It’s refreshing to see that a company as big as Novell has dedicated an employee to developing open source drivers for companies, if and when they need them. While many companies have yet to begin even thinking about developing open source drivers, there are a few who have been providing Linux based drivers for a few years now and there are some who have recently seen the light and decided to join in. Anyways, back to Novell. Novell employee (Greg KH) has written up some pretty interesting information on his personal website - http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/linux_driver_project_kickoff.html - about how the Linux Driver Project began and what it is currently developing into in light of the recent change in his position at Novell. Be sure to visit Greg’s site for information on this project and also check out the Linux Driver Project to see what you can do to help develop open source drivers for Linux.
Many of you know the name Intel as one of the biggest computer processor manufacturers in the world. But did you know that they’ve developed a website the offers tips to Linux users on saving power with their Intel based systems? The LessWatts.org website gives you methods for reducing the power consumption in your home by managing wifi power, using SATA link power, and enabling a power aware SMP scheduler.
In the “Downloads” section of the website you can get a number of applications that can be installed on a Linux system to help with the management of power. The “Projects” section is kind of like an expanded version of the “Downloads” section as it lists the items that are in the “Downloads” section but elaborates more on what each item does. If anyone gives the tools a try, please let me know how they work.
Many of you in the Linux community know the name Alan Cox. On the KernelTrap site is an article written by Alan fully discussing the numerous ways that data can become corrupt while its being written to disk. The interesting thing about the writeup is that Alan states that the corruption doesn’t come from the operating system, but it is an issue that’s specific to the devices writing the data.
An Ars Technica article is reporting that the Ubuntu Technical Board is currently voting on the idea of enabling the Compiz software by default in the 7.10 release. For the uninitiated, Compiz is a set of software that allows the windowing system on Linux systems to be a little more flexible in their design. For example, with certain options turned on, a windows borders will wobble as you move it around the screen.
I don’t think that I would want to see this turned on by default just for the sake of making sure the Linux installing can get up and running before customizing it. Otherwise, you can really run in to some problems during the installation / setup process. Below is a video example of the Compiz software running on a dual-monitor setup.
Many of you audio visual fanatics probably follow what goes on in the realm of the avsforum.com website. While searching around for information on the LinuxMCE software, I just happened to find a post on the avsforum.com site that compares MythTV to Vista MCE and man is it a long one. This guy gave an insanely thorough examination of the two different applications. If you’re trying to decide between the two of these applications then I suggest hitting up the AVSForum.com site and check out the haps.
After debating which of the different media center programs to go with, I decided to go with Linux MCE. So far, it seems that it has the most features and has been very well designed. But also, the application has just released version 1.1 Beta 2 that runs on top of the Kubuntu 7.04. Since I’m a big fan of KDE and don’t particularly care for Gnome, this setup works out a lot better. If you’re considering setting up a media center, definitely check out Linux MCE at http://linuxmce.com/.
The Slashdot has an article with some awesome news on Dell offering Linux based system. And from what the article says, these machines are going to be fully Linux with nothing but hardware that’s supported by Linux and the use of open-source drivers where available.
From the article:
Dell, through their direct2dell website, has released some details of their soon-to-be-available Linux machines. Among the highlights: Only hardware that works with Linux is offered; open-source drivers are used where possible; binary drivers for Intel wireless cards, etc.; and no support for proprietary media codecs. Seems reasonable, but it’s too bad that Click2Run isn’t in Ubuntu 7.04 for the sake of those wanting to (legally) play DVDs, use AVI files, etc.
The direct2dell site divulges no details on what models will be offered with Linux. For those we turn to linuxquestions.org, where proprietor Jeremy published a scoop last week: “We will be launching a Linux based OS (Ubuntu) on the E520, 1505 and XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24.”
I saw this article on Slashdot and about laughed myself to death. Symantec, the company known for it’s anti-virus and firewall software, has reported in a study that Microsoft has the most secure OS of its competitors. The article about this hilarious report went on to mention that Red Hat Linux and Mac OS X have ranked BELOW Microsoft. Seriously? Come on now.
“According to a Symantec study reported by Information Week, Microsoft has the most secure operating system amongst its commercial competitors. The report only covered the last 6 months of vulnerabilities and patch releases, but the results place Microsoft operating systems above Mac OS X and Red Hat. According to the article, ‘The report found that Microsoft Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.’ The article continues to mention the metrics used in the study (quantity and severity of vulnerabilities as well as the amount of time one must wait for the patch to be released).”
Everyone knows Mozilla for Firefox first and Thunderbird second. These are applications that I frequently use myself at home and at work. By way of the mozilla.dev.planning list, a discussion has started about the possibility of a Mozilla Desktop Environment. I immediately see some pros and cons to this idea. The first thing (a pro) is that the environment would probably rock because Mozilla knows how to make a nice application. The second thing (a con) is that I regularly see Firefox crash and it’s really frustrating. It makes me wonder how the desktop environment would perform. If this concept does come to life then I would definitely give it a try to at least see how well it works.
After great amounts of focused development, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has been released. The new release comes with more tightly integrated virtualization technology and better support for hardware amongst other much awaited features.
A major addition to this Red Hat release is the Red Hat Exchange (RHX). This service will act as a means for “deploying commercial, third-party open-source applications.” And with this, consumers can also purchase support for the applications.
“Red Hat has a new release out for Enterprise Linux, reports Ars Technica. Along with several anticipated new features, Enterprise Linux 5 marks the rollout of the RedHat Exchange (RHX), which will be a source for commercial third-party software applications. ‘RHX will allow consumers to buy software support services for third-party open-source technologies like MySQL database software and SugarCRM customer management systems directly from Red Hat … Linux vendor Novell, which recently partnered with Microsoft to provide stronger Windows interoperability, is already carving out a growing portion of the enterprise Linux market. Red Hat also has to contend with proprietary database vendor Oracle, who now offers commercial Linux support for Red Hat users.”