Latest Linux and open source news.
This week’s Linux news
Web 2.0 Conference: OpenID helps beat web account management hassles, 11/09/06
Developers at the Web 2.0 conference are offering web users an escape from the hassle of remembering usernames and passwords across multiple web sites. The fast, lightweight OpenID standard is easy for sites to implement, thanks to open source libraries and modules.
Open source start-ups speak out in Potsdam, 11/09/06
Entrepreneurs attending a forum in Germany this week showed how they plan to use clever open-source products — commercially — to compete with proprietary software companies.
Mono upgrade targets Linux desktop applications, 11/09/06
Novell has announced an upgrade to its Mono software that should make it easier for developers to port .Net desktop applications to Linux.
New Linux phone encourages application development, 11/08/06
Electronics company First International Computer hopes to replicate the open nature of the PC in mobile phones with the debut of a smartphone running an open Linux-based mobile software platform developed by one of its product managers.
Sun expands support for Ubuntu Linux, 11/08/06
Sun is making its Java Enterprise Edition 5 programming platform available on the open source Ubuntu Linux distribution.
Novell deal to cost Microsoft hundreds of millions, 11/08/06
Microsoft will spend more than $440 million in licensing fees and sales and marketing costs over the next five years to keep up its end of the historic Linux agreement it made with Novell, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents.
Kernel space: Buried in warnings, 11/07/06
Spotting a real kernel error among harmless compiler warnings is becoming a challenging task. Kernel developers throw a new tool and an alternate kernel tree at the problem.
Brazil to receive first OLPC notebooks, 11/07/06
Brazil is due to receive the first 50 functional notebooks developed by the One Laptop per Child project.
Dell customer gets Windows refund, 11/07/06
Dell today gave freelance programmer and sysadmin Dave Mitchell, of Sheffield, UK, a refund of 47 pounds ($89) for the unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 bundled with his new Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, Mitchell says.
LiMux The Penguin: Deep into Munich’s Linux F/OSS migration, 11/06/06
Munich’s Linux migration has been a publicity frenzy, a software patent poster child, and the subject of a debate on the role of government in technology mandates. Now it’s a real-life IT project, and the key to success is training, management, and replacing 170 non-Linux applications.
Web 2.0 Conference Preview: Tools that make the collaborative web work for you, 11/06/06
Outside the 650 area code, you might be able to go out for dinner without overhearing three Web 2.0 conversations, but new web technologies and business methods can still help your business. In our coverage of the upcoming Web 2.0 conference, we’ll look at what the social networking, web services, open collaboration, and powerful browser features.
Xen embraces Windows, 11/06/06
Here is yet more evidence that the virtualization market is maturing as VMware competitors advance their technology: The open source Xen virtualization project will soon support Windows.
Linux desktop vendors show worthy alternatives, 11/06/06
Vista be damned. Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu are showing the world that Linux is getting its desktop house in order.
Spiceworks offering up new net management freebie, 11/06/06
Spiceworks this week plans to make available a new version of its management software free for download for small to midsize customers looking to add helpdesk and community capabilities into their daily monitoring of IT systems.
Microsoft-Novell pact: who wins . . . who loses, 11/03/06
The business and technology partnership unveiled this week by Microsoft and Novell is a multi-dimensional union that reaches deep into the open source community, slaps at rivals of both vendors and could potentially aid Microsoft in its European Union lawsuit.
LinuxWorld Community
Dell’s Windows refund is a topic of discussion on LinuxWorld Community this week. We review the letter that Dave Mitchell sent the company in order to get a refund for the unused Microsoft software bundled with his laptop, and cover the three aspects of Dell’s Linux laptop friendliness: hardware warranty service, driver development, and now refund precedent.
This week’s LinuxWorld Podcast features an interview with Beowulf inventor Donald Becker, who walks us through the steps of how a Scyld Beowulf cluster boots its nodes free of all software, then deploys applications and libraries to nodes as they’re needed.
