Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Novell announced the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Desktop (SLED) and Server (SLES) 11, offering new support for virtualization and cloud computing. The SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 11 distributions also include the Mono project extension for .NET compatibility, and a High Availability extension.

Mer is an outgrowth of Nokia's Maemo environment, designed to flesh out the tablet-centric operating system into a full-fledged Linux distribution suitable for embedded and desktop systems of all description. The project's genesis was an effort to back port the upcoming Maemo 5.0 release to no-longer-supported Nokia N800 and N810 tablets, but it has subsequently evolved to run on BeagleBoards, embedded navigation devices like the Pocket LOOX, and standard x86 hardware.

Here are seven ways to pump up your browser, whether it's Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox. Use these free browser add-ons to take notes in your browser, see thumbnails of Web pages in Google searches, drag an address in a Web page to an add-on and map it instantly, and quickly download video with one press of a hotkey.

Security researchers have identified a sophisticated piece of malware that corrals consumer routers and DSL modems into a lethal botnet. The "psyb0t" worm is believed to be the first piece of malware to target home networking gear, according to researchers from DroneBL, which bills itself as a real-time monitor of abusable internet addresses. It has already infiltrated an estimated 100,000 hosts. It has been used to carry out DDoS, or distributed denial of service, attacks and is also believed to use deep-packet inspection to harvest user names and passwords.

The disclosure that Red Hat have applied for a patent on what might strike some as an obscure corner of the software ecosystem has caused others to re-evaluate how open and collaborative Red Hat actually are. As the AMQP 1.0 standard entered into its final phase, a 2007 Red Hat patent application, the company now refers to as a "defensive" patent, on an obvious extension of AMQP, was automatically disclosed and caused quite stir. What is AMQP, why is it important, what has Red Hat done to cause a ruckus within the AMQP community, and what does it mean to open source in general.

Commercial Linux distributor Novell today takes the wraps off SUSE Linux 11, its riff on Linux for servers and desktops that now sports a commercially supported extension for the Mono runtime environment and a variant that provides high availability clustering of servers. The Mono Extension to SUSE Linux is the first time that Novell has offered commercial support for the Mono runtime, which allows applications that are coded in C# and using the .NET Framework to run atop non-Windows platforms. Novell bought into the open source Mono project when it acquired Ximian, the company behind Mono as well as the Gnome graphical user interface, back in the summer of 2003. That's a long time for Novell to take to get Mono commercial, but better late than never.

The latest version of SUSE Linux Enterprise, Novell Inc.'s commercial distribution of the open-source operating system, bears more fruit from Novell's controversial two-and-a-half-year-old interoperability alliance with Microsoft Corp. One version of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, what Novell likes to call SLE 11, will allow companies to run applications built with Microsoft's .Net platform to work on Linux without recompiling them. That version, called Mono Extension, even runs on IBM's System z, enabling IBM'S mainframe computers to run .Net apps.

With NetworkManager 0.7, which can be found in most modern Linux distributions already, there is "out of the box" support for many mobile broadband / cellular cards in this excellent network management utility. Most SM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HDSPA, HSUPA, and EVDO devices can then provide an Internet connection to a Linux host usually with the click of a menu item from the NetworkManager plug-in. However, not all mobile broadband devices play well with Linux right now.

Oracle is not buying Red Hat The rumor mill has it that Oracle may be buying Red Hat. Don't believe it. All it took was one mention that Oracle might do well to own Red Hat, but that the timing wasn't right, by Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert for people to start talking up Oracle buying Red Hat. Folks, it's not going to happen. IBM will buy Sun. Oracle buying Red Hat? No. This isn't the first time that Egbert has dreamed up fantasies of Oracle buying Red Hat in the minds of silly investors. She was wrong then. She's wrong now. Why? The reasons why it didn't make sense in 2006 are still the reasons the move makes no sense today.

Earlier this week, Psystar released yet another Mac clone -- choosing to ignore the copyright infringement lawsuit pending against it in federal court in San Francisco. InformationWeek's Antone Gonzalves points out that the move is a risky one given that Apple is asking the court to require the Florida-based startup to recall the clones it has sold. Never mind the compatibility problems that could crop up running OSX on non-Apple hardware.

You may be running non-free programs on your computer every day without realizing it—through your web browser. In the free software community, the idea that non-free programs mistreat their users is familiar. Some of us refuse entirely to install proprietary software, and many others consider non-freedom a strike against the program. Many users are aware that this issue applies to the plug-ins that browsers offer to install, since they can be free or non-free.

LXer Feature: 22-Mar-2009

An acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. by IBM might have its good points, especially for Sun's long-suffering shareholders. But IT users and analysts have concerns about the prospective deal that can be summed up in two words: uncertainty and fear. While Sun is a diminished company these days, it remains influential, thanks largely to its open-source products and the massive development communities that have built up around them — Java and MySQL in particular.

In Part I Eric Geier showed us how to turn a cheap wireless router into a hotspot gateway with CoovaAP, to safely offer wireless Internet access to visitors. Today we'll learn Coova's free services to centrally manage and control our hotspots, how to customize our portal page, and how to manage users.

Command-Line-Fu is a new, bash.org-style site for collecting command-line tips and tricks. Juliet Kemp gives us a quick tour of this endlessly-useful new site.

Free-software activist Richard Stallman has warned the open-source community against falling into the trap of downloading Javascript code that's not "free". Stallman said the spread of AJAX-based web services like Google Docs means you many be running Javascript code on your machine that's not free without realizing it. He pointed to Google Docs that downloads a half-megabyte Javascript program to your machine as an example.

The GPS maker, which is being sued by Microsoft, is joining the Open Invention Network, which also counts Red Hat, IBM, and Google as members.

In the seemingly never-ending browser wars, monthly usage statistics are an important metric of just what is really going on on the "battlefield." For Open Source advocates, these statistics are equally if not more important, as they give a reasonably reliable overview of Open Source adoption. That may explain some of the excitement surrounding February's browser statistics, which seem to show Firefox topping the list.

The student application period for Google Summer of Code begins at 19:00 UTC today, and closes at 19:00 UTC on April 3rd. Students should be sure to seek feedback from their mentors as early as possible, to ensure that their application is in top shape for the grading period. Good luck to all students!

While a relatively simple device, web-cameras are still an area on Linux that can be problematic when it comes to compatibility and the device functioning properly. The level of Linux support for USB web-cameras has improved quite a bit in recent years, and for many devices it is now a plug-and-play experience, but that is not the case for all devices. In this article we are taking a brief look at the Logitech QuickCam Communicate Deluxe. The QuickCam Communicate Deluxe has a 1.3 mega-pixel sensor with the capabilities to capture video up to a resolution of 1280 x 1024 at 30 frames per second.