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LXer Features

Getting Cheeky At the Ohio LinuxFest
By D.C. Parris - Oct 05, 2006

LXer Feature: 5-Oct-2006
We finally got around to getting a few photos from the 2006 Ohio LinuxFest on-line. Enjoy!

Book Review: IPv6 Essentials, 2nd Edition, by Silvia Hagen
By Carla Schroder - Oct 02, 2006

IPv6 Essentials, 2nd edition is a well-written, clear, up-to-date guide to understanding IPv6 in-depth. The book explains how it all works to a very practical depth, so that the reader will be well-prepared to begin implementation.

ToorCon ("Firefox security is a mess") sponsored by Microsoft
By H.Kwint - Oct 02, 2006

Lately, I read the headline: "Open Source browser Firefox is so critically flawed that it is impossible to fix, according to two hackers." Further on, in the ZDNet article I read: "The hackers claim they know of about 30 unpatched Firefox flaws. They don't plan to disclose them, instead holding onto the bugs."
Since that sounds suspicious, I decided to start searching for connections with MS. Easy enough, here it is:
21:30-03:00 ToorCon Saturday Night Party - Sponsored by Microsoft (Link)

Hackers drinking MS-beer for more than five consecutive hours! Judge for yourself...

Ohio LinuxFest - Live Penguins and Lively Penguinistas
By D.C. Parris - Oct 02, 2006

LXer Feature: 2-Oct-2006
Lxer's Bob Whitinger and Don Parris flew to Columbus for the Ohio LinuxFest Saturday. Don shares his experience barrel rolling in a '62 Mooney, meeting popular and lively penguinistas and even a pair of live penguins.

Notes from aKadamy 2006
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, USA) - Sep 26, 2006

Notes from the aKadamy 2006 Conference.

Novell's Linux Road Show Makes A Good Impression
By DC Parris - Sep 26, 2006

LXer Feature: 15-Jul-2006
Novell Linux Road Show attendees seemed pretty impressed by the introductions to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Desktop.

LXer To Launch New Look Sunday Night
By DC Parris - Sep 22, 2006

LXer Announcement: 22-Sep-2006
For the past couple of months, LXer has been beta testing a new look aimed at improving the site's appearance and usability. The time has come to launch.

Software Freedom Day - Charlotte Pics
By DC Parris - Sep 17, 2006

LXer Feature: 17-Sep-2006
Here are the pics for Software Freedom Day - Charlotte. We held our event yesterday afternoon at the Cone Center at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte. Enjoy!

FOSS Community, Microsoft And Reconciliation
By DC Parris - Sep 11, 2006

LXer Feature: 11-Sep-2006
Neil McAllister calls on the FOSS community to drop the fortress mentality and work to build bridges with Microsoft. That's kind of like saying an abused wife should hug her husband just because he brings her flowers. Maybe Microsoft really is changing, but LXer's Don Parris suggests watching to see what they are holding in the other hand.

Software Freedom Day Is Fast Approaching
By DC Parris - Sep 11, 2006

LXer Feature: 11-Sep-2006
Software Freedom Day is fast approaching. What are you doing in your area?

grep Neoscopio FOSSBiz
By DC Parris - Aug 28, 2006

LXer Feature: 28-Aug-2006
Neoscopio adheres closely to the principles of Free/Open Source Software by providing customized solutions and services based on available software projects. LXer's Don Parris interviews the Neoscopio team.

GNU/Linux for Christians: Kubuntu-based Ichthux Beta5 is out
By DC Parris - Aug 27, 2006

LXer Feature: 27-Aug-2006
The beta ISOs should be available Sunday evening or Monday, with the first major release, Ichthux 6.09, due out in early September.

Solved! Converting an OpenOffice.org Calc Sheet to OOBase
By DC Parris - Aug 27, 2006

LXer Feature: 27-Aug-2006
I had developed a fairly hefty OpenOffice.org Calc sheet, which was great for quickly entering data I've been working with lately. However, it soon became clear that a switch to ooBase would be necessary. I'm not a big user of ooBase, so wasn't sure how best to go about converting my data. Fortunately, a tutorial someone else had written showed me just how simple it is.

grep 'Open Sense Solutions' FOSSBiz
By DC Parris - Aug 23, 2006

LXer Feature: 23-Aug-2006
Grepping for businesses that focus solely, or even mostly, on FOSS is prooving to be quite a challenge. Open Sense Solutions is a Greenbay, Wisconsin-based provider of GNU/Linux desktop solutions. Their Groovix public access system is not only popular, but libre too. Michael Pardee was kind enough to answer the questions Don Parris threw at him.

