Enterprise / Open Source News

Friday, September 21 2007

o3magazine launches enterprise Open Source news site

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93083 (20070922 04:37)

o3 magazine, the enterprise Open Source magazine, today announced a beta of its news portal, o3news. The portal is designed to track all Open Source enterprise-related news. The service guarantees 24/7 coverage across timezones thanks to a globally distributed staff. o3news.com monitors over 25 news sources to keep you updated with enterprise news as it happens. You can read the news online at o3news.com or subscribe to its RSS feed (http://o3news.com/o3news.rss).

Got more than a gig of RAM and 32-bit Linux? Here's how to use it

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93087 (20070922 02:15)

Nowadays, many machines are running with 2-4 gigabytes of RAM, and their owners are discovering a problem: When they run 32-bit GNU/Linux distributions, their extra RAM is not being used. Fortunately, correcting the problem is only a matter of installing or building a kernel with a few specific parameters enabled or disabled.

Linus Torvalds hates C++

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Linus_Torvalds_hates_C (20070922 02:10)

C++ is a horrible language. It’s made more horrible by the fact that a lotof substandard programmers use it, to the point where it’s much mucheasier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even ifthe choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.

First look at Lenovo's ultra efficient A61e

http://www.linux.com/feed/119377 (20070922 01:15)

Just a few days ago Lenovo made a number of headlines when they announced their newest desktop, the ThinkCentre A61e. This "Ultrasmall Form Factor" system is not only small, but it was touted as Lenovo's most efficient desktop. A lot of the excitement about it was because it was said that the system could be powered by an optional solar panel, but the bigger news was that this desktop surpasses the EPA's Energy Star 4.0 criteria and that it received gold status from EPEAT. Small form factor fans were probably the most impressed by the fact that they were seeing a Mini-ITX system from Lenovo that started at $399 and it Linux-certified.

Kernel hacker writes Linux book

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2585753304.html (20070922 00:33)

Long-time kernel hacker Robert Love has authored a technical book on low-level system programming with Linux. Published by O'Reilly, Linux System Programming aims to provide a Linux-only version of the many available Unix system programming references.

ClearSpeed plots 1 TeraFlop floating point pizza box

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/1u_teraflop_clearspeed/ (20070922 00:07)

1U rocket ship

IDF Floating point whiz ClearSpeed continues to round out its software play ahead of several major product upgrades.…

Mandriva Linux 2008 RC2 Released

http://osnews.com/story.php/18655/Mandriva-Linux-2008-RC2-Released/ (20070921 23:16)

Mandriva Linux 2008 RC2 'Kepler' was released today. New features since the release of RC1 include the final release of GNOME 2.20, the inclusion of the new 8.41.7 version of ATI's proprietary driver in the non-free repository to support Radeon HD cards, significant kernel updates that improve support for certain ATA controllers and many audio chipsets, some new features in the urpmi and rpmdrake package management tools, and over 500 bug fixes since RC2. Download information and more is available on the full release information page here, the overall Mandriva Linux 2008 release notes are here, and a guide to the new features of Mandriva Linux 2008 is here.

Hitachi admits hybrid drives aren't all that, bag of chips

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/hitachi_admits_hybrid_drives_do_not_deliver/ (20070921 21:47)

Current capacity falls short of expectations

The concept of so-called hybrid hard drives created buzz in the storage world from the moment Microsoft opened its mouth about them back in 2004.…

ARM9-based device dev kit runs Linux

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2777589159.html (20070921 21:23)

A small Italian company specializing in gaming hardware is offering a Linux-friendly, SODIMM-sized processor module/baseboard combo. Duolabs's "Eskido" module has a 180MHz ARM9 processor and secure EEPROM, while the baseboard offers PCMCIA and Smartcard I/O, with programmability via a Xilinx FPGA.

Next generation Wi-Fi mired in patent fears

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/802_11n_patent_threat/ (20070921 21:07)

802.11n standard 'at serious risk'

Exclusive The IEEE working group developing the 802.11n Wi-Fi is holding urgent meetings this week to discuss a significant threat to the standard from patents held by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Despite requests from the IEEE, CSIRO has failed to promise not to sue anyone for infringement.…

Largo still loves Linux

http://www.linux.com/feature/119109 (20070921 21:00)

LARGO, FLA. -- This small city on Florida's Gulf Coast runs one of the most cost-effective municipal IT departments around. I last wrote about Largo's Linux-based client-server network in 2002. A lot has changed for Largo's computer-using city employees since then, and even more changes are in the works.

