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Novell has extended a set of development tools so they can be used to write applications and other software for rival Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS. Novell announced earlier this week that its openSuse Build Service development tool, which already supports Novell's openSuse variations, Ubuntu and Debian, among others, will now support software from Red Hat, Novell's main competitor and the leader in enterprise Linux, and CentOS, a free "clone" of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

This weekend it's time to announce it. Finally: klik2 development has reached our internal "Milestone 2". --- Remember klik? That project that aims to make Linux end-user software installation and usage more easy than on any other platform? "Grandma-proof", if you like? By making to 'install' an application as easy as copying a single file to a USB thumbdrive or to a different computer? By implementing application-level virtualization, encapsulating each end-user program into a single file, following the 1 application == 1 file principle?

Isn’t a user freer to install and use much more programs on SuSE Linux (Open Source) than on Debian Linux (Free Sofware) ? Couldn’t SuSE be freer because easier to use ? Isn’t a user freer to work on MS applications on Windows (closed) than on Linux (FLOSS) ? The answer is yes, even so the reason is clear. It is important to know that freedom cannot truly be brought to users by any licences, including GNU GPL. Indeed, Free Softwares will be spread without any idea of Freedom, if users are not aware of what sofwares they are using and why they have to use them more then others (which are closed).

LXer Feature: 27-Jan-2008

In this week's LXer Roundup we have an article on how to access Linux partitions from Windows, should your business choose KDE or Gnome when running Linux, Ken Starks Yanks The Window Shade, The Everex Cloudbook gets ripped apart by FCC, An open letter to Linus Torvalds, Apple cripples Sun's open source jewel and a field guide to free software supporters. Plus a humorous press conference, a couple of FUD articles and Linux For The Masses? Bet On This Winner.

I spent some time compiling this list and seeing how many nice games are available for Linux I couldnt help but wonder: why are we still using Vista? There are so many Windows advocates who bring as anti Linux argument an “absence” of games for Linux. Well, they are wrong! There are enough games from Linux and the great news is that they are free and fun!

To be compatible with many Office 2007 documents, you need to install the new ClearType Collection fonts introduced in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007: Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, and Corbel.

Ubuntu Tweak is a tool that lets you change hidden Ubuntu settings, for example: hide or change the splash screen, show or hide the Computer, Home, Trash, and Network icons, change Metacity, Nautilus, power management, and security settings, etc. Currently Ubuntu Tweak is available only for the Ubuntu GNOME desktop, i.e., it will not work on Kubuntu or Xubuntu. This short guide shows how to install and use Ubuntu Tweak.

Well if you are like me you have installed Linux and opted for the 64 bit edition, there is only one problem with this Flash does not work with the 64 bit Linux kernel. So there are work arounds and here is the simplest and my favorite.

With the latest release of VirtualBox, Windows and Linux can be run together simultaneously, and you don't even need to switch between the two. Using the seamless Windows feature of VirtualBox, you can run two different operating systems simultaneously on a single PC and you can use the applications of both operating systems from the same desktop simultaneously.

This tutorial explains how to turn an old PC with additional hard disks into a simple home file server. The file server is intended for home use. The home file server is accessible by Windows and Linux computers in the home network.

This month the KDE Community announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era. We will see major improvements in almost all areas. The Phonon multimedia framework provides platform independent multimedia support to all KDE applications. The KDE 4 desktop has gained some major new capabilities like the Plasma desktop an increased KDE Window manager a lot more. Lots of KDE applications have seen improvements as well. Visual updates through vector-based artwork, changes in the underlying libraries, user interface enhancements and new features and new applications. We will also test the new document viewer (Okular) and the new file manager (Dolphin). This workshop will describe how to install KDE 4 on Mandriva 2008.

In The Beginning:

It was 1991, and the ruthless agonies of the cold war were gradually coming to an end. There was an air of peace and tranquility that prevailed in the horizon. In the field of computing, a great future seemed to be in the offing, as powerful hardware pushed the limits of the computers beyond what anyone expected.

But still, something was missing.

And it was the none other than the Operating Systems, where a great void seemed to have appeared.

Like most people who do tech work of some sort or another for a living I love my toys. I’d love to have the latest and greatest gee whiz system and if I won the lottery I probably always would. Today’s best full-featured distros all have native 64-bit versions. One of my favorites, Vector Linux was a little late to the table but I’m pleased to report that the current release, Vector Linux 5.9 Standard, has a 64-bit version in beta right now. Good news.

Sick and tired of hearing various "Bill Gates is Satan" jokes, the Prince of Darkness today issued an edict demanding an end to such friviolities. "How dare you compare Bill Gates to me!" Satan snarled during a fake press conference from the Fire & Brimstone Briefing Room broadcast live on CSPAN. "Yes, we all know Windows is an evil piece of cr@p -- and I applaud Bill Gates for his efforts -- but he doesn't even come close to the sheer vileness that I possess!"

Having thrown around a few initial impressions about the OLPC XOs, I thought I would take a more in-depth look at the user interface and some of the activities kids can engage in. And I have a couple of comments about their durability and adjustable screens.

ECMA, the international IT standards association, recently published its responses to comments of the ISO National Bodies in response to Microsoft's Office Open XML application for ISO standardization (the actual 2,293-page response is closed to the public). The ECMA proposals will be discussed at a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in Geneva after which the National Bodies may reconsider their original vote. Microsoft's responses make clear that within one year, it will have four different OOXML specifications to implement and interoperate with, and each of those specs will be closed. Under no circumstances should such a flawed specification become an international standard.

gLabels is a nifty little GNOME application used to make business cards and labels. I used to do it in OpenOffice, but that was starting to become kind of a pain. To make it nice and easy, gLabels will work with a whole bunch of different labels and paper you can pick up from your local office supply store.

Back in June of 2005 with the ATI Linux 8.14.13 driver release was a new installer to more easily facilitate the installation of this binary graphics driver using a graphical interface for a generic setup or generating distribution-specific packages (at that time Red Hat was the only officially supported distribution). With time, this installer has evolved by gaining new features and more distributions are being supported through their --buildpkg command for generating custom driver packages. These packaging scripts are now even hosted in the open for more community interaction. With two new driver options that will be formally introduced next month in Ubuntu's packaging scripts for the Catalyst 8.02 Linux driver, the installation process of the ATI fglrx driver on Ubuntu will become several steps easier.

This quick and painless tutorial will show how to forward your GNOME session from your Linux box to another computer, via SSH and X11 Forwarding. I have found out along the way that X11 forwarding seems quicker then a traditional VNC connection and has better integration. Better security and (what seems like) quicker response times are just one of the benefits of using SSH.

Today we will go through how to easily add a new (or old) hard drive to our server. We will specifically be using a Slackware box that serves up apache and a few others, but the principals remain essentially the same for another linux box such as Ubuntu. So we have run low on diskspace on our webserver since the addition of Gallery2 and need to add another hard drive to our setup. Our first drive was a 20GB drive that we will leave as the root (/) drive and will add a second 250GB ATA drive (western digital) to the mix.