Linux and Me

Red Hat Sues Switzerland Over Microsoft Monopoly

2009-05-26T13:15:00.001+03:00

Linux vendor Red Hat, and 17 other vendors, have protested a Swiss government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding. The move exposes a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments accept, despite their lip service for open source, according to commentators.

The Red Hat group has asked a Swiss federal court to overturn a three-year contract issued to Microsoft by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, to provide Windows desktops and applications, with support and maintenance, for 14 million Swiss Franc (£8 million) each year. The contract, for "standardised workstations", was issued with no public bidding process, Red Hat's legal team reports in a blog - because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products.

New Linux.com Goes Live

2009-05-21T12:28:00.001+03:00

The new Linux.com site has been launched. For those who don't remember the Linux Foundation took over the site in March and have been planning the relaunch since then.

In addition to Linux news, product listings, and more, Linux.com is designed to be interactive; 'for the community by the community.' You can:

Gain Guru Points for contributions to the site and compete for the "Ultimate Linux Guru" recognition and prizes
Create a group for your LUG or developer group and invite friends to stay informed. (linux.com/community/groups)
Add an Event to the Linux.com Calendar. No event is too big or small. (linux.com/community/events)
Post a comment in our Forums to get help with Linux (linux.com/community/forums)
Ask a question or give a solution in Answers (linux.com/learn/answers)
Add a listing or a product review in our Directory (linux.com/directory)
Create your own tutorial (linux.com/learn/tutorials) or blog entry (linux.com/community/blogs)

When you add content to the new Linux.com, you gain the goodwill and support of your fellow Linux.com users. As you participate in the site's community by providing content, you will gain guru points that will move you towards the rank of Guru that can help you connect to jobs and collaboration opportunities.

The top-ranked Linux.com user will be recognized each year as the “Ultimate Linux Guru” and be given a fully loaded “dream” Linux notebook, personally autographed by Linux founder Linus Torvalds, as recognition of his or her guru status. The top five contributors to Linux.com will be invited to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit to participate in the planning for the future of Linux.com.

FSF and Cisco Kiss and Make Up

2009-05-21T11:59:00.001+03:00

The Free Software Foundation and Cisco have announced that they have reached a joint agreement and settled the law suit which the FSF initiated in December. The settlement announcement, which had been expected after an order to dismiss, was filed with the district court, sees Cisco agreeing to appoint a Free Software Director for the Cisco subsidiary Linksys who will enforce the company's compliance with the terms of the GPL. Cisco have also agreed to notify customers who have received products which contain FSF programs of their rights with regard to the GPL and to publish notices on their web site. The settlement also involves Cisco making a monetary contribution to the FSF of an undisclosed amount.

Linux Foundation Buys Linux.com

2009-03-05T09:25:00.001+02:00

It was revealed yesterday that the Linux Foundation, a non-profit consortium chartered to foster the growth of Linux, has bought the Linux.com domain from SourceForge.

I (Gary Sims) have worked with the Linux.com team for several years and they have published several of my artivles and even a video review of Picasa for Linux. At the moment I am undecided about what this means for the Linux community, time will tell as we see what the LF make of the site.

Some key points about the deal are:

LF is taking over the editorial and community stewardship for the site.
The SourceForge and LF will collaborate to create a vibrant and long-lasting community destination for Linux users and developers.
SourceForge will support the Linux Foundation by continuing to sell the advertising for Linux.com.
Much like Linux itself, Linux.com will rely on the community to create and drive the content and conversation.
According to ComputerWorld, the Foundation will be keeping the old Linux.com articles on-site. What is good news for me as I would like to continue to see my articles on the Linux.com site.

LF Press Release

Ubuntu 9.04 Boots in 21.4 Seconds with EXT4 as the default filesystem

2009-01-21T14:45:00.001+02:00

Ubuntu 9.04 boots in 21.4 Seconds when using the EXT4 as the default filesystem. This is compared to Ubuntu 8.10 with EXT3 filesystem which boots in 26.8 seconds and Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha (Build 20090112.1) with EXT3 filesystem that boots in 24.5 seconds.

The boot times were calculated from the moment the GRUB boot loader appeared on the screen and until the login manager was displayed. As you can see, there is an approximately 8.7 second difference between an Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) installation and an Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha (Jaunty Jackalope) one on the first system and 5.4 second difference on the second system.

Linus Torvalds: "I laugh in your face!"

2009-01-21T14:34:00.001+02:00

There is one way to get Linus Torvalds to laugh in your face; submit code to fix Linux that might solve a major difficulty, but also introduce new problems.

Linux originator Torvalds is following his long-standing policy of attending the Australian Linux.conf.au conference but not appearing as a presenter in the formal program. However, he offered a number of comments from the floor during a presentation by LWN.net founder Jonathan Corbet on the kernel development process.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 is Out

2009-01-21T14:20:00.001+02:00

Red Hat announced the availability of a new version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) via Red Hat Network to customers with a Red Hat subscription.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 Release Notes note over 150 updates and upgrades, but here are a few key highlights:

Virtualization enhancements: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 supports larger x86-64 systems. The number of supported physical CPUs is increased to 126, while maximum memory is increased to 1TB. Virtual server CPU and memory limits have been increased to 32 and 80GB respectively.

Next-generation hardware enablement: The soon-to-be-released Tylersberg/Nehalem platform is the next-generation of Intel x86-64 hardware. Support for the virtualization and performance features provided by this processor combined with numerous optimizations have already demonstrated exceptional performance over previous processor generations in internal Red Hat testing.

OpenJDK: Red Hat is taking a leadership position in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 by shipping the first productized implementation of OpenJDK.

Disk encryption: Critical for laptop use, but also becoming increasingly important in server deployments (due to concerns with hardware disposal at the end of its lifecycle), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 includes full support for encryption of storage, either at the block level or file system level.

Linux CDs confiscated by teacher... Banned substance?

2008-12-20T11:11:00.001+02:00

A teacher from Austin, Texas confiscated a bunch of CDs containing free Linux distributions from a student who was demonstarting GNU/Linux on his laptop and handing out the CDs. After this, the teacher sent an angry email to Ken Starks of the HeliOS Project, where the student got his Linux CDs from.

"This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older version of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them…"

Configuring storage in FreeNAS; Excerpt from Hungry Penguin's book

2008-10-25T12:43:00.001+03:00

An excerpt from Hungry Pengiun's book Learning FreeNAS has been published by Linux.com. The excerpt is called "Configuring storage in FreeNAS"... Here is an excerpt from the excerpt!!!

The essence of the FreeNAS server is to provide storage that is easily accessible from the network. To this end, it is important to understand how FreeNAS handles hard disks and how they can be configured and used to provide the best and most reliable storage for your network.

PC-BSD 7.0.1 available

2008-10-21T08:33:00.001+03:00

The PC-BSD team have been busy and after much hard work and testing they are to announce the availability of PC-BSD 7.0.1, i.e. the first upgrade in the 7 series, with FreeBSD 7.0 under the hood.

Version 7.0.1 contains a number of bugfixes and improvements. Some of the changes are:

KDE 4.1.2
AMD64 version
NTFS write support
Adobe Flash 9 support (Linux -flashplugin9)
Better

Read more here: PC-BSD - PC-BSD 7.0.1 available

PC-BSD 7 is a mixed bag

2008-10-07T11:54:00.001+03:00

FreeBSD is a Unix-like open source operating system that can trace its ancestry back to the original Unix. It's well known and well respected in the server marketplace, but until recently FreeBSD lacked an easy-to-use desktop version. In 2005 the PC-BSD project was started to provide just that. This month PC-BSD version 7 was released. I downloaded and installed it to see how it squares up to user-friendly Linux distributions like Ubuntu. I came away a little disappointed.

Twelve Myths about Free and Open Source Software

2008-09-17T11:53:00.001+03:00

Bruce Byfield has written a great piece about the 12 myths of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software):

His points include:

If software costs nothing, it's no good
FOSS is inferior to proprietary software
FOSS is piracy (or at least encourages it)
FOSS has no support
FOSS is only for developers
Using FOSS means working from the command line
FOSS is only good for small projects
FOSS is unable to develop games
Having the code freely available makes it less secure than proprietary code
FOSS is unable to innovate
Since the license places restrictions on the users, FOSS isn't really free
FOSS is all about price

Adobe AIR launches on Linux

2008-09-17T11:03:00.001+03:00

Adobe announced today that Adobe AIR now runs on Linux. AIR is a cool cross-platform runtime that enables developers to create Rich Internet Applications that merge the desktop with the Web. Bringing it to Linux removes yet another roadblock to bringing disruptive applications to Linux.

This beta release of AIR for Linux isn't perfect--supported distributions only include Ubuntu 7.10, Fedora 8, OpenSuSE 10.3; and it lacks some other functionality--but it's a great, running start:

Read more here: Adobe AIR launches on Linux/a>

My OpenSolaris review on Linux.com

2008-09-17T10:49:00.001+03:00

The folks over at Linux.com have published an article of mine about OpenSolaris. The review called OpenSolaris 2008.05 is robust and ready looks at installing OpenSolaris and well as looking at its unique features like ZFS.

I hope you like it! Gary

10 things you wanted to do with Ubuntu but didn't know how!

2008-09-15T09:07:00.001+03:00

The How-to Geek has a great post about 10 things you wanted to do with Ubuntu but didn't know how! They include:

Set Gmail as Default Mail Client in Ubuntu
Add the Trash Can Icon to Your Ubuntu Desktop
Change the GRUB Menu Timeout on Ubuntu
Configure How often Ubuntu checks for Automatic Updates
Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy Way
Enable Smooth fonts on Ubuntu Linux
Speed Up Amarok With Large Music Collections
Share Folders on the network using Samba
Hide Removable Drive Icons from Your Ubuntu Desktop
Clean Up Ubuntu Grub Boot Menu After Upgrades

Downloading an Entire Web Site with wget

2008-09-11T23:07:00.001+03:00

If you ever need to download an entire Web site, perhaps for off-line viewing, wget can do the
job—for example:

$ wget \
--recursive \
--no-clobber \
--page-requisites \
--html-extension \
--convert-links \
--restrict-file-names=windows \
--domains website.org \
--no-parent \
www.website.org/tutorials/html/
This command downloads the Web site www.website.org/tutorials/html/

Can open source survive Congress?

2008-09-11T22:45:00.001+03:00

If the House's proposed 2009 Defense Department budget is any indication, Congress may want to see more open-source software (OSS) in defense systems.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (H.R. 5658) includes language that calls for the services to consider open source software when procuring manned or unmanned aerial vehicles.

It's surprising to see a concept as technical as OSS in an actual congressional bill. But there it is. Whether it will remain in the final authorization is another question. The House's version of the bill was passed in May; This week, the Senate is debating its own version of the bill (S. 3001). When the two halves of Congress come together, will the open source language survive in the resulting authorization?

Read more here: Can open source survive Congress?

Ubuntu 9.04 gets a codename: Jaunty Jackalope

2008-09-09T17:53:00.001+03:00

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced a codename for Ubuntu 9.04, the version of the Linux distribution slated for an April 2009 release. And that name is Jaunty Jackalope.

Each version of Ubunty has come with an alliterative codename where the first word is an adjective and the second is an animal. Or in this case a mythical animal. 8.10 will be called Intrepid Ibex. And even though the codenames aren't supposed to have much meaning once the product is officially launched, many people sitll think of Ubuntu 7.10 as Gutsy Gibbon and 7.04 as Feisty Fawn.

(Via Download Squad.)

What's Coming in Ubuntu 8.10?

2008-09-08T16:13:00.001+03:00

The next Ubuntu release is already around the corner. Only two more months, and the next tidal wave of brown 2 paragraph reviews will be upon us. PolishLinux decided that they'd be ahead of the pack, by taking a look at what Ubuntu 8.10 looks like right now, and what new features it brings. Of course, many of these features come from upstream, and will find their way into other distributions as well - or are already there.

By default, Ubuntu 8.10 comes with a pre-configured guest account, allowing people to make their system accessible to others without the risk of losing data or messing up the system. A related addition is the ~/Private directory, which can be encrypted and is inaccessible to others.

Other changes include a graphical configuration tool for fontconfig settings, tabs in Nautilus, a cleaning utility for the package database, a new look for the installer, and a lot more. The theme will also receive a redesign, but it is not yet complete for the current alpha releases.

Read more here: What's Coming in Ubuntu 8.10?

Chromium - Open Source Chrome

2008-09-04T10:48:00.001+03:00

Did you know that Google's web browser Chrome is open source?

The open source project is called Chromium, after the metal used to make chrome. In typical Google fashion, the project page has documentation, FAQs, and build-instructions. Even though Chrome is only available for Windows XP and Vista systems right now, users on Linux and Intel Macs running Mac OS X Leopard can compile the Chromium source and run some command line tests (in the case of Linux) and TestShell (OS X). The UI layers for Linux and Mac systems have not been developed -- but many of the underlying core modules can be tested.

Read more here: Chromium - Open Source Chrome

Intel acquires Linux distro developer

2008-09-01T10:25:00.001+03:00

Poky Linux" and Matchbox developer OpenedHand announced that it has been acquired by Intel Corp. The U.K.-based embedded Linux services team will join the Intel Open Source Technology Center, and will focus on Moblin development for mobile Internet devices and other mobile devices.

According to OpenedHand, Intel will continue to support open source projects led by OpenedHand staff, including Clutter and Matchbox, "and in most cases, will accelerate these projects as they become an integral part of Moblin," says the new Intel unit. OpenedHand contributions will now be made available from the Intel Software Network's open source site.

Read more here: Intel acquires Linux distro developer

Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

2008-08-30T11:02:00.001+03:00

The so-called "distribution for the average Joe" market has been expanding at a rapid pace in recent years. While the vast majority of these projects is invariably based on Linux, we have also witnessed a few attempts to create a user-friendly "distribution" based on operating systems that traditionally belonged to the hacker's domain, notably FreeBSD and OpenSolaris. One of them is PC-BSD, a project launched in 2005. Its main goal? To hide the complexity of FreeBSD and to deliver an alternative to Linux on the desktop. Its main claim to fame? The web-based software installation infrastructure called PBI. Its community? Over 8,000 registered forum members and a growing network of world-wide community sites. All this thanks to the original vision and undying conviction of Kris Moore (pictured on the right), the founder and lead developer of PC-BSD.

Kris was kind enough to answer a few questions about his beginnings with FreeBSD and the forthcoming release of PC-BSD 7.0.

Should More Employers Subsidize Open Source Development?

2008-08-30T10:44:00.001+03:00

The Hi-Tech Squad raise the interesting question: Should more employers subsidize open source development?

I used to work for Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) who invented the VAX, VMS, main stream 64 bit computing with the Alpha chi and of course Ethernet, to name a few. There was an unwritten rule that you could spend 10% of your time working on other things. Why? Because it broadened your horizons and increased your knowledge. This in turn had a positive effect on the project you where working on.