IP phone design runs Linux

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6655107211.html (20070921 20:51)

A large embedded consulting house in Japan has started shipping a hardware reference design for handheld IP (Internet protocol) phones. Based on a Marvell PXA310 ("Monahans-LV") processor clocked at 624MHz, Sophia Systems's Sandgate 3-P design runs Linux, including Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition, or Windows CE/Mobile 6.

Eight Must-Have Linux Applications

http://www.linux.com/feed/119376 (20070921 20:30)

A zillion Linux applications are available. Here are our picks. And they're free.

Why Linux Is Already A Success - Open Source Blog - InformationWeek

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Why_Linux_Is_Already_A_Success_Open_Source_Blog_InformationWeek (20070921 20:20)

I find this to be a more sensible and balanced view of the success of GNU/Linux. It's a rebuttal to a recent Information Week article slamming Linux on the desktop as a "failure".

HP closes $1.6 billion Opsware deal

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/092107-opsware-hp-deal.html?fsrc=netflash-rss (20070921 20:20)

HP closes the deal to acquire Opsware, which gives the industry giant a quick ramp to offering customers data center automation.

OSI Asks Microsoft to Change the MS-PL

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/159599704/article.pl (20070921 20:12)

Xenographic writes "The OSI has identified two significant flaws in the Microsoft Permissive License, and is unlikely to approve it as an OSI license in its current state. Specifically, the OSI is worried about the way the MS-PL is incompatible with so many other OSI-approved licenses and how misleading that makes the term 'permissive' in the license's name. Now the ball is in Microsoft's court and they can choose to amend or withdraw it from consideration. From the article: 'The MPL is also particularly restrictive, and is uniquely incompatible with the maximum number of other open-source licenses, [president of OSI Michael Tiemann] said, noting that in its examination of license proliferation, the OSI had encouraged experimentation with license terms to encourage new ones to be written that were better than what currently existed.'"

Intel open-source project to make Linux better

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Intel_open_source_project_to_make_Linux_better (20070921 19:40)

Power management in Linux has been difficult to do. On Sept. 20, Intel announced the launch of an open-source community project, LessWatts.org, which is designed to meet the demands for increased energy efficiency from data center servers to personal mobile devices.

IBM's Lotus Symphony is OpenOffice in Eclipse clothing

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93017 (20070921 19:22)

IBM's recently announced embrace of the OpenOffice.org productivity suite project has already borne fruit, with the beta release of IBM's free Lotus Symphony. Does the new word processor, spreadsheet and presentation trio have what it takes to put the Lotus brand back on the office application map?

Mini system combines Core Duo, ETX, PC/104

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5754639837.html (20070921 18:14)

Acces I/O has announced what's claimed to be one of the smallest complete embedded systems featuring a Core Duo processor. The NANO I/O Server CD employs the company's innovative ETX-NANO-104 baseboard, combining an ETX processor module with PC/104-Plus expansion.

One plug to rule them all

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/omtp_data_standard/ (20070921 17:29)

Mobiles to adopt single connection standard, eventually, possibly

The Open Mobile Terminal Alliance (OMTP) has published a recommendation paper suggesting that mobile phone manufacturers all use micro USB connectors to charge, and connect, their handsets.…

Who's writing Linux?

http://www.linux.com/feed/119367 (20070921 17:00)

The Linux kernel project's "git" revision control tool offers up some numbers on which developers, and which companies, contributed the most code to Linux, and who's reviewing other people's code.

HP To Expand Effort On Linux PCs

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93027 (20070921 16:46)

Hewlett-Packard, the world's Number 1 PC maker, will try selling pre-loaded Linux on PCs in several countries as it expands a test program -- evaluating a market that some competitors have already entered -- and moves its personal computer business into a new generation of form factors and functionality.

USB Drives in Linux Software RAID0

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93023 (20070921 15:59)

With Solid-State Drives (SSD) on the verge of mass consumer adoption, we're left wondering what kind of performance we're going to see from these drives. We already know SSD's require less power than drives with moving parts, but what kind of performance gains will we see? To get an idea, we took one the faster drives on the market, the OCZ Rally2, and ran it through our benchmarking process. To make things more interesting (and see how much performance we could squeeze from the technology, we're using two drives later in this article to use the drives in a RAID0 configuration.

