November 25, 2007

Ars Technica has posted an unboxing and first impressions of the new Nokia N810 internet tablet device. The reviewer was very impressed with the device, stating that the device is smaller than the N800, and has more features, including built-in GPS, the new NS2008 operating system, better performance, improved battery life, and more applications, including Skype.

November 23, 2007

The founder of MP3.com, Michael Robertson, came up with the solution how to make Windows software run on top of Linux. Robertson's solution is a new Linux distribution that will run all Windows applications as they would run on Windows 98, NT and XP. Robertson said that Windows users "have a big investment in Windows software and don't want to leave it behind. With Lindows OS, they won't have to. You can install the Windows software and it behaves exactly as it would on their Windows machine."

October 16, 2006

Linux Forums just published a review of the Mandriva 2007 commercial distribution of Linux. The review is quite thorough and includes a number of screenshots showing the various unique features of Mandriva 2007. Among the new features are a better installer, 3D desktop effects, multimedia acceleration, and better package management and configuration tools.

November 2, 2005

IBM DeveloperWorks has published a two-part article explaining how to build high performance Linux clusters. The discussion includes information about fail-over clusters, load-balancing clusters, and high-performance clusters. Among the technologies used are OSCAR, MPI, and PVM.

August 12, 2005

NewsForge has published a review of Xandros Desktop 3.0 Business Edition, a commercial Linux distribution aimed at corporate and small business desktops. One of the unique features of Xandros is the inclusion of CrossOver Office 4.2, which allows users to run many popular Windows software packages.

June 14, 2005

MadPenguin has published a review of the new Xandros Desktop 3 Business Edition commercial distribution of Linux. Xandros Desktop 3 Business Edition is a business-oriented Linux designed to play nicely on Windows networks, working smoothly with Windows Domains and Active Directory. The product also includes CrossOver Office for Windows application compatibility. Features include Linux kernel 2.6.11, GNU/Debian package support, KDE 3.3 desktop environment, OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 and Sun StarOffice 7, Codeweavers Crossover Office 4.2, Novell Evolution 2.0.4 for use with MS Exchange, Xandros Antivirus 1.34, Skype 1.0 free Internet telephony, Adobe Acrobat Reader 7, Citrix ICA Client 8.0, xt5250 IBM 5250 terminal emulator, SAP Java Client for Linux 6.3.0r2, Wireless 802.11g support, and more.

June 13, 2005

Red Hat today released Fedora Core 4, the latest version of their free Linux distribution. Among the major improvements in Fedora Core 4 are GNOME 2.10 and KDE 3.4, the Evince multi-format document viewer, OpenOffice.org 2.0, Eclipse 3.1, PowerPC CPU support, improved SELinux security functionality, Global File System (GFS) storage clustering technology, Xen virtualization, GCC 4.0, and much more.

June 10, 2005

NewsForge has published a review of the recently released Debian 3.1 distribution of Linux, previously known as Sarge. Among the new features are a much better installer; better security and reliability; enhanced package updating functionality; support for the ReiserFS, JFS, and XFS file systems during installation; KDE 3.3 and GNOME 2.8 desktops; Mozilla 1.7.8, OpenOffice.org 1.1.3, Samba 3.0.14, Python 2.3.5 and 2.4.1, and Perl 5.8.4; and more.

June 4, 2005

NewsForge has published coverage from the Red Hat Summit in New Orleans. Topics covered include the Red Hat Directory Server, the freeing of the Fedora Project, the global impact of open source, and more.

May 25, 2005

Nokia is introducting the Nokia 770, a compact internet tablet based on the Linux operating system. Features include a 65,000 color 800x480 pixel display, a TI-OMAP CPU with DSP, 64 MB of RAM, 128 MB of Flash Memory, an RS-MMC slot, USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 1.2, Linux kernel 2.6, X11 server, GTK+ user interface, and a weight of 230 grams. Applications included on the device: Web Browser with Flash Player, Email Client, Internet Radio, News Reader, Media Player, Image Viewer, PDF Viewer, File Manager, and Games. File formats supported by the device: MP3, Real Audio, MPEG4, AAC, WAV, AMR, MP2, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, Animated GIF format, SVG-tiny, ICO, MPEG1 video, MPEG4 video, Real Video, H.263, AVI, 3GP.

