Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Linux distributor Xandros along with NoMachine, maker of NX virtualization desktop, remote access and server management software, will announce on July 18 that NoMachine's NX Enterprise Server will start shipping immediately with Xandros Server 2.0.

Xandros CEO Andy Typaldos told DesktopLinux.com July 9 that his Ottawa-based Linux desktop and server company has acquired privately owned open-source e-mail and calendaring provider Scalix under terms that were undisclosed.

The 2.4 stable kernel tree has been maintained by Willy Tarreau for a year, since July of 2006. When recently asked if the tree had been abandoned, Willy replied,"no it's not abandoned at all! The difficulty with 2.4 is to get user feedback on patches. While in 2.6, there are hundreds or thousands of testers for every release, in 2.4, I have to wait longer after every release in order to start collecting problem reports, or confirmation of fixes. People using it in production generally cannot reboot a machine in the evening just to try a patch. Also, subsystem maintainers have less time to spend on it and are themselves slowed down by the slow feedback process."

The Italy-based Sabayon Linux project has released version 1.0 of the new enterprise-oriented edition of its desktop operating system. Sabayon Business Edition Linux 1.0 features a 2.6.22 Linux kernel and both KDE and GNOME desktop environments, along with a comprehensive set of application software.

Unless you have been living in an underground bunker, you have probably heard of Version Control, and possibly even Subversion (SVN). If you want to get the latest source code to compile it yourself, contribute to an open source project, keep track of files and documents, or work on the same document tree with a team of people, then you will need to use SVN.

Deep Freeze system consistency software, popular in Windows and Mac settings, is now available for Linux desktops. "Deep Freeze Linux" is said to reset a Linux workstation's boot process to a pristine state, enabling successive users to avoid misconfiguration by previous users of the computer.

The recently merged Completely Fair Scheduler changes how the Linux kernel handles scheduling priorities set with the nice command. Ingo Molnar explained that each level of nice adds or substracts 10% of CPU utilization,..

In October 2006, Terra Soft announced its plan to build the world's first supercomputing cluster using the Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3), which utilizes the IBM Cell Broadband Engine and the Linux operating system. The idea emerged when Sony Computer Entertainment came knocking on Terra Soft's door, interested in showing that the PS3 is more than merely a game box. After building a 3,000-sq-ft supercomputing facility, located at Terra Soft's headquarters, and adding a heavy dose of good old-fashioned tinkering, the cluster is well underway.

Suppose you want to have some options on your bash shell script, some flags that you can use to alter its behavior. You could do the parsing directly, using ${#} to tell you how many arguments have been supplied, and testing ${1:0:1} to test the first character of the first argument to see if it is a minus sign. You would need some if/then or case logic to identify which option it is and whether it takes an argument. What if the user doesn't supply a required argument? What if the user calls your script with two options combined (e.g., -ab)? Will you also parse for that? The need to parse options for a shell script is a common situation. Lots of scripts have options. Isn't there a more standard way to do this?

For average hackers in their cubicles, the relation between environmental and free software issues may seem remote but the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) is working to connect the dots. Since adopting a motion in favor of free and open source software (FOSS) in 2005, party members have not only spoken frequently in favor of FOSS, but also on related issues, such as software patents and lockdown technologies in Vista.

Intellectual property may be off the table, for now, but it sure seems like Red Hat and Microsoft are still dancing around coming to some kind of partnership relationship. In a recent eWEEK news story by Peter Galli, Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, said, "Red Hat and Microsoft have previously had conversations about interoperability, but none of our recent conversations have included discussions about intellectual property cooperation." Ah! Notice the start of the last phrase, "none of our recent conversations." So, they are still talking.

BlueWhite64 Linux v12.0, featuring a 2.6.21.5 Linux kernel with IA32-emulation, has been released on live CD and DVD ISOs. The distribution is aimed at pure 64-bit AMD64 Athlon, Opteron, Sempron, Turion, and Intel EM64T processors in desktops and servers.

"Since many alternative approaches to hibernation are now being considered and discussed," Rafael Wysocki began on the lkml, "I thought it might be a good idea to list some things that in my not so humble opinion should be taken care of by any hibernation framework. They are listed below, not in any particular order, because I think they all are important."

OpenLogic on July 11 announced a free tool said to enable the tracking and analysis of thousands of versions of open source software across more than 800 application packages. The tool enables administrators to set and maintain effective software policies in mixed Linux, Windows, and Solaris desktop environments, according to the company.

The Anaconda installer in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 provides a way of specifying the installation key in a kickstart file in order to allow for a fully unattended system install.

The U.K. broadcaster's online video-on-demand service is currently offered to Windows XP users only. But an open source industry group is pushing the BBC to adopt wider platform support.

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 96 for the week of July 8th through July 14th 2007.

Intel has unveiled an ambitious project aimed at developing open source software for mobile devices. The Moblin project comprises a Linux kernel, UI framework, browser, multimedia framework, and embedded Linux image creation tools, along with developer resources such as documentation, mailing lists, and an IRC channel.

I thought it would be useful, judging from some recent confusion in the media, to highlight the latest goings on in all the ongoing cases in the SCO saga all on one page, so everyone can follow the bouncing ball. That will mean some slight repetition for some of us, but it also will make it easier for those who don't follow the SCO saga as intently as we do to grasp the current picture.

If you like to keep your hands on the keyboard, you may find it tricky to launch new apps, open folder and documents, and change tracks in your music playlist. Katapult is an application launcher that does everything the Alt-F2 run dialog does, and much more.