Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

No system works perfectly all the time, but for something as fundamental as being able to prove who you are and get access to what you’re supposed to be able to do, we need to set things up so there’s a fall-back plan.

The OASIS international standards consortium on Sept. 12 launched a new website, OpenDocument XML.org, aimed at being the official community gathering place and information resource for the OpenDocument Format (ODF). The site will feature blogs, forums, information, and news about the ODF.

Window Snyder, whose hiring was announced last week, says she wants to get going. Her first initiative is to reduce the overall risk to Firefox by evaluating where there are unused features and by getting rid of the unused code.

Dominic Sweetman of MIPS Technologies has updated his guidebook to the MIPS architecture. See MIPS Run...Linux offers a technical look at MIPS32, and uses Linux to illustrate how operating system kernels and application environments can be built on top of the RISC-based architecture.

The Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit is a tool to test how well Linux works together with the firmware (BIOS) of your machine. The main component of the kit is a bootable CD, which you can download from this site. When this CD boots, the Linux kernel starts and launches the test application. This application performs a set of tests on your machine and then reports the results for interactive inspection. The test application also assists you in running some of the non-automatic parts of a firmware test plan.

Distro founder and chief maintainer Barry Kauler on Sept. 13 announced availability of the Puppy Linux 2.10 live CD. The latest version of the Australia-based distro features a 2.6.16.7 Linux kernel, the JWM desktop windowing environment, and a "massive" package upgrade.

The Fedora Project announces the third and final test release of the Fedora Core 6 development cycle, available for the i386, x86_64, and ppc/ppc64 architectures, including Intel based Macintosh computers. Be aware that Test releases are recommended only for Linux experts/enthusiasts or for the technology evaluation, as many parts are likely to be broken and the rate of change is rapid.

Red Hat has lurched closer toward the Xen server virtualization package by including the software in a beta release of its server operating system. And now the company is begging people to test out just how well Xen functions with RHEL 5.

Why has the country's biggest known desktop Linux implementation gone relatively unpublicised for so long?

Linspire Inc. launched a revamped partner program on September 14 that will pay system builders a percentage on all commercial Linux software and services purchased by users of either Linspire or Freespire pre-installed desktop and laptop computers using the company's CNR (Click N' Run) technology.

The company claims that Mandriva Corporate Server 4 is fully compliant with the LSB (Linux Standard Base), and therefore should have interoperability with products from other LSB-compliant vendors.

A new range of touch drivers for Linux and Mac OS X systems is now available from Elo TouchSystems, a div. of Tyco Electronics Corp. The offerings complement the company’s line for Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and legacy operating systems, including DOS and OS/2.

There's a federal push to digitize health care records, but experts are worried over allegations that a Boca Raton company [Dr. Notes] cut some doctors access to electronic patient files after they failed to pay fees. It turns out there is no current law that would stop a software vendor from doing so, federal and state agency officials say. The laws that cover patient privacy and access to records apply to health care workers, not third-party vendors...of the clause in Dr. Notes license agreement, Just because it's in the fine print somewhere in a place a normal person wouldn't see it doesn't mean you can enforce it.

Packages for the first KDE 4 developers snapshot "Krash" have started appearing. Most exciting is packages for a whole new platform, Mac OS X. More details are on Benjamin Reed's blog. For the traditionalists packages are available from openSUSE and Kubuntu. If you are a KDE application developer, this is the easiest way to start porting your application to KDE 4.

Alexander Maryanovsky, the developer of Jin, a Java-based chess client, has filed a lawsuit in Israel that alleges multiple violations of the GNU General Public License (GPL). In the suit, Maryanovsky alleges that International Chess University (IChessU), a startup offering online chess tutoring, and Alexander Rabinovitch, its CEO, violated both his copyright and the GPL in its production and distribution of the IChessU client, a piece of software based on Jin. Both sides agree on the general outline of events, but differ in their interpretation of the GPL and its applicability.

I'm trying to discover why three out of three of my selected hard-disk recorders refuse to work on my Debian Etch (Demudi) system. Once again I ask myself the relevant questions: Is it me ? Is my computer trying to tell me something ? Is it something I said ? Whatever the reason(s), my reviews of those three programs must remain in limbo until I figure out what's wrong. The applications are all known to run perfectly well on other machines, so I'm sure there's an external problem. When testing new applications one must be prepared with the newest dependencies.

A Chinese PC vendor has begun shipping a box with its homegrown Godson CPU, with a price tag of between $175 to $200. Thanks to current exchange rates, that's under £100. Eventually, though, OEM ZhongKe Menglan Electronics expects to sell the unit for $125.

The latest to hit the market in Carrier Grade Linux is CGL 3.2-which comes with a promise of high availability, performance, security, reliability, and hardware optimization

The challenges of deploying open source in a non-profit environment are real, but not insurmountable. One Georgia business makes a living deploying IT solutions to K-12 schools, and reveals how they have been successful using open source to do it.

If you are running Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, you have access to many different animation applications, ranging from Adobe Flash to Anime Studio. That is not so for Linux. While many think of animation in Linux as a lost cause, there are alternatives. The relatively new KToon calls itself "the open source animation revolution." KToon has a small learning curve and an intuitive interface, making it an excellent choice for simple animation within Linux.