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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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U.S.-Microsoft antitrust deal to get temporary extension
13 minutes ago
Microsoft, state prosecutors, and the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday said a federal judge needs more time to weigh whether Redmond should be subjected to a lengthier period of antitrust policing. -
Software guru is hot on Linux, busting bureaucracy
43 minutes ago
Grady Booch is chief scientist at IBM'sRational Software unit and an IBM fellow who also holds the title "free radical." His software development approach and the Unified Modeling Language, which he helped create, have been used to build the software that runs pacemakers, avionics in certain large airliners, antilock brake systems, and financial trading systems in the U.S., Europe and Asia. -
Linux Community Questions x86 Server Numbers
1 hour, 13 minutes ago
The Linux community is questioning research that suggests the open-source operating system is losing market share to Windows on preinstalled x86 servers, saying that Linux is undercounted in those kinds of studies. -
Miguel's delusions of grandeur
1 hour, 43 minutes ago
What is Miguel de Icaza's latest game? His obsession with tailgating everything that Microsoft develops - and trying to impress the company by producing Linux equivalents - now seems to be spreading to others as well. -
IT consultant laments OSS "crap shoot"
1 hour, 43 minutes ago
Inkriti is an IT services company that provides large scale technology solutions for companies like clothier Newport News, helping them build Web portals and appications. When time is of the essence and the customer is looking for features that don't come in off-the-shelf packages, Inkriti CEO and founder Vinod Pabba turns to open source software. Then he crosses his fingers and hopes the applications' maintenance and support options match their functionality.
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LinuxBIOS Brings Clones One Step Closer to Freedom
2 hours, 13 minutes ago
No matter how hard you try to build a 100 percent Free/Open Source (FOSS) computer, there are a few bits you can't reach that contain non-FOSS code: ROM chips. These power the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), Ethernet interfaces, SCSI controllers, and SATA/PATA drive controllers. Today we're taking a look at the LinuxBIOS project, which gives us a modern GPL alternative to the two remaining proprietary BIOS vendors, AMI and Phoenix. -
Making Linux application user interfaces richer with OpenGL
3 hours, 13 minutes ago
Ars was at FOSSCamp this weekend. Think of FOSSCamp as an "un-conference" without a set agenda where the minds behind open source projects get together and plot world domination (and, err, ways to improve their code). One fascinating session (and one that shows how FOSSCamp works and why it's so productive) was given by Mirco Müller, who discussed using OpenGL in GTK applications. Müller—the developer behind Cairo-Clock and the LowFat image viewer—talked about the state of OpenGL support in desktop applications and described various techniques that developers can use to make OpenGL content integrate better with conventional GTK user interfaces. -
Howto Upgrade Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
3 hours, 43 minutes ago
The Ubuntu team is excited to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software that the open source and free software communities have to offer. This is Ubuntu 7.10, which brings a host of excellent new features.This tutorial explains how to upgrade ubuntu feisty to ubuntu gutsy including step by step procedure and screenshots. -
Review: Ubuntu Linux for Non-Geeks, 2nd Edition
4 hours, 7 minutes ago
Many still believe that using Linux requires some advanced knowledge and that it's far for being user friendly. With time, user friendliness has become an important part of this OS and an increasing number of users have started to investigate it. The book I'm taking a look today is aimed at an audience of new users that wish to get things done with Ubuntu Linux. Read on to see what it offers. -
Full Mail Server Solution With Virtual Domains & Users
4 hours, 43 minutes ago
This guide describes how to set up a full email solution in Debian Linux (all code is from Debian Etch). I was asked to design a secure, scalable, portable solution for a small company. While the guide references many servers, the company only had 4 physical machines, Xen was used to virtualize the entire solution. That particular aspect of the system is not discussed in this guide, although I will try to get it into the next revision. -
How to: Linux Install and Manage iSCSI Volume
5 hours, 13 minutes ago
