LXer Features
Closed source is dead, open source is the way to innovation!
By H.Kwint, the Netherlands - Jan 02, 2008
Unblocking Blockheads or, Some People Should Not Use Computers or, "The Marching Morons" Comes TrueLXer Feature: 2-Jan-2008
Lately, some articles appeared which stated the open-source way of development didn't bring us any innovation. Jaron Lanier even goes further by saying closed source is the better approach to innovation. However, these people miss a lot of important points and facts about innovation, and therefore the conclusions they make are false. Having read a lot about innovation myself lately, I will try to show that the open-source way of doing things leads to more innovation, and more important, I will give some real life examples showing the closed-source inventions aren't that innovative at all, and pointing to some open-source inventions the other writers missed.
By Carla Schroder - Dec 31, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 30-Dec-2007LXer Feature: 31-Dec-2007
A sizable number of humans have devoted their lives to erecting barriers to learning anything new. You can see it when you talk to them- when something as simple as "click this button" produces a glazed expression and drool, you know you've lost them forever. Of course they'll waste hours of your time complaining about how stupid computers are. But even though it's easy money to nod and pretend to listen, and then bill them for every minute wasted on empty complaining (I never had enough nerve to charge a whining penalty, and I wish I had), it's not how I want to spend my time. Life is too short.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Dec 30, 2007
The Chumby: Fun, Hackable and full of PotentialLXer Feature: 30-Dec-2007
In this week's LXer Roundup we have several OLPC articles, Carla Schroder gives a tutorial on building your own Linux music studio, Steven Rosenberg pits Debian Etch with Xfce and Damn Small Linux with JWM/Fluxbox against each other, SCO gets delisted, Why there's more to Linux than Ubuntu, Linus talks about Linux and a great review of the Chumby by our very own Sander Marechal.
By Sander Marechal ('s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands) - Dec 28, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 23-Dec-2007LXer Feature: 29-Dec-2007
Thanks to a friend who knew a friend who knew someone else, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Chumby for a few days even though it is only available as a limited preview and not outside the Unites States. It's probably one of the first Chumbies in Europe. I only had it a few days as it was only lent to me by the owner, but this gave me ample opportunity to play with the device, give a thorough review and hack it a little. And what fun I have had!
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Dec 23, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 16-Dec-2007It looks like people are starting to get their hands on some OLPC's and the reviews have started coming in too. We also have a review of Carla Schroder's new book, KOffice takes a stand against OOXML, screenshots of the BBS's new iPlayer and Damn Small Linux 4.2, Open Source alternatives to Adobe, how to make a holiday slideshow and one of our readers has a Debian adventure of their own.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Dec 16, 2007
Test: Do Linux filesystems need defragmentation?In this weeks roundup Andy Updegrove continues his series on ODF vs. OOXML, Open Source Fonts, a new version of Picasa for Linux, our own Hans Kwint asks "Do Linux filesystems need defragmentation?", KDE takes a stand on OOXML and Carla Schroder gives her advice to those brave enough to run Debian Volatile. Also, Microsoft decides to stay quiet on what Unix code it may own, someone figures out how to get a OLPC laptop to run XP, why the NYSE using Linux is important and Richard Stallman finally goes off the deep end.
By H.Kwint (The Netherlands) - Dec 10, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 09-Dec-2007However, when I started using Linux four years later, I was told that with Linux I didn't need to defragment my filesystems anymore, since Linux filesystems don't get fragmented in first place. At that time it left me puzzled, but after a few years of using Linux without defragmenting my filesystems - and without any problems! - it seemed defragmentation was something antique. Nonetheless I still wondered how on earth it was possible the 100k+ files in Gentoo's portage system - updated every time I synchronize the portage tree - didn't fragment my filesystem. Or was my filesystem fragmented and did I not know?
Only recently, I found a script that is actually able to put numbers to all this gut-feelings, and the results were quite surprising in my opinion.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Dec 09, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 02-Dec-2007In this weeks roundup we have several articles concerning the OLPC and Microsoft. Plus the MPAA is forced to take down its university toolkit, Dell may have helped boost Linux's market share, when bad things happen with your good software, a review of Mint 4.0 and the X11 Desktop Environment. I wrap things up with a couple of funny articles about 'someone' dropping support for OOXML and trusting your bartender, enjoy!
