LXer Weekly Roundup for 04-May-2008

LXer Feature: 04-May-2008 With the release of the newest Ubuntu this week we saw a fair number of articles related to it including The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment and Ubuntu man says Microsoft's about to 'swallow a hand-grenade'. We also have two LXer Features, Introduction to Secure Web Data Input and Accurate market share statistics and The $60 Billion dollar question for your reading pleasure. Also, The Top 75 Open Source Security Apps, KDE in Korea, Magnatune gives money to Open Source, How to Make People Love Linux and we have several Microsoft related articles as well.

With the release of the newest Ubuntu this week we saw a fair number of articles related to it including The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment and Ubuntu man says Microsoft's about to 'swallow a hand-grenade'. We also have two LXer Features, Introduction to Secure Web Data Input and Accurate market share statistics and The $60 Billion dollar question for your reading pleasure. Also, The Top 75 Open Source Security Apps, KDE in Korea, Magnatune gives money to Open Source, How to Make People Love Linux and we have several Microsoft related articles as well.

Ubuntu man says Microsoft's about to 'swallow a hand-grenade': Well, here I am just a few miles from Yahoo!' headquarters and Microsoft's Silicon Valley residence. It's Sunday, and I've yet to hear screams from either camp. So, it seems that Microsoft's call to action deadline around the Yahoo! buy is passing with a lack of fanfare. Yahoo! may surprise us yet by leaking something to the New York Times or perhaps Steve Baller will call up his buds at the Wall Street Journal, but in lieu of such actual movements, I'm left wanting.

The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment: I’ve toyed with Linux since 2002, when I first installed Mandrake. With the latest release of Ubuntu, I was interested to see how far Linux had come since then in terms of being used easily by the mainstream. So, I tricked my grudging girlfriend Erin into sitting down at a brand new Ubuntu 8.04 installation and performing some basic tasks. It’s surprising how many seemingly simple things become complicated and even out of reach for someone without a knowledge of Linux. There are a lot of little things that could be done to make the experience a lot more friendly for non-computer-literate people – some of them easy to implement, others not at all.

Introduction to Secure Web Data Input: The html form can be an effective means of allowing screened content onto a web site. My focus is upon trusted members that need to deposit articles and news. Moreover, this route is designed to circumvent restricted environments that do not allow them logging directly onto the site. While security is certainly an issue, my suggestions will be limited in scope.

Accurate market share statistics and The $60 Billion dollar question: Earlier this week an article concerning Vista and market share and one about how Open Source Software has cost the IT Industry $60 Billion dollars over the last five years or so hit the newswire. Needless to say this generated some conversations about their validity. I got to wondering if there have ever been accurate market share statistics for Linux or any operating system for that matter and to ask myself the $60 Billion dollar question.

Should We Boycott Microsoft? Can We?: Captain Charles Boycott was an unfortunate chap. Not only was he the object of prolonged social ostracism, but his name has passed into history as both a noun and a verb describing that action. At the moment, the idea is much on people's minds because of suggestions that the Beijing Olympic games should be boycotted, but here I want to discuss something quite different: whether the open source community should be boycotting Microsoft, and if that is even possible.

Review: The Top 75 Open Source Security Apps: Without much fanfare, the open source security area is growing rapidly. Here are top contenders from anti-virus, firewalls, forensics, intrusion detection, and more.

KDE in Korea: Following our interview covering KDE in Japan last week, we now turn to South Korea. Cho Sung Jae tell us about the Korean KDE Users Group, including some of the problems of using KDE with Korean and just how fast their broadband is.

KDE 4.1 Alpha1 Release Announcement: The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.1 Alpha1. With the soft feature freeze in effect, KDE 4.1 provides a first preview of what can be expected from KDE 4.1, due in late July this year.

Interop : Using Microsoft to Monitor Unix and Linux: Guess what? You can now use Microsoft to monitor/manage Linux and Unix servers as well as open source databases and webservers. Even more surprising is the fact that Microsoft is using open source to enable their management of open source servers and applications. It's all part of the new Miicrosoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 with cross platform extensions.

