Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

AMD has allowed their Radeon GPUs to be overclocked on Linux since 2008 when using their Catalyst driver with OverDrive support. Previous to that there was Rovclock for overclocking select ATI Radeon ASICs using an open-source program along with support for tuning the video memory timings and other options, which was a program written via reverse engineering. The Catalyst Linux driver supports OverDrive manipulation of the core and memory clocks, which is enough for most enthusiasts, but if you've been looking for more extensive features there is a new option.

Linux distributions tend to fall into one of two camps. The first are those, like Ubuntu and Fedora, that are aimed mostly at enthusiasts and others happy to teeter on the bleeding edge of technology. The other group consists of more stable, commercially supported software, designed for those after less excitement, and includes products such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). New releases are a rarity in this category, so when a major new product like RHEL 6 comes along it's a big event, and one worthy of close attention.

It's a testament to how far Linux has come that users today don't typically have to use the command line if they don't want to. Such is the quality of the graphical user interfaces in many modern Linux distributions that there's simply no need, in general.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but paying for everything make Jack rather poor. Here's a look at the most popular places to score free games online for some cheap end-of-year fun.

I took a few days off from writing any articles, partly to try to make a serious dent in transcribing the Comes v. Microsoft exhibits. We're in the home stretch, and a quiet weekend, marking on a curve, is perfect. I know there's lots going on, other than work. I also needed to take some time to think about the recent discovery about Novell taking money from Microsoft and contractually agreeing to show up at Open XML standards meetings and events. Should Groklaw stop helping people like that, I asked? Is it time to shut Groklaw down? If not, is there a way to carve out helping Linux and FOSS, which is what we are about, from helping self-interested executives and board members so that in essence we end up being used by them so they get larger piles of money because we worked ourselves to the bone and then they repay the community with such a deal as this?

Back in 1998 when I started using Linux, it was ugly. In those days you installed it by inserting around 40 floppy disks into your computer and praying that one of them wouldn't be a duffer and make you have to start again. After this lengthy installation process, you were typically presented with this not-entirely-intuitive interface:

Photoshop users who have switched to GIMP will notice that some of the PS features are not readily available in Gimp. Drawing arrows is one of them. As a tech blogger who have to edit plenty of screenshots everyday, there are times where I need to draw arrows on the images to illustrate the point. While this can be easily done in Photoshop, the feature is not available in the default installation of GIMP. Here is what you can do to enable the arrow feature in GIMP.

Are your friends convinced that they should be paying for their operating systems because Linux sounds too complicated or because they think it won't do what they want it to? Fear not, here's your guide to bringing your friends over to the light side...

In early November we delivered benchmarks of EXT4 vs. Btrfs on an early Linux 2.6.37 kernel as our latest round of tests comparing these two leading Linux file-systems. There were some changes in the Linux disk performance with these file-systems using the latest Linux kernel code, but overall it was not too interesting. However, as the Linux 2.6.37 kernel does introduce a new mount option for Btrfs, the space_cache option, we decided to explore its performance in today's article.

If 2010 was the year that taught open source "how to disappear completely," 2011 will be the year we're reminded that "anyone can play guitar"…or open source. At present, open source is de rigueur with the underdog class, those vendors seeking to challenge incumbents like Apple and Oracle.

Amid an enterprise environment that is now more receptive to utility computing and focused on service-based contracts, open source software adoption has grown over the past two years and entered the IT mainstream.

Mozilla has released a beta version of the MPL 2.0, the first update to its open source license in more than a decade. Mozilla chief lizard wrangler Mitchell Baker calls this a "feature complete" beta, saying it "addresses all major known issues". The license is shorter and simpler than the aging MPL 1.1. The beta draft drops the word count from 3,702 words to 2,289. But it's also designed to make the MPL more compatible with other licenses, including the Apache license and the GPL. Its patent language has been massaged to look more like that in other licenses. And it removes the "original software" and "original developer" concepts.

The kernel now includes some components for supporting operation as a Xen host (Dom0). Switching into and out of sleep mode should be accelerated by the use of LZO compression. Following years of work, almost all parts of the kernel are now able to run without using the big kernel lock (BKL).

Using Linux on a laptop has always been a hit and miss affair. With sometimes obscure proprietary hardware, many laptop manufacturers have showed no interest in supporting the free operating system. Nevertheless, through hard work by developers and support from some hardware manufacturers, Linux now supports a wide variety of laptops and netbooks.

OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt disclosed an e-mail earlier this month in which former NETSEC CTO Gregory Perry claimed that his company was paid by the FBI to plant a "backdoor" in the OpenBSD IPSEC stack. The allegations led to a thorough code review and historical analysis of the relevant code.

One of my biggest beefs with Gmail on my Droid (rooted, running Cyanogenmod 6.1.2) is that I could never reply with an address other than my gmail account. I have several accounts tied to gmail, and with the web client, you can choose which account to reply with. In fact, Gmail does a good job of replying with the address the email was sent to.

ZDNet Asia spoke to open source vendors and developers for their recommendations of open source enterprise software available in the market today, which they say can improve business processes including workflow and content management.

While we continue to be taken away by Unigine OilRush and other projects, for those without access to these new titles and not impressed by the recent Humble Indie Bundle #2 or Zero Ballistics 2, there is a new alternative: Warsow 0.6.

Last week, you tested your Ubuntu system for KVM compatibility, installed KVM on your host server and installed a guest operating system into a virtual machine. This week you’ll learn some KVM-oriented terminology and will continue your dive into KVM Ubuntu style by working with virtual machines via the virsh command.

KDE e.V. is pleased to announce that we have joined the Open Invention Network community as a licensee. Open Invention Network was founded as a way to help defend the Linux ecosystem, and by extension much of the Free and Open Source software world, from the risks associated with software patents. Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System, creating an umbrella of protection for its members.