An anonymous reader writes "An Intel Software Architect announced on the Debian mailing list yesterday that Intel has begun supporting Intel devices on Debian sarge for their extensive reseller channel. This covers the D845, D865 and D915 chipsets and was done to meet customer demand. They've posted drivers as well as the various distributions supported by the chip maker (Debian, Mandriva, Novell and Red Hat). Looks like the pure open source distributions are finally getting the attention of the big players!"

blacksilver writes "The chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs (ODSL) has said that the threat facing Linux from software patent-infringement claims has receded. From the article: 'Lots of people who hold a lot of patents have looked at this issue, and nothing's come of it ... There's always been a suspicion that some of them [the alleged infringing patents] were held by Microsoft, so this could be an issue ... our customer advisor people speak to people, including major customers who run both Windows and Linux, and they say it's not an issue,'"

rchapman wrote to mention a Mad Penguin story about a consultant who installed Ubuntu on his work PC, and managed to use it for over a month before his boss even noticed. From the article: "This is not a typical review, because you've read enough of those. Instead, lets pretend I'm a typical worker, who just happens to have a soft spot for Open Source software. I want to use Linux, but I have a job to do. The price of Freedom should not be my salary. I don't have time to fiddle, all I care is whether or not it can do what I want, right now. So what do I want out of my system?"

maxifez writes writes to tell us that Microsoft has released yet another independent study downplaying the viability of Linux at the enterprise level. The study claims that Windows is "more consistent, predictable, and easier to manage than Linux." From the article: "The study, commissioned by the software giant from Security Innovation, a provider of application security services, claimed that Linux administrators took 68 per cent longer to implement new business requirements than their Windows counterparts." Vnunet.com has also provided a PDF of the original report.

Kelvin Ekston writes " Red Hat is listed among ZDNet Asia's 50 Top Tech companies 2006. It is also one of the fastest growing companies with 210.4% year on year income growth over 4 years. While almost all Linux companies grapple with the perennial question of how they can make money through software subscriptions and services rather than selling packaged boxes, Red Hat finally managed to improve credibly and match the hype with substance and show the way to do business with Linux. That's the way to go!"

Rambo writes "Nokia has finally set a November 17th US shipping date for the $359 770 Internet Tablet. It features a Debian-based distribution called Maemo, which includes kernel 2.6, X.org/Scratchbox WM, and GTK for easy porting of applications. Hardware specs are: 800x480 ) screen, 220 MHz TI OMAP ARM processor (with DSP), 64M of RAM, 128M of flash, USB slave port, 802.11b/g wireless, Bluetooth, IR, and a RS-MMC slot. Even more details at LinuxDevices and Internet Tablet Talk. It sports a battery life of 3 hours for continous Wi-Fi usage, and accepts common Nokia phone batteries. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Nokia, and am anxiously awaiting my own pre-order!"

Anonymous Coward writes "The second part of the extensive Linux Tips for Free Mandriva Linux 2006 review has been published, going into details about the state of Linux hardware support and compatibility, hardware configuration and software with a whole section on digital photography. Part one was previously discussed on Slashdot."

Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that the November 2005 list of supercomputers has been published. Certainly something to note is that four of the top five use linux. Relatedly Multiflow writes "CNET is reporting that the number of supercomputers on the Top500 list which use Intel Itanium 2 microprocessors has fallen by almost 50% in the past year. While new higher performance Itanium chips are in the pipeline, the article reports that 64 bit Xeons and Opterons have increased their representation on Top500."

sebFlyte writes "In the second part of its look at open source in governments around the world, ZDNet takes an interesting look at open source in the developing world. Pricing obviously is an important factor (if you look at GDP, MS prices in Vietnam are the equivalent, for local people, of charging just shy of $50,000 for a Windows XP license in the US), but other issues arise, such as Brazil's 'sense of community', a certain amount of security-related worries from the Chinese, and language issues in India. A good analysis of the advantages of open source generally, the huge benefits it can have in developing markets, and the fact that open source is on the up despite massive amounts of lobbying and pressure from some proprietary vendors."

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com is running an article stating that ten companies have recently banded together to launch a cross-industry consortium to further advance embedded Linux platforms. They hope to make 'Linux into a plug-and-play mobile phone platform comparable to Microsoft's Windows Mobile Smartphone OS, but with greater flexibility and lower costs. The LiPS (Linux Phone Standard) Forum intends to help make Linux a more standardized, interoperable mobile phone OS.' Meanwhile, some market research suggests that Linux is already giving Windows Mobile a run for its money."