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Dec 02, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 25-Nov-2007This week we have the beginnings of a book for Andy Upgrove, a couple articles about Firefox, Richard Stallman's guide to writing, South Africa, Netherlands and Korea move towards ODF support, Ten things you can do to help open source and Microsoft spreads the FUD with a Windows to Linux Security comparison.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Nov 25, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 18-Nov-2007How do you release your version of Linux without actually releasing it? Just ask Google, whether by coincidence or design Walmart has started selling computers pre-installed with a version of Linux called "gOS" that is seriously Google centric and guess what? Its not a bad little distro and the computers? They're selling like hotcakes. We have some Linux gaming news, One shoppers Linux inspired assault on Black Friday, Macedonian Students start to get there Edubuntu computers and a funny take on SCO's lawsuit.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Nov 18, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 11-Nov-2007With the holidays upon us I thought a Top-10 gift ideas for the Linux Gadget Geek would be good reading. gOS makes a big splash, Info and opinion on Walmart selling $199 PC's, a DSL 4.0 review, Linux continues to dominate the TOP500 World’s Fastest Supercomputers, Forrester thinks that Linux is for real, Carla Schroder continues her "Linux Backups For Real People" series and a computer consultant finally installs Windows..for the first time ever.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Nov 11, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 04-Nov-2007Some of the big stories this week include the Open Document Foundation, a call for papers for SCaLE 6x, four ways to extract the current directory name, the BBC admits a massive underestimate of its Linux users, Linux Backups For Real People, Part 2, a Linux game company opens its doors, Vista vs. desktop Linux: One year in and never use Babel Fish to talk to a foreign minister.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Nov 04, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 28-Oct-2007I have a slew of great articles for you in this week's Roundup starting with a trick most FOSS users already know of, how to crack Windows passwords with Linux. Plus Andy Updegrove sets the Record Straight on (Non)Voting in SC 34, Phoronix reviews ATI: Linux vs. Windows Vista, François Bancilhon of Mandriva writes an open letter to Steve Ballmer, new Asus laptop and Everex desktop offerings, an interview with Pamela Jones of Groklaw, Carla Schroder's Tutorial: Linux Backups For Real People, Part 1 and an Italian Judge Tells HP To Refund Pre-Installed XP.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Oct 28, 2007
Adventures in Digital Photography With Linux, part 5: Aperture, Shutter Speeds, and ISOIt looks like it was a busy week in Open Source News. Carla Schroder continues her series on digital photography with part 5, Microsoft concedes in European antitrust case, Where are the American Linux desktop users?, GIMP 2.4.0 is released, a NY investment company offers to buy SCO for $36M, a Battle For Wesnoth game review and ripping and encoding audio files in Linux. In our funny article of the week we have, The World's toughest jobs: Microsoft's interoperability chief, funny stuff.
By Carla Schroder - Oct 22, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 21-Oct-2007Welcome back! In part 4 we ranged all over the place, from how to manage and edit your photo archives with Linux, some discussion on choosing lenses, and finally getting down to the most important part of getting high-quality photographs: understanding aperture, shutter speeds, and ISO. Part 4 covered the fundamentals of aperture, so let's leap in to shutter speeds and ISO. This applies to point-and-shoot cameras as well as the fancy DSLRs with herds of different lenses; if you don't understand these three photography fundamentals, you won't understand how to get the best photos.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Oct 21, 2007
Day two at T-DOSESome of the big stories this week include Linux vs. Windows Power Usage, Microsoft gets two licences approved by the OSI, Kevin Carmony switches to Ubuntu and on top of all that we have a slew of LXer features including a couple of reports from T-DOSE, Carla Schroder continues her series on Digital Photography and a reader submitted article with some advice for those trying to decide between Windows or Linux.
By Sander Marechal, The Netherlands - Oct 16, 2007
Adventures in Digital Photography With Linux, part 4: FundamentalsSunday was the second day of T-DOSE in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, a technical open source event aimed at developers. See our previous article for the coverage of the first day. Today's topics: Search Engine development with AdvaS, A GNU Edu overview, Sebastian Kügler about KDE 4.0 and an overview of Free Software events in Europe. I was also able to talk in person with a few people, such as Olivier Cleynen, who's presentation from yesterday about FOSS marketing is also covered in today's article.
