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The latest release of Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux version 4.0has a lot to bark about. Installed directly on a hard drive, it lacks some of the bells and whistles found in more popular Linux desktop versions. But run it from a USB drive in RAM, and Puppy growls impressively. The ability to carry an entire operating system on a flash drive and run it with all my files and settings intact is a powerful lure.

Back in June we were first to deliver Radeon HD 4850 benchmarks on Linux just after the new high-end ATI/AMD GPUs were launched. We were also successful in using the Radeon HD 4850 with an open-source driver and had exclusively shared that CrossFire support is coming to Linux along with a horde of other improvements. These new Linux features are coming soon, but today we are looking at a new Radeon HD 4850 graphics card from Sapphire Technology. The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Toxic 512MB ships with a performance-oriented Zalman cooler and it also comes factory overclocked.

"Over the last months there were repeating news about the murder on Nina Reiser by her husband Hans Reiser, known in the community for his work on his filesystems ReiserFS and Reiser4." "What I want to deal with here are the consequences of this "story" that may be in store for Reiser's filesystems."

Proper version control is a must for everyone who programs more than a few lines of code, but keeping your web applications or websites under version control is a tad harder that regular programs for two reason: You need a webserver to get your application going and you usually have to manage database revisions as well. Keeping database revisions in sync with your code revisions is a complex subject that I will leave until another time. In this article I will show you how to configure Apache on your development server so that it picks up your checked out working copies automagically as separate subdomains. Then that I will show you how to use dnsmasq so you can achieve the same effect on your local development machine.

I have written on other occasions, you can learn more seeing errors others commit, whatever their cause, which can be more instructive than simply spelling out how to do it correctly. It simply might be the relief of not finding oneself trapped in the same predicament that makes the lesson more likely to stick. This time it was the try / catch code syntax that trapped me. It seemed too transparent and too easily understood, which resulted in my missing a critical aspect. That is today's topic of discussion.

The role of Mono and Novell in fulfilling Microsoft's desire to change GNU/Linux

A fast, fast-booting, implementation of GNOME aimed at netbooks and older hardware has emerged, and shows "a lot of promise." LXDE has already stacked up a heap of distribution partners. The LXDE project has released its lightweight Linux desktop for general use. Built into the latest gOS 3 Gadget distro, LXDE is touted as being fast, fast-booting, compatible with old computers, and designed so that "every component can be used without LXDE," say the developers.

Three weeks ago, LWN looked at the renewed interest in dynamic tracing, with an emphasis on SystemTap. Tracing is a perennial presence on end-user wishlists; it remains a handy tool for companies like Sun Microsystems, which wish to show that their offerings (Solaris, for example) are superior to Linux. It is not surprising that there is a lot of interest in tracing implementations for Linux; the main surprise is that, after all this time, Linux still does not have a top-quality answer to DTrace - though, arguably, Linux had a working tracing mechanism long before DTrace made its appearance.

With most folks focused on LinuxWorld Expo, many open source companies failed to promote their channel and reseller strategies at this week's CompTIA Breakaway conference in Orlando. That's alarming to The VAR Guy. Here's why.

In 1900, the German mathematician David Hilbert posed 23 problems in mathematics that were very influential to 20th century mathematics. Subsequently, variants of this device has been used to draw attention to additional challenges in mathematics and in other disciplines. While I am no certainly no Hilbert, I use the device here to draw attention to a number of problems—perhaps not as intractable as the Riemann hypothesis—facing the intervention of technology on learning (still in draft form):

Computer engineer Alan Dechert didn't like what he saw during the controversial vote tallying in Florida in 2000's presidential election. That was when he decided that there had to be a better way for U.S. citizens to safely and accurately cast their ballots. More than seven years later, Dechert is here at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, publicly displaying the open-source e-voting system he helped develop that fixes some of the problems that he and other critics found in the nation's voting systems almost a decade ago.

IBM hopes adding its software to distributions of Ubuntu, Red Hat, and Suse Linux will help consumers transition to become"Microsoft-free." Specifically, IBM is working to ensure its Open Collaboration Client Solution, including Lotus Symphony, Lotus Notes, and Lotus Sametime, operate with the three Linux distributions. Canonical confirmed during the show that it will distribute Lotus Symphony through its own Web services before the end of the month. Red Hat and Novell are expected to follow suit.

Cairo-Dock is a simple but effective feature rich dock for your openSUSE Linux. Ever since, Fabounet proposed a version improved, with a very ergonomic configuration newer versions are followed at an intensive pace and with their new functionalities like the sub-docks, the effects on the launchers...Many people were grafted with the project, each one bringing its competences, of graphics, to the applet or plugins and development.

Now that Debian's current testing release, code name Lenny, has been frozen, we're this much closer to seeing Lenny become a Stable release, a milestone that is projected for September of this year. That would make it a year and four months after the current Stable release, Etch, was so designated in April 2007.

When RipCode decided to build a video transcoding device three years ago, it used MontaVista Linux Professional Edition, a platform designed for developers who want all the benefits of an open source development environment. Dallas, Texas-based RipCode, a privately held startup entity founded in 2005, not only was operating on a six-month deadline to develop and deliver its RipCode V4 video transcoding device, but also was focusing on securing funding. By leveraging MontaVista Software's Linux technology, RipCode was able to bring RipCode V4 -- designed to process the highest volume of Internet-based video formats available in a single rack-unit chassis -- to market much sooner than it otherwise would have been able to.

According to various online sources, the fourth largest maker of computers is looking to get involved. The Chinese-based company that acquired the IBM laptop business some years back, Lenovo, is apparently involved in 'active discussions' with regard to bringing out a series of systems with a Microsoft-free desktop running the Linux/Lotus combination.

An oft-asked question in networking classes is "why can't we just put everyone on the same subnet and stop worrying about routing?" In this continuing series, networking expert Charlie Schluting explains in detail the finer points of subnets, netmasks, and IPv6 addressing.

Network services are one of the fastest growing areas in modern software. However, while network services have much of the convenience of free software, only a minority are available under a free license. In fact, it was only last November that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the GNU Affero General Public License for network services. Under these conditions, last week's announcement of the formation of autonom.us, a new activist group "to focus on issues of software freedom in network services," seems overdue. The group's immediate plans are still evolving, but currently, its main goal -- so far as it has one yet -- seems to be as a policy discussion and advocacy group.

Xandros has announced a new version of Freespire, to be based on Debian's forthcoming Lenny release, expected this fall. Xandros says it plans to "consolidate" its various offerings on Debian, following its acquisition of Linspire. Xandros acquired Linspire last month. Freespire is a free version of Linspire, and was previously based on Ubuntu. Following the release of a Lenny-based Freespire distribution, Xandros plans to bring out Xandros Desktop Professional 5, which will also be built on "the same open source code base," with added proprietary bits for "enterprise customers," the company says.

The slow adoption of Vista is giving IBM and Linux distributors an opportunity to convince enterprises that there are good desktop software alternatives to Windows. IBM, Canonical, Novell and Red Hat will work with hardware makers to market custom-designed PCs preloaded with Linux and Lotus word processing and collaboration software.