Google has a similar rule.

(Via .)

Things you should never EVER type in Linux. Ever!

2008-08-29T13:03:00.001+03:00

If you’re a Linux guru or or experienced enough to know what all of these things are then you probably don’t need this article and we can go our merry ways. If not, then DO NOT, DON’T, NEVER EVER EVER EVER run these commands in a terminal session. If you do you will render your system anything from useless without a forced reboot to devoid of any useful purpose ever.

Download 25 Most Beautiful FireFox Desktop Wallpapers

2008-08-29T09:59:00.001+03:00

Here is a cool collection of firefox desktop wallpaper collection for firefox fans.

You can download the 25 most beautiful firefox wallpapers below:

1024×768 | 1152×864 | 1280×960 | 1280×1024 | 1400×1050 | 1600×1200

1024×768

1024×768

1024×768

1024×768

(Via TechTreak.com.)

Quebec government sued for buying Microsoft software

2008-08-28T19:24:00.001+03:00

Quebec's open-source software association is suing the provincial government, saying it is giving preferential treatment to Microsoft Corp. by buying the company's products rather than using free alternatives.

Facil estimates the Quebec government is spending $80 million a year on Windows Vista licences alone. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)The lawsuit by Facil was lodged with the Quebec Superior Court on July 15 and made public on Wednesday. In it, the group says the provincial government has refused to entertain competing bids from all software providers, opting instead to supply public-sector departments with products bought from proprietary vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle Corp.

Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against other legal requirements to buy locally.

Anatomy of Linux dynamic libraries

2008-08-26T19:08:00.001+03:00

Dynamically linked shared libraries are an important aspect of GNU/Linux®. They allow executables to dynamically access external functionality at run time and thereby reduce their overall memory footprint (by bringing functionality in when it's needed). The article linked below investigates the process of creating and using dynamic libraries, provides details on the various tools for exploring them, and explores how these libraries work under the hood.

Read more here: Anatomy of Linux dynamic libraries

(Via Linux.com :: Newsvac.)

Integrating Linux into the SME

2008-08-26T09:56:00.001+03:00

DesktopLinux.com have an article that summarizes the experiences of one small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) using a heterogeneous mix of Linux and Windows XP systems.

Written by the founder of an international PC distributor, it compares and contrasts various Linux-based distributions, and assesses their suitability for business use.

Author Michael C. Barnes, president of Nohrtec, begins with a brief history of his company's use of Linux. He then outlines the following as criteria used to evaluate various operating systems for business use:

Compatibility with hardware
Installation ease
Repository system
Performance
Interface
Applications
Stability
Configurability
Scalability
Security

Barnes goes on to look at about a dozen different operating systems, including Microsoft OSes as well as Linux distributions, in the context of the above criteria. To read the full story, click the link below.

Read more here: Integrating Linux into the SME

10 must-have Linux (and not only) cheat-sheets

2008-08-25T17:32:00.001+03:00

Need a quick reference card? Here you have a list you can choose from:

1.Linux Command Line Tips
2.Unix/Linux Reference Card
3.One Page LInux Manual
4.Linux Security Quick Reference
5.Screen VT100/ANSI Terminal Emulator Cheat Sheet
6.Vi/VIM Graphical Cheat-Sheet
7.Firefox Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts
8.Gimp Reference Card
9.Debian Reference Card
10.Google Cheat Sheet

10 Most Beautiful Plasma Themes for KDE 4 Desktop

2008-08-23T09:47:00.001+03:00

The latest series of the K Desktop Environment now utilizes Plasma, a new desktop and panel user interface tool that aims for a more functional, user-friendly, and sleek KDE desktop. Plasma also supports Dashboard-like widgets called plasmoids.

If you want to further enhance the look of your KDE 4 desktop, below is a list of some of the most beautiful Plasma themes available:

openSUSE vs. Novell SUSE

2008-08-23T09:43:00.001+03:00

openSUSE 11.0 is based on the Linux kernel version 2.6.25 and provides a cornucopia of features. If you choose to download the full DVD, you can expect a whopping 4.5 GBs for the iso-format file. Other options include a Live CD and over the network. The good news is that you can use a BitTorrent client to get the iso file.

So what differentiates openSUSE from Novell's other distributions, namely SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)? To quote from the openSUSE FAQ:

"openSUSE, created and maintained by the openSUSE project, is a stable, integrated Linux operating system that includes the latest open source packages for desktop productivity, multimedia, Web-hosting, networking infrastructure and application development. It contains everything you need to get started with Linux and is ideal for individuals who wish to use Linux on their personal workstations or to drive their home networks."

"Novell refines and enhances openSUSE to create a hardened and supported suite of enterprise Linux products suitable for data center deployments, edge server deployments, business desktops, and business infrastructure deployment."

9 Tips to Use Apachectl and Httpd like a Power User

2008-08-22T18:02:00.001+03:00

After you have installed Apache2, if you want to use apachectl and httpd to it’s maximum potential, you should go beyond using start, stop and restart. The 9 practical examples provided in this article will help you to use apachectl and httpd very effectively.

Apachectl acts as SysV init script, taking arguments like start, stop, restart and status. It also acts as front-end to httpd command, by simply passing the command line arguments to httpd. So, all the commands you execute using apachectl, can also be executed directly by calling httpd.

1. Pass different httpd.conf filename to apachectl
2. Use a temporary DocumentRoot without modifying httpd.conf
3. Increase the LogLevel temporarily
4. Display the modules compiled inside Apache using option -l
5. Display both static and dynamic module loaded by Apache
6. Show all accepted directives inside httpd.conf
7. Validate the httpd.conf after making changes
8. Display the httpd build parameters
9. Load a specific module only on demand.

Support the FreeNAS project

2008-08-22T10:59:00.001+03:00

The Hungry Penguin's book Learning FreeNAS is now available.

And when you buy this book you are also supporting the FreeNAS Open Source project through Packt Publishing's Open Source Project Royalty Scheme. In this scheme when Packt sell a book written on an Open Source project, they pay a royalty directly to that project. Therefore by purchasing this Learning FreeNAS book, Packt will have given some of the money received to the FreeNAS project.

You can get a free chapter to download and read in PDF format. Chapter 2 Preparing to Add FreeNAS to Your Network.

The PDF contains:

My biography (as written in the book)
A preview chapter from the book
A synopsis of the book’s content
Information on where to buy the book

The book is guide to the FreeNAS software and teaches you how to turn a PC into a Network Attached Storage server.

Linux popularity across the globe

2008-08-22T09:52:00.001+03:00

The Linux landscape is constantly changing and has a strong community of both developers and users. But where is Linux the most popular, and where are the different Linux distributions the most popular?

To try to answer these questions, Pingdom have looked at data from Google with the highly useful Insights for Search, which gave them a number of interesting and often surprising results.

Aside from just looking at Linux itself, Pingdom have included eight common Linux distributions in this survey: Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, Slackware and Gentoo.

Microsoft is profitting from Linux

2008-08-21T19:53:00.001+03:00

As Microsoft is set to pump up to $100 million more in Novell for Linux, it's important to note that Microsoft is not paying off Linux - it's actually making money from it.

Microsoft isn't just buying Linux subscriptions from Novell to give away...it's buying them so they can sell them. So that means for the past 18 months, Microsoft has been selling Linux.

How much Microsoft is actually making by selling Linux is difficult to determine but it could be as much a $99 million.

