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Nagios is a free, open-source tool that can be used to monitor network components and services. When it detects a problem, it can send alert messages by either e-mail or pager. It can also be configured so that only designated personnel can view status information for particular services or equipment. This tutorial will show you how to install Nagios 3 on an Ubuntu 8.10 server.

Open source conferencing startup Dimdim is set to formally exit its beta period on December 3rd. The new release will include a bunch of cool features including synchronized web browsing. This will let you navigate the web from within Dimdim, with your attendees following along as you click and scroll

Today I read an article on Slashdot about a software maker concerned that open source software was causing a “race to zero” (as in the price of software). His problem was that his company produced a piece of software worth $5K one year and, because open source developers were creating the same tools and giving it away, the next year the software was worth $0. This occurrence is becoming more and more common as open source software grows. But what does it mean?

NFS-GANESHA is an NFS version 2-4 server that runs in the user address space instead of as part of the operating system kernel. Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) lets you run a filesystem in the user address space instead of as part of the Linux kernel, but the FUSE support in the Linux kernel from many Linux distributions does not allow you to export FUSE through NFS. NFS-GANESHA lets you expose FUSE through NFS without patching your kernel.

Samba is an open source, free software suite that provides seamless file and print services between Windows® clients and UNIX®-like platforms. It can be run on a UNIX-like platform like AIX®, BSD® UNIX, Linux®, IBM® 390 and OpenVMS. Samba uses the TCP/IP protocol that is installed in the host server. When configured, this server software allows the host machine to share files and printers and make them accessible from Windows clients.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, loves Linux. He's fallen for it in a big way. Steve Ballmer called Linux a "Cancer" in the past, ranted about patent infringement, accused Linux programmers of ripping-off intellectual property, and penned a deal between rival Novell to sell Linux. Wait, that last one doesn't fit with the others.

On successive days, Harald Welte and David Woodhouse gave different views of the relationship between embedded companies and the free software communities whose code the companies are increasingly using. Their outlooks were not contradictory, but instead complementary; each came at the topic from a different direction. Welte looked mostly at what companies, particularly chip vendors could do better, while Woodhouse looked at what things the community could do to improve.

Apple's attempt to quash an effort to help the latest iPods and iPhones work with non-Apple software such as the Linux operating system is out of line, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Tuesday. Earlier this month, a lawyer from Apple's legal counsel, O'Melveny & Myers, managed to get an open-source project called the iPodhash pulled from Bluwiki, a free Web site used to create Wiki pages, saying the project is illegal under the terms of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Adobe's long-awaited release of a 64-bit version of Flash for Linux won the company praise and even a little advocacy in the Linux blogosphere last week. Writers touted the speed and robustness of the new Flash and told people to stop pirating Photoshop -- and use GIMP instead.

Glancing at the features list for Fedora 10, at first you might be unimpressed. Many of the features are basically infrastructure improvements, fixing known problems and enhancing performance while laying the groundwork for future developments. However, infrastructure affects almost everything you do with your computer, and the more you use Fedora 10, the more you are likely to conclude that -- one or two minor problems aside -- this may be the strongest Fedora release yet, as well as the first glimpse of its future. Fedora 10 comes in three formats: A single DVD, or a complete set of six CDs with the GNOME desktop, or a single live CD featuring either GNOME or KDE. You can download all these formats using BitTorrent, Jigdo, or a direct download. For efficiency, I used the live GNOME CD, reasoning that I would immediately want to upgrade online anyway.

Zurich, Switzerland-based Neuronics has released an open-source embedded Linux version of its "Katana" robot." The Katana Robotic Arm runs Linux with Xenomai hard real time extensions on a Freescale MPC5200-based control board, and is aimed at industry, production, and research applications, says the company.

Google's Android platform appears to be a much hotter seller than first anticipated by HTC, maker of the T-Mobile G1 phone. The Taiwanese handset manufacturer is almost doubling its G1 shipment expectations for the year. HTC believes it can ship about one million G1 phones by the end of 2008, upped from figures of around 600,000 units made earlier this year. The upped figure comes from HTC's CEO Peter Chou in a report by Digitimes.

Novell wants to eliminate Red Hat competition with full battle guns, again, helping to give a very significant strategic gain to Microsoft. They also want to weaken the strategic advantages Sun gains from Java and OO.org, thereby making Microsoft’s path to holding and growing the lock-in that much more secure.

Hi All, Here's my 11th tip in the "OpenLDAP Quick Tips" series: "You want to make sure you have the correct indices configured for the best performance":..

The Australian subsidiary of the non-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation today said it would commence a local "Give 1, Get 1" program on November 30 that would deliver the machines to both geeks and disadvantaged children. The initiative will provide a XO laptop to a child in remote Australia or the Pacific Islands for each laptop purchased. The cost of a laptop is US$399 (plus shipping and GST). The devices can be ordered online.

The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of "Caterpillar", (a.k.a KDE 4.2 Beta 1), the first testing release of the new KDE 4.2 desktop. Caterpillar is aimed at testers and reviewers. It should provide a solid ground to report bugs that need to be tackled before KDE 4.2.0 is released. Reviewers can use this beta to get a first glance at the upcoming KDE 4.2 desktop which provides significant improvements all over the desktop and applications. With 885 bugs closed in the past week, the KDE community is now in bugfixing mode in order to provide a smooth KDE 4.2.0 to end users in January.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install VMware Server 2 on an Ubuntu 8.10 desktop system. With VMware Server you can create and run guest operating systems (virtual machines) such as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc. under a host operating system. This has the benefit that you can run multiple operating systems on the same hardware which saves a lot of money, and you can move virtual machines from one VMware Server to the next one (or to a system that has the VMware Player which is also free).

Why would you ever need to do this? Why, indeed... ;) The first question you might be asking yourself is "Why in the world would I ever want, or even need, to do this?" Since I'm a somewhat-honest guy who writes from the hip, I'll tell you that, depending upon where you work and what kind of setup you have there, you may never ever need to do this. If (worst case) you can get a console connection to your server (which you'll need for this method, anyway) and have onsite staff that can pop a cd in a working drive, you probably wouldn't even want to do this. So, the simple answer is: Why not?

The Ubuntu developers have announced the availability of Ubuntu 9.04 alpha 1, the first prerelease for this version. Ubuntu 9.04 is codenamed Jaunty Jackalope and is scheduled for official release in April. The initial plans for Jaunty were published in September, prior to the release of Ubuntu 8.10. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth aims to boost the software experience and make the popular Linux distribution more competitive with Windows and Mac OS X on the desktop. Canonical intends to push the platform into the mainstream by putting its resources into upstream usability improvements.

Xavier is the latest K-12 school to deploy hundreds of Ubuntu Linux desktops. Here are some quick details about the deployment, from WorksWithU, the independent guide to Ubuntu.