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As the kernel and user space exist in different virtual address spaces, there are special considerations for moving data between them. Explore the ideas behind virtual address spaces and the kernel APIs for data movement to and from user space, and learn some of the other mapping techniques used to map memory.

As a society, we are all about numbers -- How much, how far, how fast. In IT, it is all a numbers game. Teraflops to compare computing power, TPC results to compare databases, analyst numbers to compare penetration -- We are all about the numbers. And as a wise man once said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. And after sitting through not one but two presentations about the numbers, I am more convinced than ever that numbers are best left to the accountants.

In this article , we'll take a look at designing higher-level objects; the kind of objects that manage other objects. The objects that tie everything together.

Do I want 32 bit or 64 bit? This is a question I have fielded many times, it is one most new Linux users ask before they even download their first Linux ISO. There is a short answer and a long answer to this question. The short answer: You want 32bit.

At the Linux Foundation's annual LinuxCon event this week, Columbia University law professor and Software Freedom Law Center founder Eben Moglen explained that the prospects for software patent reform are bleak and that the time has come for the free software community to start finding ways to solve its patent problems by using the patent system itself.

Oracle Corp. said Thursday it has filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google Inc., alleging that the Internet search giant infringed on intellectual property related to the Java software that Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun Microsystems Inc.

Android is a great little mobile operating system for the modern smartphone, but it can feel a little bewildering and complex to the newcomer. Google's quest to make everyone feel at home by providing layer upon layer of option screens and hundreds of tweakable settings can leave people a little lost, plus there's your widgets to worry about, the Home screen layout and much more hidden beneath Google's green bonnet.

In October of 2000, IBM CEO Louis Gerstner announced that the company would investing $1 billion in Linux development. This announcement came off the heels of two substantial developments in the industry. Google, unknown at the time, appeared with Linux servers in 1998, and Dell announced they would begin pre-installing Linux on select servers in 1999. A few years later in 2004, Big Blue made a formal declaration of sorts in a series of television commercials that culminated with a commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXVIII, announcing their commitment to a partnership with the Linux community. While intended as a signal to their competitors and the market at large, the message had an unexpected effect on an unexpected audience.

I am not a serious gamer at all. If you want to see me totally disoriented, play an FPS game in front of me. But then there are always these silly games for people like me. Here is a quick list of my favorite time wasters or puzzle games or whatever you call it.

I've taken some screenshots of the recently released Backtrack 4 R1 which features a full Fluxbox desktop environment, a new 2.6.34 kernel, and several other changes.

F-spot, shotwell, solang -- some distros are arguing about what should be the default "simpler than GIMP" image editor. But there's one that never seems to get mentioned and deserves a look: fotoxx. Despite a name that sounds like a wrinkle treatment, this little image editor is lightweight and doesn't have many dependencies -- great for a netbook or other modest machine. And it's jam-packed with great features.

KDE software has traditionally been strongest in Europe and South America. With the growth of events such as Camp KDE and many key contributors calling North America home, KDE is increasing its presence in this region. Among upcoming highlights, KDE will be at Ohio Linux Fest on September 10-12 later this year.

There are approximately 38 critical issues that need to be resolved before Drupal 7 beta gets released. For more on these beta blocker issues check out: http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/drupal-core. In this article by Trevor James we will install Drupal 7 alpha, test it out, and ultimately help to fix the critical issues and speed up the beta release.

Sources say VMware is mulling a partnership, investment or outright acquisition of Alfresco — the open source enterprise content management system. The potential reason: Alfresco would potentially allow VMware to attack Microsoft SharePoint, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenues for Microsoft. Here are the details.

Facebook, Google and Twitter can’t be ignored, but StatusNet’s Evan Prodromou told Linux User & Developer that didn’t mean his aim was to dismantle them…

The debate about "open core" has reignited in the open source community; "Open core" is where a vendor has a core of open source software which they sell with their own, proprietary, closed source extensions. Some of these vendors, such as SugarCRM and Eucalyptus describe themselves as open source companies, but critics point out that they have proprietary code providing important or essential features. This, the companies say, is a business model which attracts venture capital and creates revenue streams.

After several delays and many months behind schedule, Debian 6.0 appears to be one step closer to release. As of August 6, the testing branch is now frozen except for fixes and translation updates. This puts Final on track to possibly be released by the end of the year.

It’s been a bumper beta 24 hours here on the brewing-browsers El Reg desk, after Google shoved out a Chrome 6.0.472.33 build yesterday. A developer build of Chrome 6 has been available since June, and now Google has effectively promoted most of that code to beta status for Windows, Mac and Linux fans. But there are exceptions.

Besides features like SystemD replacing SysVInit and a much faster JPEG compression/decompression library, one of the other proposals for Fedora 14 was to actually ship it on time. Red Hat's Fedora project has had a poor track record lately of shipping their alpha, beta, and final releases on time and none of the past five releases at least have actually made it out on their due date. John Poelstra, the Fedora Program Manager, sought to change this with Fedora 14, but the entire release schedule has already slipped.

One the coolest file systems in User Space has got to be GlusterFS. It has a very unique architecture that allows it to be configured for specific storage requirements and scenarios. It can be used as a high-performance parallel file system, or a cloud based file system, or even a simple NFS server. All of this in user-space. Could GlusterFS represent the future of file system development for Linux?