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This tutorial shows how to set up a CentOS 4.6 based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and web hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of CentOS 4.6, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well.

For years, discerning Windows users have relied on Tweak UI, a semi-official Microsoft program for system settings not available on the default desktop. Now, in the same tradition and with something of the same name, Ubuntu Tweak (UT) offers the same advantage to Ubuntu users. Currently at version 0.2.4, for now UT is limited to features for GNOME and focuses mainly on changing default desktop and system behavior and how GNOME interacts with your hardware, but this small feature set is more than enough for proof of concept.

Operating systems come with cultures as much as codebases. I was forcibly reminded of this fact over the holidays when several family members and neighbors press-ganged me into troubleshooting their Windows computers. Although none of us had any formal computer training, and I know almost nothing about Windows, I was able to solve problems that baffled the others -- not because of any technical brilliance, but because the free software culture in which I spend my days made me better able to cope.

Last year Google announced Android, its Java-based software stack for mobile devices. Initially the company released Android with an emulator for testing. Hackers, however, have quickly hacked the software to run on real-world devices. LinuxDevices list the first hardware platform to run Android as the Atmark-Techno’s Armadillo-500 development board back in November last year.

Anne Zelenka recently predicted that software businesses will move from the extreme 'closed' and 'open' licensing models toward the center, what she refers to as 'clopen', or hybrid closed and open licensing models. I think she's missing something.

Ubuntu and its siblings are preparing for the next Long Term Support (LTS) release, v8.04 (April 2008) - the Hardy Heron. Ubuntu's first release was announced in September 2004, with a (then) brand new GNOME 2.8 desktop. Since then Ubuntu releases have been tied pretty closely to GNOME releases. Now, of course, we have Kubuntu for KDE fans, and Xubuntu for Xfce fans. That's great, but Ubuntu releases aren't timed for new versions of those desktops. And that's why it seems that Kubuntu 8.04 will not be a LTS release after all.

I'm ready to throw down $150 for this deal (plus $15 to boost the memory to 512 MB). There are a smattering of low-cost Linux PC deals out there, but this is absolutely the best. Better than Everex, better than the used stuff at Pacific Geek. Better than Mad Tux. Hell, better than anything. You even get an LCD monitor. The $150 doesn't include shipping, and I don't know how much that runs. But holy hell, it's cheap.

The Tux Droid, a wireless plastic penguin that talks, looks cool, but the bugs and glitches make is a less appealing product.

Alexa Internet is one of the oldest and most recognized Web entities. In addition to providing detailed Web site traffic information that it collects from users of the Alexa toolbar, Alexa created the Wayback Machine, an archive of Web site snapshots, which it donated to the Library of Congress in 1998. Don Whitt, Alexa's vice president of operations, says Alexa, acquired by Amazon.com in 1999, has a long history with open source platforms, including Slackware, FreeBSD, and CentOS.

Even the unadventurous Israeli education system may soon discover that there is (computerized) life after Microsoft. The country's schools will forgo Word and Windows in favor of parallel programs from Sun Microsystems. For the first time, the education system's tenders committee has authorized cooperation in principle with Sun, in a move that could undermine Microsoft's sovereignty in Israeli classrooms.

We already reported about the LimePC yesterday, which is an iPod nano sized Linux UMPC based on Freescale's MPC5121e mobileGT processor, which is a so called "motherboard-on-a-chip" device. Freescale has now released a full press-release on their site and technical specifications for their highly integrated multi-core embedded computing platform.

Many people claim that “Linux is about choice!”. That’s a neat phrase, but what does it mean? Does it mean that you should have the ability to twist and turn 400 different knobs on your Linux install? That’s what some think. Does it mean that you have the right to choose Linux, or choose your flavor of Linux, and then choose from the package sets within those flavors? That’s what I and many others think. There is a very distinct difference here too. Let’s look at it from a food point of view (one of my favorite points-of-view).

[ A few minutes ago I read the OLPC / XO will have a dual boot between Linux / XP, but contrary to popular believe, XP doesn't run on the OLPC yet - as this old blog from a Microsoft-dev working on it shows - hkwint ]
There have been suggestions in the press by Nicholas Negroponte and others that “Windows already runs on the XO.” That’s not really the case yet [...] We started the project around the beginning of the year (2007 - ed) and think it will be mid-2008 at the earliest before we could have a production-quality release.

The newest version of the popular RPM package manager is now out with improved performance and functionality. But there's a bit of a catch with RPM version 5.0. Linux vendor Red Hat officially considers RPM 5.0 a project fork.

It looks like the head of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Chief Nicholas Negroponte is not only alienating Intel, but Microsoft, too. A day after published reports quoting Negroponte as saying OLPC XO laptops would dual boot Linux and Windows, Microsoft is denying that the company is pursuing such a plan.

LinuxCertified Inc, a leading provider of Linux training and services, announced its next Embedded and Real-Time Linux Development class to be held in San Francisco Bay Area from January 30th - February 1st, 2008 .

Announcing itself today is KOfficeSource GmbH, a company that will sell services around KOffice. The founders comprise a small group of members of the developer community, as well as outside talent. They share an interest in furthering KOffice by supporting it commercially in addition to the non-commercial support that can be found on the mailing lists and IRC. As the name suggests it has been created in Germany but will operate across Europe and further afield.

I read lots of blogs and planets every day, and do so from multiple computers, so I value the online feed aggregator. It retrieves new items even while I'm offline, and I don't have to synchronize between multiple machines. Google Reader has filled this niche for a while now, but I've kept an eye out for open source equivalents that I could serve from my own domain instead. That is just what GobbleRSS is: a PHP-based feed aggregator that is simple to set up and run on your own.

While Windows may be a "unified" platform that some Linux fans aspire to see mirrored in Linuxland, through the emergence of a more standardized distribution, is that a desirable goal? Is our view of Windows a realistic perception?

CMS are Content management systems created to make creating a website an easier task. Among many others, eZ Publish has some unique criteria. It's a flexible and extensible CMS created by eZ Systems, a Norwegian company was behind the PHP eZ Components Library, eZ Publish is an ECMS ( Enterprise Content Management System) distributed under both GPL and proprietary licenses.