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I expect both ease of use and advanced capabilities in any Linux distro. I am therefore hard to please when using a live CD-based distro, which is necessarily limited to about 2GB of software compressed onto a 700MB CD. I have tested more than a dozen live CD distros. Of all of them, Kanotix comes closet to being the "perfect distro."

Businesses Improve Communications With Drag-Drop Calling and Call Control, Call Monitoring and More

IBM’s business built around Linux was worth US$16 billion last year and is projected to be worth more than US$50 billion, says the company’s global head of public sector Linux sales, Mary Ann Fisher.

“Governments worldwide are spending more than US$3 billion a year on Linux hardware, software and services, and this is growing at 35% a year,” she says. “But it’s the US military that is spending the most..."

[ED: IBM luxurating in cash from littl' ol Linux - had to censor the quote, had that innovation word. - HC]

I've been using Linux for almost 10 years, and it has been my primary desktop for more than four years. So why am I writing about a Macintosh? Because during a recent exercise in curiosity, I discovered a few unexpected things -- about the Mac and about how I use my desktop.

Issue number 37 of Fedora Weekly News is out.

Penguin put on steroid regimen

KernelTrap.org experienced some unexpected downtime today as the data center housing the KernelTrap server suffered a prolongedpower outage. The ever-helpful Oregon State UniversityOpen Source Lab [story] explains, "this morning the OSL data center suffered a power outage with the generator eventually failing," going on to note, "we will be meeting to find out what failed and how to prevent it in the future." All systems are returned to normal, and we should not see any further problems.

The beauty of Framework for Integrated Tests (FIT) is that it enables the customer or business side of an organization to get involved in the testing process early (i.e., during development). Whereas JUnit's strength lies in unit testing during the coding process. This article shows you how to combine the best of FIT and JUnit for better teamwork and effective end-to-end testing.

In a surprise decision, the developers of Debian have voted that materials released under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) are compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) -- but only if they contain no invariant sections. The decision settles a longstanding dispute within the project about the GFDL. Although the decision continues to separate Debian from other free and open source software (FOSS) projects, most of which accepts the GFDL without reservations, the possibility remains that future revisions to the license could allow Debian accept it fully.

[ED: As the freest of the free(dom) software movement, the concerns of this group must be taken seriously. Note too that some Wikies had to develop monitoring methods to catch flagrant misuse of (too) interested parties in blatant skewing of the meaning of the contents. See for example, the actions of U.S. Congressionial staffs to burnish the image of their local icon. - HC]

Volker Gropp's enhanced bandwidth monitor -- called bwm-ng, or Bandwidth Monitor Next Generation -- is a rewrite of an earlier bwm. It's simple to install and use, and I recently found it to be very helpful in getting data I needed for a story. You might find it useful, User Level: Intermediate

Dyne:bolic is a multimedia-centric Linux distribution on live CD. Recording, mixing, streaming, and broadcasting audio and video content is its stock in trade. It has been nearly two years since NewsForge first reviewed the Dyne:bolic 1.0 alpha release. The distro has matured considerably in the intervening time. This is a look at the 1.4.1 release.

Indian commercial interests want to do more business with Oregon, especially in the open source software arena.

But those who expected to hear a bid for more software and business-process outsourcing contracts might have been surprised. The 13 representatives of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce want to buy more products and services from Oregon companies, as well as sell more to them.

With its legacy systems no longer able to keep up with a rapid growth in transactions, SA life assurance company Clientele Life switched its servers to Red Hat Linux for better performance and stability.

Solutions for end-users - who would have thought?

On March 10, 2006 McAfee AntiVirus users were dismayed to find essential files had been tagged as the Win95/CTX virus, then quarantined or deleted. With no clue as to what was taking place, many kept re-scanning in hopes that McAfee could eventually remove the evil virus and repair their broken computers. Unfortunately, the "malware" attacking their systems was McAfee itself, consulting it's own misbegotten virus definition file: 4715.DAT. McAfee users are understandably upset.

From our tests of Progression Desktop, it is unlikely that anyone would have a problem in getting their Windows data over to their new Linux install. Here are the folks who make it happen.

Developers of the open source Gnu Privacy Guard encryption software have reported a security flaw that could allow an attacker to sneak malicious code into a signed e-mail message.

Barriers to solving real-world, everyday problems with cutting-edge computer technology are now gone. Linux and Open Source Software offer a giant toolbox, full of shiny new tools, just waiting to be put to good use by our children. Rob Reilly begins a new series designed to help teach kids what computing is all about.