An anonymous reader writes "Making effective use of shared memory in high-level languages such as C++ is not straightforward, but it is possible to overcome the inherent difficulties. This article describes, and includes sample code for, two C++ design patterns that use shared memory on Linux in interesting ways and open the door for more efficient interprocess communication."

HatofPig writes "The KDE Project has released the first release candidate for KDE 3.5, the last of the 3.x versions. There are many added features and bugfixes such as easier Kicker configuration and many UI tweaks. Get the source, Suse packages, or packages for Kubuntu and start filing bug reports today!"

Zebrahead writes "Tom's Hardware has a nice review of the Ubuntu H2. How about storing your operating system, including some applications, on a highly mobile device? This is exactly what the Ubuntu H2 was designed for. In theory, the Ubuntu H2 package can be run on virtually any computer that has at least one empty USB port. A tiny 1" hard drive with 3 GB capacity was teamed up with the Debian-based Linux distribution Ubuntu. Bundling a tiny storage device with a fully-featured open source operating system enables the user to take a system installation, all its settings and applications, and a limited amount of data with him. It would be great to take this pretty interesting product to an Internet café, a computer at a friend's location, or any other system you can think of."

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Debian 'etch' has finally hit beta (testing) complete with graphical installer. The new version includes a default 2.6 kernel, auto laptop detection, secure apt to verify downloaded packages, improved log file and bug reporting, added language support, and much more.

linuxbeta writes "Ubuntu 6.04 (Dapper Drake) daily builds have hit the Ubuntu servers. Dapper's goals: Substantial polish and integration, software discovery and installation, make network-wide enterprise updates easy to manage, consider LSB and related certification standards and support for deployment of Dapper on mission-critical servers. Screenshots have already surfaced."

Mortimer.CA writes "In a weblog entry, Paul Murphy mentions a Microsoft report (40 page PDF) that in many instances FreeBSD 5.3 and Linux perform better than Windows XP SP2. The report is about MS' Singularity kernel (which does perform better than the OSS kernels by many of the metrics they use), and some future directions in OS design (as well as examination of the way things have been done in the past)." From the post: "What's noteworthy about it is that Microsoft compared Singularity to FreeBSD and Linux as well as Windows/XP - and almost every result shows Windows losing to the two Unix variants. For example, they show the number of CPU cycles needed to "create and start a process" as 1,032,000 for FreeBSD, 719,000 for Linux, and 5,376,000 for Windows/XP."

r3lody writes "Hardening Linux, by James Turnbull, stands out as an important text that clearly lays out how to make your Linux boxes as secure as possible. Mr. Turnbull has done a noteworthy job in delineating many potential vulnerabilities, and how to mitigate them. Each chapter covers a particular area in depth, with carefully worded and easy-to-follow examples. In the cases where you need to install some other piece of software to provide extra security, Turnbull gives you the step-by-step details, removing the chance of misinterpretation. As you finish each chapter, you will want to apply your newfound knowledge to the machines at your disposal." Read on for r3lody's review.

An anonymous reader writes "An article at XYZComputing goes over Dell's open source line of desktop computers and workstations. The N line is something which Dell began to sell recently, but the situation is much more complex that it would seem. There is often little or no discount given if consumers opt to go with FreeDOS as their operating system. There is also a great link in the article showing how Dell is selling AMD processors in their Accessories section!" From the article: "A major hurdle preventing the growth of Linux with non-professional users has been installation the operating system and dealing with the resultant compatibility issues. An ideal solution to this would be a major manufacturer which is willing to sell computers with Linux preinstalled. This would not only make it easy for users to buy a computer and have Linux running after simply plugging it in, but it would theoretically allow the manufacturer to lower the cost of a computer because software licensing costs could be minimized."

ChocLinux writes "Linus Torvalds is cracking down on developers that add last-minute changes to the kernel during the two-week merge window. He says: 'If people miss the merge window or start abusing it with hurried last-minute things that just cause problems for -rc1, I'll just refuse to merge, and laugh in their faces derisively when they whine plaintively at me, and tell them there's going to be a new opening soon enough.'"

An anonymous reader writes "In order to protect themselves against patent grabbing 'trolls,' major Linux companies are buying software patents through a nonprofit company called Open Invention Network. This nonprofit company will then offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents."