Showing all newswire headlines

Con Kolivas [interview] posted a patch for the 2.6.13 kernel [story] that implements cache prefetching. The patch is based onearlier work by Thomas Schlichter. Con explains, "I have resuscitated and rewritten some early prefetch code Thomas Schlichter did in late 2.5 to create a configurable kernel thread that reads in swap from ram in reverse order it was written out. It does this once kswapd has been idle for a minute (implying no current vm stress)." He goes on to explain, "Note that swapped in pages are kept on backing store (swap), meaning no further I/O is required if the page needs to swap back out."

Con noted that the patch will be included in his next -ck patchset [story], however, he also posted it to the lkml to guage interest in eventually merging the effort into the mainline kernel, and to encourage greater testing and feedback.

Hurricane Katrina has left individuals and families with urgent needs, and relief agencies will work hard to prepare food, clothing, and shelter for them. However, a huge number will be unable to return to their homes for weeks or even months. Free, readily-available public access to the Internet can provide a crucial lifeline for them during this time.

I had the joy in recent overseas travels to encounter a group who had been attending a Linux Open Source convention. They turned out to be veterans and pioneers of the Open Source movement, but they were not enamoured about the way Open Source was commercially maturing – making this an unhappy group of travellers! Like the wedding guest in 'The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner' I listened to their tale of woe and found that some of their less emotional observations were of interest.

200 plus groups from over 60 countries are participating in the second annual Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 10 to showcase the excellent range of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and demonstrate how it can be used to save money and gain freedom in every sector of the information society.

If you've ever wondered what all the excitement surrounding the Resource Description Framework (RDF) or the Semantic Web is about, then I have good news. You can explore both without leaving your Web browser, using Piggy Bank.

After what the developers involved call 'a ton of hard work all around,' Firefox 1.5 Beta 1, also known as the 1.8 Beta 4 milestone, will be released on Thursday 8th September. The news was relayed web-wide by Mozilla Developer News, and is certain to be welcomed by Firefox browser devotees who have been waiting for the first beta test version of the next major upgrade to their increasingly popular open-source browser.

Called Linspire Five-O, the operating system, normally available for $49.95, is available for free until Sept. 6.

Win4Lin, a maker of Windows-on-Linux virtualization software, Thursday released Win4Lin Pro 2.0, which includes support for both older 16-bit code and newer 64-bit processors, among other updates. The new release also boasts easier installation, enhanced performance, and "compatibility with virtually all Windows XP/2000 business applications." The company announced last May that Win4Lin Pro v1.0 had been designated "Red Hat Ready" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 on x86 and 64-bit processors.

If you've ever tried to explain how a particular feature or application works without actually showing it, you know how difficult that can be. A good software demo can really save the day for anyone from developers wanting to demonstrate their software to home users trying to explain to their family members how to create a simple document. If you want to create a software demo, you don't have to buy an expensive closed source application such as Demo Builder, Viewlet Builder, or Turbo Demo. Instead, you can use free software tools that may already be installed on your machine, namely the GIMP and Impress. Here is how to create a software demo that includes some essential elements: cursor movements, button clicks, animated menus, and callouts.

Alan Yates, general manager of Information Worker Business Strategy at Microsoft, told DesktopLinux.com: "We do not believe ... that the answer to public records management is to force a single, less functional document format on all state agencies. "The proposed policy is inconsistent with ongoing dialogues Microsoft is having with other Massachusetts state agencies about how Microsoft products can best meet their data and records requirements for a variety of data types -- ranging from traditional documents to pictures, audio, video, voice, voice-over-IP, data, database schema, webpages, and XML information.

This week, advisories were released for courier, libpman-ldap, simple proxy, backup-manager, kismet, php, phpldapadmin, maildrop, pstotext, sqwebmail, polygen, audit, freeradius, openmotif, freeradius, openmotif, php, ntp, openoffice, lesstif, libsoup, evolution, kernel, selinux- policy-targed, policycoreutils, xen, dbus, evince, poppler, phpWiki, phpGroupWare, phpWebSite, pam_ldap, and mplayer. The distributors include Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, and Red Hat.

Cluster Resources recently released a new Maui snapshot that fixes a number of internal job management issues, improves fault handling and logging, and updates a number of communication protocols to allow better interaction with peer services.

No matter how good the software, hardware eventually fails. Redundancy is an important way to keep your important services running smoothly. With the right software, you can even sleep through otherwise catastrophic network failures. Philip Hollenback demonstrates how to make your network robust by using Keepalived on multiple Linux routers.

The state proposes an open document format initiative where Microsoft Office would be replaced. If it's an electronic document, it has to be "created and saved" in an open format by 2007 in Massachusetts. The state recently updated its Enterprise Technical Reference Model to reflect this requirement...

In China, government-led initiatives encouraging the adoption of open source software have spurred on intense competition between various factions of the community. IDC China analysts see a shift from low-cost distros to higher-cost, more robust products with improved support. Revenues for the locally-sold Linux server operating environment market in the first half of 2005 are estimated to approach US$2.9 million.

Fifteen cities and towns across Australia will stage events and give away free software to mark Software Freedom Day on September 10, the vice-president of the local coordinating body, Linux Australia, said.

"In Africa, and much of the developing world, access to knowledge is limited on account of a lack of information and communications infrastructure and connectivity, low levels of literacy, little awareness of available resources [and] how to utilise them, and a lack of localised and locally relevant resources," says CSIR spokesperson Biffy van Rooyen. "The Free Knowledge Communities initiative strives to lower the barriers by providing basic building blocks to enable communities to empower themselves with knowledge." The idea is to ensure communities can not only reach existing free and open source software and content, but also create new content in a culture of sharing and collaboration.

Elive is a Debian-based desktop Linux Live CD distribution with the Enlightenment window manager, version 17. On Tuesday Elive 3.0 was released to the public.

Here are step-by-step instructions for installing and customizing your own Linux system. On the plus side, Linux appeals to those tired of the security woes that plague Microsoft Windows and, of course, to those interested in sampling thousands of free apps. As Linux is free, you won't be encumbered by potential software-licensing frustrations. It attracts developers in particular because of the plentiful development tools that are both powerful and free. Those who venture into Linux fresh from the Windows or Macintosh worlds are often pleased to find that Linux distributions, or distros, approach user interfaces with much more flexibility than those operating systems do. If you install one distro and don't like its look-and-feel, you can switch to other graphical user interfaces—some of which may be Mac-like and some Windows-like—without reinstalling Linux.

"Grid computing is the domain of the enterprise-level business." Not anymore, thanks to a new on-demand grid service from IBM that puts Linux-powered grids in the hands of small- to medium-sized businesses.