Interview With The Open Graphics Project's Timothy Miller
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, USA) - Aug 18, 2006

LXer Feature: 17-Aug-2006
An interview with the Project Lead and Creator of the Open Graphics Project, Timothy Miller.

grep 'Reboot The User' FOSSBiz
By DC Parris - Aug 17, 2006

LXer Feature: 18-Aug-2006
Reboot The User is a small shop located in Omaha, Nebraska. Jay Swackhamer, the man behind the company, was willing to take time out of his hectic schedule to answer our questions. Despite the numerous fluctuations he sees in his business, Jay says he sees interest in GNU/Linux picking up, generally.

grep Reddog FOSSBiz
By DC Parris - Aug 15, 2006

LXer Feature: 15-Aug-2006
Don Parris talks with Nathan Aherne of Reddog Technology about selling computers with Ubuntu's GNU/Linux system pre-installed in Australia. Anyone interested in selling computers with GNU/Linux pre-installed should pay attention here, as Nathan makes at least one or two important points.

Is GNU/Linux Really Replacing Windows?
By DC Parris - Aug 11, 2006

LXer Feature: 11-Aug-2006
Don Parris' straw poll about replacing Windows with GNU/Linux on a couple of distribution listservs has taken on a whole life of its own in the Ubuntu Users forum. Are people really replacing Windows with GNU/Linux systems? What hardware and software issues prevent people from ditching Windows altogether? Should Microsoft be worried?

Grep Farstone FOSSBiz
By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, USA) - Aug 08, 2006

LXer Feature: 8-Aug-2006
I am sure that like me, you have all had your, “My system went down and took everything with it” event, or events. Now if I had just had a back-up program that had all of my files in it already..Hmmm.

GNU/Linux -- Like No Other Hotrod, Ever
By Terry Vessels - Aug 04, 2006

LXer Feature: 04-Aug-2006
GNU/Linux -- Like No Other Hotrod, Ever

While others appear to be going backwards, Linux just keeps racing ahead.

'Linux supports more devices, "out of the box", than any other operating system ever has.'
"Yes, that's right, we support more things than anyone else. And more than anyone else ever has in the past. Linux has a very long list of things that we have supported before anyone else ever did."
-- Greg Kroah-Hartman, OLS 2006 Keynote

How To Find A Computer With GNU/Linux Pre-Installed
By DC Parris - Aug 03, 2006

LXer Feature: 3-Aug-2006
One LXer reader's quest to find and list vendors selling computers with GNU/Linux pre-installed leads to the development of a GNU/Linux vendor database.

New community project targets the Debian user
By wjl - Aug 02, 2006

The new domain thedebianuser.org is still in its infancy, but at least its focus is pretty clear: it targets Debian users, which includes pretty much everyone from new converts to Ubuntu users to Debian Developers. After all, we are all users.

Welcoming Newcomers to Linux and FOSS, or, the Least You Can Do is Not Chase Noobs Away
By Carla Schroder - Aug 01, 2006

LXer Feature: 1 Aug 2006

What is the future of Linux and Free Software? A rigid little cult that accept only the Right People? Or a community that truly practices "Free as in Freedom"?

LXers Hog The Barbecue
By DC Parris - Jul 30, 2006

LXer Feature: 30-Jul-2006
LXers attempted to eat high on the hog Saturday while being mobbed by gorgeous women...

Re-thinking the Windows Refund
By DC Parris - Jul 25, 2006

LXer Feature: 25-Jul-2006
LXer's Don Parris challenges the Windows Refund movement to rethink its platform.

Lobby4Linux Founder Battles Illness
By DC Parris - Jul 21, 2006

LXer Feature: 22-Jul-2006
Lobby4Linux founder, Ken Starks (a.k.a., Helios) recently went to Washington to take the fight for freedom - whether it's software or media - to the hallowed halls of Congress. Now he faces an even greater battle - a battle for his very life.

Grep FOSSBiz Versora
By DC Parris - Jul 21, 2006

LXer Feature: 21-Jul-2006
LXer's Don Parris got together with Versora, Inc.'s CEO, Mike Sheffey, Chief Software Architect, Nick Lassonde, and Vice-President of Marketing, Ray George to discuss Versora's role in helping businesses migrate from Windows to GNU/Linux.

