Showing headlines posted by Sander_Marechal

Embedded designer Paul Thomas is showcasing a tiny, open-sourced computer at LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week. Would-be "Linuxstamp" enthusiasts can obtain pre-built boards for the hefty sum of $120 directly from Thomas, or they can download the design for free and build it themselves. The Linuxstamp is an extremely simple hardware design, consisting of six integrated circuits (processor, flash, RAM, serial-to-USB, ethernet PHY, and power conversion) plus a bunch of passives.

Proper version control is a must for everyone who programs more than a few lines of code, but keeping your web applications or websites under version control is a tad harder that regular programs for two reason: You need a webserver to get your application going and you usually have to manage database revisions as well. Keeping database revisions in sync with your code revisions is a complex subject that I will leave until another time. In this article I will show you how to configure Apache on your development server so that it picks up your checked out working copies automagically as separate subdomains. Then that I will show you how to use dnsmasq so you can achieve the same effect on your local development machine.

gOS, the Linux OS known for its debut in the $199 Wal-Mart gPC and NetBooks, today announced the details of the newest version of its Linux operating system for consumers, called gOS 3 Gadgets. gOS is demonstrating a beta version of the OS on a variety of NetBooks and NetTops at LinuxWorld and online at http://www.thinkgos.com.

There is one thing that many people have yet failed to realize, and that is that Linux is a platform, not an OS. Now as bizarre as that may sound, if you truly think about it, you'll realize that I'm right. It's true that Linux does indeed describe an operating system, but that's only a minor part of the overall experience. I've had to learn this the hard way over the past couple of months as I've been doing research on how to better market Linux. It's come to me that marketing Linux as just an OS is like selling a rock to someone in need of a boat. In other words, it's effectively useless to someone, unless it can be used as a platform onto which important applications they need can be run.

With virtualisation becoming a mainstream technology, it's becoming reasonable that Linux distros like Ubuntu will not always require a dedicated computer but instead be contained within a virtualised environment, whether on a Windows desktop or as part of a consolidated server farm. It's not always plain sailing though — here are some problems you might encounter as well as their solutions.

Optimists say the best things in life are free; realists say yes, but anything that's free costs way too much. Nowhere is that more applicable than in open source (define) software. Enterprises using open source are being sued for not complying with the multitude of licenses the software comes with. The problem is that open source software developers call in code from other open source applications.

What is really satisfying is getting sufficiently involved in a project to be able to have a direct influence on it, as I am with"Joomla!". It's great to be able to identify a minor irritation, to fix it, and to get it to a production release. This has been my experience twice in recent weeks. I've implemented small changes to the system that make it just a little easier to use. Not only will I enjoy the product more as a result, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that thousands of systems administrators out there might think just for a moment,"oh, they fixed that - great!"

Welcome to this year's 8th issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Some of the topics covered in this issue include: Lenny frozen, Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated to include support for newer hardware, Schedule for 8th annual Debian Conference announced, Debian Days around the world and much more.

In this video interview, Aaron Fulkerson talks about MindTouch, the company he founded, and its DekiWiki product, which he helped create. In the first half of the conversation, Aaron says Deki is downloaded by about 3,000 people every day, that the open source project has "thousands" of developers, and that his company is profitable after only two years in business. In the second half, Fulkerson talks about the need for a strong personality at the head of an open source project, and has other advice for both charitable and commercial open source project leaders. If you either lead or hope to lead an open source project, or you plan to build a company based on open source software, this video is full of valuable advice for you.

If there was one solid message to come from the opening keynotes at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, it is this: Now is the time. Illustrated through the lenses of two large, mainstream industries -- financial services and health care -- the first two presenters talked about ways that investments in new technology might help the bottom lines.

During a press briefing at LinuxWorld today in San Francisco, IBM announced a new partnership with Red Hat, Novell, and Canonical to offer "Microsoft-free" personal computers with IBM's Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony software. The goal is to provide a preintegrated stack that can serve as a complete alternative to Windows and Microsoft Office.

