Showing all newswire headlines

My trusty Oxford Dictionary defines a kernel as "a softer, usually edible part of a nut" but offers as a second meaning: "The central or most important part of something." (Incidentally, it's this first definition that gives rise to the contrasting name 'shell', meaning, in Linux-speak, a command interpreter.) In case you're a bit hazy on what a kernel actually does, we'll start with a bit of theory. The kernel is a piece of software that, roughly speaking, provides a layer between the hardware and the application programs running on a computer. In a strict, computer-science sense, the term 'Linux' refers only to the kernel - the bit that Linus Torvalds wrote in the early 90s.

It's that time of the year again - the Debian GNU/Linux project is in election mode with the process for electing a leader for 2009-10 having begun. The campaigning period goes on till March 28 and the online voting process will be conducted between March 29 and April 11. The new leader will begin his term on April 17. This year there are just two people contesting, the lowest since elections began in 1999. One is the current DPL, Steve McIntyre. The other is Stefano Zacchiroli, developer since 2001. Only two developers, Wichert Akkerman and Martin Michlmayr, have been re-elected to the post.

Time for our weekly distro release roundup. We have another slew of Ubuntu-based alpha releases and numerous other new distro releases.

The new SheevaPlug device at $100 offers a 1.2 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 512 MB flash, Gb Ethernet, 1x USB, 1x SD and a mini-USB serial connector. It's the true hackers device. Photos within!

Laugh until you, ultimately, cry ;)

There's been a certain amount of discussion about behavioural differences between ext3 and ext4[1], most notably due to ext4's increased window of opportunity for files to end up empty due to both a longer commit window and delayed allocation of blocks in order to obtain a more pleasing on-disk layout. The applications that failed hardest were doing open("foo", O_TRUNC), write(), close() and then being surprised when they got zero length files back after a crash.

Recently, I blogged that every good IT technician really needs Linux in their toolkit – even if you're strictly a Windows shop. Here are more good reasons why a bootable Linux CD can really save your bacon including indispensable tools you must have.

This guide explains how you can set up an AoE target and an AoE initiator (client), both running Debian Lenny. AoE stands for "ATA over Ethernet" and is a storage area network (SAN) protocol which allows AoE initiators to use storage devices on the (remote) AoE target using normal ethernet cabling. "Remote" in this case means "inside the same LAN" because AoE is not routable outside a LAN (this is a major difference compared to iSCSI). To the AoE initiator, the remote storage looks like a normal, locally-attached hard drive.

There are many, many Linux distributions, and a lot of unique reasons to like them. Read on to see which open-source operating systems inspired our readers to provide our biggest Hive Five response to date. In the call for contenders, we asked not only which Linux distribution was your favorite, but a note on why, with the hope that readers new to Linux would learn a thing or two. You responded in force. This was the most popular Hive Five to date, with over 800 votes and many helpful comments.

During the 1970s, the Palo Alto Research Center was the hotspot for computer technology, with various important technological advances in computing coming from these Xerox labs. One of those advances was a humble cable and associated protocols: ethernet was born. El Reg interviewed one of the inventors and the driving force behind ethernet, Bob Metcalfe.

The netward program, a simple hey why are you connecting to that program has entered beta stage. The program uses libpcap to detect when a port should not be accessed and logs. Currently plans for the program are to add one more tweak to cut down on noise for admins and possibly add an event handler script.

15th birthday Linux. For a teenager, you're pretty well traveled. In fact, you've gone to some pretty weird-arse places. Places I probably wouldn't go myself, and not just for sanitary reasons.

Thanks to a message to the grassroots mailing-list by Yama I discovered hat OLPC is looking for people for the following job opportunities which are also an indication of where OLPC might be heading in the forseeable future..

It's nearly 15 years since the first version of the Linux kernel, and our friends over at TuxRadar have posted the original comp.os.linux.announce announcement. On 14 Mar 1994 at 12:51:16 GMT, Linus Torvalds posted the message to announce Linux 1.0. It was late, though Torvalds shrugged this off. "Almost on time (being just two years late is peanuts in the OS industry), and better than ever."

I used to be one of PCLinuxOS' fans and I especially enjoyed the GNOME flavor so hearing that the team was ready to finally launch a new version sparkled a lot of interest in me. And what better way to express that interest than sharing my first impressions on this popular distribution? Being a GNOME person I went straight to the PCLOS GNOME page and got the 2009.1 ISO from there. 694 MegaBytes later and I was ready to dive into this new experience.

The Jaiku developers have announced that Jaiku is now being served from the Google App Engine, which is the first step at making it "a federated, open source microblogging platform." The customisable platform is a part of Google and is maintained by volunteer Google engineers in their spare time.

With "Linux's dirty little secret: Uninstall" professional journalism has reached another, unprecedented low. I'm a customer and I expect nothing less than high quality articles of knowledgeable professionals. For this, I've always liked German magazines, which I consider to be the best in the world. That is in sharp contrast with David Ramel, who considers himself to be the new Hunter S. Thompson. Mr. Ramel, let me remind you that there is something like ethics.

Someone on the Ubuntu forums started an interesting thread today asking, “Can you manage to use only free software on your pc?“ It got me thinking about my dependency on proprietary software, and whether I’d ever really be able to get it out of my life entirely. I use three computers (in the narrow sense of the word, which excludes my cell phone) on a semi-daily basis: a desktop at home, an old Dell laptop that I use for taking notes in the library and a workstation in my employer’s office. All of these machines run Ubuntu, but there are bits and pieces of closed-source code tacked on. Here’s a breakdown of the proprietary components.

In response to a painful article I read, I’d like to touch the topic of a handy and easy way to install programs under Linux. First and the highest accusation to the current status quo is the impossibility to install the binary package on any Linux distribution, enabling, for example, the possibility to send a file to a friend, for a similar deployment, and the possibility to do a clean uninstallation of all dependencies. The other accusation states that “Linux has become a developers’ system, and not a system for the people.

When I first came across Gumstix, my jaw dropped. Gumstix are fully functional computer motherboards, the size of a gumstick or smaller, that run Linux. The latest in the Gumstix line, the Overo Earth, pushes the boundaries of ultra small computers -- and kicks some serious butt doing it.