May 19, 2005

In what looks like the start of a major operating system war, IBM and Red Hat have joined forces to battle Sun and its Solaris OS. IBM and Red Hat are offering free evaluation services for migrating Solaris applications to Red Hat. Meanwhile, Sun is calling the move "an act of desperation".

May 16, 2005

According to information on various blogs, Microsoft has had recent meetings with Red Hat. The speculation is that Microsoft might be in talks to purchase the Linux distribution provider. The move would allow Microsoft to "embrace and extend" Linux, causing massive confusion in the Linux marketplace, and allowing Windows to gain even more market share.

May 11, 2005

A number of free open source security related Live CDs are available for the security administrator looking to further secure their network. An article over at SecurityFocus looks at some of these. They include Knoppix-STD, Auditor, Helix, INSERT, and Whoppix. Each is oriented toward a different security related task such as security checking, incident response, forensics, system rescue, network analysis, or penetration testing. The really great thing about Live CDs is that you can play around with these tools without having to install anything or modify your systems in any way.

May 2, 2005

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has announced that it will deploy Linux on servers across its network of 20,000 branches. After completion of the project, many of ICBC's 390,000 employees will access applications hosted on these Linux servers. Other banks like Bank of China have also deployed Linux in regional projects, and several other major banks in China are also expected to move to Linux shortly.

May 1, 2005

NewsForge has reviewed CrossOver Office 4.2, a program from CodeWeavers Inc. that allows Linux users to run many popular Windows applications without having to buy a licence for Windows itself. Some of the applications fully supported in this version of CrossOver Office are Microsoft Office XP / 2000 / 97, Microsoft Project, Adobe Photoshop, Lotus Notes, Quicken 2005, Apple iTunes 4.7 and QuickTime 6, Microsoft NetMeeting, and WordPerfect 12.

April 28, 2005

PC World has published a very positive review of Ubuntu Linux 5.04. Ubuntu is a free desktop Linux distribution based on the Debian Linux code base, and is compatible with all Debian packages. Among the great features of Ubuntu 5.04 are a clean and very organized Gnome 2.10 desktop, the Synaptic application installer, tons of available applications, and great multimedia support.

April 25, 2005

MadPenguin.org and Linux Journal have published reviews of the Libranet 3.0 commercial distribution of Linux. Libranet is based on the free Debian distribution of Linux and is targeted squarely at desktop Linux users. Features include Linux kernel 2.6.11.4, KDE 3.3.2, GNOME 2.8.3, Xfce4, GCC 3.3, X.org 6.8.2, Evolution 2.0.3, OpenOffice.org 1.1.3, Gaim 1.1.4, Firefox 1.0.2, Thunderbird 1.0.2, and K3b 0.11.20.

April 19, 2005

Linux Planet has reviewed CentOS 4, a free Linux distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL 4) sources. CentOS is an excellent option for those who want the stability of RHEL 4, but without the commercial support or certification. In addition, CentOS is compatible with most RPM packages created for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

April 18, 2005

TuxMachines, MadPenguin and NewsForge have published reviews of the Mandriva 2005 distribution of Linux. Features include a 2.6.11.6 kernel, Firefox 1.0.2, Gimp 2.2, GNOME 2.8.3, KDE 3.3, gcc 3.4.3, X.org 6.8.2, and OpenOffice.org 1.1.4. Other new features include deltarpm, dynamic file system monitoring, enhanced urpmi, and gnome volume manager. This release does not yet incorporate features from the merger with Connectiva, you can expect that in the September release.

April 18, 2005

Informit.com has published a multi-part article on building Linux clusters. Clusters have moved from the scientific realm into mainstream IT, and Linux provides the perfect platform for building high performance clusters inexpensively. Besides for allowing use of commodity hardware and software, clusters also provide flexible scaling, immunity from failure, and unlimited expansion capability. Among the clustering toolkits available under Linux are OSCAR, Rocks, and openMosix.