Showing headlines posted by Sander_Marechal

There’s a Bullwinkle quality to predictions about desktop Linux. You know, the bit where the Moose claims he can do magic, and keeps pulling everything out of his hat but a bunny. Desktop Linux has been making the same promises for years, but like the moose said, “This time for sure.” Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation, admitted as much when we talked yesterday. “2008 will be the year of the Linux desktop. Don’t we say that every year?” he joked. Actually we do. This is the third December I’ve gotten to predict “this will be the year” for mobile Linux and desktop Linux. So why will this be the year?

Promises have been made. Assurances have been given. Commitments have been proffered. But far less has been delivered. We heard over and over again that we should approve OOXML because that was the only way to ensure that the format remain open. The first version might be a mess, but if we approve it just this once, the future versions will be developed in openness and transparency. But Ecma is really seeking to transfer to SC34 the responsibility of spending the next 3 years fixing errors in OOXML 1.0, while future versions of OOXML ("technical revisions") are controlled by Microsoft, in Ecma, in a process without transparency, and as should now be obvious to all, without sufficient quality controls.

Sun has announced the Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program to promote open source software (OSS) development within six projects that it is involved in. The company said that prizes are expected to total at least $1 million a year.

And the Community News returns! This edition is all about what you love best about Compiz Fusion, the countless new features and fixes that get added every week. Each week adding to the excitement of what already makes this one of the greatest projects for the Linux Desktop (Spare X and the Kernel of course) we have ever known. This week, a couple of interesting patches to Compiz Core by our forum users, new plugins (We all love those) and a few interesting and cool new features from some older plugins.

Computer users are up for a debate when it comes to choosing the best operating system that they have ever used. Like Microsoft Windows that held monopoly when it came to operating systems, more and more computer users, especially the youth, are opting for Linux operating systems these days. A sea of difference between Linux and Windows operating systems has got computer users hooked onto Linux. Users feel that it is a package that comes with everything needed for a computer.

The GNU/Linux desktop lacks a font manager for design work. Ideally, such a font manager should support currently used font formats, including TrueType, Type1, and OpenType, and allow sets of fonts to be activated on the fly, so that system memory is not choked with rarely used fonts. Until now, the closest to this ideal has been Fonty Python, but, when last seen, it fell short because of it supported only TrueType fonts and had a needlessly complicated interface. Now, however, newcomer Fontmatrix has proved itself a contender for the role. In fact, despite some weaknesses in its features, its basic functionality is already dependable.

Two fabless networking chip vendors will collaborate on Linux-based reference designs for managed enterprise switches and SOHO/SMB routers. The designs will combine Cavium's multi-core MIP64-based Octeon processors with Broadcom's StrataXGS and RoboSwitch Gigabit Ethernet switches, and run Linux along with LVL7's Fastpath TCP/IP stack.

It's no secret that Asus has some big expectations for its low-cost Eee PC, but it looks like the company is now getting a bit more specific on the matter, with it saying it expects to ship some 3.8 million of the laptops in the next fiscal year. What's more, as Daily Tech reports, at least some of those 3.8 million laptops will be shipping with Windows -- specifically, a stripped-down version of XP that's been designed for "emerging markets."

[Would that be the nutered XP version that can only run three applications at the same time? Like, AV software, a firewall and Windows Explorer? - Sander]

Like Dracula, the old myth that free software can't innovate keeps returning. Its latest incarnation is in the form of a column by Jaron Lanier in the December issue of Discover Magazine. But this accusation is one that's overdue for a stake through the heart. Those who have experienced free software projects firsthand know that they depend on innovation and generally foster it. In fact, the very idea of free software is one of the most innovative ideas in the history of computing.

As an electrical engineer with an automotive background, when I think of Linux, I think of servers, PCs, supercomputers, and so forth. Embedded applications don't really come to mind when I consider Linux. However, Linux is used as an operating system for many phones, games, and other devices with embedded software. Even though Linux is open source (free), certain companies could have patents that could be infringed by people using Linux in embedded applications.

