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I just saw the news that Debian Etch will no longer receive updates from the Debian Security Team as of Feb. 15, 2010. As you may or may not know, the current Stable version of Debian is Lenny, which received that "Stable" designation on Feb. 15, 2009. See the pattern? In the world of Debian, once a release is declared Stable, the previous release moves from Stable to what the project calls Old Stable, at which time it receives security patches for an additional year. That gives users a full year during which to upgrade to the current Stable distribution, which in case you haven't been reading closely is Lenny.

Over the past few years more of the Linux graphics stack has moved within the Linux kernel so that there is finally a proper kernel memory management solution for the open-source graphics drivers and to also provide kernel mode-setting. Moving more of the GPU driver code into the kernel DRM results in a more secure environment as the X Server can now run without root access, the start-up process is cleaner and faster with KMS, the performance will ultimately be better with a memory manager, there's more reliable and faster VT switching, suspend and resume is better, and the list of benefits just goes on.

Linux is more than ready for the average user to be using, but just like any operating system it may be a bit much for the average user to get it setup and thats just fine if you ask me.

Your editor has just completed an important transition: moving his Internet connectivity from one evil branch of the local telecom duopoly to the other, equally evil branch. This change required the acquisition of a new router; that, in turn, provided the opportunity to play with Linux-based router software, and Tomato in particular. Read on for your editor's impressions of this impressive bit of (mostly) free software.

Sometime in 2010, Google will release Chrome OS, its take on a netbook operating system. It will be far more than just that though. It's an entirely new take on the desktop operating system. While a final version is still months away from release there's already enough of Chrome available that we can begin to see what it's going to look like. For starters, Chrome OS is Linux. To be exact, it owes a lot of its genes to Ubuntu. But, that's all under the surface. You won't need to know a shell command from the GNOME desktop to use it. As a matter of fact, you won't need to know anything about the traditional Linux desktops -- KDE or GNOME -- either. Chrome OS's interface is Google's Chrome browser. If you can use a Web browser, you'll be able to use Chrome OS.

You probably believe at least one of these awesome *nix myths. I love mythology and there's nothing like hearing a technology myth to make my day complete. Just today someone applied one of the following myths in a conversation with me. I didn't say anything but it gave me the idea for this post. Here are the five myths related to *nix systems that I hear most often when dealing with technical and non-technical people alike. You'd be surprised as to how often even the most technical people spout these myths to each other and to the unsuspecting and unknowledgeable bystander. I have to bite my tongue when I hear them. And now that you know them, I hope it ruins your day too when someone slips into mythland with one of these gems.

[Another Ken Hess gem for your enjoyment. - Scott]

I'll get to Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 later, but the "safe graphics mode" boot option in that very Ubuntu live DVD helped me figure out how to get Sidux 2009-04 to boot on my Intel 82830 CGC (aka Intel 830m) graphics-running Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101. Over the course of two computing sessions I experienced both the Alpha 2 of the upcoming Ubuntu LTS release as well as the Sidux take on Debian Sid, circa early last year, both of which I've wanted to try in order to "plan" this laptop's future when I decide to leave Debian Lenny behind.

A former co-worker once told me “If you want to learn Debian, install Debian. If you want to learn Fedora, install Fedora. If you want to learn Linux, install Slackware.” The philosophy behind Slackware is to keep the system as UNIX-like as possible. There’s not a lot of automatic configuration and you won’t find many bells and whistles, but you’d be hard set to find a more stable and mature distribution. In fact, Slackware is one of the few distros still in existence from Linux’s early days, right along with Debian, SuSE, and Red Hat. Because of this decision to keep things as UNIX-like as possible, Slackware has a reputation for being somewhat difficult to install and confusing to use. While this has been true for a long time, there have been some great improvements in the past few releases, and now seems like a great time to run a guide on this often misunderstood distribution.

There are so many reasons why having a Linux distribution on a USB drive can come in handy. From having a “rescue” OS on your keyring to being able to install a new distribution on your EeePC, a “thumb drive” Linux has many uses. But getting Linux onto a USB drive can’t be simple. Right? Wrong. There is a tool, UNetbootin, that makes installing Linux on a USB drive simple. UNetbootin can be used on either Linux or Windows. In this article, we’ll be illustrating it for Both.

An office suite is a collection of related software for business and other uses. The software is distributed together in a single package, with a consistent graphical interface, and with strong interaction between the different components.

The Wine development release 1.1.37 is now available. The source is available now, Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Let's face it. Even though open source conferences, conventions, and projects have seen an increase in the number of female participants, there's a strikingly male majority in the world of free software. While the greater free software community, media outlets, conferences and projects are finding diverse ways to draw women to open source, the GNOME Foundation's Outreach is built on a familiar framework. The approach? Think Google Summer of Code -- complete with internships, mentors, and sponsors -- with an emphasis on team contributions rather than stand-alone projects.

The Release Candidate for opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM Version 1.4 is now available for download from sourceforge.net

T-Mobile launched an Eric Clapton-backed Fender Limited Edition of its Android-based MyTouch 3G phone. Meanwhile, China-based Hisense announced an HS-E90 Android phone, Motorola is launching an Android app store in China, and Taiwan's Gigabyte is rumored to be releasing an Android handset in Russia, say reports.

In December the U.S. White House set guidelines for an open and transparent administration. The Open Source for America (OSFA) organization is now following up with tips for a governmental move to free software.

LXer Feature: 23-Jan-2010

A new test version of Youtube offers HTML 5 video support, meaning watching videos without Adobe Flash, but only when browsing with Chrome or Safari. While this might seem strange at first, and might sound like Google is abandoning its Firefox users, things are a little bit more complicated.

Google has confirmed that its upcoming lightweight, browser-centric Chrome OS operating system will include a built-in media player. In an interview with ArsTechnica, Matthew Papakipos, the engineering director for the Chrome OS project, says that the developers are currently working on "integrating a whole media player into Chrome and into Chrome OS".

The second alpha of Ubuntu 10.06 boasts 15-second boot-time, says an industry report. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu project posted a controversial survey about which proprietary apps might be considered for inclusion with the distro, and Canonical announced a support plan for IBM's Ubuntu/Lotus "Smart Work" cloud distribution.

It is very hard to manage thousands of users manually, so a user-provisioning tool becomes very important in our process. In this article by Flavio E.Goncalves, we are going to see two of these tools—SerMyAdmin and OpenSIPS Control Panel (OpenSIPS-CP). SerMyAdmin is more focused on the administration of the users, while OpenSIPS-CP is excellent for monitoring and provisioning parameters to the system.

LinuxTag is the most important place for Linux and open source software in Europe. Last year, LinuxTag had over ten thousand attendees, and over 300 speakers. This year, the 16th LinuxTag will be June 9-12, 2010 at the Berlin Fairgrounds in Germany. LinuxTag seeks exciting and suitable proposals for presentations in the conference tracks.