Showing all newswire headlines

Several browsers recently completed or announced built-in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) support. This tutorial focuses on SVG for Web development, offering step-by-step instruction for Web developers and designers to learn how to use SVG and vector graphics in Web sites.

Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The kernel, at the heart of all Linux systems, is developed and released under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. It is this kernel that forms the base around which a Linux operating system is developed. There are now literally hundreds of companies and organisations and an equal number of individuals that have released their own versions of operating systems based on the Linux kernel.

[This Bangladeshi news site (in English) has managed to produce a reasonably accurate intro to GNU/Linux. I thought OpenBSD is "UNIX" though. Otherwise, a good intro for newbies - dcparris]

Thomas Gleixner and Ingo Molnar [interview] posted an update of their high-res timerskernel patches for the 2.6.17 kernel, "upon which we based a tickless kernel (dyntick) implementation and a 'dynamic HZ' feature as well".

HPCwire and IDG World Expo have announced the addition of an HPC Linux Cluster Showcase as part of the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo San Francisco. The HPC Linux Cluster Showcase will include a series of vendor spotlight kiosks surrounding a presentation theatre that will feature speakers from organizations that have implemented an HPC Linux Cluster solution. The showcase will bring a unique focus towards the high end of computing and the role of HPC Linux cluster solutions to the LinuxWorld event.

Interesting stuff on the Kernel Development section of LWN last week:

" By storing physical block numbers this way, ext3 can handle 48-bit block numbers - enough to index a 1024 PB device"

"Some developers, most prominently Jeff Garzik, have expressed concerns about merging these changes into ext3; they would rather see a new ext4 filesystem created for new features."

One of the big attractions to VoIP is the promise of free worldwide long distance. Call anywhere anytime over the Internet for nothing. What could be sweeter?

Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) is a standard method of establishing communications between computers and allowing them to advertise and access each others' resources. It is designed to ease some of the complexities involved in computer networking -- in fact, it is designed to remove them altogether, by requiring no user configuration at all.

I would like to recount if I may an experience I had earlier this week. I think it’s an example of the importance of software companies having to eventually accept the free-as-in-speech software business model, and the danger of alienation if they do not.

New Xandros Linux Desktop Home Edition (v4.0) Targets Home and Multimedia Users with support for iPods, Cameras, E-mail, Web Browsing, Internet Calling and More on Secure, Stable Linux Platform

This is a review of a book titled - "Building Online Stores with Oscommerce - Professional Edition". Oscommerce is an open source ecommerce suite which reportedly powers over 99000 online stores. This book explains the concepts behind this project and explores its inner workings.

Built-in presence, unified-messaging features are aimed at small and midsize companies.

Red Hat has announced compatibility certification with Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL) definitions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 security advisories. Red Hat will now produce and support OVAL patch definitions to provide a structured and machine-readable version of advisories, allowing OVAL-compatible tools to accurately test for the presence of vulnerabilities.

The next few years will see many companies opting to mix and match proprietary and open source software where they see fit, according to analyst group Gartner.

New Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and Novell channel chief Steve Erdman spoke with CRN Editor In Chief Heather Clancy and senior writer Paula Rooney about the company's strategy in the wake of the departure of CEO Jack Messman. Below are excerpts from the interview.

Novell CEO Jack Messman has been ousted from the company he has been involved with since 1982. In a desperate management shake-up, both Messman and CFO Joseph Tibbetts were dismissed by Novell's board of directors, after failing to turn the beleagured company around.

JamboWorks Launches New Open Source Online Service for National Lampoon

Playing on Apple's past "Switch" ad campaign, which was aimed at getting Windows users to migrate to Apple's Mac OS X-based computers, a few longtime Mac and open-source gurus are vocally publicizing their switch away from Apple's platform to more open-source solutions.

According to Distrowatch.com, Damn Small Linux is the most popular microLinux distribution. What began as a toy project to stuff the maximum software inside a 50MB ISO file has matured into a refined community project known for its speed and versatility. DSL includes the ultra-lightweight FluxBox window manager, two Web browsers, Slypheed email client and news reader, xpdf PDF viewer, XMMS with MPEG media file support for playing audio and video, BashBurn CD burner, XPaint image editing, VNCViewer and rdesktop to control Windows and Linux desktops remotely, and more. If they could do all this in 50 megs, imagine what they could do in more space. Last month the DSL developers released DSL-Not, a.k.a. DSL-N 0.1 RC1. It's 83.5MB of DSL coated with GTK sugar. Yummy!

We have been trialling the various beta programmes from the main online mail-behemoths since their respective inceptions.

In fact, we have been unfortunate enough to have to use each one daily and today we’re going to take a quick look at each service, comparing and contrasting each product’s offerings.

Opinion: As others have done, Novell has called in a former IBM exec to serve as CEO. The company has some catch-up to do.