apokryphos - Slashdot User

Submission + - First Open Source ATI Drivers Now Available (opensuse.org)

Submitted by

apokryphos

on Tuesday September 18, 2007 @12:29PM

apokryphos writes: "After AMD partnered with SUSE to release open source specs, they have now made some alpha ATI Radeon 5xxx/6xxx drivers available, supporting initial mode settings. The next steps are adding support for more hardware, RandR 1.2 support, video overlay support and 2D acceleration. The source and packages for Fedora, Mandriva, openSUSE and SLED are available in the openSUSE Build Service, with Debian and Ubuntu packages following shortly."

Submission + - OpenOffice 2.3 Released

Submitted by

josmar52789

on Tuesday September 18, 2007 @11:11AM

josmar52789 writes: "OpenOffice 2.3 has been released today. It's full of new features including better stability and more security. Check it out — OpenOffice.org"

Submission + - SUSE Linux Virtualization with VMware Support

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13, 2007 @09:14AM

An anonymous reader writes: Novell announced significant enhancements in the performance of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server when the Linux operating system is running as a virtual machine guest in a VMware environment. To deliver this improved performance, Novell modified the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel to support the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), a communication mechanism between the guest operating system and hypervisor that simplifies the task of virtualization and makes Linux a more efficient guest operating system when running in VMware environments.

Submission + - Silverlight on Linux

Submitted by puppydog on Wednesday September 05, 2007 @10:50AM

puppydog writes: Microsoft delivers its cross-platform plug-in and support for Linux. It appears that Microsoft is serious about making the Silverlight platform available everywhere. There are a number of interesting sub-plots in this development. 1. Microsoft acknowledges the importance of supporting Linux. 2. Microsoft openly supports the Mono initiative. 3. Microsoft can point to a positive side-effect of their Novell agreement. The story on eWeek

Submission + - Europe's largest supercomputer housed in a Chapel

Submitted by

Gary

on Sunday August 26, 2007 @01:28AM

Gary writes: "Normally supercomputers are housed in high security government buildings which are specifically built and designed to accommodate such mega structures but the MareNostrum in Barcelona Spain the 9th largest supercomputer in the world, fifth fastest in the world and the largest in Europe is installed in a Chapel. The supercomputer consists of 2560 JS21 blade computing nodes, each with 2 dual-core IBM 64-bit PowerPC 970MP processors running at 2.3 GHz for 10240 CPUs in total. It has 20 TB of RAM and 280 TB of external disk storage for more persistent storage. Running on SUSE Linux it is capable of 62.63 teraflops and a peak performance of 94.21 teraflops. It may look beautiful from the top but when you dig deeper it gets more typical."

Submission + - ASK Slashdot: Which Linux Flavor for Servers 1

Submitted by BrownBag on Monday August 20, 2007 @09:52PM

BrownBag writes: First off, I'm a linux noob. My buddies and I are currently running our website on a webhost's Linux server. We've got the "AMP" part of LAMP down pretty good, and are now looking to colocate our own server running Linux. We are looking for a Linux distro that can scale well for multiple server growth (future), is rock solid, and configures well with memcache, load balancer, firewall etc. A free distro would be ideal, but if the Slashdot community recommends a Linux distro that is not free, that is fine as well, since our minds are open to grow with the right distro. I've done some searching on linux, but that is not yielding the fruit I am looking for. Our first goal would be to run it (learn it) as a localhost and configure it with Plesk or similar, to get ready for the real thing.

Submission + - IBM and Novell strengthen Linux ties

Submitted by Robert on Thursday August 09, 2007 @05:20PM

Robert writes: IBM and Novell have rekindle their long-term Linux relationships with deals to push IBM software on Novell's desktop and server operating systems among a number of announcements from both companies at Linux World. Novell may have flirted with Microsoft in recent months but its long-term commitment is to IBM, which invested $50m in Novell's as part of its $210m acquisition of SUSE Linux back in 2003.

Submission + - Mono: A Progress Report (onlamp.com)

Submitted by

blackbearnh

on Thursday August 09, 2007 @01:49PM

blackbearnh writes: "When Mono was first announced, it seemed that it might be the holy grail of Microsoft compatibility, a way to run .NET applications without needing Windows. Well, it's been 3 years since Mono 1.0 was released, and Edd Dumbill has taken a look at what progress has been made over at O'Reilly's ONLamp site. From TFA:

In the early years we, perhaps, suffered from the hubris of believing this was a way of routing companies towards a completely open source infrastructure. Had this been true, and given Mono's legal vulnerability in their implementation of non-standardized parts of .NET such as ASP.NET, it's fair to say we'd have seen Microsoft shut this down a while back. This may certainly be part of the reason that Novell seems to have soft-pedaled on Mono, rather than aggressively pushing it forward as a development platform. The actual effect of Mono seems to have been to draw together the two worlds of Windows and Linux better. Rather than a migration route, the result has been to provide a unification route. (You could argue that unification is the first step to migration, of course, but with the rapidly evolving world of software-as-a-service we are likely to find events overtaking us and completely different models of enterprise application provision taking hold.)
"

Submission + - IBM, Novell launch "Big Green Linux" Initi (cnn.com)

Submitted by

apokryphos

on Thursday August 09, 2007 @10:03AM

apokryphos writes: "CNN reports:

"IBM announced a Big Green Linux initiative to help its clients further integrate Linux into the enterprise as a way to reduce costs and energy consumption by building cooler data centers. The Big Green Linux initiative supports Project Big Green, a broad commitment that IBM announced in May to sharply reduce data center energy consumption for IBM and its clients.

