Linux Archive

The Corporate Desktop Battle Can Officially Begin

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-04-01 Linux 36 Comments

As Novell re-introduces its Linux desktop, more open source advocates are beginning to believe that the call for widespread Linux desktop adoption is leaving the realm of zealotry and entering the mainstream. Whether this will be a watershed moment for the Linux desktop remains to be seen but, already, advocates for the open source OS are clamoring to explain why now - not in times past - the moment is right for enterprise-level corporations to begin migrating to Linux.

uCLinux: a Brief Overview

Submitted by Puru Govind 2006-03-30 Linux 1 Comment

"The advantage of embedded Linux is that it's a royalty-free, open source, compact solution that provides a strong foundation for an ever-growing base of applications to run on. Linux is a fully functional operating system, with support for a variety of file-handling protocols, network protocols, devices - a very important requirement in embedded systems because of the need to 'compute anywhere, anytime'. It is modular in nature and is easy to slim down by removing utility programs, tools, and other system services that are not needed in an embedded environment."

Interviews: Mepis, Xandros, Linspire, Micro Center VIP

Submitted by SilentBob4 2006-03-29 Linux 7 Comments

"This is the second in a series of two articles on Tux's move into retail. Last week's article described some of the mechanics of how free open source software is getting into retail. Today, Mad Penguin interviews Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony; Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos; Mepis Linux founder Warren Woodford; and Kevin Jones, Micro Center Vice President of Merchandising, to get their take Tux's jump into big box retail."

Using Top More Efficiently

Submitted by Mark 2006-03-28 Linux 7 Comments

"For desktop users, monitoring resource usage is an important task. By doing this, we can locate system bottlenecks, plan what to do to optimize our system, identify memory leaks, and so on. The problem is which software one should use and how to use it according to our needs. Among many monitoring tools that are available, most people use 'top'. Top provides almost everything we need to monitor our system's resource usage within a single shot. In this article, all the information is based on procps 3.2.5 running on top of Linux kernel 2.6.x."

Submitted by StephenDennis 2006-03-28 Linux 1 Comment

Virtual Appliances, a maker of nano-sized virtual machines for VMWare, announced their first release last week, an NFS/SMB to web server appliance for VMWare. Their base model is a 15MB download. The appliance is based on Gentoo Linux and is free to use.

Are Linux-Like Environments for Windows Really Required?

Submitted by Kamal Singh 2006-03-27 Linux 44 Comments

"Ever tried this query in Google: "Linux-like environment for Windows" with inverted commas? If you have, it gives exactly 13700 results. Now try the same other way around. Google "Windows environment for Linux" but don't use the quotes from previous query. It yields approximately 1150 results. This clearly shows that there are numerous applications that simulate a Linux environment on Windows and vice versa. But are all these applications really required?"

How Open Source is Faring in Big Box Retail Stores

Submitted by SilentBob4 2006-03-25 Linux 50 Comments

"Free open source software is making slow in-roads into the world of big box retail. This article is the first of a series of two Mad Penguin articles which take a detailed look inside the world of retail as Tux is experiencing it. Today, in Section One Mad Penguin goes shopping to see what can be seen in four retail big box stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, complete with short videos inside some of those stores for the purpose of providing a wee bit of context."

DSL Linux: Small Distro That Packs a Big Punch

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-25 Linux 8 Comments

"Need a teeny-tiny, business-card-sized, open source operating system that squeezes a lot of software into a little space? Take a look at DSL Linux. This quick review shows you how to use the miniscule OS, highlights the on-board applications, details how to load and start it, and explains how to save between sessions when using a bootable CD."

Submitted by alcibiades 2006-03-23 Linux 130 Comments

"I'm an art professor, and last semester I embarked on an exciting new adventure by erasing Mac OS X from nearly all of the Macintoshes in our digital media lab and installing Ubuntu in its place. I began seriously planning this change last school year, when I realized how fully the current feature sets of free software programs could satisfy the technical needs of the students in my classes. I decided that the time had come to teach our undergraduate art students about free software programs such as the GIMP, Scribus, and Quanta Plus, instead of proprietary programs such as Photoshop, QuarkXpress, and Dreamweaver."

MEPIS Founder Plots Transition to Ubuntu

Eugenia Loli 2006-03-22 Linux 23 Comments

Mepis LLC, a long-time Debian Linux distributor, is switching from Debian to Ubuntu as the basis for its SimplyMEPIS Linux distribution. It seems MEPIS founder Warren Woodford has decided that MEPIS will do better for its users by depending upon Ubuntu, rather than Debian, for its foundation.

