Viewing newswire

Your answers also showed us just how diverse the readership here is. Not only did we see a lot of you offering up the usual suspects, such as Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora, we also got reminders of Linux’s rich history. It was somewhat gratifying to discover that some who visit here first tried Linux using long gone but not forgotten distros such as Yggdrasil and Soft Landing System.

What is new since the last release? Both Firefox and Thunderbird are not pre-installed any more into the static Squashfs of the live system. Instead, the upstream archives are now shipped separately on the ISO image within the top level 'custom' folder. These archives are then automatically unpacked at runtime of the live session or during installation to disk. This not only enables users to easily replace the contained English-language Mozilla applications with different language versions, but also allows for updating these release versions with newer ones.

It's been a very hard week, putting out two variants of the JULinux distribution. JULinuXP and JULinOX_OS for Mac users. Two different interfaces, for two different types of users, both are very fast, and don't need compiz. Both protect your privacy and keep your private data secure online...

What's more important: Ubuntu's success in cloud computing or on mobile devices? The answer is both, according to Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth. During a quick conversation with me at the recent OpenStack Summit, Shuttleworth said Ubuntu must succeed both in the cloud and mobile worlds. Here's why.

Designing interfaces to deal with storage technologies is not only hard, it’s terrifying. This is especially true if you aren’t familiar with the storage technologies involved and have to learn how they work on-the-fly, even if you don’t have easy or any access to work with some of these (typically quite expensive) technologies first-hand.

CES is about technology of all kinds; while we're busy covering cameras, TVs, and CPUs, there's a huge number of products that fall outside our normal coverage. Austin-based startup TrackingPoint isn't typical Ars fare, but its use of technology to enable getting just the perfect shot was intriguing enough to get me to stop by and take a look at the company's products.

TrackingPoint makes "Precision Guided Firearms, or "PGFs," which are a series of three heavily customized hunting rifles, ranging from a .300 Winchester Magnum with a 22-inch barrel up to a .338 Lapua Magnum with 27-inch barrel, all fitted with advanced computerized scopes that look like something directly out of The Terminator. Indeed, the comparison to that movie is somewhat apt, because looking through the scope of a Precision Guided Firearm presents you with a collection of data points and numbers, all designed to get a bullet directly from point A to point B.

In this part of tutorial we will see how to create Android virtual devices, create a project and deploy it.

In which we debunk the silly canard that Linux does not innovate, but merely imitates. And as a free bonus, suggest meaningful ways to contribute other than cranking out yet more Ubuntu respins

Linux is a very strong platform for budding artists, photographers, animators, and designers. With inexpensive hardware, free software, and a modicum of talent and inspiration, anyone can create professional-looking computer graphics.There is a huge range of Open Source software available to create, modify and convert 2D and 3D computer graphics. To provide an insight into the software that is available, here is a compiled a list of http://en.digitalkamera.com/25-best-free-linux-graphics-soft... >25 high quality Linux graphics applications. The vast majority of the software featured here sport an attractive graphical front-end, although we have not neglected console based applications.

In addition to his first e-mail to me, David Gurvich adds more about his experiences with Intel i830m video in Linux and PC-BSD/FreeBSD: I did think the problems with FreeBSD were due to using PC-BSD and installing a lightweight desktop on top. After testing with a bare install that turns out to not be the case and the issue is with FreeBSD and has nothing to do with the scripts that PC-BSD uses.

Nessus is a proprietary comprehensive vulnerability scanning tool. It is free of charge for personal use in a non-enterprise environment. Its goal is to detect potential vulnerabilities on the tested systems. Tanable Network Security announced the release of Nessus 4.2.0 last month. Nessus is now using a web based interface to manage scans and their results. Scan results and policies are now stored on the server. Additionally you can now compare the current scan with „older“ scans.