Grep FOSSBiz
By DC Parris - Jul 20, 2006

LXer Feature: 20-Jul-2006
LXer goes on the search for businesses that provide migration and support services, software development, and products related to Free and Open Source Software. Do you know of a business focused on Free and Open Source Software?

A Gentoo diary part 1
By H. Kwint - Jul 20, 2006

A Gentoo Diary part 1 LXer Feature: 19-July-06

It's been a while since I promised to write about my Gentoo desktops. In the intro, I gave some general information about Gentoo, and explained my setup.
The reason I didn't write a bit earlier is, amongst others, not that much interesting happened the last few weeks. Anyway, let's talk about what did happen: I set up an old 300 mHz server with Gentoo, tried to make distributed compiling work, learned a bit more about Windowmaker, tried to get a Broadcom Wireless card working on a laptop, switched to Grub, and finally got rid of Xmms. Uhhm, the latter kind of unnoticeable.

Who reads LXer? Why do I care?
By Terry Vessels, aka grouch - Jul 14, 2006

A recent discussion on LXer asked the question, " Where are the readers?" It spawned an informative discussion about analysis of web site statistics. Those statistics are fairly obviously of financial concern to the publisher, since it costs money to keep LXer online, but are they important, otherwise? Do they serve the community of GNU/Linux and FOSS?

Word 2007 and Open Office
By Sal Paradise - Jul 13, 2006

LXer Feature: 13-Jul-2006
Microsoft appear to be up their old tricks again. This time it's the "let's work with odt to show how much we care" farce. If you work in an office you probably need to pay attention to this.

The Value of Free Software
By DC Parris - Jul 12, 2006

LXer Feature: 12-Jul-2006

Evolution's usefulness has long been hampered by the lack of a single feature. Because it is free software, one organization knew the feature could be added, either by themselves, or by paying someone to do it for them. Find out what they did, why and how they did it, and how you can get the patch for yourself.

[Updated at 12:05 US Eastern Time - dcparris]

'GNU/Linux', 'Linux' -- What's the diff?
By Terry Vessels - Jun 29, 2006

LXer Feature: 29-Jun-06

Why do Linux advocates argue over whether to call their operating system 'Linux' or 'GNU/Linux'? It's all open source, right? At this point there are blood pressures rising among free software advocates, while any casual software user reading this is simply thinking, "Yeah, so?"

Lyricue Gets Lifted to Higher Ground
By DC Parris - Jun 28, 2006

LXer Feature: 28-Jun-06

With Lyricue, you can display song lyrics on the wall screens during worship. With Lyricue 1.9.3, you can easily add Bible verses, and manage the display across the network from the comfort of your pew, using a server and a tablet PC running GNU/Linux. Support for two more languages makes Lyricue usable by more people as well.

Week in review: 2006-06-18 through 2006-06-24
By Terry Vessels - Jun 25, 2006

Back by popular demand (6 people said they liked it), here is the list of links to all stories posted on LXer from Sunday, June 18, through Saturday, June 24, 2006. There were 251 stories posted to LXer during this past week. Wednesday and Saturday each had 43 stories, with Sunday being the slow day at 23.
(By the way, creating this list involved only free software and I am once again grateful to Ben Okopnik for his tutorial, The Deep, Dark Secrets of Bash.)

A Gentoo diary: Intro
By H.Kwint - Jun 22, 2006

LXer Feature: 22-June-06

Tired of normal distro reviews, I decided to write a review in the form of a diary. Written by an intermediate Gentoo user, this review offers some insight in administering a Gentoo desktop. So bear with me while I try to make my stuff work!

Week in review: 2006-06-11 through 2006-06-17
By Terry Vessels - Jun 18, 2006

There were 237 stories posted to LXer this week. Thursday was busiest, with 49 stories and Tuesday was slowest at 25. With news coming at you at that pace, it's easy to miss stories that interest you. For your convenience, here is a complete list of links to all the stories posted this week at LXer.

HI Researcher Continues OpenDocument FUD
By DC Parris - Jun 14, 2006

LXer Feature: 14-Jun-06

Steven Titch, a Senior Fellow at the Heartland Institute, first drew my attention when I ran across an article he wrote, in which he made so many misleading statements, I called into question his abilities as a researcher. Two blog posts later, Titch still fails to address facts, to present any evidence in support of his arguments, to make any arguments relevant to the issue at hand, contradicts himself... Need I go on? One wonders if he is even in the same ball park.

What is a Kernel?
By Jason (Jay) R Fink - Jun 10, 2006

What is a kernel? A piece on defining a kernel from a very hueristic point of view. What does a kernel do and what does it have to deal with while it is doing ... exactly what it supposed to do-do?

