5 Free Linux Apps You Can't Do Without PC Authority: "Like a digital Swiss Army knife, these are the Linux utilities and tools that are so useful you won't know how you ever did without them." (Nov 2, 2009)
Linux Today Features
Linux Today Sticky Page On this page we'll maintain links to important articles and documents that pertain to Free Software, Linux, and the tech industry. Please submit your suggestions to editors@linuxtoday.com. Thank you! (Jun 15, 2009)
Small Features
The 10 biggest failures in IT history 10 Things: "I recently shared a list of events I believe were pivotal in shaping today’s IT industry - things like the development of COBOL and the creation of UNIX. This time around, I’ve listed a few of the biggest failures in IT..." Nov 1, 2009
Could Microsoft switch to Linux? (Nov 7, 2009, 12:04 UTC) (416 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Cyber Cynic: "...Microsoft's future might best be served in releasing its own version of Linux that he's a Linux fan. Wrong, this prophet of Windows doom and gloom was Keith Curtis, a former Microsoft Research staffer. Could he be right? I think the answer is yes and no."
Red Hat Virtualization Manager for Windows Only? (Nov 7, 2009, 08:04 UTC) (837 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) InternetNews: "That's no typo: A Linux vendor is requiring its users to run one of its key new products on the rival, closed source Windows operating system."
Creating Ebooks with Sigil (Nov 7, 2009, 04:04 UTC) (733 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux Pro Magazine: "There are plenty of places on the Web where you can find ebooks in the EPUB format, but what if you need to create an ebook yourself? Sigil can help you with that."
Editor's Note: Making Multi-Channel Firewire Music With Linux (Nov 7, 2009, 00:15 UTC) (1025 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) This column is a bit premature because I haven't had time to set things up and test them yet. But I'm excited about getting started, so here are some preliminary notes on multi-track recording in Linux using a Firewire device.
Amaya: A Simple, Yet Useful Alternative to Dreamweaver (Nov 6, 2009, 23:32 UTC) (1778 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) MakeTechEasier: "While on a project, where money was scarce, we were scrambling around looking for a free or open source HTML editor that can provide us the same functionality as Adobe Dreamweaver. During my analysis of the different HTML editor out there, I came across Amaya."
Windows 7 Sales Up, But is it Really a Hit? (Nov 6, 2009, 23:02 UTC) (1771 reads)
(4 talkbacks)
(feedback) PC World: "But Apple isn't the only competition Microsoft has to worry about. Ubuntu, one of the world's more popular Linux distributions, recently launched its latest version, Ubuntu 9.10, and impressions about the new OS are largely positive."
Over clocking intel i7 on a Gigabyte EX58-Extreme (Nov 6, 2009, 22:32 UTC) (600 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Raiden's Realm: "I'm told that the i7 920 Quad Core is really a i7 940 clock locked by Intel @ 2.65GHz. The target is the CPU, MOBO and CORSAIR 3 channel DDR3 and the goal is to bring it up to 4GHz a49% higher clock and you should take the time and locate you BIOS reset Mother Board jumper."
Novell cuts 3 percent of its workforce, plus benefits (Nov 6, 2009, 22:02 UTC) (716 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Business Tech: "Linux jobs in the United States are booming, up 6 percent since January, according to data from Dice.com. This will come as small consolation to Novell employees, however, which weathered another round of layoffs at the Waltham, Mass.-based company."
October 2009 OS stats: Windows 7 passes Snow Leopard, Linux (Nov 6, 2009, 20:32 UTC) (1303 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) ars Technica: "At this point in time, Windows continues to dominate with more than 90 percent of the market, Mac OS is above the five percent mark, and Linux is just under one percent. In October, Windows was the only operating system not to show positive growth."
Linux-Kongress 2009: New filesystems, optimised programming (Nov 6, 2009, 20:02 UTC) (1107 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) The H Open: "Among the topics were the advantages of Ext4 and Btrfs, fast Ext4 filesystem checks, and kernel and userspace tricks for minimising the time-consuming movements of read/write heads, all of which can speed up some tasks by several orders of magnitude!"
