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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Network monitoring with Zenoss: A reluctant administrator's guide
12 hours ago
My wife and I have been using (and collecting) computers for years. Now my household now has four physical computers, one of them dual boot. All are on a single internal local area network with five real users plus sundry administrative ones on each. Some of the computers are also running services. I also have two computers sitting in a box, which will probably be added to this mess soon, plus my wife plans to get a laptop. I now manage a network bigger than many small businesses! But I can’t afford to pay a system administrator, and the tedium of “network plumbing” is my least favorite part of computer technology. Surely, there must be a way to automate this mess? Enter Zenoss. -
Convert filenames to lowercase
14 hours ago
Back in the good old days, there was an operating system that didn't seem to think NAME and name were different. The result was that sometimes when you transferred files from a floppy disk (remember them?) created on that Dumb Old System, you would clutter your directory with uppercase filenames. As us Unix old-timers learned a nifty trick to get directory names to sort before filenames in the output of the ls command (namely, start directory names with an uppercase letter), having filenames with uppercase letters was irritating. So I wrote this script ... -
Analyst: Android, Symbian should combine as mobile open source OS
16 hours ago
Analyst Jack Gold of J.Gold Associates says the open Symbian and open Android operating systems should combine into a single open-source operating system for mobile devices. He predicts that such a combination will occur in three to six months. Gold said he based his comments on conditions in the market and not on information that officials in either movement told him. -
Microsoft and its open source plans
18 hours ago
Once again, Microsoft has used the O'Reilly Open Source Convention as a venue to make a key announcement about the company's involvement with open-source initiatives. This year Microsoft is unveiling moves in three areas, including becoming a sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation. -
Announcing Tux3, a new versioning filesystem
20 hours ago
Since everybody seems to be having fun building new filesystems these days, I thought I should join the party. Tux3 is the spiritual and moral successor of Tux2, the most famous filesystem that was never released. In the ten years since Tux2 was prototyped on Linux 2.2.13 we have all learned a thing or two about filesystem design. -
10 ways to make Linux boot faster
1 day, 10 hours ago
Linux rarely needs to be rebooted, but when it does, it’s often slow to boot. Fortunately, there are ways to speed things up. Some of these methods are not terribly difficult (although some, unfortunately, are). -
Traversing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 on System p
1 day, 11 hours ago
So you've been the IBM AIX guru on your team for years now and your bosses have determined that they want to try Linux on System p. The purpose of this article is to introduce Linux to AIX administrators. It will show you what you need to know to make the transition to Linux simpler. -
How Dell is making Ubuntu more attractive
1 day, 11 hours ago
Dell was the first of the major computer manufacturers to support preinstalled Linux, but it's not just preinstalling Linux. The Austin, Texas, company is also adding functionality to Ubuntu Linux on its desktops and laptops. -
Open source telephony: a Fedora-based VoIP server with Asterisk
1 day, 12 hours ago
This article presents a simple VoIP solution using Asterisk, an open source private branch exchange (PBX) product. It shows you how to install Asterisk, configure it using its LDAP backend, and connect to it using the Ekiga software VoIP client and a Cisco 7900 Series VoIP telephone to make calls. -
Web 2.0 fuels open source database boom
1 day, 12 hours ago
The market for open source databases is booming due to new workloads such as RFID projects, rich Web applications and small portals, despite the unwillingness of enterprises to replace their Oracle, DB2 or SQL Server systems with open source, according to new figures from Forrester Research. -
OSCON 2008 in photos
1 day, 13 hours ago
I posted some of the shots I took at OSCON earlier in the week. One of the elements I wanted to capture was the spontaneous opportunities that occur at OSCON when you might find yourself chatting with any number of open source gurus. -
Linux answers the age-old question, "Why is my network slow?"
