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I did a Debian Etch install on one of my test machine drives recently, and today I added the openssh-server package so I could play around with PuTTY and Xming. Once I installed openssh-server (I used Synaptic, in case you were wondering), using PuTTY to start the connection, I was asked whether or not I expected the encryption key to change (I was, since this is the Debian install, not OpenBSD, which I've been using until now).

Microsoft is encouraging its business partners to promote its Office Open XML specification (OOXML) to the Indian Bureau of Standards (BIS) and Ministry of IT. This move has incensed supporters of the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF) who fear that the "soft" Indian state may not be able to stand up to Microsoft pressure tactics. Open Source Initiative (OSI) board member Raj Mathur claims to have a copy of the Microsoft letter to NGOs. "Microsoft has 'persuaded' several non-profit organizations," Mathur writes, "to bombard the Indian IT Secretary and the Additional Director General of the Bureau of Indian Standards with letters supporting its OOXML proposal."

Late last year, Everex, a mid-tier PC vendor, made a big splash with its inexpensive gOS Linux-powered Green gPC TC2502. Now, Everex is following that popular mini-tower PC with a Mac-mini format computer: the gPC mini. Like Everex's gPC TC2502, the gPC mini uses the Ubuntu 7.10-based gOS operating system. The gPC mini uses the newest version of gOS: Rocket gOS 2.0.

Although the Asus Eee PC has everything you need to be productive right from the start, a few simple software tweaks can help you to get more out of your tiny companion.

Flash support on Linux is already terrible. The Adobe Flash Player on Linux doesn't even display Adobe's own website correctly. There's been a lot of talk about adding DRM support to Flash. What does this mean for Linux and Flash? Will Linux users no longer have access to Flash at all?

Cha-ching. That’s the noise open source companies hope to hear as they launch new point-of-sale solutions for VARs and retail customers. But can open source POS systems compete with traditional, popular options from Microsoft and others? Here are some thoughts from The VAR Guy.

I had really thought that Vista SP1 would be an improvement. I didn't think it would be a big improvement, but still that it would be more competitive with Windows XP and the modern Linux desktop. I was wrong. I've now been working with Vista SP1, the so-called RTM (release to manufacturing) version, for about two weeks. I am amazed at how little improvement I see in this so-called major update.

One of the main things that gets annoying with FUSE, or Filesystem in Userspace, is that it won't automatically mount a filesystem when you first attempt to access the filesystem. This means you must manually track mountpoints and specify what program to run in order to mount each FUSE filesystem. Placing the exact commands to mount each FUSE filesystem into shell scripts can make things a little easier, but with afuse, you can mount FUSE filesystems on demand without the need for any explicit mounting.

Delays in awarding WiMAX licences and a lack of competition in the sector had undermined the rollout of high-speed broadband wireless services. This was the conclusion of a new study by World Wide Worx, released today. The report, WiMAX in SA 2008: Year Zero shows that only those companies that have already deployed WiMAX have appreciated its impact.

I remember when I was a Jr. Geek and could focus on one programming task at a time. Today, besides having all too many Linux-related tasks, I have an assortment of other things to deal with. This last week, one of my distractions turned into a new programming project. Those of you who have been following my posts know my current goal is to create the Geek Ranch. What I have been writing about has been how Linux fits into that project. Well, a peripheral need of the project created a new Linux project for me last week.

The patent in the dispute, number 6,108,703, deals with a global hosting system that "allows a content provider to replicate and serve its most popular content at an unlimited number of points throughout the world" and was originally awarded to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000.

This tutorial shows how to set up a CentOS 5.x server to offer all services needed by virtual web hosters. These include web hosting, smtp server with (SMTP-AUTH and TLS, SPF, DKIM, Domainkeys), DNS, FTP, MySQL, POP3/IMAP, Firewall, Webalizer for stats.

IBM has teamed up with partners in Austria and Poland to offer Microsoft-free personal computers for the eastern European market, IBM said in a statement on Tuesday. International Business Machines Corp said it was offering the PCs based on the open-source Linux operating system together with Red Hat software distributor VDEL of Austria and Polish distributor and services firm LX Polska in response to demand from Russian IT chiefs.

Tired of spotty network performance interrupting your web service's performance and of navigating the maze that is mobile application development? Google can help - just don't rely on the giant's Android mobile Software Development Kit (SDK) when it comes to building in security.

[A version of Gears that only works with I.E. and Windows Mobile? All that would do is tempt MS developers to use Google tools instead of Microsoft's own development tools. Interesting.. - Scott]

Workstation GPUs are not our main focus at Phoronix, but with the increasing use of Linux on workstation systems, we will be starting to look at professional graphics products this month and likely more of them in the future. We are beginning this expedition by looking at the Quadro FX1700, which is one of NVIDIA's mid-range workstation graphics cards. This Quadro graphics card boasts 512MB of video memory, support for CUDA, and OpenGL 2.1 support. According to NVIDIA's product literature, the Quadro FX1700 is engineered to deliver exceptional performance, quality, and price for professionals.

This week we'll look at what's been going on recently with LinuxSampler, a very cool software audio sampler. I have to say at the outset that this article was tough to write, I was just having far too much fun with the program.

Slax, a Slackware-based modular Linux distribution, released version 6.0 last month. This release brings a new tar install format along with a new donation request, but also includes some noticeable bugs.

On July 4th, 2008; a significant percentage of Felton, California, will go Microsoft-free for one week…maybe an entire month.

Our initial thinking for IE8 involved showing pages requesting “Standards” mode in an IE7’s “Standards” mode, and requiring developers to ask for IE8’s actual “Standards” mode separately. We made this decision, informed by discussions with some leading web experts, with compatibility at the top of mind. In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting “Standards” mode in IE8’s Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s “IE7 Standards mode” will need to request that explicitly, using the http header/meta tag approach.

[Not FOSS news but important news nonetheless. Microsoft's original plan that would have locked us into a browser-specific web a la 1994 can be found here. - Sander]

Even in today's high-tech world of unified communications and wireless mobility, the idea of two kids with laptops sitting under a tree somewhere in Saharan Africa being able to exchange information without any kind of infrastructure or configuration, seems as wild an idea as the land they live in. But with the OLPC project, this scenario is rapidly becoming a widespread reality.