Showing all newswire headlines

Freespire, the free as in beer version of the Linspire Linux distribution, this month released Freespire 2.0, the first version of the operating system based on the popular Ubuntu distribution, and the first to contain proprietary codecs and drivers. Despite its attractive appearance, it left me with mixed feelings.

At least we are making some progress in the field of Windows using tech writers speaking with any level of clarity about Linux as a viable alternative. Yet as good as the article linked above is, its writer is wrong with one seriously flawed statement. Vendor support remains far and few between. Some companies like HP and IBM have been great, while many others have lived so far up Microsoft's backside that they believe that Linux is merely a fad. I would also agree that there is a glass ceiling in place, thanks to a lack of vendor support.

“No way! That’s impossible.” Well, actually it’s not. Using Open Source technology, it’s actually possible to create a competitive IT infrastructure for very low costs. Not only does Open Source software enable you to create more customized solutions to better fit your needs, but it also means that you can spend your budget on hardware - not software.

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: The Summer of Code for 2007 nears its end. Implementation of more features in the Step physics simulation package. More graphical game themes in KMahjongg, KWin4 KShisen, KGoldRunner and KJumpingCube. The start of a new game, KDiplomacy. More development in the Blitz graphics library. Lyrics Plasma applet and other interface work for Amarok 2. The start of the implementation of panels, and a clipboard engine in Plasma. More features in the ODBC Data Sources KControl module. Animation support in the Raptor menu. KCacheGrind is ported to QGraphicsView. MusicXML import function in KOffice.

It looks like PC maker Dell is climbing onboard the virtualization train with its consumer PC division. It has been confirmed that Dell is developing a consumer PC line that will run multiple versions of Microsoft Windows and Linux software at the same time using virtualization platforms to perform the magic.

A vulnerability report maintained by Jeff Jones, strategy director at Microsoft's Security Technology Unit, claimed that the firm's Windows XP, Vista and Server operating systems required patches for some 20-45 vulnerabilities each. During the same period, vendors such as Red Hat, Apple and Novell have had to patch hundreds of vulnerabilities, according to Microsoft. Jones released a similar report in June chronicling vulnerabilities reported in major operating systems during the first 90 days after release.

[Ah, there's nothing like the smell of biased reporting from Redmond to start off your Monday.—Sander]

Whenever I mention in a crowd that I use free software, someone always seems to comment that I must hate Microsoft. When I add that I write about free software for a living, someone is apt to call me a Microsoft-basher. In either case, the implication seems to be that my identity is defined by Microsoft, and, perhaps, is composed of an unhealthy amount of envy. When I reply calmly that Microsoft is mostly irrelevant to me, the people who made these comments seem disbelieving, or at least disappointed. But why would I care about what Microsoft is doing, beyond a mild interest in news that doesn’t particularly concern me?

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), (http://www.lpi.org), the premier professional certification programme for the worldwide Linux community, will offer reduced price certification testing during LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2007 in London. Registered conference delegates and trade show attendees will be able to enter the exams for half price –just £40 rather than the usual price of £80 per exam. LPI will offer LPIC-1 exams (101 and 102), LPIC-2 (201 and 202) exams , the Ubuntu Certified Professional exam and the new LPIC-3 exams (LPI-301 and LPI-302 (Mixed Environment).

Trusted Computer Solutions (TCS) has launched what it calls the first Linux hardening tool that is designed to be easy to use and to help system administrators out with compliance issues. The program, called Security Blanket, was first shown last week at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, and will be available on Sept. 17 for Rs 8,118 per licence. It is compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which has partnered with TCS on the system.

Microsoft currently faces three primary threats to its future business: Linux and other open-source software, cloud-based computing and a number of players in the entertainment devices space, according to Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. But Rob Enderle, an analyst with The Enderle Group, disagreed with that assessment, saying the greatest threat to Microsoft is the perception that it cannot compete in many of these areas without cheating.

Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Another busy week of beta testing ahead, with Mandriva, openSUSE and Ubuntu all readying their latest development builds to be released later this week. In the news section: the Ubuntu developers worry about regressions in Compiz Fusion, Puppy Linux introduces experimental features, NimbleX delivers a world's first 100 MB live CD with KDE, and Trustix Secure Linux finds itself being slowly abandoned - both by its developers and its users. In the featured article of the week we'll take a look at the current status of Gentoo Linux and question the project's ever increasing complexity. Happy reading!

When listening to others talk about GNU/Linux it always strikes me as odd the argument that is used. That the Linux kernel was made usable by the marriage of the GNU tool set to it so therefor it should be called GNU/Linux as it is a blending of the two and Linux is only the kernel. On the face of it this argument makes sense ... if one doesn't think about it too deeply.

The non-profit Free Standards Group is getting big support from ISVs for its latest effort to make sure Linux doesn’t split into a variety of non-conformant versions. The FSG project, called the Linux Standards Base (LSB), already a core standard among Linux platform vendors, is gaining support from commercial and Open Source software makers – including IBM, Novell Oracle, Veritas and MySQL.

He’s been leading us, let’s face it, for around three decades – far longer than John Howard has been in power in Australia. And if we do say goodbye to Bill Gates and that long succession of Microsoft operating systems – an institution we’ve come to know as Billdom - will the incoming government, which calls itself Open Source, be up to the job?

This paper examines whether OOXML can be fully implemented by vendors other than Microsoft and concludes that a number of application specific and undisclosed behaviours (as well as a number of other technical flaws) in the proposed standard make this impossible. Also while Microsoft has waived patent claims for the explicit and required parts of the specification it is clearly stated that this does not extend to the undisclosed behaviours or ambiguous definitions, providing a legal as well as technical barrier to OOXML's implementation.

This just keeps getting worse. Please tell me how anyone could think this is a good idea..

Oracle 11g database has been released just a few days ago, exclusively for Linux at this time. Here's a short review of it's installation, together with screenshots, on an unsupported Debian GNU/Linux distribution - to make it more interesting. While there's lots of great open source databases to choose from, we should still admire Oracle's continued support of Linux OS in enterprise environments.

While everyone was expecting Unreal Tournament 3 for Linux based upon Epic Games providing native Linux clients for their past Unreal Tournament titles, this week it was officially confirmed by Epic's Mark Rein that there will be a Linux client for UT3.

Few events have created more fodder for the blogosphere, more fuel for Microsoft critics and more emotional responses than the Microsoft patent deals with Novell, Linspire and Xandros. While putting together a list of things people hate about these deals is easy, generating a list of positive aspects is much harder. So I tried to take a more balanced approach and put together a love/hate list about these deals.

My Grandparents’ Linux desktop had to be super-simple for them to use. While default GNOME or Xfce are pretty straight-forward, I wanted something better. I decided to go with Xfce just because they would not be needing any of GNOME’s fancy features. Like GNOME, Xfce is easily customized but is slightly faster.