1 day, 13 hours ago
For every person who has said, "Let's network these two computers" there are many more asking "Why is the network running so slow?" Yet, the ethereal nature of Ethernet has long made computer networks hard to decipher and many a business or home user has longed to peek into the data stream to see just what is going on. You could pay tens of thousands of dollars for the answer -- but we'll do it using freely available tools for Linux. -
Open Web Foundation launched
1 day, 14 hours ago
A coalition of individuals and corporate backers are creating the Open Web Foundation, an attempt to create a home for community-driven specifications following the open source model, similar to the Apache Software Foundation. -
Listen 0.5 - Yet another good GTK audio player
1 day, 14 hours ago
Listen is a not so widely known audio player written in Python and using the GTK toolkit, with an interface similar to the one of Rhythmbox, and including features like a music library, podcasts support, lyrics fetching, Wikipedia integration, and Last.fm song submission. -
Researchers could face legal risks for network snooping
1 day, 15 hours ago
A group of researchers from the University of Colorado and University of Washington could face both civil and criminal penalties for a research project in which they snooped on users of the Tor anonymous proxy network. Should federal prosecutors take interest in the project, the researchers could also face up to 5 years in jail for violating the Wiretap Act. - More News
Linux.com : Features
Is OpenSolaris in hot water?
Here's how it works: Novell owns Unix's IP (intellectual property). SCO sold Unix's IP to Sun. Sun then included some Unix IP into Solaris. Finally, Sun open sourced Solaris as OpenSolaris. Sounds like trouble, doesn't it?
Google Gadgets for Linux -- almost there
Since version 2 came out in 2005, Google Desktop for Windows has included a sidebar that users can fill with screen gadgets, but the Linux version (version 1, from June 2007) provided only indexing and search functions, with no eye candy whatsoever. This has finally changed. Google recently released Google Gadgets for Linux (GGL), which closes the gap between the operating systems. With GGL, you can run as many gadgets as you wish on your screen -- or at least that's the idea. Some flaws still need to be fixed, and not everything works 100% correctly.
OLS: Kernel documentation, and submitting kernel patches
The second of four days at the 10th annual Ottawa Linux Symposium got off to an unusual start as a small bird "assisted" Rob Landley in giving the first talk I attended, called "Where Linux kernel documentation hides." The tweeting bird was polite, only flying over the audience a couple of times and mostly paying attention.
OpenID gets the third degree at OSCON
Is OpenID a panacea, a placebo, or something in between? Opposing viewpoints took turns on center stage Wednesday afternoon at OSCON 2008. The session entitled "A Critical View of OpenID" started off as anything but critical, but once the audience got its turn to raise questions, things got more interesting.
GovTrack opens up information on US legislature
Since 2004, GovTrack.us has housed information about the United States Congress, including 10 years of bills, voting records, and contact information for individual members of Congress. Visitors can also find out who represents them and search the database for committee assignments, legislative statistics, and the Congressional Record, which is the official record of daily proceedings in Congress. All the code that makes GovTrack run is open source, and all the information stored there is freely available to everyone.
Silber runs Canonical while Shuttleworth runs around (video)
Mark Shuttleworth is one of our favorite open source celebrities. He does great things for the community, he's affable, and he promotes not only Ubuntu but GNU/Linux and FOSS in general. And it seems that he's always on the go -- from this conference to that conference to this meeting to that one, anywhere from California to Korea to Spain. While Canonical's CEO tours the world, Chief Operating Officer Jane Silber makes sure the company runs smoothly, that all the servers stay up, and that releases stay on schedule. She's hiring, too, so you may want to watch this video extra carefully; it's entirely possible that Jane Silber could be your boss one day....
Ottawa Linux Symposium 10, Day 1
The tenth annual Ottawa Linux Symposium kicked off Wednesday in Canada's capital, just a few blocks from the country's parliament building, in a conference centre in the midst of being torn down. The symposium started with the traditional State of the Kernel address, this year by Matthew Wilcox. Among the dozens of talks and plenaries held the first day was kernel wireless maintainer John Linville's Tux on the Air: the State of Linux Wireless Networking.
Using Adobe Flash and other 32-bit applications on 64-bit Linux
64-bit computing is as prevalent today as multicore computing. Almost any new processor from Intel or AMD has the AMD long mode extensions, allowing the processor to use 64-bit registers. While 32-bit processors can address 4 gigabytes of RAM, a 64-bit processor can address 16 exabytes, or almost 17.2 billion gigabytes, of RAM. Most 64-bit-capable computers aren't making use of these capabilities, but instead are put to work running 32-bit operating systems, usually because of a lack of applications for 64-bit operating systems, since applications must be recompiled and in some cases rewritten for 64-bit operation. It is possible, however, to run 32-bit Linux binaries natively under 64-bit Linux kernels.
