Linux Today Sticky Page On this page we'll maintain links to important articles and documents that pertain to Free Software, Linux, and the tech industry. Please submit your suggestions to editors@linuxtoday.com. Thank you! (Jun 15, 2009)
Small Features
Bizarre Bugs: 9 of the Strangest Software Glitches Ever IT World: "I began my research intending to cover the whole PC era, but I quickly discovered that most of the strangest bugs have appeared in recent years. As a matter of fact, the three wackiest ones in my list--involving Google's Android OS, Microsoft's Zune, and Google itself--all cropped up in just the past few months." Jun 21, 2009
Get to Know Clustered File Systems (Jul 2, 2009, 16:34 UTC) (1147 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Enterprise Networking Planet: "In this article we will cover a few common physical storage configurations, as well as clustered and distributed file system options. Hopefully, this is a good starting point to begin looking into the technology that will work best for your high availability storage needs."
IBM, NetApp Take on Virtual I/O Bottlenecks (Jul 2, 2009, 14:02 UTC) (946 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) Enterprise Storage Forum: "Virtualization has done wonders for server utilization and consolidation, but packing all those virtual machines onto a single server has created something of a mess on the storage side.
Storage I/O bottlenecks in virtual environments are a growing and persistent problem for data centers, as storage controllers and heads can become overwhelmed by I/O requests from virtual machines, creating processing delays."
London Stock Exchange to abandon failed Windows platform (Jul 2, 2009, 12:32 UTC) (3110 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) Cyber Cynic: "While the LSE denied that the collapse was TradElect's fault, they also refused to explain what the problem really wa. Sources at the LSE tell me to this day that the problem was with TradElect."
Red Hat inks cloud partnership with Amazon (Jul 2, 2009, 06:02 UTC) (758 reads)
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(feedback) Channel Register: "But for the moment, Amazon's EC2 sets the pace in commercial cloud computing, and that means being Amazon's friend is particularly important to companies like Red Hat that want to make money from clouds."
London Stock Exchange reportedly to dump £40m platform (Jul 1, 2009, 20:32 UTC) (2368 reads)
(8 talkbacks)
(feedback) Computerworld UK: "The London Stock Exchange may dump its £40 million electronic share trading platform TradElect and cull IT staff, as the new chief executive reviews costs."
Red Hat and Amazon: Time to Certify Cloud Partners (Jul 1, 2009, 09:32 UTC) (818 reads)
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(feedback) The VAR Guy: "This is a sign of things to come from Red Hat — and another indication of Amazon Web Services’ growing influence over next-generation solutions providers."
Virtualization Software Goes Multi-processor (Jun 27, 2009, 00:03 UTC) (2786 reads)
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(feedback) DesktopLinux: "The Sun-sponsored VirtualBox project has released a beta 3.0 version of its free, x86-oriented virtualization software. The Linux-compatible xVM VirtualBox 3.0 adds support for guest Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) with up to 32 virtual CPUs, as well as support for version 2.0 of the OpenGL graphics acceleration standard, among other features."
Achieving Robust Clustered Storage with Linux and GFS
(Jun 26, 2009, 23:19 UTC) (2025 reads)
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(feedback) EnterpriseStorageForum: "Using GFS, the free clustered file system in Linux, you can create a truly robust cluster that does not depend on other servers. In this article, we'll show you how to properly configure GFS."
Mullenweg: Open Source Trumps The Cloud (Jun 26, 2009, 00:07 UTC) (1628 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) Data Center Knowledge: "Using cloud storage from Amazon has helped Automattic scale its fast-growing Wordpress.com blog hosting service. But Wordpress founding developer Matt Mullenweg said he’d much prefer to run an optimized open source solution on leased servers."
Enter ext4, the Filesystem of the Future (Jun 24, 2009, 12:06 UTC) (4550 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) iTWire: "The ext4 filesystem has been around for a while as experimental code in GNU/Linux distributions. Recently one distribution decided to make it the default for an install."