How much Microsoft is actually making is difficult to determine.

"We have purchased the Novell certificates, which enables customers to gain direct support from Novell for Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise and we take those certificates and sell them to customers," Susan Hauser, general manager for strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft, told InternetNews.com."We keep the pricing confidential since customer size and opportunity pricing varies. We do resell and redistribute the certificates as part of our engagement."

Read more here: Microsoft is profitting from Linux

(Via Linux.com :: Newsvac.)

Linux netbook uses Chinese chip

2008-08-21T16:20:00.001+03:00

A new netbook for European schools runs Linux on a Chinese-designed processor. With a generous 10-inch, 1024x600 display, the 2.4-pound Emtec Gdium boots Mandriva Linux from removable USB flash keys, running it in 512MB of DDR2 RAM on a 900MHz Loongson-2F processor made by STMicroelectronics (ST).

The Gdium's Loongson 2F processor is manufactured by ST, which licenses the design from China's Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), a government-sponsored think-tank aimed at helping China compete in the global chip market. With features such as DDR2 memory support and USB 2.0, the "2F" model succeeds a "2E" model used in network computers and mini-PCs. First unveiled in 2005, the Loongson 2 (formerly "Godson-2") processor uses the MIPS64 architecture, less patented portions such as unaligned 32-bit load/store support.

Read more here: Linux netbook uses Chinese chip

(Via Linux.com :: Newsvac.)

5 Great Alternative Linux Music Players

2008-08-21T16:17:00.001+03:00

Amarok, Rhythmbox and Banshee are a few of the popular music players in Linux. They are great in features and have received plenty of good reviews. But what is unknown to many is that there are a lot of other music players for Linux which are also great in features, but are hidden in some corners of the world.
If you are willing to try something out of the box, here are 5 great alternative music players that you can use in your Linux desktop:

1. Audacious
2. Listen Music player
3. Quod Libet
4. Songbird
5. Decibel Audio Player

Will Netbooks Pave the Way for Linux?

2008-08-16T21:55:00.001+03:00

As we all know by now, netbooks are the latest craze in the computing world. Small notebooks, perfect for on the go, and relatively cheap. The interesting thing is that these netbooks are often offered with Linux pre-installed instead of Windows, and this prompts many to believe that it is the netbook niche where Linux will gain its first solid foothold among the general populace. "It does a lot to level the playing field. In fact, Linux looks to be quick out of the gate," said Jay Lyman, analyst with the 451 Group. However - is that really happening?

Read more here: Will Netbooks Pave the Way for Linux?

Pixar's rendering software - big on Linux servers

2008-08-16T11:35:00.001+03:00

Linux clustering is very popular for RenderMan customers. And while the software is "certainly used extensively on OS X workstations...very few people run RenderMan on OS X clusters," according to the source.

"Technically, OS X is very well suited [for clustering] but it does not seem to have made much headway," the source continued. That's ironic, of course, due to the Jobs-Apple connection. The higher price of Mac servers compared to Linux ones, as well as Linux's technical similarity to Unix, are the major factors, it seems.

"Large numbers of RenderMan licenses" are actually sold for Windows, said the source, though that is confined to animator workstations at this point.

Linux RAID Smackdown: Crush RAID 5 with RAID 10

2008-08-16T10:36:00.001+03:00

Carla Schroder has written an excellent article about using RAID 10 on Linux.

RAID 10 is a worthy RAID level with many advantages. RAID 10 is shorthand for RAID1+0, a mirrored striped array. Linux RAID 10 needs a minimum of two disks, and you don't have to use pairs, but can have odd numbers. The basic differences are:

RAID10 provides superior data security and can survive multiple disk failures
RAID10 is fast
RAID10 is considerably faster during recovery— RAID5 performance during a rebuild after replacing a failed disk bogs down as much as 80%, and it can take hours. RAID10 recovery is simple copying.
RAID5 is susceptible to perpetuating parity and other errors

The main disadvantage is cost, because 50% of your storage is duplication.

InfoWorld's award for FreeNAS | FreeBSD - the unknown Giant

2008-08-16T09:38:00.001+03:00

FreeNAS has been awarded with InfoWorld’s Bossie award for being the best free, open source storage server.

InfoWorld’s annual Bossies awards recognize top free and open source software, and the second annual list of winners is out now. Bossies are awarded by InfoWorld’s editorial and test center staff.

A BIG well done to the FreeNAS team.

Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 Screenshot Tour

2008-08-15T17:55:00.001+03:00

The fourth alpha version of the upcoming Ubuntu 8.10 (codename Intrepid Ibex), which is scheduled for release in late October this year, was made available a few minutes ago. Compared with the third alpha, which brought you the Nautilus file manager (with tabs), this version comes with the old Human-Murrine (white) theme, some new features and a lot of bug fixes.

10 quick tips to make Linux networking easier

2008-08-15T16:12:00.001+03:00

Linux makes networking simple and secure — if you know a few tricks. Jack Wallen shares some pointers to help admins knock out various Linux networking tasks with a minimum of effort.

These 10 quick tips should help make various aspects of Linux networking easier. You never know when you’ll wind up having to rely on the command line or you’ll need to enlist the help of a graphical front end for iptables. Now, if you do, you should be good to go.

These are the tip headings, for full details go to: 10 quick tips to make Linux networking easier

#1: Make use of your /etc/hosts file
#2: Keep out unwanted users with /etc/hosts.deny
#3: Let WICD handle your wireless woes
#4: Download and install a front end for iptables
#5: Get to know the command-line tools
#6: Hard-code your DNS server addresses
#7: Install ClamAV
#8: Know how to configure an IP address manually
#9: Get to know your /etc/interfaces (Ubuntu) or /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts (Red Hat/Fedora) file(s)
#10: Don’t forget smbpasswd when setting up Samba

Torvalds: Fed up with the 'security circus'

2008-08-15T10:42:00.001+03:00

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, says he's fed up with what he sees as a "security circus" surrounding software vulnerabilities and how they're hyped by security people.Torvalds explained his position in an e-mail exchange with Network World this week. He also expanded on critical comments he made last month that caused a stir in the IT industry.

Lessons From PHP 4.4 End-of-Life Announcement

2008-08-14T22:18:00.001+03:00

The developers of PHP announced last week that PHP version 4.4.9 is now available. This would not be remarkable in and of itself, except that the developers also indicated that this would be the last release of PHP 4.4.

If PHP were commercial software, its "end of life" would be cause for panic in some quarters. After all, companies don't often like to change software that is crucial to their infrastructure, and having the end of life imposed on them often causes trouble. For example, Windows XP reached its official end of life more than 1 month ago, meaning that Microsoft will no longer offer updates, bug fixes, and security patches for the operating system. Never mind that many people prefer XP to Vista; Microsoft has spoken, and no further updates will be made available.

The end of life of an open-source project works differently, of course. It does mean that the official development group will no longer spend time and energy fixing bugs in these old versions. But that's where the similarities between proprietary and open-source software ends: If the open-source software fails to work correctly, you (as the end user) always have the option to patch it, bringing it up to date by examining the software updates that came out for newer versions. Indeed, there's nothing stopping you from keeping a supposedly obsolete open-source project going forever, if you have enough time and energy.

5TB NAS server runs Linux

2008-08-14T17:11:00.001+03:00

Qnap Systems announced a new member of its "TS" family of Linux-based network-attached storage (NAS) devices. The five-bay, hot-swappable TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS is equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Celeron processor, 1GB RAM, and dual gigabit Ethernet ports.

