LXer Weekly Roundup for 23-Nov-2008

LXer Feature: 23-Nov-2008 Hello everyone, in this week's LXer Weekly Roundup we have the 2008 Linux Graphics Survey, 21 of the Best Free Linux Emulators, Adobe releases their 64-bit driver for Linux, first. Also, a Q-and-A with Richard Stallman, the greatest geek of all time, the Linux tinority and final judgment SCO in Utah.

Hello everyone, in this week's LXer Weekly Roundup we have the 2008 Linux Graphics Survey, 21 of the Best Free Linux Emulators, Adobe releases their 64-bit driver for Linux, first. Also, a Q-and-A with Richard Stallman, the greatest geek of all time, the Linux tinority and final judgment SCO in Utah.

Android: No iPhone Killer: Recently, I stopped by a local T-Mobile Latest News about T-Mobile store, the home of the new G1 phone. This is the so-called Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google phone, the mobile device with Google's Android operating system. Many in the press have anointed the Google phone as a potential "iPhone killer." That is, a device capable of knocking the iPhone off its pedestal as the most desirable and most well-reviewed smartphone on the market.

2008 Linux Graphics Survey Launches: Last year we hosted a 2007 Linux Graphics Survey and received more than 20,000 submissions of users sharing their video card preferences, driver information, and details about different aspects of X.Org. This year we're hosting the survey again to allow the development community to get a better understanding of the video hardware in use, what open-source and closed-source drivers are being used, and other relevant information.

Boycott Novell Protestors Manhandled at National Free Software Conference: This is a really sad day. Not only the organizers of National Conference On Free Software 2008 taking place at CUSAT seem to be utterly misguided when they decided to let Novell be on-board as their main sponsor, they even took the extreme step of bringing in police to silence the lone voices of the Boycott Novell protestors.

21 of the Best Free Linux Home Computer Emulators: This article focuses on software which emulates home computers, a class of personal computer which reached the market in the late 1970s, and became immensely popular in the following decade, selling many millions of units. Leading home computer companies included Commodore, Sinclair, Atari, Apple, Acorn, Tandy Radio Shack, and Amstrad. Many of the earlier machines (in particular the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64) often ended up being very game oriented. However, the later home computers had more sophisticated hardware which widened their use in other areas.

Dell Continues Newspaper Ads for Ubuntu Linux Laptop: In newspaper ads across the United States, Dell is promoting a low-cost notebook computer called the Inspiron Mini 9 running Ubuntu Linux. It's Microsoft's worst holiday nightmare. Here's why.

Adobe to release 64-bit Flash for Linux: In response to growing demand from open source users, Adobe will today release a 64-bit version of its Flash 10 player for Linux. The 64-bit version will be an alpha release and will be followed by versions for other platforms at a later date.

Who's the Greatest Geek of All Time?: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who are the greatest geeks of us all? That question -- posed in an Australian iTnews article,The Top 10 Greatest Geeks of All Time on Monday -- sparked quite a discussion in the blogosphere last week, garnering more than 1,300 Diggs and 280 comments by Friday.

The extremely vocal desktop Linux tinority: Neither Ubuntu nor any other brand of Linux is ever going to make it as a mainstream desktop operating system. Listen to a roar of protests from some of the millions of Linux desktop users around the world. Very loud they are but in the scheme of things their numbers are tiny - they are a tinority.

No longer a KDE fan: KDE used to be a very nice desktop environment for Linux, I remember using it over the years in CentOS, Fedora Core, Kubuntu, Mandriva, and PCLinuxOS. I used KDE 3.5.x in Kubuntu and thought it was the best desktop environment available for the Linux operating system. But what would a new Linux user feel about Linux if KDE 4 were the first environment they attempted to run?

Pigs Taking Flight? Office Web For Mac and Linux?: When Microsoft announced it was planning to offer lightweight, web-based versions of some of its Office components, there was some speculation that maybe it could be used with alternate browsers. It seemed Firefox would be a likely candidate beyond IE, and some ventured to wonder about Safari.

QandA: Richard Stallman: In an exclusive interview, Stallman discusses his views on free versus proprietary and open source software, social networking sites and privacy issues.

The Super Windows That...Couldn't: One of the more bizarre accusations flung by Microsoft at GNU/Linux over the years is that it doesn't scale. This is part of a larger campaign to portray it as a kind of “toy” operating system – fine for low-end stuff, but nothing you'd want to run your enterprise on. Sadly, that narrative has been rather undermined by the independent Top500 supercomputing sites ranking. Five years ago, the GNU/Linux family ran 36.80% of the top 500 supercomputers; worse, Windows ran on precisely one supercomputer.

Exciting Features For Ubuntu 9.04: If all goes according to plan, the first alpha release for Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) will be released tomorrow. It's not even been one month since the release of Ubuntu 8.10, but this first alpha release will show early signs of what we can expect to see in this next Canonical-sponsored release -- albeit many of the features are still in planning. In this article we will provide a glimpse at what Ubuntu 9.04 should hold in store to captivate Linux desktop users.

YouTube is Big Fun And Useful: Of all of the so-called "innovations" of high tech, I think YouTube deserves to be in the Top 10. Some folks, like the MAFIAA, see it only as a den of thieves, stealing the bread from their children's mouths. But to me it's a fantastic showcase for anyone with minimal tools-- a computer, a camera, a bit of editing software-- to create and share. Naturally the MAFIAA and their ilk can't stand the idea of not profiting from other people's work, but I think it's great stuff.

Tutorial: Why Firefox Rocks: Great Firefox Tricks, Part IV: Firefox is cram-full of hidden treasures, as we have learned in this series. Today Akkana Peck exposes Firefox's expertise at handling those ridiculously long URLs that plague the Web-- email clients mangle them, copy and paste is a nightmare-- but Firefox has some special tricks that make them easy.

Final Judgment from Utah: Novell Wins, SCO Loses: Dismissed, dismissed, dismissed. $2,547,817 in converted monies, over $918,122 in interest on it, and $625,486.90 for the constructive trust against The SCO Group. That's well over $4,000,000 that SCO will no longer have for bogus litigation. If they are indeed ordered by the court to pay, it will reduce their equity by roughly half. My money is on Darl McBride never being allowed to try this stunt again.