Linux Archive

It's one of those catch phrases that never really seems to die out. Wherever you look in the operating systems world, at personal blogs written in crummy English, or at high-profile quality websites, there is bound to be someone, somewhere who used it. Even I, myself, used it in articles in a far and distant past, and I'm not particularly proud of it. "Ready for the desktop" is no longer acceptable - in fact, it's on its way out.

Linux has been described as one of the most secure operating systems available, but the National Security Agency (NSA) has taken Linux to the next level with the introduction of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux). SELinux takes the existing GNU/Linux operating system and extends it with kernel and user-space modifications to make it bullet-proof. If you're running a 2.6 kernel today, you might be surprised to know that you're using SELinux right now! This article explores the ideas behind SELinux and how it's implemented.

Lennart Poettering of Red Hat, PulseAudio maintainer has blogged in detail about the impact of Real-Time Group scheduling in 2.6.25 kernel. The Real time patches come from -rt patchset maintained by Ingo Molnar of Red Hat which aims to make Linux the first general purpose operating system with hard real time features.

"Recently, both Novell and Red Hat went on record as dismissing the idea that the consumer Linux desktop is going to be taking off anytime soon. It's not? Has anyone told Asus and Xandros? Everex and gOS? How about Dell and Ubuntu? They're all doing great with consumer Linux desktops." The enterprise Linux leaders are not the ones making strides on the desktop. Does that mean that the Linux desktop has no future, or just that they've let their business focus let them drop the ball on that segment of the market?

LWN reports: When kernel developers talk about problematic hardware vendors, Atheros often appears near the top of their lists. So this announcement from Luis Rodriguez, a developer of the reverse-engineered ath5k driver, is intriguing: "I write to you to inform you that I have decided to join Atheros as a full time employee, as a Software Engineer, to help them with their goals and mission to get every device of Atheros supported upstream in the Linux kernel." What will come of this remains to be seen, but if it truly signals a change of heart at Atheros, it is a most welcome development.

The Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) runs Linux, but getting it to run well requires some tweaking. In the third and final article of this series on PS3 Linux Peter Seebach talks about ways to get X11 slimmed down to fit on a smaller memory budget.

The SymphonyOS project released a new version. "The SymphonyOS Project is pleased to announce the release of SymphonyOne 2008.1, our first major release in almost a year. SymphonyOne is an almost 100% rewrite of all the Mezzo desktop code taking advantage of more features of fvwm to provide a smaller footprint and more stable environment. Based on Ubuntu 7.10, SymphonyOne provides a complete desktop environment and full Ubuntu compatibility on systems with as little as a 200mhz processor. SymphonyOne also introduces our new WebApps system which allows you to make any website into a program in your programs menu which runs as it’s own process in it’s own window."

"Linux, long the laggard to the Windows desktop, is pushing into emerging markets, onto mobile devices and other client form factors, and is poised to give Microsoft something to really compete against, according to attendees at the annual Linux Foundation Summit. While the Linux desktop has yet to hit its stride, the operating system is showing up and lowering prices in everything from mobile phones, tablets, global positioning systems and even gas pumps."

DistroWatch takes a look at Dreamlinux 3.0. "Dreamlinux is still beautiful and now that the look has been recreated for a GNOME version and in the implementation of CompizFusion, it should appeal to a larger audience. It very well could be a viable alternative to Ubuntu. Overall, Dreamlinux was a fairly solid release. I had issues with the installer, wireless and suspend support, and some applications were a bit crashy. But it looks good, comes with some good application choices (except Iceweasel that I find buggy), and the Dreamlinux tools were nice. So, I have mixed feelings. I don't feel comfortable recommending it across the board. If you like the appearance, features, and software stack, then perhaps it'd best to try it on your hardware to see if it's for you."

From Linux Mint's About page: "Linux Mint's purpose is to produce an elegant, up to date and comfortable GNU/Linux desktop distribution." To reach this goal, lead developer and founder Clement Lefebvre used (surprisingly) Ubuntu as the base, and added multimedia codecs to the distribution, by default. Later on, Mint deviated more from Ubuntu by adding its own artwork, web-based package front-end, and configuration tools (MintTools) to the mix. I installed the latest stable release, Daryna (4.0), released on 15 October of last year, to see what's what.

"While Linus Torvalds' name is synonymous with the Linux kernel, Al Viro's may be one day, too. Viro has contributed 1571 changes to the kernel, which sits at the core of the Linux operating system, over the past three years, according to a new report from the Linux Foundation. That's more than any other individual developer, the report states. In contrast, Torvalds, the kernel's creator and steward, contributed 495 changes. Viro couldn't be reached for comment about the report."

"We often hear from readers who want to track the development process of their favorite Linux distribution but don't know where to start. Budding Linux enthusiasts frequently ask how the release cycles work, what the version numbers mean, and what options are available for end-user testing prior to official releases. The answers to those questions differ depending on the distribution, but we are going to attempt to address those questions for Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE - three of the most prominent desktop Linux distributions. We will also provide a brief visual comparison of upcoming versions with screenshots of the prereleases."

"When my girlfriend visits me, she has to work on a mini PC while I use my laptop to finish whatever I postponed at the office. Her PC has a 1GHz VIA processor and 128 MB of RAM and runs Ubuntu. You can imagine how slowly it boots, even with Linux installed, and GNOME runs so slowly that it's quite irritating. I didn't want to reformat and install a lightweight Linux distribution like Fluxbuntu because the mini PC doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, and I already had 10GB of data that would have taken a long time to back up. Instead, I found and installed some lightweight software to improve her computing experience."

"Unlike the myths that are behind the prevention of Linux adoption, this piece will closely examine the indisputable obstacles and what will have to be done to overcome each of them. In the past, many desktop Linux users have opted to simply point to the hardware industry or Microsoft as the root cause of a lack of mainstream adoption. In reality, there are actually core issues extending beyond hardware - and competition from the proprietary markets - that simply must be dealt with head on. With that said, hardware compatibility and competition from closed-source vendors are valid issues, just not solid core excuses for the lack of mainstream interest. Here are the real hurdles."