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Migrating to Linux: How and Why

  • ElectronicsWeekly.com; By Hans Juergen Rauscher (Posted by Scott_Ruecker on Oct 16, 2008 4:12 AM CST)
  • Groups: Linux; Story Type: News Story
Linux is firmly established in the embedded market, but migrating existing source code to the operating system is a considerable undertaking. Hans Juergen Rauscher explores the different steps necessary to migrate, the technical requirements and possible pitfalls, and the differences between buying an established Linux implementation and developing and maintaining one internally.

Hazy Computing

  • Linux Magazine; By Douglas Eadline, Ph.D (Posted by Scott_Ruecker on Oct 16, 2008 3:25 AM CST)
  • Story Type: News Story
Recently, there was an interesting article in the New York Times. The article brought up some fascinating issues about our reliance on computers — particularly in the world of finance. I touched on this briefly before and I think the article raises some good points. Basically, the “Wall Street geeks” or “quants” (quantitative analysts) develop sophisticated algorithms (evolutionary or Genetic Algorithms, GA’s) that package up securities with all the right attributes to make them attractive to other buyers. The interesting thing is that these types of algorithms produce results (in a sense “optimizations”) that people don’t really understand. In the past, I recall reading about an antenna designed using a GA. The result worked great, the design however was weird and in a sense ugly.

Mandriva 2009 helps new users to grow

Back when Mandriva was called Mandrake, the distribution had the reputation of being the most user-friendly Linux distribution. Financial difficulties, personnel changes, and the rise of Ubuntu changed that, and somehow Mandriva never quite regained its reputation. With this week's release of Mandriva 2009, Mandriva has continued to work on user-friendliness. Aside from a poorly organized installation program and a few scattered problems, Mandriva 2009 offers a desktop experience that is at least the equal of any other distribution for everyday use and that has a strong claim of being the most advanced available for system administration.

Linux an equal Flash player

Welcome to the future. Linux is now a first-class desktop operating system citizen. Adobe today released version 10 of its Adobe Flash Player, available now in a variety of convenient packaging formats for Linux, as well as other popular desktop operating systems. Once upon a time, desktop Linux was a second-class citizen, where Flash was concerned. As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive.

Tutorial: Simple Dynamic Routing With RIP

Elite routing gurus may scoff at RIP, but for smaller domains it's easy to set up and performs just fine, and virtually all routers support at least RIP v1. Charlie Schluting walks us through the finer points of understanding how RIP works, and its strengths and weaknesses.

Adobe breaks sound barrier with Flash Player 10

Sound is the new frontier for Flash as Adobe Systems released its first major update in three years today, packing in features missing from May's first beta. Flash Player 10 will deliver sound file features that go someway towards giving developers working on audio the same powers of content creation and customization as video. Adobe has added the ability to read audio files' binary data and directly access the sound buffer to add the sounds filters you really want.

Python 3.0 makes a big break

Typically, each new version of the Python programming language has been gentle on users, more or less maintaining backward compatibility with previous versions. But in 2000, when Python creator Guido van Rossum announced that he was embarking on a new version of Python, he did not sugar coat his plan: Version 3.0 would not be backward-compatible. Now that the first release candidate of Python 3.0 is out, with final release planned for later this month, developers must grapple with the issue of whether to maintain older code or modify it to use the new interpreter.

This week at LWN: openSUSE and the distribution of proprietary software

Every Linux distributor must find its own peace when it comes to the issue of proprietary software. Some distributors will avoid anything non-free to the point of tearing firmware out of the kernel. Others, like Fedora or Debian, will not include any non-free code. Distributors like Ubuntu are rather more willing to facilitate the use of non-free software, but even they are, perhaps, not 100% comfortable with it. And distributions like Xandros positively embrace proprietary code.

It's Time to Hack the Economy

The Hacker Underground is dead. Long live the Hacker Underground! In the most recent issue of Phrack Magazine, I read an article titled"The Underground Myth," that makes a number of astute points about the demise of the hacking scene of the last few decades. The author describes a technical landscape in which the technology security industry and a diminishing number of obvious exploits conspired to destroy the scene.

