Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

It truly is a beautiful thing when something just works. Network-attached storage devices deliver ease of use, small footprints, and high capacities at commodity prices. Paul Ferrill examines the VIA ARTiGO A2000 Storage Server, a shoebox-sized FreeNAS-based NAS with capacity to burn.

Our friends at Unigine Corp have published a 2009 development road-map for the Unigine Engine, their cross-platform gaming engine that is able to deliver stunning graphics on Linux. In 2009 the Unigine Engine is set to receive support for game consoles, improved physics capabilities, multi-monitor support, world layers support, an integrated terrain editor, high-level vehicles support, a new game logic framework, and much more.

Anthony Lineberry, a Linux expert, announced during his presentation, "Alice in User-Land: Hijacking the Linux Kernel via /dev/mem", at the Black Hat security conference now taking place in Amsterdam that he will shortly be publishing the libmemrk library. He says Libmemrk works in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments.

The Ubuntu project has published a "release candidate" or final testing version for the upcoming 9.04 version of its popular Linux distribution. "We consider this release candidate to be complete, stable and suitable for testing by any user," said Ubuntu developer Steve Langasek in an e-mail.

Version 7.50 of the Citadel open source groupware for Linux has been released. The new version improves the template system of Citadel's WebCit web interface and uses JavaScript to enhance the mailbox summary view. According to the release notes, its message display and email composition dialogues have been updated.

One of the nice things about Linux — but by no means the most important — is the enhanced security that comes along with running it. That doesn't mean Linux never runs into security issues, though, and this week, the vulnerability in question centers around a nifty little service called udev.

Microsoft's brawl with TomTom over FAT patents has been seized on by software-freedom advocates as a wake-up call for people to adopt GPLv3. Open-source developers can protect themselves, their customers and the cause of software freedom in general by switching code currently under GPLv2 to the updated GPLv3, the Software Freedom Law Center has said.

One download can upgrade your entire Debian network; Juliet Kemp shows us how to save time and bandwidth by using approx to cache and serve updates locally.

As a parent of three young boys, I often think about what it's going to take to be competitive in the job market of the future. Obviously, they'll need solid reading, writing, math and science skills, with history, literature and art thrown in to make them well-rounded. Being a computer nerd myself, I recognize the value of even basic computer skills.

Zaragoza, Spain-based eBox Technologies announced the availability of version 1.0 of its Ubuntu Linux-based eBox server distribution.The open source eBox 1.0 features LDAP, DHCP, NTP, DNS, and email servers, among other features, and provides a new development framework for building add-on modules, says the company.

The first beta of version 8.4 of PostgreSQL, the free object-relational database system, developed under the umbrella of the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, has been released. After fourteen months in development, the new release contains hundreds of patches and dozens of new features.

The influence of RMS on the world of free software and beyond is, of course, immense. But sometimes his presence is more symbolic than real, as he seems to disappear off the map for weeks at a time, with little in the way of public statements or comments. Maybe this can be put down to the frequent travelling that he undertakes, as he continues tirelessly to spread the word about freedom. Whatever the reason for those intermittent silences, it's interesting to note something of a flurry of comments from him recently, and in quite surprising contexts.

The Government has been far from forthcoming when it comes to revealing any details behind the New South Wales (NSW) laptop tender choices. There are unanswered questions from Linux buffs, taxpayers, students and parents, and transparent Government advocates alike.

According to a number of Linux distributors, a bug in the udev service under Linux can be exploited to obtain root privileges. The kernel uses udev to dynamically create device-specific files and folders (/dev/) for input and output, so that only devices which are actually connected appear in /dev. udev is not a direct component of the Linux kernel, but is included and activated by default in almost all Linux distributions which use 2.6 series kernels.

The Pupeee Linux developers have released version 4.2 of their Asus Eee PC optimised open source netbook distribution. Version 4.2 of Pupeee is based on Puppy Linux, which was recently updated. The focus of Pupeee is speed, ease of use and Eee PC compatability.

Six months ago we pointed out the best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity, but since then more free applications have appeared in the Market that offer useful features you don't want to miss. Let's take a look at a few notable free apps that make getting things done with your Android handset easier and more fun.

What the heck is going on in Boston? Apologies to any Bostonians in the audience, but something is in the water, at least in the education and law enforcement districts. Once again, the "Cradle of Liberty" is in the news as the Defenders of the Fourth are forced to rush in to defend the baby against the hand that rocks the cradle.

Besides seeing 3D acceleration for their hardware in an open-source driver, one of the other leading requests from ATI Radeon customers has been to see improved power management within the ATI X.Org driver stack. There is Dynamic Clocks support and some other power management capabilities, along with some more innovative ways, but ATI's PowerPlay is not fully implemented in the open-source stack. Today though committed to the xf86-video-ati driver is support for two new power management features. The two new power options in this open-source driver are ForceLowPowerMode and DynamicPM, both of which are xorg.conf options.

Google’s Android mobile operating system is likely to see increased adoption as hardware buyers tightening their purse strings consider netbooks and other types of mininotebooks in lieu of full-size laptops. The least inexpensive netbooks tend to run Linux or Android, and HP, Dell and Acer are all expected to have Android-based netbooks in the works. Right now, Microsoft Windows XP dominates the netbook market, at least within the United States.

Google is giving developers an early look at the next build of Android, and it has released a software development kit for Android 1.5. Code-named "Cupcake," the latest version of the Linux-based operating system adds numerous features to the Google-backed OS. One of the complaints of the Android-powered T-Mobile G1 is that it lacks an on-screen keyboard, but Android 1.5 fixes that issue.