Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The ability to scale out to third-party vendors without worrying about vendor lock-in, as well as the ability to move virtual workloads between different environments, are benefits of open application programming interfaces (APIs) that Red Hat has been espousing for a while now.

GNU Denemo is a free music notation program for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows that allows users to create notations for the text-based LilyPond sheet music printer. Composition, transcription, arrangement and playback functions can be controlled using a keyboard, MIDI keyboard or microphone. Among the new features of version 0.9 are unlimited undo and redo capabilities, a MIDI input feature for chords, MIDI shortcuts, mouse-controlled playback speeds, the support of numerous additional LilyPond functions, an import feature for LilyPond files as well as various composition tools such as components for shuffling notes or reversing or mirroring a selection.

For many years we have heard warnings that software patents pose a threat to the free software community. Repeated warnings have a tendency to fade into the noise if they are not followed by real problems; to many, the patent threat may have seemed like one of those problems we often hear about but never experience. The recent ruling in the US that Google is guilty of infringing a software patent held by a patent troll named "Bedrock Computer Technologies" serves as a reminder that the threat is real, and that solutions will not be easy to come by.

Novell's new Spacewalk-based SUSE Manager 1.2 deserves points for its support of both SUSE and Red Hat enterprise Linux flavors, says this eWEEK review. But, author Jason Brooks adds, while the server management tool makes sense for users coming from a Linux perspective, it suffers from some configuration hiccups, due in part to the challenge of integrating two different distributions.

Oracle is relinquishing control of the Hudson project after a heavy-handed attempt to stay in charge prompted most community members to fork themselves and undermine the project's viability. The database giant said on Tuesday that it had submitted a proposal to the Eclipse Foundation to create a Hudson project and that it would contribute the existing Hudson core code to the project.

I must admit that I’m not an artist, at least not in the classical sense. My background, professional life and hobby projects are all related to programming, and even though I sometimes need to get my hands dirty with some designs handed to me, I prefer to leave the arena of original and uniquely beautiful creations to the people whom I admire and call ‘artists’ or ‘graphic designers.’ But sometimes it is too difficult to resist the urge to tinker, especially when your computer seems more helpful than ever.

The judge handling the Oracle v. Google patent litigation, Hon. William Alsup, has issued his order [PDF] on how much each side must cut back its claims and/or defenses. He didn't accept either side's numbers but came up with his own, and this case just got a whole lot smaller -- he has ordered Oracle to cut back its claims from 132 down to only 3:..

Google has announced new versions of its Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE). Version 2.3 of GWT, a Java-based open source development framework for Ajax applications, brings improvements in support for the latest version of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and associated HTML5 features, including the ability to access Web Storage allowing local storage of data by web applications.

Eurotech announced a PC/104-Plus module that's based on a 600MHz Vortex86DX SoC (system on chip), tolerates up to 158 deg. F, and uses less than four Watts. The CPU-1440 includes 128MB of RAM, support for VGA or composite video output, four Ethernet ports and four serial ports, a parallel port, plus both PCI and ISA bus expansion, the company says.

Oracle is going after the Apache Software Foundation and its open-source version of Java to find the smoking gun it clearly believes will prove Google deliberately violated patents and copyrights it owns on Java. The database giant hit the open source group on May 2 with a subpoena demanding they surrender a raft of communications with Google, plus other documents on the source code of ASF's Project Harmony, Android, and the licensing of Java Standard Edition (Java SE).

With the release of GNOME 3.0 and Ubuntu 11.04, the face of the Linux desktop environment is changing. This eWEEK review finds there's a lot to like in both the GNOME Shell and Ubuntu Unity desktop environments, although both will take some getting used to.

Novell has prevailed in its appeal against Microsoft in the antitrust case about WordPerfect! Here's the Order [PDF], hot off the presses. The lower court's order dismissing Novell's claim on summary judgment essentially on a technicality is "reversed and remanded." That means it goes to trial. Novell has the opportunity to tell a jury just what it believes Microsoft did wrong. I have a special treat: I also have the audio of the oral argument before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and when you hear how skillfully Novell's attorney, Charles Cooper, presents Novell's case, I think you will understand very well why Novell prevailed.

On its DefectiveByDesign.org campaign page, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced that 4 May (today) will be this year's "Day Against DRM". With this day of action, the organisation wants to focus the public's attention on the risks of what it considers to be an anti-social technology. The FSF has created a wiki page which allows users to swap campaign banners and event ideas.

The open-source graphics driver landscape is ever changing with new work going into Mesa / Gallium3D near daily. While many improvements have been made in recent time, the open-source drivers have a ways to go in competing with the proprietary competition. Even the open-source AMD driver, which is developed using documentation from AMD as well as code and engineering resources within the company, it has a tough time competing with the well-optimized Catalyst driver. Fortunately, the AMD driver is now largely centered on the two Gallium3D drivers: R300g and R600g, and have pushed away their classic Mesa DRI drivers into maintenance mode. The R300g supports the R300 through R500 ASICs (up through the Radeon X1000 series) while the R600g driver supports all ATI/AMD hardware past that point up through the latest Radeon HD 6000 series and Fusion. In this article, we are seeing where the performance is currently at for the classic Mesa, Gallium3D, and Catalyst drivers under Linux.

The fate of an open-source version of Microsoft's .NET running on iOS and Android is unclear after Novell's new owner Attachmate laid off members of the project, according to reports. Attachmate has let go of US staff working on the Novell-sponsored Mono Project as part of a move centering on Novell's Linux-related efforts back in Germany.

It is Linux distribution releases that make the Linux Planet go around. This past week was a big week for releases, with two very different distros releasing their latest and greatest offerings. It was also a big week for browser releases with new Firefox and Chrome browsers for Linux.

When you hear the phrase virtual machine today, you probably think of virtualization and hypervisors. But VMs are simply an older concept of abstraction, a common method of abstracting one entity from another. This article explores two of the many newer open source VM technologies: Dalvik (the VM core of the Android operating system) and Parrot (an open source VM technology for efficiently executing dynamic languages).

Six months after version 4.8 arrived, the OpenBSD project development team has announced the release of OpenBSD 4.9, its free BSD UNIX-like operating system. According to developer Bob Beck, version 4.9 is the 29th release on CD (30th via FTP) and includes a number of new drivers, performance improvements and new features.

At The Linux Foundation, we are lucky to work directly with many of the most innovative companies in the world. We all know the big names like Google, IBM and Intel but as Linux use has expanded into new segments - especially in the embedded industry - we get to work with smaller, but no less innovative companies. The best part is helping them make the most of Linux by getting involved in the community. As an example, we recently completed software compliance and community involvement training at set-to-box manufacturer Altech UEC.

Thunar is the Xfce desktop environment's file manager. It's incredibly lightweight, flexible — but largely unappreciated outside Xfce circles. Thunar has a selection of extensions, and allows users to create custom actions that can extend its functionality even further. Let's take a look at how to customize Thunar to get the most out of your Linux desktop.