Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Sam Ravnborg took a look at the x86 unification patches and commented, "from the mails and discussions I expected it be be obvious what was i386 only, what was shared and what was x86_64 only." He listed 16 files in x86/pci and noted, "in the filename there is NOTHING for most of the non-shared code that tell that this file is used by only i386 or x86_64." Andi Kleen concurred, "exactly my point from KS. The big mash-up will not really make much difference in terms of Makefile clarity or whatever Thomas' point was. Apparently he wanted to eliminate a few lines of code from the Makefile and merge the header files completely?"

Lucas Nussbaum suggests that Linux distributions should have a place to collaborate more effectively than just with upstream projects: I am both a Debian and an Ubuntu developer, and I’m sometimes amazed that Ubuntu discusses technical choices that were discussed (and solved) a few weeks earlier in Debian. And it’s even worse with the other big distros out there. Couldn’t we try to improve this ?

The ath5k driver has been through more than the usual amount of legal trouble. This driver, for Atheros wireless chipsets, was originally reverse engineered and developed in the BSD community. It was reputed by some to have been improperly copied from proprietary Atheros code, requiring two different studies by the Software Freedom Legal Center before Linux developers were willing to believe that it was safe to use. This driver should be the cause of great joy - it will make it possible for vast numbers of laptop owners to run Linux with free drivers for the first time. But, first, there would appear to be one more set of legal hassles to overcome.

This technology is a browser-based visual editor and run-time environment that enables developers to visually assemble Web applications without adding any imperative code. IBM Web Relational Blocks Software, Personal Edition (WebRB-PE) is a downloadable version of alphaWorks service, Web Relational Blocks.

OpenEMR HQ, a consultancy and integration firm focused on the popularOpenEMR medical records software package, has officially began offering service. The company, based near Tulsa, Oklahoma, offers a full range of products and services including installation, customization, and hosting and is primarily focused on small to mid-sized medical offices and clinics. According to company spokesmanMark Jennings, OpenEMR HQ is working on several extensions to the software that will better integrate it into busy medical offices and will streamline the way staff interacts with both clinicians and patients. Major changes should start appearing in the product by the end of the year and the modifications will be contributed back to the general OpenEMR community according to Jennings.

Years after it was first predicted, The SCO Group, a Unix and mobile software distributor better known for its Linux litigation, has filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

When it rains, it pours, they say. First, SCO files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and now on the same day Judge Dale Kimball has denied SCO's Motion for Reconsideration or Clarification of the August 10, 2007 Order. Here's his Order [PDF]. I wrote an article earlier today about SCO's Reply Memorandum in support of this motion, and as you'll see, I am not surprised at the denial.

Nation's largest transportation agency chooses Novell to secure and manage its employee identity infrastructure.

When I started using GNU/Linux eight years ago, I was dumbfounded to encounter Debian users who started their day by upgrading their entire system. Yet now, with the updaters that sit in the notification trays of recent GNOME and KDE-based distributions, I realize that these daily upgraders were not daredevils, but pioneers in the idea that all upgrades are desirable. Never mind that this idea is an nuisance and an unwarranted assumption -- let alone that constant upgrades are unsuitable to many styles of computing and contrary to responsible system maintenance.

"In the patch you really remove _a_lot_ of stuff," commented Roman Zippel in his reaction to Ingo Molnar's latest updates to the Completely Fair Scheduler. Roman has been consistently critical of Ingo's efforts, asking questions and criticizing Ingo's feedback. He continued, "you also removed a lot of things I tried to get you to explain them to me. On the one hand I could be happy that these things are gone, as they were the major road block to splitting up my own patch. On the other hand it still leaves me somewhat unsatisfied, as I still don't know what that stuff was good for."

Loop-based music composition is the practice of sequencing audio samples to create the various parts of a musical work. A sample may contain only a single event such as a bass note or cymbal crash or it may contain a measured pattern of events such as a drum beat, a guitar chord progression, or even an entire piece of music. The former type is sometimes referred to as a"one-shot" sample, while a longer sampled pattern is often simply called a loop.A loop is usually created at a specific tempo in a precise time period (musical beats and measures) for exact concatenation with other loops. Sequencing a series of timed loops creates realistic tracks that can convince a listener that he or she is listening to a part specifically performed for the piece.

Admit it. You enjoy using the command line in Linux. You only have a graphical interface so people in the office don't look at you strangely. So why not embed a command line in your desktop?

The Journaled File System (JFS) is a little-known filesystem open sourced by IBM in 1999 and available in the Linux kernel sources since 2002. It originated inside IBM as the standard filesystem on the AIX line of Unix servers, and was later ported to OS/2. Despite its pedigree, JFS has not received the publicity or widespread usage of Linux filesystems like ext2/3 and ReiserFS. To learn more about JFS, I installed it as my root filesystem. I found it to be a worthy alternative to the bigger names.

According to an anonymous source working at the Geotechnical & Structures Lab of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Miss., a committee of government employees and contractors at Vicksburg is considering a new IT policy which will force everyone to move to Windows XP if they are not already running it, and to port all applications save one currently running on Linux to Windows. The lone exception would be moved to Solaris.

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) allows you to encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify communications and data, as well as create and manage the keys needed for these tasks. It is a full, open source implementation of the OpenPGP Standard (RFC2440) and is integrated into many Linux applications ranging from clipboard applets to instant messaging clients. These applications make it easy to use GnuPG for digital security in the GNOME desktop environment.

"It turns out that USB devices suck when it comes to powermanagement issues :(" lamented Greg KH in posting some patches to handle USB autosuspend problems. He noted that the patches were intended for inclusion in the upcoming 2.6.23 kernel, "a number of patches have been submitted near the end of this kernel release cycle that add new device ids to the quirk table in the kernel to disable autosuspend for specific devices. However, a number of developers are very worried that even with the testing that has been done, once 2.6.23 is released, we are going to get a whole raft of angry users when their devices break in nasty ways." He proved an example, "it seems that almost 2/3 of all USB printers just can not handle autosuspend. And there's a _lot_ of USB printers out there..."

A community developer has ported Linux's KDE desktop environment to Nokia's Internet tablets. The port appears to run on both the N800 and -- with the addition of an RS-MMC card upgrade -- the older 770 tablet. The port actually was released back in March for the N800. However, it got a new round of attention this week, when a blogger posted instructions on installing it on the older 770. "It purrs like a kitten, believe it or not," the post enthused.

IBM Corp.'s decision to offer a Linux-only mainframe -- at 90% less than the cost of its flagship box has had the intended effect, research now shows. "Linux is a key to the IBM mainframe new-workload strategy," said Charlie Burns, a vice president of Westport, Conn.-based Saugatuck Technology Inc.

As its ship date nears, the price is rising and the specs dropping on Asus's ultra-low-cost, flash-based Linux notebook, according to reports. The EEE PC (3ePC), introduced at Computex, Taipei in June, is now expected to start at about $250, rather than the $190 originally targeted.

"With 2.6.24 probably opening in the not-too-distant future, it's probably a good time to review what my plans are for when the merge window opens," began Roland Dreier on the Linux Kernel mailing list. He reflected on the recent decision to phase in usage of reviewed-by tags noting that he was a little behind on reviews, "unfortunately, due to the length of the backlog and the fact that 2.6.23 seems fairly close, some of the things listed below are going to miss the 2.6.24 merge window."