Showing all newswire headlines

Like Cisco's AXP, HP will use Linux as the core underlying operating system on which application vendors will deliver their solutions. A Linux 2.6 kernel will sit on top of HP's new ProCurve ONE Services zl Module, which is a blade that plugs into the ProCurve Switch 5400zl and 8200zl series switches. An HP spokesperson explained to InternetNews.com that the Linux OS is being used as a service OS to provide application installations, diagnostics and the checking of application licensing credentials. The applications themselves bring their own OS, just as if they were an appliance.

In the midst of the current financial crunch, the popular, free Linux distribution Ubuntu has never looked more attractive. If you've considered switching, a free copy of the Ubuntu Pocket Guide is the perfect place to start.

MEPIS and Mandriva are moving closer to new releases of their Linux distributions, and a French project called Jolicloud has posted a screen (pictured) from its upcoming netbook distro. MEPIS posted SimplyMEPIS 8.0 RC2, and Mandriva released its second alpha for Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring.

Figuring out how your customers use your products — and by extension, how to improve user experience — can be a tricky process to navigate. Focus groups have their flaws, surveys suffer from selective memory, and peeping over shoulders could plant one in the penitentiary. The browser-makers at Mozilla, though, are hoping to put an Open Source spin on the process, expecting to release within the next few weeks a plugin to gather usage data from volunteers.

Linux had its chance there for a while in netbooks, but has now been duly "kicked to the curb" by Microsoft, never to surface again. This according to Robin Harris, apparently an expert in storage, who in an amusing, penguin-baiting rant published by ZDNet, ventures his opinion on desktop Linux.

In Part I Eric Geier showed us several options for remoting between Linux and Windows machines, and settled on VNC. Today we'll learn how to configure routers for connections over the Internet,and how to safely encrypt our remote graphical desktop sessions.

The European Commission could force Microsoft to bundle Firefox with future versions of Windows. The revelation came as part of Microsoft's quarterly filing with the Security and Exchange Commission. Among the statements is a clause outlining the penalties being considered by the European watchdog, which recently ruled that Microsoft is harming competition by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The most interesting situation outlined in the filing would see either Microsoft or computer manufacturers forced to install Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari by default alongside Internet Explorer on new Windows-based PCs.

Akaza Research announces the first annual OpenClinica European Summit. The event will be held on April 14, 2009 in Brussels, Belgium and bring together users, developers, and leading service providers of the OpenClinica open source electronic data capture (EDC) software. This event is for users, developers, and other interested parties to share information about the OpenClinica open source electronic data capture platform. Early bird registration deadline is January 30th.

The Java™ platform will be celebrating its 14th birthday soon and one side-effect when a successful and ubiquitous language reaches this kind of milestone is the widespread proliferation of libraries, tools, and ideas — this bonus can leave many newcomers to the Java language adrift in a sea of material. In this article, the author (a solid contributor to that overwhelming sea) tacks through the vast tides and presents a list of the key resources any up-and-coming Java developer should have.

Details are scarce, unless Russian is your language of choice, but one news outlet is reporting that Russia plans to develop its own national operating system. The move is designed to reduce the country's reliance on foreign software and licensing agreements. And the alleged "open-code" solution, likely a Linux/GNU derivative, will give Russia a greater degree of customization, as well as increased control over how the potentially free operating system is used and accessed.

The online user-generated encyclopaedia Wikipedia is considering a radical change to how it is run. It is proposing a review of the rules, that would see revisions being approved before they were added to the site. The proposal comes after edits of the pages of Senators Robert Byrd and Edward Kennedy gave the false impression both had died. The editing change has proved controversial and sparked a row among the site's editors.

Finally Microsoft - in the person of vice-president Jim Allchin, amongst others - speaks the truth. Not because they want to, but because they are forced to. The quotes in this article are taken from the exhibits 7168 and 7175 of the "Comes vs. Microsoft" case, which were published by Roy Schestowitz.

Linus Torvalds released 2.6.29-rc1 and closed the 2.6.29 merge window on January 10. A little over 2000 changesets were merged after the writing of last week's merge window summary; this article completes the summary for this development cycle.

So apparently Linus is using GNOME right now. He mentioned it in the middle of an interview with Computer World and then Slashdot (and I'm sure others) picked it up and ran with it. On Slashdot, the entire six page interview was boiled down to "Linus Switches From KDE To GNOME". Let me address the "Linus issue" first, because it's the simpler and less critical issue. Linus is precisely one user. For every Linus Torvalds (there's exactly one of them), we have 10s of millions of other KDE users and a few billion who don't use any F/OSS solution at all yet. I don't like losing any user, though, and such a happening can be deflating and make one second guess what they are doing (which isn't an entirely bad thing either, as long as it doesn't result in bad decision making or paralysis).

The global credit crisis may have caused the decline in consumer and business spending that is assaulting the giants of high tech. But as the dominant technology companies try to emerge from this slump, they may find themselves blaming people like David Title just as much as they blame Wall Street.

This guide shows how you can install Ubuntu 8.10 on a USB flash drive. Ubuntu 8.10 comes with a tool that lets you create a USB startup disk easily - this startup disk behaves like the Ubuntu 8.10 Live-CD. This is useful if you want to install Ubuntu on a computer that has no CD/DVD drive. When you create the USB startup disk, you can also specify that you want your USB system to be persistent between boots (i.e., it does not lose your settings, documents, etc.) - that way you get a fully usable OS that you can carry around in your pocket.

Bordeaux 1.6 is now running on current Solaris and OpenSolaris systems. I have been working with a couple friends over the past two weeks to get Bordeaux running on Solaris and OpenSolaris 2008.11. We now have everything compiling and running but like always more testing needs to be done before it's ready for final release.

Are you at a greater security risk because you use Linux? I'm not talking about openssl, PHP, or even the Linux kernel but all the above plus every other program or bit of code on a Linux system. It's vulnerable. It's hackable. It can be changed at will by anyone because the source is open and freely available (the definition of open source).

I am always interested when a company uses GNU/Linux to create really, really useful services. When that company is in your own town, and I get to spend time with the person who created it and made it successful, I get even more excited! Liam Bennett manages eConfirm Inc, an Australian company that offers SMS sending — and responding — services, based on GNU/Linux. Here’s what Liam has to say about his experience with GNU/Linux and free software in general.

The BBC has posted an insightful piece on open source software in schools that not only touches on the strengths of the software, but also the complexities of deploying it in these environments. It's not always about cost, upfront or long-term. And while the "new software learning curve" is always mentioned, it's not necessarily learning the software that throws the wrench in plans. It's often the sheer act of timing, planning, and learning enough to make the right choice for schools.