Less Than 2 Percent of UK Companies Have Upgraded Windows

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/159599713/article.pl (20070921 15:12)

Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that less than 2% of UK-based firms have already upgraded all their desktops to Windows Vista. Just shy of 5% said that they have begun a Windows Vista desktop upgrade program. 6.5% said they will upgrade in the next 6 months; 12.6% in the next 12 months; 13% in the next 18 months; and 18% in the next two years. That means that within two years from now, only 56% of survey respondents say they will have upgraded their firm's desktops to Windows Vista. 'In terms of retail sales of Vista in a box, Ballmer said he believes most of that up-tick is concentrated in the first few months of the software going on sale. He doubted that this would carry over into Microsoft's fiscal 2008, which began in July 2007. Analyst estimates for fiscal 2008 growth in Microsoft's client business unit, which includes Vista, is around the 9% mark. Ballmer said that analysts should consider that rather than creating huge spurts of new growth "a new Windows release is primarily a chance to sustain the revenue we have".'"

Slim Aluminum MacBooks Coming Soon from Apple

http://digg.com/apple/Slim_Aluminum_MacBooks_Coming_Soon_from_Apple (20070921 15:10)

Details from the same people who had accurate info on the latest iPods.

Allot intros big bandwidth shaper

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/allot_sg/ (20070921 15:02)

Killing off the application-independent internet

Allot Communications, an Israeli outfit which does high-end bandwidth shaping and network traffic management gear, has brought out an even bigger Service Gateway device. Aimed at the service provider (SP) or large enterprise, this is capable of handling over 20 Gbit/s of traffic.…

How does Linux-based virtualization compare with VMware & MS Virtual Server?

http://www.linux.com/feed/119354 (20070921 15:00)

Lately, there has been a lot of attention in the industry on the current (and future) virtualization products from VMware and Microsoft. However, the latest Linux distributions from Red Hat and SUSE now also include full range of virtualization capabilities based on the Xen hypervisor. How do they compare with VMware and Microsoft's offerings?

Apple Updates Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to 9A528d

http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Updates_Mac_OS_X_10_5_Leopard_to_9A528d (20070921 14:50)

After nearly a month without an update, Apple has delivered a Leopard update to developers. First, a new version of the Leopard Software Update Client has been seeded through Leopard's Mac OS X Software Update. Once this new Software Update tool is installed, Apple also provides Mac OS X Leopard C...

The next horizon: How Red Hat used yum to overcome RPM dependency hell (video)

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93028 (20070921 14:24)

A quick look at how and why yum replaced up2date as Red Hat Networks package management system, as told by Bret McMillan, a supervising RHN engineer. Its a quick study of how user need drives innovation and how community collaboration solves problems faster and more completely than individual work.

New site aims to cut power bills for Intel-based Linux users

http://www.linux.com/feature/119362 (20070921 14:00)

The Open Source Technology Center (OSTC) at Intel has launched a Web site, LessWatts.org, to help Linux users maximize power savings. The site hosts several open source projects, and shares tips and tricks to help optimize power consumption on hardware from portable devices running on batteries to large data centers.

Comodo lets consumers 'hunt' buffer overflow bugs

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/comodo_bo_test/ (20070921 12:34)

BO test bit whiffy

Security firm Comodo, best known for its digital certificate business, has released a free diagnostic tool designed to identify buffer overflows in desktop security products. Our try-out, however, suggests that Comodo's BO Tester is principally designed to help poach users than provide a detailed breakdown of bugs.…

How does Linux-based virtualization really compare with VMware & MS Virtual Server?

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93034 (20070921 11:33)

Open source software for architects

http://www.linux.com/feature/119278 (20070921 09:00)

When I began my career as an assistant architect 12 years ago, I used AutoCAD R12, 3D Studio, CorelDraw 6.0, and Photoshop 4.0 for architectural drawing and 3-D modeling. Today, many architects still use their later versions, but those bulky packages provide many functions an architect will never use. Luckily, there are several open source alternatives that are well-suited for architects -- QCad in place of AutoCAD, Blender instead of 3DMax, Inkscape in place of CorelDraw, and the GIMP as a substitute for Photoshop.

World's Five Biggest SANs

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/159426815/article.pl (20070921 08:16)

An anonymous reader writes "ByteandSwitch is searching the World's Biggest SANs, and has compiled a list of 5 candidate with networks supports 10+ Petabytes of active storage. Leading the list is JPMorgan Chase, which uses a mix of IBM and Sun equipment to deliver 14 Pbytes for 170k employees. Also on the list are the U.S. DoD, which uses 700 Fibre Channel switches, NASA, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (it's got 18 Pbytes of tape! storage), and Lawrence Livermore."

