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I've had this problem on one machine ever since I installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. It's a triple boot, with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on one of the other partitions, and I never had this problem with the older LTS installation. Basically, the Ubuntu login screen in 8.04 is too large to fit in the dimensions of the monitor. Once I'm logged in, my resolution is 1024x768, which is exactly how I want it. But the login screen is so huge, I don't get the Options menu on the bottom, which comes in handy if I want to log in with another window manager.

The open-source Linux operating system is seeing major growth in the mobile and embedded space, especially in the smartphone market. Handset makers and mobile carriers are adopting open-source software because it significantly reduces licensing and development costs and also provides higher flexibility. That is why analyst firm ABI Research is predicting that Linux-based mobile devices will account for nearly a quarter of the smartphone market within the next five years.

Acer has stated that it will be pushing Linux aggressively on its laptops and netbooks. The company is already heavily promoting Linux for its low cost ultra-portable netbook range out later this year, but senior staff have said that Acer will also push Linux on its laptops.

images2mpg, a simple utility that's part of the KDE Image Plugin Interface (KIPI), lets you create an MPEG file from image files. Relying on a handful of command-line tools including the ImageMagick suite and mjpegtools, images2mpg creates wonderful videos from your images and even lets you insert your favorite song as the background. It supports SVCD, DVD, VCD, and XVCD video formats. To install KIPI, Fedora and Ubuntu users can respectively use yum or apt. Before you begin experimenting with images2mpg, you will need to install ImageMagick and mjpegtools too.

I hate to be down on Thunderbird, which I use as my default mail client in Windows XP. But today I turn on the box, start Thunderbird, and things don't go well.

With Obama's winning of the Democratic presidential nomination, all indications are that freedom is coming. It's coming in the form of another economic stimulus check. Another economic stimulus check? So soon after the last one? Yes, and here is how it's going to happen. One of Obama's first executive acts will be to standardize all Federal offices to OpenOffice.org

Once again, Freesoftware Magazine's resident Unix tech guru, John Calcote, presents another instalment on GNU/Linux's Autotools. This time it's all about automatically writing makefiles with Automake- and it's detailed! Get the full monty at the FSM website

LXer Feature: 04-Jun-2008

My implicit presumption in this series is that break ins are unplanned, opportunistic occurrences. Break in attempts are triggered by encountering an input form. As I mentioned previously, do not give information away needlessly. Moreover, I strongly suggest you consider becoming passively aggressive by making your presentation of the form and its expected input somewhat unpredictable. Moreover, I advise turning your data input into a simple waste of time and effort for those not trained to use the entry way.

The Firefox 3.0 release has support for microformats in the form of an API that you can access from a Firefox extension. Follow an example of how to use this API from within your extension code. Take a skeleton Hello World extension and give it the ability to store an hCard from a Web page and then use that stored hCard to populate a Web form.

OpenOffice.org takes on PDF import with this new extension (available now). Also the extension introduces innovative, dual-format PDF-ODF files combining portable presentation and editing capabilities in a single file.

Bob Bickel Founder, Ringside Networks alleges that the CPAL is a poison pill for open source code. "The poison pill in this license agreement is that anyone using the Facebook code as part of something else, and puts that up on a website, would need to make all of the code open source," Bickel wrote . First off the CPAL is a bona fide Open Source license approved by the OSI. It fulfills the requirements of the Open Source Definition as determined by the OSI and it is the Real Deal. The ideal of contributions is pivotal to the success and long term survival of the Open Source community, and that shouldn't be thought of as a poison pill in my view.

If you have ever suffered from that scourge of all computers users - RSI - Ryan Cartwright at Freesoftware Magazine has the cure. Workrave. It's a neat little piece of software which will take you profligate keyboard habits and discipline them in order to stop you having your wrists in splints. Read the full story at FSM

Mention Common Gateway Interface scripting to a Web developer, and their first response is likely to be "I use Perl." While Perl has long dominated the CGI scripting world, there are other, and perhaps better, tools available. In this tutorial we'll take a look at CGI scripting with Python, a fast, versatile, multi-platform language. Python is an interpreted, object-oriented language named after the BBC television show "Monty Python's Flying Circus." No johnny-come-lately, Python's first release was in 1991. Developed by Guido van Rossum, Python is the scripting language of choice for many enterprises, including Google, NASA, and ForecastWatch.com.

PCLinuxOS Magazine, June 2008 (Issue 22) is available to download. You can find it at the PCLinuxOS Magazine website. If you'd like to be informed immediately about our releases, please signup for the Magazine-Announce mailing list .

As we always do, the HTML version is simultaneously being published for low bandwidth users. The HTML Site is W3C standards compliant for easy browsing.

Some highlights include:

1. What is root?
   

2. Configuring a 5 Button Mouse

3. Burn an ISO Disk

4. Google Goodies
   

5. And more...

PDF Version June 2008 (Issue 22)

HTML Version June 2008 (Issue 22)

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install VMware Server (version 1.0.6) on a Fedora 9 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).

Simple shell script to do disk monitoring across multiple OS's. Emphasis placed on simple design.

There is a funny thing about commercial open source software companies as much as they like talking about their community-driven open source heritage they end up doing a lot of things their proprietary counterparts do. Spout off about being enterprise-ready, boast, offer TCO studies, and all manner of other things that make them look like a typical proprietary software company. A lot of them neglect the transparent open source traits that makes them truly disruptive and interesting (see yesterday's post on SourceFire).

Shenzhen, China-based smartphone design company Tranzda Technologies is marketing five phone designs that use its NewPlus Linux phone application stack. All five Tranzda designs include GPS, along with optional features that include WiFi, cameras, and biometric fingerprint authentication.

A few years ago, I had really high hope’s for Novell’s forays in to Linux. However; bad move after bad move has left me with no confidence in Novell or their Linux products. I can’t say I was shocked to find this work of misinformation touting the “benefits” of Novell over Redhat and “unpaid” Linux.

Remember Munich, and its city council's 2003 decision to rip out Microsoft Windows and Office, and to replace them with free software? It was a seminal moment for open source, when Microsoft brought its heaviest guns to bear – in the shape of Steve Ballmer, no less, who made the city an offer it couldn't refuse – and failed..