By Carla Schroder - Oct 15, 2007
Choosing Windows vs. Linux - Which One & Why & What Lies Ahead!So far in this randomly-appearing series I haven't talked all that much about Linux, but mostly camera gear. Today I'm going to talk about photography fundamentals. Because a skilled person can use an image editor to doctor any photo to look like anything, but for me that is not the point. I'm not interested in devoting my life to repairing inferior photos; I want to take the best-quality pictures possible and not have to spend endless hours mucking about to make them look like anything. So step one is Find Good Camera Equipment, and step two is Learn To Use It.
By cyneuron - Oct 14, 2007
With the arrival of Windows Vista , lots of people are looking for alternatives. And Linux has emerged as the best contender. As I have used Windows XP and Linux for last 5 years, and Vista since its release. I thought why not write an article for the people who may want to know/use/switch to Linux from Windows.LXer Weekly Roundup for 14-Oct-2007
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Oct 14, 2007
Day one at T-DOSEI have a lot of big stories for you this week. Linus gets mad, Amsterdam's open source test is successful, Red Hat and Novell get sued with a little help from Microsoft, 12 tips for KDE users, an article on how to protect your Linux system during startup, a review of KOffice and our own Sander Marechal interviews John Hull of Dell. All this and more in the LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Sander Marechal & Hans Kwint, The Netherlands - Oct 14, 2007
The LXer Interview: John Hull of DellIn its second year, T-Dose, the Dutch Open Source event aimed at developers takes place in Eindhoven. Your two LXer editors went there to find out what's happening and what's new in open-source land. Todays topics include QTopia for PDA's and smartphones, open source software in the iLiad digital paper device, KDE4 application programming, the Lodel publishing tool, efficient data structures and how to overtake proprietary software without writing code.
By Sander Marechal - Oct 12, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 07-Oct-2007It has been over four months since Dell started shipping computers preloaded with Ubuntu GNU/Linux to home consumers in the United States. Lets take a moment to look at the progress that has been made so far. John Hull, manager of the Linux Engineering team in Austin was kind enough to let me interview him by e-mail. Besides commenting on the current state of affairs with Ubuntu on Dell machines, he also offers some insight in how the Linux team at Dell works and opens a small window into the future of Linux at Dell.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Oct 07, 2007
Heroes of Linux and FOSS: Ken Starks, AKA HeliosSome of the big articles this week include Mono becomes a trap, are computers sold with no OS profitable?, an editorial by Carla Schroder, Swedish police save 400 cars by using MySQL, Is Ubuntu losing its crown to PCLinuxOS?, The Next Leap for Linux and a tribute to Ken Starks. All this and more in the LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Carla Schroder - Oct 04, 2007
Linux Journal: How Not To Run A BusinessThis was originally going to be a comment attached to Build 'em Right, Build 'em Strong, Build 'em Linux. Then it grew and grew, and I decided that Ken deserved his own feature. And then I realized that there are a lot of unsung heroes of FOSS, so watch this space for future installments. I encourage all of you fine LXers to write your own "Heroes" features- there are a lot of people out there who deserve some recognition.
By Carla Schroder - Oct 01, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 30-Sept-2007I have to wonder- where on Earth did Ms. Fairchild get the idea that alienating her customers is a good business practice? So what if she finds sexist, demeaning humor funny? It doesn't belong in Linux Journal. I paid my subscription money in good faith for many years, trusting to receive good Linux articles. If I want to read about blowjobs or read about how helpless and stupid women are, I don't expect to find it in Linux Journal. There are abundant sources for that elsewhere.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Sep 30, 2007
Linux Education in America: Inspiration from Russia?Big stories this week include the "Give one, get one" OLPC promotion, an LXer Feature by Paul Ferris entitled, Linux Education in America: Inspiration from Russia?, The 7 Most Influential GNU/Linux Distributions, The Top 21 Linux Games Of 2007, GPLv2 and GPLv3 for beginners, Slackware: the classic distro and an article you shouldn't read.
