Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

During a presentation on Saturday at the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE), Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard discussed some of new features that will be included in the next version of the Firefox Web browser. He demonstrated how several emerging standards-based Web technologies can be used together to produce impressively sophisticated Web applications.

When you tell someone, "I'm going to buy a car," you usually hear, "Which one?" Ford, Toyota (NYSE: TM), Mitsubishi, Honda, Saturn? Two-door, four-door, mini-van? And so on. Likewise, if you say "I want to run Linux," you'll get the same question: Which one? There's no one "Linux" in the same sense that there's no one "car". There are things common among all cars as there are among all Linux distributions: all cars have an engine, and all Linux distributions share the Linux kernel and many of the GNU utilities.

Marvell announced today a new type of computer. It's about the size of an AC to DC converting wall outlet plug, but is really a full SoC with a 1200 MHz CPU, built-in 512 MB Flash, 512 MB DRAM, Gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0 support. It runs small versions of Linux, consumes about 5 watts max while allowing remote users (presumably those authorized by the owner) to access data stored on the device from remote locations including local intranets or over the Internet. The $49 device opens up a wide array of extremely low-power, low-volume, always on applications.

Android may give Linux a boost on netbooks, but according to Dell, its Inspiron Mini 9s with Ubuntu have already seen a steady sales stream coupled with low return rates. While MSI told us a few months back that Wind netbooks running SuSE Linux saw 4x higher return rates than that of XP machines, Dell has had quite the opposite experience with its Inspiron Mini 9 offering with Ubuntu. “A third of our Mini 9 mix is Linux, which is well above the standard attach rate for other systems that offer Linux. We have done a very good job explaining to folks what Linux is,” says Dell’s Jay Pinkert.

Even before the proverbial ink was dry on last week's interoperability deal between Microsoft and Red Hat, Linux competitor Novell laid off a still unknown number of employees involved with the open source openSUSE community. The openSUSE community has included volunteer developers in addition to paid employees of Novell, a major rival to Red Hat in the Linux space which forged its own interoperability pact with Microsoft in late 2006.

LXer Feature: 24-Feb-2009

It's not too frequently that Ryan Gordon updates his blog (finger), but when he does it's usually to announce a new Linux game port or an update to one of the titles he has ported. In this morning's update by Ryan Gordon, he mentions that an update is now available for Prey.

The VectorLinux developers have released a new version of the Slackware derivative, VectorLinux 6. This version of the lean system is the first to offer installation via a graphical installer, although text-based installation is still supported. VectorLinux Standard is based on Xfce version 4.43 and includes LXDE and Openbox as desktop alternatives. The developer team is offering a commercial deluxe version with KDE 4.2 and other extras, from the project's online shop. The Gnome desktop environment can be installed using the VectorLinux software repository.

You got to hand it to Microsoft, they certainly know how to scavenge off dead and dying bodies: "Microsoft Corp. today announced a new initiative, Elevate America, which will provide up to 2 million people over the next three years with the technology training needed to succeed in the 21st-century economy."

By the end of the year Asus will reportedly release an Eee PC with the Google Android operating system. Asus pioneered the market for low cost, scaled-down laptops that offer internet and email functionality, now known as netbooks. Netbooks have been one of the fastest-growing segments in the PC industry.

As of late, file-systems have been a popular topic among Linux developers and users. The EXT4 file-system was recently stabilized and it brings some modest performance improvements and is finding its way into modern distributions. While not yet stabilized, the Btrfs file-system was merged into the Linux 2.6.29 kernel and is poised as the Linux competitor to Sun's famed ZFS file-system. There is also open-source work underway in supporting Microsoft's exFAT file-system on Linux. On top of all of that, there is also the Tux3 file-system.

KDE 4.1, launched at the end of July 2008, became the first release we could heartily recommend as a replacement for the ageing 3.5, and a solid nine months of updates to 4.1 has created a stable and innovative environment that can only get stronger as 4.2 beds itself into 2009. But KDE is still KDE, and that means that many of its best features are undocumented and undisclosed. Which is why now is the best possible time for a feature crammed full of the best tricks we can find for getting the most out of KDE 4. It doesn't matter if you're a new convert, an experienced user, or a potential switcher, you'll find something in the following pages that will make you feel a micron of pride of what open source can achieve.

Almost two years after Etch, Debian is putting the much-anticipated Lenny release on the proverbial shelves. There are some pretty nice new features in this release. In this article, we’re going to cover installation, basic setup, disk encryption, and try out some of Lenny’s new moves.

The relationship between embedded system developers and the kernel community is known for being rough, at best. Kernel developers complain about low-quality work and a lack of contributions from the embedded side; the embedded developers, when they say anything at all, express frustrations that the kernel development process does not really keep their needs in mind. A current discussion involving developers from the Android project gives some insight into where this disconnect comes from.

Ubuntu's upcoming 9.10 release now has a name: Karmic Koala. However, all of the news wasn't so cute and fuzzy this week in the FOSS blogosphere. One blogger posted a Linux virus how-to, which got quite a bit of attention. Turns out the vulnerability has been known since 2006.

In the last couple of days I've probably learned more than I ever wanted to know about BCDs, MBRs, boot sectors, boot menus, lilo, Wubi, and grub. When I complained that Windows 7 had trashed my grub menu on Thursday, I didn't know what a can of worms I was opening. I got lots of advice, and most of it was constructive. Nobody quite gave me the whole picture, but I've put it together.

This week we re-visit the minimal distribution install, this time with openSUSE 11.1. In the news this past week, Mark Shuttleworth announces details of the 9.10 Ubuntu release, openSUSE board members post a joint statement about the project's future in light of Novell layoffs, Red Hat signs an interoperability agreement with Microsoft, Debian project announces the appointment of a new Secretary, and NetBSD launches a desktop initiative that should bring more users to the popular cross-platform operating system. Also in the news, we introduce VirtualBSD, a FreeBSD-based desktop environment for VMware and provide a link to an animated video interview about FreeNAS, a BSD system for building network-attached storage devices. Finally, if you are an accomplished distro tester, but worry that you'll run out of new distributions to try, fear not - last week no fewer than eight new Linux distributions were submitted to DistroWatch. These include some really exotic fares, such as moonOS from Cambodia or Kongoni from South Africa.

The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that MIPS Technologies (NASDAQ: MIPS) has become a member of the Foundation. MIPS Technologies is a leading provider of industry-standard architectures, processors and analog IP for digital consumer, home networking, wireless, communications and business applications.

An Indian Web site has confirmed ASUS is developing a version of its Eee PC Netbook to run Google’s Android software. When I tested Asus’ Netbooks last year for my Linux Laptop series I found a lot of uncertainty within the company about distros. The company has not advertised which distro it favors, and the two units that arrived here ran different ones.

Being worked on as part of Mandriva's next Linux distribution update is a technology they are referring to as Speedboot. Speedboot will be officially introduced with Mandriva Linux 2009.1, and compared to the normal boot process, it begins initializing some processes early on while it postpones other tasks until after the graphical display manager has shown. In essence, the user is logging into their Linux desktop even before the system is fully booted. We have some timed results of Mandriva's Speedboot along with videos showing the differences.