Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

I've been following the story of Dell preparing to sell Linux on its business and consumer computer lines so closely that if we were cars and they came to a sudden stop, I'd crash into them. Despite that, I still don't know what Linux, or Linuxes, they'll choose.

When free software supporters participate in the French presidential election on April 22nd for the first round of voting, they will have information that may be unique in the world: position statements from all major parties on issues about free software, copyright, patents, and digital rights. Even more surprisingly -- at least from a North American perspective -- a majority of the candidates have heard of these issues and developed positions on them.

For designers, a font manager that can activate and deactivate fonts on-the-fly is the Holy Grail of the GNU/Linux desktop. Without such a tool, designers either need to devote an inordinate amount of system memory to their font collections, or else install and uninstall fonts individually, manually keeping track of the fonts needed for each project. The trouble is, no such font manager has reached a 1.0 release, or even an advanced beta. So far, the closest candidate is Fonty Python, currently at version 0.2.

A new issue of the Amarok newsletter is out. It talks about interesting new developments, Amarok's Summer of Code projects, the current events in the 1.4 stable branch, and continues to provide cool Amarok-related tips.

Web hosting company Verio chose a lucky day to introduce its new Linux-based managed private server offering for small businesses. The day before, April 17, Microsoft admitted that it doesn't have a fix for a serious security hole in its server operating systems.

Some open-source developers believe that the upcoming GNU GPLv3 will be good for open-source software, but they are concerned about its patent and digital rights management provisions.

TransGaming Technologies last week released Cedega 6.0, subscription-based software that enables Linux gamers to play Windows titles on their Linux OS of choice. Cedega 6.0 offers sharper, brighter graphics, improved sound, faster overall performance, and support for "many more games," new and old, the company said.

OK, you love Ubuntu, but after awhile, the same-old, same-old GRUB and boot splash screens become tedious and boring. Could it be your Ubuntu needs a little SUM-thing to spice it up? If you're up for a walk on the wild side, try StartUp Manager (SUM), a utility created by Glenn Van Loon that lets you change bootloader and splash screen settings in Ubuntu.

The updated free, open-source desktop mail client offers tagging and improved navigation, but faces competition from browser-based options.

As I'venoted before, I am something of aconnoisseur of Microsoft's FUD against open source, in part because I believe each successive FUD-flavour of the month gives important hints about the evolution of the thinking and strategy within the company. The latest development in this area, which revolves around patents, is no exception– not least because I think people are drawing the wrong conclusions from it.

If you have questions about Linux or open source projects, real-time help is often just a keyboard away -- if you know where to look online. Forums, mailing lists, and Googling are all useful when you have questions, but if you really want answers fast, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is the place to look. If you've never ventured into IRC, here's all you need to get started.

CentOS 5.0 received high marks in one of the first reviews of its latest release. The OS, which is billed as a "100 percent compatible" rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, targets users who need enterprise-class operating system stability without the cost of certification and support.

Providing a good introduction to these two popular open source languages, after working through this book a reader should be able to build their own database driven web sites and applications.

One of the world's leading advocates of the open source software movement, Brian Bahlendorf gave a talk at the Digital Freedom Expo at the University of the Western Cape on Thursday, entitled "Ten things you may not know about open source".

Sun has hitched its open source and Java developer fortunes to Ubuntu by inserting NetBeans into the latest version of the fast-growing distribution.

ScienceLogic launched three years ago with a mission to bring to market an IT appliance that could monitor every aspect of a company's network infrastructure. CEO David Link calls it "dial tone service quality," a term that has come to mean high reliability and easy accessibility. To accomplish that mission, Link knew that open source software was the key, both internally and in ScienceLogic's flagship product, the EM7.

In Beijing, Bill Gates announced this week that Microsoft's "Unlimited Potential" initiative will now include offering a software package, the Student Innovation Suite, to governments and students in emerging countries across the world at a price of just $3. This suite, available in the second half of 2007, will include Windows XP Starter Edition; Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, and Windows Live Mail desktop. However, Microsoft has no takers for its offering yet.

Kubuntu 7.04, development codename "The Feisty Fawn", was released today. Free CDs are available through ShipIt. Kubuntu prides itself on working towards the perfect KDE GNU/Linux solution, and with this latest release the development team worked harder than ever to do just this. 7.04 includes many updates, new features, and the latest releases of your favorite applications. KDE 3.5.6 is of course the desktop of choice, with K3b up to the milestone 1.0. The development team has worked hard to incorporate the best usability and accessibility features, to tame the edginess, and to provide a stable and secure computing environment for everyone. So stand with us and congratulate the Kubuntu development team and its many users in a job well done.

The GNOME Foundation is scheduled to announce the GNOME Mobile and Embedded Initiative (GMAE) today at the Embedded Linux Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. The initiative is aimed at bolstering GNOME usage as an embedded and mobile development platform. Founding members include open source organizations and commercial interests such as ACCESS, Canonical, Intel, Debian, Nokia, Red Hat, Fluendo, the Linux Foundation, and Maemo.

Who needs Vista, when Canonical Ltd. the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, has just released the latest version of the popular Linux distribution: Ubuntu version 7.04? Despite concerns that this release might be delayed by last minute, fine tuning of ATI graphic card drivers and the network manager panel applet, Ubuntu 7.04 made its release date.