Showing all newswire headlines

Welcome to this year's fourth issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The developers of Fedora, SUSE and Ubuntu have moved one step closer to reach their goals during the past week when new test builds were announced by the three projects. SUSE's development process will now accelerate dramatically, while Red Hat has hinted on returning to a 6-month release cycle after Fedora 5. Also in this issue: the parent company of Turbolinux under investigation, features of SecureAPT, PCLinuxOS unveils a new web site, and AGNULA loses funding. Finally, we interview Alan Baghumian, the developer of Parsix GNU/Linux and one of the most enthusiastic and energetic Linux supporters in the Middle East. Happy reading! Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch

In this tutorial I will describe how to install and configure MyDNS, a DNS server that uses a MySQL database as backend instead of configuration files like, for example, Bind or djbdns.

Sleek, sexy, sinfully fast and leaves you in full control. VectorLinux SOHO-5.1 is at the door.The Vector development team is proud to announce the final release of our SOHO 5.1 product.
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

Open source major Red Hat Ireland is planning to acquire 40 per cent of the total equity in its sister concern, Red Hat India for which the latter has sought Foreign Investment Promotion Board’s (FIPB) approval.

Red Hat India is seeking to transfer around 28 lakh shares of its total 70 lakh shares to Red Hat Ireland. Red Hat India would use the amount for expansion in the country.

[Ed. A lakh equals 100,000 -tadelste]

This is a simple Perl script that uses the Pcap module to dump MSN Messenger traffic. Use this code wisely as you may be invading privacy.

The first Australian linux conference held outside Australia rolls into town

[Ed: Find out who will be at Dunedin - dcparris]

For 35 years, the Unix operating system has been a mainstay of the computer industry, from its origins as a time-sharing system used by horn-rimmed academics to its central role running some of today's most powerful servers. But enthusiasm for this sophisticated piece of code is in decline as sales flatten, while Linux, the Unix-like alternative, thrives. Which leads to the inevitable question: Is Unix itself on the wane?

The minutes of the mozilla.org staff meeting held on Monday 9th January 2006 are now online. Issues discussed include Firefox 1.5.0.1 release schedule, Thunderbird 1.5 release and Marketing.

CyberLink launched PowerCinema Linux, providing an easy means of converting the Linux PC into a feature-rich TV entertainment center ideally suited for PC vendors targeting the CE market.

Microsoft last week unveiled new and updated tools for migrating from IBM Lotus Notes/Domino collaboration applications to Microsoft Exchange. With IBM's Lotusphere 2006 conference in Orlando, Fla., this week, the timing seems more than coincidental.

With the recent security issues facing Windows users, it's time to start seriously considering alternatives to Microsoft's software.

Whether you like Windows or not, sometimes it is just the only option available. When a situation like this arises, it pays to be prepared. This guide goes over setting up a USB flash drive with a number of programs which can run directly from the drive. This means you can access programs like Firefox, OpenOffice, and Thunderbird, with your settings and favorites, and feel right at home on any system in a matter of seconds.

How do you react when database majors put profits on the back burner and start giving away their flagship RDBMS for free? Kumar Dawada goes behind the scenes and attempts to find method to the seeming madness.

[Ed: I disagree with the final analysis - "However, the open source industry does not have the finance or resources to sustain a prolonged and aggressive competition." The author has a limited and/or skewed understanding of the libre software development model. MySQL AB may go out of business, while the MySQL database continues to flourish. - dcparris]

Over at O'Reilly John Mark Walker has produced a lovely history of the open source movement, one it's hard to take issue with, and which I encourage anyone not familiar with software history to read right away.

But his headline is deliberately provocative, and slightly misleading. The headline reads, There Is No Open Source Community.By this he means there is no single group or cabal driving open source. Bruce Perens, Linus Torvalds, and Richard Stallman don't hover over some kettle casting magic spells. The open source movement has no central point of direction at all. It's an economic movement, driven mainly by the Internet, which has pushed the value of programming down toward zero, and which continues to transform the world around us.

Virtualizing servers with VMware or Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 in the enterprise can reduce hardware costs, but does little to decrease the time and labor needed to set up redundant, scalable systems. In short, virtualization lacks automation. BMC Software aims to remedy that with Virtualizer 2.4, a policy-based automation tool that provisions servers, applications and storage on demand.

I tested Virtualizer in our Syracuse University Real-World Labs®, installing it on a Red Hat Linux Enterprise Server 4. I also implemented Virtualizer Service Agents on virtual machines (VMs) running on VMware ESX Server 2.5.2 and a conventional Intel PIII server (dual 1,400-MHz processors) with 1,024 MB of RAM running Microsoft Windows 2003. Virtualizer scaled out new servers and other enterprise resources on demand. However, it didn't create new virtual machines on the fly. I'll have to wait for the next version for that.

Fedora's yum/rpm system includes a little-known capability: it can rollback a system to a previously-installed state.

  LXer Feature: 16-Jan-06

Experienced IT professionals don't buy the Microsoft hype about their R&D investments. GNU/Linux vendors can use Microsoft's questionable selling point to contrast Microsoft's investment in solving perceived problems with the libre software world's investment in solving actual problems.

Ed Scannell of VarBusiness published an scathing article called Cracking Dell's Code last week. He wrote: "Shifting market conditions, poor business decisions and lagging technology are creating fissures in the direct-sales giant--and creating opportunities for solution providers." Two days later Oracle and Sun announced the renewal of their partnership. We believe Dell's luke warm commitment to Linux may make them the first casualty of the open source wave.

Also consider that Dell sold a total of 5 servers priced over $25,000 in the third quarter while HP and IBM sold thousands.

This is the first of at least a two part series. I say that because I hold a stronger opinion today than when I first began formulating this premise. Initially, I had'nt thought out all the implications and due to the interactive nature of this format, I expect further ideas to arise.

Oddly enough, for this one instance I see a modicum of truth in one insult Microsoft throws at Linux. And that's what we'll explore together. Please don't take the polite wording of this editorial as an indication of any uncertainty on my part regarding the premise I will present. The politeness exists only because those involved seem so talented. It caused me some difficulty understanding how they arrived at the point they did.

Read on and feel free to comment with vigor as this conclusion or its consequences is not one to take lightly. Furthermore, the next part may seem quite disturbing.

With the traditional Microsoft news media turning their collective ear to the rest of the industry, you have to suspect a changing of the guard. But Linux companies don't seem to guage their efforts by what the industry says about Microsoft. Linux just keeps chugging along.

So what does the Industry have to say about Microsoft? They say that though many people will swear by the invincibility of Microsoft's ship, it hasn't maneuvered all the icebergs. Collectively, the competition has started ringing up wins. With alternatives in Linux, FireFox, OpenOffice.org and Apple the Microsoft floating casino has begun to list and sway. Here's how and some of it might surprise you.