Sun Microsystems on Wednesday will release details of a new award program meant to spur growth and activity within the company's open-source efforts, according to a post by Sun's open-source officer, Simon Phipps, on his corporate blog. The award program will involve the OpenSolaris, GlassFish, OpenJDK, OpenSPARC, NetBeans and OpenOffice.org communities.

If you create a piece of open source software and discover that it has been put to use in a way you find personally distasteful or immoral, what would you do about it? That's a question that was raised, albeit in a somewhat oddball form, just recently. Not long ago the Motion Picture Association of America released what it calls the "University Toolkit", a custom edition of Xubuntu that comes with a number of network analysis tools, allegedly for detecting copyright-infringing network activity.

India may have been a late starter in adopting the powerful computer-based education program One Laptop Per Child (popularly known as OLPC), a brainchild of MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte to bridge the technology divide between rich and the poor children in the developing world. But with the formation of an Indian edition -- called OLPC India -- the program, which aims to equip millions of world's school children with cheap laptops, is not only set to make an entry into India but also promises to do it with a bang.

Back in May I spent some time with Linutop’s fanless, Xubuntu-based micro-PC, framing my review from the perspective of a Linux-naive home user, to see if the compact device would make a decent alternative to a low-end Windows PC. At the time I criticised how tricky, for a fledgling user, it was to add functionality beyond what was preinstalled; since then, Linutop have released v1.2 of their software package, and asked if we’d like to check out the changes.

One of the biggest arguments for windows that everybody uses and indeed in my last rant I actually had a few comments specifically mentioning it. The basic argument is that you can do everything in windows via the GUI and you have to use the command line in Linux. I was informed in an earlier article that windows 2008 is able to be installed without the GUI so I wondered. If the GUI is so good. If all programs and system configuration can be done through the point and click interface. Then why is Microsoft giving the option of installing windows 2008 without the GUI interface? Further why are windows aficionado's touting this as a "Good Thing (TM)"?

Secret knocks have been used for purposes as simple and childish as identifying friend or foe during a schoolyard fort war. Fraternities teach these knocks as a rite of passage into their society, and in our security world we can implement this layer of security to lock down an SSH server. With this guide on FWKNP by Eckie S. (one of our own), you are taken on an easy-to-follow process of securing your platform with your own client and server port knocking set-up. Installation, iptable Rules setup, configuring access for the client and server, and everything in between. Check it out!

8GB of flash storage is currently the best you can hope for in a standard (though imported) Eee PC. However, if you're industrious and determined enough, you can marry your 4GB Eee with a $150 (or so) 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager drive for a full 20GB of storage. That's exactly what Johnx did over at eeeuser.com.

[Only sideways related to Linux, but very cool nonetheless - Sander]

Last wednesday I ordered a new laptop. I’ll definitely be installing Vista on it, if only for gaming and DirectX 10, but I also plan to use it as an excuse to get to grips with Linux. I’ve read many accounts of the various distributions of Linux, and they all agree on a few things: It’s massively more stable than Windows, there are so few viruses, they’re not even worth worrying about and it’s fast. Why wait for the laptop to arrive, I asked myself? I cleared up some space on my second hard drive, downloaded the latest Ubuntu release, and gave it a go. This is my account of it, as a completely new user.

I’ve now updated to the latest openSUSE KDE4 Packages and got another video (first one being: KDE 4.0 RC1+ Video Tour) to add, and it’s one all about the new KDE 4.0 KWin composite; that is, the new desktop effects that will be available with KDE 4.0. You will no longer need to run Compiz to get many standard and convenient composite features: they will be available right inside KDE.

A little while ago, I posted a blog entry that dealt with reasons why small businesses really should consider using Linux. I listed the freedom from vendor lock-in as one very important consideration and specifically stated that vendor lock-in here refers to data formats, not even specifically to Linux. Surprisingly (or not?), I got a very strange and negative reaction from some of my readers. They started to talk about Linux distro lock-in...