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Users of the popular Linux distribution MEPIS were getting worried about the distribution's leader, who had been rather quiet lately. Some Linux distributions -- Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Novell, for example -- have thousands of people working on them over the course of a month. Others, like MEPIS, have one developer, and users of the popular Linux desktop distribution were getting worried when Warren Woodford, MEPIS's CEO, had been laying low for the last month.

I figured I would try to upgrade my Xubuntu 7.04 Feisty setup on the converted Maxspeed Maxterm thin client to Gutsy 7.10. It's no secret that Xubuntu has, in its short life (6.06 was its first release, I believe) never been as polished -- nor has it received as much polishing attention -- as the flagship Ubuntu. But for older hardware, Xubuntu can mean the difference between a good 'Buntu experience and the other kind.

So you just downloaded Flock, fell in love with it and believe this is the browser for you. Previously, you already installed all the preferred plugins for Firefox, yet Flock does not see them on Ubuntu?

With a typical lack of fanfare the OpenBSD team today released OpenBSD 4.2 and this time around there are not only security improvements (what would you expect?) but also a good selection of speed improvements.

Modern software projects are no longer solely monolithic creations of single local project teams Now in its second generation, the Apache Maven build tool -- unlike legacy build tools created before the Internet-enabled era of global software development -- was designed from the ground up to take on these modern challenges. This tutorial gets you started with Maven 2.

It's never PayPal's fault even when they are caught red handed lying to me. They do apologize though.

Even when you're not the follow-the-crowd type of Linux user, who can resist the plethora of new features on this new incarnation of Ubuntu 7.10 aka Gutsy Gibbon. If my memory serves me right, there were only a few new features in Ubuntu 7.04 aka Feisty Fawn, like the emerg- ence of the Windows migration tool, landmark multimedia support, avahi, etc. My affair with Ubuntu 7.04 was an off-and-on kind of thing. I use Ubuntu 7.04 only when my wife uses it for writing her blog. She had to use the Ubuntu 7.04 on her Shuttle PC with Pentium 4 processor because of the very erratic wireless connection when using Windows XP.

Have you ever had deja vu? I re-read books on occasion, because I like them, and every once in a while I’ll re-read a book that I think I’m reading for the first time. Then I’ll sit there with this twisted-up look on my face, wondering why all the words seem so familiar. Then I remember when and where I saw them last.

Capture and distribute rich media content consisting of video, audio, and slides from the originator’s computer to multiple clients with IBM Personal Presenter. The graphical user interface is written in Java, and the underlying functionality is implemented in C/C++. This technology runs on Windows and Linux.

Not content to rely on the computing muscle supplied by Intel and AMD, HP has upped its focus on server accelerators. The hardware maker today announced a new program aimed right at incorporating things such as floating point boosters into its machines. The fresh HP Accelerator program joins a Multi-Core Optimization Program launched in June. Both efforts charge after similar goals with HP looking to improve the performance of software. Generally speaking, the Accelerator program covers hardware add-ons that can fit into HP servers and speed up specific tasks such as floating point operations. Meanwhile, the Multi-Core push centers on crafting code that can spread well across many-cored boxes.

Say what you will about retail's looming giant, but Wal-Mart's got stones. It's doing what no other mass-market retailer dares to do: offering low-cost PCs with Linux instead of Windows. The company, which has sold Linspire-powered Linux PCs in the past, has gotten back in the Linux-box game with an Everex system that includes the PC itself, along with mouse and keyboard (but no monitor) for $198, as I read in a report from DesktopLinux.com.

The Linux world has been all atwitter since Acacia Technologies Group filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell alleging that their versions of Linux infringe on three patents. Just how big is the risk to Linux from patent lawsuits? One indication may come from a look at current US patent publications related to or mentioning Linux. Computer programs, though often protected by copyright or trade secrets, cannot be directly patented unless they are used for something tangible, such as signal processing or hardware control. For example, an operating system could be patented as a business method or a method to control computer hardware. Even though Linux is open source, freeware, companies could hold patents that could be infringed by people using Linux in certain applications.

Avangate is happy to announce its participation at European Software Conference ESWC - Germany 2007 and greets the European ISV community.

The Xandros Linux-powered "ultra-mobile PC" (UMPC) has finally arrived. One of the most eagerly awaited laptops in some time, the tiny Asus Eee PC 4G, is now available. When the news first broke that Taiwanese computer manufacturer Asus was coming out with a less than two pounds mini-laptop for under $200 that would be running Linux, both gadget and Linux desktop fans were thrilled. Now that it's here, the Eee PC 4G's price has doubled, but early reviewers are still finding this Xandros-Linux powered laptop to be worth the price.

The Ubuntu operating system has been charged with crimes against hard drives. A number of users have complained this week about the OS (7.04/7.10) forcing drives to spin up and down at an unnatural rate due to some very aggressive power management features. According to Ubuntu wizards, however, this is a firmware/BIOS issue and not the OS's fault. A couple of user forums have started fill up with people commenting about their systems going through an unusual number of load cycles while under battery power. This excessive throttling of the hard drive could lead to quicker than expected hardware failures.

The Hardy Heron Roadmap has over 130 new ideas that have been proposed thus far. I’ve examined each one of these ideas in detail, threw out the ones that weren’t interesting to me, wrote an explanation for each. Of course, the juiciest items have already made headlines, such as the new theme that is being planned… “I for one, welcome our new hopefully non-brown themed overlords!”

Looks like Europe is collectively ready to bring Microsoft's monopoly down so that other OS options will have a chance to flourish. Well, at least one group of like-minded people have managed to begin clearing the playing field some.

Myah OS creator Jeremiah Cheatham has issued the first preliminary release of Myah OS 3.0. The gaming- and multimedia-oriented live CD Linux offering is built with an "efficient" Xfce 4.4.1 desktop, and bundles Internet, office, graphics, development tools, and numerous other applications.

The Essential Blender from No Starch Press is both a reference and instructional guide to Blender, the open source 3-D modeling, rendering, and animation tool. It walks readers through Blender's capabilities by alternating hands-on tutorials with broader, topical chapters that discuss the key concepts and how Blender implements them. Despite a few flaws, it's a good resource for those struggling with the software.

After the descriptions in the previous sections it is clear that there are many, many opportunities for programmers to influence a program's performance, positively or negatively. And this is for memory-related operations only. We will proceed in covering the opportunities from the ground up, starting with the lowest levels of physical RAM access and L1 caches, up to and including OS functionality which influences memory handling.