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Ext4, RPM, distro. A plain-English guide to Linux jargon. Linux is growing in popularity but unless you're up to speed with its jargon the open source operating system could make no sense. We offer a short, plain-English guide to some of the key concepts used by Linux users.

Bad news for anyone with an iPhone 3GS: even if you have the latest OS, even if you have a PIN number, even if it isn't jailbroken - it can be hacked by anyone using a computer running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Here's how, step by step.

One week after Google open sourced its $124.6m VP8 video codec, Mozilla and Opera have called for its inclusion in the still-gestating HTML5 specification. As it stands, the HTML5 spec does not specify a video codec. Browser makers are free to use any codec they like, and the big names are split between the patent-backed H.264 and the open source Ogg Theora. In open sourcing VP8 and rolling it into larger media format known as WebM, Google is hoping to create a single open and royalty-free standard for video compression on the web, and though it hasn't specifically called for VP8's inclusion in the HTML5 spec, Mozilla and Opera see no reason to wait.

You need to process lots of data (more than 1 TB)? You want to parallelise across hundreds or thousands of CPUs and you want to make this easy? You need MapReduce for large-scale parallel data processing. You have lower demands? No problem. MapReduce can do that too…

One of the important things to remember with Fedora Linux is that it is a platform on which solutions can be built. One such solution is the Sugar On A Stick Fedora Linux spin which adds the Sugar learning environment originally built for the One Laptop Per Child effort to Fedora and packages it up so it'll run on a USB stick. This week, following the release the Fedora 13, the Sugar On A Stick v.3 release came out, codenamed 'Mirabelle'. The Mirabelle release follows the Blackberry v.2 release that came out last December. So what's news? Well obviously Mirabelle benefits from all the changes in Fedora 13 for stability and ease of use. On the Sugar side the new release is now making it easier for users to customize the activities/applications that run on the stick.

It was not too long ago that Linus Torvalds warned that the Linux Kernel was getting bloated and scary. Today there is more bad news for the Linux Kernel in the form of a report from Phoronix regarding the latest performance test of the Linux 2.6.35 Kernel.

I still have on my computer several personal documents that I wrote and saved in FrameMaker format in the 90's, before I started thinking at file formats, and I'd really like to access again some of them. I am sure there are many thousands of people in the same situation. Unfortunately, it looks like (see article) there is no way to convert those files to Linux. Please tell me that I'm wrong!

Check out how easy it is to make and receive VOIP video calls from the hand-held N900 device via 3g or Wifi connection! Check out how easy it is to make and receive VOIP video calls from the hand-held N900 device via 3g or Wifi connection! Video calls such as this are by far the way of the future! Hopefully we will see more devices follow in the N900's footsteps and start adding this functionality.

In this article series by Reynante Martinez, we will learn how to go about creating a underwater scene from scratch. We will begin by creating the terrain for the underwater environment. In the sequel of the article, we will learn how to add vegetation, pebbles and corals. After which we will discuss how to add distant terrains, lighting effects and finally composition.

For the past six months we have been monitoring the performance of the very latest Linux kernel code on a daily basis across multiple systems. We have spotted a few regressions -- both positive and negative -- on occasion using our automated daily testing of the Linux kernel, but nothing like what we have encountered the past few days: the Linux 2.6.35 kernel performance has fallen hard. In fact, the performance has fallen very hard in a number of tests and right now, we would consider it a disaster. While the 2.6.35 code has not even seen its first release candidate yet, there are some massive performance drops in a variety of different tests that have yet to be corrected and nothing like we have encountered with previous kernel release cycles especially for a regression that has lived now for about one week.

This article describes how you can upgrade your Fedora 12 system to Fedora 13. The upgrade procedure works for both desktop and server installations.

After achieving success with the OLPC XO-1 laptop, the One Laptop Per Child foundation is setting in motion plans to create a working $100 tablet for CES 2011. Marvell Technologies announced Thursday that it will partner with the OLPC foundation to create the hardware for the proposed tablet, currently named the XO-3.

An iPhone port of GNU Go is currently being distributed through Apple's App Store. However, this distribution is not in compliance with the GNU GPL. The primary problem is that Apple imposes numerous legal restrictions on use and distribution of GNU Go through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is forbidden by section 6 of GPLv2. So today we have written to Apple and asked them to come into compliance.

After lots of intense work and collaboration, the Netbook profile for MeeGo 1.0 has been released today. As such, I am particularly pleased to announce in conjunction that Banshee is the default and integrated media player for MeeGo.

Most of the people I know think Linux is very difficult for a layman to understand. They fear that after installing Linux they will not be able to do the normal tasks they do with Windows and thus they prefer paying money to Microsoft instead of even trying Linux.

Intel and Nokia have released the first code from their joint mobile Linux project, MeeGo, an effort to challenge Google's Android. Three months after the project was announced, the two companies have delivered MeeGo 1.0. Intel said it provides a stable core foundation for application development and a "rich user experience" on netbooks. MeeGo for touch-based handsets, tablets, and in-car systems is due to appear in June. MeeGo 1.1, which will combine code for netbooks and touch-based devices, is scheduled for October.

Excited to see the work happening on the Linux consumer space in the MeeGo Universe. There is now a MeeGo 1.0 download available for everyone to try out. At Novell we have been contributing code, design and artwork for this new consumer-focused Linux system and today both Michael Meeks and Aaron Bockover blog about the work that they have been doing on MeeGo.

25 May, 2010 - 13:26 - Today we are announcing the project release of MeeGo v1.0. This release provides developers with a stable core foundation for application development and a rich user experience for Netbooks.

When you’re reading up on Wi-Fi security, you’ll find many different interpretations and opinions. One might say disabling SSID broadcasting will hide your network, while others might say it just draws hackers into an easy job. Some might think WPA encryption is cracked, while others say it’s secure. Here we look at each myth and tell you whether it's verified--or busted.

It's not usually a big deal, getting sound working in Linux or BSD. In my case, however, my laptop's internal sound module is dead, and I've substituted a USB sound module from DealExtreme.com that costs about $2. It works, but it can be hard to get a given distribution to pipe the sound there rather than to the dead internal sound system. I installed the OSS app in Tiny Core, ran osstest in a terminal, and the app proceeded to send sound to both of my sound modules. When it got around to the one that is working, I heard some lovely piano music.