Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

ine has come a long way in the last few years, making it fairly simple to install many popular Windows games on Linux. Cedega and PlayOnLinux have made it even easier by providing GUI assistance and management of your games. One game series, however, has proven to be consistently difficult to get working, and that’s The Sims. With its copy protection, hefty system requirements, and extensive dependencies, The Sims 3 is the most difficult of all. If you’ve been struggling to get this game up and running in Linux, look no further.

Zentyal 2 is something a little bit different, although it too has changed its name recently: version 1 was called e-Box. A decade younger than its rivals, it is based on Ubuntu, but its developers skip the normal semi-annual releases, and only use the Long Term Support ones that Canonical releases every other year. E-Box version 1 was based on Ubuntu 8.04 and version 2, now called Zentyal, uses Ubuntu 10.04.1.

The openSUSE community is on a voyage of introspection and self discovery. SuSE Linux has been around in one form or another since 1992, and, with the possible exception of Slackware, has an older provenance than any other Linux distribution, yet openSUSE is still in search of a unifying vision that sets it apart from its rivals and its past.

Mentor Graphics is shipping a version of its Mentor Embedded Linux development platform supporting networking applications developed on NetLogic Microsystems' MIPS-based multicore, multithreaded system-on-chips (SoCs). The Mentor platform, which is available in a free "Essentials" version as well as a commercial version, supports the XLR and XLS families today, with support for the newer XLP processors planned shortly.

Last week's release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.0 generated much excitement from its loyal customers. Many of Red Hat's partners are hoping the release will provide them with an opportunity to make a great deal of money off the back of it, too. Although the RHEL 6.0 server OS includes numerous significant new features -- a new hybrid 2.6.32 kernel; support for more cores and memory; better reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities; the ext4 file system by default; and so more -- it was hard to discern that from the clamor of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) hardware partners preparing to make money by selling more of their lovely server boxes and associated services.

Last month I said what OpenBenchmarking.org is and how it should change the benchmarking / automated testing landscape once it's released in conjunction with Phoronix test Suite 3.0 "Iveland" early next year. I have also showed off the new graphing capabilities for this software and provided another update at the end of last month. Here now is another update with some more exciting details.

Heralded by Linus Torvalds as a "huge improvement," a 233-line kernel scheduling patch written by Mike Galbraith is making the rounds to rave reviews, reports Phoronix. Due for possible inclusion into Linux kernel 2.6.38, the "sched: autogroup" patch is claimed to reduce latency by a factor of 10, with noticeable improvements in 1080p video playback, according to "before-and-after" videos run at Phoronix.

During Red Hat's official launch event for their new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL 6) release, executives from the company focused heavily on new performance gains. While performance and scalability are key elements of RHEL 6, so too is security. With RHEL 6, Red Hat is debuting a number of new features into its enterprise Linux, including new virtual security services as well as the System Security Services Daemon. Security services aren't the only area of RHEL 6 built for security, as all RHEL 6 packages now benefit from a new 4096-bit RSA hardware signing key as well.

Recently, I decided that instead of copying video files from one computer to another when I wanted to watch something on my TV, I would setup my network to stream the videos. I had previously tried NFS and UPnP, both without very impressive results. Therefore, I decided to try Samba, even though my perception of it was that it was mainly for sharing between Linux and Windows, and I had a Linux-only house. Much to my surprise, setting up Samba in KDE was a cinch, and Boxee, the media center application on my TV, recognized the shares immediately.

Despite all the hullabaloo about Ubuntu and other desktop offerings, for most organisations, the main use of Linux is on servers. Ignore all the waffle about flashy desktops and which browser is best, because the truth is, most organisations run on Windows and tons of Windows software – perhaps with a few Macs thrown in – and they can't change OS because they need those particular apps.

Linux is fast. That's why 90%+ of the Top 500 fastest supercomputers run it. What some people don't realize is that Linux is much better at delivering speed for servers and supercomputers than it is on the desktop. That was by design. But over the last few years, there's been more interest in delivering fast desktop performance. Now there's a Linux kernel patch that may give you a faster, much faster, desktop experience.

The MeeGo Conference in Dublin has attracted over a thousand attendees from all over the world. The diverse audience includes Linux hackers, engineers from prominent hardware manufacturing companies, mobile technology enthusiasts, third-party application developers, and software consultants. The conference-goers exhibit a powerful sense of optimism about MeeGo--despite the fact that the emerging platform doesn't ship on practically any mainstream devices, yet.

Jared Smith, Fedora Project Leader, has announced some personnel changes within the Fedora project that show, as Smith says, "every person in the Fedora community is a potential leader." According to Smith, Fedora's "policies of rotating leadership help ensure that everyone who is so inclined has a chance to lead and serve."

Two weeks have passed since the release of the Linux 2.6.37-rc1 kernel that finally allowed the core kernel code to built without the the Big Kernel Lock. It also brought many open-source graphics improvements and other improvements and new drivers (such as a Intel Poulsbo driver and Broadcom's WiFi driver). Now the Linux 2.6.37-rc2 kernel is available as regressions are addressed in time for the final Linux 2.6.37 kernel release several weeks down the road.

Mandriva was recently forked into a new distribution called Mageia Linux where several Mandriva developers parted ways with this distribution once known as Mandrake due to the uncertainty of the future direction of Mandriva Linux with its corporate backer having underwent some financial hardship. While there isn't yet a release of Mageia, the Mandriva Cooker Manager has finally been permitted to release details concerning the next two releases of Mandriva Linux.

You want a good end-user live CD? Go with Knoppix. You want an admin's toolbox with minimal fluff and maximum usability? Go with grml, a Debian-based live CD/USB that packs in more than 1,700 applications and utilities. If you've only used standard Linux distros, you're going to be in for a treat with grml — and also a few surprises. Most distros default to Bash as a shell, but grml uses zsh. (One of the grml taglines is "Linux for zsh lovers," so they really must dig zsh.) Be aware that you won't get a standard desktop experience. By default grml will start at the command line with a menu of options, including starting X.

What do you get when you put together 80 to 100 hard-core database geeks from ten different open source databases for a weekend? OpenSQLCamp, which was held most recently at MIT. Begun three years ago, OpenSQLCamp is a semi-annual unconference for open source database hackers to meet and collaborate on ideas and theories in the industry. It's held at various locations alternately in Europe and the United States, and organized and run by volunteers. This year's conference was organized by Sheeri Cabral, a MySQL community leader who works for PalominoDB.

Here we'll take a look at six different open and free Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) servers available for Linux (and other platforms). You'll find something that will work for you, whether you're supporting dial-up or VPN users, offering 802.1X for Wi-Fi security, or running VoIP. All your Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) needs can be met on a Linux server.

Google boss Eric Schmidt has said that Chrome OS will be available "in the next few months" — which may be an indication that the company's browser-based operating system has been delayed. Since unveiling the Chrome OS project last year, Google has said that systems using the operating system would be available by the end of this year. But the end of the year is a mere six weeks away. As he dropped the "a few months away" line at this week's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Schmidt said that Gingerbread, the new version of Android, was "a few weeks away."

There is a recurring bug in OpenOffice that has been around for several years, and afflicts various distros though it seems most prevalent in Ubuntu. Maybe because more people use Ubuntu, maybe Ubuntu does something to it, I don't know. I do know there many unresolved bug reports and frustrated users.