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LXer Feature: 26-Aug-2007

A weekly recap of the big stories concerning Linux and Open Source.

A recurring debate discussion among FLOSS-supporters and detractors is related to the estimation of the real number of active FLOSS projects. While it is easy to look at the main repository site (sourceforge.net) that boasts more than 100.000 projects, it is equally easy to look in more depth and realize that a significant number of those projects are really abandoned or have no significant development. How many active and stable projects are really out there?

openSUSE 10.3 is set to contain a new, significantly improved and more mature package management stack by default. ZMD, the package management component causing problems in SUSE Linux 10.1 and to a lesser extent in openSUSE 10.2, has been completely removed and is now replaced by the new libzypp and its tools. Today we’ll be taking a look at the new package management and talking to Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett, one of the central libzypp developers.

With the release of Windows Vista, using your PC to watch and record TV has become a whole lot easier. Now, for the first time, Windows Media Center comes bundled with Home Premium and Ultimate versions of the standard Desktop operating system. However, Vista is pricey, and its form and function are of course dictated by Microsoft. If you want full control over your Home Theater PC (HTPC), and don’t want to have to pay Microsoft for it, then Linux is a more than capable alternative base for building a system of your own. Currently, the two dominant players on Linux are Mythtv and, to a lesser extent, Freevo. We’ll take a look at both of these applications as well as others you can use to create a fully functional Linux HTPC.

As I have blogged before, I have been evaluating Vector Linux 5.8 SOHO over the last 3 months or so. As promised, here are my findings. Vector is now my OS of choice on the machine in question, and who knows, if I didn’t still have to do a bit of VB development, it could well replace XP on my main work laptop as well.

Recently, as in last week, I learned a new Texas idiom. A senior executive at a client explained what he meant when he said that I was beating his dog. I didn't have a reference for the comment until he said that if he invited me over for a barbecue and I beat his dog that was inappropriate."How would you like it if you invited me to your house for dinner and I beat your dog?" he asked.

This is for my brother Willi, who recently bought a new laptop. He has to run Vista and Office on it, and asked me how he could still be safe when underway and checking his mail, or using the web.

(A typical DOH! experience. But I still wanted to share it because it could get newbies thinking... - wjl)

Securing SSH Using Denyhosts

Howto restrict su command to superuser only in Linux

Has Torvalds signed the death warrant as far as kernel 3.0 is concerned?

This document describes how to set up PostBooks ERP on Ubuntu 7.04. The resulting system provides a powerful GUI-based ERP-system. Postbooks is licensed under the CPAL license (OSI-certified Common Public Attribution License).

This short guide describes how to install Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server on Xen. It provides an overview of the Debian Linux Etch installation, and detailed steps for installing and configuring Xen and starting the Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server installation.

For a long time I have tested many different virtualization techniques; Xen, VMWare, and Microsoft VM. Until now I’m able to conclude that all of them are usable on my desktop machine, but both VMWare and Microsoft’s VM are more sluggish that Xen. This weekend I deployed my first server based on the upcoming Debian Etch and Xen. Everything worked out of the box.

Linux-based application platform vendor Trolltech expects a higher growth rate in the second half than the first six months but said growth for the full year may fall below the approximately 40% recorded for each of the three previous years.

I plead guilty to past transgressions. So, call me a hypocrite if you will. I don't care anymore. I refuse to get stuck in the past because the present and the near future is fun.Indulge if you will in recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images experienced as intrusive and distressing. The obsession with Microsoft in Open Software communities is excessive and unreasonable and a product of the mind. My only hope is that such thoughts, impulses, and, or images can be expunged by logic or reasoning, which is contrary to the notions in the psychiatric community.

Late last night Ars Technica started receiving reports from readers experiencing problems with Windows Genuine Advantage authentication. Windows XP and Windows Vista users wrote to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was invalidated by the service. Microsoft is telling users they should "try again" later, with some support techs telling readers that Microsoft is aiming to have a fix in place by Tuesday, August 28.

When Microsoft announced its plans to build a brand new hypervisor into a future version of Windows Server, it seemed to me that a much simpler path to baking virtualization into Windows would be to join the ranks of vendors developing and shipping products around the open-source Xen hypervisor project. Microsoft must have judged that relying on an outside source—and a General-Public-Licensed one, at that—for a piece of technology as central as a hypervisor would be too risky or uncomfortable, leading the Redmondians to opt instead to go it alone.

In the continuining discussion about how GCC treats the volatile keyword, Linus Torvalds noted, "I just have a strong suspicion that 'volatile' performance is so low down the list of any C compiler persons interest, that it's never going to happen. And quite frankly, I cannot blame the gcc guys for it." He went on to explain, "that's especially as 'volatile' really isn't a very good feature of the C language, and is likely to get *less* interesting rather than more (as user space starts to be more and more threaded, 'volatile' gets less and less useful."

Doctor Daniel Mashao, the chief technology officer at Sita, announced the launch of the government-wide free and open source programme at the GovTech conference on Thursday.

The problem isn't just silos and walled gardens — our names for choiceless dependency on one company's goods and services. The problem is the defaulted belief system that gives us silos and walled gardens in the first place. In that system suppliers believe that the best customers and users are captive ones. Customers and users believe that a free market naturally restricts choices to silos. It's a value sytem in which VCs like to ask "What's your lock-in?". Even in 2007, long after the Net has become established as an everyday necessity, we still take for granted the assumption that living in a "free market" is to choose among jail cells. May the best prison win.