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The most exciting bit of kit I've played with in ages isn't a cutting edge graphics card, or a multimedia tablet. It's a netbook - a Samsung NC-10 with a bog standard Atom chip, a bit of RAM and an ancient operating system. It isn't just a great bit of kit, though. It's the canary in the coalmine, chirping that the tech industry has completely lost touch with reality - and that it's caught us in its Reality Distortion Field.

Have you ever come across a situation where you wanted to convert a video from one format to another in your Linux machine and you have absolutely no idea how to do it? What about playing DVD on Ubuntu or rip your favorite VCD to mpeg file? Below, I have come up with a great list of software that you can use to handle your video/audio files in Linux. All the software listed are compatible with any of the Linux distros out there. The installation instructions and screenshots are based on Ubuntu, so if you are on a different distro, you will have to change the command accordingly.

Recently I had to input quite a few OID's into Zenoss. This meant I had to create a Data Source for each OID I wanted to monitor as well as one Data Point. Now I knew this was going to be a hassle!!! So I decided to write a custom Python script that uses pysnmp to essentially do a snmpwalk (nextCmd) on a Branch of OID's. This means that I can create one Data Source and Mutiple Data Points. Which drops the amount of time that I have to input into the Zenoss GUI.

A new industry alliance, Genivi, has been launched and aims to bring open source to "In-Vehicle Infotainment". Genivi, a non-profit organisation, has been founded by car makers BMW, General Motors and Peugeot Citroën, component makers Delphi, Magneti Marelli and Visteon, CPU maker Intel and embedded systems developer Wind River. It plans to work on a Linux based, open source reference platform that can be incorporated into vehicles.

In Torture-Testing Phoenix HyperSpace, the Linux-Based Instant-On OS, we learned a bit about Phoenix HyperSpace, the Linux-based "instant on" operating system. We learned that Phoenix is positioning it as a fast, safe, secure, energy-efficient environment for mobile workers that should meet most of their computing needs, making a trip into Windows an occasional foray rather than a daily necessity. I've been spending some quality time with it on a Lenovo S10 IdeaPad, and today you get to hear all about my adventures with it.

Looking for a Web-based content management system that uses Perl instead of PHP? Want to server dynamic and static content with PostrgeSQL, not MySQL? What started out as a hobby project by Hendrik Van Belleghem, based in Bazel, Belgium, has grown into Spine – a Perl Web content system for Apache on Unix systems. With so many LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) content systems available, Spine offers a refreshing alternative with the tried and tested Perl language and is database independent. Open Source Identity interviews Van Belleghem about Spine, a lesser-known alternative to the popular Web CMSs.

A constant pattern in the corporate environment is the gathering of resources, but with the free exchange of information inherent in community-based projects, the pattern of choice is the dispersal of resources. This presents certain design challenges, which manifest themselves in the Unix-style “small sharp tools” specialization approach, “bottom-up design”, and most importantly in easy-to-obtain, shared, free standards for data interchange between programs. When every train car is to be made by a separate builder, it is essential that the rail gauge is constant and known. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.

As companies grow, merge and scale up, the systems they use for various enterprise tasks become tangled and mixed. They may also age very poorly. Replacing them with newer, more efficient, better-supported systems is no small task, especially when they're so tightly intertwined. Not doing so, however, can make for a difficult-to-manage, insecure system.

Nokia might be best known as a global mobile phone giant, but it's also making waves in the open source software business, too. The company's Qt Software division this week released the latest edition of its open source application framework, Qt version 4.5, with improvements that will expand cross-platform capabilities and increase performance. Nokia's also seizing the opportunity to launch a new developer tool, called Qt Creator

The DOHCS 2009 conference has come and gone, and it was a tremendous success exceeding even our own lofty expectations. With nearly 300 attendees we greatly appreciated the interest in the speakers and their outstanding presentations. We are already in planning for DOHCS 2010 and hope to see you there. Below are the presentations and audio from DOHCS 2009, please note that the audio has some problems including volume in sections (particularly Q&A) that we are aware of and unfortunately cannot resolve. MP3 files are approximately 30-55MB .

What's the best Linux distribution? It's one of the most commonly asked questions from people who are new to Linux. The answer? Well, there isn't really a simple answer.

Software Tree has filed a lawsuit against Red Hat claiming the Linux distribution and open source middleware manufacturer has infringed upon one of its patents. The patent at the heart of the case is 6,163,776, System and method for exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and a relation system.

One of the cheapest netbooks on the market is the 3K Razorbook/Longitude 400. By default Little Linux Laptop OS is pre-installed. Untill now there wasn't an alternative Operating System, because these netbooks don't use an Intel x86 compatible processor, but an Xburst processor. Now there's an alternative OS called 3MX.

When Red Hat announces quarterly results March 25, the news may confirm what Wall Street has suspected since November 2008: The smarter money remains on Red Hat’s commercial open source strategy. Here’s why.

Is it possible to install the latest version of OpenOffice.org and all your favorite extensions using just a simple command? Yes, it is. All you need is a relatively simple Bash script that does the donkey job for you.

FOSDEM - a geek trip to Brussels. Going abroad to experience different cultures. Or at least, a chance to eat chips, suffer rain, and watch American TV in a different country. Get all the gory details at Freesoftware Magazine.

Well, the nightmare part has kicked in. Bear with me, folks, because I'm going into some detail so others may learn from my pain. The other night I was up until past 3 a.m. trying to get the Linux machine to access shared folders on the Win 98 machine. At least I found out that many, many other Linux users faced the same problem. Even better news, thanks to somebody named Rafal and his "LANMAN fix," I got it to work. More on that later.

[Linux newbie doesn't like bad grammar in the documentation and things that are different. - Scott]

It's increasingly common for prominent open-source developers to leave IBM or other open-source-friendly companies to try their luck at Microsoft. It's not common at all for them to blog about it before actually getting a formal offer. Yet that is what Sam Ruby, prominent Apache Software Foundation director and Atom developer, has done on his blog. Ruby was hired by IBM directly from Christopher Newport University in 1981 and has never left.

Ethernet bonding refers to aggregating multiple ethernet channels together to form a single channel. This is primarily used for redundancy in ethernet paths or for load balancing. This page refers in particular to performing ethernet bonding under Linux, and so does not limit itself to discussion of 802.3ad Trunk Aggregation.

For an OS to wrestle market share from Microsoft's Windows, it will need two things: the OS-maker's support and low licensing fees. This rings true even on the netbook front--a relatively new PC segment, and even for Microsoft. Recently, the Android OS backed by Google was unofficially ported to an Asus Eee PC netbook, and according to online reports, the Taiwanese manufacturer has set up a team to develop a netbook running on the Linux-based OS.