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Lionel Menchaca, Dell's digital media manager, said that 30,000 people had weighed in to push Dell to offer Linux, and noted that the three Linux-based computers released on Thursday would not be the last. Dell's decision to offer Ubuntu is a breakthrough for enthusiasts of Linux, the most popular variant of open-source software.

Compatibility issues always exist with any new release of an operating system, said Steve Gillmer, Microsoft's business manager of collaborative technologies. He added that Microsoft works with software developers to reduce incompatibilities and with customers to manage the movement to new operating systems.

A recent posting by George Ou about Windows Home Server brought out a lot of responses from the Linux community. I think that Microsoft deserves to get some competition.

[Hmmm... Anyone interested in this? - dcparris]

Are you fed up with cryptic error messages you don't understand? Then get involved! This week's target of the HIG Hunting Season is warnings and error messages.

We thought it was already clear what graphics processors and drivers work and don't work with Linux desktop eye candy such as Beryl and Compiz, but it seems based upon the number of e-mails we have been receiving along with messages in community bulletin boards that the line isn't so clear after all. For those that have never tried out Beryl, it is a compositing window manager branched from Compiz (though Beryl will merge back with Compiz soon) that provides a variety of window decorations and other desktop "eye candy" for X.Org users. In this article we hope to make it clear for you what GPUs will make your Linux desktop look the most pleasurable and what ones just sweat thinking about these desktop effects.

LXer Feature: 27-May-2007

A weekly recap of the big stories concerning Linux and Open Source.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a PCLinuxOS 2007 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. I found that PCLinuxOS is really easy to install and use, and it is a real alternative.

A lot has happened since I debunked Alan MacCormack's research. First, a very clever attack from some "Rufus". I have contacted Rufus through email, but have not received any response yet. Maybe what "DB" wrote isn't too far from the truth: "Looks like Microsoft are reading this too. And if this was an exploratory survey they wouldn't be trumpeting it as the real thing." Of course, I tried to comment on the eWeek article, only to find that I was banned.

FoxyBetty writes: "Firefox 2 is a finalist on the Webware 100 list! Now it's up to voters to pick the winners. Webware is a site where computer users can learn about new and useful Web applications. The Webware 100 will serve as a guide of new and innovative Web applications.

Focused on populating, validating, and querying XML content pertinent to a specific industry, the pureXML industry bundles illustrate access to stored XML content through small script or Java-based applications. In this article, you'll learn about the industry-specific XML exchange formats, and how you can easily get started with implementing these solutions.

The Rule-based Accessibility Validation Environment (RAVEN) is an Eclipse plug-in that provides runtime checking of GUI components to ensure consistent use of Java accessibility features.

In a humorous announcement for the latest release candidate of the upcoming 2.6.22 Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds noted that there were updates to the ARM, SH and Blackfin architectures. He also noted fixes to USB suspend, infiband, and the network stack, as well as updates to ATA, DVB and MMC, and network drivers. Noting that a three-day weekend was starting in the US he said,"so what's a pasty white nerd to do? You can't go out on the beach, because the goodlooking people will laugh at you, and kick sand in your face. I'm not bitter." Linus continued:"But now you _can_ do something: you can download the latest -rc kernel, and smile smugly to yourself, knowing that you are running the latest and greatest on your machine. And suddenly it doesn't even matter that summer is coming, because you can just sit in the basement, and close the blinds, and bask in the warm light from your LCD, rather than the harsh glare of the daystar.."Further information about what's new and changed in the upcoming 2.6.22 kernel can be found in theKernelNewbies wiki. The latest -rc can be downloaded from theLinux Kernel Archives [story], and the source changes can be browsed online using thegitweb interface.read more

WALTHAM, Mass., May 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) today announced that it has filed its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2006 and Jan. 31, 2007 and its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2006 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filings were made in connection with Novell's completion of its self-initiated, voluntary review of the company's historical stock-based compensation practices, the results of which were disclosed in the filings and in a press release issued by Novell on May 23, 2007.

Ever since comparing seven Linux distributions on my "old thinkpad" testbed, I've remained impressed with the flexibility and ease-of-maintenance of Debian-based Linuxes. In my followup article on using Etch as a desktop OS, I pondered converting my primary desktop from SUSE to Debian. I've done it.

Novell has filed its delayed annual report with the SEC, which includes the technical co-operation and patent agreements it entered into with Microsoft in November 2006.

What started as the review of a bug report grew into an interesting debate as Linus Torvalds slammed the current suspend and resume [story] design in the Linux Kernel,"why the HELL cannot you realize that kernel threads are different? The right thing to do is AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN, to stop and start user threads only around the whole thing. Don't touch those kernel threads. Stop freezing them." Later in the discussion, Linus noted that he had no interest in Suspend to Disk (STD), and was only interested in a working Suspend to Ram (STR) implementation. He noted that complexity introduced by STD was infecting the STR logic, and that the two should be completely separated,"what irritates me is that STR really shouldn't have _had_ that bug at all. The only reason STR had the same bug as STD was exactly the fact that the two features are too closely inter-twined in the kernel. That irritates me hugely. We had a bug we should never had had! We had a bug because people are sharing code that shouldn't be shared! We had a bug because of code that makes no sense in the first place!" Linus noted that he doesn't use laptops much, but still likes STR on his desktop,"STR means they are quiet and don't waste energy when I don't use them, but they're instantly available when I care." He then went on to point to design flaws in the freezer:"I actually don't think that processes should be frozen really at all. I agree that filesystems have to be frozen (and I think that checkpointing of the filesystem or block device is'too clever'), but I just don't think that has anything to do with freezing processes. So I'd actually much prefer to freeze at the VFS (and socket layers, etc), and make sure that anybody who tries to write or do something else that we cannot do until resuming, will just be blocked (or perhaps just buffered)!"read more

STAR-CD, built with PGI compilers, delivers optimum performance across multiple x64 platforms

At Noon EDT, the Tux 500 campaign came to an end. The final donation came in, the final piece of merchandise was purchased. And final total is.... * drumroll *

For the next interview in the fortnightly People Behind KDE series we remain in North America, down to the deserts of Arizona to meet an astronomer who uses his work expertise to bring the galaxy to our desktops - tonight's star of People Behind KDE is Jason Harris.

The ground rules Interview: TIBCO's Stefan Farestam talks with Reg Developer about the ground rules of SOA governance.

[Any interest in SOA governance around here? - dcparris]