For Dell, Industry Standard Now Includes Linux

Linux now forms a quarter of Dell's server business and is growing fast, the company says. Should Microsoft be worried? Long hailed as the provider of choice for companies looking for PC solutions based on Intel hardware and Microsoft software, Dell says that Linux now makes up 25 percent of its enterprise market. The company also claims to have made inroads in the Linux services market and to have reached a comfort level with Linux systems where it can now solve over 90 percent of Red Hat Linux service calls without need to involve Red Hat.

Working Model of USD100 Laptop Steals MITX Spotlight

At an event put on to honor the top technology innovations from Massachusetts companies, a technology designed for users far from the halls of MIT and Harvard stole all the thunder. At the MITX in Boston, Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, was inducted into the MITX Innovation Hall of Fame. But Negroponte used his time at the podium to talk about his current job as chairman of the One Laptop per Child association and its goal of putting what is commonly referred to as the $100 laptop into the hands of children in developing countries. Negroponte didn't just talk about the association and its goals; he also brought the first working model of the $100 laptop.

SourceForge Enterprise Edition Released for Free Download

SourceForge has announced the SourceForge Enterprise Edition Download. This is a free, 15 user download version of SFEE. It's packaged together with Subversion and CVS in a VMware image. SFEE is a corporate version of SourceForge.net that lets development teams work together on internal software projects. It's an integrated toolset that lets you monitor project status, find out what your offsite developers are doing, access project information and documentation in a central repository, manage software changes efficiently, and search across your software projects. Check it out and download it from SourceForge.net . There's also a community support site with documentation, discussion forums, add-ons, and sample projects.

Using Debconf to Configure a System

"DebConf is best known as an annual gathering of Debian developers. But the Debian project likes the name so much that it uses it - give or take a capital 'C' - for the system used to configure Debian packages. Just as the conference is central to the social aspects of Debian, so the program is central to the package management system that is one of Debian's main technical advantages. Debconf gives users as fine a degree of control during configuration as they choose."

Netcraft: Microsoft Continues to Chip Away at Apache’s Lead

Microsoft continues to gain share in the web server market, chipping away at Apache's commanding lead. The number of hostnames on Windows servers grew by 4.5 million, giving Microsoft 29.7% market share, a gain of 4.25% for the month. Apache had a decline of 429K hostnames, and loses 3.5% to 61.25%. Apache's lead over Microsoft, which stood at 48.2% in March, has been narrowed to 31.5%, a shift of 16.7% in just three months.

Intel Announces Core 2 Chipsets, Confirms Launch Schedule

At a Computex event today, Intel officially unveiled its 965 Express chipset (the P965, codenamed 'Broadwater') for use with its forthcoming line of Core 2 Duo processors. The company confirmed the accelerated launch schedule for the Core 2 rollout: Woodcrest (a Xeon replacement) in June, Conroe (for desktops) in July, and Merom (for laptops) in August. There's also an ultra low voltage Merom in the works for use in very thin portables from Dell and HP.

Dell Overhauls Server Line

Dell launched on Wednesday a new generation of servers with Intel's latest dual-core server processors and new management tools. The new PowerEdge servers make up Dell's second batch of products that use dual-core Xeon chips from Intel. However, the earlier generation of servers, based on a chip code-named Paxville, weren't expected to be mass-market products. The PowerEdge 1950, 2900 and 2950, based on Intel's latest Xeon processor, known as Dempsey, will become the new bedrocks of Dell's server lineup.

Linux UMPC Updated

"Linux users who are looking for an alternative to the ultra-mobile PC may want to take a look at the new Pepper Pad. Yesterday Pepper Computer announced that it has updated the Pepper Pad to its third revision. The product is slated to be released on August 15th with a suggested retail price of $699. Though it is just 11.4"x5.9"x0.9"/290x149x23mm and 2.2 lbs/985 grams the Pepper Pad is touted as a full featured handheld device which is capable of surfing the internet, music/video playback, photo viewing, emailing, and more. This device is controlled with a split QWERTY keyboard and 7" (800x480) touch screen and also houses a 20 GB hard drive and built-in speakers."

The State of Linux, 2006

"In days gone by, the personification of Linux might have conjured up the image of a hotshot college kid full of half-baked ideas and sharp edges. But that college kid has now graduated into the business world, and unleashed his furious entrepreneurial spirit. Today, Linux has a sharper, more refined edge than before, and has branched out into private, public, enterprise and governmental sectors. Linux also spans all manner of hardware platforms, and serves an incredibly wide variety of purposes."

Frenzy 1.0 Released

Frenzy LiveCD 1.0, based on FreeBSD 6.1, has been released. This is a 'system administrator's portable instrument'; a LiveCD based on FreeBSD, which allows the administrator to boot from it and get a fully functional system with a wide variety of software for tuning, testing, and analyzing the network, testing computer hardware, and much more. Frenzy contains its own configuration center, can be installed on a hard drive as a fully functional operating system (USB Flash install is also supported).

Windows Servers Beat Linux Boxes, But UNIX Beats All

Windows 2003 Server is a more reliable server operating system than Linux, a research firm said Monday. According to the Yankee Group's annual server reliability survey, only Unix operating systems such as HP-UX and Sun Solaris 10 beat Windows on uptime. Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime. The Yankee Group made a point of stressing that the survey was not sponsored or supported by any server OS maker.

Google Offers Spreadsheet Beta

Google is launching an online spreadsheet that will let you load Excel files and share documents online. Up to 10 people can work on the spreadsheet at the same time - the names of people editing and reading it will appear in a chat window. Users can save the documents to their Google account or export them as .csv, .xls or html files. Like the launch of Gmail, Google is limiting the number of new users for software - still in beta - to avoid overloading its systems. Cnet wonders, should Microsoft be worried?