Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Last November, Openbravo, an open-source software (OSS) company in business for less than three years, celebrated the one-millionth combined download of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) and point-of-sale applications. While the number of actual deployments is far less, given that developers often download the software as part of a tire-kicking exercise, the high interest in an open-source application as sophisticated as ERP reflects the increasing traction that OSS is gaining in the corporate world.

Analysis – Last month, Microsoft’s market share in the browser dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years, while Mozilla broke the 20% barrier for the first time in its history. Initial data sets provided by Net Applications suggest that the Internet Explorer will drop once again significantly in December to below 69% and Mozilla will climb above 21%. IE8 is just around the corner, but current market share data suggests that Microsoft has no effective tool to stop the bleeding at this time - and Mozilla can pick up two out of every three users Microsoft surrenders.

CES rollouts will run the gamut from MSI's Wind "hybrid" netbook -- with a mix of SSD and HDD drives in a single machine -- to a high-end notebook with a secondary display. And Windows 7 could be closer than anyone thinks

This year at Phoronix we published 333 full-length original articles/reviews and wrote 691 news pieces -- with nearly all of them being about Linux or computer hardware in some form. Our total number of articles written at Phoronix since its inception in 2004 is over 1,300 articles and then about 2,000 news postings in the past two years. Below are our most popular articles this year. Mac OS X 10.5 vs...

LinuxPlanet Classics: Getting the fingerprint reader working hasn't advanced much since this article was first run, so here we go again, with some updated references. Please note that fingerprint readers, like all biometric devices, are easy to foil and do not provide strong security; but they are convenient.

KWordQuiz, KVocTrain, and other KDE-based programs use the KVTML file format for their data files. The format is just a fairly simple XML format but, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything available to convert a text file to this format. So, once again, AWK to the rescue.

Rather than announcing a road-map for 2009 or sharing all of the accomplishments this year that were made within the Compiz development community, Kristian Lyngstol has shared some grave concerns for this project that brought "desktop bling" to Linux. Kristian has outlined a few areas that that he believes need to be addressed otherwise it could mean the death of Compiz. Compiz in fact is just losing developers at this point and with the different forks taking place there is much stagnation occurring within Compiz.

Over the past few years, scheduled releases of open source projects have become the norm. Projects tend to release new versions according to a regular schedule as opposed to releasing when the developers consider all the work proposed, has been completed. Releasing "When it's done" is based upon the simple proposition that if you only release when you think the software is complete and usable, then that release will be of higher quality. How a project makes that decision of completeness would be up to the project; an active benevolent dictator's project could be simply decreed complete, while a larger community project may use voting or other feedback, to create an aggregate decision. Whichever way though, there will always be the possibility of issues missed, or downgraded without the community noticing and therefore holding up the release while those issues are fixed.

For many, migrating to Linux is a rite of passage that equates to a thing of joy. For others, it's a nightmare waiting to happen. It's wonderful when it's the former; it's a real show stopper when it's the latter. But that nightmare doesn't have to happen, especially when you know, first hand, the most common mistakes new Linux administrators make. This article will help you avoid those mistakes by laying out the most typical Linux missteps.

The past year has seen strides in open source's place in the industry, cementing its role as a major force in the enterprise -- with several key players and stakeholders rising to the top. Just what do they have planned for the next twelve months? Also this year, the breakneck pace of development in networking technology continued apace. But with concerns about security and energy consumption at all time highs, there's still a great deal of work that needs to get done. And quickly.

A new centre aimed at speeding the development of mobile computing devices around the Linux-based Moblin OS opened in Taipei. The idea is for Taiwanese companies to use the centre as a testing ground for new netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs), as well as develop more applications around Moblin.

The free and open source software community has been waiting for the G1 cell phone since it was first announced in July. Source code for Google's Android mobile platform has been available, but the G1 marks its commercial debut. It's clearly a good device, but is it what Linux boosters and FOSS advocates have long been anticipating?

It is midnight. You are browsing the web. Everything seems fine. Unbeknownst to you, a rogue advertisement composed of malware is displayed on a popular website and is attempting to steal your banking credentials. What can you do? This sort of trickery happens every day and most people don't know when they are being exploited. If you run Linux, Firefox, and some popular security addon tools, then you are probably protected from most of these attacks. However, there is always the possibility that you are not! So, it is better to err on the side of safety :-) Did you know that most web attacks against users occur during the holiday shopping season? It is a sad, but true, fact.

A new GNUmed live CD is out. With the help of this CD one can testdrive GNUmed without altering the currently running environment such as operating system. No installation neccessary. Just download the CD image (http://www.gnumed.de/downloads/live-cd/) and either burn it to a CD or set up VirtualBox, Vmware/Vmplayer, QEmu or the likes to accept the CD image as a virtual CD drive.

AMD has released "the fundamental Linux code" needed to develop open-source 3D-acceleration drivers for its R600 and R700 ATI graphic-processors series. This is good news not only for those wishing to create drivers for those potent GPU series - known to non-AMD watchers by their marketing names of ATI Radeon HD 2x00, HD 3x00 (both R600), and Radeon HD 4x00 (R700) - but also for the legions of non-coding Linux-lovers who are lusting for access to the R600/700's 3D powers.

This week I'm your straight reporter bringing you news of of updates, upgrades, and new releases in the world of Linux audio software. Development in this world is continuously productive, so I'll present only a selection of the Linux sound and music applications and utilities announced in the month of November in the year 2008.

It is general resolution season at the Debian Project. As was discussed here in October, Debian seeks to resolve two questions: one regarding types of developers in the project, and one being the perennial firmware debate. As of this writing, the first vote is done, while the second remains open. But it has become clear that, regardless of the outcome of the firmware vote, this issue has stressed the Debian community, perhaps to the breaking point.

LinuxPlanet Classics: Bruce Byfield reviews his choices for the top general-purpose Linux distributions, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Many public administrations already use open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to let citizens look at public geographic data trough dedicated Web sites. Others use the same software to partially open the data gathering process: they let citizens directly add geographic information to the official, high-quality GIS databases by drawing or clicking on digital maps.

The past year has seen strides in open source's place in the industry, cementing its role as a major force in the enterprise — with several key players and stakeholders rising to the top. Just what do they have planned for the next twelve months? Also this year, the breakneck pace of development in networking technology continued apace. With concerns about security and energy consumption at an all-time high, there's still a great deal of work that must get done. And quickly.