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DistroWatch reports - The Edubuntu team is proud to announce the first Edubuntu release Edubuntu 5.10. The Edubuntu 5.10 release consists of an Install CD for the PC (Intel x86), 64-bit PC (AMD64) and PowerPC (Apple iBook and Powerbook, G4 and G5) architectures. Edubuntu is a flavour of the Ubuntu operating system, which is optimised for classroom use. It has been developed in collaboration with teachers and technologists around the world.

OSDir's got some damn sweet shots of Edubuntu 5.10 Official.

Welcome to this year's 42nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The timely release of Ubuntu Linux 5.10 and its sister distributions last Thursday was the event of the week - this issue naturally starts with a closer look at "Breezy Badger". We'll also investigate wireless network configuration on SUSE Linux 10.0, feature the unusual, Slackware-inspired Kate OS distribution, and ask why the otherwise Linux-friendly Google has expended so little effort to make Google Earth available on our preferred operating system. Happy reading! Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch

Small and midsize companies are creating IT infrastructures based on open-source software to reduce licensing fees and increase flexibility

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), an industry consortium devoted to improving Linux, plans to launch an initiative today to bring the open source operating system to mobile phones.

Most people who chimed in complained that the NetGear box didn't support anything other than Windows – I don't find this to be a tragic big deal since if you're running Linux, you can find yourself a way to rig up a RAID array with a suitable distro on a spare server.

Warning. If you read any further, you will find yourself at ground 0.0 of the biggest battle the computer industry has ever seen. It is where the biggest warriors from the proprietary software world, the open standards world, and the open source world are engaged in hand-to-hand combat. At least for the moment, the open source and open standards worlds (the Rebel Alliance) appear to have joined sides against the proprietary warlords, led by Microsoft.

We're all about security this week. Not the security you get from being all wrapped up in a baby-blanket, coddling, gratuitous GUI, but the kind that comes from knowing who is connected to your machine, and why. Trojan Scan is a simple but effective tool that monitors connections and alerts you to unauthorized activity of the sort that a rootkit, trojan, or other bad-to-the-bone-ware might engage in. Jump down out of that hi-tech hammock you're in and let's take a look.

It is undeniably hard for technology vendors like BEA to step outside of their comfort zone of talking technological terms, especially when they are dealing with the still-alien concept of enabling `business services’ rather than simply selling products. This is brought into relief even more sharply when it acquires businesses that extend the ability to provide those services.

rht wrote: "The speil of most advocates for change in the server setup of SMEs (or SMBs or whatever you like to call small business) goes something like this: If you've got lots of little server boxes replace them with a smaller number of bigger boxes; if you've got a small number of bigger boxes replace them with a quasi-mainframe; vice versa; replace the one or more OSs you currently have with a single OS; and, by the way, our organisation just happens to sell the hardware/software/services that will make your migration path simple, trouble-free and expensive."

from the article Linuxworld Special: Migrate and Consolidate Leveraging Linux

DistroWatch reports - 2006 is the ultimate version of Mandriva Linux. It is the fruit of the convergence of three technologies: Mandriva, Conectiva and Lycoris. Mandriva Linux 2006 is also more easy-to-use, more user-friendly and more powerful. It is ideal for the needs of all customers, from the beginner to the SOHO user. New features in 2006: Desktop Search tool, Interactive Firewall, new package manager: Smart, DeltaRPM updates; new installer feature; new software: graphical desktops: KDE 3.4 & GNOME 2.10; better look-and-feel and ergonomics...

OSDir's got shots of the super-slick Mandriva Linux 2006.

This is an interview with Tony Bove, author of the upcoming book, "Just Say No to Microsoft".

The plan Mr. Allchin ultimately proposed was an ambitious one. The first step was simple; throw out years of code built into Longhorn and start fresh. They would rebuild Windows into one fresh kernel that was being built - Linux style - for a Windows Server OS. The idea was to make Windows a series of modules built into a core, so that Microsoft could simply plug in features at will without disrupting other modules. The second step, led by Amitabh Srivastava, was to automate the tasks of bug detection and bug fixing, tasks traditionally done by hand.

