Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

When it comes to Linux command, it is always a love and hate affair. Newbies tend to shun away from the command line as much as possible while the intermediate to expert users who are used to it will swear by it, and boost how much faster and more productive they have become due to the command line. Regardless which camp you belong, as long as you are using Linux (doesn’t matter which distro), you are sure to hit the terminal and type some commands into it at some point of time. Why not embrace it and take the opportunity to learn something new?

Earlier this year we reported that the Lightworks video editor was going open-source. This was big news as Lightworks is a professional-grade non-linear video editing application that has received scientific and technical Academy Awards and Emmy Awards. This software has been used for editing films like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Shutter Island. While many have been excited that this application is going open-source, the Linux port will not be available until late 2011.

In light of continuing financial troubles, exiting developers and managers, and an uncertain future of desktop development, a group of former employees and developers with community supporters came together to fork Mandriva in order to preserve and further the beloved system. Things have been quiet since the initial announcement of Mageia until recently. Some details of their plan and a roadmap have now emerged.

Android 2.3, codenamed Gingerbread, is expected to materialize this month. Little is known about Gingerbread's features, however, because Google develops the operating system behind closed doors and doesn't publish a roadmap. This has fueled a lot of speculation among Android enthusiasts. Google has hinted that 2.3 could bring a user interface refresh that will reduce the need for handset makers to broadly deviate from the standard user experience. Various leaks have suggested that the platform is being overhauled to boost its suitability for tablet devices. Google's new WebM multimedia format, which uses the VP8 codec, will likely be supported out of the box. It's also possible that Gingerbread will include some of the music library streaming and synchronization features that the search giant demonstrated this year at the Google I/O conference.

Following a strategy review, the board of the Symbian Foundation has today decided to transition the role of the non-profit organisation. The foundation will become a legal entity responsible for licensing software and other intellectual property, such as the Symbian trademark. Nokia has committed to make the future development of the Symbian platform available to the ecosystem via an alternative direct and open model.

The exploration of design patterns is importantly a historical search. It is possible to tell in the present that a particular approach to design or coding works adequately in a particular situation, but to identify patterns which repeatedly work, or repeatedly fail to work, a longer term or historical perspective is needed. We benefit primarily from hindsight.

Walter Bright of Digital Mars has brought up with the GCC list what steps need to be traveled so that GDC, the GNU D Compiler, can be merged into GCC. Right now the GNU Compiler Collection doesn't have support for the D programming language, but that may soon change if this merge by Digital Mars is successful.

Hong Kong Jockey Club chooses SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to introduce greater flexibility and resilience for core IT applications One of the largest non-government employers in Hong Kong, HKJC employs 25,000 full-time and part-time staff. While providing the Hong Kong public with world-class sporting entertainment, it is also one of the city's major community benefactors and the largest single taxpayer to Hong Kong. HKJC required an IT infrastructure that delivers ultimate customer satisfaction through resilience, real-time information updates and high availability. HKJC has run a mixed environment with Microsoft* Windows* and OpenVMS*; the ability to customize those operating systems to improve and streamline processes was vital to the HKJC.

We’re reading the tea-leaves today, looking deep into the crystal ball and talking about the future, always a risky proposition. The future is never set in stone, and can always be changed by those who care enough to change it. However, from where I sit, the future is looking very interesting, and very mobile.

Given the ongoing and recently increased interest in the open core licensing strategy there have been numerous statements made about its relative popularity, the reasons for its adoption, and the impact it has on collaborative development. As part of our recently released report on the evolution of open source-related business strategies we evaluated the strategies of 300 companies that are engaged in generating revenue from open source software.

A remarkable continuity underlies free software, going all the way back to Richard Stallman's first programs for his new GNU project. And yet within that continuity, there have been major shifts: are we due for another such leap?

If you use Linux long enough, you'll soon discover a list of things you wished were different. Here are 24 things that we wish were different.

Zimbra users and packagers can now test their email clients across all browsers in the cloud on the leading Selenium service -- without having to maintain their own testing infrastructure

A few weeks ago we reported that notebook hybrid graphics switching on Linux still sucks. For these newer laptops that boast dual GPUs -- an integrated low-power IGP and a more performance-oriented discrete GPU for demanding environments with switching between the two being done "seamlessly" in real-time based upon usage or via a hot-key -- the support under Linux is still virtually nonexistent. There is a crude form of Linux GPU switching, but for the most part it's not nearly up to par for what's available in Microsoft Windows 7 or Apple Mac OS X. The situation remains that way, but some small progress has been made.

After I wrote a review of the Scratch programing environment, one of our readers suggested that I look into the Alice programing environment. http://alice.org/ Well, I've gotten to know Alice and have found it to be quite an impressive programing environment. By the way, I'm always looking for interesting subjects to write about, so if you have suggestions, please email them to me.

How many times have you heard this statement: "It's the year of the Linux desktop." Not recently? Then how about "Linux is making gains on the Windows desktop"? Still leaving a bad taste in your mouth? Bet I know why. For years, both the statements above have been over-used to the point that either idea is now completely meaningless. Not due to anything negative with the Linux desktop, mind you, rather due to inherent differences in how Linux is marketed to the world, who its intended audience is and whether mainstream adoption even matters in the first place.

RockMelt is a new cross-platform web browser that's aimed at re-inventing the browser for how people use the web today. According to a post on the RockMelt blog, the browser has been in development for two years and is based on Google's open source Chromium browser platform, the open source project behind Google's popular Chrome web browser.

A few days ago I theorized that Mark Shuttleworth's move to Unity on Wayland was an effort to focus his operating system more on mobile devices and, ultimately, cloud-based services. Unity's hardware compatibility is limited in range, at least for now, and Wayland is even moreso, again at least for now. But there's one part of the equation I failed to consider. What about the X11-dependent Compiz?

Phoronix has published the results of benchmarks performed on 26 Linux kernels dating back five years, from Linux 2.6.12 to a pre-release version of the upcoming Linux 2.6.37. Despite the addition of numerous features over the years, the results show remarkable consistency.

Microsoft has released the sources of the F# programming language as open source code under the Apache 2.0 licence. The compiler and libraries are now available as "code drops" within the F# PowerPack collection on the CodePlex web site, Microsoft's hosting platform for open source projects. Both components were previously already available to download free of charge under Microsoft's Research Shared Source License Agreement, which permits developers to use the code in non-commercial projects. The Apache licence takes things a step further and allows the unrestricted use of the F# libraries and compiler.