Linux vs. Windows: Fight to the Death
By Carla Schroder - Jun 09, 2006

LXer Feature - 9-June-06

Every time someone boots up Windows, god kills a kitten. Bill Gates is the devil. Steve Ballmer is a sweaty gorilla. Linux is better than Windows, cures bad breath, and improves your love life. Linux advocates are foaming religious zealots who want to control everyone's lives.

Systhread wants your geek bunker pic
By Jason (Jay) R Fink - Jun 04, 2006

My friends and I in the Open Source community trade geek bunker photos. What I would like is fellow Open Source folks who have interesting setups to either email me a picture or link of your particular setup and I will link to and/or post it on systhread.net. Call it a fun geek time hole.

Linux News Urges Action on Net Neutrality
By DC Parris - Jun 02, 2006

LXer Feature: 2-June-06

I would not be where I am today without a free and open Internet. The same could be said for many, if not most, Internet users. Whether you use the Internet to engage in business, education, politics or religion, or you just want your fill of sex, hacking and multi-media, a free and open Internet is an absolute must.

USENIX Auction To Help Establish UNIX Teaching Position
By Terry Vessels - Jun 01, 2006

Yesterday, Jon 'maddog' Hall contacted LXer to announce the auction of a copy of John Lions' book, Lions' Commentary on UNIX, autographed by Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Kirk McKusick, Eric Allman, Peter Salus, and Linus Torvalds. This is part of a drive to establish the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems at the University of New South Wales, but for the lucky bid-winner, it's a chance to own a bit of computing history.

Think tanks like Heartland and their ties with Microsoft: What everybody should know
By H.Kwint - May 31, 2006

LXer Feature: 27-May-06

Recently, Mr. Steven Titch wrote an article about Open Document which contained Microsoft-style disinformation. At that moment, some of our readers suggested Heartland or Mr. Titch might have been funded by Microsoft. While I couldn't find any direct ties, there are lot of indirect ties between the Heartland Institute and Microsoft, and at a certain point in my research, even the name of Mr. Abramoff showed up. A summary of the things I found.

Comment of the Day - 24-May-06
By Dinotrac - May 24, 2006

Dinotrac writes: "We see the repeated assertion of ODF = OpenOffice and Microsoft != ODF to support a misrepresentation so blatant that we are forced to abandon polite labels like advocacy, exaggeration, and puffery for the naked truth: he's lying."

OpenDocument in Massachusetts: War of the Words
By DC Parris - May 22, 2006

LXer Feature: 22-May-06

Linux News wonders if The Heartland Institute's Steven Titch is a fan of Orson Welles. Find out what his article, "The Dangers of Dictating Procurement" has in common with the 1938 broadcast of "War of the Worlds".

Linux News Discredits Heartland Institute's OpenDocument Report
By DC Parris - May 20, 2006

LXer Feature: 20-May-06

LXer's Don Parris called into question the so-called "research" presented in an article by Steven Titch, a senior fellow at Heartland Institute, regarding the OpenDocument decision in Massachusetts. What follows is his letter to Titch, with the article referenced and linked.

Newbies and Magic
By Terry Vessels - May 17, 2006

LXer Feature: 17-May-06

New users of GNU/Linux must be handled with patience. Most come from years of a consistent user experience that trains them to consider computers to be magic boxes. They typically have strange beliefs, such as restarting the computer as a magic pill to cure the imbalance of software humours, which must be gently removed and replaced with logic.

[Contributing Editor, Terry Vessels, guides the experienced hacker through the sometimes patience-testing task of assisting GNU/Linux newbies. - dcparris]

From Freeloader to Free Software Advocate
By DC Parris - May 15, 2006

LXer Feature: 15-May-06

When I first discovered GNU/Linux, all I knew was that I could have an operating system, office suite, and use the Internet - all for the cost of a book. I thought that everyone should know about this "Linux" stuff. I Initially found all this "free as in freedom, not free beer" stuff confusing. Eventually, though, I came to see how Free Software philosophy impacted my computing experience.

Kevin Carmony: Walking The Line of a Divided Community
By DC Parris - May 09, 2006

LXer Feature: 9-May-06

Kevin Carmony has taken the heat from some in the FOSS community for offering non-free software in Linspire, and in particular, for attempting to lure the FOSS community into contributing to Linspire via Freespire. Don Parris spoke with Linspire's Kevin Carmony to learn more about his position. Are the community's accusations fair? What other options are there?

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