Infrastructure Linux News for Apr 29, 2009

• Getting Into Linux the Easy Way (Linux for Beginners) (Apr 29, 2009, 23:02)
  LinuxPlanet: "Installing Linux is pretty easy, but what options are there for users who want Linux already installed on a computer? Carla Schroder reveals several excellent, affordable options, plus tips and tricks for learning Linux quickly."


• Mozilla Firefox updates to 3.0.10 and 3.5 Beta 4 (Apr 29, 2009, 22:02)
  Netstat-vat: "Mozilla is updating both its stable version of Firefox as well as its in-development version. The new stable Firefox version 3.0.10 is a bit of surprise considering that Mozilla just issued 3.0.9 last week."


• If Everything Was Made by Microsoft (Apr 29, 2009, 20:47)
  Cracked: "We asked you to show us what the world might look like if it really did run on Microsoft. The winner is below, but first the runners up."


• /dev/null And /dev/zero On Linux And Unix: What's The Difference? (Apr 29, 2009, 20:02)
  The Linux and Unix Menagerie: "Most folks, at least initially, consider /dev/null and /dev/zero to be virtually equivalent. And, even though the names make that conclusion seem self-evident, the truth is actually quite the opposite. The two files differ quite drastically, although not in every aspect."


• Has the GPL out-lived its usefulness? (Apr 29, 2009, 19:17)
  Cyber Cynic: "Things have been calm lately, but recently, Eric S. Raymond, co-founder of the OSI (Open Source Initiative), has thrown a match on the gasoline again in an essay entitled, The Economic Case Against the GPL."


• An Open Letter to Larry Ellison about OpenOffice.org (Apr 29, 2009, 18:32)
  OpenOffice.org Training: "I'm sure there are many reasons for Oracle buying Sun. You might not be having meetings this week about OpenOffice.org. You might be having meetings next week about spinning it off into a foundation. But if you keep interest or control over OpenOffice.org, please consider the following."


• The Bash declare Statement (Apr 29, 2009, 17:47)
  Linux Journal: "Although rarely used, the bash declare statement does have a couple useful options. It can mark a variable as read only and also mark it as being a number only."


• HP Laptops come with SuSE Linux ED 11 pre-installed (Apr 29, 2009, 17:02)
  ItRunsOnLinux: "HP is launching a new line of inexpensive business laptops, the ProBook s-series. These laptops can be ordered with Novell Inc's SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 pre-installed."


• Genie To Bottle Microsoft (Apr 29, 2009, 16:17)
  EW Blogs: "How far should Microsoft feel threatened by Linux? Quite a bit, if ARM's CEO Warren East is to be believed."


• How to choose the best Linux distro for you (Apr 29, 2009, 14:47)
  Tux Radar: "At the time of writing, there are three hundred and twenty three distributions being tracked on distrowatch.com. There's one called Ehad. And another is called Estrella Roja. Many include the letter 'X' in their name, and many feature hand-drawn mascots and disparate communities. Not all are Linux-based, and not all are actively development, but the overwhelming majority are. This is the world of choice, and it's a world made possible by free and open source software."


• History of Sun Microsystems Quiz (Apr 29, 2009, 14:02)
  Technology & Business: "How much do you know about where the company is today and where it has come from?"


• FLISoL Bogota 2009 - The good, the bad and the ugly (Apr 29, 2009, 13:32)
  Technology FLOSS: "There were roughly 30 installers overall. 121 machines got worked on. Roughly 100 of them got a GNU/Linux installed/updated on them. 55 of them were Ubuntus (and such), 21 of them got Debians (no love for RPMs here in Bogotá, guys.... sorry), 12 of them got Mandriva, 4 of them got OpenSuSE, 2 got Fedoras plus a few others."


• WiFi cards to offer Linux drivers (Apr 29, 2009, 13:02)
  LinuxDevices: "Socket Mobile has joined the trend of offering Linux support for WiFi cards by announcing Linux drivers for its Go Wi-Fi SDIO WLAN cards and modules. The drivers will be offered via a partnership with Embwise, which is porting its SDIOWorx stack to the devices."


• Boot Speed War: Xubuntu 9.04 vs. Fedora 10 vs. PCLinuxOS 2009 (Apr 29, 2009, 12:32)
  Tech Source From Bohol: "The freshly released Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" is said to have significantly improved its boot speed. So I got curious and decided to compare its boot performance to Fedora 10 and PCLinuxOS 2009."


• Red Hat Fedora 11 Focuses on the Linux Desktop (Apr 29, 2009, 10:32)
  InternetNews: "Fedora 11 includes new open source technologies that accelerate the Linux desktop from a number of different perspectives. Boot time is improved, as is device connectivity, while server-side installations will benefit from a new Linux filesystem and enhanced virtualization capabilities."


• Frugal Tech Show: Ubuntu, Swine Flu, Windows 7, MariaDB and MySQL (Apr 29, 2009, 09:02)
  Frugal Tech Show: "Frugal Networker Ken Hess and I discuss Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, the effect of Twitter on Swine Flu news dissemination..."


• Office 2007 adds Open Document support (Apr 29, 2009, 06:02)
  CNet: "The service pack includes a collection of stability and performance updates as well as support for more file formats including Open Document Format (ODF) and Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Microsoft had said last May that it would add support for the additional file formats."


• 5 Popular Tips to Customise Nano Editor (Apr 29, 2009, 04:30)
  TuxArena: "It does not compete with advanced development environments like Vim or Emacs, but it's fast and easy on resources. Here are five (popular, I hope) tips for customising Nano and changing its default behaviour."


• Announcing VirtualBox 2.2.2 for Linux (Apr 29, 2009, 01:33)
  Softpedia: "The popular, open-source, virtualization software VirtualBox reached yesterday, April 27th, version 2.2.2. Being a maintenance release, there weren't any new major features added to it. The following list includes bugfixes and added items that apply to the Linux client:"