Linux Business

OSS in One-Fifth of Japanese Businesses 99

Posted by Zonk from the penguins-abroad dept.
WillAffleck writes "According to a recent Infoworld article, one-fifth of all Japanese businesses now use Open Source operating systems. From the article: 'By contrast, 33 percent of U.S. companies have adopted open-source operating systems in at least some of their servers, MIC said. Among the companies polled by the MIC, 66 percent said open-source operating systems have low initial costs, while 47.8 percent said the software has low operating costs '"
GUI

A Glimpse at the Linux Desktop of the Future 759

Posted by timothy from the irxillent dept.
hisham writes "Every now and then we see articles pointing out "what's wrong with Linux on the desktop." This one gives a nice overview not only of the problems we all know, but also where to look for solutions (app dirs, smarter filesystems) and what's out there (projects trying to change the face of Linux, like Klik, Zero Install and GoboLinux). Still, it usually boils down to things that Mac OS X already has or that are/were touted for inclusion on MS Longhorn. Fortunately, the major desktops stopped playing catch and are focusing on forward-looking Linux projects, like KDE Plasma and Gnome Beagle. Interesting times ahead."
Handhelds

Linux Finds Its Way to More Handheld Devices 153

Posted by timothy from the promises-promises dept.
LXrider writes "The coolest new handheld to pick Linux as its OS is the Pepper Pad. This device was one of the most exciting products to be found at this year's otherwise lackluster C3 Expo in NYC. The Pepper Pad runs MontaVista Linux on a Intel XScale PXA270 (624 MHz) processor and it used for viewing multimedia, surfing the net, and controlling your home's electronics."
Linux Business

Linux From A CIO's Perspective 163

Posted by Zonk from the look-at-all-the-penguins-down-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CIO.com has a story on Linux and OSS in the enterprise from the perspective of the CIO of Cendant Travel Distribution Services, Mickey Lutz. 'In the summer of 2003, Mickey Lutz did something that most CIOs, even today, would consider unthinkable: He moved a critical part of his IT infrastructure from the mainframe and Unix to Linux. For Lutz, the objections to Linux, regarding its technical robustness and lack of vendor support, had melted enough to justify the gamble.' His organization saved 90% in costs in so doing. Read on if you want to see how the top brass views OSS."
The Internet

We Don't Need the GPL Anymore 919

Posted by Zonk from the man-with-the-plan dept.
jpkunst writes "In a lengthy interview with Eric S. Raymond by Federico Biancuzzi at O'Reilly's onlamp.com, ESR defends his position that 'Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn't make lots of people nervous about adopting it.'" From the article: "I don't think the GPL is the principal reason for Linux's success. Rather, I believe it's because in 1991 Linus was the first person to find the right social architecture for distributed software development. It wasn't possible much before then because it required cheap internet; and after Linux, most people who might otherwise have founded OS projects found that the minimum-energy route to what they wanted was to improve Linux. The GPL helped, but I think mainly as a sort of social signal rather than as a legal document with teeth."
Linux Business

Sun Steps Back from Linux JDS 202

Posted by timothy from the crowded-house dept.
chill writes "ZD Net UK is reporting that Sun is pulling back from their JDS desktop Linux initiative. The big question is what happened to those half-million to million-plus units that were supposed to ship in China in 2004? One hint may be that in April, Novell announced a deal with CSSC to 'cooperate to provide technology, services and marketing to optimise and promote Linux to the Chinese market.' Sun's JDS was based on SUSE Linux, now owned by Novell."
Television

O'Reilly Builds a MythTV Box 203

Posted by Zonk from the summer-projects dept.
enrico_suave writes "While the Broadcast Flag battle continues, it's still legal to put together your own HDTV PC HTPC/PVR. O'Reilly has posted part 1 in a series of articles describing the ins and outs of Building a MythTV Box" From the article: "For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC. Parts are now cheap enough that it is no longer ridiculous to build a PC specifically to handle TV for you, much like the VCR in Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency..."
Operating Systems

Knoppix 4.0 DVD - Like a Kid in a Candy Store 353

Posted by timothy from the that's-a-lotta-knoppix dept.
IdleTime writes "O'Reilly Developer Weblogs has a nice review of the new yet unreleased Knoppix 4.0 on DVD. As the article says 'A totally new release of Knoppix was unveiled at LinuxTag 2005, Knoppix 4.0. This is the release that introduces the split between "maxi" DVD and "mini" CD releases. I've tried out the 4.0 DVD and let me tell you, I'm like a kid in a candy store.'" AlexanderT points to some currently available torrent files for the DVD.
GNU is Not Unix

South African Open Source TV Show 12

Posted by timothy from the unkill-your-television dept.
visi writes "'Go_Open' is a 13-episode mainstream-aimed TV series about using open source software, funded by sources including South African entrepreneur and astronaut Mark Shuttleworth's foundation. It includes interviews with major open-source figures such as Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Jon 'maddog' Hall, and Bruce Perens, as well as case studies and discussions of both Shuttleworth's (Ubuntu Linux) and other South African and global projects that have successfully used open-source elements. Check out their site or download the series."
SuSE

SUSE Linux 9.3 FTP Version Released 24

Posted by timothy from the plethora-of-choices dept.
twener writes "Nine weeks after the official release of SUSE Linux 9.3 Professional Novell has made available the FTP edition for everyone as a 4.2GB DVD ISO image (both i586 and x86_64) or 5 CD images (stripped-down, i586 only) on their mirrors. Additionally, all until-now missing RPMs have been uploaded, so you can also do a network installation using the 57MB netinstall ISO." Update: 06/27 19:37 GMT by T : Yes, that's RPMs, not RMPs. Sorry!
Communications

