Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Everyone is writing "Foo Best Linux Application" lists all full of good Linux apps, so here are my own 7 Best Excellent Linux Apps You May Not Have Been Introduced To Yet. They are presented in no particular order or categorization, they're just good applications I've been using and enjoying, all 100% genuine Free/Open Source software and not crusted with any proprietary baggage.

Thanks to the installation script by Ignacio Valdes and the patch by Kevin Toppenburg for his GUI Configuration tool, I was able to install WorldVista on a Moka5 virtual machine based on PCLinuxOS-2007. I did this for my own interest, and I know there are other demos and virtual appliances available for VISTA, but Moka5 makes it very easy to install and run a pre-configured WorldVista server, so I thought I'd share it, in case anyone else is interested. I also have some links to a pre-configured version of the CPRSChart and GUIConfig front ends that should be able to connect to the server if run on the same machine hosting the Moka5/PCLinuxOS-2007 virtual machine.

Earlier this week Google had published their list of 2009 Summer of Code projects and FFmpeg was among them. Last week we published an interview with the FFmpeg developers where we learned more about their v0.5 release and other topics like OpenCL, Blu-ray, and multi-threading. Since running that interview, where it was found that Blu-ray wasn't actively being worked on due in part to a lack of hardware, a number of readers have stepped up and offered Blu-ray drives and media to help developers, which may result in Blu-ray support coming sooner rather than later.

If IBM actually were to buy Sun Microsystems Inc., the world's largest maker of Unix servers would take over the No. 2 vendor. Unix servers may not be getting as much attention as Sun's Java and MySQL technologies are in merger-speculation land, but it is the Unix market that could put the prospective deal on the radar of regulators. An acquisition of Sun would give IBM nearly two-thirds of the worldwide Unix server market, according to research firm IDC. IBM sold $6.4 billion worth of Unix servers last year, for a 37.2% market share, while Sun's sales amounted to $4.8 billion, for a 28.1% share, IDC said. Trailing behind in third place was Hewlett-Packard Co., with $4.6 billion in sales and a 26.5% market share; after HP, the rest of the vendors counted by IDC had single-digit shares at best.

I was pointed recently to Zappos as a near-perfect example of a company that brings the principles of open source to business. Its site is inventive and fancy (as you'd expect a clothing retailer to be), but not a triumph of design over utility. What's more, it's fast. I can check Web site responsiveness with some confidence, because our little apartment near Boston has 20Mb/s symmetrical service from Verizon FiOS (that's fiber, and pretty cheap, considering), and the speeds I get at the office I share at Harvard are more than twice that.

The Netfilter development team's Patrick McHardy has released an alpha version of nftables, a new firewall implementation for the Linux kernel, with a user space tool for controlling the firewall. nftables introduces a fundamental distinction between the user space defined rules and network objects in the kernel: the kernel component works with generic data such as IP addresses, ports and protocols and provides some generic operations for comparing the values of a packet with constants or for discarding a packet.

Sun Microsystems has began the deployment of South Africa's largest supercomputer, a 27Teraflop system that runs a suite of open source software. The system is the second phase of a multi-million rand project that was awarded to Sun last year and will be housed at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town.

A bunch of Microsoft Windows users were asked just why don't they use Linux. What's wrong with Linux? What needs to change to entice them? And I'll tell you! The results are a list of gripes and grievances and make an insightful collection of matters that really need to be fixed or better explained.

Server maker Sun Microsystems has a new Linux partner for its "Niagara" family of multicore processors and their related servers: Wind River Systems. Sun has plenty of sway with telecom companies and the network equipment providers that make the switching gear they use. But since the dot.com bust, Carrier-Grade Linux has been on the rise, and Solaris has been on the wane. That's why Sun has been keen on getting a Linux distro ported to the Niagara chips and having some sort of commercial support for them.

Despite the UK governments continued insistence that it is in favour of open source, in practice the opposite seems to be true. Many officials and departments are still highly resistant and display a remarkably hostile and dismissive attitude to open source. The H asked Richard Hillesley to examine the evidence.

GPS device maker TomTom has shot back at Microsoft with a claim of patent infringement, after the software giant raised concerns in the Linux community with a recent lawsuit against TomTom.

One would be hard pressed to find a Linux user who hasn't at one point or another become acquainted with Tux, the fine-flippered fellow who serves as mascot for all things Linux. Everybody needs a break now and again, though, and so Tux has gone on sabbatical — reportedly to work as a barber — leaving the face of a very worthy cause to hold down the fort.

Beleaguered Sun Microsystems, whose share price has been languishing at one of its lowest points ever for the past year, has just been given a shot in the arm with yesterday's talk of an IBM buyout. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Sun's share price gave the company a market capitalisation only slightly larger than that of Red Hat, despite revenues 20-fold more than those of Red Hat. At the close of the NYSE on March 17 Sun's share was trading at $4.92. With the overnight news of a potential IBM buyout that price rocketed to open at $8.31 yesterday, eventually closing at $8.94. Which gives Sun a market capitalization of more than $6.6 billion.

This summer KDE will once again be participating in Google Summer of Code! This will give KDE another opportunity to achieve the massive forward momentum and influx of new developers that has been the hallmark of each Summer of Code.

Why are there so many Linuxes? Because one size does not fit all. Paul Ferrill introduces us to Tiny Linux, a complete distribution in ten (count 'em, 10!) megabytes that lets you add just the pieces you need to get your job done.

A microcredit co-op bank has sprung up in Northern California, using money pooled from hardware hackers to fund other open source hardware hacking projects.

According to a Novel-sponsored IDC survey, Linux seems to be gaining popularity among businesses implementing servers, and it has a bright outlook for both server and desktop installations in the coming future. On the other hand, netbooks have seen less and less default OEM installations of Linux. Windows now has over 90 percent of netbook sales, quashing any hopes of an open source revolution in the form of netbooks. Android, however, may be able to change things.

Do you look at the amazing dual mode XO screen and think to yourself "that's too small to show a classroom the joys of learning learning"? Might you want a VGA port to attach external viewing hardware? If so, you would not be alone.

A simple question, "Why do you use Linux?" got the attention of more than a few people on the Linux-related blogs this week. Even PC Magazine's John Dvorak, a noted detractor of Linux, weighed in with his reasons why "everyone should try Ubuntu." Now that's high praise.

NEW YORK--The open source route has generated more money for Sun Microsystems than before, says its open source chief, and staying on this path will be central to the company's growth strategy. Sun made more money from Solaris today than it did four years ago after it moved the server platform to an open source model, said Simon Phipps, the company's chief open source officer.