Showing all newswire headlines

All the technology of the future is here, and it runs Linux.

Following our article looking at the state of X.Org (along with announcing the release of X Server 1.4.1), we proceeded to share the contributors behind the X Server -- both the individual developers and companies involved with fostering the growth of this important free software package since 1999. What we hadn't looked at in that analysis was the people and companies behind the work on Mesa 3D, or the OpenGL component used by X. In this article, however, we have these statistics to share.

We’re done. Firefox 3 is going to be launched very soon. In anticipation of this long-awaited event, the folks in the Mozilla community have been writing extensively about the new and improved features you’ll see in the browser. The new features cover the full range from huge and game-changing to ones so subtle you may not notice them until you realize that using Firefox is just somehow easier and better. The range of improved features is similar — whole back-end systems have been rebuilt from scratch, while other features have been tweaked slightly or redesigned in small ways.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a item entitled “Maybe we should charge for Linux” in an established GNU/Linux site like Linux Today, and from the managing editor no less! Well I just couldn’t let it pass without comment. The author of that piece (Brian Proffitt) asked us to “put the pitchfork and torches away”. Well don’t worry Mr Proffitt, I’m not a fan of pitchforks. I did read your piece in full before writing this so what follows is — I hope — a measured response.

Firefox has risen from humble beginnings -- it was assembled from the scraps left over when Netscape was left for dead -- to become a real thorn in the side of Microsoft. Now, as it prepares to go live with its third version, the open source project's leadership promises more innovation.

Part two of a series of articles looking at learning the widely used GNU autoconf, automake and libtool utilities, by example. This installment covers adding manual pages to distributions, and the EXTRA_DIST target.

The rumor has it that Carlos Ghosn, the French-Lebanese business genius who turned Nissan-Renault into the 3rd or 4th worldwide automaker, made a point of using properly chopsticks shortly after he became CEO of NISSAN, so that to gain respect from his co-workers. Little things do matter.

The local community will get a first-hand account of South Korea's open source experience from government and private executives visiting a national meet in Cebu later this month. Different groups from South Korea -- including Hansoft, one of Korea's biggest software firms -- will be attending the national open source conference on July 23 and 24. This was confirmed by Bonifacio Belen, executive director of the Cebu Education Development Foundation (CEDF-IT), a private-government IT consortium in the province. The Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) will also send a group of executives to the conference.

The article reviews the features, strong and weak points of three most popular web browsers on Linux: Firefox, Opera and Konqueror. Screenshots included.

Firstly, Firefox 3 is imminent. Although beta versions have surfaced – and even considered stable enough for inclusion in Ubuntu’s “long term support” 8.04 release – it really has been several years since the last major revision was published. Some are still sceptical we’ll actually see it but Mozilla are confident to set the naysayers right. In fact, this coming June 17th is marked as Firefox 3 download day. Yes, on June 17 you’ll be able to download a shiny new Firefox 3. It doesn’t matter if you are a Linux, Windows or Mac user; there’s a build of Firefox 3 for you.

A new breed of extremely small and light (2 pounds or so) laptop has emerged just in time for summer travel. Called mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and also known as mini-laptops, mini-notebooks, or mini-notes, these lightweight laptops are practically naked, stripped of all extraneous features. And starting at around US$400, they're far cheaper than other mobile PCs.

LXer Feature: 15-Jun-2008

First off, It is Father's Day in the U.S. and I want to wish a Happy Fathers Day to my beloved Father and to all the Dads across the world. In this week's Roundup we have stories from the big OOXML vote fiasco that has been brewing. We have an LXer Feature written by Thomas King entitled "The future is bright for Linux filesystems", How to buy the wrong color laser printer, a review of Slackware 12.1, IBM rolls out Symphony support, The inevitability of open source Windows, Richard Stallman attacks Oyster's 'unethical' use of Linux, Are there any evil distros? and last but not least I end things with a couple of very funny articles that should bring a smile to your face. Enjoy!

Sometime last night I started a "21 bug salute": pick 21 bugs and fix them one after the other. Closing bugs that are already fixed, are upstream bugs or are WONTFIXes don't count. Only bugs closed with patches do. Currently the count is 11 down, 10 to go. The goal is to be done before the weekend is through. I keep getting interrupted, however, by the continuing fallout from what has become one of the biggest faith-in-the-community destroying events I've experience. Having read a couple more angry FUD filled blog postings on this matter, proving squarely just how confused people are at the moment, I figured a picture might help.

Here's the full text of a very angry letter, sent today to the educational advisory body Becta by Mark Taylor, president of the Open Source Consortium and chief executive of the enterprise support firm Sirius. I'm currently writing up a story on this, so keep an eye out for that, but the letter is far too long to include in that story in its totality.

This tutorial shows how to set up an Ubuntu Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS) based server that offers DNS services using BIND. This article is written for the 32-bit version of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, but should apply to the 64-bit version as well.

A look at prime, composite and relative prime number generation and machine/OS limitations common to deriving them.

Don’t misunderstand me, as I’m not preaching the value of proprietary codecs. Despite Theora's shortcomings with rendering speed and overall playback quality in comparison to proprietary alternatives, this does not mean that all open source codecs are loosing ground in the fight for your video viewing freedom.

As I sit here looking at my Zonbu(s) (a mini and the notebook), I cannot help but feel overwhelming dismay over all the progress made with "ready-to-go" Linux solutions like the Eee, Cloudbook and of course, the OLPC project. My concern is not in regard to the projects themselves, but it’s where Microsoft is trying to edge their way into something that Linux was working magic with first.

While Gates had a point about OLPC being able to come to full fruition, I think he is out to lunch on the idea that third-world countries are interested in Windows, paying for software and any potential malware headaches that will arise with running a stripped down version of XP on these systems.

A review of the new Opera 9.50. The big difference between Opera and the other Linux web browsers like Firefox or Konqueror is that Opera is closed-source. So, what benefits or advantages could bring a closed-source browser in the Linux world, you may ask. Well, they are definitely not advantages, but a thing is sure: Opera is a complete mature web browser which does its job very well.