By Paul (FeriCyde) Ferris - Sep 24, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 23-Sept-2007LXer Feature: 24-Sept-2007
The reason that the Russian announcement is funny boils down to the perception over the years that Russia equates to totalitarianism, whilst here in America we're all about Freedom and innovation. Yet our educational system -- the very underpinnings of how we're growing out future technological talent, is based upon the inversion of what one would expect given the respective reputations of both countries.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Sep 23, 2007
The LXer Interview: Benedikt Meurer of XfceSome of the big stories this week include: A non-profit that refurbishes computers with FOSS get hassled by the EPA, Microsoft wants in on the OLPC, SCO blames Linux for having to file for Chapter 11 and IBM joins up with OpenOffice.org and then releases its own free office suite. All this and more in the LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Sep 19, 2007
Linux Freedom Never CriesI interview one of the lead developers of the Xfce desktop environment, in The LXer Interview of Benedikt Meurer.
By Paul (FeriCyde) Ferris - Sep 17, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 16-Sept-2007As I write this, I'm two weeks away from Ohio Linux Fest, a community event in Ohio focused upon Free Software.
I get to use Linux a lot these days. It's ingrained in my professional and personal life so much that it's easy to forget just how much territory the Free Software movement has gained. That realization made me aware that possibly we've taken a lot for granted.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Sep 16, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 09-Sept-2007Some of the big stories this week, SCO files for chapter 11, Microsoft pushes through another shadow update, IBM finally decides to officially support OpenOffice and Apple modifies their new iPods to not work with Linux.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Sep 09, 2007
My math-fu tells me OOXML has not passed JTC-1The big stories this week include Microsoft and the ISO vote saga, the countdown is on to Ontario Linux Fest, The French Ministry for Education has migrated 2,500 servers over to Linux and The Women of Tech. All this and more in the LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Sander Marechal - Sep 03, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 02-Sept-2007
If my math-fu is anything to go by, it looks like Microsoft's Office Open XML will not become an ISO standard today. Various websites around the world are all busy tallying the votes as the news is dripping in. If their tally is correct then OOXML has been turned down by a very narrow margin. OOXML needed 2/3 of the P members to vote "yes", after subtracting abstains. With 5 abstains out of 41 P members, that means 24 "yes" votes. With 13 "no" votes already cast that means only 23 possible "yes" votes remain. Talk about a narrow margin.
[ Update: ISO confirmed Sander is good in math, and was right! - hkwint ]
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Sep 02, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 26-Aug-2007Microsoft is under the microscope with the FSF looking into GPLv3 violations, and news that there will be a Gnome Desktop for the Windows API, Carla Schroder writes about 802.11n, HP launches Linux desktop in Australia, Mandriva Benelux is launched and I finally start getting tired of of the constant FUD coming from Matt Hartley. All this and more in this weeks LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Aug 26, 2007
"Linux more secure than Windows", Microsoft vulnerability report suggestsA weekly recap of the big stories concerning Linux and Open Source.
By Hans Kwint, the Netherlands - Aug 21, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 19-Aug-2007
A Microsoft vulnerability report suggests that Microsoft wasn't able to fix more Windows flaws than the number of open software flaws fixed by the major open source companies . Red Hat, having forty times less employees than Microsoft, did the best job, by fixing and closing the most security bugs, also closing even minor bugs - where Microsoft didn't even fix one minor bug in the same period. Even Apple did a better job than Microsoft by fixing lots of flaws in Mac OS X. It should also be noted, the fixed open source flaws were in the 'base system', while the fixed Windows flaws also concerned a lot of Internet Explorer, Media Player and similar stuff.As expected, many flaws were fixed in RHEL 5, so it seems RHEL 5 is becoming more and more secure. On the other hand, only a few Vista bugs were fixed, which left some customers asking if Microsoft even tried finding and fixing security flaws at all.
See the Microsoft vulnerability report here
[ Seriously, how comes Gentoo has a 'closed bug ranking' and the teams are proud to be on the top of the list, while at the same time Microsoft thinks closing bugs is a bad thing and is glad only a few bugs were closed? - hkwint ]
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Aug 19, 2007
The LXer Interview: Bob Sutor of IBMAnother big week in Open Source news including, 50 reasons to dump Windows, MySQL defends paid tarball decision, Part 3 of Carla Schroder's "Adventures in Digital Photography With Linux", Debian turns 14, The LXer Interview: Bob Sutor of IBM and Rob Enderle can't decide where Open Source is headed in the LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Aug 17, 2007
Adventures in Digital Photography With Linux, part 3: PrintingAn interview with IBM's Vice President of Open Source and Standards about their Open Source Strategy, the recent pledge of its patents for more than 150 open software standards, his take on the ODF vs. XML issue, and much more in The LXer Interview of Bob Sutor.