Custom Linux provider Xandros will release a free Linux OS called"Freespire 5" during the fourth quarter of 2008. This next version of Freespire will be based on the Debian GNU/Linux"Lenny" release rather than the Ubuntu Linux platform Freespire 4 uses. The move spearheads a new Xandros consolidated desktop strategy following its acquisition in July of Linspire, the developer of the CNR software distribution platform.

The time is right for Linux and Open Source company absorption into large corporations. Which companies will be left standing in 2010? Don't get too attached to your favorites.

Linspire, the distribution originally launched as Lindows, is no more, says Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos. Xandros purchased Linspire, the company, earlier this summer. This week, the company announced that it was going to revamp community distribution Freespire, basing its next version on Debian instead of Ubuntu, and using it as a precursor for Xandros Desktop Professional, in much the same way Red Hat uses Fedora and SUSE uses openSUSE. But the company didn't need multiple for-pay desktop distributions, so Linspire is getting the boot.

LXer Feature: 13-Jul-2008

In this week's Roundup we have a slew of Microsoft related articles ranging from more MS-Yahoo! fallout to keeping a report in the UK from going public. A OpenSUSE 11.0 review, VMware Ousts CEO Diane Greene, The Swiss Army Distro, Xandros buys Linspire - What does it mean for Linux? and on a sad note longtime Linux evangelist Joe Barr passes away.

Xandros bought Linspire the other day, and nobody really noticed. Neither Xandros nor Linspire has won the hearts and minds of Linux users or developers. Both are sold as Linux for the Windows user. Both sell versions of GNU/Linux that are easy to install and use, and both have tried, with varying success, to break into the business and consumer desktop market that is currently owned by Microsoft.

As Xandros digests Linspire, what does the deal mean to Linux market leaders like Red Hat, Novell and Ubuntu â?? and would-be Linux customers? Here are some clues from The VAR Guy.

LXer Feature: 06-Jul-2008

The big news this week was Xandros buying Linspire with all the respective fallout included, a review of 11 video players for, Linux's dirty little secret, Glyn Moody's "Sir Bill and Sir Tim: A Tale of Two Knights", Which Linux Distributions Are Dying?, Beyond the desktop with KDE4 and Carla Schroder's Sidux review.

Linspire Shareholders, When I left Linspire there were lots of assets in the company (computers, furniture, servers, trademarks, employees, and millions in cash), and virtually no liablities. What happened to these assets and cash? I have been contacted by several Linspire employees and shareholders, asking me what the Linspire asset sale to Xandros means. I put together this short video using "buckets" to try and explain what happened in very simple terms, based on what information was provided in the 3-paragraph "memorandum."

Michael Robertson, chairman of Linspire, said the assets of his company were sold to Xandros after "years of frustration in trying to achieve the goal of desktop Linux." Robertson couldn't disclose the terms of the deal with Xandros, a rival Linux distributor, but said Linspire's Click'N'Run download technology would fit in well with Xandros' own bid to establish Linux on end-user machines. To date, its biggest success has been on the Asus Eee PC, a small notebook with long battery life and a low price tag from Taiwanese laptop maker Asustek Computer. It comes with either Xandros Linux or Windows XP.

Linspire is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Xandros. The companies had been talking about a deal for some time, and they became more serious toward the end of last year, according to Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos. The acquisition, he said, will help Xandros expand in both the mobile and enterprise Linux spaces.

Today Linux desktop manufacturer Xandros acquired Linspire for an undisclosed amount. Xandros will also be keeping existing engineering, support, and key sales employees and long-time Linspire employee and CEO Larry Kettler will be joining the Xandros executive team as the VP of Business Development. While Xandros didn't mention their total employee numbers Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos claims Xandros to be the third largest Linux company in the world after the acquisition. Former Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony has some harsh criticism of the deal on his blog.

In math, two negatives make a positive. In the fledgling world of desktop Linux, unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the case. According to reports from OStatic and others, Xandros is buying Linspire. Who cares, you ask?

