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ARMONK, NY -- Oct 12, 2005 -- IBM today announced plans to contribute key intellectual assets to the open source community, in an effort to help companies and software practitioners adopt and share best practices for software development.

Alan Cox [interview] submitted a pair of patches to add error detection and correction (EDAC) logic to the 2.6 kernel. He noted, "I don't think its yet merge ready but getting there so I'd appreciate other folks comments and views on what else needs fixing before generating a submission for Andrew." Alan has submitted a subset of thebluesmoke kernel module which "is mainly concerned with reporting ECC, PCI, machine check, cache, hypertransport, thermal throttling and related events." This version of the patch is only for the 2.6 kernel, and was renamed from bluesmoke to EDAC.

Memory error checking used to be accomplised with a parity checking bit that was attached to each byte of memory. The parity bit was calculated when each byte of memory was written, and then verified when each byte of memory was read. If the stored parity bit didn't match the calculated parity bit on a read, that byte of memory was known to have changed. Parity checking was a reasonably effective method for detecting a one bit change in a byte of memory. ECC expanded upon this idea with the use of a hashing algorithm that calculates a checksum for multiple bytes of memory. This checksum can be used to detect when one or more bits has changed. On single bit errors, it can also restore the memory to its intended state, actually correcting the error.

New Cordless Internet Phone Provides Convenient Use of Free Skype Internet Calls

Trying to figure out if your laptop is connected to your home or office network? ping it.

Tonight on The Linux Link Tech Show, episode 105:

This comment refers to the article "Vista licensing move pushes NSW governmental shift to Linux"

How readers are using MySQL. At the end of last week's newsletter about the latest MySQL update, I asked how this open source database is being used among newsletter readers. From the large response, it appears the database is an integral part of many reader's Linux-based server platforms, and runs in a variety of ways.

Seeking to deliver on the needs of enterprise customers, JBoss, Inc. today unveiled its strategy around the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS) as the market’s only interoperable, open source platform for SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture).

No doubt that the OpenSOurce community is shaken by the announcement on October 7th that Oracle is acquiring Innobase, the company behind InnoDB.

This is a must see for anyone involved in promoting the Linux desktop. It applies to developers, systems integrators, consultants, and anyone who has set up a Linux box for his or her grandparent(s) to "save" him, her, or them from Windows.

Exercise for LXer readers: set up your machine to so that you can download and watch the videos in Theora format with either a single of a double click (your choice) from your file manager.

Choice is a good thing, and Linux users have plenty of it when selecting a program for Web development. Users can choose from the basic no-frills text editors, to full-featured "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) programs. Here's a survey of the best programs I've used.

This two page interview with OpenOffice.org's Gary Edwards is the second in a series of three. In this installment, Gary discusses the importance of open document formats and hints to the release date of OpenOffice.org 2.0: "No one knows for certain when OOo 2.0 stable will be released, but Mad Penguin's bet is that the stable 2.0 release will come before any recently purchased cartons of milk expire in your refrigerator"

Brian Stevens, formerly vice president of development, is stepping into the CTO role after years of leading the Linux software maker's enterprise strategy.

PixExcel Ltd. Monday released Update 6 of Pie Box Enterprise Linux 3. Pie Box is a relatively new distribution aimed at people who want a stable OS with a long lifespan, but don't want an expensive bundled support contract, the company said. The distro is derived from open source software with only four of its packages modified to replace trademarks and logos with the company's own.

Slimline Open Firmware (SLOF) provides a largely machine-independent BIOS, illustrating what is needed to initialize and boot Linux, focusing on PowerPC. Three of the SLOF developers discuss the development and usage of SLOF, initialization/boot source code for the PowerPC based on the Open Firmware standard. editor note: Open Firmware is used on New World Macs

Sony's PlayStation Portable shows the graphics power you can put into a mobile device and mobile gamming. Although the average mobile phone is technologically behind this specialized game machine, you can see where the market is heading. This article describes the Mobile 3D Graphics API and introduces you to 3D programming for Java mobile devices.

The KDE Project has released a bugfix update to KOffice, v1.4.2. Support for the OASIS OpenDocument format, recently adopted by Massachusetts, has been greatly improved, especially in KWord, KSpread, and KPresenter. Karbon, a vector-based drawing program, has also seen considerable recent development, the team said.

Sun takes the battle to office suite leader Microsoft with the latest version of its StarOffice office suite. With a VBA macro converter, better compatibility and migration tools, Sun takes aim and fires at Redmond.

The nForce4 chipset has been out for the AMD platform for almost a year now. Upon release, it quickly became “the” chipset to have for most mid to high end systems. As with any popular chipset, you tend to see a plethora of motherboard makers offering little differences here and there to make their product stand out from the rest. BIOS options, fan-less chipset cooling, and UV cables are just some of the features that you see motherboard makers boasting as a selling point. Today we are going take an in depth look at the DFI LANParty NF4 SLI-D motherboard and investigate whether or not its features, performance and stability make it stand out from the rest.

It's time yet again for the annual ONLamp.com reader survey! We run a survey on each site once a year to learn more about you, our readers. ONLamp.com covers a lot of topic areas, including PHP, Python, Ruby, Apache httpd, MySQL, PostgreSQL, the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux operating systems, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, C, C++, open source, free software, system administration, and advocacy. That's neither a comprehensive list of everything the LAMP metaphor has grown to represent nor a representative list of all of the skills, abilities, and interests you have.