Steve Blass writes "No problem: if you can't get a Linux driver, Ndiswrapper lets you use the Windows drivers."

Mr. Blass knows one side of the story, using Windows drivers isn't always a panacea. - Ed

Like smoke to a fire, you can follow the astroturf to whatever frightens Microsoft the most. This time it is the partnership between Google and Sun Microsystems to build a web based multi-platform distributed client office suite. Geee... for most companies this would mean the choice of operating system would no longer matter as long as a browser existed. I seem to remember the same behavior when Netscape began to plan such a project. Cold chills in Redmond today?

I will be making infrequent updates to KernelTrap for the next 3-4 weeks. During that time, the infrastructure behind KernelTrap will be makeing a few changes. For the past many months, we've been running on a server borrowed from Oregon State University'sOpen Source Lab [story]. Shortly, we will be migrating back to our own server, still hosted in the wonderful Open Source Lab. The migration itself should be transparent. Beyond that, I will soon be making efforts to upgrade the site to the upcomingDrupal 4.7, bringing in many improvements over the currently running Drupal 4.5 release. Finally, I'll be taking advantage of this time to pursue long standing efforts to improve the functionality and layout of the site.

Though there will be only infrequent updates to the front page, don't forget that the KernelTrapforums remain active, including specialLinux,OpenBSD,FreeBSD,DragonFlyBSD,NetBSD,GNU/Hurd andhardware forums. As time permits, features will occasionally be posted to the front page, including an interview that I'm currently working on. By mid-November, I expect to be able to begin making more regular updates again.

Eugenia writes: "A few days ago I wrote a tutorial on how to connect your Mac to a GPRS service via Bluetooth and a Bluetooth-enabled phone. However, not everyone owns a Mac or a higher-end phone. And so here is a quick tutorial on how to connect your Linux laptop to a GPRS service using an infrared-enabled phone. For this article we used a Sony Ericsson K700i phone, a Sony Vaio N505VX laptop (which has an onboard IrDA) running the latest Arch Linux and Cingular's GPRS. In the following weeks I will also be publishing two more tutorials showing how to do the same thing under Linux but via Bluetooth and the USB port."

You can read Eugenia's Bio here. Among other things, she functioned as editor in chief of OSNews from August 2001 to June2005 building that news portal to one of the most popular on the Internet.

I'm afraid I do not have an optimistic view of the future. People throw away their rights as heedlessly as pieces of litter. The one ray of hope just may be the FOSS world, because it puts powerful tools into the hands of anyone who wants them. Television, radio, and print media are lost to us, and that is deliberate, because the most powerful tool of all for liberty is free speech. The first act of any tyrant is to control broadcast and print media. "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."

Migration to Linux desktops is also under way. "A number of our PCs are already using GO-Global's Linux client to access MS Office and other applications," said Pace. "We'll be migrating all our desktops to Linux in the near future."

In an all too familiar saga taking place in small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) everywhere, file/print, Web, e-mail, and application servers are multiplying at an alarming rate in response to ever-increasing demands for processing power. Initially, the decision to bolster capacity-constrained servers by adding more seems like a reasonable remedy for managing aggressive growth. However, when two-to-three additional servers grows to 10-to-20 over time while being provisioned for extra cycles to accommodate peak loads, this quick-fix solution mushrooms into a major IT problem, leading to accelerated operating costs, increasingly complex administration, and ineffective resource utilization.

Hindu Businessline writes: "MICROSOFT'S Internet Explorer (IE) may be ruling the world of Internet browsers, but a number of players have started to make an earnest attempt to win a larger share of the browser market through innovative strategies.

"The Norway-based Opera Software is one such company challenging IE's dominance with its Opera browser. (Another is Firefox, from Mozilla Corporation). "

While we have become used to Microsoft's dominance, one might want to return to the original complaint and request for relief filed by the US Department of Justice in 1998 at the DOJ's site and read the people's concerns. Who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars, we spent on that litigation. Ask yourself if the DOJ's fears were real. The only conclusion one can draw is yes they were real and they still exist today. -Ed