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Tuning IO is a tedious task which requires many iterations until you eventually reach your goals or see any results. While tuning IO, I think that tuning for read performance is a different task from tuning for write performance. Combing them both can sometimes be one of the hardest tasks a SysAdmin can face. I decided to focus on write performance in the first article.

Slackware Linux is one of the most powerful distributions available. But its power comes at a price. It's far less user-friendly than many other distributions. In fact, only Gentoo tops Slackware for difficulty. But if you avoid Slackware for those reasons, you'll miss out in a number of ways. Here are 10 of them.

Mozilla Foundation is re-forming the Mozilla Enterprise User Working Group (MEWG). This is a complete reversal in attitude on Mozilla's part, and the right move to make. Firefox and Google Chrome can't continue to take market share away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer without convincing enterprise administrators that these browsers are safe, secure, and thoroughly tested. It just won't happen. Furthermore, nothing could produce more distrust from enterpise IT administrators than statements that make it seem like they don't figure into the grand scheme of things.

Ahead of the Berlin Desktop Summit, several GNOME and KDE developers have begun a mailing list battle...over a name. In particular, that with GNOME 3.0 their control panel areas is called "System Settings", which is precisely what the KDE developers call their system control area too...

After not being updated for a few mainline kernel release cycles, the real-time (RT) Linux kernel has been updated against the Linux 3.0 kernel release...

For those with a Wiimote controller for Nintendo's Wii console, it's long been possible to use this Bluetooth-based motion controller with Linux when installing external packages. Just pulled into the Linux 3.1 kernel, however, is a Wiimote HID driver...

I'm happy to announce the succesful GNU Health Academia at the United Nations University, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during the last week of June.

Red Hat released version 5.7 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, adding new drivers and KVM hypervisor improvements. In other enterprise Linux news, Oracle acquired Ksplice and its Linux-based hot-patching update technology, and an eWEEK review found the new Ubuntu-based Stackops Linux distro speeds the process of configuring and deploying OpenStack clouds....

While released on an unfortunate day, Wine 1.3.25 has made it out into the world per the usual bi-weekly development cycle. Prominently featured in Wine 1.3.25 is rewritten audio support based upon the Windows 7 architecture...

Due to KDE's Plasma extensive use of the hard disk for Plasmoids and other activities, and thinking about KDE's performance on mobile device, Aaron Seigo has been working to make the library consume less memory. He has achieved at least partial success in this effort...

Toshiba's Thrive is a decent, if unspectacular, entry to the trundling Android Honeycomb tablet market, according to this eWEEK review. However, the availability of multiple ports will please enterprise users, who might also like the removable battery better than did author Clint Boulton....

Android Market now lets developers mount multiple Android Package (APK) files optimized for different devices and releases, instead of selling the optimized versions separately, says Google. Meanwhile, security firm Dasient reports that eight percent of Android apps are transmitting personal user data to unauthorized computers, and some Android malware is specializing in & drive-by downloads,& leaving users unaware of what's being installed....

Linus Torvalds is expected to release the Linux 3.0 kernel today. He has announced that the last-minute bugs that held up the Monday release should be addressed and he's preparing for the Linux 3.1 kernel merge window to be opened...

We are pleased to announce that the Desktop Summit 2011 in Berlin will be supported by Intel as the Platinum sponsor. The event organizers also welcome Collabora and SUSE as Gold partners, and are delighted with the community spirit of these generous corporate partners. Mirko Boehm, lead organizer of the Desktop Summit, said: "Their support is essential for the Desktop Summit's efforts to bring together Free Software developers from all around the world to work in a collaborative spirit on the next generation desktop technology."

Roku announced three new versions of its Linux-based, Netflix-ready streaming IP media player, all running on less than two Watts and adding support for casual gaming. The Roku 2 HD ($60) supports 720p playback; the Roku 2 XD($80) moves up to 1080p; and the Roku 2 XS ($100) adds USB and Ethernet ports, as well as a motion-control remote and Angry Birds. Roku runs embedded Linux.

With margins so thin you need a microscope to see them, Nokia's financial results for the second quarter of 2011 are due tomorrow, and the company has already warned investors of very bad news coming. Yesterday, it issued a peek into just how tough things have got in 2011. Nokia said its smartphone profit margins were down to 6.2 per cent in Q1 2011, with margins of 16.4 per cent on basic phones.…

Studying for certification exams can be an adventure. Even more so when the certification exam is a hands-on, performance-based exam. The quandry most people I know fall into, is that to effectively study for such an exam, you need access to a lab environment with elements that may be beyond the scope of the average Linux enthusiast.

Less than a month after beta releases began, Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1 has been officially been released. This is a major update to Oracle's virtualization platform they received from the 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems...

While S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) is widely used by many games and applications since its inclusion into OpenGL 1.3 and Microsoft DirectX 6.0, these lossy texture compression algorithms have not been implemented in the open-source Linux graphics drivers. This lack of open-source support is due to S3 Graphics holding the patent rights to this technology that they actively license to major hardware vendors. There long has been an external library that can be loaded and will work with most Mesa / Gallium3D drivers for advertising S3TC support, but it's not found by default and it's not included in leading Linux distributions due to these legal fears. There may now be a new solution for the S3TC Linux problem thanks to the advent of a new (and simpler) texture compression algorithm that can serve as a drop-in replacement.

Lantronix is now shipping a wireless device server module with a Timesys LinuxLink software development kit (SDK). The PremierWave EN includes a 400MHz Atmel ARM9 processor, an Ethernet port, and a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n modem, and ships with Linux-based Lantronix firmware -- offering secure tunneling, configuration, diagnostics, LAN bridging, and remote access applications....