Linux Archive

LinuxDevices.com is pleased to publish the proceedings from the Fourth Real-Time Linux Workshop held December 6-7, 2002 in Boston, MA at the Computer Science Department, Boston University. The conference was organized by the Real-Time Linux Foundation.

The Desktop Linux Summit today announced that it has doubled the number of sponsors for the highly-anticipated Desktop Linux Summit to be held in San Diego, CA on February 20 and 21, 2003. Linux Professional Institute (LPI), Microtel Computer Systems, NeTraverse, Nova Computech, Inc., OpenOffice.org, StepUp Computing, the Kompany, Transgaming Technologies and Xandros now join Codeweavers, Hewlett Packard, Lindows.com, Lycoris, MandrakeSoft, Sun, SuSE and Ximian as Desktop Linux Summit Sponsors.

The project is pleased to present Arch 0.4 to the public for general consumption. The ChangeLog and package list are at their usual locations.

Japanese consumer electronics giants Sony and Panasonic announced that they will be co-developing a Linux distribution for "digital home electronic devices." As consumer electronics devices increasingly take on the capabilities of computers, makers need a sophisticated operating system to run them, and many have already turned to Linux. (like Tivo). See the Press Release.

Companies selling Linux for embedded devices such as set-top boxes took one step back and one forward Tuesday as Motorola agreed to acquire once-hot Embedix, formerly called Lineo, and Toshiba invested in MontaVista Software. Read the articles at ZDNews and LinuxDevices.

Nicholas writes: "More signs that open source software has big appeal in Europe as a small town in Germany has opted to move its entire IT base over to SuSE Linux. Read the full story at InfoWorld.com."

"Many developers are eagerly awaiting the 2.6 Linux kernel. The feature freeze has passed, with a code freeze planned for January and final release slated for the second quarter of 2003. There is considerable excitement about anticipated enhancements, especially regarding scalability and performance. However, some developers may first notice what doesn't work anymore. Some techniques and APIs have been removed, and existing device drivers and modular plugins may no longer work. At the same time, it will take some time to take advantage of new features and to find replacements for old ones." Read the article at OnLamp.

This article is part 3 of a 3-part series. In Part 1, you got an introduction to the current clustering technologies available for Linux and and an introduction to openMosix. In Part 2, you got a fully-functional openMosix cluster configured and running. Now, in Part 3, you'll see some ways to use openMosix to tackle computing challenges with clusters built on IBM xSeries servers running Intel® Xeon™ Making use of performance-enhancing technologies such as Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology.

William G. Canaday writes for Newsforge, "When my wife asked me to remove Windows and install Linux on her computer, I was happy to oblige. She is familiar with Linux from watching me use it and was quite upset that Windows had lost her desktop photograph -- again. This gave me an excuse to try setting up a terminal / server network." His article discusses his experience with LTSP, the Linux Terminal Server Project. Read the rest at Newsforge.

"Installing a new program, or the OS itself, proves cumbersome for some users. Creating a home network or developing individualized settings can be confusing or frustrating." Read the full story at osOpinion.com.

SmoothWall 1.0 has been released and LinuxOrbit has a related article. On another distro release, for BeOS this time, Developer Edition v1.1 is out. It includes many new drivers and system improvements.

"The vision of running Linux on corporate desktops has gained ground during the past 18 months, as full- featured office productivity software has become a reality and improvements have been made to the Linux kernel and to installation and administration tools. But even though the open-source operating system has moved closer to filling desktop needs, nagging gaps remain, said users and analysts at last week's Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo here. In some cases, they added, the lingering lack of needed functionality is making it hard for IT managers to switch their users to Linux." Read the article at PCWorld.

"This is my opinion on the various distros that I have tried. I'm not a Linux expert at all. I have been using some flavor of Linux for about 2 years now, and have become proficient with Linux. Here are things that I noticed about some of the distro's that I have tried". Read the article at DesktopLinux.

If you've used Linux for more than ten minutes, you've almost certainly come across the nightmare that is package management. You know what I mean - dependancy hell has become legendary and it's no exagguration to say that one of the most offputting aspects of Linux for a new user is the lack of InstallShield type 3 click installs. This article looks at how we ended up in the quagmire of RPM and dependancy hell, and then moves on to talk about a possible solution in the form of autopackage. It takes a high level overview of how autopackage works and what it's capable of. If you want more technical details, check out the website. Finally, this article assumes only that you're interested, not that you have any Linux experience.