New Mac Pro & Cinema Display lineup coming soon

http://digg.com/apple/New_Mac_Pro_Cinema_Display_lineup_coming_soon (20070921 05:40)

"A new lineup of Mac Pros and Apple Cinema Displays are arriving in Q1 2008 and will be announced in Macworld 2008. As far as we know, the Mac Pros will be housed in the same aluminum casing, but the baseline processor speeds, RAM and hard drives are to be improved. Also, all models will be 8 (2×4) core Xeons..."

GNOME 2.20 shows significant improvement

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93006 (20070921 05:15)

GNOME 2.20 was released yesterday. Even though I use GNOME regularly, I normally don't get excited over new releases, because most seem to offer little more substance than previous versions, with most of the work being done under the hood. This time, though, GNOME has a solid list of new features and upgrades. It's worth taking a look at even if you aren't a fan of this desktop environment.

E.U. May Face Complaint Over New Tech Tariffs

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/cio/feed/solutions/1375/~3/159457062/E.U._May_Face_Complaint_Over_New_Tech_Tariffs (20070921 05:00)

A U.S. government official played down reports that the U.S. is considering taking the European Union to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the imposition of new duties on high-tech imports such as flat-screen monitors and digital set-top boxes.

Oracle Posts Big Gains for Quarter

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/cio/feed/solutions/1375/~3/159452271/Oracle_Posts_Big_Gains_for_Quarter (20070921 05:00)

New software licensing revenue growth—the highest in 10 years for the company—helped boost Oracle's first quarter financials.

Exploiting Web 2.0: The Barbarians Inside the Firewall

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/cio/feed/solutions/1374/~3/159596226/Exploiting_Web_._The_Barbarians_Inside_the_Firewall (20070921 05:00)

Web 2.0 makes businesses vulnerable to a new class of security threats—attackers using Web browsers and Web traffic to sneak undetected past legacy firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and URL filters.

Global Wi-Fi Hotspot Use on the Rise, Driven By Business

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/cio/feed/solutions/1375/~3/159577058/Global_Wi_Fi_Hotspot_Use_on_the_Rise_Driven_By_Business_ (20070921 05:00)

CIOs and other mobile businesspeople are driving the use of Wi-Fi hotspots across the world to new highs, and the airports and hotels they pass through on their travels are the places they connect most often, according to a recent report.

Xen With Graphical User Interface On A Fedora 7 Desktop

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=92995 (20070921 04:39)

This document describes how to set up Xen on Fedora 7. Xen enables the paravirtualization of your hardware for its virtual machines if you have a CPU with Vanderpool (Intel) or Pacifica (AMD) technology. The paravirtualization provides high performance to your virtual machines. Fedora's virt-manager provides an easy to use GUI for setting up and managing your virtual machines. It does not have the extensive features like VMware Server, but the basics are in place.

Comcast speaks out on bandwidth caps, says they only affect 0.01% of users

http://digg.com/tech_news/Comcast_speaks_out_on_bandwidth_caps_says_they_only_affect_0_01_of_users (20070921 04:30)

Bandwidth caps have been a hot topic of discussion recently, and much of the talk has turned towards Comcast's mysterious bandwidth limits. Ars talks to Comcast in an attempt to get more insight into how the company's limits actually function.

Fanless system uses EPIC SBCs

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9051622983.html (20070921 02:31)

Ampro has introduced a fanless computer based on either of two EPIC form-factor single-board computers (SBCs). With CPU power up to a 1.4 MHz Pentium, the ReadySystem Fanless targets "harsh environments that are dusty and dirty, or require ... noise free operation."

Discontinuation of SUSE Linux 10.0

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=93010 (20070921 02:31)

SUSE Security announces that SUSE Linux 10.0 will be discontinued soon. Having provided security-relevant fixes for more than two years, vulnerabilities found in SUSE Linux 10.0 after November 15th 2007 will not be fixed any more for this product. Expect the last updates around November 30th 2007.

Next-gen Intel vPro platform to get hardware encryption

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/21/intel_vpro_danbury/ (20070921 01:39)

Desperate Danbury

IDF Intel's next-generation 'Eaglelake' chipset family, due for release next year, will feature a built-in data protection engine with the ability to encrypt all the files on your hard drive, the chip giant announced this week.…

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