Showing headlines posted by tadelste

Gartner's Hype Cycle for Linux 2005 illustrates how, over the past two years, Linux has matured as an established operating system environment, primarily on one- to four-processors. However, Gartner found that for eight processors and beyond, Linux must demonstrate performance, security and application proof points based on the 2.6 version of the kernel and that the biggest test continues to be whether it can function as a data center server for mission-critical applications.

I'm sure many of you are excited about today's GNOME release and the release of Firefox 1.5 beta 1. Kris and I decided to write Linux.Ars sections about GNOME and Firefox customization in order to celebrate the releases. In this edition of Linux.Ars, Kris will teach you how to use command line build tools to construct a complete Firefox extension, I will teach you how to add context menu items to Nautilus using the Nautilus Actions extension, and Ian introduces an LDAP utility called Luma. I want to personally thank those of you who sent me e-mails with comments and suggestions! Linux.Ars is all about you, so don't be afraid to get involved! Want to do a section for a future edition? Have a suggestion for a topic that you want us to write about? I would love some feedback. Feel free to send me or post in the discussion thread comments, complaints, suggestions, requests, free hardware, death threats, or disparaging remarks about my assorted deficiencies. Keep those comments coming!

Novell has announced that its latest operating system, SuSE Linux 10.0, will hit the shelves in early October 2005. The platform is the first to incorporate input from the openSUSE.org project, a recently launched community initiative sponsored by Novell that aims to promote the use of Linux everywhere. Novell said that the involvement of this group means that SuSE Linux 10.0 includes code changes and bug fixes initiated with developer input from across the worldwide Linux community.

Microsoft Corp has filed a new appeal against European Commission antitrust sanctions in an attempt to expedite a decision on whether it will be forced to share communications source code with open source software vendors.

Here in Part 3, I present a story that in several aspects is different from the previous stories. Enter Anna F. Leopardi, an elementary school teacher at the Direzione Didattica Statale Terzo Circolo of Pescara, which is the administrative center of the smallest province of the Abruzzi region. Anna is not only a free software user and evangelist; she doesn't mind getting her hands dirty doing some Linux customization hacking, which she then uses at her school. In early 2005, she also taught at a professional training course on open source and schools that was organized by the Province of Pescara.

Linux and a lack of SCOsource licensing revenue continue to push SCO's revenue down, but OpenServer 6 is doing well so far.

"As your Linux/Unix network grows, you're probably going to get tired of running around to individual machines to do updates and fixes, unless it's part of your fitness program. My ideal sysadmin scenario is rather like Dr. Evil's submarine lair: lounge about with a cat on my lap, occasionally pushing a button..."

Rumors abound about the US Nuclear arsenal lacking documentation of its software from twenty years ago. Someone even said the US consulted Russia for help. With new Government regulations in place, you have to have a long-term strategy to retrieve your old documentation. Those are the business drivers that spurred OASIS to create the open document format - compliance issues that will require people to maintain records for decades. Now, try and retrieve an archived document from Microsoft Word Version 5. Oops. You just can't change formats anymore to make people buy your new products, Bill.

This is all so easy in the paper world: you take a good, thick, wet pen and proudly scribble your signature at the bottom of a white, shiny page. Signatures in the real world are easy: they reflect our true personality, can be changed and altered at whim until we attain the perfect shape we are after and deem truly unique or representative. The e-mail world however has introduced many challenges. Indeed, compatibility issues, bandwidth requirements and the general lack of support for rich formatting in e-mails has reduced most of us to add “signatures” that are often no more than a couple lines of plain text.

"As your Linux/Unix network grows, you're probably going to get tired of running around to individual machines to do updates and fixes, unless it's part of your fitness program. My ideal sysadmin scenario is rather like Dr. Evil's submarine lair: lounge about with a cat on my lap, occasionally pushing a button..."

Parallels Inc. Wednesday released a beta version of its first product, a virtual machine platform that runs multiple operating systems concurrently. Parallels Workstation runs the Red Hat, Novell/SUSE, Mandriva, Debian, and Fedora Core Linux distributions, FreeBSD, and all versions of Windows -- even "legacy" systems such as OS/2 and MS-DOS, the company said. Each "guest" OS (operating system) can be launched and utilized in networked, portable, independent virtual environments, according to the company. Virtual machine properties, computing priorities, and file structures are managed using an "intuitive" control console, the company said. The "host" OS can be various Linux distributions or Windows.

