Asa Dotzler, from the Mozilla foundation, has just written an interesting analysis describing why Linux is not ready for desktops yet, and suggests four main categories that must be addressed to improve this.
Today at PCBurn we're taking a look at Mark G. Sobell's "A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming". It aims to be a complete learning and reference guide to the Linux shell. We'll take a look at the salient points that a reference and teaching book should cover and see how "A Practical Guide..." addresses them.
After AKAImBatman's wildly popular (and heavily criticized) look at what the future of the Linux Desktop might look like, Mr. Batman has decided to write a followup article where he attempts to clear up many of the misconceptions readers have about the original article. In addition, Mr. Batman uses the second part of the series to give technical details about how some of the concepts might be implemented.
Mad Penguin's Adam Doxtater reviews Slackware Linux 10.1: "It's stable, fast, and has a reputation for the most excellent quality control in the business."
Are there too many Linux distributions currently available? Can there be too many? This article explores the effect of the large number of distros out right now and suggests that progress could possibly be made through a consolidation.
Although it appeared that its Web site would remain stale and funds would not support Linux developers, there is now growing interest and opportunity for LinuxFund.
The true reason for this article is to point out some sensitive points and to start a discussion. Hopefully, this discussion will produce some useful outcome and if some people in the Linux community are willing to listen to them, I would already be very enthusiastic. Let's start, shall we?
One of Unix's hallmarks is its process model. It is the key to understanding access rights, the relationships among open files, signals, job control, and most other low-level topics in this book. Linux adopted most of Unix's process model and added new ideas of its own to allow a truly lightweight threads implementation. Find out about the Linux process model in this sample chapter.
Recently in a post on my blog I argued that, despite many claims to the contrary, GNU/Linux is almost ready for the desktop. In particular, I argued that GNU/Linux is already a very good and easy desktop if people just take the time to learn its very basic differences with Windows before actually using it. Note: Don't forget to rate this article!
After a decade of admiring Linux from afar, Claus Futtrup finally takes the plunge, choosing to dual-boot his Windows 98 system with Minislack. In this interesting guest column at DesktopLinux.com, Futtrup explains why he selected Minislack, and relates his experiences with installing, configuring, and using it as a newcomer to Linux.
RPM maintainer Jeff Johnson publilshed a reply to Claudio Matsuoka's Top 10 Problems in RPM article, adding more interesting points to the discussion. If you value politeness, skip this discussion.
With all of the attention on dual core processors lately, it has been real easy to overlook the one application that might benefit more from multiple cores than any other; Linux. OK, so technically Linux isn't an application, but the kernel has supported SMP for nine years almost to the date. But does any of this translate to great desktop performance for dual core processors?
Despite the constant predictions of "This year will be the year of the Linux desktop", such predictions have yet to become reality. While the reasons for this are numerous, they all tend to boil down to Linux being built as a server and workstation OS rather than a home system. This article will focus on how a distribution might be designed to not only make Linux a competitive desktop solution, but to propel it into a leader in the Desktop market.
If you've heard about Linux and feel like giving it a go or if you want to try Linux but you're too afraid it'll shew up your computer, this article is for you. Read it, feel free to take what you need and ignore the rest. This is not a tutorial, it's a README-FIRST-like article. It should help you to take that first dive.
"We've all had this nightmare. You turn on your functioning Windows/Linux PC, and all you get is a blank screen, or a message telling you that certain files are missing, or the kernel has panicked for some obscure reason. Nothing works, and you need the data on your machine." A Linux rescue-cd is the solution.
IBM, Sony and Toshiba have jointly ported Linux to the Cell processor, the 4GHz multi-core PowerPC chip they co-developed. The Cell CPU is slated to ship in Sony's Playstation 3 next spring, but is likely to appear before that in workstations, embedded computing devices, and supercomputers. The Cell's Linux port includes a 64-bit PowerPC Linux kernel, along with a filesystem that abstracts the Cell's independent vector processing units so that the Linux kernel can make use of them. The companies hope their Cell Linux port will be merged into the next mainstream Linux kernel release, 2.6.13.
Rexx is a scripting language that was invented at IBM years ago. The Linux community has largely ignored Rexx, but I believe it could play an important role in Linux's challenge to the Windows desktop. How can a language many in the Linux community have never even heard of be valuable in Linux's fight for the desktop?
The Software Revolution, Inc. (TSRI) announced web publication of the most comprehensive and detailed design documentation ever available for the Linux Operating System. Linux Open Design 2.6 is a richly hyper-linked graphic and textual blueprint for the entire Linux Kernel, Security, Memory Management, File System, Cryptography, Initialization, Drivers, and Architecture and Inter-Process Communications (IPC) Subsystems.