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An ill wind is blowing near Microsoft right now. It's come and passed before, but this time seems different. I'm starting to get a lot of clients asking about this "Linux stuff." And I'm not even talking about the corporations trying to save money on software; I'm talking about individuals trying to save their home computers.

To begin with, I'm not alone in having my doubts about the "upcoming patch" that Microsoft has promised on the tenth of January. It's simply not going to be all it needs to be (even if it does appear on time).

The Chairperson of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA), Mrs. KRUEWAL SOMANA (เครือวัลย์ สมณะ), said that her agency is preparing to present its software, namely Open Source, to the Ministry of Education for consideration tomorrow. If it is chosen, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology will procure the software, which will then be installed in the Education Ministry’s 250,000 new computers.

Broadcom Leverages Industry Leading Voice over IP, Wireless LAN and Video Multimedia Technologies to Deliver Revolutionary Solution for Video IP Phones

About a year ago I installed Linux on my desktop at work. I am a database administrator for a PeopleSoft and Oracle shop and I spend a lot of my time remotely logged in to our servers. I decided to try Linux because I had become frustrated with Windows not being able to things like multiple desktops, forwarding the display of a remote server onto your box to run apps remotely, and connecting with SSH. Fortunately, my management is far more interested in having happy, productive employees than what operating system people use so they were willing to let me experiment. Today, with Xandros, I have a good solid desktop, and I don't worry about viruses, spyware, and adware.

Everywhere you look in the trade press today, you'll find glowing misrepresentations of US-CERT's latest annual summary of vulnerabilities discovered in 2005. If you take the summary findings at face value, you would likely conclude that Windows -- with 812 reported vulnerabilities -- is a much safer operating system than something called "Unix/Linux," which totaled 2,328. The US-CERT summaries have become the fodder for a FUD festival, and many scribes sympathetic to the Microsoft cause go out of their way to make sure the real picture never emerges.

The attempt to bring several Linux distributions together under a single core is doomed. That’s according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the startlingly popular Ubuntu distribution of Linux, who has predicted that the DCC Alliance initiative will ultimately fail.

[ED: More extensive explanation of the reasoning behind this conclusion than I have seen elsewhere - HC]

The world's largest mobile manufacturer Nokia looks to have scored a major hit with a new wireless device that doesn't have any phone functionality. The Finnish firm announced on Wednesday that, against its expectations, it is to increase production of its 770 Internet Tablet handheld after achieving huge online sales since its launch in early November. In fact, demand for the product in Europe and the US is so great that the company has currently run out of stock and customers are facing a minimum two-week wait for the device.

Internet search leader Google is to announce the launch of its own budget priced personal computer that will run on a Linux-based operating system and could be sold in conjunction with Wal-Mart, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The machine, dubbed Google Cube, could present a serious challenge to software giant Microsoft whose Windows operating system currently runs some 90% of the world's personal computers.

Though previous attempts to launch cheap network-based computers have failed, analysts believe that Google's stellar brand, plus its deep pockets and expertise at building web applications, could give it a chance against the world's biggest software company.

The report said the new computer could be announced as early as Friday when Google co-founder Larry Page is due to address the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The uptake of Linux clusters based on the high-speed networking standard is about to climb, according to a kernel developer

  LXer Feature: 05-Jan-06

In light of Tom Adelstein's recent article, "Time to Cull Proprietary Software from Open Source Branding", LXer Editor, Don Parris, reminds users that the GPL exists for a reason.

Digg Story

"I posted three posts about the Beijing news and all posts and articles were deleted inside China," Anti was quoted as saying by the AFX news service. "MSN Spaces (has) now deleted all of my articles and I have no backup and I'm very angry," he added.

The software giant has unveiled the first beta of IronPython, a .NET implementation of Python

Programmable Solutions Critical to Keeping Pace With Consumer Demands While Meeting Low Power, Small Form Factor and Low Cost Goals

Opinion: Massachusetts may be sticking to its ODF guns after all, but Microsoft still has way too much power in software buying decisions.

More of a blurb about Linux becoming more main stream in regards to readily available, functional printer drivers. If reading that Linux is on the road to World Domination gives you the warm fuzzies this it an item for you. For many others this is skippable.

Essentially this is a mini review where Cups now stands.

If you're among the many people considering dumping Microsoft Office for OpenOffice.org 2.0 but fear change, well, that's normal. However, now there is a new book entitled Point & Click OpenOffice.org!, authored by leading open-source journalist Robin "Roblimo" Miller, that aims specifically to quell such fears.

I can understand why many people love Ubuntu and its KDE-interfaced brother, Kubuntu. However, neither one is a perfect fit for me.

First, the good news: although they go by different names, there's really no fundamental difference between the Ubuntu brothers.

Ubuntu uses the GNOME interface, while Kubuntu uses KDE. Specifically, the newest version, Ubuntu 5.10, also known as Breezy Badger, is a Debian-based Linux distribution. On the GNOME side, Ubuntu uses The GNOME Project's GNOME 2.12, while Kubuntu uses KDE 3.4.3.

In short, you simply choose your interface, and you don't have to worry about the rest. Kubuntu 5.10, which is the one I worked with the most, can also be upgraded to KDE 3.5.

For years I have had an on-again/off-again relationship with desktop linux. My old flame: Debian running fvwm. Over the years, however, we have both changed. Where I used to enjoy tinkering, I am now impatient and want things to 'just work.' Desktop linux has thankfully developed along these lines. Goodbye, stock Debian and fvwm. Hello Ubuntu and KDE (Kubuntu).

With this entry, guest blogger Bernard Golden begins his series of commentaries on the ongoing revision process for the General Public License.

Framestore CFC, the animation studio responsible for much of the eerie special effects work in the latest installment of the Harry Potter film series, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," uses fast, powerful Intel-based Linux clusters in its render farm, but it was still running into problems because of bottlenecks with its Network File System servers. Accio Lustre -- an open source cluster file system called Lustre helped feed the studio's prodigious I/O appetite at a price point that keeps it competitive with larger organizations.