Linux Archive

Linare introduced today its newest product, an AMD-based laptop for $498. A $598 model with more RAM, DVD-ROM and WiFi is also available. My Take: Good & fair prices for the features.

W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, believes we need to take a more honest and frank look at the Cost Analyses it will take to put Linux on the corporate desktop. In Part I of Corporate Desktop Linux - The Hard Truth he says that a business can't buy a computer without Windows and save money in the transaction.

Developers of the Linux kernel created a security mailing list this week to air future vulnerability information regarding the open-source operating system's core code.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds defended the open source movement against critics who say that the so-called "community of communities" should band together or risk ending up like Unix.

I like Slackware, it's simple, it's robust, it's fast. But I always felt there was some lacking in Slackware when it came to desktop use--I was never able to put my finger on it exactly, but using Slackware for a desktop, although it works just fine, seemed like it (or I) was out of place.

Can there ever be too much choice? Is that a bad thing? Well, to me in recent months it feels that way as I seem to have installed more Linux distributions than you can shake a stick at! Serial installers are a common phenomenon within the Linux community, but I say to you all, alas, I am cured!!! So, what makes Arch Linux all that? Well read on...

Arch Linux 0.7 was finally released today after delays waiting for kernel 2.6.10 (waiting for Reiser4 support that didn't happen). There are mirrors, torrents, and also docs. For those who don't know, Arch is an advanced Linux distribution blending the simplicity of Slackware and package management of Debian in it's lean framework. This release uses the 2.6.10 kernel with the -as patchset and the new 4.2 release of the XFCE desktop environment among other current versions of well known apps. New Arch users can then edit /etc/pacman.conf to enable the -Current and -Extra trees and download them. Editor's Take: A fantastic distribution, but it requires a substantial initial involvement by semi-advanced users to bring the distro to the wished configuration. After this point is passed, Arch will not dissapoint.

Linus Torvalds once led a ragtag band of software geeks. Not anymore. Here's an inside look at how the unusual Linux business model increasingly threatens Microsoft. Also at BusinessWeek, Microsoft Group Vice-President Kevin Johnson predicts the upstart operating system will go the way of Unix".

Linux Journal is running a telling chapter excerpt from the book, "Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop," (O'Reilly) by Tom Adelstein & Sam Hiser. The excerpt is Chapter 9: "Using Windows Applications with Sun's Java Destkop System". Many people remain blissfully unaware that you can run a growing list of Windows applications on Linux. This development may disturb a certain tidy model of reality but it represents the overthrow of a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of Linux, that of "Application Availability." Full Excerpt | Linux Journal

Marcelo Tosatti released the official 2.4.29 kernel, unchanged from 2.4.29-rc4. Among many other enhancements and bug fixes, this release includes a number of local and remote security fixes, and thus is a recommended upgrade for users of the 2.4 kernel.

HP has demonstrated Linux running on 64 Itanium 2 processors without any loss of efficiency, and says it's seeing growing interest in open source from financial institutions. More.

"A study by not-for-profit IT security testing organisation Honeynet Project has shown that, on average, Linux systems today take three months to fall prey to hackers, up from 72 hours in equivalent tests conducted between 2001 and 2002..." Complete Story.

ELX(Everyone's Linux), is a Linux focused company based in India. ELX's first product, ELX Power Desktop, received very good reviews during its early stages but for the past several months, the product has been very quiet.

"If there's a real bottom line here, the one thing I'm clear on is that I haven't found it yet, but the questions raised have been more interesting that the answers -- so more help would be welcomed." Read the article at LinuxInsider.