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A Bulgarian open source project has released a Live CD compilation of five popular boot-and-run Linux distributions. Just released in version 3.0, "Ultilex" can be booted from CD/DVD and USB flash devices, and offers Slax, Puppy Linux, Clonezilla, Parted Magic, and the System Rescue CD, says the Ultilex project.

Long, highly-technical, and animated discussion threads are certainly not unheard of on the linux-kernel mailing list. Even by linux-kernel standards, though, the thread that followed the 2.6.29 announcement was impressive. Over the course of hundreds of messages, kernel developers argued about several aspects of how filesystems and block I/O work on contemporary Linux systems. In the end (your editor will be optimistic and say that it has mostly ended), we had a lot of heat - and some useful, concrete results.

Johnny Long has launched his new site and initiative Hackers for Charity. Johnny is the author of security books (including Google Hacking for Penetration Testers), security conference presenter (including my personal favorites "Hacking Hollywood" and "No-Tech Hacking"), creator and maintainer of the Google Hacking Database (GHDB) and an all around great guy.

I will tip my hat to the obvious influence of the powerful Microsoft Lobby. They have been there and gone, and their impact on State software purchases is obvious. I am curious to know if the dollar amounts we taxpayers spend on Microsoft software is available for public consumption. Again, Microsoft has lobbied you successfully. Entire nations, states and municipalities across the globe have switched to GNU/Linux and open source software, yet the US remains the last bastion of Microsoft strength.

Today my computer broke. Which is not a showstopping catastrophe because I have computers all over the place. Kind of like the Mad Tea Party-- no need to wash the crockery, just move to a new place setting. But eventually you run out of clean place settings, and eventually I'll run out of computers, so I suppose I better fix it.

As well as 84 percent of businesses across the world saying they have no plans to adopt Windows 7 within a year, Microsoft should perhaps be more worried by the 50 percent who said they were considering jumping ship to a different OS such as Linux.

The next version of Ubuntu, ‘Jaunty Jackalope’, offers several new features in the server edition. Below, WorksWithU takes a look at what the latest release of Ubuntu, set to become stable on April 23, will mean for server users. Here are the details.

In the official announcement, Wine growers reveal a slew of enhancements for 1.1.19. These include improved Direct3D support and Esound driver. Winemaker, which makes Windows programs Wine-compatible, now also supports Visual C++ projects.

The Psyb0t worm infects Linux-based routers, including consumer-level broadband routers, and turns them into botnet nodes. Psyb0t finds easy entry because they are misconfigured. Eric Geier tells how to find out if you are infected and what to do about it, and gives sound advice that is pertinent to all routers.

Sabayon Linux is a very full featured DVD-sized distribution that is really catching on in the Linux community as of late. The most recent release, Sabayon 4.1 Gnome, includes some very impressive features, and applications. I installed Sabayon 4.1 Gnome this morning and found some great stuff, I really have nothing but good things to say about this up and coming Linux distro.

Let's face it, databases are only minimally human-readable. Or, at least, that's the case in OpenOffice.org Base, regardless of whether you view a database's tables directly or filter them through a query or form. In fact, to anybody who's not an accountant or a computer geek, reading databases can be downright intimidating. Reports are an effort to manipulate database records into a more friendly form, including preparing them for printing or for insertion into a larger document.

The publication of the final draft JavaScript standard, ECMA-262, ECMAScript fifth edition, marks the final stage of revision for the ECMAScript standard, which was last updated in 1999. The redevelopment of the standard has been an acrimonious affair.

In this article we'll look at PHP's "magic" features: Magic methods are class methods with specific names, are used to perform various specialized tasks. They are grouped into two: overloading methods and non-overloading methods. Overloading magic methods are used when your code attempts to access a method or a property which does not exist. Non-overloading methods perform other tasks. Magic functions are similar to magic methods, but are just plain functions outside any class. Currently there is only one magic function in PHP. Magic constants are similar to constants in notation, but act more like "dynamic" constants - their value depends on where you use them. We'll also look at some practical examples of using some of these, and lastly we'll check out what new features PHP 5.3 is going to add.

Recently the latest version of perhaps the world's most friendly BSD distribution was released. PC-BSD 7.1 is based off FreeBSD and we take a first look at this interesting operating system. In the news, Novell's openSUSE Build Service, recently added to the Linux Foundation's Developer Network, gains support for the ARM processor, Moblin sets its sight on a 2-second boot, Fedora re-issues 64-bit images of its recent beta release of version 11, FreeBSD hits 20,000 packages in its ports directory, Debian announces the final results of the project leader elections, and Kubuntu releases a KDE 3 remix of its 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope beta. Finally, don't miss the first episode of "Ubunchu!" the world's first open source manga featuring Ubuntu Linux.

The Citadel project has released version 7.5 of its GPL3-licensed groupware server. The release improves the web interface and countless other details.

Over the past few days there's been a raft of stories about how the Linux netbook market share is not as healthy as it used to be. Up until now it's been believed that the emerging netbook market (arguably the first new PC hardware platform for decades) has been sewn up almost entirely by various varieties of Linux. However, it seems the truth is that Linux netbooks see far more returns than their Windows equivalents, and -- according to research firm NPD -- about 96% of netbooks sold recently ran Windows. Needless to say, a Microsoft employee has been gloating about this.

While a test release has been around for a few months, last night PulseAudio 0.9.15 was officially released. This open-source sound server has a number of significant enhancements in this latest update...

Helios is rarely a man of few words. In this case, even this announcement makes pondering the news a silent moment.

Zenoss Inc., a value leader in enterprise network and systems management, today announced that it is a founding member of the Open Source Channel Alliance. Led by Red Hat, the alliance program includes leading commercial open source software vendors including; Alfresco, Enterprise DB, Ingres, Jaspersoft, Likewise, Pentaho, Zmanda, and Zenoss. Through the alliance Zenoss has signed a distribution agreement with SYNNEX Corporation to distribute and market Zenoss' portfolio of cost-effective, enterprise-proven network and systems monitoring solutions.

Google's Android operating system for cell phones, GPS devices and a host of other gadgets yet to be is the topic of much controversy and discussion. Why? Windows CE, Embedded Linux, Android...who cares? When you shop for a phone, or any modern gadget, do you ask which operating system it's running? I don't for two reasons. First, the people working at the store look at me, and each other, like I've just stepped off a ship from Mars. Second, I don't care.