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GNU/Linux based Open Source Operating Systems are right now and have been for a while ready to become the mainstream software of choice used daily by billions of people. As I see it we are currently on the verge of a major revolution in Personal Computers primarily in regards to the software everyone uses without thinking about it.

Absolute, a lightweight Linux operating system based on the respected Slackware Linux distribution, just released version 12.0. It features kernel version 2.6.21.5, IceWM and Fluxbox window managers, and many graphical and ncurses-based configuration tools. Its goal is to provide a lighter, easier-to-use Slackware appropriate for newcomers and experienced Linux users alike. It is built for speed and performance but doesn't neglect stability or security.

This article shows how you can use an iPod on a Linux desktop with gtkpod (a graphical user interface for Apple's iPod). It covers how you can upload MP3 files from your desktop to your iPod, download MP3 files from your iPod to your desktop, how you can delete files on the iPod, and how you can create and modify playlists. Normally, Apple's iTunes software is needed to manage an iPod, but iTunes is not available for Linux. Fortunately, there are Linux alternatives such as gtkpod that can handle the task.

The Linux Foundation yesterday announced that Nokia Siemens Networks has become a member. Nokia Siemens Networks will work with the foundation and its members to continue improving Carrier Grade Linux.

Visualize Xen love and penguin per use too. LinuxWorld HP has burrowed deep into the data center for its package of LinuxWorld-related announcements. Software libraries, code testing and pay-per-use Linux? Sure, why not.

Java EE 5 is a strong, significant release, making it the most complete platform for enterprise development. This article provides an overview of the new Java EE 5 specification, and its many significant enhancements. Clearly, major steps have been taken to addresses most of the criticisms surrounding past Java development. EJB 3.0 and JPA are powerful and easy to use technologies, and the improvements in JAX-WS make Web service development easier than ever before.

I attended my first OSCON two weeks ago. I learned a lot about leading open source projects — something that has long been important to me, but now is even more important for me, since I’ve just started working full time on Intel’s new Threading Building Blocks open source project. I split my time at OSCON between sessions related to multithreaded programming and open source project management strategies.

Server and software company continues efforts to publish source codes of its chip designs; launches Niagara 2 microprocessor.

In this week, we have announcements on Fedora 8 Test 1, Virtual FudCon and our new column called AskFedora. Speaking of AskFedora, we received several good questions including License Issue, Backups and Problem with Pup. In Developments, we have continuing discussions on CodecBuddy, Yum, Kmods, RPM Roadmap, KDE4 Status and more.

Your Linux distribution probably arrived with a "kitchen sink" kernel. It doesn't take much to build a better one that's tuned to your hardware's needs.

aKademy 2007 hosted two mini-summits, one for Schools and Education and one for Text Layout. The Text Layout Summit was a true cross platform event, and followed from the one last year at the Gnome Summit. Text layout is a complex area requiring advanced knowledge of dozens of different writing methods. With funding from The Linux Foundation they brought together people from Pango, Qt, IBM ICU (Intl. Components for Unicode), SIL Graphite, Unifont.org, m17n, W3C and DejaVu. Getting the various widget sets to have the same high quality support for all scripts is a problem the summit hoped to solve. Read on for details of what they discussed.

smartctl command controls the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) system built into many ATA-3 and later ATA, IDE and SCSI-3 hard drives. The purpose of SMART is to monitor the reliability of the hard drive and predict drive failures, and to carry out different types of drive self-tests. smartctl is a command line utility designed to perform SMART tasks such as printing the SMART self-test and error logs, enabling and disabling SMART automatic testing, and initiating device self-tests. This article demonstrates usage of smartctl tool to test if hard disk is going bad.

August 7th, 2007 – ALLENDALE, NJ - Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.16 (Version 3.0, Release 16). This release includes many updated packages and bug fixes, some feature enhancements to Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, and a few new features. They include completely new support for virtual machines (KVM), a new, quick download process, improvements to the navigation interface and more. In distribution since 2001, the Community version of Guardian Digital’s commercial portfolio has been a staple for security enthusiasts, administrators and organizations for almost a decade. As one of the very first security-centered platforms based completely on Open Source, EnGarde has been engineered explicitly for protection and security, while providing the ability to build a complete Internet presence. Utilizing robust SELinux policies, intrusion detection, Web & email content filtering, DNS and more, EnGarde has become an integral component in some of the world's largest organizations.

Terminal and network computing giant Wyse has announced plans to support Novell's thin client Linux OS in "next generation" products. Wyse said the deal will offer greater flexibility and choice to its customers, especially those wishing to standardize on SUSE Linux throughout the enterprise. The announcement appears timed to counter competitor HP's recent investment in Linux-based thin client computing. HP last month revealed plans to acquire Neoware, an early leader in Linux-based network computing. If approved, the deal would bring HP close to Neoware's claimed 39 percent of the global thin client market, HP officials said.

Matthew Dillon created DragonFly BSD in June of 2003 as a fork of the FreeBSD 4.8 codebase. KernelTrap first spoke with Matthew back in January of 2002 while he was still a FreeBSD core developer and a year before his current project was started. He explains that the DragonFly project's primary goal is to design a "fully cross-machine coherent and transparent cluster OS capable of migrating processes (and thus the work load) on the fly."

This is a puzzle-based adventure game in Second Life that will test your coding and building skills while working your brain.

There are many articles written about the reasons why users may wish to convert to Linux. Frequently cited reasons include the favorable licensing terms, the freely distributable software (with source code), support from the Linux community, improved security, open file formats, the fact that Linux can run on a wide variety of platforms, etc. However, unless a desktop user is provided with real alternatives to the existing software he or she currently uses, migration to a different operating system is going to be very difficult.

Lenovo and Novell today announced the industry’s first Linux-based ThinkPad mobile workstations, which will run Novell’s recently released SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system. The workstations are based on Intel(R) Centrino(R) Duo mobile technology. This groundbreaking innovation, the result of a two-year research and development effort between Lenovo, Intel and Novell, allows electronic engineers engaged in integrated circuit and board level design the necessary support solution for numeric intensive applications in any mobile environment.

A friendly penguin has told us at Phoronix that Google is looking to team up with OpenMoko for their "gPhone". Google will not be using the FIC Neo1973 GTA01, but they will be bringing the open-source OpenMoko platform to their own hardware.

Blue GNU interviews Al Chu, of the FreeIPMI project about their efforts to provide a free implementation of the IPMI specification for managing & monitoring hardware.