Showing headlines posted by Jeff91

Now if I recall not to long ago a Microsoft representative was quoted saying "We love open source". Apparently they realize that many other people love open source as well, so many in fact that it is cutting into their bottom line - thus the offensive attack video you can see above.

On October first, the open-source movie project of the Blender Foundation released fourth third animated short on YouTube: Sintel. Five days later, the movie had already reached one million views. Previously released only at the Netherlands film festival (on September 27), Sintel’s success is as much due to its quality than it’s open-source nature.

Ubuntu Linux is my distro of choice for desktop usage and as such I felt it was wrong that there are no recent releases of it that come pre-configured with an Enlightenment desktop. I would like to announce the release of a pet project I have been working on for the last week - Pinguy (Ubuntu 10.04) E17 Remix

In America people are always buying things they don't really need. That fifteenth pair of shoes, a third car, a second house... Well you get the idea. I guess it should really be no surprise then that people in America are also over paying for computer hardware and software they do not need, nor will they ever come close to fully utilizing.

Firefox 4 is almost ready for prime time! It offers lots of new features and is currently in beta. The following is an easy way to install the latest stable beta version of Firefox on any Linux distribution.

Yesterday the Open Office community announced they were forking the project. The results of splitting off an FOSS project means many things to many people. Why should the end user care about the forking of Open Office?

I've been working with Linux long enough to know that just because it works on Windows does not mean it is going to work on my operating system of choice as well. Unfortunitly this is currently the case with the nVidia optimus technology.

Recently I copied 60 million files from one Windows file server to another. Tools used to move files from system to another are integrated into every operating system, and there are third party options too. The tasks they perform are so common that we tend to ignore their limits. Many systems administrators are guilty of not knowing exactly where the limits of their file management tools lie - at least until they run up against them.

Something that has always been questioned is whether or not desktop effects slow down your 3D performance in other applications and if so, how much do they slow it down by?

Late last year I did a posting detailing how Windows 7 crushed Ubuntu 9.10 in the area of 3D performance. Nine months later I am happy to say: Linux out performs Windows 7 in OpenGL benchmarks!

One thing I think many users fail to consider (or perhaps don't care about) is the level of 3D performance their distro gets. You may think that your choice of distribution does not matter in this area, but you will soon see it very much does. Which distro do you think has the best 3D performance?

A question I have fielded more then a couple times is What is the difference between commercial Wine products and vanilla Wine? There are three main commercial Wine products: Bordeaux, Cedega, and Crossover. There are a few distinct differences between the commercial Wine products and the FOSS Wine.

I came across Chakra Linux on distrowatch's feed late last week. The Chakra project started off as a derivative of Arch Linux. It was a modular KDE Live CD with some extra tool sets to make setting up and using Arch Linux less of a hassle. Notice the careful usage of the word was in my last sentence...

I started writing this article but then felt it's point could be better represented in comic form. What is your preferred release cycle for a operating system?

People are resistant to change. This is a fact and it is not going to change any time soon. Because of this they will not want their entire computer to change on them all at once. An important fact that a lot Linux Advocates miss is that the conversion to Linux starts on Windows or OSX.

In the last couple months I have posted my disgust about two different online education systems that are being used at various colleges around the United States. My dislike for these systems stems from the fact that even though they are web based, they do not adhere to Web Standards. Today I would like to talk about an online education system that is accessible to all students, not just those running Microsoft Windows.

We are all beginners at one point or another. The following is a list of tidbits and tips I have learned over my years working with Linux that will help you learn/maintain your Linux based operating system.

When most of us first saw the HTC Evo we thought "Wow, 4.3 inch screen? That's huge!" Personally I had assumed this was as large as our mobile handhelds where going to be getting for awhile. I was wrong, twice over in fact.

I'm starting to get the feeling that education companies dislike FOSS operating systems. Pearson's Online education system, which is java and flash based, refuses to let you login unless you are using Internet Explorer AND Windows.

Ever looked at your Linux based N900 and think "You know what this needs? It needs to be bigger!" Yea... I didn't think so. I felt the same way, but I also knew that the 500$ investment I had made in my N900 was worth protecting.