Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Who says you need Windows for gaming? First-person shooters, racing simulators, space exploration, card and board games, strategy and sims-- Eric Geier takes us on a tour of a tasty selection of native games for Linux.

Linux-Kongress 2008 attendees had the opportunity to hear two different sessions dedicated to organizations trying to improve the state of Linux support for embedded and mobile systems. They have similar goals, but are taking different approaches and have different levels of resources available to them. The first of these is OpenSourceEmbedded, presented by uClinux developer Jeff Dionne. He opened with a statement that, ten years ago, Linux-based embedded systems were nearly unknown. Now those systems are everywhere, with hundreds of millions of deployments. Embedded systems, he says, make up the largest installed base of Linux systems.

After two years of litigation, the parties involved in an Israeli law suit that centered on the validity of the GNU General Public License (GPL) have settled out of court. The result leaves the legal status of the GPL in Israel unresolved. As reported earlier on Linux.com, the case began in early 2006 when Alexander Rabinovitch, CEO of International Chess University (IchessU) approached Alexander Maryanovsky, the developer of Jin, a Java-based chess client, about writing a chess client and server for IchessU. When Maryanovsky declined, IchessU produced its own software, which Maryanovsky described as "95% my code and 5% theirs."

Canonical Ltd., the commercial backer of the Ubuntu Linux operating system, is not yet turning a profit, but founder Mark Shuttleworth said during a teleconference today that he is prepared to bankroll the company for three to five more years. "We continue to require investment, and I continue to be careful with my pennies in making those investments, but I consider this a good proposition," the billionaire technologist said. "Canonical is not cash-positive, but our offering is very attractive to those who want to pinch their pennies in the Linux space."

Having increased its commitment to open source in recent months, Facebook announced on Friday that a piece of internally created software, "Scribe", will be released back to the open source community.

The OpenMoko project recently released a much-needed update to the official software stack of the Neo FreeRunner. I've had a FreeRunner for a few months and during that time I have used it to run everything from Debian to Qtopia (now known as QT Extended), so when OpenMoko announced the OM2008.9 update I eagerly upgraded to see what it had to offer.

The Linux Foundation (LF) has posted a ten-minute video interview with kernel coordinator Linus Torvalds. Held during the Linux Foundation's recent Linux Kernel Summit, the interview reveals the Linux founder speaking out on issues ranging from kernel/userland interactions to why Linux has so many interfaces.

Microsoft's Silverlight 2.0, released this month for Windows and Mac, is a tipping point. This is the version that gives developers the features they have long been waiting for, including a cross-platform implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework. Microsoft will use its massive Professional Developers' Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, California, this week to introduce a small army of developers who'd been using beta code to the finished product. Before we look at what's inside Silverlight 2.0, and its importance, it's worth seeing how far Microsoft's browser-based media player has come in such a short time and what Microsoft is aiming for.

Starting Thursday, Ubuntu Linux will make the latest version of its separate desktop and server operating systems available for free download. The updated Version 8.10 desktop operating system will add a host of usability features for users, including improved 3G wireless support for easier detection and connection to wireless networks. Also included is a new "guest" capability that allows a user to lend his machine to another user to check e-mail and perform other tasks without disturbing the existing programs or settings.

Here's how to skin Linux to give a Windows Vista appearance. You can help provide a familiar look and feel to your Windows-trained friends and family as you coax them towards Linux. Or you can enjoy the satisfaction of having something looking like Vista actually run with stability.

"Intrepid Ibex", distributed as Ubuntu 8.10, goes live today for distribution later this week, and the economic crunch certainly makes the Linux variant more compelling. While there are plenty of skeptics doubting Ubuntu's prospectsin business - except in a few big businesses with lots of Unix skills - going broke tends to make you examine your options a little harder.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth says that the PC desktop is facing a new revolution in the way that information is managed and that he hopes that free software will lead the way. In a recent posting on his blog Shuttleworth says that “there’s a revolution coming as we throw out the old ‘files and folders’ metaphor and leap to something new, and it would be phenomenal if free software were leading the way.”

BashDiff is a patch for the bash shell that can do an amazing number of things. It extends existing bash features, brings a few of awk's tricks into the shell itself, exposes some common C functions to bash shell programming, adds an exception mechanism, provides features of functional programming such as list comprehension and the map function, lets you talk with GTK+2 and databases, and even adds a Web server right into the standard bash shell.

A Linux Foundation study attempts to calculate the value of the Linux kernel and Linux distributions, and comes to the conclusion that free as in freedom is mighty valuable.

Hard on the heels of Linux's 17th birthday came two more notable milestones for the operating system, both of which came to light in the past week. First, the Linux kernel surpassed 10 million lines of code -- albeit with blank lines, comments and text files included.

What does it take for an established “closed” vendor to shift midcourse and adopt an open-source model? Well in the case of Nokia and its pending acquisition of smart phone operating system maker Symbian, the cost may be $300 million a year. That’s how much Symbian earned in royalties last year from sales of its Symbian OS to handset manufacturers, said Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian, who spoke at the Symbian Smartphone Show here on Oct. 21.

[It seems the author purposely misses the point that the long term effect of opening up the code base will more than make up for the loss in OS licensing revenue. - Scott]

These days it's not just basic tasks that can be undertaken without leaving the confines of a Firefox or Konqueror window; some of the jobs that used to require complex desktop applications – database design, video editing, photo manipulation – are now perfectly viable for those with just browser software and web access. This kind of power makes your choice of browser almost as crucial as your distribution and operating system. If an application is written using standard technologies – such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS – it should run well on anything capable of rendering those technologies, whether the browser launches from Linux or another OS. In fact, a good browser can make your choice of OS largely irrelevant.

One of the busiest and most exciting periods of the year for most Linux distribution watchers is here. Yes, it's the Ubuntu release week! For many, this will likely mean unreachable web sites, busy download servers, overworked BitTorrent clients, and hundreds of first-look reviews and screenshot tours all over the Internet. Stay tuned as we bring you all the exciting announcements. In the news section, Fedora finalises the feature list for the upcoming release of version 10, openSUSE explains the complexities of its distribution's release process, Mandriva announces plans for a worldwide install party, and DesktopBSD ponders an upgrade to KDE 4. And speaking about KDE 4, what is your opinion about the quality, stability and features of the popular desktop's latest version? Some people love it, while others can't stand it, but one thing is sure - thanks to the variety of distributions on the market, we can always find that perfect solution for our needs.

OpenOffice.org Writer is as much a desktop publishing program as a word processor. That fact, however, has yet to have much influence on the extensions created for Writer -- perhaps because most users prefer manual formatting to organizing themselves with page styles, templates, and other elements of document design. Still, extensions for layout are starting to appear, as demonstrated by four extensions that help you automate layout: Alba, which manages page orientation; Pagination and Pager, which manage page numbering; and Template Changer, which allows you to change the template, and therefore the entire layout of documents, on the fly. And all but one of these extensions use styles and templates, the way that OpenOffice.org is built to work, which means that they are highly stable.

The next version of the Access Linux Platform has been unveiled, alongside a lightweight version of the mobile operating system for low-cost handsets. Access Linux Platform (ALP) is the mobile platform used by Access, the Japanese firm that bought PalmSource and the Palm OS--which was subsequently renamed 'Garnet'--in 2005. On Monday, Access chief technology officer Tomihisa Kamada showed off ALP 3.0 at the company's annual showcase event.