Based on embedded Linux, the TS-509 stores the OS and NAS applications in flash ROM, which Qnap says improves "stability." The device supports Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and all major Windows desktops.

RAID support includes RAID 0 (disk striping), RAID 1 (mirroring), RAID 5, RAID 5+ (hot spare), RAID 6, and JBOD (linear disk volume), says Qnap. The TS-509 offers RAID capacity and migration expansion features that ease upgrades to larger storage devices with higher RAID levels, says the company.

Read more here: 5TB NAS server runs Linux

7 Best Linux Distributions for Multimedia Enthusiasts

2008-08-14T15:38:00.001+03:00

Graphic designers, movie editors, music composers, and multimedia addicts have specific needs when it comes to software. That is why there are specialized Linux distributions that cater to them.

Here are 7 Linux distros that will surely win the hearts of multimedia enthusiasts: 7 Best Linux Distributions for Multimedia Enthusiasts

(Via Linux.com :: Newsvac.)

Preview of ZFS on FreeNAS 0.7 Server Video on YouTube

2008-08-14T14:14:00.001+03:00

I have created a new FreeNAS tutorial video which I have uploaded to YouTube.

Following the success of the first FreeNAS tutorial video this second video is a sneak preview of ZFS which is coming in FreeNAS 0.7.

The video will also be uploaded to the LearnFreeNAS.com website.

Everything you wanted to know about being a Linux kernel developer (but were afraid to ask)

2008-08-14T08:45:00.001+03:00

On August 13th, the Linux Foundation, published a guide to how to participate in the Linux kernel community. This 30-page ebook, How to Participate in the Linux Community, was written by noted Linux authority and executive editor of LWN.net Jonathan Corbet.

So you want to be one of the few, the proud, the Linux kernel developers do you? Well, it’s not easy. But, if you’ve got the right stuff, Linux is looking for a few good programmers.

LVM Snapshot Merging

2008-08-12T22:33:00.001+03:00

Mikulas Patocka announced new patches introducing snapshot merging for the Linux kernel's logical volume manager. He explained, "snapshot merging allows you to merge snapshot content back into the original device. The most useful use for this feature is the possibility to rollback [the] state of the whole computer after [a] failed package upgrade, [or an] administrator's error". The patches are for the 2.6.26 kernel, with device mapper 1.02.27 and LVM2.2.02.39.

LearnFreeNAS.com Launched

2008-08-08T19:11:00.000+03:00

Hi,

To coincide with the release of my "Learning FreeNAS" book I have started a new website LearnFreeNAS.com.

It is a one stop site for tips, articles, tutorials and videos about FreeNAS the Open Source Network Attached Storage OS.

Thanks,

The Hungry Penguin

All About Linux Swap Space

2007-12-06T15:30:00.000+02:00

I have had another article published by the folks over at Linux.com. This one is about using Swap Space with Linux. It has some techniques that may help you better manage swapping on Linux systems and get the best performance from the Linux swapping subsystem.

Read it here: Linux Swap Space

Mandriva comes with a cutting-edge 3D-accelerated desktop courtesy of Compiz Fusion

2007-10-16T10:24:00.000+03:00

Mandriva have just announced the 2008 of their popular free Linux distribution and it comes standard with a cutting-edge 3D-accelerated desktop courtesy of Compiz Fusion 0.5.2

Also included is KDE 3.5.7, the new GNOME 2.20, a solid kernel 2.6.22.9 with fair scheduling support, OpenOffice.org 2.2.1 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6.

Mandriva Linux 2008 is available for download free of charge at the Mandriva website. They recommend the One installation CD which comes with a full KDE desktop and application suite, NVIDIA and ATI proprietary video card drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Adobe Flash and Sun Java browser plugins.

Linux sued

2007-10-16T10:17:00.000+03:00

After so many years of hot air, veiled threats and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), Linux has finally been sued. To be precise, Linux vendors Red Hat and Novell have been sued for patent infringement. Groklaw is reporting that on Tuesday, the two companies were sued by IP Innovation LLC and Technology Licensing Corp. for violating three patents having to do with windowing user interfaces.

Interestingly Apple has also dealt with these guys previously and recently settled out of court for alleged infringements over one of the three patents used in this case.

What will happen? Nobody knows. It would be interesting to gather a large group of industry experts and use an audience response system (which allows large groups of people to vote on a topic or answer a question) and see what people think will happen. One thing is for sure, this will be another long drawn out case like the SCO case.

Red Hat have an indemnity programme to protect its customers and recently Novell signed a big cross patent deal with Microsoft. Also interesting is that IBM are missing from the list (possibly because it already has licensed these patents for other products) or because it has the money to fight such a case til the death.

Bye, bye SCO

2007-09-15T10:57:00.000+03:00

SCO Group, best known for suing IBM about Linux, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This was widely predicted even during the failed IBM law suit, but the timing as left some surprised as many expected SCO to run out of cash at the beginning of this year.

You can read more here

SUSE sales up, but Novell posts Q3 loss

2007-08-31T16:57:00.001+03:00

Despite the losses Novell are keen to show that Linux sales are up 95% from the same quarter last year. Invoiced earnings for Q3 were $38m.

“We are encouraged by our Linux performance and the market’s continued enthusiasm for our desktop to data center strategy. In addition, we are pleased with our operating margin expansion and progress on our strategic initiatives,” said Ron Hovsepian, CEO of Novell.

Open source powering 2 new web directories

2007-08-31T16:54:00.000+03:00

The great thing about open source software is the availability of many turnkey solutions. For example two web directories have recently been launched (www.glowdir.com and dirstop.com) and they both use GPL software from phpLinkDirectory.

Great!

Novell is not SCO

2007-08-17T11:15:00.000+03:00

Following the recent confirmation that Novell owns the copyrights to the Unix operating system, Novell has told The Register that the company does not plan to start suing people for using Linux. That's SCO jobs!!! :-)

"We have absolutely no intention of using our Unix copyright ownership to attack Linux," Novell spokesperson Bruce Lowry told The Reg. "We've had those copyrights for the past 14 or 15 years. The fact that the court has reaffirmed them doesn't mean we're now going to change the way we operate. We've never indicated we would use those copyrights against Linux - and we wouldn't. In fact, we want to defend Linux."

In other news, I've found a great web site for free credit card processing.

THP

Custom NimbleX 2 RC2 has been released

2007-08-15T09:13:00.000+03:00

Custom NimbleX 2 allows you to generate your customized Linux distribution by choosing what packages you want to have. It features over 150 software packages from which you can choose and support for over a dozen most popular languages.

The only requirements from the users are knowledge of English, a web browser (Firefox) and a CD for burning the ISO that was generated.

You can read more at Custom NimbleX 2 RC2 released and at the Nimblex home page http://nimblex.net

THP

Dewitts media helps get the message out

2007-08-14T13:47:00.000+03:00

It is a fact of life in the 21st century that a web presence is essential for every business regardless if they are open source or not.

One company that can help with this is Dewits media. They offer professional website design, content writing, SEO (search engine optimization), directory submission, link building, contextual adversting and custom programming.

Even open source products need professional web design.

THP

Hi-Tech Squad hits town

2007-08-13T15:54:00.000+03:00

There is a new posse in town, the Hi-Tech Squad

These boys mean business! Seriously the Hi-Tech Squad is a new blog about technology. Covering Apple, Microsoft and Linux as well as Webmastering, CSS and PHP the Hi-Tech Squad promises to be a great read.

