prostoalex writes "Chris McAvoy is a UNIX administrator and an owner of two cats. So as a natural application of his work to his hobby he built this Linux-based cat feeder. A little hardware hacking and Python scripting can get you a device that would automatically disperse a yummy fish at specified intervals."

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like those ex-Corel Linux folks over at Xandros have finally got around to making Version 3 of their free (as in beer) distro available for download. All updated stuff under the hood, including a sync with the latest Debian Sarge. Free downloads through Xandros Networks and a good selection of default applications makes this a very desirable alternative to Linspire. It's no-cost to download using BitTorrent, but if you want the instant gratification route of http download, you can pay for that."

An anonymous reader writes "Embedded software powerhouse Wind River's metamorphosis into an embedded Linux vendor appears to be complete. The company will announce today that it is shipping a pre-release version of its first embedded Linux distribution, and that it has already delivered 1,000 "developer seats" for the Carrier Grade Linux 2.0 compliant software."

Matthew Revell writes "Miguel de Icaza defends Mono and talks about its future relationship with the Gnome desktop, in the latest LugRadio. The leader of the open source implementation of .NET says no one is forced to use Mono but he hopes it will make life easier for open source developers. "

youngerpants asks: "There is a lot of talk at the moment about migrating applications from WIN32 to Linux. This certainly helps move the OSS movement along, however, the true test of Linux is in the enterprise. Whereas we can move applications, how can the enterprise itself (such as Active Directory to Open LDAP, Exchange Server to Sendmail and NTFS to Samba) be moved. Have Slashdot readers used any applications or followed any strategies to migrate their enterprise? How would you tackle an obviously risky migration?"

Mister Incognito writes "As you probably know, Centos is a free distribution compiled from sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As requested, the distro has any references to Red Hat removed. But now Red Hat has decided that Centos must not even mention their name on the web site, or link to Red Hat, or even use metatags with its name on it. " Well, actually, what RHAT has asked for is that Centos comply with the their terms for using the name; Matthew Szulik has talked about this before, and should be noted that not all of the copyright stuff is "bad."

Eugenia writes "OSNews posted an exclusive first look for the upcoming Linspire 5.0: 'Linspire Five-0 is definitely a good base from which to build. The lack of well rounded applications when compared to other OSes in its class leave me wanting more, however, a slick look, some powerful Linspire specific apps, and a non-crippled undercarriage remain appealing' says the author." The bigger question will be how it stacks up against other commericial offerings in the long run. (ITMJ is also owned by OSTG).

An anonymous reader writes "Trolltech announced today that more than fifty companies are currently developing or shipping Linux-based devices using its Qtopia graphical application platform software, including more than twenty mobile phones. 'We think that 2005 is going to be a real breakout year for Linux on cellphones,' Trolltech CEO Haavard Nord told LinuxDevices.com. Motorola has already been shipping Linux phones in China, and has achieved its initial objectives there, according to Nord. 'We expect that in 2005, Motorola is going to start shipping Linux phones outside of China,' Nord added."

An anonymous reader writes "This series of articles helps you migrate your Win32 C/C++ applications to Linux on POWER. Win32 C/C++ Apps to Linux Part-1 of this series covers the Win32 APIs mapping to Linux on POWER regarding the initialization and termination, process, thread, and shared memory services. Win32 C/C++ Apps to Linux Part-2 illustrates how to map Win32 to Linux with respect to mutex application program interfaces (APIs)."

mo writes "The Desktop Linux Summit has just concluded in San Diego. There were a number of exhibitors, including Novell, AMD, and Mozilla. I've put together a summary of some of the more interesting announcements and booths at the conference. Highlights include a Linux-only 3D game, DRM-free music services, and a new Asterisk GUI."

wikinerd writes "After the hype about Mac mini, a Linux consultant wrote a detailed guide on how to install Debian on Mac mini. The whole procedure takes about an hour, but you will need to erase the hard disk and learn to live without the AirPort Extreme, since it's unsupported. The guide also explains how you can dual-boot with Mac OS X and Debian and gives you ideas on how to set up your partitions."

lientz writes "According to an article at FederalComputerWeek, the city of Los Angeles is considering using Open Source software as a cost cutting measure. From the article: "...city officials could save $5.2 million by switching to OpenOffice... rather than purchasing a Microsoft Office product at $200 per license for 26,000 desktops. The savings would go to a special fund to hire more employees for the police department, a major focus for city officials right now, he added.""

proclus writes "In honor of the day, I have released some autobiographical material, which forms the background for GNU-Darwin and some other projects. Alternatively, you can celebrate by joining the Friends of Charles Darwin, or baking some Trilobite Cookies."

foobar01 writes "MythTV 0.17 has been released. Changes include Mac OS X frontend support, big improvements to DVB and HDTV support, "timestretch" feature (for changing playback speed but not the pitch so you can watch shows more quickly), firewire capture support for cable boxes with firewire output, and widescreen user interface support. See the changelog for the full list of changes."

In a follow-up to yesterday's story, Allen Zadr writes "Computer Business Online has an article up today entitled 'Judge astonished by SCO's lack of evidence against IBM'. From the article: "Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements... it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence..." This is exactly what Groklaw has been saying all along, and they have commentary on the news as well."

Kip Winger writes "Mike Nash, Microsoft's Chief Security Executive, has made claims that Windows is more secure than Linux. In a recent online chat, he staunchly defended Microsoft's record on security, basing part of his argument on how Windows Server 2003's 15 patches in the past year are far less than what RedHat or SuSE have had to endure." He also mentioned the recent purchase of Sybari and their Antivirus product.

MerlinTheGreen asks: "I read a recent interview with Microsoft's Nick McGrath in which he claimed, 'There a myth in the market that there are hundreds of thousands of people writing code for the Linux kernel. This is not the case; the number is hundreds, not thousands.' This annoyed me a little as it perpetuates the idea it is Linux rather than the distribution that, in Microsoft-speak, would represent the value proposition. Recognizing that it's the distro that really counts, I wondered how many people were involved in mine. My answer is that, for FC3, I found 16921 unique e-mail address just by running a simple script over /usr/share/doc. What other estimates are there for the number of people who are involved in your distribution, and what method did you use to come up with that number?"

Grifter writes " First National Bank of Omaha said this week that it's nearing completion of a complete changeout of its distributed server infrastructure for a mainframe and blade-server architecture based on Linux. While only 80% complete, the move is already expected to save the company $1.8 million this year in operating expenses and another $9.6 million through 2011." More proof that banks know how to save money.

An anonymous reader writes "With the introduction of the 2.6 Linux kernel, FreeBSD 5-STABLE, Solaris 10, and now NetBSD 2.0, you might be wondering which of them offers superior database performance. These two articles will show you how to benchmark operating system performance using MySQL on these operating systems so you can find out for yourself if you're missing out. While this may not necessarily be indicative of overall system performance or overall database application performance, it will tell you specifically how well MySQL performs on your platform."

ertz writes "The X.Org Foundation today announced the fourth release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January of 2004. The new X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11, Release 6.8.2 (X11R6.8.2) builds on the work of X.org X11R6.8.0 and X11R6.8.1 released in 2004. X11R6.8.2 combines the latest developments from many people and companies working with the X Window System and an open X.Org Foundation Release Team. All Official X.Org Releases are available for download from the ftp site and at mirror-sites world-wide."