Linux Archive

EDS: Linux is insecure, unscalable

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-16 Linux 73 Comments

Large enterprises should not use Linux because it is not secure enough, has scalability problems and could fork into many different flavours, according to the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Fuji Xerox, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC.

Linux Still Struggling for Desktop Acceptance

Submitted by Tudy 2005-03-12 Linux 147 Comments

Some companies surveyed recently said they have examined the prospect of moving to desktop Linux to assist in their contract negotiations with Microsoft Corp. Others are trying Linux in kiosks or for limited-function desktop systems.

VectorLinux 5 SOHO Review

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-11 Linux 33 Comments

MadPenguin published a two-page review on VectorLinux 5 SOHO.

Multi-OS “virtual platform” runs Linux with Nucleus

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-10 Linux 6 Comments

Jaluna has partnered with Accelerated Technology, a division of Mentor Graphics, on a combined Nucleus/Linux offering that the companies claim allows real-time Nucleus applications to run side-by-side with Linux applications on the same system, without additional hardware, and without requiring changes to the applications.

Poll: Most Promising Generic Linux Distro?

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-09 Linux 124 Comments

We all know the big Linux players: RHEL/Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, Lycoris, YDL, TurboLinux etc. But what about these still-small but promising distros? Come in and vote for which one you think is the most promising of all.

Puppy: A Linux Live-CD that Saves Back to CD

Submitted by Barry Kauler 2005-03-09 Linux 17 Comments

As far as I am aware, this is a world first, a live-CD that saves back to the CD at the end of the session. So how does it work? "Boot the PC with the multi-session CD inserted in the CD-burner drive -- thus, Puppy automatically knows which drive is the CD-burner, in case you have more than one CD/DVD drive. Then you use Puppy in the normal way. At shutdown, all the changed files in your home directory are saved back to CD. That's it. Next time you boot, all the personal files are restored."

Linux 2.6.x.y kernel releases for major stability and security fixes

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-03-05 Linux 43 Comments

Ongoing discussions on improving the kernel release structure and naming has caused the kernel developers to have a more fine grained release number for major fixes.

Linux Reality Outstrips Linux Myth

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-05 Linux 54 Comments

Tipping points aren't made out of technical reality. They're made out of perceptual change. Thus, it was the legend of Torvalds, not the reality of his actions, that gave Linux the patina of political correctness needed for it to gain widespread public acceptance. Read the editorial here.

Linux: New Features For 2.6.12

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-03-03 Linux 38 Comments

Close on the heels of the release of Linux 2.6.11 is the discussion of what should be included in the next revision. Andrew Morton who maintains the MM tree considered as the soft development tree from which things are later pushed to Linus lists the status for various new features here.

Linux.com: “Which Distro Do You Recommend?” — They All Suck!

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Linux 205 Comments

"I get asked, by more junior Linux users, and people just looking to try it out, which distribution of Linux I use or recommend. It occurred to me that I never actually published an answer to this question, even though it is, by far, the question I am asked most often. I think my stock answer is maybe slightly unusual only because, unlike most of the rest of the Linux-using world, I hate every distro I've ever tried. That's right: every distribution of Linux sucks in its own special way. Some just suck less", says Brian Jones on Linux.com.

Linux 2.6.11 has been released

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-03-02 Linux 25 Comments

Linux kernel 2.6.11 has been released. Highlights include Infiniband support, four level page tables, in-node extended attributes for better samba performance, new pipe implementation , reduced latency and big kernel semaphore among several other minor changes.

Part IV & Final Corporate Desktop Linux – The Hard Truth

Submitted by Steve Mallett 2005-03-02 Linux 28 Comments

W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, finishes his four part essay on the subject of why Corporate Desktop Linux is an unrealistic goal in the short term for Linux advocates. "The hard truth is that the benefits that are most important to individual technical people are simply not important to those lacking technical skills. When you couple this with the relatively meager hard dollar cost savings, the prospect of some extra costs of migration, and the large risks of such a move, is it any wonder few corporate customers are making the transition?"

The ups and downs of life with Linus

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-02 Linux 52 Comments

He may be the saint of the Linux community, but it sounds like Linus Torvalds - with his secret security fixes - could still be a challenge to work with.

Linux Threat Posed by Microsoft and Sun: In Your Dreams

Submitted by Tom Alterstein 2005-02-28 Linux 51 Comments

Writers and analysts love to sensationalize OS Wars. But Linux keeps building momentum.

Bringing an old Laptop back to Life – The experiment

Submitted by Tuxme 2005-02-27 Linux 73 Comments

Thinking of changing an old laptop's OS from Windows to Linux? Don't do it until you read this. The benefits, the pains, the arguments, and the results. It's possible, but will everybody like it? Read on to find out. My take: For such an old laptop the article describes, either DamnSmallLinux or Windows98SE/ME or FreeBSD with IceWM or BeOS 5.03 are the best bets. Anything with modern UIs would crawl. I am using Gnome/XFce with ArchLinux on my Sony Vaio 333 Mhz PII-mobile with 128 MBs of RAM (almost twice as fast as the laptop in question) and it's already not as spiffy as Win98SE is on the same laptop. I also have to live with compromises (not loading most services etc).

Kerrighed 1.0.0 has been released

Eugenia Loli 2005-02-25 Linux 7 Comments

Kerrighed is a Single System Image operating system for clusters. Kerrighed offers the view of a unique SMP machine on top of a cluster of standard PCs. The goals of Kerrighed are high performance of applications, high availability of the cluster, efficient resources management, high customizability of the operating system and ease of use. Kerrighed is implemented as an extension to Linux 2.4.24 (a set of Linux modules and a small patch to the kernel). Port to kernel 2.6.x is planned for later this year.

Desktop Face-Off: Xandros vs. Mepis

Submitted by LinuxTimes 2005-02-25 Linux 17 Comments

In this article, LinuxTimes compares Xandros 3 Open Circulation Edition and SimplyMEPIS 2004.6.

Part III: Corporate Desktop Linux – The Hard Truth

Submitted by Steve Mallett 2005-02-24 Linux 11 Comments

Part III of Desktop Linux - The Hard Truth is published. In it retired World Bank CTO W. McDonald Buck looks at what the CTO needs to consider in making a realistic desktop switch to Linux (-after- having switched to OS software on Windows & Linux in the server room) in a big company and how to avoid ending up toasted.

C++ exception-handling tricks for Linux

Eugenia Loli 2005-02-24 Linux 7 Comments

Handling exceptions in C++ has a few implicit restrictions at the language level, but you can get around them in some instances. Learn ways to make exceptions work for you so you can produce more reliable applications.

John C. Dvorak: How to Kill Linux

Submitted by Ed 2005-02-22 Linux 170 Comments

The idea here would be to cut the driver layer out of Windows and attach it to Linux directly. This would become MS-Linux. If Microsoft actually produced an MS-Linux that was the standard Linux attached to the driver layer of Windows, giving users full Plug and Play (PnP) support of all their peripherals, nobody would buy any other Linux on the market.