Linux-Based Phone Lasts 200 Hours on Standby 187

Posted by timothy from the does-it-have-good-games dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Motorola is showing off a Linux/Java phone with a claimed battery life of 200 hours on standby, or 200-250 minutes when talking. If those figures prove true, Linux sure is improving quickly on the power management front. That kind of battery life also suggests that the E895 might be the first single-chipset phone ever to run a complex OS, whether Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Linux. Other features are user-upgradable memory, 1.3MP camera, video capture, multimedia slideshows, and more. Hopefully a more U.S.-friendly version will follow, as happened when Mot's Linux-based quad-band A780 came out a year or so after it's tri-band forebear, the A768, shipped in China."
Books

Newly Released: Slackware Linux Essentials, 2d Ed. 21

Posted by timothy from the what's-up-docs dept.
VincenzoRomano writes to point out that as of a few days ago, "Slackware Linux has its second revision of the Slackware Linux Essentials book. It is a major revision of the the reference book for Slackware users and is now an official Slackware project. Slackware Linux is the oldest and yet pretty active Linux distribution born from an idea by Patrick Volkerding and that turned 12 a few months ago. It follows the KISS(Keep it Simple, Stupid!) philosophy, which seems to be one of the reasons of its long life. The book itself has been created by David Cantrell, Logan Johnson and Chris Lumens and is available both in printed (dead-tree) form and in electronic form (HTML/DocBook/PS/PDF). Whether your are a Slackware aficionado or not, the book deserves a look at least!"
GNU is Not Unix

Linux Servers Grew 36% in Canada in 2004 15

Posted by timothy from the all-depends-who's-counting dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Linux adoption in Canada is growing, in both volume and acceptance. According to a recent survey by IDC Canada, the server market for Linux grew more than 36 per cent here in 2003-2004, beating the Windows server market's growth of about 27 per cent for the same year."
Programming

Programming Linux on Cell 19

Posted by timothy from the variably-permeable dept.
Nora writes "developerWorks has posted a slightly expanded version of the paper presented at LinuxTag today by IBM's Linux-for-Cell maintainer Arnd Bergmann (which was mentioned on Slashdot a few weeks ago). I searched the LinuxTag site to post a link to their copy of the paper also, but I couldn't find one (but my German is not so good, so it's probably my fault). In addition to the abovementioned paper on the SPU file system, we have also published an interview with Arnd Bergmann in which we learn more about programming for Linux on Cell, and programming for Cell in general -- and also that there is no such thing as the so-called 'Cell Workstation' that some of us have been looking forward to for a long time (apparently, it's just the Blade board prototype that many of us have already seen). And of course, much more. "
Unix

SCO Includes OS Products In OpenServer 6 268

Posted by Zonk from the use-it-if-its-good dept.
William Robinson writes "In a bid to be friendly with Open Source, SCO has included 7 OS products in their Unix product. Among the included packages are MySQL, PostgreSQL, Samba, Apache, Tomcat, and FireFox. SCO's position is consistent, spokesman Blake Stowell argued. 'We don't necessarily have issues with open source, we just have an issue with open-source technology that includes intellectual property it shouldn't' he said."
Media

Linux HiFi: The Sonos Digital Music System 183

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-want dept.
TractorJector writes "Mad Penguin published a 5 page review of the Sonos Digital Music System, a wireless music distribution system built on Linux. According to the site, you can use a single remote to control up to 32 "zones" (locations throughout your house where the receivers are placed). The interface is intuitive and well done for such a compact device. According to the review, it's extremely simple to setup as well."
GUI

GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project 14

Posted by timothy from the tools-for-the-future dept.
Nagappan writes "The GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project (GNU/LDTP) is aimed at producing high quality test automation framework and cutting-edge tools that can be used to test GNU/Linux Desktop and improve it. It uses the 'Accessibility' libraries to poke through the application's user interface. The framework has tools to generate 'AppMap' by reading through the user interface components of an application. The framework also has tools to record test-cases based on user-selection on the application. As of now, GNU/LDTP can test any GNOME application which is accessibility enabled: Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, any Java application (UI based on swing) and KDE 4.0 applications based on QT 4.0. We encourage you to join the project and help us to create robust, reliable and stable test tool/framework for Linux Desktops. Thanks to Luis Villa for trying to integrate GNU/LDTP with GNOME tinderbox."
Data Storage

PetaBox: Big Storage in Small Boxes 295

Posted by timothy from the always-impressive dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com is reporting that a Linux-based system comprising more than a petabyte of storage as been delivered to the Internet Archive, the non-profit organization that creates periodic snapshots of the Internet. The PetaBox products, made by Capricorn Technologies, are based on Via mini-ITX motherboards running Debian or Fedora Linux. The IA's PetaBox installation consists of about 16 racks housing 600 systems with 2,500 spinning drives, for a total capacity of roughly 1.5 petabytes, according to the article. Now to strap one of those puppies to my iPod!" The Internet Archive continues to astound.
Microsoft

Linus On The Future Of Microsoft 382

Posted by Zonk from the crystal-ball-activated dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There's a pretty good interview with Linus over at Good Morning Silicon Valley. The discussion seems focused predominantly on the future of proprietary software and what the tech landscape might look like if Microsoft's market share declines. 'Says Linus: I do not believe that anything can "replace" Microsoft in the market that MS is right now. Instead, what I think happens is that markets mature, and as they mature and become commoditized, the kind of dominant player like MS just doesn't happen any more. You don't have another dominant player coming in and taking its place -- to find a new dominant player you actually have to start looking at a totally different market altogether.'"

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