Education

Bringing Open Source To The Classroom 18

narzy writes "I have written a limited research paper outlining the challenges of bringing Open Source software in to the educational environment. I also look briefly at the differing development views and security principals of the closed and open source communities, how we can overcome some of the challenges of implementation as well as what it would take to create a vibrant learning environment using an open source architecture."
Sun Microsystems

Where Is Sun Going With Linux? 224

jg21 writes "LinuxWorld has an interview with Sun's head software honcho John Loiacono which provides an opportunity to gauge Sun's intentions with regard to Linux in particular, open source in general, and where Solaris fits in. In spite of the assertion "Sun was founded on the principle of open source. We have contributed more lines of open source code than any other entity on the planet except for Cal Berkeley," Sun seems to view Linux somewhat grudgingly, judging from Loiacono's tone: "Linux is something that we'll have to interoperate with because it may exist far beyond whatever Solaris turns out to be." An important read, if only because a Windows-free Loiacono notes that he's been using the Linux-based Java Desktop System for a year. "It is not perfect by any means," he concedes though. Refreshing honesty from Sun's top software exec."
Linux Business

United Linux: Two Years Later 210

ajs writes "In November 2002 everyone who wasn't Red Hat was gathering behind a banner that many thought would spell the beginning of a new chapter in the Unix Wars. That banner was called United Linux. Much has changed in the Linux world since then, and some Founding Partners in the United Linux camp have decided that there are other ways to change the market. Thankfully there are more level headed members of that group. Today, we're not so focused on the differences between Linux distributions, Sun's rants, the aforementioned lawsuits and ever-present, market-gobbling Microsoft keep everyone focused and united enough as it is, and United Linux has begun to fade into memory. So what has United Linux done? Well, it unified three distributions at least, focused attention on Linux standards and made hardware vendors feel a bit less lost when writing drivers for Linux, so it wasn't all a loss. Alas, according the the United Linux site, "There are no plans for a version 2.0 at this time.""
Programming

Automatic Games Installer for JDS Linux 22

Ricardo Wagemaker writes "GccInstaller is a automatic games installation software created to facilitated the installation of games on JDS Linux. Although still in development, with GccInstaller it will be easier to install games than it is to play them. Every time GccInstaller is launched it will check for a update and show you what the current version is, as well as a list of games available to Gccinstaller. Just select install and it will download patches to a temp area and install them on your local system."
Caldera

Novell Pulls Out Their Ace Against SCO 433

mattOzan writes "Groklaw is reporting that Novell has just filed a reply with an exhibit in support of their motion to dismiss SCO's complaint. The exhibit consists of "1995 minutes from the corporate kit of a meeting of the Board of Directors, which clearly and unequivocably say that Novell was to retain the UNIX copyrights in the sale to Santa Cruz that year."
Mandriva

Mandrakesoft: 10.1 Official, Good Financial News 18

joestar writes "Lots of good news from the publishers of Mandrakelinux. Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official for x86-64 was released today. Yesterday's financial release announced their best year so far (turnover up 33%). ZDNet UK has an article. The company also recently announced that it had been granted a research grant for mobility R&D. All in all it looks like Mandrakesoft is back on track and doing great. Good luck guys!"
Communications

Linux Cellphone for Kids 11

Dan Shapiro writes "Wildseed has shipped the Identity cellphone, manfuactured by Curitel. It runs a Linux 2.4.19 kernel, has serial and USB 1.1 connectors, and includes busybox--although there's no way of getting to a terminal prompt, yet. The phone doesn't show its Linux roots; it's actually designed for teens. It has unusual features like Airtext and SmartSkins, which look like a cross between a faceplate, a Nintendo cartridge, and a Winamp skin. Cellular One and Tiger Direct got them first."
Graphics

NVIDIA Engineers On The Realities Of Linux Drivers 21

linuxquestions writes "LinuxQuestions.org recently interviewed members of the NVIDIA Linux team. The interview covers the internal use of Linux at NVIDIA, the current demand NVIDIA is seeing for Linux drivers, the biggest perceived obstacle in Linux becoming a mainstream gaming platform and the decision to maintain both an Open Source and closed source Linux driver."
Businesses

Pitfalls and Options For Business-Desktop Linux 346

swhiser writes "Tom Adelstein dispassionately surveys the remaining fixes that will put desktop Linux through in the enterprise. Peer-to-peer networking, functional printing, laptop support, single sign-on to Active Directory and a better Device Manager (with a driver-get mechanism) are among the things companies are asking for. He says, 'The Linux desktop could fail if companies continue to pilot programs and conclude that it's less trouble to buy Microsoft. Everyone loses in that scenario.'" Pre-loaded systems are no longer a pipe dream or an obscurity, though; read on for one reader's mini-survey of Linux systems from large computer vendors.
Announcements