Internet SCSI (iSCSI) is a network protocol that allows you to use of the SCSI protocol over TCP/IP networks. It is good alternative to Fibre Channel-based SANs. You can easily manage, mount and format iSCSI Volume under Linux. It allows access to SAN storage over Ethernet. Open-iSCSI project is a high-performance, transport independent, multi-platform implementation of iSCSI. Open-iSCSI is partitioned into user and kernel parts. -
Why Non-Technical Users Might Find Shell Scripting Useful
5 hours, 43 minutes ago
You know, I've never found any real use for a shell script. Recently, I found an actual reason to write one for moving and converting audio files using a few less keystrokes. -
Nigerian education selects Intel-powered Classmate PC with Mandriva Linux
18 hours, 43 minutes ago
Mandriva today announced that the Nigerian government has selected Intel-powered classmate PCs running on Mandriva Linux for educational use in nationwide pilot in Nigeria. Mandriva is working with Intel Corporation and Technology Support Center Ltd. to provide 17,000 Intel-powered classmate PCs. The aim of this project is to improve the quality of technology delivered to students, and to help teachers and parents. -
Electromagnetic Field Solver Suite Tools on Linux
21 hours, 43 minutes ago
With the increase in complexity and data rates, modeling tools need to allow noise-free designs with fast turn-around times for many iterations in the design cycle. IBM Electromagnetic Field Solver Suite of Tools is a suite of full-wave and quasi-static electromagnetic field solver tools used to calculate the electrical parameters for interconnection and packaging design. -
How High Is the Patent Bar Now?
22 hours, 13 minutes ago
This spring, the U.S. Supreme Court made it harder to patent things by raising a standard known as “obviousness.” A lot of people had figured that this bar had fallen so low you could practically step over it. Now some people are talking as if there’s no longer any point in getting a patent—but that’s going too far. Still, some existing patents probably will fall by the wayside. - More News
Fedora struggles with harm reduction via Codec Buddy
In public health, harm reduction is a practice that, rather than trying to eradicate potentially dangerous choices like prostitution, tries to minimize their effects. Often, the practice involves a limited condoning of the practice, such as safe injection sites for addicts. Harm reduction is the path that Fedora 8 has chosen on the issue of MP3 and other non-free codecs in the form of Codec Buddy, a Codeina-based program that tries to educate users about free software while giving them easy legal access to codecs by linking to the commercial Fluendo site. It's a decision about which the Fedora Board and community leaders feel considerable ambivalence.
China puts hopes in Loongson CPU
China, which has long wished to develop its own computer industry, has chosen to go with Linux on the software side. Loongson is its hope for the hardware side.
Apache authentication and authorization using LDAP
Network administrators frequently use the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) to implement a centralized directory server. You can use LDAP to authenticate users in Apache. Two popular open source LDAP solutions are OpenLDAP and Red Hat Directory Server. According to the Apache documentation, Novell LDAP and iPlanet Directory Server are also supported. This article focuses on OpenLDAP, but the concepts and examples should be applicable to the others.
Settlement reached in Busybox-Monsoon GPL case
A settlement has been reached in the case filed last month against Monsoon Multimedia by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) on behalf of two BusyBox developers.
Tricks and treats for your desktop
Even if you're too old for trick-or-treating this Halloween, you can still get in the spirit of things with these free software games, tools, and applications. Why should kids get to have all the fun?
Tidy up your filesystem with FSlint
Over time, a filesystem accumulates a lot of useless items. FSlint is a nifty little tool that helps you clean your filesystem by pointing out junk in the form of empty directories, corrupt symlinks, files with bad names, duplicate and temp files, and more. However, its usefulness is marred by a virtually total lack of documentation and a GUI that takes some getting used to.
Gaming from within the terminal
MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) are text-driven cooperative or competitive games that you can play either straight from your terminal using the Telnet protocol or through a separate application specially designed to play MUDs. The majority of MUDs are free to play. Here's how you can get started with them.
Live license-friendly with liblicense
Creative Commons (CC) cares about licensing. It has drafted and shared its own suite of licenses for artistic works catering to a wide range of needs, advocated license awareness, and contributed to projects that make both finding and publishing CC-licensed works simpler. Now it is seeking to make licensing enlightenment an everyday part of desktop computer usage with liblicense.
