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You download a CD or maybe a diskette image, transfer it to the appropriate media, boot your computer with it, and voilà, you're running Linux. It sounds so simple -- but a great deal of work goes into creating that software. Beginning about two years ago, I spent a year and a half building a desktop-oriented GNU/Linux distribution named MfxLinux, designed to be tightly integrated with Crowell Systems' Medformix medical office management system. Along the way, as with any project a lot of design and implementation decisions had to be made -- some of which worked out better than others.

It's that time of year, folks. Industry pundits are out shooting off predictions like so many mortars and who knows where they will land? Paul Ferris can predict with the best of them, but here's some advice: Keep hands and Feet away...

The value and utilization of open-source software have grown immensely in recent years, but in the booming analytics market, open source is strangely not keeping pace. A variety of projects are out there—search open-source nexus SourceForge.net for "OLAP" or "reporting," and you'll find dozens. Unfortunately, many of these attempts seem amateurish, more intentions than anything approaching commercial-grade products. The projects that do appear worth a trial run boast only niche rather than broad-market appeal. Nonetheless, they do suggest far greater future adoption of open source for decision systems.

The value and utilization of open-source software have grown immensely in recent years, but in the booming analytics market, open source is strangely not keeping pace. A variety of projects are out there—search open-source nexus SourceForge.net for "OLAP" or "reporting," and you'll find dozens. Unfortunately, many of these attempts seem amateurish, more intentions than anything approaching commercial-grade products. The projects that do appear worth a trial run boast only niche rather than broad-market appeal. Nonetheless, they do suggest far greater future adoption of open source for decision systems.

When I set out to create open source software on a PocketPC, I figured that was pretty strange, given the thoroughly proprietary nature of the tools, from the OS through the compilers, I'd be using. As it turns out, it's not that strange - lots of people are doing it!

LinuxQuestions.org is proud to announce that voting for the 2004 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards is now open. The Members Choice Awards allow the Linux community to select their favorite products in a variety of categories.

I got to write the year-end review for Enterprise Networking Planet, yay, so I made it all about Linux and F/OSS being the leaders and prime movers of interoperability. Which is something us real-world sysadmins struggle with everyday, with no help from the usual gaggle of closed-source, proprietary vendors. Hurrah for RMS and Linus and every F/OSS developer and advocate on the planet!

Boutique services company MozSource now offers e-mail technical support services for the Mozilla Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client. It's not the only startup hunting for revenue from open-source projects. Such companies represent a growing number of cottage services springing up around projects such as Mozilla, Linux, Apache and MySQL.

Late last year, two software companies souped up their supercomputing offerings. Fortran and C/C++ tools maker Absoft readied in November a software development kit for deploying Linux on clusters and servers, and a handful of tools for Mac developers. And Visual Numerics updated its numerical library for Java, used not just for science and engineering applications, but also for business.

Boutique services company MozSource now offers e-mail technical support services for the Mozilla Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client.

The same week in November that Kmart announced it was buying Sears, a start-up Java infrastructure company offered developers the blue light special of a full J2EE stack with the low, low price of $0.

When I wrote "Why the Free Software Movement is Doomed to Failure" I dismissed mankind's desire for Freedom. That was a premise that instantly knocked the foundations for my text to pieces. Freedom is a core value in people and no individual is willing to give it up voluntarily. Dismissing Freedom simply is unrealistically pessimistic. Basically it is a matter of education.

This is an unusual article in the "My workstation OS" series. It's not about using a specific OS distribution. Indeed it's about not using any OS distribution at all. For many years now I've installed my OS from the sources. Although this is not an easy nor fast way to get an OS installed, it's the best way for getting a fully customized system that fits any individual needs and desires.

Some useful information for sure, but not enough is provided about the TCP/IP stack for embedded systems.

It's time to look back on the events that shaped the free and open source software world in 2004. And why not -- you expect this kind of story on December 31, right? Well, alrighty then. Here, in rough chronological order, are our Top Nine.

The Venezuelan president has decreed that the public administration will switch over to use open source software over the next two years.

The Indian software vendor has released the first production version of its open source CRM application, which is based on SugarCRM.

President Chavez issued a decree this week which says that Venezuela’s public administration will switch over to use so-called Open Source software, such as the Linux operating system, over the course of the next two years. Chavez had announced his intention to issue such a decree a few months ago.

While open source software such as Linux gained greater acceptance this year among cash-strapped companies and government organisations here, its adoption has largely been restricted to corporate servers for the longest time. That is set to change next year, as open source software among the masses is set to blossom.

Mandrakelinux has just released an ISO of their 10.2 Cooker Snapshot. This is the pre-beta of the upcoming Mandrakelinux 10.2.

Have an early look at what's coming next in this leading distribution, in OSDir.com's Screenshot tour of the Mandrakelinux 10.2 Cooker Snapshot.