Books

Moving To Linux 384

norburym writes "This is an interesting format for a techie book geared at non-techies: instead of providing a detailed installation and configuration instruction set for a particular full Linux distribution, Marcel Gagne has included a Knoppix CD with his book, Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! The author's intention is clearly to give the reader a no-risk introduction to Linux. As such, this book is not intended for power users or professionals; there are other books more suited for this market. At the same time, this book is not really for the Dummies style audience, either. It's for the Windows user who is looking to migrate to the Linux platform and find solutions to his or her day to day computing needs." Read on for the rest of norburym's review.
Debian

Debian Aims For September Release Date 282

An anonymous submitter writes "Debian Planet has a good discussion of the most recent release update from the new Debian release managers. The most interesting point is the current hard freeze of base+standard and an optimistic but doable release date in September."
Music

Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 Released 323

kforeman writes "The RealPlayer 10 for Linux and its underlying 100% open source Helix Player are now both finalized. The RealPlayer 10 for Linux has many new features including a Mozilla plug-in, so you can now enjoy all those embedded media clips, as well as the latest RealAudio 10, RealVideo 10, MP3, Flash, and Ogg Vorbis and Theora support. The Helix Player is 100% open source, (now including the GPL!) and includes support for SMIL 2.0 and open source codecs Ogg Vorbis and Theora. Our goal is to make the Linux desktop a first class citizen and we think today's releases are a good first step in that direction."
Sun Microsystems

Sun Rays For Linux 131

Tarantolato writes "According to an eweek story Sun Microsystems will be debuting a Linux port of their Sun Ray Server at Linux World this week. This would allow Sun Ray thin clients to be run off of a SuSE or Red Hat box, where you previously needed a Solaris-SPARC setup to do that."
Patents

Linux Violates 283 Patents, says Insurance Company 475

Apro+im writes "According to this article over at ZDNet: 'Linux potentially infringes 283 patents, including 27 held by Microsoft but none that have been validated by court judgments, according to a group that sells insurance to protect those using or selling Linux against intellectual-property litigation.' Dan Ravicher, founder and executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, conducted the analysis for Open Source Risk Management. OSRM is like an insurance company, selling legal protection against Linux copyright-infringement claims. It plans to expand the program to patent protections."
Linux Business

Sun Pondering Buying Novell 400

Krafty Koder writes "ZDNet are reporting that Sun are considering purchasing Novell and thus gain SUSE Linux. 'With our balance sheet, we're considering all our options,' Sun chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz said in an interview on Sunday regarding the possibility of acquiring Novell. 'What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons,' he said."
Linux Business

Telstra Used Linux To Get Microsoft Discounts 237

awful writes "Last year Slashdot ran a story about Australia's largest telco moving to Linux desktops. Turns out it was all a way to get some tasty discounts from Microsoft. The Australian is reporting that Telstra just signed a four-year deal with MS for $AU15-20 million, for 40,000 users. No figures yet on how much of a discount Telstra got, but MS might want to rethink handing back all its cash to investors if this is how they're going to do business from now on ..."
GNU is Not Unix

Can GNU Ever Be Unix? 217

An anonymous reader writes "The question isn't whether Linux can be certified as Unix. At least some distributions no doubt can. But who would pay for it? And is it worth the trouble? Jem Matzan asks these questions on NewsForge, and reminds us that the Open Group, not SCO, owns the Unix trademark,"
The Media

Linux Journal Editors Choice Awards 115

An anonymous reader dropped a note in to say that the Linux Journal Editors Choice Awards have been announced. No real surprises in the list, except maybe giving RSS the award for best game.
Security

Combining Port Knocking With OS Fingerprinting 154

michaelrash writes "Port knocking implementations are on the rise. I have just released fwknop; (the Firewall Knock Operator) at DEF CON 12. Fwknop implements both shared and encrypted knock sequences, but with a twist; it combines knock sequences with passive operating system fingerprints derived from p0f. This makes it possible to allow, say, only Linux systems to connect to your SSH daemon. Fwknop is based entirely around iptables log messages and so does not require a separate packet capture library. Also, at the Black Hat Briefings, David Worth has released a cryptographic port knock implementation based around one-time pads."
Linux Business

Munich's Linux Migration Raises EU Patent Issues 164

J ROC writes "Techweb has a story about the German city of Munich's Windows-to-Linux migration. It appears the move to replace 14,000 Windows desktops with Linux has hit a bump. Green Party alderman Jens Muehlhaus, who is a supporter of open-source software, has petitioned the mayor to examine the status of software patents in the European Community. The issue involves a proposed directive on software patents that is being considered by various European governments. Muehlhaus fears that a patent owner could issue a cease-and-desist order against Munich, thus hurting the operation of various city departments."
Enlightenment

EFL Preview Release: Asparagus 30

HandyAndE writes "For everybody out there who has been waiting for Enlightenment 0.17 or been thinking what alternatives are there to Gnome/GTK and KDE/QT this is an important day for you. The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) today have an (albeit pre) release named Asparagus. From the E site: 'We are pleased to announce the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries Preview Release, codenamed "Asparagus"! After years of work, we've come to a place where it is time to start opening these powerful tools to the wider world to use.' " Read more for more information.
Linux Business

Linux Jobs on the Rise 219

Jan Stafford writes "Looking for a job at LinuxWorld and everywhere else? IT recruiting expert Scot Melland says you have more grounds for optimism than in recent years. In this Q&A, he describes where the jobs are and how much they're paying."
Handhelds

Running Linux an Archos Multimedia Player 3

An anonymous reader writes "A new project is developing a Linux port for Archos portable multimedia harddisk player/recorders. The LinAV project began in April, and has focused initially on the AV3xx-series devices, so far releasing a working kernel and a build environment for graphical applications based on the nano-X API. The LinAV project appears to be the first to actually achieve a Linux port to an Archos product. LinAV is based on uClinux, the version of Linux for devices based on processors without a memory management unit (MMU). However, at CEBIT last year, Archos was rumored to have a next-generation AV500 portable multimedia player that appeared to be running Linux."
Linux Business

Lockheed Replaces 10,000 Solaris Seats with Linux 394

bl8n8r writes "Citing hardware and software TCO, a source close to Lockheed Martin says the aeronautics giant will be replacing 10,000 of its Solaris seats with Linux. The article mentions AutoZone, IBM, SCO and Daimler Chrysler and what may be in store for Lockheed Martin. 'Every engineer has a Microsoft PC sitting next to their Sun Blade,' said their source. 'That's for business applications, and Linux is no threat there. It's Sun who has to worry.' Wait till they find out how much they can save running OpenOffice."
Announcements

Linux Picnic Follows LinuxWorld SF 5

An anonymous reader writes "On the Saturday following LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, the Linux anniversary picnic takes place in Sunnyvale, California. Lots of Linux user groups are putting it together, with help from sponsors such as Atheros Communication, Capital Beverage Co., and even Google. It's free, some come on down!"
Announcements

Bash 3.0 Released 507

qazwsx789 writes "The first public release of bash-3.0 is now available via ftp and from the usual GNU mirror sites. For the official release notes by the author, Chet Ramey, check his usenet post."

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