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Several patches submitted by a Google developer will enable the kernel to push considerably more data through network cables on multi-core systems. Some of the LAN and Wi-Fi drivers also promise greater throughput, or to use less power, due to various driver enhancements.

The Western Digital 320 GB Scorpio Black hard drive I bought from NewEgg.com more than a month ago (and which I only recently got around to breaking out of the box and installing) is dying. This is the drive from which I've been running Fedora 13. Those annoying clicks when the drive first boots (and occasionally thereafter) are not normal. The smartctl utility hasn't provided much help, nor has the diagnostic image that WD offers on their Web site (which runs with Dr. DOS — who remembers Dr. DOS??)

India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal this week unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production. Sibal said the Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price further to $20 and ultimately to $10.

The government of India has unveiled a prototype of a touchscreen, tablet computer which it expects to sell for $35 initially... The Indian prototype is impressive--especially at a $35 price point. The device runs on a variation of Linux.

A short while ago "Ty W" posted an interesting question on StackOverflow. Apparently, most graphics software cannot scale images the right way. Usually it's hard to notice the flaw but the linked article does a great job of explaining the problem. PHP's GD library suffers from the same issue, but Ty discovered that the sample PHP program provided with the article did not work on partially transparent images. After a couple of hours of fiddling I managed to get a working solution. Apparently, the imagegammacorrect() function in PHP deals badly with images that have an alpha channel. I suspect that it tries to apply the same calculation to the alpha channel that it applies to the red, green and blue channels. To work around this, my solution splits the aplha channel from the original image. The alpha channel is resampled regularly while the red, green and blue channels are resampled using gamma correction.

FB4Linux is an Eclipse plugin that provides Flash development capabilities in Linux. Getting it installed can be tricky though, as there are a few undocumented steps you'll have to complete. This article takes a look at how FB4Linux can be installed in Eclipse 3.5.2.

Whenever I make a major jump to a new computer and/or operating system, there's usually quite a bit of distro-hopping instability as I try to figure out what works best for my hardware, my work and my moods. After I had Fedora 13 x86_64 with Xfce firmly planted on my new Lenovo G555 laptop, I (presumptively) attributed problems (on which I'll elaborate in a future post) with a couple of applications to either Fedora 13 or the Fedora-packaged applications, deciding to wipe F13 Xfce and try a couple other things.

Back in January, we published the first benchmarks of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD: the spin of Debian that replaces the Linux kernel with the FreeBSD kernel while retaining most of the same GNU user-land and it uses the GNU C library. With those original tests comparing Debian GNU/Linux to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, the Linux version ended up winning in 18 of the 27 tests. However, over the past six months, the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD port has matured and it's also moved to using the FreeBSD 7.3 kernel by default (compared to 7.2 back in January) and the FreeBSD 8.0 kernel is also emerging as a viable option that can be obtained using Debian's package management system. Today we have updated test numbers looking at the performance of Debian with the FreeBSD kernel using two different notebooks where we ran the latest Debian GNU/kFreeBSD packages with both the FreeBSD 7.3 and 8.0 kernels, Debian GNU/Linux with the Linux 2.6.32 kernel, and then finally we tested the pure FreeBSD 7.3 and FreeBSD 8.0 operating systems.

Linux will dominate mobile by 2015. That's according to a new report from technology analyst ABI Research.

During Microsoft’s recent Worldwide Partner Conference, COO Kevin Turner assured channel partners that tablet PCs running Windows 7 would soon counter Apple’s iPad. But perhaps Turner and Microsoft should be more worried about another rapidly emerging tablet rival: Google Android.

What do I use to test out webm? Since I already have quite a few avi videos I decided to convert some of them. I was amazed at the quality of webm conversions but realized that medium quality avi files aren't the best source material. How about DVD quality video? How about Sita Sings the Blues? That sounds like a no-brainer as it is a freely distributable movie with very high quality source files available.

When Oracle began the acquisition of Sun, few doubted that MySQL was the main asset of interest. With MySQL still breathing six months later, users hoped Sun's other projects would survive as well. But despite Oracle's early claims and intermittent assurances that OpenSolaris would remain open source software, very little else has been said. Some, including the OpenSolaris Governing Board, are beginning to think OpenSolaris will be allowed to die a slow and quiet death.

The team behind the cloud-based Peppermint variant of Ubuntu Linux released a scaled-down, fast-booting, site-specific browser (SSB) version. The "Peppermint Ice" distro switches to Google's Chromium as the default browser, and while still supporting native apps, is even more focused on web-based apps than is Peppermint.

Canonical's growing relationship with the IBM DB2 may have a hidden benefit. Specifically, if DB2 gains some momentum on Ubuntu, it could attract Oracle to Ubuntu.

After putting so much effort into an application it would be shame to see it not being used just because it was only available in English. Most people pay more attention and give more respect to a product which is available in their own language.If you want a global audience for your software, it is very important that you localise your application for your users. Here's how...

Although my intent is not to start the next GNOME/KDE-level war, it seems there must be a happy medium between total desktop insecurity and total desktop unusability. Linux offers so many ways to secure data that it's important to realize it's okay for folks to have different needs and desires.

PulseAudio was supposed to cure desktop audio in Linux. It promised useful features like device routing and individual volume controls. It may well do these things; in my experience it has been frustrating, opaque, and unreliable. Some have claimed that Ubuntu's implementation is flawed; I haven't looked at other distros yet, so I don't know.

Banshee 1.7.3 is released without much fanfare, but with a lot of improvements. The new Banshee adds Amazon MP3 Store support and also does Miro Podcast directory integration which allows users to discover, stream, and subscribe to podcasts in a way never before possible in Banshee.

It’s time to go beyond the ‘hello world’ app. Let’s look into real-world situations and start doing big things with your Android development project...

This is a detailed description about how to set up an OpenSUSE 11.3 64bit (x86_64) server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable) with PHP, CGI and SSI support, Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH, TLS and virtual mail users, BIND DNS server, Pureftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.