IBM's Linux Technology Center has also been involved in contributing a number of recent features to the Linux kernel for scaling CPU clock speed and voltage and keeping idle CPUs in a 'tickless,' low-power state longer; all of which make Linux more power efficient in datacenters.""

Submission + - Sun's CEO talks about its open source strategy (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09, 2007 @01:56AM

An anonymous reader writes: In a wide-ranging interview, C|Net talks in depth with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, about the company's open source strategy. Schwartz indicates that despite (or, rather, because of) open sourcing all of its software, software revenues actually increased in 2006 by 13%. In his words, in order to have sales, Sun (and other vendors) must first have adoption. Open source is an efficient, effective way to drive adoption, and therefore is Sun's strategic differentiator against Microsoft, IBM, and other global competitors. Schwartz also shares his top advice for executives at both open source and proprietary companies, where he learned the power of developers in driving sales, and whether he views Red Hat as a competitor.

Submission + - Novell wants Linux ISV standard (zdnet.com)

Submitted by neapolitan on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @10:05PM

neapolitan writes: Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian calls for Linux to develop a standard for ISV (Independent Software Vendors) to follow, so that their applications may work cross-platform. A quote from the entry, 'In Unix, we fragmented the applications and the No. 1 thing we need is applications. We need customers and the ISVs to have their footprints on the Linux platform.'

Is this certification something that is needed? It seems that an application written for Linux currently can be ported to multiple distributions without excess difficulty. Is this going to supplement the POSIX standard, or is this just a business / certification decision?

Full story at http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1303

Submission + - Is Microsoft looking for a new CEO? (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

derrida

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @07:43PM

derrida writes: "As ars technica reports "This week the rumor mill churned out a new tasty morsel; one which could really change Microsoft. According to the experts on Wall Street, Microsoft is planning on firing CEO Steve Ballmer, attributing the company's shaky stock price as one reason.""

Submission + - Novell CEO calls for Linux Distro Standards (zdnet.com)

Submitted by

mytrip

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @04:08PM

mytrip writes: "Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian said the Linux industry must create a vendor neutral standard for application development or face the same fragmentation that killed Unix.

Speaking before a packed audience at LinuxWorld at the Moscone Center Wednesday, the Novell CEO said the Linux Standards Base (LSB) is a good start but it's not enough. A standard Linux ISV certification is needed to prevent fragmentation and build an ISV community like the one Microsoft created for Windows, he said.

"In Unix, we fragmented the applications and the No. 1 thing we need is applications. We need customers and the ISVs to have their footprints on the Linux platform," he said. "If you look at the competition and Windows their application availability is their biggest advantage. They've got the applications.""

Submission + - Microsoft sneaking up on the graphics market? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Ian Lamont

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @11:01AM

Ian Lamont writes: "Microsoft has quietly been building up graphics-related R&D, reports Computerworld, noting that Microsoft employees will be presenting one out of every eight papers at SIGGRAPH 2007. And it's not a fluke — other recent Microsoft graphics-related developments include Photosynth, which has been discussed on Slashdot several times, as well as the Silverlight/Expression Studio graphics suite, which will compete with Adobe's Flash/Illustrator/Lightroom/Dreamweaver offerings. At SIGGRAPH, Microsoft will supposedly have demos of some new software including image deblurring tools and Soft Scissors, which "solves the vexing problem of how to cut and paste an image from one background to another if the image's edges — hair blowing in the wind, blades of grass — are very complex." Microsoft's competitors aren't sitting down. Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a "$50 billion monopolist," has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems, and Google has also been building up its own graphics-related software products, such as the 3D modeling tool SketchUp, and Google Earth."

Submission + - Apple and Google alliance strengthens (last100.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @09:55AM

An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday's Apple press event saw the unveiling of new iMacs and major updates to the company's iLife and iWorks software suites. But it also provided further insight into the cosy relationship developing between Apple and Google, with greater integration between the two companies' product lines. What's new? iMovie 08 adds the ability to upload video direct to YouTube, and iWeb (Apple's web page creation software) now integrates with Google Maps and YouTube, along with support for Adsense. Combine these efforts with the existing iPhone tie-ins — Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail — along with AppleTV's recently added support for YouTube, and we can see how the Apple/Google alliance is strengthening.

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