SCALE 3x Registration Now Open 3

Anonymous Coward writes "Registration is now open for the 2005 Southern California Linux Expo. SCALE is a grass roots Linux and open-source conference in Los Angeles, CA. SCALE's mission is promote open-source and free software. Demonstrations and exhibits are targeted at everyone from beginners to experts. Speakers include: John 'maddog' Hall (Linux International), John "Maddog" Hall - Linux International, Larry McVoy (BitKeeper), Randy Dunlap (OSDL / Kernel Developer), Kevin Foreman (Helix Project, RealNetworks), Jason Schultz (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and more."
Wireless Networking

A Linux Server Express for Portable Wi-Fi? 37

crome wonders: "The new Apple Airport Express is a little wonder of technology. It packs a wi-fi base station with all the usual capabilities of base stations plus the iTunes over network thing in one little square appliance that plugs directly to the power plug in the wall. I have a few of these and I am quite happy with them. Often however, when I most need a wi-fi base station on the go, I also need a server on the go. For example, in my second home I have an old DSL modem, and I have an Airport Express but I have no way to share the connection over wi-fi because the Airport Express doesn't support PPTP. Having a similarly formatted small Linux server with two ethernet ports, a usable Linux distribution on it with all the tools one needs when traveling, and some disk space to save stuff would be great. Any hints on what components to use or anything that comes close to a Linux Server Express?"
Data Storage

PVFS2 - a High-Performance Parallel File System 26

neillm78 writes "As part of the development team, we're announcing PVFS2 version 1.0 here in Pittsburgh at the SC2004 conference! PVFS2 is a GPL/LGPL based parallel file system for cluster-based applications. It logically groups any number of storage servers into a coherent file system for use by client nodes, specifically tailored to handle efficient access to large shared files. PVFS2 supports access via an MPI-IO interface for high-performance parallel applications, but you can still mount it like a regular GNU/Linux file system for traditional serial applications and managment. The PVFS2 project is conducted jointly between The Parallel Architecture Research Laboratory at Clemson University and The Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Please feel free to give it a try!"
Mandriva

Mandrakelinux 10.1 Out For PPC 28

joestar writes "Less than two weeks after the release of Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official for x86, Mandrakelinux 10.1 for PPC has been released! The interesting news is that this version of Mandrakelinux is now a community-driven project. This means that Mandrakesoft is not anymore behind the PPC port. Hardware requirements and release notes are available online at Mandrakelinux WiKi. Any volunteer for SPARC & Alpha?"
Red Hat Software

Fedora Core Release 3 Released 502

anyweb writes "Fedora Core Release 3 is out now, Heidelberg, 2.6.9-1.667 kernel, Firefox included ! Gnome 2.8 and more. Here are some screenshots" New release includes Gnome 2.8, KDE 3.3, Kernel 2.6.9, Firefox PR1, Thunderbird 0.8, Ximian Evolution 2.0 and more. Here is a Mirror List and Bit Torrent
Novell

Novell Linux Desktop Released 183

KingDaveRa writes "Novell have just released Novell Linux Desktop. Its based on SuSE Linux, but is cut down quite a bit to just include essential apps - perfect for a corporate environment. Novell claim to not be going directly after Windows, but rather pushing this as legacy Unix users. The Register has a take on this too."
Programming

Competition Fosters Next Generation Of Linux Talent 209

gollum123 writes "Yahoo reports that about 3,000 students from 75 countries registered for the 2004 IBM Linux Scholar Challenge before registration closed Oct. 31, the largest turnout in the competition's history. This year's winners will be revealed in January at LinuxWorld in Boston. Each entry consists of a 1,200-word essay that can describe the solution to one of 29 Linux-related challenges IBM poses as part of the competition. Entrants, who must be enrolled full time at an accredited university, aren't limited to these challenges and can suggest and solve their own problems. The IBM-provided challenges include asking entrants to identify deficiencies in Linux and propose solutions, describe how to build a high-availability application that would provide failover capability across multiple IBM servers, and improve boot time on a Linux-based IBM ThinkPad."
Novell

Open Source Advocate VP Chris Stone Leaves Novell 172

SafeTinspector writes "ComputerWorld has a story regarding the sudden departure of Chris Stone, a respected open source advocate and the man often sited as the architect behind Novell's acquisistion of Ximian and SUSE as well as the recent open source orientation of Novell.
At the same time, Novell has a web site dedicated to dispelling the mistruths propogated in Microsoft's 'Get the Facts' campaign. What does all this mean to the future of Novell's Linux and Open Source strategy? Does any of this relate to the imminent release of Open Enterprise Server? Anybody?"
Portables

LinuxCertified LC2430 Laptop Review 207

Anonymouse writes "OSNews posted a comprehensive review of the made-for-Linux LinuxCertified LC2430 laptop. They found that all its components are fully compatible with Linux, except with ACPI in recent kernels (which actually affects many laptops recently). The laptop is a desktop replacement with strong performance and some good extra features: Firewire port, 3-1 card reader, combo drive, SXGA+ TFT screen and an ATi Radeon 3D card. Four Linux distributions were tested with it."

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