Float irregular images on your Web pages with pngslice

Web sites that run text squarely around images even when the images don't have even borders look a little lazy. pngslice slices an image into thin vertical images and generates a small chunk of HTML to align these slices so that the original image can be seen in a Web browser. This lets you place non-rectangular floating images on Web pages and align the surrounding text to the uneven borders of the image for a professional-looking layout. While you may be able to achieve a similar effect in other ways, if you want to have your Web site viewable in both a wide variety of browsers and versions of those browsers, using image slices is an effective technique.

Linux takes a seat on Qantas' new superjumbo jet

Linux will be a passenger in every seat on Qantas' Airbus A380s airplanes. All of the airline's superjumbos -- the first of which will commence flying next week -- will have their in-flight entertainment systems powered by the operating system. The A380 is the first Qantas aircraft to utilize the Panasonic eX2 Inflight Entertainment System (IFE). All of Panasonic's X Series of IFE systems run on Linux.

Touchscreeen EEE nettop boots Linux fast

In November, Asus will ship a $400 Windows-based "nettop" that includes an integrated touchscreen and Linux-based "Express Gate" quick boot technology. The "Eee Top" reportedly has a 15-inch display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a gigabit Ethernet port.

Open Source for Games Developers - A Debate on New Business Models

With the games industry apparently enthralled by DRM and committed to criminalising their customers, our upcoming event as part of the London Games Fringe is especially timely. Open Rights Group in conjunction with Own-It will co-host a panel discussion on the role of open source in the games industry and invites all our readers and supporters to join the debate.

Surprise! The XO Laptop TCO is Only 8 Cents Per Hour

There has been much discussion of the Vital Wave Consulting total cost of ownership model showing a $2,700 5 Year TCO This report models the cost for a secondary school to install a computer laboratory to support a course in computer literacy (often called ICT). This course consists of classroom lectures based on textbooks with hands-on computer access during scheduled laboratory periods ('students are not permitted in the computer lab without a teacher present').

VMware boss believes clients are too fat

The head of virtualisation kingpin VMware believes that the current climate - both economic and physical - will force enterprises to put the desktops of employees on USB sticks. While this might not spell good news for the purveyors of fat clients like Dell, HP and Acer, VMware CEO Paul Maritz is adamant that it's a key way to cut costs and save the climate.

Linux Foundation Releases Beta of Porting Solution

The Linux Foundation has released the first public beta of its solution to enable developers to more easily build applications that run on different Linux distributions. The foundation, on Oct. 14, announced the availability of the first beta of Linux Standard Base (LSB) 4.0, which introduces a new application checker, a new shell script checker, and a new multi-version software development kit (SDK) that will enable developers to build applications to earlier LSB specifications without changing SDKs, said Brian Proffitt, community manager for the Linux Foundation.

No need to burn books you can't read - DRM and public libraries

It is hard to imagine something more expensive, condescending, inaccurate, frustrating and enraging - nor something better calculated to restrict knowledge and broadcast ignorance. It's almost as if the parties involved actively want to prevent people learning. It certainly feels that way. British Library, are you listening?

OpenOffice 3 Debuts to Server-Crashing Demand

The third full OpenOffice suite is out in the wild and attracting plenty of attention. OpenOffice.org 3.0 was released Monday -- and already, demand has been high enough to overwhelm the download servers and cause them to crash. The software suite, designed as an open source alternative to Microsoft Office, offers everything from word processing and spreadsheet creation to presentation and databasing tools.

Review of final OpenOffice 3: Why buy Microsoft Office?

The final version of OpenOffice 3 is out today, and if you're looking to save yourself plenty of money, download it instead of buying Microsoft Office --- you could save yourself hundreds of dollars, and not lose out on many features. I put the Windows version through its paces, and am about to download the Linux version as well. The suite has six full-blown applications: the Writer word processor, Calc spreadsheet, Impress presentations program, Base database program, Math equation editor, and Draw graphics program.

The man who wears the Red Hat: James Whitehurst

James M Whitehurst, CEO and president, Red Hat, on his recent visit to India talks to CyberMedia News on many red-hot issues around open source technology and its business colours. Like, how to make money out of something free and open? Like why OOXML won't make a dent enough? Like why India is on a vantage point with OS? Well, his hat fields them all. Enjoy.

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