Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Working with Linux doesn't mean your work is restricted to command-line tools. True, most experienced Linux administrators use command-line tools for convenience and more efficient administration. However, the GNOME project provides some excellent tools for managing a Linux server using a graphical user interface (GUI). Using your Microsoft Windows background experience, you might find that these tools make the transition less dramatic.

Red Hat is making large splashes on the Linux Planet. This week, the company kicks off its Red Hat Summit event on the heels of a busy week of releases and earnings. Not to be outdone, Ubuntu Linux has weighed in on the UEFI Secure Boot issue with a solution of its own.

The month of June has not been kind to Microsoft hardware partners. Last week, Redmond revealed that it's getting into the Windows tablet game with the introduction of the Surface, meaning it will compete for sales with its own allies. It followed that up with news about Windows Phone 8.

Brackets was written using web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The open source code editor has been deliberately kept "simple yet productive", but can easily be extended.

The Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBC) that began shipping in April in $25 and $35 versions has taken the hacker world by storm. Yet, the education-focused, development board is just the latest and cheapest of a number of recent open source, community hardware projects designed for hobbyist devices, educational platforms, prototyping, and even some limited-run commercial products. Most of the seven open-spec boards listed below cost $100 to $200, but unlike the ARM11-based Pi, they feature ARM Cortex-A8 and -A9 processors and support Android in addition to running various Linux distributions.

A new packet scheduler is designed to help avoid buffer bloat and "Early Retransmit" offers faster connection recovery after TCP packet loss. The E1000e driver already supports the network chip for Intel's next-generation desktop and notebook platform.

Peter Penz, the main developer of the Dolphin file manager for the KDE desktop and a K Desktop user since KDE v1.2, is calling it quits after contributing to KDE for more than the past half-decade. His reason for leaving the development of the popular open-source desktop environment is interesting.

Google will unveil a 7-inch tablet based on the Nvidia quad-core Tegra 3 processor and running Android 4.1, aka "Jelly Bean," at the Google I/O developers conference this week, according to Gizmodo Australia. The device will reportedly be dubbed the "Nexus 7" and be built by Asus.

It's not often the "F-word" figures prominently in any major debate here in the Recently, however, it was catapulted into a starring role when it was uttered by none other than Linus Torvalds himself during a talk at the Aalto Centre for Entrepreneurship in Finland earlier this month. The topic was Nvidia, to be precise -- specifically, its longstanding lackluster approach to Linux.

Version 1.8.0 of the popular open source network protocol analyser supports capturing from multiple interfaces at the same time, and now allows users to add, edit and save packet and capture file annotations

The non-profit organisation behind the Wikipedia online encyclopedia has announced the launch of a new prototype of its open source Visual editor, which is designed to make creating and editing pages easier to attract new contributors

Well it's been a Linus-heavy month here in the Linux blogosphere, what with Torvalds winning the Millennium Technology Prize and all, and even now that trend appears to be continuing. The most recent conversation, however, has focused on comments Linus made in the wake of his big win.

I'm proud to announce GNU Health 1.6 series! This series brings a lot of exciting features, both from the technical and functional point of views. On the technical side, the most important one is the compatibility with Tryton 2.4, and the demo database, so you can test it with data.

From time-to-time unique/crazy/odd discussions get born on the Fedora development mailing list -- such as talking nasty about Ubuntu's Unity, trying to make Fedora a rolling-release distribution, etc. The latest discussion that's been very active has been about whether ARM hardware is a dead-end.

Reports of the demise of the fax machine may be premature if research in Chico Harlan's article in The Washington Post last week is to be believed. Fax machines are still in 59 percent of Japanese homes, Harlan found. They are still popular because of a cultural interest in the use of paper and handwriting.

Last night, as I was perusing social media, a post from a friend caught my attention. It seems that the web-types at Kogan, an online electronics retailer in Australia and the UK, have tired of the additional work required to support Internet Explorer 7, and to even the score, have imposed a 6.8% tax on shoppers using IE7. While others were celebrating the move, as a Linux user, I was appalled. "What? Appalled? You should be cheering — it's a master stroke against evil and outdated software!" No, no it isn't. It's discrimination, and of a type that every Linux user has suffered.

When it comes to Twitter, there are three ways to use it: the web interface, a desktop/mobile client, or tweet from the command line (for the real Indiana Jones). The last way, despite its apparent complexity, can become very useful for people who want to reach a higher level of control over their favorite micro-blogging system. If you want to use some scripts, send your tweets automatically, or just get rid of the graphical application, TTYtter is an excellent program to start with.

The open source cloud made waves in the news this week with the results of a RightScale study that claims widespread adoption among enterprises of open source cloud computing services. VMWare and IBM showed their agreement by announcing plans to expand their open source cloud investments. These positive stories offset the shocker that NASA has abandoned OpenStack entirely for Amazon Web Services.

For users who dislike the Unity interface, but who want to stay with the latest Ubuntu release, there are many alternatives to install and try without switching to another distribution. GNOME Shell, Mint's Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce and LXDE are all available options

"The world of IT is a better place when developers respect users instead of trying to enslave them," said blogger Robert Pogson. "We need new user interfaces for new gadgets with tiny screens and no keyboards and no mice, but there's absolutely no reason to radically change a user interface that has been used satisfactorily for decades."