HP Announces Cloud-Based Linux Appliance Revolution (Jun 24, 2009, 07:34 UTC) (2372 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) ITBusinessEdge: "While we were all looking the other way, HP's printer division may have created the first in a wave of devices that comes even closer to the ideal with its Web-connected printer."
Ramdisks - Now We Are Talking Hyperspace! (Jun 24, 2009, 03:02 UTC) (2787 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux Magazine: "Ramdisks are usually spoken of in hushed tones when sysadmins get together. Some view them with awe because of their performance and some view them with skepticism and say they are only useful for creating benchmarks."
Linux: It Doesn't Get Any Faster (Jun 24, 2009, 01:41 UTC) (4621 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Cyber Cynic: "The Windows' fan club likes to point out that Windows is far more popular than Linux. The reason for that has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with monopoly."
Linux Mainframe Use Grows (Jun 23, 2009, 22:32 UTC) (1647 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) The Industry Standard: "Linux on mainframes is set to increase as enterprises look to deliver more value from existing IT assets during the recession."
CA Pushes Linux On Mainframes
(Jun 18, 2009, 14:33 UTC) (1203 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) eWeek: "A recent survey sponsored by CA indicated that larger enterprises are expecting to invest more money into running Linux applications on mainframes."
Red Hat's Virtualization Plan Enters Next Phase (Jun 18, 2009, 01:33 UTC) (2150 reads)
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(feedback) InternetNews: "Red Hat's new initiatives aim to position the Linux vendor as a leader in virtualization, challenging vendors like VMware and Citrix for market and mind share on both the server and desktop."
FS-Cache & CacheFS: Caching for Network File Systems (Jun 17, 2009, 16:02 UTC) (1305 reads)
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(feedback) Linux Magazine: "As part of the 2.6.30 kernel bonanza of file systems, a CacheFS implementation for Linux was added. Currently it supports NFS and AFS, but other file systems could benefit from such a caching mechanism..."
High-Availability Storage With GlusterFS On Debian Lenny (Jun 16, 2009, 06:04 UTC) (1699 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Howtoforge: "This tutorial shows how to set up a high-availability storage with two storage servers (Debian Lenny) that use GlusterFS. Each storage server will be a mirror of the other storage server, and files will be replicated automatically across both storage servers."
SkyMapper Telescope: open source powered astronomy (Jun 15, 2009, 15:32 UTC) (1322 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) CIO: "What do the universe, open source software, a 12,000-core supercomputer, a cool $2.5 million of high-grade silicon and one of the country's largest data sets have in common? They all underpin a five-year Australian initiative to map and study the observable universe from the southern hemisphere."
The Perfect SpamSnake - Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (Jun 13, 2009, 06:01 UTC) (2759 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) HowtoForge: "This tutorial shows how to set up an Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope based server as a spamfilter in Gateway mode. In the end, you will have a SpamSnake Gateway which will relay clean emails to your MTA. You will also be able to view your incoming queue, train your SpamSnake and carry out a few more advanced operations via MailWatch."
Get Your Free Networked Storage (Jun 12, 2009, 21:01 UTC) (2306 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Enterprise Storage Forum: "One network storage software vendor, Openfiler, never needed to be convinced of the benefits of offering enterprises an open source network storage operating system"
Call for Tax Deductibility for Donating (to) FLOSS (AU) (Jun 12, 2009, 17:01 UTC) (1044 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Brendan Scott: "Some while ago Open Source Victoria (OSV) asked me to investigate some issues relating to the tax deductibility of donating FLOSS to charities as a means of promoting participation in FLOSS within Australia."
New Linux tool helps manage guest virtual machines (Jun 11, 2009, 18:03 UTC) (1708 reads)
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(feedback) Computerworld Australia: "With the increasing prevalence of virtualization comes the greater need for management of "guest" operating systems that run as virtual machines on the hypervisor, and the tool called libguestfs is set to provide that on Linux."
