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Source: DistroWatch.com: News

FreeBSD 8.1 was formally announced after a few days of its appearance on world-wide mirrors: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.0 and introduces .

Source: DistroWatch.com: News

Linux Deepin is a Chinese community distribution based on Ubuntu and designed for desktop users. After three release candidates, Linux Deepin 10.06 was announced today. It is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and a fresh installation (instead of upgrade from version 9.12) is recommended for users. It supports .

Source: Linux Today

PCPro UK: "Dell has stopped selling consumer PCs preloaded with Ubuntu from its website (UK), and doesn't know when they're coming back."

Source: Linux Today

Some days there just isn't anything to say!

Source: Linux Today

Montana Linux: "I first blogged about webm the day Google released it. It has taken some time but now I have full support for webm in my preferred Linux desktop distro (Fedora 13). I've been doing some testing and I have to say I'm impressed."

Source: Linux Today

Enterprise Storage Forum: "It's been a period of tremendous evolution for flash, but I believe dark clouds are forming on the horizon. Let's start with a little history to help me make my point."

Source: Linux Today

Moscow Times: "The government is hoping to launch the first version of a "national operating system" for its computers as early as next year, a senior Communications and Press Ministry official said Thursday."

Source: Linux Today

Lone Wolves: "A short while ago Ty W posted an interesting question on StackOverflow. Apparently, most graphics software cannot scale images the right way. Usually it's hard to notice the flaw but the linked article does a great job of explaining the problem."

Source: Linux Today

Tech Drive-In: "Canola is a open source media center application which was primarily built for smart phones and netbook devices. To be frank, I had never heard about Canola before and so I decided to give Canola Media Center a spin in my laptop powered by Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx."

Source: Linux Today

The Inquirer: "THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT has cooked up a $35 touchscreen laptop pitched at students."

Source: Linux Today

Linux.com: "PulseAudio is a Linux sound server that, through abstraction layers, promises a myriad of flexible audio features: combining multiple sound cards into a single, multi-channel device, changing output devices on the fly for running applications, even redirecting input and output between machines over the network."

Source: Linux Today

Sander's Photography blog: "Both digiKam and Aperture deliver excellent results if it comes to batch processing of your images. However, the look and feel of batch processing is entirely different between the two applications and as we will see, their implementation is also very different."

Source: Linux Today

Phoronix: "Back in January, we published the first benchmarks of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD: the spin of Debian that replaces the Linux kernel with the FreeBSD kernel while retaining most of the same GNU user-land and it uses the GNU C library. With those original tests comparing Debian GNU/Linux to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, the Linux version ended up winning in 18 of the 27 tests."

Source: Linux Today

OStatic: "The world of open source has come a long way, but keeping an eye on what is going on outside of the open source arena can show that there are still areas where we need to improve. Here are three tools from IBM and Apple that I would love to see incorporated into the next great Linux distribution."

Source: Linux Today

Tech Comics: "What does it take to cause iPhone 4 antenna reception problems? "

Source: Linux Today

Digital Trends: "A hiccup at Dell's service parts department saw a number of motherboards with malware-infected firmware go out the door to customers.b"

Source: Linux Today

LA Times: "Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal, who has been leading the month-old investigation, sent a third letter to Google on Wednesday asking, among other things, whether it had tested the feature's software before putting it to use. Doing so, he said, should have uncovered any glitches responsible for the unwarranted collection of e-mails, passwords and other personal data "

Source: Linux Today

Mark on WordPress: "It is the position of the WordPress core developers that themes cannot be considered wholly original creations even when they don't copy large sections of code in from WordPress. Theme code necessarily derives from WordPress and thus must be licensed under the GPL if it is distributed."

Source: Linux Today

PC World: "On Friday, an open source effort to develop GSM-cracking software released software that cracks the A5/1 encryption algorithm used by some GSM networks. Called Kraken, this software uses new, very efficient, encryption cracking tables that allow it to break A5/1 encryption much faster than before."

Source: Linux Today

LinuxDevices: "System76 has updated its Linux-based netbook to the Atom N455 processor as well as making it thinner and lighter. The Ubuntu 10.04 version of the 10.1-inch Starling NetBook offers more memory (2GB), a larger standard hard drive (250GB), faster Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), and is available in a school-focused "EduBook" version."

Source: Linux Today

OMG Ubuntu: "OMG! reader Sebastian stopped by the OMG! Mailbox to drop off a link to this immensely impressive Dell/Ubuntu promotional video that, curiously, I - nor anyone I showed this to prior to posting - had ever come across previously."

Source: Linux Today

Developer.com: "Facebook connects its 500 million users using an array of open source software to enable social networking as well as data intelligence. Facebook's open source Web serving infrastructure has a lot more than just the traditional LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack behind it."

Source: Linux Today

OStatic: "Over the years I've come to appreciate the value of simplicity in systems administration. The more simple a setup is, the more likely it will be stable and easy to fix and maintain."

Source: Linux Today

Linux Pro Magazine: "When it comes to filers and pilers, I firmly belong to the latter category. I do like to keep all my disparate data -- notes, links, to-dos, etc. -- in one application, so when I need to find something, I have to look in one place."

