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LXer Feature: 6-Jan-2008

Happy New Year and Welcome to the first LXer Weekly Roundup of 2008. This week we have a petition for the free use of codecs, our own Carla Schroder talks about how some people should not use computers, the Top 10 Open Source applications on the desktop, 355.6 million reasons the Novell-Microsoft deal is working, Hans Kwint tells us why Open Source is the way to go, who is the most hated company in the PC industry and how to destroy the GPL from the inside.

To be able to install a GNU/Linux distribution you need to burn a downloaded ISO image on a CD/DVD disc. At least this is the simplest way to achieve this goal. In this tutorial I am going to describe an easy way to do this under Windows and Linux operating systems and how to prepare your PC for a Linux OS.

Apple and open source fanatics are about to engage in a group hug, The VAR Guy has learned. It will soon be easier to run Mac OS X and Linux side-by-side on Apple servers. How will this magic occur? The answer will surface at Macworld Expo January 14 in San Francisco. Here's what to expect.

The day after Intel announced that it would leave the One Laptop Per Child board, the nonprofit organization shot back that the chip giant had contributed little to help the project during its six months with the group. In a statement Jan. 4, the OLPC project claimed that Intel violated written agreements with the board of directors, did not help in developing software with the project and "disparaged" the OLPC's XO laptop.

I expect people of the free press to defend the right of free speech, not to call for its restriction or abolishment. If free speech disappears, what does free software mean? "Free" like in "free beer"? If you express an opinion there will always be someone who doesn't agree with you. That comes with the trade. That is professionalism. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Open source companies often lose their way when they try to build channel and partner programs. One rare exception is Untangle, an open source security firm that has lined up 60 partners since September. You can find some quick details about the company and its momentum over at MSPmentor.net, a fast-growing editorial site for managed service providers (MSPs)

Ultimix Ultimate Edition is the Ultimate Linux Distribution and it's not bloated. It still runs at top speed as long as you have enough free hard drive space for it. To install Ultumix Ultimate Edition you will need to read the ReadMe file included in this torrent first and you will need to make 2 DVDs because this distribution contains the top 21 Games of 2007 and yes they all work as long as you install your 3D drivers. There is even a tool to do that too.

There are numerous news reports covering Intel’s withdrawal from the One Laptop Per Child project. The company says it decided to leave the OLPC board because the One Laptop organisation had demanded it stop supporting other efforts in emerging markets. Of course what the OLPC board was specifically referring to was Intel’s Classmate, a laptop for developing markets launched in 2006.

This document is a step by step guide for configuring Ubuntu 7.10 as a Samba Domain Controller with an LDAP backend (OpenLDAP). The point is to configure a server that can be comparable, from a central authentication point of view, to a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller. The end result will be a server with an LDAP directory for storing user, group, and computer accounts. A Windows XP Professional SP2 workstation will be able to join the domain once properly configured.

KDE 4 is scheduled to be released soon, and it looks like it has a lot of cool new features. Unfortunately, everything I've seen about it says that it's still going to be missing an important feature that many computer users (especially Windows convert to Linux) absolutely require and have come to expect — apparently because a few developers don't like or use that feature. And to make matters worse, every time I've ever seen anyone complain about it, many of the responses have tried to convince them that "no one needs" that feature. In other words, "I don't use that feature, so you shouldn't have a choice to use it." I think the whole situation is an embarrassment to the entire Linux community, because it reinforces the (mostly untrue) stereotype that Linux users are antisocial, elitist geeks.

Ultumix 0.0.1.2 was released last night via the torrent server.

Re-tasked PCs deliver a greener world and a more equitable availability of technology

Red Hat's new chief executive said on Friday that the company will continue to pursue a business model under which it makes its software available at no cost and makes money selling services to businesses. "We are a mission-based company. Democratizing information is a social good," Chief Executive James Whitehurst said in an interview with Reuters. "We will be open source. We will be the leader in open source."

A fairly comprehensive list of Linux commands organized by function. A nice list to have handy for anyone who uses or administrates a Linux system.

We have another entry in the UMPC (that’s Ultra Mobile PC to those who might not know) market. I was impressed with the eeepc from ASUS and I was considering purchasing one. But now I’m saving my pennies for this guy.

Free software for video is currently in sad shape. The only two widely distributed free video editing programs, Kino and Cinelerra, are nowhere near as capable as competing commercial software. Hardly any professional video producers use either one. But most people aren't as concerned with the software used to make video as with the software they need to play it, especially in their Web browsers, and on this side of the video equation it looks like things are going to get a lot better for free software enthusiasts in 2008.

A listing of 68 Linux Related Free E-books. You can never have too much access to information..

How do you destroy the GPL? Honestly I don't think it will be done, but there is a way. Simply put the GPL is a copyright license, which is it's strength and it's achillies heel. For years publishing companies, our friends at the RIAA and MPAA among others have pushed for longer and longer copyright terms so that they can reap the rewards from other people's work for a longer period of time. So why not turn things on their heads a bit? Actually, what I'm talking about has already been proposed.

When most folks think of February they muse about hearts and roses. But in Southern California, free software enthusiasts look forward to the Southern California Linux Exposition. KDE will once again be represented at SCALE 6x (February 8-10, 2008) showing off the newly released KDE 4.0. KDE's usability guru, Celeste Lyn Paul, will also be there, giving a talk on user centred design in open source on the Saturday. For those KDE experts in the Southern California area who would like to participate, there are a couple of openings for booth duty.

There is a lot of respect among the people that form the community. Disqualifying entire parts of the community by suggesting they are fruitcakes is unheard of. You may expect such a thing from a rogue FOSS fundamentalist, who cherishes each and every pure GPL line, but not from someone who made it his profession to give the community a voice.