Showing all newswire headlines

please find here after a press-release about "rentalinux", a new Nexedi+Mandrakesoft development. It provides Mandrakelinux dekstop applications to Windows PCs, Macintosh and X11/VNC through the corporate's network, and combines server hardware rental, software setup, custom configuration, support and maintenance service in a single package.

The trouble according to Microsoft is that customers are merely using their "conversations" with Linux vendors as a crowbar to ratchet down Microsoft's pricing. There's no actual Linux adoption, they claim.

Public-sector deployments of Linux are continuing to grow at the expense of Unix and Windows. The latest Linux win is the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC), in Washington, which provides administrative support, program management and policy development services to U.S. federal courts.

Visiting one of Microsoft's open-source seminars during the next few weeks? Here's a print-out-and-keep guide to questions you might care to ask...

Wyse has responded to a booming market for Linux-based thin clients by revising its Linux-based thin-client operating system. Version 3.2 of the "Wyse-enhanced Linux" operating system is available on 5000-series Winterm clients, targeting organizations looking for a gradual transition into a full Linux-based environment.

Large and medium sized enterprises should prepare for a future of server consolidation, running both Linux and Windows while planning for the domination of Intel-based hardware, delegates at a Microsoft seminar were told last week.

Consider a recent study about Linux from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank that, in addition to general pieces about Beltway topics, has a track record for attacking Linux, the free software. An earlier institute study, for example, suggested Linux's openness made it a boon to terrorists. Most security experts say the opposite: that open review makes software stronger and thus safer.

Got all the time in world? Then, you can package, configure and deploy enterprise Linux without relying on big vendors. After all, said IT author Steve Shah, most Linux distributions are built on open source products. But, what IT shop has loads of time for trial and error? So, when you buy an enterprise distribution like Red Hat or SuSE, you're mostly buying time and assurance, not necessarily just technology. Even so, free alternatives to commercial distributions are attractive, said Shah. He also shares some tips on comparing, configuring and deploying distributions. Shah is co-author of several Linux administration guides, the latest being "Red Hat Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide" from Osborne/McGraw-Hill Media.

"While the aims of the F/OSS movement in Brazil are liberty not (necessarily) economy," reports Simon Phipps in his blog from a conference in Porte Alegre, "the people are open-minded, reasonable and friendly and recognise the value of platform independence as a vehicle of freedom." By far the largest technology contingent in the 'User Groups' area of the conference, Phipps adds, was the contingent of Java user groups.

IBM, based in Armonk, New York, wants to sell systems based on the open-source software, which costs less than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software, to banks, retailers and government agencies in Brazil that seek to automate employees' tasks, the newspaper said.

"Open computing is coming of age, and every desktop user should know that there's a full-featured Windows alternative out there," said the chairman and CTO of Xandros, as he announced a free version of the company's Linux OS.

Remember that sense of high-tech adventure you first felt when you began to explore the Internet? The amazement that in the blink of an eye you could be connected to a site in Paris, or Moscow, or San Francisco? Of course, that was before the WWW became the world wide wait. The slowdown of the Web is due to primarily to g-forces, and I don't mean gravity. It's the weight of that damn GUI you're reclining in. Come on, you lazy louts, I'll show you one way to regain that sense of cutting-edge adventure by surfing from the console. Meet Lynx, the senior member of the text-based browsing club.

IBM is taking its love of Linux to South America, introducing consulting services to promote the open-source operating system in Brazil.