In what seems like a battle of ants in a case full of lions, Practical Technology has learned that Xandros has bought Linspire. "In an announcement that was sent out today, June 30, to Linspire stockholders, CEO Larry Kettler wrote that the stockholders had decided to sell all of Linspire's assets. This deal specifically includes Linspire, Freespire, and the company's distribution agnostic CNR (Click 'N Run) desktop installation platform." Not everyone is very happy with this one, though.

Many people don't realize the wealth of applications that are available for Linux. I am asked all the time about X and/or Y application on Windows and whether there's an equivalent on Linux. Most of the time the answer is yes. The arena of finance is no exception. Plenty of outstanding financial applications are available for the Linux operating system. From personal finance to business finance, there is an application for nearly every need. Let's take a look at the top Linux financial applications.

It was just over a year ago that Microsoft Corp. dropped a bombshell of a claim: users of Linux and open-source software were unwittingly violating as many as 235 Microsoft software patents. "This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, told Fortune magazine at the time. "There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed."

[Maybe someone needs to look at our list of Patents that Microsoft might be infringing upon. - Scott]

Linspire, the San Diego, Calif.-based Linux distributor, is continuing to build up its CNR (Click-N-Run) software installation system with partnerships with Ubuntu parent Canonical and the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint distribution. Linspire recently announced that its beta CNR service now supports the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron release and Linux Mint versions 4.0 and 5.

The members of the Firebird Project team are proud to announce the release of Firebird 2.1, a full release containing many sought-after new features including database monitoring, global temporary tables, database triggers and dozens of new internal functions.

LXer Feature: 27-Apr-2008

In this week's Roundup we have several Microsoft related articles including, extending the life of XP to parry the Linux threat, Office 2007 fails OXML test and MSN users find out that they get to re-buy all the music they purchased from MSN Music. Also, an interview with Kurt Denke - the man who shut up Monster Cable and a ton of Ubuntu related articles because of the Hardy Heron release. Also there are three LXer features, The Biggest Blunder, an intro to secure web data Input, and Accurate market share statistics and The $60 Billion dollar question for your reading pleasure as well.

Linspire announced a new version of its CNR (Click'N'Run) software management system that supports the Ubuntu 8.04 ("HardyHeron") release, expected to take flight on Apr. 24. The client enables users to install, uninstall, and update desktop Linux software available on Linspire's CNR.com download site.

After failing to get any response from Linspire as to why they are not holding annual shareholder meetings, I asked them publicly to do so in my last blog, in a hopes that pressure from customers, partners and shareholders would encourage them to do the right thing. Their lack of responsiveness only heightens my concern with Linspire's present management and the company's future prospects. As a shareholder, seeing Linspire's new management destroying the company gives me great concern. This week I am working on my next blog which will outline the facts as to what Linspire has done since my resignation.

I was thrilled to see Linspire continue to work on its CNR service. While our visions for this product vary, in the end, Linspire and I hope to see this as yet another viable, standardized alternative to using other package managers for those who choose to do so. With that said, there are still some very important things that must be addressed. And unfortunately, Linspire has decided to ignore them.

LXer Feature: 23-Mar-2008

In this week's roundup we have an early look at KDE 4.1, the Supreme Court rejects Microsoft's Novell appeal - 12 years later! 25 Simple Games for Linux, CodeWeavers to release CrossOver Games, A Wine 1.0 release in our lifetime and reviews of Spicebird and Clonezilla. To wrap things up we have two FUD articles, an old argument about Linux viruses and Apple fixes some Open Source Vulnerabilities.

Frozen-Bubble has blissfully stolen hours and hours of my life with its addictive gameplay and flippin' awesome soundtrack. It's an easy game with a simple premise: shoot colors bubbles onto the game board in an attempt to match up three or more similarly colored bubbles. Doing so will cause them to fall from the board, taking connected bubbles with them. If you clear all of the bubbles, you move on to the next level. If the bubbles pile up and cover the entire screen, you lose the game and restart the entire level.