By Carla Schroder (Eastern Oregon, U.S.) - Aug 15, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 12-Aug-2007Photo printing in Linux is nasty and brutish. What's a devoted Linux geek to do? Buy a Mac?
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Aug 12, 2007
The Microsoft / Novell / FSF / GPLv3 tale about the bridge between the meadowsSome of the big stories this week are the ruling by the Judge in in the SCO case that Novell actually owns UNIX still, Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony resigns, why Microsoft might want to help get rid of patents, Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian explains his company's deal with Microsoft in his keynote address at LinuxWorld, Vista is helping Linux uptake and the author of one of our FUD articles uses his own recipe to cook up some good non-facts.
By H.Kwint (the Netherlands) - Aug 10, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 05-Aug-2007
I've been trying to catch on and to understand what this thread's all about (It started with R. Hovespian from Novell explaining why they needed a deal with MS). I thought, maybe I could try to summarize it all to understand - and maybe explain to others - what's happening here, so I made up a tale of the whole situation:
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Aug 05, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 29-Jul-2007Some of the big news this week includes Mepis going back to Debian, Linus speaks out on the desktop, Microsoft finally got the result they wanted in Mass, An LXer settles the Mandriva - PCLinuxOS debate, some KDE 4.0 screenshots and Matt Hartley goes two for two in the FUD section of the LXer Weekly Roundup.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Jul 29, 2007
The LXer Interview: Dave Wreski of EnGarde Secure LinuxThis week we have some details about the Linspire-MS deal, a great article by Danijel Orsolic, Open Source in Outer Space, my Interview with Dave Wreski, a short list of good command line tools and much more.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Jul 24, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 22-Jul-2007An interview with Dave Wreski CEO of Guardian Digital, makers of EnGarde Secure Linux. I ask him how EnGarde came about, what makes EnGarde different and the effect if any, of the GPLv3 on the software in EnGarde. He answers all these questions and more, in The LXer Interview of Dave Wreski.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Jul 22, 2007
The pen is mightier than the FUDThis week we have the launching of a new Linux Hardware site, cool videos of PhotoSynth and SeaDragon and MPX or Multi-Pointer X being demonstrated and a Firefox user bangs his head against a wall. All these and more plus I have to create a FUD article section just to contain them all.
By Sander Marechal ('s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands) - Jul 19, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 15-Jul-2007
A few days ago Rob Enderle proclaimed that Open Source and Linux are losing momentum, without any evidence to back this up and despite that IDC and Gartner are saying the exact opposite. The FOSS community responded with rebuttals after which Rob posted a follow-up in which he makes some particularly nasty accusations. However, trying to follow Rob's logic in the original article quickly showed that it was not about a loss in momentum at all. That was just a framework on which to hang a different tale, one that gives us some insight in how he sees the world of software development.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Jul 15, 2007
The LXer Interview: Sebastian Kügler of KDEIn the latest LXer Weekly Roundup we have, Mark Shuttleworth announcing that Gobuntu is a go, Confessions of a Linux Fan, a review of Siag Office, Turbolinux signs a deal with Microsoft, IBM Pledges Free Access to Patents for use in Open Standards, my interview with Sebastian Kügler of KDE, 16,000 Linux computers delivered for free and Paul McDougall tries to put words in Linus Torvalds mouth. All this and more, plus the FUD article of the week.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Jul 12, 2007
LXer Weekly Roundup for 08-Jul-2007A look inside what makes KDE tick, a glimpse of what the future holds and more in The LXer Interview of Sebastian Kügler.
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.) - Jul 08, 2007
Adventures in Digital Photography With Linux, part 2The big stories this week include Microsoft's attempts to distance itself from the effects of the GPLv3, Part 2 of Carla Schroder's Adventures in Digital Photography, using Live Linux distro's for online banking, Massachusetts decides that XML is ok and the BSA ups the ante on getting people to "Blow The Whistle". All this and more await you in this weeks LXer Roundup.
By Carla Schroder - Jul 02, 2007
In part 1 I introduced you fine readers to my new obsession, digital SLR cameras. If you're used to compact point-and-shoot digital cameras, and you're thinking of making the move to a DSLR, there are several important points to keep in mind:
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