by Matt Hartley on October 13, 2006 at
11:21 pm · Comments off
Categorized by News / Related
Information Well, it’s better than building
bombs I suppose. It seems that Libya has opted to purchase 1.2 million
low-cost laptops for their students.
Libya reportedly plans
to purchase 1.2 million low-cost laptops, after signing a deal
recently.
Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the OLPC
(One Laptop Per Child) nonprofit association, told the New York Times
that the deal had been reached in Libya on Oct. 10.
Libya will
pay the OLPC $250 million, according to the Times. In return, it will
receive 1.2 million OLPC computers for students, one server per
school, a team of technical installation advisers, satellite Internet
service, and other network infrastructure.
The deal had not been
confirmed by either Libya or the OLPC by publication of this
story…. Source: eWeek
by Matt Hartley on October 13, 2006 at
11:17 pm · Comments off
Categorized by News / Related
Information It’s great to see this happening in
the various parts of the world. Would love to see this happening here
in the states as well.
The European Commission is to spend
€4m on an open source observatory and repository (Osor) to span the
member states and enable them to share information across the public
sector.
The Osor will be a common repository where neighbouring
member statesR17; administrations can share software code and
knowledge about open source.
The project aims to improve the
return on IT investments and make applications more interoperable so
common projects, such as mutual recognition of e-ID card formats -
which differ from state to state - can be developed across the
members’ borders230;. Source: silicon.com
by Matt Hartley on October 13, 2006 at
11:13 pm · Comments off
Categorized by Misc / Related
Information While I can see how share of Red Hat
could certainly drop should the situation call for it, I still
don’t get how Oracle could be of any real threat.
RALEIGH, N.C. - Shares of Red Hat Inc., the largest distributor
of the
Linux operating system, tumbled more than 7 percent
Friday after a Wall Street analyst suggested that Oracle Corp. may
soon introduce its own Linux products.
Red Hat’s stock
finished the day at $19.90, a decline of $1.59, after briefly falling
below its 52-week low to $19.71 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The
Raleigh-based company has had a volatile year because of rumors that
Oracle could jump into the open-source Linux market. Jefferies &
Co. analyst Katherine Egbert wrote Friday that “our independent
checks in the past two weeks indicate that Oracle seems to be close to
introducing its own software ’stack.’”
Jefferies cut its price target on Red Hat from $24 to $21…. Source: AP
by
Matt Hartley on October 12, 2006 at
9:55 pm · Comments off
Categorized by Linux / Related
Information It’s an interesting vote to say the
least. Personally, I am familiar enough with my partitions that I have
not had any problems myself.
An excellent question it seems
even when my personal experiences are put aside - a friend of mine
over in Norway attempted to dual boot everyone’s favourite
distro (Ubuntu) on his laptop with fairly disastrous results.
Specifically, a crashing while managing the partitions created an
expensive paperweight. While I doubt this situation isn’t
reversible (as that isn’t the point of this article), I wonder
how many people are actually scared of dual booting Linux.
While initial searches of Google don’t convey this to be a
serious problem or concern I am aware that myself and those around me
have experienced problems doing this (theoretically) simple action,
mostly with semi-devastating consequences. The commonly available
resources discuss how simple a procedure this is, with image heavy
tutorials and even video step-by-step guides. I’ve not seen a
step-by-step account of how epically things can go wrong̷0;. Source: seopher.com
by Matt Hartley on October 12, 2006 at
9:50 pm · Comments off
Categorized by Talk / Related
Information I have not been a KDE fan in a longtime
mainly because I feel that its UI falls short where GNOME picks up the
pieces. Don’t believe me? Try dragging out a shortcut from your
browser sometime.
The KDE Project today announced the
immediate availability of KDE 3.5.5, a maintenance release for the
latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for
GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. KDE now supports 65 languages, making it
available to more people than most non-free software and can be easily
extended to support others by communities who wish to contribute to
the open source project230;. Source: eHomeUpgrade
by Matt Hartley on October 12, 2006 at
8:57 pm · Comments off
Categorized by Talk / Related
Information With regard to software UI, it is
gratifying to see folks such as the Portland software project take the
bull by the horns in an effort to bridge the gap between GNOME and
KDE.
Programmers have released version 1.0 of the
Portland software project designed to help bridge the gap between two
widely used Linux user interfaces, KDE and GNOME.
The Portland
software project includes a set of common interfaces for KDE and
GNOME. The goal is to make it easier for programmers and software
companies to support both user interfaces.
Portland is overseen
by the Open Source Development Labs and the Freedesktop.org effort to
consolidate Linux and Unix desktop software projects. The groups
announced the software release on Wednesday…. Source: uk.builder.com
by Matt Hartley on October 12, 2006 at
8:50 pm · Comments off
Categorized by Linux / Related
Information I have mixed feelings about the thoughts
shared below. In some ways, I agree that Linux will be playing a
bigger role in the future. Still, the software still could use a
little spit and polish before we expect people to be dumping the
alternative OS’ by the drove.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.
̵2; There̵7;s a popular notion swirling around the high-tech
sector that Microsoft’s dominant position in the industry and
software bugs have customers scurrying for the cover of
Linux.
This may be more of a myth than a notion,
Gartner analyst John Enck said during a session comparing the two
operating systems at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo here.
“We’re just not seeing any sort of motion away from
Windows towards Linux,R21; Enck said.
Enck said that by 2011,
users who do migrate to Linux will do so because of the quality of
applications built on top of the operating systems, from software
distributors like Red Hat and Novell, as well as the variety of
new-fangled distros such as Debian, Gentoo and UbuntuR30;. Source: InternetNews
by Matt Hartley on October 5, 2006 at
11:11 pm ·
Categorized by Misc / Related
Information I agree with the use of OGG, but FLAC?
Eh, it’s a little much for a portable player if you ask me.
I had the idea for an iPod liberation event several
months ago. The idea is something similar to a GNU/Linux install-fest
but for Digital Audio Players with RockBox and iPodLinux. Installers
gain the ability to play Vorbis and FLAC (among many other things) and
lose the ability to do DRM. I would never recommend buying an iPod but
we need to face the fact that there are millions of these things now.
A good reinstall with a free and open platform seems like a good
start…. [Source: copyrighteous]
by Matt Hartley on October 5, 2006 at
11:06 pm ·
Categorized by Talk / Related
Information Generally not something that I would
think to ask myself, but this person asks what I consider to be a
fascinating question: Can someone run a TV station on Linux?
“I217;m working with a low-power television
station to update their playback system. Currently they’;re using
tape and I’ve been tasked to move them to computerized playback
(MPEG-2, etc.) There are proprietary solutions (very expensive) and
there are companies that bundle software with Windows and standard x86
hardware. Overall, they are generally unimpressive and won’t
sell the software without bundling it with their own hardware…
[Source: Slashdot]
by Matt Hartley on October 5, 2006 at
11:00 pm ·
Categorized by Linux / Related
Information In reality, this is not all that shocking
as Red Hat frankly needs a little of the IBM magic. Red Hat is a good
company, but this latest recruitment will only prove to serve it
well.
Red Hat has hired Mark Enzweiler, a Lenovo
executive who spent 25 years at IBM, to be its vice president of North
American channel sales, the Linux seller said Wednesday. Channel sales
are directed toward business partners that typically build products
into broader or customized products of their own or sell them to a
particular market such as small businesses.
He was vice
president of global channel strategy and sales at Lenovo and held
several posts at IBM, including vice president of North American
channel sales and director of global sales. Enzweiler will report to
Ed Boyajian, Red Hat’s vice president of strategic alliances.
[Source: CNET]
