Linux Archive

This is a second article in a series of reviews from newsforge comparing MEPIS and Lindows.

This year will see Linux finally crack the lucrative desktop market as more commercial software vendors tool up and cash in on the operating system and kernel developers improve graphical interface integration says cult hero and Linux founder Linus Torvalds. Computerworld's Rodney Gedda cornered the penguin power supremo at the Linux.Conf.au in Adelaide.

This is a commentary. From a Linux user who does tech support for Windows users and works in the real world of a corporate Windows network environment. 2004 has been touted by many as the year of the Linux desktop. Indeed with the backing of IBM, Sun and now Novell, the business world looks like getting a serious Linux desktop contender. But has Linux on the desktop really got what it takes?

Metrowerks Senior Software Engineer and veteran real-time programmer Bernhard Kuhn has created a Linux kernel patch that he claims enables hard, real-time performance in the Linux kernel by adding priorities to interrupts and spinlocks. Kuhn believes his approach to be more "natural" and akin to traditional real-time operating systems (RTOSs) than the dual-kernel approach taken by real-time projects such as RTAI and RTLinux, and he is hopeful that his patch might one day win enough interest and support to become part of the official Linux kernel tree.

Linus Torvalds released the final 2.6.1 Linux kernel. This release has a lot of changes since 2.6.0, many things have been merged from the -mm tree. This release includes a patch for the mremap() vulnerability.

Linus Torvalds has released Linux Kernel 2.6.1-rc3. This release includes mostly small bug fixes.

When Knoppix was first released it was heralded as revolutionary in the Linux world. Its autodetection and configuration capabilities were unsurpassed. Many of my colleagues remarked that if 'KNOPPIX can't do it, Linux can't do it'. Theoretically, one would be able to get a Knoppix CD, pop it into an arbitrary system, run it, save one's data to a partition, USB stick, etc....), reboot and the existing system would be left completely as it was before the CD was placed in the system.

"Contributors to Linux are nothing short of dedicated when it comes to offering their coding efforts, but as many are aware, much of that effort is wasted in the way of duplicated work, a great deal of which happen to only be the "sexy" parts of the code base. The problem is not so much in getting developer support, but in getting the masses organized and motivated to tackle the otherwise neglected aspects of the open source operating system." The following osViews editorial contributor has some interesting ideas to not only help Linux development but also the platform as a whole and even its promotion.

Usman Latif writes: "Linux has made few inroads on the desktop. Linux enthusiasts have plenty of excuses but do not seem to understand where they need to focus in order to make Linux a success on the desktop. My article 'The Future of Linux on the Desktop' is an attempt to point out markets where Linux can really make a difference."

Linus Torvalds announced the release of 2.6.1-rc1, the first prepatch for the 2.6 series. He announced that 2.6.1-rc1 includes many patches that have been in the -mm patchset for a long time.

The aim of this experimental Linux distribution is to provide to the student population at large an operating system that is easy to install and use and provides an alternative to the traditional commercial operating systems. CollegeLinux is a Slackware derived Linux (2.4.23) distribution on a single CD that weighs in at 600 MB.

eWEEK.com's Linux & Open-Source Center Editor Steven Vaughan-Nichols loves the Linux desktop... for himself and other Linux mavens, but thinks that it's still a ways off from being the right choice for most companies. Our Take: There isn't a specific date where you can decide that a desktop experience is good for everybody everywhere (it is already good enough for many people), however I get the feeling that especially around middle 2005 we will be witnessing some truly satisfying results from Gnome 3, KDE 4, OpenCarpet, a matured 2.6 kernel and the evolved distros of the time, so hang on.

When the technology community considers Linux, we know what sets it apart from the competition. But if you were to ask the average consumer, few could give you a legitimate answer other than maybe it doesn’t cost anything. (However there will always be those that look in vain for the free beer everyone keeps talking about.) Editorial contributor Doug Dingus offered the following opinion piece to osViews which proposes some interesting ideas to help differentiate Linux to consumers by way of hardware rather than just software.

This is a howto for Linux 2.6 and mISDN. mISDN stands for modular ISDN. mISDN is developed by Karsten Keil from SUSE. mISDN supports some passive ISDN (see supported ISDN cards) cards under Linux 2.6. mISDN uses CAPI.