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In my review of the ASUS Eee PC 901 with Xandros Linux pre-installed, I received a comment which disturbed me. The part of the comment which disturbed me was in response to my negative views on modeling the Simple Mode icewm with Microsoft Windows XP themes. The response to my comment on this theme for the window manager was: “And what is the problem with that taking into the account the target user they had in mind? They just want to keep it somewhat familiar and simple. Fair enough.”

The Linux Cookbook is your guide to getting the most out of Linux. Organized by general task (such as working with text, managing files, and manipulating graphics), each section contains a series of step-by-step recipes that help you to get your work done quickly and efficiently, most often from the command line. Perfect as an introduction to Linux, or as a desktop reference for the seasoned user. Covers the major Linux distributions.

Many times people ask me about what keyword type they should use to declare a generic function pointer in C, or worse still, they don’t ask and steam ahead using “void *”. Well, C does not have a generic function pointer type but it does have a generic function pointer. We’ll see why void * cannot be used to denote generic function pointers and so how we can declare them

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Debian Lenny 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.

The Obama Administration plans to spend over $20 billion of the stimulus bill on open and proprietary software to enable "electronic health records." Just because the money's there, though, doesn't meant that the standards for the technology are. This interview covers what's ready, what's not, and what needs to be done to close the gap.

We're at the native Linux desktop, moving towards the Android desktop (netbooks coming soon). What would bridge those two environments, is to offer a second Linux lightweight sandbox which runs along with Android. This would give native Linux application compatibility to Android, offering the best of both worlds.

A whole lot more comics for your weekend enjoyment

The media has made much of a Microsoft iPhone killer prototype handset being stolen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. iTWire ponders if it all might just be a publicity stunt for the failing Windows Mobile OS?

After years of being a Windows user (since 2.0) and an administrator I've learned to ignore the marketing hype surrounding new Windows versions. But I tried out the Windows 7 beta just so I can settle arguments about what it can or can't do.

A new release for Pagico v3.2.2 on Ubuntu, bringing back two important features to the program.

Being worked on as part of Mandriva's next Linux distribution update is a technology they are referring to as Speedboot. Speedboot will be officially introduced with Mandriva Linux 2009.1, and compared to the normal boot process, it begins initializing some processes early on while it postpones other tasks until after the graphical display manager has shown. In essence, the user is logging into their Linux desktop even before the system is fully booted. We have some timed results of Mandriva's Speedboot along with videos showing the differences.

Dell desperately wants a bigger share of the netbook market, but it also wants to be able to call them netbooks and is taking the trademark fight to Psion.

Things you can do with Linux and not with windows Some people install windows on their netbook (or buy one with windows). I think this is not very smart because the only things you could ever really need windows for (games and photoshop) are not likely to run very well on these things. Following a list of some of the things you can do with Linux and not on windows (or very difficult)

Bring us your tired, your poor, huddled masses of people who ignore the obvious.

For those of us who have traveled outside of the world of Microsoft Windows and into UNIX-like operating systems, we should already be somewhat familiar with the X Window System. Some of us even understand its full potential and use it in ways that most have never dreamed of.

VL-Hot, developed for Vector Linux provides an alternative that doesn't require continuous hardware polling. Instead VL-Hot uses udev triggers to pop up the required icons. The Vector Linux developers have VL-Hot working with lightweight window managers like JWM and IceWM provided that the PCMan File Manager is installed. I'm quite surprised that other distributions which aim to be lightweight haven't incorporated VL-Hot.

I know for a fact that either Novell or Red Hat, or perhaps both, will be announcing next week that they'll be shifting their server virtualization offerings from Xen to XenServer. What I don't know is what, if anything, either one of them may be doing beyond that to further their virtualization partnerships with Microsoft. One or the other, however, is going to make a major move. This has been building for some time. Novell, of course, has long had a partnership with Microsoft

I recently joked that we might want to rename OSNews to CourtNews, and with each passing day that silly joke seems to become less silly. This week, it became clear that Psion Teklogix, the company behind various small computing devices back in the '90s, has started an all-out legal offensive to prohibit other companies from using the term "netbook".

The OpenSUSE project, a group that develops a Linux distribution that then feeds into Novell's SUSE Linux, has been hit recently by the layoffs at Novell. Some Novell developers, who were also contributors to the OpenSUSE project, were laid off by the company. This has caused some other contriburors to apparently ask the OpenSUSE board about the future of the project.

Being worked on as part of Mandriva's next Linux distribution update is a technology they are referring to as Speedboot. Speedboot will be officially introduced with Mandriva Linux 2009.1, and compared to the normal boot process, it begins initializing some processes early on while it postpones other tasks until after the graphical display manager has shown. In essence, the user is logging into their Linux desktop even before the system is fully booted. We have some timed results of Mandriva's Speedboot along with videos showing the differences.