Source: Linux Today

Desktop Linux Reviews: "Ubuntu regularly spawns all kinds of different derivative distros. Some are officially supported and some are not. Last week I looked at Ubuntu Satanic Edition. This week I decided to review Sabily 10.04, which is the Muslim edition of Ubuntu."

Source: Linux Today

Linux User and Developer: "By its very nature, open source software qualifies as some of the most translated on the planet. If you want to seek a global audience for your software, it is very important that you localise your application for your users. Here's how "

Source: Slashdot: Linux

lunatic1969 writes "I've got an old G5 PowerPC tower that's sitting in a spare room not seeing much in the way of use. I'd like to stick a Linux distribution on it and maybe breathe some life back into it. I've got a few vague ideas — it might be a handy file server, streaming video for a security system, or simply just to have a spare box around. My question is therefore in two parts: First, are there any particularly creative projects or ideas anyone has for an old G5, and second and most important, which distribution currently offers the best support for this box?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot: Linux

eldavojohn writes "ZDNet blogger Fred Muller notes that a Chinese company called Taobao has become one of the first in the country to participate in open source. After years of Chinese companies using Linux, Taobao has announced they are open sourcing TAIR, and they revealed what is believed by Muller to be the first open source repository hosted by a Chinese corporation. Muller tracked down the originator of this information and was also informed that the Linux kernel can expect contributions soon from Taobao. Several people involved with bringing open source to China have expressed concerns over a cultural divide (PDF) in regards to opening your corporation's source code to potential competition. Some people speculated that the culture created by an open source movement was irreversibly foreign to Chinese culture. Taobao is exhibiting cracks in that assumption — exciting times for open source advocates as code contributions to open source become even more multicultural."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot: Linux

NotBornYesterday was one of many readers sending in news that the Indian government has announced it is helping to develop a $35 tablet computer running Linux. "India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011. The government plans to subsidize the tablets so the cost to students could be $20; and eventually, they hope the cost will fall to $10 per unit. India's human resource development minister Kapil Sibal says: 'The motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything.' Using a memory card instead of a hard drive, and running a Linux OS, the designers have managed to keep the price low, and are now looking for manufacturing partners. The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, Web browsing, and video conferencing. It has a solar power option too, which is important in India's less developed areas, though that add-on costs extra."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot: Linux

Hugh Pickens writes "Katherine Noyes writes at LinuxInsider that it may be time for Linus Torvalds to share more of the responsibility for Linux that he's been shouldering. 'If Linux wants to keep up with the competition there is much work to do, more than even a man of Linus's skill [can] accomplish,' argues one user. The 'scalability of Linus' is the subject of a post by Jonathan Corbet wondering if there might there be a Linus scalability crunch point coming. 'The Linux kernel development process stands out in a number of ways; one of those is the fact that there is exactly one person who can commit code to the "official" repository,' Corbet writes. A problem with that scenario is the potential for repeats of what Corbet calls 'the famous "Linus burnout" episode of 1998' when everything stopped for a while until Linus rested a bit, came back, and started merging patches again. 'If Linus is to retain his central position in Linux kernel development, the community as a whole needs to ensure that the process scales and does not overwhelm him,' Corbet adds. But many don't agree. 'Don't be fooled that Linus has to scale — he has to work hard, but he is the team captain and doorman. He has thousands doing most of the work for him. He just has to open the door at the appropriate moment,' writes Robert Pogson, adding that Linus 'has had lots of practice and still has fire in his belly.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Security DevCenter

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes. Cost: Free Microsoft SharePoint has shifted the paradigm in enterprise information management and team collaboration. By empowering knowledge workers, SharePoint can increase worker productivity, improve business process efficiency and streamline business processes. In a recent AIIM study, lack of planning is a key contributor to SharePoint deployment failure. To deliver successful SharePoint projects, effectively managing SharePoint 2007 and 2010 projects is paramount. Executive support, proper planning, and appropriately managing expectations are crucial to ensure SharePoint success. In this interactive session, you will learn how to: Initiate executive excitement, promote organizational buy-in and foster user adoption Develop an effective and practical project management process in deploying SharePoint Apply relevant strategies in mapping business processes to identify SharePoint-based solutions Identify necessary resources to plan, deploy, maintain and support your SharePoint implementation Minimize uncertainty and risk by applying practical scope management techniques The primary audience for this class are executives, managers, analysts, consultants who wish to properly implement SharePoint and immediately reap its organizational benefits. Participants will get presentation notes, checklists, and templates. About Dux Raymond Sy With over 15 years of experience in Information Technology, Dux Raymond Sy has earned a reputation as among the leading experts in leveraging technology to enhance project management. He is currently a managing partner and the chief evangelist of Innovative-e, Inc., a Microsoft-certified, business technology consulting and services company that serves startups to Global 50 clients. As a thought leader in maximizing project team collaboration, he is focused on empowering organizations on how to leverage the benefits of collaborative tools with quantifiable goals such as: Increasing productivity and efficiency, decreasing collaboration redundancies and streamlining electronic communications. In addition, he is Bamboo Nation's resident project management expert. A sought after trainer for Learning Tree International, he has developed and facilitated management and technology training to government organizations, Fortune 500 companies, non-profit institutions in the United States, Bahamas, Barbados, China, the United Kingdom and the Philippines and regularly writes about project management, SharePoint and globalization at MeetDux.com.