LXer Feature: 10-Feb-2008

This weeks Roundup has several sections this week for your reading pleasure, Linus gets quoted a lot, Microsoft cuts off access to old formats, Is MS Office adware?, Google chimes in on the Microsoft- Yahoo merger plus more. KDE 4.0.1 hits the streets, How to boot Linux in less than 40 seconds and in our FUD section a voice in the dark proclaims there is no year of the Linux desktop. Look for a SCALE roundup tomorrow where I will have pictures and a collection of SCALE related articles.

Linspire, the company behind the commercial Linspire and the Freespire community desktop Linux, announced Jan. 31 that it was offering a new custom desktop Linux Build Service to its partners. The service is designed to make it easier for resellers and white box vendors to quickly deliver affordable custom desktop Linux configurations to customers. Linspire has courted this market for many years. Indeed, Linspire, its commercial Linux, is for all intents and purposes a reseller, rather than end-user, desktop Linux.

Linspire is now offering customized desktops to customers. It's Linux's modular, open philosophy that makes this popular. Fat chance of Microsoft or Apple ever offering a customized desktop solution.

The latest entry into the Linux-powered low-cost PC space is a Sears/Linspire box that features the Freespire version of the propretary-friendly operating system, with specs that seem to beat the $199 Everex PC featuring the gOS version of Linux and selling through Wal-Mart.

The gPC has gotten a lot of attention, but it still has its flaws such as minimal hardware and a relatively untested Linux distribution. The new Linspire PC solves some of those flaws.

Linspire's "one-click" web and client based easy installation service is expanding its offerings to include support for Ubuntu and soon for Debian, OpenSUSE, and Fedora. The service is designed to make installation of free and commercial software easy and always the same, no matter what distribution you are using.

It's been over a year since Linspire announced a free version of the CNR (Click'N'Run) software management system for its own Linuxes -- Freespire and Linspire -- as well as others, such as Ubuntu, but the project is finally open to all as a beta.

Linspire has announced the beta of CNR.com, its online tool for easily installing Linux-based software onto the desktop.

New Ideas Corp. and Nuxified.org have announced a partnership to offer community-level software support for Linux-preloaded PCs from C3PC.

I have been experimenting with many different Linux distributions over the last month as I posted here and here. In my review of the various distributions, I was looking for ease of install and ease of use as the most important factors in my personal ranking system. I believe for Linux to win the desktop war over the next few years they have to appeal to more then just the technical folks who can install distros in their sleep and are wizards at the command line. With that said, here are the distributions I tested:

A while back the good folks behind Freespire, the free version of Linspire, sent me a CD with version 2.0 for me to review. I was very happy to look at it as Linspire has been a leader in getting preloaded Linux systems into retail and online outlets, something I believe is critical for mainstream Linux adoption.

Do you see what is happening here? Whether or not Linspire understands what is going on, Canonical is prepping to pick-up where Linspire left off. It will be a new means of software distribution, but bundled in a much more widely used distribution of Linux.

Last week I wrote the first part of this series which discussed the installation of Mepis, Kubuntu, OpenSuse, and Freespire on my laptops. Now that I have had time to play with each of the operating systems I would like to discuss my impressions of the different distributions. I have not spent any time on OpenSuse yet so I will leave it out of the discussion.

LXer Feature: 21-Oct-2007

Some of the big stories this week include Linux vs. Windows Power Usage, Microsoft gets two licences approved by the OSI, Kevin Carmony switches to Ubuntu and on top of all that we have a slew of LXer features including a couple of reports from T-DOSE, Carla Schroder continues her series on Digital Photography and a reader submitted article with some advice for those trying to decide between Windows or Linux.

The sincerest complement a Linux distribution can get is when the onetime CEO of a rival Linux company switches to that distribution. That’s exactly what happened when Kevin Carmony, former CEO of Linux desktop distributor Linspire, publicly announced that he’s switched to Ubuntu.

Former Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony has shown all the loyalty of a free agent athlete. Just a few months after resigning from Linspire, Carmony has traded in his old company's Linux operating system for Ubuntu.