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Part of Linux’s appeal has always been its low cost (essentially free) so it makes sense that a new crop of low-priced mini-laptops are turning to the OS. The beauty of these desktop replacement replacements is that, despite their compactness, they offer a real opportunity for genuine productivity on the go. While they don’t quite have the cool factor of an iPhone, some do feature flash drives for storage and wi-fi and could have definite appeal for students, journalists, and the like. One of these units will be available through Wal-Mart, so this could spell another big boost for Linux computing in the mainstream.

[Personally I disagree. The Eee PC is way cooler than the iPhone. - Sander]

Cluster SSH opens terminal windows with connections to specified hosts and an administration console. Any text typed into the administration console is replicated to all other connected and active windows. This tool is intended for, but not limited to, cluster administration where the same configuration or commands must be run on each node within the cluster. Performing these commands all at once via this tool ensures all nodes are kept in sync.

[ If you're interested in this topic, be sure to check out the BatchLogin project as well. It was created by LXer veteran Paul Fericyde, and he announced it on LXer too - hkwint ]

O’Reilly, the organisers of Ubuntu Live, have just issued the call for papers for Ubuntu Live 2008. The theme of the event is “Taking it Further”, which I think is perfect for Ubuntu this year! Ubuntu Live 2008 promises to be informative, as we start to reap the benefits of that experience. If you have interesting deployments or projects that you would like to share, UL2008 would be the right platform to do it!

I’m on an Edubuntu users mailing list where, more often than not, veteran users can answer questions for new users. I usually give it a quick skim for any new features or fixes and then leave it to accumulate like so many other pieces of information in my Gmail account (hooray for increased storage!). Tonight, however, I found a question from a new user looking to deploy an Edubuntu lab for some fairly far-reaching purposes. The response to the question was particularly good and included valuable thoughts for anyone looking to deploy server-centric solutions, regardless of OS.

There are quite a few good Web sites for free-software users, but when it comes to sheer volume and organization, Distrowatch tops them all. I don't know how Ladislav Bodner does it. He tracks many hundred Linux and BSD distributions, plus the applications that go into them. I hope he's making a mint, because otherwise there's little to no justice in the world. Anyhow, the latest edition of Distrowatch Weekly is bigger than usual -- there's a lot going on in the Linux and BSD world.

# It's a threat Microsoft can't let stand: the entire third world learning Linux as children, and growing up to use it. And Microsoft is going to get its way. # It comes after a sudden wave of SCO-like problems for the OLPC project. A specious patent lawsuit over keyboards. Board-member Intel thrown out of the project for attempting to convince national governments to drop OLPC purchases and go with its own (Windows) product. First, OLPC is shown what its problems will be if it doesn't cooperate with Microsoft. Then, Microsoft approaches with money and technical help - you just have to run Windows to get it.

Taiwanese computer parts maker Asus obviously didn't get the memo. Didn't Asus know notebook computers need hard drives? Or that they're supposed to run Windows — and the pre-loaded software must bloat the boot-up process to the length of a long weekend? Don't they know you don't just go selling laptops for less than $750 — let alone $400 — unless the hardware has been aged like whisky? Asustek Computers Inc. went ahead and broke the rules with the Eee PC. And we should all be thankful.

I consider myself to be a geek. Linux and geeks have a long history together. So, naturally there are a bunch of geeky things available for Linux. In this case, I’m talking about screensavers. I was looking for a screensaver that would show me something really cool about my system. Then I got the idea for a screensaver that shows you random parts of the source code for the Linux kernel. I couldn’t find anything out there already that would do what I needed, so I decided to put it together myself. I also wrote my own command line utility for accomplishing this called Argument Shuffle.

[Pretty cool. And you don't need the kernel sources for it. I have it output random parts of my own programming projects. - Sander]

Readers to the rescue! The first thing you learn when you write about technology is that the people who read your stuff are smarter than you'll ever be. So let me start by saying "Thank you" to all the Linux users who responded to last Friday's post on my travails trying to get Ubuntu 7.10, or "Gutsy Gibbon," to recognize my Linksys WPC300N wireless adapter.