SCO takes shot to the head

2007-08-13T15:52:00.000+03:00

Bang! Bang!. US District Judge Dale Kimball has issued a lengthy decision about who owns the Unix ownership rights. The problems all started with some vague language in a 1995 Asset Purchase Agreement between Novell and SCO.

Well, now, Kimball has solved the matter for the companies. “The court concludes that Novell is the owner of the Unix and UnixWare copyrights,” he wrote.

Dell goes with Ubuntu

2007-08-11T21:34:00.000+03:00

Dell recently unveiled two PCs (the Inspiron 6400n and the Inspiron 530n) for Europe with the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux operating system factory installed.

According to the Ubuntu site, Canonical will offer full commercial support for Ubuntu 7.04 on all of the pre-installed Ubuntu certified Dell hardware.

Way to go Dell!!!

THP

CentOS 5 is out

2007-04-30T15:03:00.000+03:00

Recently, two years since its last major release, the CentOS project released version 5 of its enterprise-focused Linux distribution. I downloaded it and put it to the test, and found that CentOS 5 has maintained its tradition of robustness and reliability while adding new features like virtualization.

Read more at CentOS 5 is a solid enterprise OS

THP

Someone gave me a Mac with OS X

2007-03-15T09:22:00.000+02:00

Recently a very kind benefactor gave me and Apple Mac running OS X... I must admit it is nice... It is very nice... But don't fear I haven't abandoned Linux or Open Source... Interestingly enough there is some great open source software for the Mac...

More soon,

THP.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu 6.10 are out

2006-10-26T18:39:00.000+03:00

Ubuntu and Kubuntu 6.10 are out. The difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu is that Ubuntu uses GNOME and Kubuntu uses KDE.

The Ubuntu desktop version introduces a host of new features, an improved interface and a wide variety of new applications and desktop tools making Ubuntu 6.10 flexible and user-friendly. Enhancements include:

* Tomboy, an easy-to-use and efficient note-taking tool
* F-Spot, a photo management tool that enables tagging, photo editing and automatic uploading to on-line web management sites such as Flickr
* GNOME 2.16, which in addition to new features such as enhanced power management, makes the GNOME desktop more secure, faster and more stable
* Upstart, a replacement start-up manager offering a cleaner design, eye-catching effects and a substantially faster boot time
* The latest Firefox web browser, which offers inline spell check support in web forms, easy recovery of crashed sessions, built-in phishing detectors, enhanced search engine management with built in OpenSearch support, and better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
* Proactive security features, preventing many common security vulnerabilities even before they are discovered
* Evolution 2.8.0, which brings new features such as vertical message panes

For as Kubuntu , some of the more interesting features of 6.10 include: KDE 3.5.5 desktop; Digikam photo management tool; Guidance - a new power management system; a hardware database client; support for many special laptop buttons; accessibility profiles; an improved System Settings dialog; automatic setup of non-Latin writing systems.

Ubuntu also has a server verison. The server install CD allows you to install Ubuntu permanently on a computer for use as a server. It will not install a graphical user interface.

World's Largest Linux System Image Achieved on SGI Altix 4700 Blade Servers

2006-06-30T11:16:00.000+03:00

Silicon Graphics today announced another high-performance computing first: the world's largest computer to operate under a single copy of the Linux OS. On its SGI Altix 4700 blade platform and a beta version of Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux Ver. 10, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) demonstrated a single system image (SSI) running on a world-record 1,024 processors breaking a prior record of 512 processors, also held by SGI. The system is now installed in Munich, Germany, at the Leibinz Rechen-Zentrum (LRZ) centre. LRZ houses Germany's National Supercomputer System, and the Altix 4700 installation marked the completion of LRZ's Phase I deployment.

Read the press release here.

Fedora Core 5 Re-Spin for May

2006-06-08T14:14:00.000+03:00

Fedora Unity has released the Fedora Core 5 Re-Spins for May 2006. These are DVD ISO Re-Spins of Fedora Core 5. These ISOs are based upon Fedora Core 5 and all updates released as of May 23rd, 2006. They are available for i386 and x86_64 architectures.

The Re-Spin task has been taken up by Fedora Unity to provide the Community with the chance to install Fedora Core with recent updates, which might otherwise be several hundred megabytes of downloads, already included. The Fedora Unity Project intends to release early and release often, with new Re-Spins provided early each month during the life of each Fedora Core release until that release is transferred to Fedora Legacy.

See http://fedoraunity.org/news-archives/unity-respin5-20060523/

My page at GooglePages

2006-06-02T11:53:00.000+03:00

As I am sure many of you have heard. Google are now offering a simple way to create web pages without needing to know HTML and CSS called GooglePages.

I though I would give the site a try. Here is Gary's page on GooglePages for your delight!

Thanks,

THP

A look at the FreeNAS server

2006-06-01T11:03:00.000+03:00

The newsforge.com people have published another article of mine. This time on the FreeNAS server.

You can read it at A look at the FreeNAS server

Thanks,

THP

LDAP in the enterprise

2006-04-27T09:45:00.000+03:00

Hi,

Newsforge.com have published a new article by your truly called "LDAP in the enterprise". The article looks at the basics of LDAP in the small to medium company and then takes a practical look at the OpenLDAP server.

LDAP in the enterprise

Thanks,

THP

Redhat to acquire JBoss

2006-04-15T10:22:00.000+03:00

Red Hat has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire JBoss. By acquiring JBoss, Red Hat expects to accelerate the shift to service-oriented architectures (SOA), by enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, open source platform.

Red Hat will acquire JBoss for approximately $350 million in initial consideration, plus approximately $70 million subject to the achievement of certain future performance metrics. The transaction consideration is composed of approximately 40% in cash and 60% in Red Hat common stock. The acquisition is expected to be completed around the end of Red Hat's first fiscal quarter (May 2006), subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval.

More here

Fedora Core 5 released

2006-03-27T12:32:00.000+03:00

The Fedora Project has announced the release of Fedora Core 5. According to their website, "New desktop applications, advances in security, better localization tools, improved software installation and management facilities and strong Java integration help to make Fedora Core 5 the most innovative Linux distribution ever."

Included in this release are Gnome 2.14, KDE 3.5, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2, Firefox 1.5, Xen 3.0, and a rewritten version of the Anaconda installer, to match the new look-and-feel of the distribution.

Fedora has switched to using the reference policy for the SELinux security framework. This supports binary modules, allowing SELinux policies to move into individual packages. Developers can use this to ship site-specific policy customizations. Fedora Core also supports the Multi Category Security (MCS) SELinux policy by default, in addition to Type Enforcement (TE), Muti Level Security (MLS), and Role Base Access Control (RBAC) security policies.

The release also includes new free Java support, Fedora can now compile and run software written in Java without relying upon proprietary and closed Java machine implementations. It does this through the introduction of the completely free software stack java-gcj-compat that runs native
and bytecode Java.

Many packages are now compiled and run on a 100% free and open software stack. These include OpenOffice.org, Eclipse, Apache Tomcat, and Jakarta. Other Java applications include the popular BitTorrent utility Azureus and RSSowl.

FC5 Release Summary

Xara releases Xtreme open source code at Libre Graphics meeting

2006-03-27T12:26:00.000+03:00

At the Libre Graphics meeting in Lyon on 18th March, Xara announced that, after the last few months of readying the source code, it has now made the first release of the majority of the Xara LX source code for public download.

