Showing all newswire headlines

With the changes coming to the desktops of some major Linux distributions, it looks like we’re beginning to see some welcome differentiation between how each distro presents itself to users. Fedora and Ubuntu are of course well known as some of the most popular and user-friendly Linux systems, and while they have many similarities, their next major releases are both taking a new approach to the desktop. Ubuntu has decided to drop their Netbook spin and run their homegrown Unity desktop across the board. Fedora however has jumped on board with Gnome 3, confident that it will have all the form and function their users want. While we’ve already discussed both desktops before, Fedora and Ubuntu are both offering more than a makeover, and it’s time to dig deeper.

Otakux Linux 1.0, codename Aniota has been released. Otakux, or Linux for "Otaku", is a desktop distribution based on Ubuntu and Linux Mint. View the Otakux Linux 1.0 Screenshot Tour

David Airlie has just emailed Linus Torvalds with his main DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) pull request for the Linux 2.6.39 kernel that 2.6.38 was released earlier this week. As was mentioned a few days ago, the Linux 2.6.39 kernel will feature a number of interesting changes to the open-source graphics drivers, among other areas.

Some tools are so amazing, but unfortunately, if no one ever talks about them, many folks never hear of them. One of those programs is BackupPC. You may have heard Kyle Rankin and myself talk about BackupPC on the Linux Journal Insider podcast, or perhaps you've seen us write about it here in Linux Journal before. If you haven't checked it out, you owe it to yourself to do so.

For open source web developers, here is an advanced new kid on the bloc, the Dragonfly debugger, the beta of which was recently launched by Opera. Opera is one of the top three web browsers and is differently-abled from the regular browsers. However, Dragonfly is a first for Opera in more than one sense. They are offering it as an open source much to the delight of Opera admirers.

Does this sound familiar to you? You have taken the plunge and install Ubuntu on your computer. The next moment, you have no idea what to do next and where to head. Now, before any doubt creeps in and you are wondering if you have make the right choice leaving the comfort zone (Windows or Mac) and venture into the unknown ground, let us show you what you can, and should do after installing Ubuntu

Recent reports of the large savings, in the realms of billions of euros per year, that could be made in Dutch government by switching to open source and open standards have been sharply contradicted by the publication of the official report of the Dutch General Audit Chamber (GAC) investigation into cost savings that could be made.

Are IaaS, PaaS and SaaS just alphabet soup to you? Read this Cloud primer to get the low down on the different cloud types and how they can help your organization.

CodeWeavers has released CrossOver Games 10.1.0 for Linux and Mac. This release fixes many known issues with supported games and adds Rift to the list of games that now run with CrossOver Games. This release has also seen allot of fixes to cross tie support, RAR files are now fully supported.

Starting with GTK+ 3.0, we’re replacing the old theming layer with a more modern one. Designers will find it more powerful and immediate, and it’s more intuitive for the masses. This new theming layer has been developed in a GTK+ repository, but is available in master now, and brings in features that are starting to be a must in modern toolkits.

Artila Electronics announced an ARM9-based, Linux-ready industrial box computer with dual, isolated CAN bus interfaces, plus the SocketCAN open source CAN stack. The Matrix-522 is equipped with an Atmel AT91SAM9G20 processor clocked at 400MHz, and offers 64MB SDRAM, 128MB of flash, a microSD slot, failover support, an under three-Watt power draw, plus paired sets of Ethernet, USB, and serial ports.

Gtk+ 3.2 will let you run any application in a browser thanks to the new HTML5 gdk backend. That means you'll be able to run GIMP, Gedit, a video editor or whatever, remotely (or on the same computer), using a web browser.

Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application for Windows, Mac and Linux. Important functionalities include library management, format conversion, news feeds to ebook conversion and even e-book reader synchronization features.

Rock Computing (a computer repair and open source software development company) releases a developer preview of it's debut software project.

Osmo is a handy personal organizer application for Linux. Feature list includes calendar, tasks manager, address book and notes modules. Osmo is comprehensive in its set of functionalities yet very easy to use and configure. In many ways, Osmo is as good or even better than Getting Things GNOME personal organizer application in my opinion.

Mandriva, through Eugeni Dodonov, announced last evening, March 16th, the immediate availability for testing of the first Beta version of the upcoming Mandriva 2011 Linux operating system.

LXer Feature: 17-Mar-2011

Yes, life really is a cartoon, and it is impossible to be too cynical. Nevertheless good things happen and life is good.

The last few days I spent fixing up some more details in the new HTML5 gdk backend. Not everything is supported yet (keyboard input in particular is very weak), but much more things work now. Even thought the backend is not of production quality it is now good enough that I think its interesting for a larger audience to play around with.

This is a detailed description about how to set up an OpenSUSE 11.4 64bit (x86_64) server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable) with PHP, CGI and SSI support, Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH, TLS and virtual mail users, BIND DNS server, Pureftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.

(Sacramento, CA, USA: March 16, 2011) The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world's premier Linux certification organization (http://www.lpi.org), and Open University UK (http://www.open.ac.uk/) announced that students enrolled in Open University's introductory Linux course will now be eligible for a promotional voucher to obtain the CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI certification. Students and IT professionals who earn their CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI certification are automatically eligible to apply for and receive their LPIC-1 certification.