Showing headlines posted by SamShazaam

Most GNU/Linux users choose GNOME or KDE for desktops without thinking. However, many alternatives exist, ranging from minimalist graphic environments in window managers like IceWM to entire alternative desktops, such as ROX. Of these alternatives the best-known and most polished is Xfce.

Beryl, a new open-source window manager for Linux, features compelling visual enhancements like support for transparent windows and elaborate window animations. Based on David Reveman's Compiz window manager, Beryl leverages hardware-accelerated rendering to provide support for unique and innovative graphical functionality.

BackTrack is the most Top rated linux live distribution focused on penetration testing. With no installation whatsoever, the analysis platform is started directly from the CD-Rom and is fully accessible within minutes. It's evolved from the merge of the two wide spread distributions Whax and Auditor Security Collection. By joining forces and replacing these distribution the BackTrack could gain a massive popularity and was voted in 2006 as #1 at the surveil of insecure.org. Security professionals as well as new-comers are using it as their favorite toolset all over the globe.

Worthy Linux distributions from Ubuntu and SUSE run very well, but they are also rather large collections (though certainly not as bloated as Windows is!) and this has led to the creation of some smaller incarnations like Damn Small Linux and Feather Linux. The best of these lite Linux versions, though, has got to be Puppy Linux, which, in its 2.14 version, shows that it can run very comfortably with the big hounds.

Writing in O'Reilly's Radar, Nat Torkington argues that the term "open source" is becoming meaningless. He points to SugarCRM's badgeware, through which, he claims, only two-thirds of their code is downloadable, and rPath and MontaVista, which "sell software that works on Linux but the software itself isn't actually open source." Open-source leader Eric S. Raymond replied to Torkington's essay in a letter to O'Reilly and several journalists, in which he asserted that the open source "label is still valid and important. I'm a pragmatist, so I'm not going to wave any flags or sing any anthems to argue this, just point out what has worked and continues to work."

My goal with Knolinux 6 months ago was to get at least most of the top ten of Distrowatch reviewed, minus only Fedora and openSuse (we need not go into why on those, just personal reasons) and one that I always look forward to was Sabayon. Originally called RR4/64, Sabayon is an Italian (sorry everyone) project that takes the excellence of a Gentoo system and adds a ease of installation and eye candy appeal that is second to none.

If you are reading this Web page you’ve probably been searching for a colour laser multi-function device that works with the Linux operating system. Well search no more. I’m pleased to report the Epson AcuLaser CX11NF - a combined laser printer, scanner, copier and fax machine - works like a charm. What’s more the drivers are all open source - how about that!

On Friday Japan's Turbolinux begins dispatching the first batch of its Wizpy handhelds to people who ordered them from its Web site. The flash-based multimedia player contains a version of Linux, so it can be used to boot a PC into the operating system, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC.

At a recent news conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sought to impugn the character of the free/open source world by implying that it had no respect for the intellectual property rights of others. It's not just the enormous ignorance embodied by this duplicitous braggadocio that caught my eye, it's the fact that the claim is coming from a man associated with Microsoft, which is far and away the most notorious IP thief of all time.

Ubuntu's Technical Board has decided not to activate proprietary video drivers by default in the upcoming Ubuntu 7.04 ("Feisty Fawn") release. Some people have interpreted this to mean that Feisty won't include these drivers, or that Ubuntu was backing away from proprietary drivers. Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's founder and backer, however, has now taken pains to tell the public that Ubuntu will continue to include and use proprietary software for "essential hardware."

For three and a half years, a blogger named Pamela Jones has led a relentless online crusade against software maker SCO Group, posting thousands of articles bashing the company for suing IBM over the Linux operating system. Now the Lindon, Utah, software company is fighting back by seeking to take a deposition from Jones. Just one problem: They can't find her.

Klik is unique among software installation systems for Linux, in that each package installed through klik is self-contained, isolated from the rest of the operating system. Klik isn't a package management system; rather it's an application that lets you download and run software without installing it.

There is a newer distro in town, gaining traction. Sabayon Linux is an installable, Gentoo based live Cd/DVD. It has the stated goal of being 100% Gentoo compatible. A lot of attention has been paid to the Sabayon brand. Theming is consistent and striking. Sabayon is one of the best looking distros I have used.

Good news today from the great state of Oklahoma. Debbie Foster, a single mom who was improperly sued by the RIAA back in 2004 for file sharing, has won back her attorneys' fees. The decision today is one of the first in the country to award attorneys fees to a defendant in an RIAA case over music sharing on the Internet.

A new open source advocacy group is about to launch with a focus on applications rather than open source standards.

In the 1990s Linus Torvalds used to give a talk called World Domination 101 on the early steps he believed Linux would need to take to achieve "world domination — fast" [1]. We've made a lot of progress since then, but Linux desktop market share remains stuck below 5%, which is too low to garner support from hardware vendors in some critical areas like graphics and wireless hardware, and too small a political base from which to effectively oppose software patents, hardware DRM, and other horrors.

AT&T made a pragmatic decision to embrace network neutrality this past week. The goal was to grease the skids for the company's proposed merger with BellSouth, of course, but the move could have broad ramifications in the industry. Why? Because the AT&T agreement is the first of its kind, and it has given network neutrality supporters designs on a larger prize—industry-wide legislation.

There's a comprehensive update of the long-raging Wireless Wars at the IEEE site right now, written by Greg Goth, and aptly titled This Little Standard Went to Market; This Little Standard Blew Up. Those wars, you may recall, have been raging for years. Most recently, attention has focused on a new and hotly-contested wireless personal area network standard intended not to replace WiFi, but to allow other types of devices - like stereo equipment - to be connected wirelessly.

BSD and Linux programmers have had a lot of success in creating drivers for new computer hardware in a timely manner, but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers. Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips.

This is my list of the five most significant changes in Linux this year. They are not changes, however, that many who have embraced Linux in the past will appreciate. Like it or lump it, these are the changes that I also think clearly predict Linux's future in the mainstream