Google privacy controls: Most people won't care (Nov 6, 2009, 19:32 UTC) (699 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) The Open Road: "Google's biggest threat is no longer Microsoft. It is itself.
As the company harvests copious quantities of personal data, it becomes dramatically better at serving customer needs...
...and at freaking them out over privacy concerns."
Discovering "Sita Sings The Blues" (Nov 6, 2009, 18:32 UTC) (735 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Free Software Magazine: "Sita Sings The Blues” by self-taught animator Nina Paley, may be the first feature-length animated film released under a free license (the Creative Commons By-SA)."
Google Dashboard: Convenient? Yes. Transparency, Choice and Control? Not so much. (Nov 6, 2009, 18:02 UTC) (953 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Michael Zimmer: "Google describes Dashboard as a simple way to view “the data associated with your account”, and that it will provide users “greater transparency and control over their own data.” ...Unfortunately, Google Dashboard is none of these things."
Has Google Become a Good Open Source Citizen? (Nov 6, 2009, 17:32 UTC) (819 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Seeking Alpha:: "With its open source release Thursday of its Closure JavaScript tools, Google (GOOG) is starting to suggest that it may eventually become a good open source citizen."
Setting Up Gitosis On Ubuntu (Nov 6, 2009, 16:32 UTC) (772 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Howtoforge: "This article is part one of a two part series that covers setting up a hosting server using gitosis for your central repository, and in the next article, taking an existing SVN repository and running the appropriate scripts and commands necessary to migrate it into something git can work with."
Too Much Netbook For Too Litl? (Nov 6, 2009, 16:02 UTC) (1425 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) Information Week: "A Boston-based startup named Litl is taking a big risk: they're betting people will go for a netbook that sports a Linux-based OS and focuses on Web-/network-based productivity (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The risk is in the pricetag: $700"
9 Free Linux Distributions: A Linux Free For All (Nov 6, 2009, 15:27 UTC) (1928 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) Ken Hess: "Have you searched for Linux distributions that are 100% free? Did you find more than one that suited your needs? Well, here's a list of nine from which you can choose your favorite. Free means freedom to alter, redistribute, sell or release as a different product with no restrictions on you or your new distribution."
Open Source: More than a License (Nov 6, 2009, 14:17 UTC) (679 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) OStatic: "For the first time, there seems to be a growing concensus that an OSI-compliant license alone is not enough to define one's position on the openness spectrum."
Microsoft Linux: Why one free software advocate wants it (Nov 6, 2009, 13:33 UTC) (2648 reads)
(8 talkbacks)
(feedback) Network World: "A lot of open source advocates like to rage against the machine at Microsoft, but when a former Microsoft Research employee says that Windows 7 won't stop Linux from market domination, that's an opinion to note."
A strangely compromised Linux box (Nov 6, 2009, 12:43 UTC) (3584 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) A.P. Lawrence: "A customer reported that a Linux machine used for ssh access (to in turn give telnet access to an ancient SCO machine) was refusing logins. I asked him to try logging in as root at the console; he was unable to do so."
Kubuntu Linux 9.10 Review (Nov 6, 2009, 12:04 UTC) (2848 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) Desktop Linux Reviews: "Last week I took a look at the latest release of Ubuntu. This week I thought it would be great to continue with Kubuntu Linux 9.10. For those who aren’t familiar with Kubuntu, it’s basically the KDE version of Ubuntu (Ubuntu uses Gnome as its desktop environment)."
SECURITY: Turning clouds into crackers: $45 a password (Nov 6, 2009, 10:34 UTC) (1512 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) Cloudy News: "Security experts recommend long, complex passwords because they require a super computer’s power to hack into a system. So what happens now that a super computer is available to anyone with a credit card?"
TonidoPlug: Your Personal Cloud Server in a Plug (Nov 6, 2009, 09:04 UTC) (1328 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) MakeTechEasier: "However, it can become a totally bad decision when the security of the cloud server is compromised or the third party providers wind up their services and all your data gone down with them. When such things happen, you might wonder why you have not heard of Tonido earlier."
