked me out of it. Fortunately, a lawyer named Christian Einfeldt had the same idea and followed through. Here's a copy ofMarcel's entry on the topic from his own blog, with a link to the"Sue me first Microsoft list" in case you want to add your own name. Christof, if you're reading this, you're welcome to the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org.

Country had planned to require bloggers to use their real names when they register blogs but will instead back a "self-discipline code."

[Not FOSS, but involves freedom - dcparris]

The Fedora Project website has gotten a face lift: fedoraproject.org. Prior to today that site went straight to the wiki, which is largely developer content with good (but somewhat hard to find) docs. Now we're expanding on fedoraproject.org and adding some more user-centric content like that found at docs.fedoraproject.org. The websites team has been hard at work at this for a while and we're all excited to release it today.

As of May 2007 the Mozilla Foundation is looking for an executive director to continue and expand upon the Foundation's activities to date.

My task today was a simple one: Pull four Quicktime videos from an SD card and burn them on a CD. I booted Xubuntu Feisty, and after a few minutes found xfburn, which came standard with 7.10. I had a couple of Thunar windows open, that was it, but xfburn pretty much crashed on launch. I went into the process manager, killed it, then closed my Thunar windows and restarted xfburn.

Learn how to build a simple dynamic Web site using Rational Business Developer Extension and Enterprise Generation Language (EGL).

Today's debut of Dell PCs with Linux preinstalled threatened to be eclipsed by another Dell bombshell -- the Round Rock, Texas, PC giant will supplement it's direct-to-you sales method with a heaping helping of Middle American retail through Wal-Mart.

The KDE project this week released KDE 3.5.7, a maintenance release of the popular free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. This version brings a renewed focus to KDE-PIM (personal information management) applications.

Refactoring Java code is far simpler than refactoring a relational database, but fortunately that isn't so much the case with object databases. Learn another advantage to this favorite object database.