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I’ve seen Vista running. It’s very pretty. I’ve talked with some Microsofties who describe how easily it discovers networks and devices on the network (printers, etc.). It’s supposed to be dramatically more secure and stable than any Windows Microsoft has ever shipped. I believe it.

[This isn't a Linux story; I submitted it for its amusement value. Apparently the author has little actual experience with Vista, but even so, he's disappointed with how it's being marketed.--TC]

The Untangle Gateway bundles together a list of applications that even seasoned sysadmins couldn't install and effectively manage in a timely manner. We've been playing with the Untangle Network Gateway for a few months, and we must say: "well done."

LXer Feature: 13-Jan-2008

In this weeks Roundup we learn how to burn a Linux ISO image on CD, some nifty OpenOffice.org extensions, gOS 2.0 Screenshots, KDE 4.0 is Released, The VAR guy dumps Open Source for Microsoft Office, an interview with Linus Torvalds, a whole slew of articles on the OLPC and XO laptop. In our FUD section we have McAfee throwing FUD at the GPL and how to be creative with an article title.

Installing Linux is trivial nowadays. You just need to download ISO image, burn it on CD/DVD and reboot the machine. But, what if… the computer doesn’t have a CD drive? Well, don’t worry. In such case you can install Linux directly through the net. This is called PXE and in this article you’ll learn how to use it.

But as powerful as Linux networking is, even Linux has its limitations, and one of them is you still need a commercial Ethernet switch. Sure, you could cobble together some hardware, throw Linux on it, and handcraft a perfectly good Ethernet switch. But it's hardly worth the effort, though it might be fun as a learning exercise....

People around the world are cheering up and joy-dancing about the release of KDE4. The Indian EFYtimes for instance said something like: “Goodbye Vista, KDE 4.0 Has Arrived!“ That was both foreseeable and inevitable.

Konqueror, KDE's default file manager and browser, is a good all-around tool, but that doesn't necessarily mean it fits all your file management needs. Sometimes a dedicated file manager can be a better choice for daily computing. Krusader is a powerful and versatile file manager that can make your work more efficient and productive. Krusader is available with most KDE-based major Linux distributions, including Kubuntu (and Ubuntu with KDE), PCLinuxOS, KANOTIX and so on, and you can install the tool easily using your distro's package manager.

What confuses me is that everyone is getting angry about it only now. I was already complaining about it in April 2007! Back then I wrote this: “… consider that the Sugar GUI was dumbed down maybe a bit too much, and that it doesn’t resemble what those ordering the laptops expect a computer to behave like. Those are not the children that will use it; they are members of governments, who most likely already have been exposed to ms windows."

This howto outlines the process by which one can set up the Subversion version control system, and have it work in tandem with Trac, the project manager for software development projects, on a server running Ubuntu (or possibly Debian).

DeviceVM's SplashTop, a product we had named as one of the greatest Linux innovations in 2007, is sharing a booth this week at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) with ASUS. At their booth we were allowed to check out a SplashTop demo running on an ASUS notebook! This notebook has yet to be introduced by ASUS, but it's intended for high-end gaming and comes with SplashTop Linux as a complementary operating system. This version of SplashTop is slightly updated and has new features too.

I am very pleased to announce that Paul Frields has accepted a job with Red Hat, and he will be taking over as Fedora Project Leader in February. Many of you already know Paul. He has been part of the Fedora community since 2003, not long after the Red Hat Linux Project officially merged with the original Fedora.us. Paul has worked with Fedora's documentation, packaging, marketing, news, and artwork teams. He also served as one of the inaugural members of the Fedora Project Board.

Nearly every year for the last decade I've heard some pundit or vendor proclaim from the rooftops: This is the year of the Linux desktop. Yet, year in and year out, the proclamations don't materialize. With the innovations in the release of KDE 4 (K Desktop Environment) this week, the pundits are at it again. This time, one could argue that KDE 4 is among the most advanced desktops -- for any operating system, let alone Linux. At the same time, GNOME, a rival open source desktop system, has also made tremendous strides in recent years, and has become the base of the two principal enterprise Linux desktop distributions. Therein lies the great Linux Desktop paradox.

One of the recurring themes that keeps popping up in the Linux community is this pressing need to get Linux on the desktop. I have often pondered in the past that such a goal is indeed worthy--once we actually figure out just exactly what "desktop" means. Watching the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) coverage this week, it was once again hammered home that in a very real sense, it doesn't matter what "desktop" means. The true opportunity for Linux and the rest of the free/open source software (FOSS) developers and business people is to anticipate what the customers want and get in front of their needs in time to deliver the goods.

A few days ago I received a request for help from a Free Software user concerned about his failure to convert anybody to Free Software, no matter how valid his arguments were. My suggestions may seem unconventional and may even sound like heresy for some Free Software advocates, but I am convinced they can be very effective. My concern that traditional Free Software advocacy "has reached a communication plateau or, if you will, some built-in limit". Here are my suggestions on how to deal with this problem.

Fortune magazine has published a list of its hot IPO tips for 2008. Three out of the five - MySQL, Ingres and SugarCRM - are open source companies, while another - Parallels - is an open source project sponsor (for the record, the other Fortune tip is ExactTarget). Here’s a look at Fortune’s assessment of the four open source-related vendors, together with a quick 451 CAOS Theory view, and a terrible pun.

Recent articles, reports and documents show that there are still a lot of misperceptions regarding ODF in the market. Apparently, many people are still not well informed about ODF even though they choose to write about ODF. Therefore, I thought it can't hurt trying to dispel a couple of myths around ODF.

We caught up with DeviceVM at CES to see what's new with their Splashtop embedded Linux environment, which we first saw on the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe motherboard. As we found out, development has been steady with many new features implemented and ready for deployment with notebooks.

MIB Live Games is a treasure trove for Linux gamers; at last count over 100 games, 48 in arcade alone. As it is based on Mandriva 2008, the setup (and possible installation) are a breeze; to say that everything is included out of the box on this remaster of Mandriva 2008 ‘One’ would be an understatement indeed. It can be installed or used as a liveDVD (3.4GB); as there was already a Mandriva on my test box I just ran it in liveDVD mode, and even using an underpowered Intel video card all the 3D compiz-fusion eye candy and games worked flawlessly.

About 2 months ago, I convinced my girlfriend to try out Linux for a month after a really nasty bit of spyware infected her computer. This isn’t a bash on Microsoft, but it happened twice in about a month. Push came to shove, and my girlfriend let me install the operating system of my choosing, since I would be the one supporting it.

The Software Freedom Law Center filed suit against Verizon Communications in a bid to uphold the terms of the General Public License. A month later, Mark Tolliver, CEO of Palamida, said Verizon's ongoing silence is the wrong response. "I'm a little surprised by it, to tell you the truth," Tolliver said in a recent interview. "Usually these issues can be resolved before pretty promptly," he added. But Verizon had no response to the center when it sent a letter notifying Verizon of a violation, and it's had no response since the center filed a suit Dec. 7 in federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.