rammerhammer writes "Sharing files amongst different platforms has most always resulted in using samba -- a program based around the windows file sharing protocol. Chungles aims to provide a nice, graphical, easy configurable file sharing alternative. It's written in Java, uses SWT for the UI, and JmDNS (Rendezvous/ZeroConf/Bonjour) for discovery of computers running Chungles."

debiansid writes "The Open Soucre Region Stuttgart is now offering a free demo of the Linux Desktop to users through their web browsers. They had earlier launched a German version before which received more than 100,000 responses, after which they decided to launch an English version. The website requires you to download and run an exe - it does not install anything on to the hard drive. The demo system is Debian based with a v2.4 kernel and KDE."

G Money writes "Novell announced today that they acquired Immunix, a company the produces an alternative mandatory access control solution to SELinux using the LSM. For anyone who hasn't used both Immunix and SELinux, the difference between configuring them is like night and day. There's even a YaST module for configuration. (Disclaimer: I'm on the Defcon Immunix CTF team.)"

rexx mainframe writes "The Fedora Project would like to announce the release of Fedora Core 4 test 3; currently scheduled to be the final test release before Fedora Core 4. Included in this release are many various bugfixes, updated translations, and package updates. Please report problems at: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla Fedora Core 4 Test 3 is available from: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /core/test/3.92/ and at the mirrors."

flood6 writes "On the heels of yesterday's article about unrest at LinuxWorld, editor James Turner is reporting in his blog that Sys-Con Media has decided to purge Maureen O'Gara from the print and online publications." From the post: "Sys-con Media listened to what I and my fellow editors, their advertisers and the readership was saying, and made the correct decision. Maureen O'Gara's bylined material will no longer appear anywhere in the Sys-con universe of sites or publications. We have received this commitment in writing from Fuat Kircaali, the publisher." PJ at Groklaw also has commentary on this development.

diegocgteleline.es writes "Via google news, I found a article at MSNBC claiming that Michael Dell, Dell's founder and chairman, has droped $100M into Red Hat (Michael himself, not his company). Analyists say that "Dell - neither the person nor the company - is interested in acquiring Red Hat", but one wonders what's behind of this move. A fight against their competence in the server market?"

James Turner writes "The editors of LinuxWorld Magazine have been fighting a quiet war with the publishers (Sys-Con Media) for half a year, trying to get hack-journalist Maureen O'Gara purged from their site. Well, with O'Gara's recent vile attack on Pamela Jones (which I won't give any more free publicity by linking to), enough is finally enough. In my latest blog, I've basically told Sys-Con that it's either her or me. I suspect, given the amount of page views O'Gara's tripe brings to the Sys-Con sites, that they'll choose her." James isn't the only one either.

Ahkorishaan writes "Desktoplinux.com has put up their December 2004 survey results. Debian has fallen from their top rank as preferred Linux distro, and newcomers Thunderbird and Firefox have an impressive showing in their respective genres."

morcego writes "Yahoo News has a very interesting interview with Bill Hilf, Microsoft's director of Microsoft's platform technology strategy group, who in turn works for Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy and Linux point man. From the interview: '"I am a non-Microsoft guy working at Microsoft," Hilf said.'"

FreeFooOpenFighter writes "KernelTrap has an interesting article about Oregon State University's Open Source Lab. They currently provide hosting for an impressive list of projects including, among many others, the Mozilla Foundation, Debian GNU/Linux, and Gentoo Linux. According to the informative article, they plan to continue to donate hosting with their two OC48s to FOSS projects meeting their criteria."

Provataki writes " Remember this great deal about Linare's $500 laptop deal at wal-mart? Probably was too good to be true. Missing shipping dates & bad support take away the excitement."

quan74 writes "According to an article at MacNewsWorld, it seems Qualcomm is the latest to add Linux to its handheld devices. 'By introducing Linux on the MSM, Qualcomm supports manufacturer partners who wish to leverage existing Linux applications, third-party developers and application catalogs to reduce their software development costs and improve time-to-market.' What I found interesting is that Linux will be the first third-party operating system supported by Qualcomm."

phantomfive writes "In a recent test by a company called Veritest, Windows 2003 web server performs up to 300% higher throughput than Red Hat Linux running with Apache. Veritest used webbench to do there testing. Since the test was commisioned by Microsoft, is this just more FUD from a company with a long history? Or are the results valid this time? The study can be found here."

Eh-Wire writes "Stuart Cohen, CEO of the Open Source Development Labs, does a short piece on the myth of renegade hackers coding in their parent's basements to create the Linux OS. He suggests this hasn't been the case for many years and goes on to claim that of the top 25 core developers, more than 90% of them are fully employed with some of the largest technology companies in the world. Stuart goes on to explode the myth of renegade programmers by saying, 'Sure, it represents a new way to create software, but the actual process looks a lot like how enterprise software has been made for decades.' A short but interesting read."

blacklily8 writes "Peter Svensson of the Associated Press has reviewed OpenOffice and declared it a Microsoft Office killer: 'Microsoft Corp. killed off the competition for office software suites and became a de facto monopoly in the area, with what result? The competition is back and, this time, it's free!' Svensson thinks the better Word/WordPerfect file conversion, ability to save as PDF, and new BASE database component make the beta a better candidate for success than the previous versions--and when the kinks get worked out, step back!"

mrseigen writes "According to dslinux.org, the Linux kernel successfully boots on the Nintendo DS along with a simple shell, sash. Input is done via the d-pad. How long until Netstumbler?" While maybe not the most practical platform, it's impressive on its technical merit.

elambrecht asks: "We've got a _lot_ of data we'd like to archive and make sure it is accessible via the web 24/7. We've been using a NetApp for this, but that solution is just waaaay to expensive to scale. We want to move to using a cluster of Linux boxes that redundantly store and serve up the data. What are the best packages out there for this? GFS? MogileFS?"

IamTheRealMike writes "As WineConf 2005 took place last weekend, the Wine developers discussed the project's direction and future. A new deadline of September 30th for the 0.9 release was set by Alexandre Julliard -- the release promises to bring an end to the system of monthly snapshots and provide a new focus on ease of use and stability. A new GPLd application regression testing tool called CXTest was demoed, as was some of the great Direct3D work being done lately. Finally the CEO of Gupta gave a talk. Gupta have ported their 4GL RAD tools to Linux by working with Codeweavers (who sponsored the event), and their experiences were documented in a fascinating presentation. Overall: big thumbs up, but it's not obvious enough that there's enterprise-level support available for Wine. Check out the group photo and the new Wiki!"

Panaphonix writes "The Register reports that Orion Multisystems is shipping the first 96-node desktop cluster. 'With the new, larger system, customers get pretty much the most powerful computer around that can plug into a standard electrical socket.' According to the spec sheet, the DS-96 runs Fedora Core 2 and gets 110 GFlops sustained, 230 GFlops peak."

An anonymous reader writes "A high-end Linux-based Sharp Zaurus PDA thought to be discontinued in the US is actually available from two sources. The SL-6000L is available from stock from 10East, a seller of vertical market systems for the railroad industry which has established a direct manufacturing relationship with Sharp Japan, it says. The Wi-Fi equipped SL-6000L is also available in single quantities from SDG Systems, which, incidentally, is porting Linux to several PDAs that normally run Windows, including the super-rugged TDS Recon."