Linux News for Mar 27, 2009

• Editor's Note: All About Nothing, All About Everything (Mar 27, 2009, 23:02)
  Well here we are again, another good week gone by, and another welcome Friday. I'm tired and brain-dead, and looking forward to napping in the warm sun this weekend. I am definitely not complaining-- unlike 18% of the people in my county I have a job and a roof over my head.


• AMD Catalyst 9.3 Brings OpenGL Composite Support (Mar 27, 2009, 22:32)
  Phoronix: "While the Catalyst driver for Windows was released a number of days ago, the Catalyst Linux driver was missing. It has, however, been released today."


• Migrating the enterprise to Linux, 10 things clarified (Mar 27, 2009, 22:02)
  Handle With Linux: "While I welcome the criticism, I think it's to bad the author has taken it upon himself to try to take down all arguments. This pushed him to the point where he had to come up with arguments which can't be taken completely serious."


• Windows and Linux on USB III (Mar 27, 2009, 21:32)
  Softpedia: "Placing Windows on a USB and booting it is not as easy as it may seem, mainly because Windows was not built for live sessions. For some GUI addicted users the result may not be at all what they expected, plus the functionality is cut off drastically."


• Dell acknowledges recession/depression with sub-$500 laptop pricing ... plus an equipment rant (Mar 27, 2009, 21:02)
  Click: "Dell is trying to earn your business, and right now (and through April 2) the company is running a "9 great systems under $499""


• Hey, your distro sucks! (Mar 27, 2009, 20:32)
  Larry the Free Software Guy: "In short, their schtick is simple: Your distro/software/hardware sucks and you're pretty lucky I'm here to tell you why."


• 10 Things I Hate About Tech (Mar 27, 2009, 20:02)
  CIO: "Sure, spyware, spam and wireless routers that have the lifespan of a mosquito annoy us all. But what do we really hate about technology? Here's my current top 10 list:"


• Getting Rid of Nasty Adobe Flash Cookies the Cool Linux Way (Mar 27, 2009, 19:32)
  LinuxPlanet: "In Part 1 we learned about the not very well-known Adobe Flash cookies, how to find them on your Linux system, and how to use Adobe's Web-based Flash cookie manager. Today Carla Schroder is going to show us how to deal with Flash cookies using ordinary Linux commands, which unlike the Adobe manager are nice and fast and don't require an Internet connection."


• Kernel developers squabble over Ext3 and Ext4 (Mar 27, 2009, 19:02)
  H Online: "A number of senior kernel developers, including Linus Torvalds, Ted Ts'o, Alan Cox and Ingo Molnar, have been squabbling over the sense or otherwise of journaling and delayed allocation in Ext3 and Ext4."


• Multi touch for any,all synaptics touchpad (Mar 27, 2009, 18:32)
  Ubuntu Snippets: "Multi-touch became trendy after iphone came up with it. We are seeing many new laptops with multi-touch. At hardware level, there is nothing special that you need, to make multi-touch work."


• Linux Puzzle Games to train your intellectual skills (Mar 27, 2009, 18:02)
  Worldlabel: "But if you prefer to train your intellectual skills instead of blasting monsters or conquering the world, there are a few high-quality puzzle games, too. In this article we will take a look at some of the best puzzle games for Linux."


• Why IPv6 Is Like Broccoli (Mar 27, 2009, 17:32)
  InternetNews: "The Internet is at crossroads. The current IPv4 address space is nearing exhaustion, while the next-generation IPv6 (define) addressing system dramatically expands the available address space. Yet, to date, it hasn't been widely deployed."


• Rocks Don't Need to Be Backed Up (Mar 27, 2009, 17:02)
  Enterprise Storage Forum: "My wife and I were in New York's Central Park last fall when we saw a nearly 4,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk that has been remarkably well preserved, with hieroglyphs that were clearly legible — to anyone capable of reading them, that is. I've included a couple of pictures below to give you a better sense of this ancient artifact -- and how it relates to data storage issues."


• First Look at Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" Beta (Mar 27, 2009, 16:32)
  Lifehacker: "The name's ridiculous, but "Jaunty Jackalope," the next release of the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, is seriously focused on the user experience. Dig what's new and improved in the beta of Ubuntu 9.04, released today."


• Microsoft Internet Explorer vs. Firefox brief comparison guide (Mar 27, 2009, 16:02)
  Nathan's Toasty Technology page: "This is a brief, slightly demented comparison guide of the features of the MSIE for Windows and Friefox web browsers to show you just how great Microsoft Internet Explorer really is. Consult a doctor before reading. Use of this list for any real use would be stupid. If you think this list is supposed to be serious or logical in any way then you are the one who is insane."