Let me introduce to you, my sister. She likes coach bags, her little pug, time with her family, and drinking Miller Lite at country festivals. She likes trendy bars and trendy clothes. She likes to watch Friends and Sex in the City. She majored in Criminal Justice. Her radio habits are Top 40 and/or country. Needless to say, she's the furtherest thing from a geek anyone in our generation can be. And she hates computers. I had a spare computer laying around. 1.7Ghz Pentium 4, 512 MB of RAM, DVD-Burner and I figured it was time she got rid of her old Celeron HP. I got a copy of Xubuntu 8.04 and began my install...

OpenOffice.org 2.4.0 is a free, open source alternative to Microsoft's Office application suite. It is fantastic if you need basic office applications -- such as a word processor or spreadsheet -- at no cost. However, large organisations and power users may be disappointed by its lack of features and support.

Since the release of the Quake 3 engine source code in summer 2005 a lot of modifications and spin-offs have emerged. One such spin-off, Smokin' Guns (formerly known as Western Quake 3), is all about classical Wild West themes: big rifles and revolvers, wailing steel guitars, bank robberies, and smooth talking. It's a game you don't want to miss.

The nasty taste which has always 'ever-so-slightly' tainted my use of Ubuntu is that Mono is there only to support applications written in languages and for platforms which are basically Microsoft's. It encourages software development using systems that are based on technologies almost certainly encumbered by a whole raft of M$ patents. To my mind, there are many great non M$ languages and architectures out there which are almost part-and-parcel of Linux programming and I see no need to bring .NET, ASP or even Visual Basic to my desktop. If I want to write an application, I could use PHP, Python, PERL, C, C++, Java and, of course, many others. Why do I need to endorse and encourage the proliferation of non-free software by relying on M$'s IP and the smell of their stinky patents? Well, I figured I don't. So, I thought I'd see what happened if I removed Mono from Ubuntu.

A vendor of Linux-based WiFi arrays is finally releasing a version of its WiFi Monitor utility for Linux desktops. The open source, widget-like Xirrus WiFi Monitor for Linux enables users to monitor, secure, and troubleshoot WiFi networks, says Xirrus. The company refers to the software as a "desklet," a widget-like applet that provides quick access to information and functions. Developed under the gDesklets framework using the Python language, the utility is being made available under the GPL (General Public License). Users have access to complete source code of the application, says Xirrus.

The Office Open XML (OOXML) file format is probably destined to be an international standard under International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). And Andy Updegrove, for one, is not happy about it. He says that the recent ISO/IEC recommendation to deny the appeal against the April 1 vote to ratify OOXML is a bad one.

RDN caught up with Updegrove to get his thoughts on the process behind the appeal and what its likely defeat means for developers and for the future of technical-standards making.

In short, we are in an adversarial situation. Microsoft does not want us to succeed. Thus we cannot trust Microsoft, even if we'd like to, and must consider Mono based upon the question "What is the worst thing MS can reasonably do?". We can only trust Mono if we are convinced Microsoft doesn't have weasel room. The current situation appears, to me, to have lots of weasel room. The technical merits of Mono are basically irrelevant if its a trojan horse in the long term.

[An older article, posted at Groklaw in response to the interview with Miguel de Icaza by Der Standard -- Sander]

In 1997 Miguel de Icaza - together with Federico Mena Quintero - started one of the most influential Open Source projects: The GNOME desktop. At Novell he nowadays is leading the development of Mono, the free .Net-implementation he initiated in 2001. Since a few months he is also working on an open source version of Microsofts Silverlight - a task officially blessed by Microsoft.

During the recent GNOME Users and Developers Conference (GUADEC) Andreas Proschofsky had the chance to sit down with de Icaza and talk about future developments around Mono and Moonlight, the possibility of open sourcing .Net itself and changes in Microsofts attitude towards free software.

Lenovo has announced its entry into the "netbook" market. The Linux-based IdeaPad S9 and Windows-XP-based S10 feature 8.9- and 10-inch displays, respectively, plus 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processors, 1.3 megapixel webcams, 802.11b/g wireless networking, and up to 160GB of storage, says the company.