SAP: Open Source's Friend or Foe? (Jun 11, 2009, 17:33 UTC) (1193 reads)
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(feedback) Linux Journal: "Given that huge clout, SAP's attitude to open source is important; and yet it is hard to tell whether it is really free software's friend or its foe."
Hadoop Gets the SQOOP from Cloudera (Jun 11, 2009, 04:33 UTC) (1178 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) InternetNews: "The Apache Hadoop project offers the promise of being able to manage and process large volumes of data quickly. It's a project that is used by big Web titans like Yahoo, Google and Facebook, and it's about to get a critical new tool to help it ingest even more data."
What's the Future for OpenSolaris? (Jun 10, 2009, 04:32 UTC) (2023 reads)
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(feedback) Serverwatch: "As it comes closer to becoming reality, Oracle's purchase of Sun makes more sense, for the simple reason that there is plenty of good technology in Sun -- like Java -- that Oracle can put to good use.
But what is Oracle going to do with its newly acquired OSes?"
Linux router vendor Vyatta raises $10 million led by Citrix (Jun 9, 2009, 15:01 UTC) (1346 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Netstat -vat: "Vyatta, the feisty open source startup that is trying to take router market share from Cisco and Juniper - is getting an injection of $10 million today. The $10 million is Vyatta's 'C' round of financing and is led by Citrix Systems."
XtraDB: InnoDB on Steroids (Jun 9, 2009, 01:31 UTC) (1961 reads)
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(feedback) Linux Magazine: "Percona's XtraDB is a fork of InnoDB with a ton of extra options and enhancements. Here's a look at what it can do for your busy database. "
OpenSolaris 2009.06: Getting Better All The Time (Jun 9, 2009, 00:03 UTC) (2752 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) Tech Broiler: "The June 2009 (2009.06) release of OpenSolaris provides a solid Open Source GNOME desktop experience like that of a modern Linux distribution combined with the scalability and stability of UNIX."
Testing Out ATI Kernel Mode-Setting On Ubuntu (Jun 8, 2009, 19:02 UTC) (1693 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Phoronix: "For those with ATI Radeon hardware looking to test out kernel mode-setting, there is now a Launchpad PPA and a LiveCD available for testing out these mode-setting capabilities atop Ubuntu."
A Class on Open Source Courseware (Jun 8, 2009, 18:02 UTC) (1458 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux.com: "Colleges and universities have long been proficient contributors to free and open source software projects, dating back to the early days of the Internet, so it should come as no surprise that they create open source software no meet their own operational needs. One of the biggest fields is online courseware..."
Cray sells Opteron-Linux super to Swiss boffins (Jun 8, 2009, 16:32 UTC) (1284 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) The Register: "The Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano has coughed up some serious Swiss francs to buy a Cray 141.6 teraflops XT5 system, dubbed Monte Rosa."
File System Benchmarks Need to be Reformed (Jun 6, 2009, 03:02 UTC) (2272 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Enterprise Storage Forum: "I was a benchmarker at one time and consider myself a reformed benchmarker, so I know the tricks that vendors can use. We'll look at some of them and hopefully in the process make you a more informed consumer."
New KyaPanel version 2.2~2 (Jun 5, 2009, 22:04 UTC) (1386 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) KyaPanel: "This is the most tested KyaPanel version ever. We developed our own Q&A (Quality & Assurance) software to test all it's functions. In it's first version we are testing only Mail Module functions without Zimbra or eGroupware integrations, but even then it's a huge step to KyaPanel quality of software."
Working with filesystems using NFSV4 ACL (Jun 5, 2009, 13:04 UTC) (1709 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) IBM Developerworks: "THe NFSv4 (Network File System – Version 4) protocol introduces a new ACL (Access Control List) format that extends other existing ACL formats. NFSv4 ACL is easy to work with and introduces more detailed file security attributes, making NFSv4 ACLs more secure. Several operating systems like IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and Linux have implemented NFSv4 ACL in their filesystems."
