Showing all newswire headlines

Elliott Associates, the hedge fund that’s seeking to acquire Novell and SUSE Linux, is denying a report that it plans to break up Novell and sell off the pieces. Hmmm… But I still wonder: Will Novell and Elliott Associates reach a buyout agreement in time for Novell BrainShare? Here's some speculation.

How to install FreeNX server and client in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic). FreeNX is a system that allows you to access your desktop from another machine over the Internet. You can use this to login graphically to your desktop from a remote location. One example of its use would be to have a FreeNX server set up on your home computer, and graphically logging in to the home computer from your work computer, using a FreeNX client.

Today I thought I would show everyone just how easy it is to install and use Microsoft Office 2007 on OpenSolaris 2009.06 and 2010.03 with Bordeaux for Solaris. I have installed Office 2007 on both OpenSolaris 2009.06 and 2010.03 build 134 the screenshots below are from 2009.06 running in Virtual Box.

Following the release of Fedora 13 Alpha this week we delivered Intel graphics benchmarks looking at the performance of an Intel Atom Netbook using the very latest kernel, DRM, and Mesa packages that Fedora is known for carrying. There are regressions in the Intel stack worth noting, but in this article, we are continuing in our Fedora 13 benchmarking by looking at the general system performance of the Linux desktop.

In February 2010, the International Intellectual Property Association (IIPA) asked the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to put Indonesia, Brazil, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam on its "Special 301" watch list in part because of their policies encouraging the adoption of open source software (OSS) by government agencies. Open Source for America (OSFA) believes the IIPA's request to be both irresponsible and misleading in its characterization of OSS. OSFA strongly urges the USTR, and all government agencies, to firmly reject such unfounded pressure to blacklist or penalize any country for policies allowing or encouraging the use of OSS.

Former Sun chief open source officer Simon Phipps is joining the Open Source Initiative (OSI) board effective April 1st. Let's hope Phipps can shake the organization up a bit. I'd hazard a guess that many newcomers to the open source community are partially or even wholly unaware of the OSI and what it's meant to do, because the OSI has not been a terribly dynamic organization over the past few years. The OSI is considered the steward of the Open Source Definition (OSD), and is the body that approves new open source licenses. But its influence has been considerably on the wane for some time now.

From the forthcoming version 4.1, Google is doing away with the Chrome feature which has attracted the most criticism: unique IDs. Until now, this token has been stored in the user_experience_metrics.user_id key in the User DataLocal State file in the Chrome installation folder. Supplementing other measures to improve the browser's reputation for data protection, in a white paper on Chrome data protection, Google has announced that it will in future delete the token once Google Chrome runs and checks for updates the first time. From version 4.1, the allegedly anonymous ID will only be used to report successful installation of the browser to Google.

With the impending launch of the Apple iPad, the Cupertino-based company's shunning of Adobe Flash technology has been brought to the forefront of technological discussions. While it was one thing to forgo Flash on a small, mobile device such as the iPhone or iPod Touch, some are questioning whether lack of Flash support is going to be a make-it-or-break it feature for the new slate devices arriving next month - devices which, if you believe Apple CEO Steve Jobs - are "better than netbooks." On the flip side, Apple supporters echo the company's sentiments that "Flash is a CPU hog" and including support for the technology in Apple's mobile line-up would negatively impact battery life.

The Ubuntu Ubiquity Slideshow is a project which uses Webkit that provides a slideshow when you install Ubuntu.

It’s been less than a month since VMware officially acquired Zimbra -- the open source email platform -- from Yahoo. But VMware isn’t standing still. Jim Morrisroe, VP and GM of VMware’s Zimbra division, says the company is preparing software appliances that combine virtualization with Zimbra. They should arrive by Q2 2010. Here are the details and the implications.

Shuttle announced a Barebone XS35 nettop equipped with a dual-core Intel Atom D510, and Nvidia Ion 2 graphics. Meanwhile NewEgg is selling a Linux-equipped Eee Box B202 nettop for only $189, and the Eee PC-oriented Eeebuntu distro is moving from Ubuntu to Debian with EB 4.0.

Mini is designed to work on less-capable phones with smaller screens, slower network connections, and less-sophisticated user interface abilities. Version 5 offers support for features including Speed Dial, which is a grid of favorite Web pages, compression through Opera's servers to speed download of Web pages that aren't tailored for mobile phones, and tabbed browsing.

Back in 2007 we reported on Valve looking for a senior software engineer to port their Windows-base games to Linux, then in 2008 we said the Source Engine would be coming to Linux based upon our sources (something that we still believe in), later that year we also found a few Linux libraries with the Left 4 Dead game.

As we come to the end of Akkana Peck's excellent series on mastering GRUB2, it's not clear what advantages it has over legacy GRUB, or even good old LILO. It seems it's gone backwards. In today's installment we learn how to translate some common and mysterious error messages, and how to manage a multi-boot system with GRUB2.

Part of the repositioning of the KDE brands was choosing an appropriate 'KDE Software Label' for developers working on applications outside the main KDE Software Compilation. Technology developed by KDE is used far and wide, as can be witnessed on kde-apps.org and other sites. Some of these applications are developed by people closely entrenched in the KDE community, others by developers who just happened to like KDE technology and don't feel part of the KDE community in any big way. To allow authors to express their connection to the KDE community, the KDE community has chosen three appropriate labels. We are also presenting the first draft of a guide for distributors of KDE software on how to integrate their communications with our brands.

Here's an interesting story: Microsoft deciding to release some code as open source for all the right reasons (although there's still a fly in the ointment...).

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world's premier Linux certification organization, announced that its affiliate organization LPI-Spain ) had partnered with Proyecto Universidad Empresa (PUE) to promote LPI certification and training within Spain's public schools. PUE is Spain's leading agency in the development of IT training and certification and provides academic programs for such major IT organizations as Microsoft, Cisco and Sun.

The inability to play the latest off the shelf commercial games has been a thorn in the side of Linux for a long time. With companies such as Valve starting to embrace other platforms, will that be the catalyst Linux needs to become a first class citizen?

For a few years I have been trying to create a "distributed cluster storage system" (see below) on standard Linux hardware. I have been unsuccessful. I have looked into buying one and they do exist, but are so expensive I can't afford one. They also are designed for much larger enterprises and have tons of features I don't want or need. I am hoping the Linux community can help me create this low cost "distributed cluster storage system" which I think other small businesses could use. Please help me solve this so we can publish the solution to the open source community.

Few people understand Microsoft better than Tandy Trower, who worked at the company from 1981-2009. Trower was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavour that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday’s story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released.

[Not Linux or FOSS related, but interesting history I think - Tracyanne]