Showing all newswire headlines

MEPIS LLC, a long-time Debian Linux distributor, is switching from Debian to Ubuntu as the basis for its SimplyMEPIS Linux distribution. It seems MEPIS founder Warren Woodford has decided that MEPIS will do better for its users by depending upon Ubuntu, rather than Debian, for its foundation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debian Weekly News http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2006/12/ Debian Weekly News - March 21st, 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

LXer Feature: 16-Mar-2006

So I'm sitting in front of my computer recently and I decide to do a quick survey of the programs I use to get through the day on my computer. What programs do I use, you ask? Good Question.

[Only mentions Linux as a counter to Microsoft, but every Linux user loves a good Windows rant now and then.]

I thought this was going to be my chance. I really did. I, like many others, had followed the pre-introduction buzz about a new gizmo to be deployed by Microsoft with the codename "Origami."

[ED: A grouch posting, in a mixup I am incorrectly labeled as the poster. - HC]

Microsoft has ceased its obsession with Linux. Someone finally convinced the boss that Linux poses little threat to Redmond. Someone came out of the Linux lab and said that It's about time that they starting focusing on their real threat: IBM.

A bill before the House would reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and ensure protections long enjoyed by consumers for lawfully using digital content continue to exist. It also has implications for DVD playback in Linux.

Linux Administration is broken down into five broad categories or parts. Chapters are organized under each category so no matter what I was looking for, I found it right at my fingertips. Link

Quite a interest been expressed about working wirelessly on Linux. People want to be mobile. They like using their laptops on the couch while watching the latest CSI episode.

If you follow technology news or music news (or both), you doubtless know of an amendment to a French on-line copyright bill that would make it legal to thwart the digital rights protection (DRM) software of the fabulously successful Apple iTunes/iPod system.

Ever since wireless Ethernet was born, a sizable number of folks decided that it should be freely available to the masses at no cost. So we have official community wireless projects, coffee shops, hotels, and other businesses supplying free wireless Internet, and a lot of purposefully-unsecured private wireless networks.

The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company outlined SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 at its BrainShare event in Salt Lake City, where it also promised to support NetWare "indefinitely" and previewed the next two releases in its Open Enterprise Server Roadmap, amongst other things.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts.

Sony Online Entertainment is to replace some Oracle databases with software from EnterpriseDB in a vote of confidence for the open-source company.

The growth of free, open-source software presents developing countries with an opportunity to escape from technological dependence, United Nations University experts say. They say Linux represent a phenomenon changing in the information technologies world.

Early on, the scalability of the Linux operating system--or more precisely, the lack thereof--was a hindrance to the adoption of Linux as a strategic platform for enterprise-class applications that needed more than one or two processors. But over the years, the scalability of Linux has been stretched such that it can span much of the very scalable hardware to which it has been ported. But, there's always room for more, and that is why Red Hat last week put out an update to its Enterprise Linux 4 to extend SMP scalability even further.

A new tutorial that explains how to make GIF animations for the Web using the GIMP graphics application has been published on the GIMP wiki. The tutorial discusses how GIF animations are treated by GIMP, and then details how the GIMP Animation Package takes animation to the next level.

I don't make these things up. I just read the news, in this case a Reuters article about Bill Gates expressing disdain for $100 stripped-down, crank-powered laptops running Linux while pushing a Microsoft-sponsored "ultra-mobile computer" expected to cost between $599 and $999. While I -- like many others -- have doubts that putting $100 ultra-basic laptops in poor children's hands will solve the world's problems, I resent Gates's attitude. I'd like one of the "$100 machines" myself, even if it costs me $200 or $300.

As governments around the world increasingly turn on to open source software, the West Australian government has no choice but to play a leadership role if it doesn't want to be left behind.