SECURITY: Q&A: Ubuntu 9.10 security (Nov 6, 2009, 07:34 UTC) (1675 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) HelpNet Security: "What are the most notable security features introduced with Ubuntu 9.10?
The widest-reaching change was the introduction of non-executable memory emulation for Ubuntu systems that lack non-exec hardware."
SECURITY: Does Wine Make Linux Too Loose? (Nov 6, 2009, 06:04 UTC) (2000 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux Blog Safari: "For those Wine aficionados out there, beware of the remote possibility that your Linux system could be infected by Windows-seeking malware. "WINE running a Windows virus is nothing more than a 'stupid Linux trick' ... for now""
Package Management With Zypper (Nov 6, 2009, 04:34 UTC) (1022 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux Magazine: "Zypper is a command line tool for package management, it's based on ZYpp, aka libzypp. The WikiPedia entry for Zypp says:
"Unlike other common package managers, it provides a powerful satisfiability solver to compute package dependencies and a convenient package management API."
Checking in on CodePlex (Nov 6, 2009, 03:04 UTC) (1020 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) Standards Blog: "In this blog entry, I'll give my impressions of how the CodePlex Foundation is developing, and (as before) my opinions on how effective the decisions being made are likely to be in achieving the Foundation's goals."
Vulnerability in SSL/TLS protocol (Nov 6, 2009, 01:47 UTC) (2697 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) The H Open: "According to reports, vulnerabilities in the SSL/TLS protocol can be exploited by attackers to insert content into secure connections. If this is correct, it would affect HTTPS and all other protocols which use TLS for security, including IMAP."
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) (Nov 6, 2009, 01:34 UTC) (1519 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) war|ola’s: "The biggest issue about RHEV (and most controversial) is you have to run the management web interface on Windows Server. Yes its not a typo."
openSUSE DVD/CD cover art: Opinions wanted! (Nov 5, 2009, 23:32 UTC) (1127 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) Dissociated Press: "Typically Novell has created the artwork for the openSUSE DVDs, but this time around we had some really interesting and creative input from openSUSE contributors.
Here are the choices:"
The Importance of an Open Internet (Nov 5, 2009, 23:02 UTC) (918 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Community-cation: "Being against net neutrality is one of those arguments that on first glance seems reasonable. The power company, after all, charges us more as we consume more electricity--why shouldn't Internet carriers be allowed to charge based on data load and regulate traffic accordingly?"
More Reasons Why Linux Misses The Desktop (Nov 5, 2009, 21:32 UTC) (3370 reads)
(14 talkbacks)
(feedback) Information Week: "As my colleague Alex Wolfe noted, Linux hasn't made a dent in the desktop after years in the wild. The climb looks all the steeper now that Windows 7 and new versions of Mac OS X have arrived. I can think of a few other reasons why Linux hasn't achieved more than a fractional marketshare with end users, and they aren't pretty."
FatELF: Turns out I liked the uncertainty better. (Nov 5, 2009, 21:02 UTC) (1705 reads)
(9 talkbacks)
(feedback) Ryan Gordon: "It looks like the Linux kernel maintainers are frowning on the FatELF patches.
Some got the idea and disagreed, some didn't seem to hear what I was saying,
and some showed up just to be rude.
I didn't really expect to be walking into the buzzsaw that I did."
GNOME 3.0 May Not Come Until September 2010 (Nov 5, 2009, 20:32 UTC) (1718 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) Phoronix: "The March target is just six months after the release of GNOME 2.28 and consistent with their bi-monthly release cycle they have been following for years. However, it looks like GNOME 3.0 may not hit in H1'2010 but rather September of next year."
Google: Android fragmentation not 'bad thing' (Nov 5, 2009, 20:02 UTC) (1231 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) The Register: "Google has defended its decision to allow unfettered Android tweaking, saying that although this may fragment the Googlephone market, it's what's best for developers."