Listening to and recording audio and video streams with MPlayer
Most streaming audio and video on the Internet is disseminated in proprietary formats such as RM, RAM, WMV, and ASF. Fortunately, the open source application MPlayer can play and even record streams in almost any format.
UberScript lets you do more with XChat
I've been using the XChat IRC client for many years. The only thing I find lacking in it is a list of favorite channels. The Uberscript plugin, written in Perl, adds a favorites list to XChat, and also allows you to do things like auto greet users when they join a channel and hide nick changes, quit, and join messages.
New York Times opens up code
The New York Times likes open source -- so much so that, as it gradually moves more of its print operations online, it is nurturing a Web development team that has released two of its own open source projects.
An interview with ToorCon founder David "h1kari" Hulton (video)
When I attended my first ToorCon this month, I spoke with David "h1kari" Hulton, founder and chairman of the event, to learn more about its history and intent.
Going all-in with PokerTH
According to Wikipedia, Texas Hold'em is "the most popular poker variant played in casinos in the United States." With the GPL-licensed multiplatform (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X) PokerTH, you can play Texas Hold'em against up to six computer opponents on your desktop, or you can join an Internet server and play against other real players.
Vixta: Nice concept, incomplete execution
Vixta is a new Linux distribution, first released only last month, based on the not-yet-released Fedora 8. Its main objective is to emulate the visual aspects of Microsoft Vista. Version 095 contains the newest, and sometimes unstable, versions of software. The project's goals include being free in every sense, requiring absolutely no configuration, and being user-friendly, eye-catching, and familiar. Too bad the goals don't include feature-complete and stable.
Profitability first, then open source, works for Projity
Projity is a company that provides two alternatives to Microsoft's popular Project application. Project-On-Demand is software-as-a-service (SAAS) code that runs in any browser and is available via a monthly subscription. OpenProj is a desktop version of the application that is built on Java and is licensed with the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL). Though Projity only recently "open sourced" its project management application, CEO Marc O'Brien says that the company's plan "the entire time" was to eventually do just that.
FSF Compliance Lab online meeting addresses license questions
The Free Software Foundation's (FSF) Free Software Licensing and Compliance Lab held a public question and answer session in an IRC meeting last night. The meeting was conducted by Brett Smith, the licensing compliance engineer at the FSF. Smith began by addressing some of the recent FUD surrounding the GPLv3 license, then moved on to answering some of the questions and misconceptions regarding it.
Forbes columnist Dan Lyons says he really likes Linux, no matter what anyone else says (video)
During a session at the 2007 Online News Association conference in Toronto, Canada, I had a chance to point my video camera at Forbes columnist (and Fake Steve Jobs blogger) Dan Lyons. He told me that people who say he dislikes Linux are not being fair to him; that out of 70 articles he's written about Linux, 67 have been positive, and he absolutely denies that he is paid by Microsoft to write what he does about Linux, Apple, or anything else.
Ubuntu 7.10 is outstanding
Canonical this month released Ubuntu 7.10, codenamed Gutsy Gibbon. Like the Feisty Fawn release before it, Gutsy is a bleeding-edge distribution with a focus on new features and the newest free software applications. It's a speedy operating system with great new features and only a few minor issues.
Microsoft-based consultancy builds business on open source software
R2integrated (R2i) is a Microsoft shop that has discovered how well open source software and communities can build a solid business. Principal Chris Chodnicki says it was a customer request that turned the technology consultancy toward DotNetNuke (DNN), an open source Web application framework.
X/OS is an undistinguished Red Hat clone
X/OS Linux is a distribution built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources. Its developers claim it was created "to provide a hassle-free enterprise-class Linux operating system without usage terms tied to commercial services." I downloaded it expecting I might find all the refinement of Red Hat along with some improvements and the community one expects to find growing around free software. It seems I set my expectations too high.
