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Feel like your /etc/passwd file isn't giving 100%? This script may be for you ;)

Canonical this afternoon debuted its Ubuntu 9.04 release of Linux, the tenth release since the company founded the Ubuntu project in October 2004. This iteration of Ubuntu, code-named "Jaunty Jackalope," comes with mixes designed specifically for three platforms: netbooks, desktops, and servers.

Martin Kool, a developer from Web applications specialist Q42, has released his open source multi-player game engine. Sarien.net is a "portal for reliving the classic Sierra On-Line adventure games" and is completely browser based. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome are all supported.

During out last meeting there was a question about what we will be doing with people that carry their kids along with them to the location. That's where you come into scene. Would you be kind enough to provide us at FLISoL Bogotá with say, 15 or 20 of those installation CDs/DVDs? We won't be using them to install Windows on the computers, don't have to worry about it. I will personally hand them out to the kids so that they use them to play around (as frisbies or just to scratch on their surface) while we are on our stuff. I know that your OS is a toy OS and so we should install them on the kids computers, but I refuse to.

When Oracle Corp. agreed to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. today, it took a leap into the hardware realm. And so the obvious question is: Can the software-centric database and applications vendor succeed with Sun's hardware business? "I'll hand it to Larry Ellison: That man can shop," said Laura DiDio, an analyst at Information Technology Intelligence Corp., a research and consulting firm in Boston. "This deal is very, very complementary for Oracle. It gives them instant credibility with hardware, virtualization, open source, storage and cloud computing."

Qt Software and the KDE e.V. are happy to report that they are sponsoring a developer sprint for all North American students accepted into Google Summer of Code 2009 to work on KDE. The event will be completely free for all accepted students, with round-trip flights, lodging, and some meals fully reimbursed; all students that applied for GSoC 2009 are welcome to attend, although those not accepted into the program will not be reimbursed for travel and lodging expenses.

There are many things which could be said to be a part of the Unix philosophy. One of those, certainly, is that the operating system should stay out of the user's way to the greatest extent possible, even if said user is intent on doing something harmful. There is a classic quote attributed to Eric Allman:

"Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure."

What happens when a conservative Republican gets sued for using two of Don Henley's hit songs without permission? He gets a quick taste of the DMCA when his videos are removed from YouTube, but fires right back in an interesting test of copyright in the Internet age.

If you want to keep the spambots out of Gmail then you might want to try a bit of upside down thinking.

Oracle Corp. may end up merging the best features of OpenSolaris with Linux once it takes control of Sun Microsystems Inc., but it is unlikely to kill off Sun's widely used Solaris operating system, analysts said today. During a conference call today after the $7.4 billion acquisition deal was announced, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said one of the primary reasons Oracle is interested in Sun is Solaris, a version of Unix that has a large installed base and has long been the leading platform for Oracle's flagship database.

During a phone briefing with media that continues right now, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth said Ubuntu Server Edition 9.04 has been tested to run on 45 different server configurations from IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and smaller providers. Shuttleworth also hinted that Canonical’s server relationship with HP is growing stronger. Here are the details.

In its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle sees a technology company that is a software gem, skillful in computer design and ripe for cost-cutting. The big database software company’s agreement Monday to buy Sun for $7.4 billion, analysts say, also promises to make Oracle a more formidable competitor in the lucrative market for corporate computing, especially against I.B.M., Sun’s previous suitor. The Oracle-Sun deal came little more than two weeks after I.B.M. ended its talks with Sun. The Sun board balked after I.B.M. lowered its offer to $9.40 a share from $10. The Oracle bid, at $9.50 a share, will have a net cost to Oracle of $5.6 billion, after accounting for the value of Sun’s cash and debt.

Have a spare PC gathering dust? Turn it into a multi-purpose server using the Linux-based ZeroShell. Firewall, authentication server, wireless portal, proxy, virtual LAN, DNS/DHCP, load balancing, and a lot more in a compact Linux distribution. Eric Geier shows us how.

The OpenEMR project has released version 3.0 on SourceForge. The new release has integrated practice management, improved multi-language support, and E-Prescribing. We have packaged a very easy to install Windows version using Xampp version 1.7.0. Thanks! “Friends of Apache.” What we have in the works is a Debian package, an RPM package and integration of the HHS required interoperability module, laboratory communication module, and with some infrastructure improvements are hoping to be compatible with CCHIT certification by the end of this summer. Sam Bowen, MD

When I saw the title, I assumed that this was a somewhat advanced book and not for the reader who was learning JavaScript for the first time. I work for a company that develops web applications, and they make extensive use of JavaScript. Each of the developers is well versed in JavaScript and other web programming languages, and I thought this was a JavaScript book for the experienced programmer. With that assumption in place, I was surprised to see a comment on the back of the book state "One of the best introductions to JavaScript" (from a pre-publication review by Raymond Wisman, Indiana University Southeast). An "introduction" to JavaScript? Even a casual scanning of the back cover reveals that the book is supposed present a vast cornucopia of JavaScript related topics. Deitel and Deitel have written quite a number of programming books, so I was interested to see if this indeed was a book where one could learn JavaScript from scratch.

Oracle Corp. may have decided to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. because it is worth far more to the database market leader than it was to IBM. It's not a question of the price — at $7.4 billion, Oracle didn't agree to pay much more than what IBM was reportedly considering. But Oracle may have more use for Sun's technology than IBM ever did. In explaining his decision to make the acquisition today, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison boiled down Sun into a company of two key assets: Java and the Solaris operating system.

"What is interesting to me about this move is that it really cements the idea that free software and open source are the profound driving forces behind software today," Shuttleworth said

Ubuntu 9.04 — the latest Linux distribution release from Canonical — arrives this week with great fanfare. Server, desktop, notebook and netbook makers are jumping on the Ubuntu 9.04 bandwagon. But where are the channel partners — resellers, VARs and solutions providers? Right now, Canonical doesn’t have many answers.

LXer Feature: 20-Apr-2009

It has been a busy week on our newswire. There was much good news for open source graphics, not quite so good news on the Linux security front, debatable news from Redmond, a flood of news about Ubuntu and much speculation dressed as news about Sun and IBM. And in between all that we had some regular news, tutorials and musings as well.

Here is an overview of the main things from last week.

The OLPC project developers have announced an upgraded version of their XO-1 laptop, the XO-1.5. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a non-profit organisation who's mission is to provide children across the world with low cost laptops for the purposes of self-education.