Commenting on Xara's goals, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux and the second space tourist, says: "The announcement by the Xara team positions them well for the growing wave of momentum behind free and open source software. In each market sector, there is emerging a dominant open source application to challenge the existing dominant proprietary application. I wish the Xara team every success in their efforts to ensure that Xara becomes the leading open source graphics application, and to craft a strong community and business around that work."

http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

Mandriva fires founder Gael Duval

2006-03-17T13:12:00.000+02:00

Gael Duval, one of the founders of Mandriva, was fired by his own company as part of a set of cost-cutting measures, designed to help the company recover from its current financial losses. Duval had voluntarily moved to a new branch of the company which was planning to improve its open source community involvement, while the company as a whole has been turning increasingly towards "enterprise" applications, hoping to compete with Red Hat and Novell SuSE, among others. NewsForge reports that Duval intends to sue the company for "abusive layoff", but Mandriva CEO Francois Bancilhon mildly described the decision as part of cost-cutting measures. It remains unclear what the company's next moves will be, as it will face serious competition in the enterprise Linux market sector.

Knoppix 5.0

2006-03-11T10:33:00.000+02:00

The latest release of the Knoppix live DVD Linux distribution is available, with a more "genuine Debian" collection of packages, more and better hardware detection, and improvements to the install to hard disk option. In particular the system now supports updating a hard disk installation from a more recent live DVD or CD. The system includes a Linux 2.6.15.4 kernel, Xorg xserver, KDE 3.5.1, Gnome 2.12, and Open Office 2.0.1.

The first release of Knoppix 5.0 was made exclusively available as a free pressed DVD at CeBIT.

Earliest date 2 weeks after CeBIT, the CD edition of KNOPPIX 5.0 should be ready and will be available for download, together wih the DVD version, from the usual mirrors.

Get the FUD from New Zealand

2006-03-04T09:16:00.000+02:00

A new "Get the Facts" style report commissioned by the New Zealand government cautions strongly against the use of open source software, making a wide variety of misleading claims about copyleft "infection". The report states "While the use of open source software has many benefits, it brings with it a number of legal risks not posed by proprietary or commercial software." Perhaps unsurprisingly, the report was created by legal firm Chapman Tripp, which is closely associated with Microsoft. New Zealand Green Party Information Technology Spokesperson Nandor Tanczos, responds critically, "Asking Microsoft's general counsel and IT adviser to prepare what is supposed to be a neutral guide to open source software is just scandalous."

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060301213210833

GPLv3 draft

2006-01-21T13:36:00.000+02:00

The first discussion draft of the GNU General Public License, version 3, has been published by the Free Software Foundation. This is a the beginning of a public review process that is expected to take the rest of 2006. The new license includes lots of rewording for clarification and new definitions that were missing from GPL 2, as well as aggressive new clauses dealing with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and replacing "distribution" with "propagation", broadening the application of the copyleft to include edge cases such as running an application on a publicly-available server. The license also contains compatibility clauses increasing the flexibility of combining GPL software withsoftware under other free copyleft licenses.

http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft

KDE 4 to incorporate Solid device and network capabilities

2006-01-07T12:27:00.000+02:00

After a lot of coding behind the scenes, a new initiative to improve
KDE's interaction with network and hardware devices has been launched.
Solid, will provide an API for better interaction with dynamically
changing hardware and network environments as a result of newer wireless
and hotplugging environments. The project aims to start including these
features in KDE 4.

"Solid will be a giant leap for KDE," says project lead Kévin Ottens.
"For example, the desktop will be able to deal wisely with your computer
hibernating. You'd want network interfaces to go down and for
network-enabled applications to gracefully handle the disconnection; USB
devices should be synced to avoid data loss".

http://dot.kde.org/1136389547/

British government announces review of 'intellectual property' law

2005-12-12T10:53:00.000+02:00

Following in the footsteps of their American counterparts, British lawmakers will be reconsidering the UK intellectual property regime in order to "modernize copyright and other forms of intellectual property so that they are appropriate for the digital age". The process is structured on essentially the same lines as the review that, in 1998, gave rise to the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The British independent review will be led by Andrew Gowers, former editor of the Financial Times, has been commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and will run for 12 months.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2005/Press_102_05.cfm

Starting Linux in single user mode

2005-12-06T15:23:00.000+02:00

Hi,

Just a quick note. The other day I need to start a friends Linux machine
in single user mode so I could do a low level fsck. I didn't know how to
do it and I thought I would share the information with you!

At the boot prompt (Grub or Lilo) type: linux single

Linux is the name of the boot option defined in the boot loader and most
of the time it is just "linux" and "single" is the command to force boot
up in single user mode.

Thanks and happy linuxing,

THP

Proposed License Amendment to Avoid Content Ghettos in the Commons

2005-11-25T14:02:00.000+02:00

The issue of license interoperability is an important one for those involved in creating "free" content. There exists and interoperability issue that arises in the context of content licensed under a Creative Commons license and content licensed under other "free" licenses. As many of these licenses are now crafted, there is no way for creativity to be shared among these licenses, even if the underlying freedoms guaranteed by the licenses are the same.

Creative Commons is now considering a proposal designed to "avoid content ghettos". They have pledged to work "with as many representatives from the free culture movement as we can to build this federation offree licenses".

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5701

Microsoft to compete with ODF

2005-11-25T13:35:00.000+02:00

Seeing that a closed file format isn't going to win market share and seemingly in response to the Open Document Format, Microsoft has announced that it will release its own "Open XML" formats under a non-free license which it calls 'open', rather than taking the technologically much simpler path of supporting their customers' need to interoperate with OpenOffice.org's ODF format. Microsoft intends to submit its standard to the ISO, apparently to compete with ODF for the creation of an ISO standard for document files. This is despite the fact that ODF has already been in the standardization process for some time, and lacks the patent problems of "Open XML".

http://fsdaily.com/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/0749203

Linux powers my new venture

2005-11-22T09:51:00.000+02:00

I have started a new web site called The Free Press Release Center and of course it is powered by Linux with PHP, MySQL and of course Apache (this combination is often called LAMP).

FPRC is a free Internet based news and press release distribution service for businesses of all sizes. We are aiming to raise the standard for Internet news distribution.

Press release submission is free and each press release is sorted according to category and keyword. To help you in submiting your press communication we have a sample press release as well as a how to write a press release section.

But the great part about FPRC is the keyword linking. With each press release the you can choose a keyword and a URL (different to your main site URL) which will appear as a link (using the keyword as the anchor text) in your press release. This gives you free links to your site using the anchor text of your choice. Plus it is in a natural context, i.e. the text of their release. To understand this more read the press release and SEO section on the web site.

There is also a PRO upgrade which gives you 3 keywords and URLs and your press release remains permanently in the system. Other benefits of a PRO upgrade are: your press release will remain in our system permanently, after the upgrade you will have access to add your company to our business directory and you can distribute your press release in up to 5 other related industries.

Thanks,

THP

How to shop for Web hosting

2005-11-19T20:29:00.000+02:00

Hi,

I have had another article published by the NewsForge people this time on IT Managers Journal. It is called How to shop for Web hosting but its working title was "How to read Linux hosting adverts".

The article is a top level analysis of Linux hosting including shared hosting, Virtual private servers and dedicated hosting.

Enjoy!

THP.

Patent Commons established to defend free software

2005-11-18T15:37:00.000+02:00

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has established a site for
registering pledges on open source technologies from companies such
as Red Hat, Sun, and IBM. The patent commons site is divided into two
main areas: one for developers, with detailed resources available on
patent commitments, termination provisions, and other guidance, and
the other, dedicated to a library of patents and broader patent
portfolio claims, along with pledges from the companies which hold
these patents. Site maintainers hope it will help to dispel the angst
that open source developers have had in the present software patent
environment.