Giving money to open source: A year and a half ago, the excellent Linux music player Amarok added extensive support for Magnatune. The programmer, Nikolaj Hald Nielsen, did this on his own initiative, simply because he thought it'd be a neat thing for his favorite music player to have, and because he liked Magnatune's business philosophy.

How to Make People Love Linux: There are two kinds of Linux people in the world, those that will help people fix their Windows spyware problems, and those that will not. I land squarely in the former camp, and I think that it's important for us all to consider doing the same.

PCLinuxOS goes the extra mile: Ever since my exploration of the various PCLinuxOS spins, I've been impressed with the project. Now that I'm having so much relative success with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, it's unlikely that I will be running PCLinuxOS on my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop, but a) you never know and b) I'm looking for a good system to install for others, and PCLinuxOS is a top contender in that department.

The Perfect Desktop - Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron): This tutorial shows how you can set up a Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Kubuntu 8.04 is derived from Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and uses the KDE desktop instead of the GNOME desktop.

You're A Linux User/Supporter: You Just Don't Know It Yet: I'D like to start by asking you a series of seemingly unrelated questions. Have you watched Shrek or Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone? Have you flown on Continental, Virgin America or Singapore Airlines? Do you drive a BMW, Fiat or Renault car? Are you serving in the United States Army? Have you ever bought anything online using Paypal? Have you ever stayed in a Sheraton hotel? Or travelled by train in Canada? Don't worry, I'm not about to try to sell you something; rather, my aim is to enlighten you. Unless you're a self-confessed geek like me, you probably don't care how all these things, and many more, are created, run or maintained. You just want to know that your car will start, your movie will play in synch with the sound, your hotel room is ready and your flight or train will arrive on time. That's perfectly understandable, but here's the thing.

Cuba puts first computers on sale to the public: Cubans are getting wired. The island's communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro. A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly US$780 (euro505). While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.

Linux vs. Windows Metrics -- Nothing Is Quite What It Seems To Be: 10 days ago the Linux Loop blog had a post titled "Linux Eee PC Far Faster Than Windows Version". I'm sure many Linux users nodded and had assumed as much. The author compared the times of three tasks: boot up, loading Firefox, and shutting down. That's hardly a comprehensive set of tests. Some people commented to dismiss these metrics as "meaningless". They aren't meaningless but they certainly aren't the whole story. Others pointed out that IE on Windows was faster than Firefox on Linux and that MS Works was faster than OpenOffice. Some then responded that Works isn't the equivalent of OO and that MS Office would be a better comparison. It all got a little shrill with those who believe that Linux is faster than Windows and those who say it isn't so talking past each other and resolving nothing.

Bill Gates' Disdain for Open Source Even in Retirement: Bill Gates steps down as the Chairman of Microsoft on July 1st to transition to full time philanthropic efforts with the Gates Foundation. However, I wonder how effective Bill will be other than writing checks. You see Bill's never played well with others.

Microsoft arguments against Linux are bollocks: Microsoft PR threw down the gauntlet; “see how Windows Server 2008 stacks up versus Linux,” they say. There’s a “Get the Facts” URL being promoted with claims of direct comparisons between the two operating systems. Anyone reading the headlines alone could be fooled into thinking there’s substance to be found.

The Biggest Windows XP Myth of All: As thousands -- perhaps millions -- of users seek to avoid Windows Vista, a new myth about Windows XP is emerging. But the myth, much like Windows itself, is full of holes.

Why Microsoft will dump their anti-Linux rhetoric: I've been combing through Microsoft’s “get the facts” web site this last fortnight. Here Microsoft promise to reveal the “facts” on Windows vs Linux solutions. They cite company after company that abandoned Linux because it was slow and unreliable and generally hopeless, but opted for Microsoft servers and found unsurpassed profits, efficiency and general happiness. Yet, the headlines have little relevance to the case study. Microsoft’s PR department are insulting their audience. They are lacking in integrity. It’s time for the site to be pulled down. Here’s why.