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While a bulk of the Linux community is engaged by the release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS next week, another popular Linux distribution put out its first major update of 2010 a few days ago. PCLinuxOS, the Mandriva-based OS that is one of the top 10 most popular Linux distributions according to DistroWatch, is out with this update that bumps their kernel to Linux 2.6.32.11 while still carrying the BFS scheduler, updated NVIDIA and ATI driver support, locale improvements, and much more. We have a few benchmarks up this morning of PCLinuxOS 2010 compared to the latest snapshot of Ubuntu 10.04.

The final version of the Procurement and Open Source Software Guideline has been published on OSOR.eu. The study, commissioned by the European Commission as part of the "Dissemination of good practice in Open Source Software (GPOSS)" measure under the IDABC programme, gives guidelines for public administration on how and why publicly acquire open source software.

Previously, iFixit was a repair site that posted step-by-step disassembly instructions for gadgets posted by iFixit staff. The company makes money by selling parts (like replacement iPhone screens) that intrepid fixers can use in their repair projects. Later, iFixit implemented a gallery tool for anybody to post an illustrative teardown manual for their gadgets (which Gadget Lab helped introduce with a Sony teardown contest). Now, the site has repurposed itself into a full-blown wiki for repair manuals, where contributors can collaborate on repair instructions in real time.

Linux is armed with Intelligent Input Bus (IBus) now. This is an input method (IM) framework for multilingual input in *nix like operating systems. Having a bus like architecture it is called I"Bus" Two major components of IBus are Input method engine (IME) and ibus-daemon. ibus-daemon provides a system tray configuration utility to select the Input method engine (IME) and then the language. IBus uses D-Bus to communication between the ibus-daemon and clients (engines, panel, config tools)

IBM is turning to technology from Novell to build Linux OS powered software appliances -- a move that aims to deliver easy-to-deploy software for physical, virtual and cloud-based environments in use at small to midsized businesses. The new software appliances deliver solutions for IBM Lotus, Websphere and Cognos software applications. Specifically, IBM will be offering software appliances for the IBM Lotus Foundations collaboration suite as well as the Lotus Protector for Mail Security. IBM's WebSphere Application Server is also benefiting with a software appliance aimed at virtualized environments, while Big Blue is ramping up its analytics offerings with appliances for its Cognos Now! and IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer packages.

Gloobus Preview is a Gnome application based on Apple’s “Quicklook”, designed to enable a full screen preview of any kind of file.

Webmaster Tools from Google can enhance your understanding of what is making your website work. ModSecurity, a valuable security resource, may block the verification page that is necessary for Webmaster Tools to function. This article will show you how to write a rule that will allow you to use both effectively.

TORONTO -- How will we know when IPv4 address space is all used up? And what will happen when that day comes? The modern Internet has been built using IPv4 (define), which provides for 4.3 billion address, a supply that could run dry within the next two years. Organizations that allocate IP address space like the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) have attempted to forecast when IPv4 address space will be gone, but it's not an exact science, and there is no precise date to mark on a calendar.

Calcuverter is a calculator and unit converter in one. Furthermore, you can enter queries in plain English.

Some months ago I described how the XO laptop is used in some Nepali schools. This time I interviewed Bernie Innocenti, an italian developer who worked on that project and now is doing the same thing in Paraguay. Says Bernie "Even if OLPC deployed here in Paraguay only 4000 laptops, I believe that the project is turning out as a huge success."

Most Linux distributions include attractive graphical interfaces, but you can do a lot more from the command line interface once you know your way around. For tasks like controlling and monitoring the distro's underlying system, the command line remains indispensable.

Pandora FMS (for Pandora Flexible Monitoring System) is software solution for monitoring. Pandora FMS allows monitoring in a visual way the status and performance of several parameters from different operating systems, servers, applications and hardware systems such as firewalls, proxies, databases, web servers or routers.

Linux consulting should provide a bigger picture for the client so they better understand the implications of choices they make. This aspect means that as a consultant you need also to train the client so they best understand the situation.

Opera Software has released a version of its flagship mobile web browser that runs on Linux, Windows, and Macintosh desktop computers. Useful for testing mobile websites, Opera Mobile 10 runs in a variety of resolutions and in both touch and keypad-only modes, the company says.

Over on the GCC mailing list is a rather lively discussion (especially for being a Friday evening) that only started earlier today. No, it's not about the recent GCC 4.5 release or even our GCC vs. Clang/LLVM benchmarks, but it's about development participation. A developer is asking why you don't participate in contributing to GCC?

After calling Flash a "CPU hog," Steve Jobs has given Adobe the chance to live down this now famous insult. And Adobe is taking it. Steve Jobs also called Flash "buggy" and littered with security holes. And he summarily banned it from both the iPhone and the iPad - even when it's translated into Jobsian machine code. But with the latest update to the Mac OS X version known as Snow Leopard, the Jobsian cult has added an API that allows third parties to hardware-accelerate H.264 video on the Mac, and Adobe tells The Reg it's already working to tap that API.

Why is virtualization so important? The short answer is that virtualization enables businesses to lower their technology Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while increasing their Return on Investment (ROI). This is done primarily through the multitude of server consolidation projects proliferating every organization's infrastructure in some fashion today. What do the top UNIX vendors have to offer with respect to virtualization? IBM offers PowerVM, formerly referred to as Advanced Power Virtualization, and has just released their POWER7 Systems, which alter the virtualization space (see What's on the horizon in 2010?). HP offers their Virtual Server Environment, which supports both their Integrity and HP9000 server base. Sun offers a new name, the xVM server, along with their mature container-based technology.

Lucid Lynx, otherwise known as Ubuntu 10.04, is now in the final stretch. Yesterday the Ubuntu Developers announced the Release Candidate, the penultimate release before its final April 29 release.

Daniel Gerzo with the FreeBSD project has issued a status report concerning work going on within FreeBSD and related projects for the first quarter of this year. Catching our interest in particular were the updates surrounding LLVM/Clang as the compiler for FreeBSD's base, the Chromium web browser porting efforts to FreeBSD, and ZFS file-system enhancements.

System Administrator Dilemma #942: Send a Data Center Service Tech out to pop open the case to tell you what's in your system or use two simple commands. Do you rely on proc files or dmesg to tell you everything you need to know about a system? If you do, you’re only seeing part of the picture. But what about when you want more detailed information about the system on which you’re working? Do you have to have the manufacturer’s spec sheet handy to know which components your system contains? It’s inconvenient to have someone open a system case in a remote data center to tell you how many memory DIMMs are in, or are not in, your target system. Linux systems include two native commands that tell you almost everything you need to know: dmidecode and biosdecode.