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I was gladdened yesterday when techbargains.com reported a sale on a new Lenovo ThinkPad R61 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop ($552, see below). It's not everyday that you run into a major PC vendor selling machines pre-loaded with Linux (excluding servers). Perhaps pre-installing Linux will become more popular, in part, due to a Vista backlash. Or, the popularity of Linux of ultra-cheap laptops (where Vista doesn't belong) such as the Asus EEE PC, will lay a foundation for its expansion. Once people see and touch and smell recent editions of Linux, they'll realize it is no more different from Windows XP than is the Mac OSX. And, as Lenovo says, Linux "Eliminates virus and spyware downtime".

Wikipedia, the upstart Internet encyclopedia that most universities forbid students to use, has suddenly become a teaching tool for professors. Recently, university teachers have swapped student term papers for assignments to write entries for the free online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an "open-source" web site, which means that entries can be started or edited by anyone in the world with an Internet connection.

You may never have heard of BitRock, the company that has traditionally competed with OpenLogic, SpikeSource, and SourceLabs in the "open-source stacks" business but has seen much more success with its excellent installers, which upwards of 60 percent of commercial open-source projects use including SugarCRM, JasperSoft, Ringside Networks, and more. The name may be unfamiliar to you, but not for long.

As you may remember from our series on common usability terms, I have a lot of interest in graphical user interface concepts. In addition, I applaud anyone trying to improve existing concepts, people that try to think beyond set conventions to come up with an improved version of that concept, or a new concept altogether. Thorsten Wilms took on the well-established concept of the scrollbar, and came up with a few interesting tweaks.

[Sort of FOSS related, but too cool not to share. - Scott]

LXer Feature: 11-May-2008

In this week's Roundup we have why Brazil loves Linux, a review of the top 5 tiny distros, an article on how the Eee PC is easy enough for kids and why the Eee PC is cheaper with XP on it for some reason. Also, 80 of the best Linux security applications, Should Linux standardize on a single distro, an interactive Linux kernel map and for some laughs we have the top ten reasons for a Linux laptop.

Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other.

This document describes how to enable and configure Compiz Fusion on a Mandriva One 2008.1 Spring GNOME desktop with an NVIDIA graphics card.

I have read a few blog entries lately questioning the value of open source. The most over-the-top comes from Andy Patrizio. In his posting, titled “Big Money and Open Source May Not Compute”, Andy sounds like a school yard bully angry that his turf is finally being challenged: "Oh yea?! Well, open source hasn’t produced a billionaire. Take that!!!"

With the release of Ubuntu Hardy Heron now behind us, most eyes are turned to October when Intrepid Ibex, or Ubuntu Linux 8.10, will make its debut. While Hardy Heron was designed to be stable enough to be a long-term support release, Intrepid Ibex promises to be packed with more exciting features, something that Ubuntu fans always enjoy.

Reading network data can be difficult. Tools and utilities such as wireshark, tcpdump and nmap exist that can aide in dealing with networks at multiple levels. What if, however, one needed to integrate packet reading or writing into their own code? The libpcap library exists for the very purpose of dealing with network data a higher level than the raw socket API. In part one of a three part series a look at writing a very simplistic packet reader utility which can easily be used as the basis for integrating the functionality of libpcap into an existing application.

I don't pretend to know enough about whether ZDNet's Jason Perlow is right about Linux missing the boat when it comes to massive scaling and how OpenSolaris has the upper hand in the world of big iron. I have a feeling that if there's a demand for a Linux kernel aimed at massively huge-scale computing, that will happen. Certainly the open-sourcing of Solaris will provide more competition for Linux, but there's room enough out there for everybody, I figure. And whether or not the "open" part of OpenSolaris will extend much beyond the i386 architecture is, in my mind, more of a question than a certainty.

As suspected by many people, Microsoft is offering a discounted version of Windows to UMPC makers. The question is, though, is this practice fair?

It's a bit surreal to watch ibm come off as the plucky, self-deprecating maverick. That was the specter May 1 as CEO Sam Palmisano took the stage in Los Angeles with Google chief Eric Schmidt, both their heads squarely in the cloud.

Ilene's iBook G4 is dying. So I've set her up with the $0 Laptop, which the kid already uses to play her educational games (GCompris and Childsplay). After using Linux for nearly a year and a half, and overcoming many dozen obstacles, bugs and the like, I was very unhappy to find one problem specific to Ubuntu and another that might be a hardware issue ... or a Linux-wide, soul-crushing situation (but most likely is a hardware issue plaguing this specific laptop).

For those of you interested in trying out new open-source software this weekend, Phoronix Test Suite 0.6.0 has been released with an arsenal of new features for this Linux benchmarking platform. There are new and updated profiles with this release, new test suites, support for backing up downloaded tests, and much more. Since Phoronix Test Suite 0.5.0 are 48 official changes in the past week, which reinforces our plans on having a 1.0 release ready by early June.

Since I’ve been writing this blog and collecting tutorials, I’ve tried to keep a focus on security and privacy. In light of your computer rights at boarder security, the House Passing the Pro-IP act, malicious script kiddies and crackers in this world, and if it’s a business machine, also worrying about your competition, there are a lot of people in this world that want to know what you’re doing on your computer and online, legally and illegally. I’m not going to go through any actual tutorial here as most of everything I wish to explain I’ve covered, but tutorials will be linked. I just think step by step we should approach security in Linux.

Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux is something of an odd-duck in Linux distribution circles. While Oracle, the database giant, produces it, under the Oracle paint job it’s all RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). In addition, while Oracle stands behind its distribution with support, Oracle doesn’t think of itself as being in the Linux distribution business. What does it all mean and why does Oracle have one foot in the Linux business? For the answers to these and other questions, Edward Screven, Oracle’s Chief Corporate Architect, recently spoke with Jim Zemlin, head of the Linux Foundation.

Apple may open up its iPhone and iPod touch devices to third-party apps next month, but the chances that Linux users will get invited to the party are slim at best. That hasn't stopped some intrepid hackers from coming up with a better music-syncing solution than the one Mac and Windows users have—a two-way wireless transfer, from almost any music organizing app you like, no wait for iTunes or USB cable required. Linux users, let's take a look at how to set up your iPhone or iPod touch for any-time wireless access after the jump.

Sometimes, no matter how much you try to protect your computer, you need to get down and dirty with the hardware. Sometimes it's the obvious. I never cease to be amazed at how many PC problems turn out to be loose cables or -- the shame of it all! -- an unplugged electrical cord. But, other times, it will be you vs. your PC's internal workings in a battle for system superiority.

Zaragoza, Spain-based Libelium announced an x86-based multi-protocol mesh router with a Debian GNU/Linux-based OS and a user-extensible browser-based open source management interface. The modular "Meshlium" router targets ultra-long-range Zigbee-based sensor networks, fleet tracking with least-cost GPRS/WiFi routing, and multiprotocol WiFi/Bluetooth hotspots.