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Unlike virt-manager, virt-install is a command line tool that allows you to create KVM guests on a headless server. You may ask yourself: "But I can use vmbuilder to do this, why do I need virt-install?" The difference between virt-install and vmbuilder is that vmbuilder is for creating Ubuntu-based guests, whereas virt-install lets you install all kinds of operating systems (e.g. Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD) and distributions in a guest, just like virt-manager. This article shows how you can use it on an Ubuntu 8.10 KVM server.

Free software is great. Almost everyone using a computer will agree. If it's Firefox, AVG, GIMP, Cinelerra, or GNU/Linux as the entire operating system itself. People agree it's great. With these four programs being among the best, and most used. How much would you pay for these programs if they weren't free? Here is our personal answer to that question.

At first glance, the Openbravo World Conference is a small open source event with modest goals. But take a closer look, and you’ll see the open source IT channel’s continued emergence. In fact, even IBM and Oracle are joining Openbravo’s party. Here’s the scoop, from The VAR Guy.

The headline act, if you will, was announced this morning for the third annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, and it promises to be an interesting show: the Foundation's Jim Zemlin, Microsoft's Sam Ramji, and Sun's Ian Murdock, each giving their respective futures on the future of the operating system they represent - and, I expect, the others' as well.

Originally from Cape Town, Stevan Lockhart now lives in the north west of Scotland in a house that is off the electricity grid. Using a wind generator, some solar panels and free and open source software he and his wife both run their businesses off just 20W of power. Here Stevan explains the software and hardware decisions that made this lifestyle possible.

Version 9.3 of the proprietary Linux graphics drivers from AMD, known as Catalyst or "fglrx", will be the last to support the R300, R400 and R500 series GPUs, used for example on Radeon models 9500 to X1950. In distinction to the Windows drivers, which are also losing support for older graphic chips, AMD plans no further maintenance for a legacy series of the Linux drivers. So AMD staff are advising Linux users who have such Radeon GPUs to change over to the open source drivers "radeon" or "radeonhd".

I recently downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 alpha 5, “Jaunty Jackalope,” to see for myself what’s in the works for the next release of Ubuntu, set to come out in stable form on April 23. Here are some observations, with screenshots, from my post on WorksWithU, the independent guide to Ubuntu.

If you work with open source software, you have less to worry about in the current economic downturn, according to John Todd of Digium — the company behind the Asterisk telephony platform. Todd presented his ideas at SCALE in Los Angeles, arguing that many of the same factors that put jobs and revenue at risk in the proprietary software industry actually benefit open source projects and, by extension, provide job security for developers, implementers, and consultants who work with open source.

Tom Wickline pointed out that it has been 8 months since I had put out a road map. So I thought I'd take some time to review what we've accomplished in these past 8 months, and what we hope to accomplish through the rest of the year.

CUPS, the printer server project, was purchased by Apple but continues to be the main printer software in Linux and Unix systems. 5 of the 6 main Samba developers were employed by HP at one time, but only after HP agreed to leave the Samba copyrights in the developers’ names rather than HP's. Google, HP, IBM, and Red Hat no doubt have a strong participation in many Open Source projects, and more companies join that list every day. Because the motivations of the Linux distribution companies often differ from those of the folks producing the software, they walk a tightrope between maximizing their own profit by being more closed and alienating the communities that produce the software they sell. The falls from that rope have been colorful.

Acer recently announced it was getting into the smartphone business. It seems it is all Windows Mobile devices and that decision has drawn criticism from those that support Linux desktops. According to TechRadar, "Aymar de Lencquesaing, senior corporate VP of Acer, was asked why the new phones all used Windows, to which he replied that they gave the easiest option for synchronisation with its notebook and netbook install base." Other than a Linux option on a particular model of the Acer Aspire One netbook, Acer really focuses on Windows-based PCs for the desktop, so it makes sense that it would want to deliver phones to its customers that would easily connect to their PC.

I've been playing with one of many new systems that are hitting the market which allow the user to quickly boot the machine and go directly to a small version of Linux rather than wait to load Windows. If people are using Linux like this routinely, how long will it be before they can be convinced that Linux is just as good as Windows? And it's free.

Just as there are “classic” cars that never seem to go out of style, there are some classic pieces of software that remain useful long after most of their contemporaries. One of those programs is Xfig, a vector graphics editor hailing from the days of academic Unix workstations. Like the more famous TeX, Xfig hasn’t seen significant updates in several years—and for the same reason: it’s just about perfect like it is. It is showing its age in the style of its graphical interface, and it does have some fundamental limitations compared to more modern graphics tools, but for the simple technical diagrams it was intended for, it is still hard to beat.

LXer Feature: 10-Mar-2009

With the introduction of the EeePC and the Aspire One I was in love.. Originally I just had to have the Asus, but with the great deal Walmart was offering on Black Friday (yeah, I know but I bought the Acer at Wallyworld) I decided to buy an Aspire One as well. Let me tell you about 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' of these two machines.

We took a look this week at the first official alpha release of the Maemo 5 SDK, which introduced the platform's new user interface framework and other components. Maemo 5, which is codenamed Fremantle, will be used on the next generation Nokia Internet Tablet. Fremantle will offer richer graphics capabilities than previous versions of the platform and will support OpenGL ES. This is opening the door for a lot of creativity and has made it possible to port a whole new class of applications that previously did not fit within the scope of the platform's capabilities. Developers have already started to experiment with the SDK and some of the results are quite impressive.

The KOffice developers have released their seventh beta for KOffice 2.0. This release may be the last of the many betas. A decision on whether there will be another beta or if the next version will be the first Release Candidates will be made next week. The list of changes is longer than ever. For this release we have concentrated on crashes, data loss bugs and ODF saving and loading. Take a look at the full announcement to find out more, or look at the changelog for the details.

Google's decision to launch an open-source mobile platform may be key to Android phone sales overtaking the iPhone's by 2012, according to estimates by Informa. Researcher Gavin Byrne predicts that phones like the T-Mobile G1 will eventually outrun Apple as a new focus on software over hardware will reportedly favor Android's open development system versus closed systems like Apple's. Other open-source platforms like LiMo and the eventual Symbian update should also benefit, Byrne says.

Every week I read a new blog post giving 10 – 25 or even 100 reasons you should switch to Linux right now. I say bah humbug to them. If you need someone to give you 100 reasons to switch your current OS of choice, you are better of sticking with it. As someone who is literally forced to use windows for work-related task, use a Mac just because I have money to blow and runs an obscure Linux distro to prove my point about my anti conformist views; I know a thing or two about why you shouldn’t switch to Linux.

Every so often I take a stab at Linux, to see exactly what I like and do not like about the OS. Many of its problems, for me, stem from its inability to run on my overloaded hardware, or the occasional driver that makes the OS impossible to use without hand-tweaking something or other. That said, I seriously like the Ubuntu 8.10 implementation and will now install it permanently on my latest machines. It's a winner.

The Linux Foundation’s user-generated “We’re Linux” video contest enters its final week today. Final submissions for the contest that began in January are due this Sunday, March 15 at midnight ET. Contest winner(s) will be revealed at the Linux Foundation’s Collaboration Summit on April 8, 2009, in San Francisco. More than 35 videos have been submitted so far for the contest that seeks to find the best user-generated videos that demonstrate what Linux means to those who use it and inspire others to try it. The winner of the contest will receive a free trip to Tokyo, Japan to participate in the Linux Foundation Japan Linux Symposium in October 2009.