Linux Archive

Frank writes "Performance breakthroughs seem to come in two varieties: easy and hard. That's no platitude; the boundary between the two is surprisingly clear. Although in some cases it has taken considerable genius to realize their first application, they're easy to understand. The other kind involve careful measurement, specific knowledge, and a fair amount of tuning. Good programmers can operate in either the "hard" or "easy" mode. This article offers a paired collection of 4 hard and easy tales from real (programming) life."

Here is - at times frustrating, and at times exhilarating - the journey I made trying to get Linux working on my desktop. This is the experience of someone who tried using Linux for the first time (most Linux veterans will probably find nothing surprising here). The whole experience reminded me of all the fun I used to have playing with Windows 3.1. Although it was not easy, it does show that a novice can make Linux work with a little persistence.

"Organizations can beneficially and successfully make the switch to Linux on the Desktop by keeping in mind two core factors. By applying the foundational principals behind two factors, even the most techno-phobic and proprietary software entrenched small sized companies can painlessly move to Linux on the Desktop." Read the story at ReallyLinux.

This (quite long) article has been written by me for two primary reasons: One, to hopefully save someone else the time and hassle associated with trying out various Linux distributions, and two, to promote some discussion and feedback regarding what a modern Linux distribution should be, and of course to contrast this with what is currently available. I am exploring the offerings of MS Windows, BeOS and MacOSX, and then taking on a number of well-known Linux distributions.

This is my reaction to Tsu Dho Nimh's "Migrating to Linux not easy for Windows users" featured on Linuxworld.com recently. It's not a response, I'm not challenging his opinions, which I feel are not only valid, but mostly right, it's just a reaction.

"I assumed I could boot the well-known Linux distributions from a CD-ROM drive, make some on-screen selections, let the distribution know what hardware to use, twiddle my thumbs for a while as it loaded software and configured itself, and then have a working system. Was I ever wrong." Read the long and interesting article at LinuxWorld.

'To cross the chasm, an OS needs a big marketing machine behind it. Linux doesn't have one. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" stuff only goes so far.' Read the editorial by V. Ryan at OSOpinion.

William Lee Irwin III recently announced on the lkml that he'd successfully gotten Linux running on a 64GB x86 server. His posts included two different boot message logs, one without his page clustering patch, and one with. In the latter case, his patch overcomes the 1GB mem_map virtual space limitation imposed by x86 32-bit servers, without which the kernel over-runs allowable memory space. Read the report at KernelTrap.

"Every once in a while a product stands out not only because it is innovative but because it just makes sense. It fills some space that has not previously been filled. I'm certain that you will agree that Knoppix -- a live Linux-On-CD Distribution -- is one of those products." Read the article at LinuxAndMain.

Linux is gaining market share in the retail industry. Use of the open-source operating system to run point-of-sale terminals in North America increased 185 percent last year, IHL Consulting Group said in a study released Wednesday.

DesktopLinux.com talks with Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, aka 'Bero', co-founder of ArkLinux about the company's plan to deliver a full-featured operating system based primarily upon a Red Hat Linux 7.3 / 8.0 foundation and KDE.

The new Yellow Dog Linux 3.0 brings recent Linux user interface improvements to the PowerPC architecture. Smooth, anti-aliased fonts and the clean, refined style of Red Hat's Blue Curve theme make this a beautiful creation to look at. There are screenshots here, though they aren't big enough to really do it justice.

LinuxJournal encourages users to start downloading and testing the unstable Linux kernel 2.5.x as release is near (around July), so more intensive beta testing is required by end users. Here is a quick guide on how to compile a generic Linux kernel.

LinuxInstall.org 3.0rc2 is now available. Changes: "Kernel 2.4.18-27.8.0 with NTFS support; security updates (Total 31); Mozilla 1.3.0; Evolution 1.2.3; complete set of Red Hat 8.0 manual documents in HTML; Acrobat Reader 5.06 with Mozilla plugin; Real Player 8.0 with Mozilla plugin; Flash Player 6.0.79 with Mozilla plugin; Microsoft TrueType Core Fonts for web; Xmms 1.2.7 (music player) with MP3 support; Xine 0.9.19 (DVD/VCD/CD player) with libdvdcss; dual-boot configuration with NTFS/FAT32 support..." Changelog, screenshots.