Linux Archive

Review: Gobolinux 12

Submitted by tup 2005-11-03 Linux 56 Comments

"I was impressed by the way GoboLinux handled. This distribution clearly has a well-defined identity of its own, and the authors' philosophy shows in every detail of the system. The system is fast, without a grain of bloat in it." GoboLinux' most defining feature is its filesystem layout, which does not follow the Free Standards Group's Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, but is more like OSX' layout.

Submitted by Valour 2005-11-03 Linux 20 Comments

CrossOver Office, the Windows API emulation framework for GNU/Linux, is finally at version 5.0 after some delay. While CrossOver has always been useful but never quite perfect, this new release is a breakthrough in Windows compatibility and GNU/Linux desktop integration. If you've been in "wait and see" mode with CrossOver Office, this is the release that should push you toward it. Read a review of the newest release here.

Linux PCs: Customer Service or Lip Service?

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-02 Linux 39 Comments

Finding an entry-level home PC that doesn't have a Windows XP sticker on it requires consumers to search through a maze of Web sites. Or if they try calling a major PC maker, the agent is likely to have a hard time steering them toward a Linux-based or bare-bones system.

The Venture Capital Reluctance Toward Linux

Submitted by LinuxFanboy 2005-11-02 Linux 17 Comments

"Aside from the general unwillingness of VCs to invest in startups, Linux is a no go. Many factors come into play with the primary lack of an exit strategy topping the list. When will Linux companies see the light at the end of the tunnel? Or will they?"

ISO Makes Linux Standards Base a Standard

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-01 Linux 36 Comments

The Open Source Business Conference here will open on Tuesday to the news from the Free Standards Group that the Linux Standards Base has been approved as an ISO standard.

5 Days of Linux: a Business User’s Trial

Submitted by Jarred Cinman 2005-11-01 Linux 33 Comments

"If Linux is 85% of the way to being a viable alternative to Windows/Office, it'll get the rest of the way soon. Very soon. The Mark Shuttleworths and Scott McNealys of the world will make sure of that. And unless Microsoft has a real rabbit in their hats - like, say, a mind-reading operating system - I cannot imagine how they're going to keep me and all the Windows users I know paying for something I can now - almost - get for free."

High-Performance Linux Clustering

Submitted by anonymous 2005-11-01 Linux No Comments

High Performance Computing (HPC) has become easier, and two reasons are the adoption of open source software concepts and the refinement of clustering technology. This second of two articles discusses parallel programming using MPI, gives an overview of cluster management and benchmarking, and Linux clustering using OSCAR. Part 1 of this series, Clustering fundamentals, discusses the types and uses of clusters.

CLI Magic: GNU find

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-31 Linux 30 Comments

"Don't you just hate it when you can't find a file you need, but you know it's on your computer? Wouldn't you like an easy way to track down files anywhere on your computer? If so, I have good news for you, a command available to you at the friendly Linux CLI called find."

Using Plan 9’s Distributed Resource Protocol Under Linux

Submitted by glory 2005-10-31 Linux 7 Comments

"This paper describes the implementation and use of the Plan 9 distributed resource protocol 9P under the Linux 2.6 operating system. The use of the 9P protocol along with the recent addition of private name spaces to the 2.6 kernel creates a foundation for seamless distributed computing using Linux. We review the design principles and benefits of Plan 9 distributed systems, go over the basics of the 9P protocol, describe 9P extensions to better support UNIX file systems, and show some example Linux distributed applications using 9P to provide system and application services."

Review: Arch Linux – Easy, Simple and Clean

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-30 Linux 42 Comments

"The philosophy of Arch is simply simplicity. The user is in total control of the system. There are no flashy GUI installers - only a simple ncurses based installer that is easy to use and does its job well. No services ae started by default and their rc.conf is a thing of beauty - very simple to understand and maintain."

Why Do People Switch to Linux?

Submitted by LinuxFanBoy 2005-10-28 Linux 115 Comments

"During the last month, we conducted a survey of readers who use Linux. We asked them why they switched to Linux and received a plethora of answers. Surprisingly, anti-Microsoft sentiment had less to do with the choice than one might imagine. Linux stands on its own as a user preference."

Submitted by diegocg 2005-10-28 Linux 44 Comments

Linus has released kernel 2.6.14 after two months of development. There's a big amount of changes: new features like HostAP, FUSE, the linux port of the plan9's 9P protocol, netlink connector, relayfs, securityfs, centrino's wireless drivers, support for DCCP (currently a RFC draft, PPTP, full 4 page-table support for ppc64, numa-aware slab allocator, lock-free descriptor lookup and many other things. Read the comprehensible changelog or the full changelog.

SymphonyOS Beta1 PR1 Released

Submitted by zegenie 2005-10-27 Linux 26 Comments

SymphonyOS has reached beta stage-- well, sort of. They released the first preview release of the first beta (are they trying to beat this?). The stability of the Mezzo dektop environment and Orchestra rendering has been improved, various applications have been updated, and much more. Download here.

Submitted by anyweb 2005-10-27 Linux 5 Comments

"After using Smoothwall Express 2.0 for years and now testing out v3.0 alpha I can conclude that this product is shaping up to become even more fantastic than I ever thought it could be. It gives power to the end user, allows them to decide how to control their network and makes it easy to do so. The new GUI (web based interface) is much clearer, easier to read, and provides more information about what is going on."

Mockup 0.2.0 Alpha 1.1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-23 Linux 7 Comments

Mockup 0.2.0 Alpha 1.1 has been released. Again, this release is solely for developers and not for the faint of heart. A roadmap is available in the release announcement. A guide on installing this latest Mockup snapshot can be found here.

Where Linux 802.11x Support Needs Work

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-22 Linux 55 Comments

This is a comprehensive list of where Linux wireless support currently falls a bit short. This list of problems that should get fixed in Linux wireless grew out of Dan Williams' attempt to put a GUI on top of Linux wireless with NetworkManager.

UniPKG: Package Formats Unification

Submitted by iSteve 2005-10-22 Linux 15 Comments

UniPKG (universal Package manager) is a modular package manager. It contains support for .rpm, .deb and Slack's .tgz package format. In future, ArchLinux's package format is planned as well. It doesn't depend on any of the distribution's tools; it's completely self-sufficient.

LG3D LiveCD 2.3: Linux with Sun’s Looking Glass

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-21 Linux 40 Comments

"LG3D LiveCD is an interesting project incorporating Sun Microsystems' Project Looking Glass - a Java-based technology that attempts to bring a richer user experience to the desktop and applications via 3D windowing and visualisation capabilities. The newly released version 2.3 is considered to be the project's first stable release. Based on SLAX 'Popcorn', but enhanced with Firefox, Gaim, working NVIDIA graphics driver, and copy2ram support, the live CD boots directly into a great-looking 3D desktop with many interesting capabilities (see this document for hints to navigate the 3D workspace)."

Tech Firms To Tackle Linux Desktop Standards

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-18 Linux 135 Comments

Adobe, IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Novell, RealNetworks and Red Hat are all backing the new Linux standards effort led by the Free Standards Group. The nonprofit organisation plans to marshal their resources to form standards for key components of Linux desktop software, including libraries, application runtime and install time. The group said Monday that it will encourage software developers to use its guidelines when building programs for Linux as part of its Linux Standard Base project.

OSDL To Push Linux for Mobiles

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-17 Linux 10 Comments

The Open Source Development Labs, an industry consortium devoted to improving Linux, plans to launch an initiative on Monday to bring the open source operating system to mobile phones. OSDL's Mobile Linux Initiative is intended to improve Linux for the small, but increasingly powerful, devices.