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Self-hosting GNU/Linux distributions are one of our major interests here since we will be exploring that field as thoroughly as possible. They provide the entire building system for creating a GNU/Linux based platform on most architectures, tailored to suit particular needs. Among them we have various implementations of the same idea like Gentoo, T2, CLFS. The reason for it has little to do with "optimize your binaries for your cpu" scenario, which for various reasons may not always be the best way to go. Thing is, that within the GNU/Linux distribution world, such projects allow end users to tap into a much bigger control power over their platform.

A Step by Step tutorial showing how to install qemu with accelerator module kqemu on Ubuntu 7.10 desktop and then install Windows XP inside virtual machine created using qemu .

Mozilla Foundation, the organization behind the Firefox web browser, has defended itself against claims from sections of the Linux community that it has ignored Linux in the development of Firefox 3, the next generation of the browser. Mozilla's chief interface designer says Linux is very much included in the development project.

I installed Microsoft Office 2007 on a computer with Windows XP and then moved everything over to this box that has Linux on it.

The first thing we can say about the Linux desktop in 2007 is that there are more users than ever. The Linux Foundation 2006 survey had fewer than 10,000 people signing in. This year more than 20,000 Linux desktop users reported in. Who are these users? Most of them, 69.4 percent, work in small companies with one to 100 workers. To no surprise, many of them, 43.3 percent, are IT professionals or software developers, and most of them, 64.1 percent, have already deployed desktop Linux in the office.

Independent developers collaborating through the EeeUser.com web site have created a Xubuntu derivative—called eeeXubuntu—designed specifically for the Asus Eee PC. EeeXubuntu includes fully-integrated support for Eee PC hardware and has been modified so that it can be used more comfortably on the Eee PC's low-resolution display.

Whether you refer to online maps occasionally or on a daily basis, you can add several extensions to your Firefox browser to make Web-based mapping services even more useful.

I had been very happily using Mepis Linux full-time instead of Windows since September, 2006. Mepis is an extremely user-friendly distro that's based on Debian. But a growing feeling inside me made me want to see if I could successfully install and configure "unfriendly" Debian itself. A few days ago, I finally got up the courage to install Debian Etch KDE. And I documented every step along the way...

Sun has released a new open-source project as part of SwingLabs: PDF Renderer, "a 100% Java PDF Renderer and Viewer." PDF Renderer can parse the Portable Document Format (PDF) from a file and display it, as an AWT image, in a panel, or using any Graphics2D implementation. It has been released under the LGPL license, the same license used by the rest of SwingLabs.

The GTK port of the WebKit HTML rendering engine has gained support for the HTML5 video element. The media backend, which uses GStreamer, was implemented by Pierre-Luc Beaudoin of Collabora. Developer Alp Toker integrated the backend with GTk/WebKit's Cairo graphics pipeline, making it possible for the video content to be embedded in SVG and manipulated with CSS and JavaScript.

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 70 for the week December 9th - December 15th, 2007. In this issue we cover the countdown to Hardy Alpha 2, new MOTU & community members, Ubuntu Forums interview, Bazaar 1.0 release, and as always, much, much more.

The difficulty and frustration of building GNOME from source is a major impediment for many new contributors. Installing the dependencies, getting the tools working, and compiling major components of the desktop environment is a burden that detracts from time that could be spent making patches. In order to resolve this problem, the developers from rPath have created the GNOME Developer Kit, a complete environment for testing and developing GNOME.

Sometimes, you just need to break through a troublesome gateway. Or perhaps you need to test a connection from a remote location. If you’re like most geeks, though, there’s already ample reason to do any of this — because you can.

Welcome to this year's final issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Yes, it's that time of the year when DistroWatch takes a brief look at the events that shaped the distribution world during the past 12 months. Who were the winners and losers in 2007? Which distributions impressed most? Were there any major surprises? Read more in our feature story. In the news section, Mandriva enters a new development process with Cooker Alpha 1, Max Spevack resigns as Fedora Project Leader, MEPIS updates its artwork for the upcoming release of SimplyMEPIS, Daniel Robbins announces updated "stage" tarballs, and Ulteo delivers the first of its online services. Finally, many thanks to all our loyal readers and best wishes for the festive season! See you all in 2008!

I had enough with eating crap with Vista. My last line of patience warned off when I happened to wait about 5 seconds when changing from one MS Doc file to another and also happened that I was running with time to finish a project report. No, I’m not running on 256 ram, it’s 1 GB and this kind of a time wastage is totally unacceptable. You may ask why I put up with Vista in the first place. That’s thanks to HP’s decision to embrace Vista so my laptop was pre-built with Vista and no chance to downgrade because there are no drivers. So where to go now ? Easy….Gutsy.

Trolltech, the company behind the Qt widget toolkit used in KDE, released today several new Phonon backends that facilitate cross-platform multimedia support. Phonon is media engine abstraction layer that was originally developed for KDE 4. Phonon simplifies multimedia application development and makes it possible to swap seamlessly between various underlying media libraries without having to reimplement application code.

While Linux is pretty efficient with a computer's resources out of the box, there are still ways you can make it run leaner and meaner on your desktop. Using a little bit of know-how, a willingness to run a few terminal commands and a mind for efficiency, you can get every last bit of power from your Linux box, or get more life from an older system. Read on for a roundup of ways to slim down and speed up Linux that any level of user can implement.

For my recent review of the latest KDE 4 release candidate, I used an OpenSUSE Live CD image. I've gotten a few e-mails this morning from readers who are looking for an equivalent Live CD based on Kubuntu, so I figured I'd take this opportunity to point out that the Kubuntu KDE 4 RC 2 Live CD was released yesterday. A KDE 4 PPA repository is also available for Kubuntu 7.10 users.

Linux services are basically programs that start at boot time to provide certain features and services (Apache, the web server for example). After installation, every Linux distribution provides a list of enabled services. However, you might not need some of these services or you might need others that are not enabled by default. Having only the services you need running will make your system faster, more stable and secure. So the first thing you need to do after installing a Linux distribution is to manually edit the list of enabled services. Unfortunately, some services don’t provide a description, others provide a description that’s not understandable so you might end-up disabling a vital system service just because you didn’t know what it did and you thought you didn’t need it. In this post, I’ll try to explain as good as I can, most services you’ll see on a Linux distribution.

In May, Mozilla Labs vice president Chris Beard developed Personas, an experimental Firefox add-on for lightweight theming. The add-on makes it possible to apply custom artwork to the Firefox chrome, including the toolbars, tabs, and status bar. The addon is compatible with Firefox on all three major platforms. The Personas addon started out as Beard's personal project, but has now found a new home at Mozilla Labs and has undergone a major rewrite that is compatible with the latest Firefox 3 beta.