"Openness" may be reaching hyperbolic proportions in Silicon Valley, but the idea is relatively good natured at heart. The practice is rooted in the notion that sharing various assets (i.e., underlying code, operating and communication standards) merits both consumers and businesses. However, one could argue that the current fad of openness is little more than a Trojan horse. Take for instance these four tricks companies recently employed to convince us of their openness:

Apparently Nick Negroponte is willing to work with some huge powerful corporations whose interests compete with his own. Negroponte told IDG News Service Wednesday that the OLPC project is working with Microsoft on a version of the XO laptop that would be capable of booting either Linux--the current OS--or Windows. It appears the two organizations are shooting for something like Apple's Boot Camp: not true virtualization, but the ability to boot either operating system depending on the applications you'd need to run

Brace yourself for a rare event: The VAR Guy -- an open source fanatic -- is about to eat crow. Last fall, he dumped Microsoft Office for an open source suite. Now, he’s making the leap back into Microsoft’s arms. What went wrong with our resident blogger’s open source experiment? Here’s the scoop.

Among Project Zero's arsenal of libraries is a simplified API for executing SQL queries. Learn how to leverage these APIs to build a simple wiki.

There are some important questions regarding OOXML’s upcoming ISO bid that Microsoft cannot answer or just simply won’t. From 25-29 February 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland, the ISO community will hold a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) of the National Boards to discuss and vote finally on OOXML as an ISO standard. This article raises questions that Microsoft should answer to the satisfaction of the ISO community as part of the deliberation leading up to the BRM vote.

The KDE Project Ships Fourth Major Version of cutting edge Free Software Desktop.

With the fourth major version, the KDE Community marks the beginning of the KDE 4 era. January 11, 2008 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community is thrilled to announce 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.

[Congratulations to KDE on behalf of LXer and probably our readers too!- hkwint]

Welcome to Hardy Heron Alpha-3, which will in time become Ubuntu 8.04. X.Org 7.3, with an emphasis on better auto-configuration with a minimal configuration file; Linux kernel 2.6.24 brings in significant enhancements and fixes that have been merged in the last few months into the mainline kernel; PulseAudio enabled by default; PolicyKit integration makes it possible to run administrative applications as a normal user. Screenshots at The Coding Studio.

Take a little Motif, CDE, MS Windows and MacOS, (relative amounts may vary), stir, and what do you get? Probably one of GNOME, KDE and Xfce. Even the alternative window managers (only complete desktop environments were mentioned above) tend to look a lot like either MS Windows or MacOS window decorations. Apart from the really minimalistic things like EvilWM, Ratpoison, or Ion, it’s always the same minus-box-ex or “horizontal traffic light”.

Firefox 3 developers are taking all the time that they need to accomplish their new Firefox. After the Beta 1 Mozilla has released Firefox 3 beta 2 to get more feedbacks about bugs from its testing community. Bugzilla was a little bit busy lately since the beta 1 thousands of bugs fortunately 900 of them are fixed. Firefox developers are trying to reveal more bugs to make their Firefox 3 better. The Beta 2 features are very promising and the Firefox 3 will definitely beat all their competitors.

We have an NFS system which involves part of the local disks of all desktops being exported via NFS. Mostly this is consistently accessed via /disk/machinename, but some desktops have more than one local directory that’s exported. I finally got around recently to rewriting the (very old and no longer functional) script to query the LDAP database and get this info for a given machine name.

Los Angeles may be the second-largest city in the United States, but when it comes to overt, shouting-at-the-rooftops open-source software evangelism, you'd never know it. But there's one shining beacon of activity in the City of Angels, and that's SCALE -- the Southern California Linux Expo -- coming to the Westin Los Angeles Airport hotel Feb. 8-10. With its full title of SCALE 6x -- (it's the sixth-annual show) -- the event features exhibitors, speakers and, I hope, a lot of open-source geekery.