MySQL 5.0 declared production-ready

2005-10-31T11:25:00.000+02:00

MySQL AB has announced the general availability of MySQL 5.0,
described as the most significant upgrade to the database management
system in the company's ten-year history. The new release is said to
be compliant with the SQL 2003 standard, and will be supported by
enterprise database vendors including HP, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, SAP
and Sun. It's available for download under the GNU GPL in versions
for Linux, Windows, Solaris, OS X, FreeBSD, HP-UX, AIX and a range of
other operating systems.

FSFE approves Microsoft 'shared source' licences

2005-10-22T13:12:00.001+03:00

By the Free Software Foundation Europe's own admission, it doesn't
get the chance to congratulate Microsoft very often. Of the five
'shared source' licences recently published by the company, a
preliminary inspection by the FSFE indicates that both the 'Microsoft
Permissive Licence' and the 'Microsoft Community Licence' may well be
free software licences. Of course the FSFE would have preferred that
Microsoft had adopted the GNU GPL and LGPL, but it has nevertheless
welcomed the move. At the same time, the FSFE has pointed out that it
is not the publication of licenses, but the publication of software
under a free licence that really counts.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 released

2005-10-22T13:12:00.000+03:00

After two years of development, the free software OpenOffice.org 2.0
productivity suite has been announced. Already available in 36
languages, the new version runs natively on Linux, Windows, Solaris,
OS X and other platforms. In addition to the OpenDocument format, the
redesigned user interface and a new database module, version 2.0
features improvements to PDF support, the spreadsheet module and
desktop integration, as well as support for XForms. Meanwhile, a
project has been launched which aims to bring OpenDocument
capabilities to Microsoft Office. The O3 project plans to use a .NET
plugin and SOAP to access document conversion as a web service.

OpenOffice.org now to be LGPL only

2005-09-13T18:35:00.001+03:00

The OpenOffice.org suite has previously been available under dual
licences - the GNU LGPL favoured by most contributors, and the Sun
Industry Standards Source License, which did not require all changes
to source code to be published. In the interests of limiting licence
proliferation, Sun has now announced that it is retiring the SISSL,
and OpenOffice.org will in the future only be licensed under the
LGPL. The change makes little practical difference to users of the
suite, but the developers who previously used the SISSL are being
asked to switch to the LGPL.

Gnome 2.12 desktop released

2005-09-13T18:35:00.000+03:00

The Gnome Foundation has released the latest version of its free
software desktop and development platform. Version 2.12 is said to
incorporate thousands of refinements, including an updated default
theme, easier file management, intuitive clipboard behaviour, a
unified document viewer and an About Me control panel. There is also
a new services control panel and menu editor, and improvements to the
GTK+ toolkit include the integration of the Cairo drawing technology
from freedesktop.org.

GNU GPL v.3 project launched

2005-09-08T08:36:00.000+03:00

The Free Software Foundation has announced the GPL Version 3
Development and Publicity Project. This effort aims to bring together
thousands of organisations, software developers and users during 2006
to update the widely used free software licence. The current version
of the GNU GPL was written in 1991, since when it has been adopted
for the Linux kernel and many thousands of other programs, in
addition to the work of the GNU Project. Funding of 150,000 euro will
support the GPL revision project, which will be overseen by the FSF
in the US and Europe with support from the Software Freedom Law
Centre.

THP

No improvements with SpeedyAds

2005-09-07T14:23:00.000+03:00

Current stats as of today are 60 views and 0 clicks!!! I have $15 of
credit waiting to be spent... I don't entireweb quite get the picture.

My keywords include: hosting, web hosting, cheap hosting, cheap PHP
hosting... I have 8 in total. So far only "hosting" and "web hosting"
have triggered the views... I guess one problem is that the top bid
for those is over $1 and I haven't bid that high.

Even so I have found another advertising service (oher than google)
and I have had lots of traffic from them without having to bid $1 per
click!!!

THP

Don't use SpeedyAds from entireweb.com

2005-09-03T09:11:00.000+03:00

I am using SpeedyAds and I am very disappointed in their service. I have over $15 deposited in my account but yet I am not getting any advert views/impressions. I am NOT talking click-thrus here, I am talking views.

The ad has been running for 1 week and I have had 8 advert impressions for keywords like web hosting, hosting etc. Can you believe it? I can't. I have written them two emails asking for explanations and soon I will go on the war path writing anti entireweb articles.

Are they really an advertising company?

THP

New business venture

2005-09-01T13:33:00.000+03:00

I have started a new business venture... of course using Linux! I have finally decided to start my own Linux hosting company. Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 we have PHP, MySQL, CGI/Perl and of course Apache.

You can find the site here.

Thanks,

THP

Microsoft files XML doc patent in NZ

2005-09-01T13:32:00.000+03:00

According to the New Zealand Herald Microsoft has applied for a patent where they claim they invented and own the process whereby a word-processing document stored in a single XML file may be manipulated by applications that understand XML.

The New Zealand Open Source Society president Peter Harrison said "It means if you write a document in Word and save it in an XML format, you have to have Microsoft's permission to read it or change it."

Errrmmmm... I thought the whole point of XML was interoperability. What next Microsoft invented e-mail!!! Obviously prior art should stop this patent being accepted.

I could make lots of comments now about Microsoft and their underhanded business tactics... I see today from the BBC that Microsoft seems to be falling short in its compliance with the EU anti-trust punishment.

For those of you familiar with Star Trek, one quote comes to mind "Resistance if futile".

We will see!

THP

What is Open Source?

2005-08-31T13:30:00.000+03:00

Open Source is a concept and license for publishing software along with it's sourcecode. Under Open Source, software is licensed in a certain way which allows anyone to redistributable it at will and without cost. The source code is freely available, and it is modifiable by anyone sufficiently experienced in programming.

An example of a Open Source license is the GPL (General Public License). The GPL comes from the Free Software Foundation and is the main license of the GNU project which was Richard Stallman in the 1980's.

The GNU project provides many of the key tools and components for what we call the Linux operating system. For example the C compiler which is used to build Linux is itself a free software project. Linux is licensed under the GPL.

The Free Software Foundation say that "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think offree as in ree speech not as in free beer."

Also they say "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software."

Another important project is the Open Source Initiative (OSI). They say "the basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing."

You can read more at my site

What is Linux

2005-08-29T12:53:00.000+03:00

Every computer needs a core piece of software which is called an "Operating System". Many computers today use Microsoft Windows as their operating system or if you are using an Apple machine, Mac OS X. Linux is an alternative operating system for both Personal Computers (PCs) and Apple Macs.

Linux is a free operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the help of many developers (hackers) around the world. Linux is developed and released under the GNU General Public License which makes the source code for Linux freely available to everyone.

A Linux distribution (a package of Linux and Linux related programs) comes with everything a modern computer user need including an advanced GUI (Graphical User Interface), full Internet capabilities including e-mail, web browsing and FTP. Office applications like word processors and spreadsheets (often with a high level of compatibility with other programs like Microsoft Office), photo editing, full development suites, games and much more.

Linux is also very apt at running on a server. Linux is often used as an email and web server. If fact the computer which sent you this page is running Linux.

Linux runs on many different hardware platforms including Intel, Sparc, PowerPC, and Alpha Processors.

You can read more about Linux on my site

Thanks,

THP