ZENworks 7 Asset Management Also Expands Cross-Platform Support and Secures SIIA Certification

MUNICH -- Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT - News), the world's leading provider of open source solutions to the enterprise, today announced plans to introduce expanded language support services for Russian speakers. The new Russian language software and services will become available from the end of September as an integral element of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. spacer

This month, I am going to deviate from my usual format. Instead of talking about a specific programming tool, I am going to discuss last month's LinuxWorld and some of the software, tools and other things from the show. LinuxWorld was interesting for a number of reasons. For one, it was bigger than the previous year's show by more than 20 percent. Although LW again was dominated by the "suits", here and there were buried gems, some of which I discuss here. For those of you who didn't attend or who had only Expo passes, the .org pavilions were on the second floor, along with the seminar rooms--usually restricted to paying attendees. Keep this booth arrangement in mind for future shows.

RALEIGH – Red Hat will soon no longer have to say “Nyet!” (no) but "Da!" (yes) to Russian speakers seeking extensive support in their native language for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Computer Associates International, Inc. today pledged open access to key innovations covered by 14 of its U.S. patents -- and counterparts of these patents issued in other countries -- for individuals and groups working on open source software. CA also announced it has reached a long-term, patent cross license agreement with IBM, creating an exchange of license rights and releases between the companies. In making its patent pledge to the open source community, CA is joining IBM in encouraging other companies to create an industry-wide "patent commons" in which patents are pledged royalty-free to further innovation in areas of broad interest to developers and users of information technology. IBM made a similar pledge earlier this year.

MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 4.0 (Pro 4.0) integrates the latest Linux 2.6 kernel with the most advanced hard real-time capabilities required to develop a wide range of embedded products, from networking and communications, aerospace and defense to consumer devices and medical electronics. Multiple industry analyst firms, including Venture Development Corporation (VDC), have sized the 2004 embedded software market at approximately $1 billion. Although this market has traditionally been served by a variety of real-time operating system (RTOS) products, VDC’s Embedded Software Strategic Market Intelligence Program 2004 reports Linux is clearly on the rise, now commanding the largest share of current projects by more than 50 percent over the largest proprietary RTOS.

Lukasz Kosewski provided an update on his efforts to create a hotswap infrastructure for libATA, allowing the driver to properly handle hotplug interrupts. He notes that along with the generic infrastructure he plans to include, "a specific implementation of this infrastructure in the Promise SATA150 and SATAII150 line of controllers." He began working on this in late July, noting that at this time drivers for the formentioned hard drives "mostly work", and he has continued to clean up the infrastructure based on suggestions from libATA author Jeff Garzik [story]. Lukasz went on to note, "once the infrastructure is accepted, anyone with a hotswap-unsupported controller and some time on their hands will easily be able to integrate hotswap in; that is the whole goal of an infrastructure." He added that alternatively if provided with a controller and documentation, "I will add the support and test the b'jesus out of it".

Jeff Garzik commented, "once the infrastructure is there, I'll probably add support for several controllers myself." He went on to explain that some controllers don't have an explicit hotplug interrupt, but can still support hotswapping. Alan Cox [interview] was concerned about Parallel ATA (IDE) support, "for PATA we may need to reprogram both drives so please be sure that is allowed for. Also much PATA is 'warm swap' not 'hot swap' as we have to perform actions in software prior to the swap."

Stories about Microsoft losing ground to Linux in China are overblown, says Tim Chen, chief executive of Microsoft China. Instead, Microsoft likes to cast gains against Linux as evidence that China's technology industry is maturing and moving toward the proprietary-software approach championed by Microsoft. China is an important battleground in Microsoft's competition with Linux and open-source software because of the country's size, its influence on the tech industry and growing pool of software developers. Three of Asia's leading Linux vendors, including Beijing-based Red Flag Software, recently released a new version of their Asianux 2.0 server platform. But Chen asserts that Microsoft is gaining ground in the country's booming business-software market, and said changes are under way. "I think Linux in China really has an issue with their business model," Chen said. "Linux, the Chinese companies, are not making money."

'You get it all with Linux, there's no downsides', according to a government procurement official in New South Wales

In an address to delegates at a New South Wales Department of Commerce exhibition on Wednesday, official Cameron Parle touted the benefits of open source to state departments and agencies, at one stage referring to wearing his own metaphorical "red hat", a reference to the Linux vendor of the same name. "There's no doubt you can deploy Linux in any situation, it's truly robust and flexible," he said.