Veteran developer ditches Microsoft for open source
If you've ever used Microsoft Access or Excel, you have likely used a product that Mike Gunderloy had a hand in developing. The irony is that Gunderloy himself doesn't use those products anymore. He's given up Microsoft for open source -- and he's not going back.
Hyperic's CloudStatus demo and interview (video)
Jon Travis, principal engineer for Hyperic, explains the company's new CloudStatus utility in this video interview. CloudStatus is free, it's open source, and you can access it through your Web browser. Right now it works only with Amazon's cloud computing services -- which currently dominates this market niche -- but Hyperic has plans to expand the service to other up-and-coming cloud computing providers.
Network Security Toolkit distribution aids network security administrators
Network Security Toolkit is one of many live CD Linux distributions focusing on network monitoring, analysis, and security. NST was designed to give network security administrators easy access to a comprehensive set of open source network applications, many of which are among the top 100 security tools recommended by insecure.org.
CLI Magic: For geek cred, try these one-liners
In this context, a one-liner is a set of commands normally joined through a pipe (|). When joined by a pipe, the command on the left passes its output to the command on the right. Simple or complex, you can get useful results from a single line at the bash command prompt.
Panel discusses openness at OSCON
The first two days of O'Reilly's Open Source Convention (OSCON) are dominated by technical tutorials, but there are sessions that buck the trend. Monday's most interesting event was Participate 08, a panel discussion sponsored by Microsoft. Panelists debated the meaning of the buzzword "openness" as it applies to source code, services, data, and business models.
Why not learn a little language while you work, Amigo?
Books, CDs, flashcards, classes -- there are a lot of tools to help you learn a foreign language. If you spend much of your time near a computer, software may be one of the better options. Ian McIntosh's Amigo is a friendly language utility for the Linux user, notable for how well it integrates into the desktop.
Linux tools to convert file formats
Life would be a lot easier if we could live in a Linux-only world and if applications never required data from other sources. However, the need to get data from Windows, MS-DOS, or old Macintosh systems is all too common. This kind of import process requires some conversions to solve file format differences; otherwise, it would be impossible to share data, or file contents would be imported incorrectly. The easiest way to transfer data between systems is by using plain text files or common formats like comma-separated value (CSV) files. However, converting such files from Windows or Mac OS results in formatting differences for the newline characters and character encoding. This article explains why we have these problems and shows ways to solve them.
Designing rich AJAX Web interfaces with ZK
ZK is an AJAX toolkit designed to make creating user interfaces that run in a Web browser as simple as creating event-driven interfaces for desktop applications. The interfaces created with ZK use an XML markup language to define the user interface and Java code to implement the Web application's functionality. ZK includes support for data-bound controls so that you do not have to worry about updating the user interface forms when you change your Java objects.
Seneca College teams with FOSS projects for hands-on learning
Where most computer science departments emphasize theory and mention free and open source software (FOSS) only indirectly, Seneca College in Toronto, Canada, offers a different approach: a hands-on introduction to the community in partnership with the Mozilla and Fedora projects. Now in its third year, the program is expanding rapidly and receiving attention from other academic institutions that hope to imitate it.
The power of cross-platform synchronization
These days there are plenty of ways to back up your computer files. The options are easy when you're dealing with one computer -- just back up your files to an external hard drive and forget about it -- but when several machines are involved, each with a different operating system, things can get complicated. If you frequently work on more than one computer, having access to your synchronized files no matter where you are can also be useful. PowerFolder, a backup and file synchronizing service, helps you cover all your bases, no matter what platform or how many computers you're using.
Firefox add-on Glubble too clunky and restrictive as a children's Internet filter
Glubble is a free proprietary Firefox add-on from Glaxstar that limits the activity your child can perform online by blocking access to Web sites and filtering Google search results. For parents, a tool like Glubble can seem like the perfect answer to the problem of protecting kids from the unsavory elements of the Internet. But as I discovered through my use of Glubble, the questions surrounding the idea of Internet filtering don't come with easy answers.
FSF organizes against Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
Nobody knows yet what the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will consist of, but the few available indications are so ominous that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has started a campaign to raise public awareness of the possibilities. According to Matt Lee, an FSF campaign manager, ACTA threatens to "create a culture of fear and suspicion," and, in the worst-case scenario, undermine and demonize free software.
