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Use a componentized build system to automatically port Java projects with native extensions on heterogeneous UNIX platforms. To guarantee porting for many heterogeneous UNIX platforms, a build system should be pluggable.

The recent announcement of a new standard for "slipperiness" reminded me not only of the seemingly infinite, and at times surprising, types of standards we find we cannot live without, but also of the linkage between language and standards.

A chapter of a new how-to book, Hacking Ubuntu: Serious Hacks, Mods and Customizations, has been published online at ExtremeTech.com. The chapter, entitled "Making Ubuntu Usable," explains how to tune Ubuntu to your personal tastes by changing startup music, background, fonts, icons, colors, and more.

The Mozilla Quality weblog has announced that an initial version of the quality.mozilla.org site has launched. Described as "pre-alpha", the quality.mozilla.org site (QMO for short) is intended to become a central portal for the Mozilla quality assurance community.

Silly name, but a good idea, VMware is joining the rush down the road of paravirtualisation already beingtrodden by the likes of Novell and Microsoft.

Andrew Morton sent out the latest lguest patches for review, noting that he intends to merge the code into the mainline kernel, "some concern was expressed over the lguest review status, so I shall send the patches out again for people to review, to test, to make observations about the author's personal appearance, etc. I'll plan on sending these patches off to Linus in a week's time, assuming all goes well." The project's FAQ notes, "lguest is designed to be simple to use and modify, with the aim of keeping the codebase small. Currently it's around 5000 lines including userspace utility, whereas kvm is over 10 times that size, and Xen is around 10 times bigger again (of course, both have far more features)."

One of the less well-known features of OpenOffice.org is its ability to run as a service. You can put that ability to some clever use. For example, you can turn OpenOffice.og into a conversion engine and use it to convert documents from one format to another via a Web-based interface or a command-line tool. JODConverter can help you to unleash OpenOffice.org's file conversion capabilities.

This document describes how to install a vsftpd server that uses virtual users from a PostgreSQL database instead of real system users. I could not find any tutorial like that on the internet, so when that configuration finally worked for me, I decided to publish it. The documentation is based on FreeBSD 6.2 which I was recently forced to use (I usually use Debian). Nevertheless the document should be suitable for almost any Linux distribution as well (may require very small amendments).

Ubuntu 7.04, aka "Feisty Fawn," has been out for several weeks now and it's already very popular. Heck, Michael Dell was running it even before he chose it to become Dell's Linux of choice. But, how good is it?

The End User License Agreement is, as its name shows it, a contract between the software developer and a potential user. Whenever you install software on a computer, you will have to face the inevitable: agreeing to the EULA. The question is, how important is it and what is the impact of it?

Getting anything into the mainstream news cycle is tough. The old adage "If it bleeds, it leads", has proven to be an apt proverb in the case of the Tux500.com Project. While the only thing that may be bleeding in this effort are a few egos, that sort of injury isn't enough to get the attention of the big guys in the mainstream press.

Fluendo's Elisa is a free software media center application that can play your DVDs, video files, music, and pictures. Since it is designed for extensibility, Elisa has the potential to do much more. It does not handle television or video recording functions, but it is a slick and promising project.

Scientific Linux, a project based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 source packages enhanced with a variety of additional applications, released its v5.0 i386 live DVD on May 7. The SL5 live DVD features a 2.6.18 kernel, includes all client/workstation RPMs, and uses GNOME as its default desktop.

Configure and use Beryl on the new Mandriva 2007 Spring is really easy, and you do not even need to open the console, as everything could be done from the graphic interface (GNOME in the case of this guide)

We are here today to talk about the Strigi project - the indexing and search technology of KDE 4 - and to interview Flavio Castelli, a key developer of Strigi.

The developer documentation in the Second Life client takes the form of a wiki, making documentation easier. In Part 2 of the ongoing exploration of the Second Life software, take a look at that documentation, and use it to jump-start some modifications to the client.

Snap Links is a great Firefox extension that makes it possible to open multiple links on a web page by simply dragging around them. Excellent for opening multiple search results.

The Gentoo Linux project team today announced its first release of the year: Gentoo Linux 2007.0, code-named "Secret Sauce." GL 2007.0 comes as an installable/live CD, features a 2.6.19 Linux kernel, and offers a choice among KDE, GNOME, and Xfce desktop environments.

Mandriva recently released its first distro of the year, dubbed Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Like previous releases, Spring is available in five editions, two of which can be freely downloaded. I installed and worked with the $76 Powerpack edition, which includes support and several gigabytes of packages. Not only does Powerpack score over other multiple CD/DVD free-of-cost distros, it also makes competing non-free distros eat dust.

A lot of why I requested this book for review was sheer curiosity. Like many people, I'm used to thinking "Rootkit = bad". Why the heck would any author or publisher want to take on the liability of teaching their readers how to behave unethically and criminally? The little voodoo doll on the cover did nothing to allay my concerns. However, once I had the book in my hands and began to work through it, I saw it with different eyes.