• Ten ways to smooth the switch to Linux (Mar 27, 2009, 15:32)
  ZDNet UK: "Moving users to Linux can be tricky, but Jack Wallen has some practical measures that should ease the transition."


• Parsix 2.0 ScreenShots, Lean and Beautiful (Mar 27, 2009, 15:02)
  Linux Dynasty: "Parsix is a beautiful OS which is derived off of Kanotix and based off of Debian. The install was quite simple and intuitive, though not as simple as Ubuntu based distributions. What grabbed my attention immediately was the beautiful artwork that was part of the default LiveCD and the Install."


• Avoid Typing with Autokey (Mar 27, 2009, 14:32)
  Linux Magazine: "Imagine how much time you could save if you had a tool that could help you to avoid typing static text like "Kind regards" or your address. Like the idea? Then you'll most certainly appreciate the Autokey text expanding utility."
  Link fixed-- ed.


• Five Essential Ubuntu Modifications (Mar 27, 2009, 14:02)
  WorksWithU: "Some of these modifications are essential to get certain features to work, one of them is something I couldn't do without. Here are my five essential Ubuntu modifications."


• Who cares if XP support is ending? (Mar 27, 2009, 13:32)
  ZDNet Education: "I wish I could agree with fellow ZDNet blogger, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, that the April 14th demise of free XP support from Microsoft would help bring people into the open source fold and encourage them to look at Linux when 7 still isn't widely available and Vista is still a sad little OS. Unfortunately, I just don't think it matters at all."


• The case for a secondary motherboard OS (Mar 27, 2009, 13:02)
  The Tech Report: "It seems like every year, someone thinks that Linux is on the verge of making real inroads on the desktop. And every year, the alternative operating system's desktop market share fails to grow significantly. Yet Linux continues to pop up in new places, one of which should be of great interest to enthusiasts."


• RIM, Red Hat Send Tech Stocks Soaring (Mar 27, 2009, 12:32)
  InternetNews: "Red Hat fared even better, soaring 17% on better than expected earnings, and Best Buy surged 12.6% after its quarterly results and outlook both topped forecasts."


• Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Beta released (Mar 27, 2009, 12:02)
  ClubUbuntu: "Hello clububuntu readers, I have great news for you! Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Beta is now available for download."


• Diagnose and fix network problems yourself (Mar 27, 2009, 10:32)
  TuxRadar: "A recent and typical case of Linux network failure was the friend who rang up to say his "network had stopped"... Luckily, Linux has a goodly collection of network tools to help us figure out exactly what had gone wrong. (To eliminate any stress-inducing suspense, let me reveal that we eventually discovered that he had been disconnected by his ISP as a result of forgetting to renew his subscription.)"


• Firefox Looking To Lose The Flab - And The Flaw (Mar 27, 2009, 09:02)
  Linux Journal: "Memory leaks and code exploits are a fact of life for both browser developers and their users -- regardless of the specific browser in question. For the developers at Mozilla, both issues have been on their minds this week, as browser bugs of both sorts have been all over the news."


• Is Using Linux Too Frugal? (Mar 27, 2009, 07:32)
  Serverwatch: "But who listens to such rubbish? Apparently, a few do and they seem to be in the minority-a solvent minority."


• Mule - The Open Source Enterprise Integration Solution (Mar 27, 2009, 06:02)
  Developer.com: "In order for enterprises to realize the benefits of SOA, the enterprises will need a robust infrastructure like Enterprise Service Bus (or simply ESB)...The ESB forms the backbone of the SOA system and provides necessary infrastructure for building SOA applications. It acts as a transit system or bus through which different applications talk to each other using different protocols and message formats."


• No more Java 7 (Mar 27, 2009, 04:32)
  Stephen Colebourne's Weblog: "So, what has this to do with the end of Java SE 7? Well, as I said, I'm specifically referring to Java the specification. Now many people don't realise this, but as well as the JSRs for Servlets, EJBs and JMS, there are also JSRs for the whole of Java EE and for the whole of Java SE."


• Htop, a tip-top ncurses interactive tool for system monitoring your desktop (Mar 27, 2009, 03:02)
  Free Software Magazine: "This article will show you how to configure and use htop to monitor system resources and how to use this dinky interactive application to manage running applications and processes on your desktop."


• Intel CEO says Sun was shopped around (Mar 27, 2009, 01:32)
  CNet News: "During an employee Webcast earlier this week to discuss Intel's stock options program, the chip giant's CEO, Paul Otellini, shed a little background on Sun Microsystems' pursuit to find a buyer."


• Microsoft Rules Netbooks Now, But ARM/Linux Threat Grows (Mar 27, 2009, 00:02)
  NetworkWorld: "Microsoft today sits comfortably atop the growing netbook market with Windows garnering 90 percent of netbook sales in November, December and January, according to research firm The NPD Group. What about Linux?"