Linux Archive

Linux Standard Base Plans Cross-Format Package API

  Submitted by twenex Linux 25 Comments
For independent software vendors, one of the major problems in supporting GNU/Linux is the variety of package management systems. However, if the Free Standards Group has its way, the next version of the Linux Standard Base will solve that problem by providing an application programming interface that acts as a bridge between the major package systems and software installers. Ian Murdock, CTO of the Free Standards Group, says the solution could be included in the most widely used distributions by early 2008.
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A Beginner’s Guide to LVM

  Submitted by falko Linux 6 Comments
"This guide shows how to work with LVM on Linux. It also describes how to use LVM together with RAID1 in an extra chapter. As LVM is a rather abstract topic, this article comes with a Debian Etch VMware image that you can download and start, and on that Debian Etch system you can run all the commands I execute here and compare your results with mine. Through this practical approach you should get used to LVM very fast."
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PiSi: One Step Further with Pardus

  Submitted by Görkem Çetin Linux 11 Comments
"With thousands of packages to maintain, most important part of any distribution is indeed its package management system. PiSi is the package manager of Pardus, written from scratch in Python. By writing another package manager, our purpose was not to reinvent the wheel but to create a new kind of wheel that takes distinctive ideas from existing ones with also easy integration and maintanence in mind."
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On the Importance of Backward Compatibility

Linux 70 Comments
Ian Murdock blogs about the importance of backward compatibility. "Yes, it's hard, particularly in the Linux world, because there are thousands of developers building the components that make up the platform, and it just takes one to break compatibility and make our lives difficult. Even worse, the idea of keeping extraneous stuff around for the long term 'just' for the sake of compatibility is anathema to most engineers. Elegance of design is a much higher calling than the pedestrian task of making sure things don't break. Why is backward compatibility important?"
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Interview: Kenneth Hensley of PuppyLinux

  Submitted by sharkscott Linux 3 Comments
"PuppyLinux is one of the most popular 'flavors' of Linux, I have used it on several old P-II and P-III machines that I donated and it got them to work when the original OS (95 and 98) would not even so much as boot up. It was just after PuppyLinux's offer to be the OS for the One Laptop Per Child and the new 'Unofficial PuppyLinux Guide' came out that I first contacted Kenneth of PuppyLinux. I wanted to know more about Puppy, the OLPC and what goes into making a guide for a Linux distro, Kenneth was kind enough to share his experinces with me."
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Ubuntu 6.10, OpenSUSE 10.2 Rise to Vista’s Challenge

Linux 97 Comments
"While the eyes of the IT world have spent years squinting to see Microsoft's slowly unfolding vistas, the companies and individuals that drive open source have been steadily building a case for broader adoption of Linux-based operating systems. Two of the best all-around Linux distributions to emerge from this process are OpenSUSE 10.2 and Ubuntu 6.10, both of which bundle together the best of what open source has to offer into operating systems that merit consideration for desktop and server workloads."
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Dell’s Secret Linux Fling

  Submitted by tux68 Linux 38 Comments
Dell's love affair with Linux is a clandestine affair these days, conducted in secret, away from disapproving eyes. But now the pair have been spotted in China. When Michael Dell first saw the web-footed beauty, he fell head over heels. Six years ago Dell pledged a series of strategic investments in Linux companies, including Eazel and Red Hat. The romance attracted the disapproval of Microsoft however, and barely lasted weeks. Very quietly, Dell dumped the bird.
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Linux KVM Virtualization Performance

  Submitted by Michael Larabel Linux 6 Comments
"For only being a release candidate the Linux 2.6.20 kernel has already generated quite a bit of attention. On top of adding asynchronous SCSI scanning, multi-threaded USB probing, and many driver updates, the Linux 2.6.20 kernel will include a full virtualization (not para-virtualization) solution. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (or KVM for short) is a GPL software project that has been developed and sponsored by Qumranet. In this article we are offering a brief overview of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine for Linux as well as offering up in-house performance numbers as we compare KVM to other virtualization solutions such as QEMU Accelerator and Xen."
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LG3D Live CD 3.0 Released

Linux 30 Comments
At OSNews, I try to bring to attention smaller Linux distributions that try to be different, such as SymphonyOS, or more recently, Elive. Today, I want to introduce you to the LG3D-LiveCD, a distribution using Sun's Looking Glass desktop environment. Version 3 was released yesterday: "The new release features lg3d release 1.0, the possibility to install lg3d-livecd to an USB device and an experimental harddisk installer."
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MobileBurn Reviews the Linux-based Rokr E2

Linux 8 Comments
Our friends over at MobileBurn posted an in-depth review of the Linux-based Rokr E2. This is the first phone Motorola released that doesn't use their touchscreen-based EZX Linux platform, but a very modified softkey version of it instead. A few months ago we also reviewed the Rokr E2. In related news, a few weeks ago Motorola also released in Asia the new, Linux-based Rokr E6, based on the touchscreen-based EZX version of their Linux platform. Native SDKs are not available.
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User-Friendly Virtualization for Linux

Linux 37 Comments
The upcoming 2.6.20 Linux kernel is bringing a virtualization framework for all virtualization fans out there. It's called KVM, short for Kernel-based Virtual Machine. Not only is it user-friendly, but also of high performance and very stable, even though it's not yet officialy released. This article tries to explain how it all works, in theory and practice, together with some simple benchmarks.
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2006: a Year of Surprise Linux Partnerships

  Submitted by Jane Walker Linux 2 Comments
"It has come to be expected. Linux and open source news in 2006 was a potpourri of topics that included Windows-Linux interoperability, wild acquisitions and corporate spending sprees and stories of enterprise-level companies buying into open source and Linux en masse. Even better than that, many of yesterday's Linux and open source stories listed below still have the legs to become tomorrow's big news all over again."
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