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Lighttpd is a secure, fast, standards-compliant web server designed for speed-critical environments. This tutorial shows how you can install Lighttpd on a Fedora 14 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.

Earlier this year Google announced they would be switching to the EXT4 file-system on their Linux servers (previously they were still using the mature EXT2) and at the same time it was made available they had hired Ted Ts'o, the lead developer of this file-system currently in use by a majority of the new Linux desktop distributions. Google's continuing to love the EXT4 file-system and now with their new Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" operating system for smart-phones and other mobile devices, they are switching to EXT4 there too.

"So we have a few great Free Software gaming engines now, like DarkPlaces used in Nexuiz, Cube 2 used in Sauerbraten, Qfusion used in Warsow, soon id Tech 4 which is used in id Software's Quake 4, Doom 3, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars along with many others, and the HPL1 engine used in Frictional Games' "Penumbra: Overture". All of these engines have some combination of normal mapping, bump mapping, and/or parallax mapping..."

Fuduntu, a Fedora 14 Remix optimized for netbooks and laptops (but works on desktops too) has reached version 14.7, getting some further improvements which make it stand out, like Firefox cache moved to /tmp to improve flash performance out of the box (Fuduntu already had /tmp and /var/log moved to RAM disk). The new version also comes with Adobe Flash, ntfs support and Fluendo MP3 codec installed by default along with other tweaks.

This looks at the 5 most popular (give-or-take) Mono applications for Linux. Not a single one of which doesn’t have a significant amount of references to non-ECMA namespaces. As the Microsoft Community Promise covering any implementation is limited to the “extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications”, we can reject the claim that “All of the pieces of Mono that are used in Linux apps are covered by the MCP.

Ubuntu Brainstorm is a wiki-like interface that allows the Ubuntu community to input ideas that might make Ubuntu more usable, friendly, or fun. Almost 20,000 ideas have been entered and have received 2.5 million votes in the two years since its introduction. Entries can be sorted by all ideas, popular ideas, ideas in development, or implemented ideas. Matt Zimmerman, Debian developer and Canonical employee, thinks it might be a good idea to periodically collect and discuss the current status and future possibilities of the most popular ideas.

Earlier this week on Phoronix were new benchmarks of Ubuntu Linux vs. Mac OS X using a new Apple Mac Book Pro with an Intel Core i5 CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor. When looking at the tests results overall it ended up being a competitive race between these two Microsoft Windows competitors. In some areas, like the OpenCL computational performance, Apple's operating system commanded a sizable lead. In other areas, like the OpenGL graphics performance, Ubuntu Linux backed by NVIDIA's official but proprietary driver was in control. Here's an additional set of tests showing the measurable leads of NVIDIA Linux over Mac OS X with Apple's NVIDIA driver.

It's been all over the news that Google is starting a pilot program for it's Chrome OS, which I expect to be out within a few months. The pilot program is probably meant to get the last polish for the system. As my readers will know I'm always excited about new technology, especially dealing with Linux. But here's why I ended up not even trying to get into the program:

In one of my article i made a roundup of 3 tools to organize your time: Getting things Gnome, Tasque and Basket note pads. These are 3 good programs that can help you in task management, and i was surprised when in the comments someone told he’s using a tool from the command line to accomplish this: Task warrior. And so i tested it.

I believe it is high-time that Apache and Google created a new, Java-like programming language, platform and VM which can easily accomodate the ports of the Java base libraries, all of the Apache developed Java libraries/applications and the typical, popular open-source libraries like Hibernate.

Here are a bunch of interesting video demos showcasing native multitouch support in Linux. I especially liked the one which demoed a good looking Dell touch pad running Ubuntu Unity.

We have always been strong advocates of computer games. Rather than rotting the brain, computer games are interactive, teach essential life skills, and can stimulate learning. They also have been proven to enhance skills such as creativity, cooperation, teamplay, as well as encouraging innovative and strategic thinking and improving hand-eye coordination.

The holiday season is upon us, and you know what that means: relatives coming over wanting to use your WiFi. If you'd like to find a solution somewhere between "run an open, unsecured AP" and "hand out your WPA2 password to people who write things like that down on sticky notes" then setting up a captive portal is a convenient option.

Many mobile application developers are frustrated by the complexity involved in creating apps that work across all platforms. What works on an iPhone won’t necessarily cut it on a BlackBerry and apps that sing on an iPad need to be completely overhauled for an Android-based tablet. An open development ecosystem would go a long way toward getting apps to market faster, and potentially mean less wear-and-tear on developers trying to keep up with evolving technology. Kurt Daniel, COO of mobile application development platform Workllight, makes a great case for the necessity of open mobile app development and has some tips on what developers should consider before writing their first line of code.

/proc is a virtual filesystem generated at boot and updated regularly by the kernel. With /proc you can investigate exactly what hardware your Linux kernel sees, what processes it is running, boot options, and also manipulate kernel events.

Last month Oracle renominated Apache to the Java Executive Committee because we valued their active participation and perspective on Java. Earlier this week, by an overwhelming majority, the Java Executive Committee voted to move Java forward by formally initiating work on both Java SE 7 and SE 8 based on their technical merits. Apache voted against initiating technical committee work on both SE 7 and SE 8, effectively voting against moving Java forward. Now, despite supporting the technical direction, Apache have announced that they are quitting the Executive Committee. Oracle has a responsibility to move Java forward and to maintain the uniformity of the Java standard for the millions of Java developers and the majority of Executive Committee members agree. We encourage Apache to reconsider its position and remain a part of the process to move Java forward. ASF and many open source projects within it are an important part of the overall Java ecosystem.

A member of the research staff at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has created a Minority Report interface using the Kinect 3D sensor and a bunch of open source software.

Fotoxx is a simple, open source photo editing application for Linux. Fotoxx image editor is incredibly lightweight and packed with all the basic features you could expect in an image editor application. If you haven't tried Fotoxx yet, it is definitely worth your attention.

I would like to announce the immediate release of Fuduntu Linux version 14.7. This version brings minor changes to the OS defaults, and fixes a few bugs.

At this point in time, if you are the kind of person who loves your visits to Facebook, then it is reasonable to conclude that you are the kind of person who also enjoys suffering and pain. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with liking suffering and pain. There are many people who do, and they typically pay beautiful and mean women or handsome and punishing men to dole out Facebook-style sessions. They charge by the hour, in fact.