Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

If you come from the world of Windows, you undoubtedly understand the concept of a shortcut. In the Linux world, shortcuts do exist, but they're generally referred to as symbolic links, or symlinks. They are so named because, like shortcuts, a symlink is really just a symbolic placeholder or link to the file or directory you're trying to get at.

Zenwalk, a Slackware-based slim-and-zippy distribution, released a major update last month. The release announcement listed some noticeable enhancements and promised the best support for Wi-Fi you can expect in any Linux distro. Excuse me for being skeptic, but one doesn't expect midget distros to be the best in any field. How well can a single-CD 469MB distro hold up against every other multi-GB DVD distro available today? As it turns out, Zenwalk manages to squeeze in a long list of open source wireless drivers, as well as the proprietary Intel wireless device firmware. Surprisingly Zenwalk 5.0 not only does things you don't expect from a single CD distro, it does them with ease and very little command-line sorcery.

Mozilla has released beta 3 of Firefox 3.0, with around 1300 ‘individual changes’ from beta 2, with fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. Firefox 3.0 beta 3 is here, with plenty of improvements set to send Firefox’s percentage of market share soaring ever higher once the final version is released to the public.

"Andrew [Morton] was looking for someone to run a linux-next tree that just contained the subsystem git and quilt trees for 2.6.x+1 and I (in a moment of madness) volunteered. So, this is to announce the creating of such a tree," began Stephen Rothwell, resulting in a lengthy thread discussing the current Linux kernel development process. In a follow up email announcing the first linux-next release, Stephen went on to explain, "it has two branches - master and stable. Stable is currently just Linus' tree and will never rebase. Master will rebase on an almost daily basis (maybe slower at the start)."

I'm running Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) on one of my main workstations. As with its sibling Ubuntu, it's an endlessly-entertaining blend of really nice stuff and really irritating stuff. The nice stuff is nearly-current releases of fast-moving applications like KDE, Digikam, Krita, KWord, and other apps that I use a lot, easy-on-the-eyes graphics, a good set of default applications, and nicely-organized menus. The irritating stuff is they still don't pay enough attention to delivering reliable basic functionality in core functions like networking and printing. Both often require manual tweakage to get them to work correctly, and even then you may be foiled by a Helpful Daemon.

LXer Feature: 13-Feb-2008

Here is a roundup of articles from the 2008 SCALE 6x conference in Los Angeles.

The beta 3 version of Firefox 3, released this week, will probably be the last version of the browser based on the original Mozilla platform, celebrating its tenth anniversary next week. Work is already underway on a revamp of Firefox's underlying platform - Mozilla. It was on February 23, 1998, that Netscape announced the creation of the Mozilla website as the "focal point for developers interested in modifying and redistributing Netscape client source". It was an historic time for the embryonic open-source movement. Netscape's move happened around the same time that open-source evangelists Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond formalized open-source development with the Open Source Definition.

I am a fan of affordable technology. I like relatively cheap gadgets, and I like open source. When I heard about Asus’ Eee PC, I took it with a certain grain of salt. I thought that maybe it was just another company trying to take a piece of the pie from the One Laptop Per Child initiative. Then the more I read about the OLPC, the more I realized that the two gadgets may have been created for different purposes. The OLPC is a non-profit, educational-social project, while the Eee PC is an affordable subnotebook being sold with the intent for profit.

It’s St Valentine’s Day in much of the western world (and, it seems, the World of Warcraft too). Did you know Linux is unique among operating systems due to its inherent romanticism? Here’s how Linux helps sling forth Cupid’s arrows on this day. Spice up your love life with these seven sure-fire tips.

If you've ever had that sick realization that you made a mistake immediately after emptying your Trash or deleting a file with Shift-Del, then Magic Rescue may be the cure you're looking for. Magic Rescue searches block devices for particular file types, then restores them to a designated directory where you can sort through them. Although subject to certain limitations, such as how recently a file was deleted and the availability of a definition for the file header of a given format, Magic Rescue is not difficult to use. It even features a man page with a few mini-tutorials. However, it does require organization and planning in order to use effectively.

Have you ever said, "This program is pretty nice, but I wish it would ..."? For applications that offer the capability, scripting gives users the ability to customize, extend, and tailor a program to meet their needs. Scribus, a free page layout program that runs on Linux (and Mac OS and Windows) uses the Python programming language for user scripting. Python scripting in Scribus can drastically improve your work flow, and it's relatively easy for beginners to not only use scripts, but also write them.

Unlike a lot of the events that I discuss in my Blog, the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is a "by invitation only" event with a twist. Normally for "invitation only events", the potential attendee sits by the phone with their prom clothes on, waiting for the call that may or may not come. In this case the Linux Foundation wishes to engage "leaders of the development, ISV, distro, end user, non-profit and vendor communities". In other words, a representative form of governance, rather than a full democracy. Therefore leaders of various communities are encouraged to apply, with no guarantee of admission.

Sangoma produces telephony cards and writes drivers that work with open source applications such as Asterisk, Yate, FreeSwitch, and CallWeaver. Sangoma CEO and founder David Mandelstam says that before Sangoma started producing cards to work with Asterisk, the open source project was "kind of a toy for hobbyists."

Today’s the first day of the largest-ever JBoss World! To celebrate, we’re giving you a few links to bloggers who are talking about it. What’s below are just clips from what they’ve posted so far. Watch JBoss bloggers and check back here to find out more as the event goes on.

I hate accounting. The one accounting class I took in college proved that to me. The fact that I could get an A in the class by doing one homework problem and copying all the others during class was only part of the reason. But, it's related. I hate doing the same thing over and over and, to me, that is exactly what accounting is.

Having a great defense involves proper detection and recognition of an attack. In our security world we have great IDS tools to properly recognize when we are being attacked as well as firewalls to prevent such attacks from happening. However, certain attacks are not blindly thrown at you - a good attacker knows that a certain amount of reconnaissance and knowledge about your defenses greatly increases the chances of a successful attack. How would you know if someone is scanning your defenses? Is there any way to properly respond to such scans? You bet there is...

With the number of CPU cores in desktop machines moving from two to four and soon eight, the ability to execute computationally expensive tasks in parallel is becoming more important. The mgzip tools that can take advantage of multiple CPU cores during file compression, while pbzip2 uses multiple cores for both compression and decompression.

LXer Feature: 13-Feb-2008

Here are some pictures I took while attending SCALE 6x this year in Los Angeles.

So you just set up a Linux-compatible webcam. You've tested it with Kopete, and you can send images on MSN and Yahoo! Now what? Here are some fun things you can try.

When you have shelled out for a swanky mouse like the Logitech VX Nano, you want to make the most out of your investment, which means making its programmable buttons work. However, many Linux distributions recognize most mice as generic pointing devices, so none of the fancy extra buttons work right out of the box. The btnx utility can help you to turn your mouse into the versatile tool it is meant to be.