Submitted by misha 2006-03-20 Linux 11 Comments

Linus Torvalds has released Linux 2.6.16 today. "Not a lot of changes since -rc6, but there's various random one-liners here and there (a number of Coverity bugs found, for example), and there are small MIPS and PowerPC updates. It looks like both Fedora and SuSE end up using a kernel that is pretty close to this 2.6.16 release, so let's all hope it's good. Give it a good testing, please."

Getting Back to Basics with Arch Linux

Eugenia Loli 2006-03-19 Linux 50 Comments

"The recent emphasis of the Linux community has been on desktop distros that make it easy to install and configure the system without venturing beyond the GUI. Despite the success of these beginner-friendly systems, a significant segment of the Linux population prefers a simpler approach. These back-to-basics users want clarity, stability, and speed, and they do not care about the proliferation of redundant tools and glossy configuration helpers that populate the GUI-based systems. In the past, no-frills Linux users gravitated to systems such as Slackware, Gentoo, or Debian, but another back-to-basics distro is gaining favor among the Linux faithful: Arch Linux."

Review: PCLinuxOS

Submitted by Nicholson Robert 2006-03-14 Linux 5 Comments

Cutlets reviews PCLinuxOS and concludes: "PCLinuxOS is an extremely easy to use, user friendly distribution that is perfect for Joe and Jane users from the Windows world. The developers have taken the utmost care to ensure that the distribution functions perfectly and that it meets the needs of a large section of Linux users. The out of the box support for non-free formats is a huge plus for this distribution."

Access the Linux Kernel Using the /proc Filesystem

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-14 Linux 3 Comments

"The /proc filesystem is a virtual filesystem that permits a novel approach for communication between the Linux kernel and user space. In the /proc filesystem, virtual files can be read from or written to as a means of communicating with entities in the kernel, but unlike regular files, the content of these virtual files is dynamically created. This article introduces you to the /proc virtual filesystem and demonstrates its use."

Linux Audio Comparison

Submitted by Klew 2006-03-09 Linux 15 Comments

"Of the challenges that GNU/Linux users face when choosing hardware components for any system is the sound card compatibility. ALSA, or officially known as Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, provides much of the audio and MIDI functionality to Linux users and is largely replacing OSS. Today we are examining Linux audio performance in the gaming environment with a slew of various sound cards by examining their effect on frame-rate performance. The contenders are Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Z3, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2, Chaintech AV-710, Aureal Vortex (AU8820), and AC'97 integrated audio."

Yellow Dog Linux 4.1 Free Download Released

Submitted by Mike 2006-03-09 Linux 9 Comments

Yellow Dog Linux version 4.1, which has been available directly from Terrasoft Solutions since early January, is now available for free download from their various mirrors. This is essentially a recompile of Fedora Core 4 specifically for PowerPC's, with extra polished support for Apple's Macs.

Mr. Dell Opens up About Desktop Linux

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-08 Linux 28 Comments

"Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Inc. believes in offering Linux on the desktop, server, and workstation. What he doesn't believe in, for now, is giving Linux full support on the desktop. In an exclusive interview, Dell explained his company's Linux desktop strategy to DesktopLinux.com's Steven J. Vaughan Nichols."

LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Award Winners

Submitted by jeremy 2006-03-07 Linux 40 Comments

The results of the LinuxQuestions member's choice awards are in. The results: Ubuntu is the best distribution, OpenOffice.org the best office suite, GAIM the best instant messenger, KDE the best desktop environment (Run! Run! Duck! Duck!), Konqueror the best filemanager, etc. Do with the results as you please.

Viewing Word Files at the Command Line

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-01 Linux 22 Comments

"As a Linux user, there are times when you have to play nicely with users of Windows or Mac OS - such as when they send you Microsoft Word files. When you receive a Word file, you can either follow Richard Stallman's advice and refuse it, or bite the bullet and work with it. Modern Linux word processors - such as OpenOffice.org Writer, AbiWord, KWord, and TextMaker - can deal with most Word files. But if you don't want to fire up a word processor in order to read or print the document, you can turn to the command line. A handful of small but powerful Linux command line utilities make viewing, printing, and even converting Word files to another format, a breeze."

Develop Your Own Filesystem with FUSE

Submitted by anonymous 2006-02-28 Linux 5 Comments

"With Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE), you can develop a user space filesystem framework without understanding filesystem internals or learning kernel module programming. Follow this simple, step-by-step guide to install, customize, and enable FUSE and AFS, so you can create your own fully functional filesystem in user space in Linux."