Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

vell has committed to keep surfing Google's Wave despite the search giant stopping development of its new-age collaboration tool. The Linux vendor has said it'll keep building Novell Pulse, its implementation of Wave built using Google's APIs and protocols, as it can turn Wave into a successful technology.

It doesn’t matter if you are using Windows, Linux or Mac, as long as you don’t maintain it, it will grow out of hand and become very messy. Previously, we have discussed 8 useful ways and Bleachbit to help you maintain a clean lean Ubuntu machine. This time, we are going to show you 4 more ways to keep your Ubuntu clean.

For those too impatient to wait for next month for a new native Linux game release when Amnesia: The Dark Descent is set to premiere, there is another game with a native Linux client that was released today: And Yet It Moves.

My favorite PC game of all time was Interstate '76. It was really unique in its gameplay and has the best soundtrack for a game ever, featuring 70's funk, where I would pop in the cd on my computer just to play the music. I've never done that with any other game, before that or since (the site has archived the soundtrack and you can download the mp3 files from there). Later, I'd find out that there were some really heavy hitters who were a part of the soundtrack. In January 2007, I started searching out more recent games that were similar in gameplay- where you are an auto vigilante, completing missions in your weapon-infused, tricked-out vehicle (but that ran on Linux). Lo and behold, I came across such a game in Interstate Outlaws.

We’ve all heard of Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora and Mandriva. But how about RIP, Damn Vulnerable and Zeroshell Linux? Here are five specialised Linux versions worth bookmarking.

Google has published an updated breakdown of the number of active devices running a given version of its Android mobile operating system platform. According to the Platform Versions device dashboard on the Android Developer portal, nearly 60% of all Android devices in circulation are now running version 2.1 of the OS – up almost 10% compared to mid-June (50%). Android 1.5 and 1.6 devices now make up 15.3% and 20.3% of devices respectively, while only 0.2% of devices are running obsolete versions, including version 1.1, 2.0 and 2.0.1.

Despite the wealth of free applications out there, many small business owners continue to spend an inordinate amount of their all-too-scarce resources on software. Microsoft Office 2010? That'll be $499.99 -- or $279.99 if you can do without the Professional version. QuickBooks 2010? $159.95 or more. Adobe PhotoShop CS5? A whopping $699. The good news is that there are free and open-source alternatives for virtually every package a small business might need, and most of them are excellent. Whether or not you've already made the switch to Linux -- there are, after all, myriad security and other reasons for doing so -- these free apps can be just what any small business needs to succeed.

In December 2009, the Software Freedom Conservancy filed lawsuits against 14 consumer electronics vendors alleging that they were not in compliance with the GPL license. Of those 14 vendors, 13 have now either settled amicably or are in productive discussions toward a settlement.

For those trying to find a new Linux game that offers good graphics while not being a first person shooter with little to no plot -- as is the case for a majority of the commercial and open-source games available for Linux -- the Amnesia: The Dark Descent game is expected to be released next month. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a graphic adventure horror game that will have a Linux-native client and has been in development by Frictional Games, the same studio that developed the Penumbra series.

According to survey results released by Accenture, two thirds (69%) of organisations anticipate increased investment in open source, with over a third (28%) saying they expect to migrate mission critical applications to open source within the next twelve months. The survey of three hundred large public and private sector organisations in the US, UK and Ireland, found that half of them said they were fully committed to open source and almost a third said they were still experimenting with open source.

Linux is known for a lot of great things, but you rarely see it listed as a platform of choice for multimedia production. Some of that poor reputation for multimedia has long been deserved, but in recent years the quality of Linux’s audio and video applications has been steadily increasing. One of the best loved of these is Hydrogen, a high quality drum machine application. As is often the case with extremely versatile software, Hydrogen can sometimes seem overly complex to a newcomer. Today we’ll attempt to cover many of the most confusing aspects of Hydrogen so you can easily create your own phat beatz in a matter of minutes.

[Being a drummer myself I'm going to have to check this out.. - Scott]

The WordPress community witnessed the end of a high-profile war of words last week when the distributor of a popular commercial theme for the blogging platform agreed to license some of his work under the GPL. Prior to last week, Chris Pearson had argued fiercely that WordPress themes are not derivative works of WordPress itself — as the project has long claimed — and thus he was free to sell his Thesis theme under his own restrictive licensing terms.

While Linux runs great on most any hardware, it runs even better on a machine with ample memory and a recent CPU. Upgrade options abound for even the most hardware hacking averse. In this monthly roundup we'll take a look at options to get your Linux system running even better without breaking your budget.

Take Thunderbird, mix liberally with calendaring, instant messaging, and release it on Linux and Windows. What do you get? Spicebird, a collaboration client that remixes Thunderbird to bring the creaking mail client up to date for today's users. Spicebird has been in the works for some time, but the 0.8 release is finally ready for a wider audience. To see if it's ready for everyday use, I downloaded Spicebird 0.8 a week ago and started testing.

Software patents are dangerous and costly to business and the community. Please sign this letter to support abolishing patents on software.

Some things seem so obvious I feel silly even saying them. And this is one of them: any IT staffer who only knows one operating system is not worth hiring. We see the silly Microsoft vs. Linux vs. Apple stories every day, with Ten Reasons Why This One is Better, and 7 Reasons Why That One Sucks, and Five Ways to Make Headlines With Lists. The ones that crack me up are the "10 Scary Hurdles to Migrating to Linux." Ever notice how every single time they mention "You'll need Linux skills!" Oh dear, no! Linux skills? Well there's a dealbreaker! Because it is completely unreasonable to expect your current batch of delicate Windows admins to have any Linux skills. Sigh.

The 2.6.33 Linux kernel has introduced a useful new service called the Distributed Replicated Block Device (DRBD). This service mirrors an entire block device to another networked host during run time, permitting the development of high-availability clusters for block data. Explore the ideas behind the DRBD and its implementation in the Linux kernel.

One of the problems commonly talked about in our forums and elsewhere is the poor responsiveness of the Linux desktop when dealing with significant disk activity on systems where there is insufficient RAM or the disks are slow. The GUI basically drops to its knees when there is too much disk activity, which is far from being ideal. For many the problem has just been present for a year or two, but those experiencing these horrible responsiveness problems where it may take many seconds for a menu to appear when clicking on it or a half-minute to do a VT switch, there soon may be a fix.

If you spend any time at all on the command line, you almost certainly use less (more's backward-scrollable cousin) on a very regular basis. Like me (until recently), however, you may never have taken the time to learn many of the long list of useful commands and shortcuts with which less is provided. Here are a few commands that will help you get more value out of less.

The 2.6.35 distribution of the Linux kernel has been released, incorporating support for future Intel graphics chips, power management for AMD Radeon chips and Google-donated network performance improvements for multiple processor systems, among 22 areas of significant change.