As someone who’s been running and testing Linux desktops almost from day one, I think I know a thing or two about the top Linux desktops.So here, from bottom to top, is a gallery of my current favorites.
July 21, 2011
by sjvn01
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July 20, 2011
by sjvn01
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Mono, open-source .NET for Android, Linux and iOS, lives on
When Novell’s new owner, Attachmate, announced that it was letting Miguel de Icaza, the founder and lead developer of Mono go, I assumed Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET was a dead development platform walking. Even after de Icaza launched his own company, Xamarin, to keep Mono going, I had little hopes Mono would survive. Well, it looks like I was wrong.
Xamarin has convinced SUSE–Attachmate’s Linux branch–to give it Mono’s intellectual property. In return, Xamarin will provide technical support to SUSE customers using Mono-based products, and assume stewardship of the Mono open source community project.
In a statement, Nils Brauckmann, president and general manager of SUSE, said, “This partnership is a triple win–a win for SUSE, a win for Xamarin, but most importantly, a win for our customers, users and community. Our partnership ensures SUSE customers continue to get the best support possible, enables the bright team at Xamarin to achieve success in their promising new Where Novell & SUSE Linux goes from here venture, and provides continuity of stewardship for the Mono open source community project in the very capable hands of its most passionate evangelists.”
July 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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7 days in the cloud: My week with the Samsung Chromebook
It was the best of devices; it was the worst of devices.
When I first agreed to write about a week working with nothing but a Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, I knew I was asking for trouble. Although I already knew and liked its Chrome Web-browser-based Linux operating system, ChromeOS, I also know how I work.
You see, on a normal day, I don’t work on just any one computer, or even just one operating system. I usually work on at least three systems and one of those is always running Mint Linux, while another is usually running Ubuntu and one keeps flipping its little mind from Windows 7 to XP depending on what I’m doing to Windows that day. Me? Work on just one computer, and that a small laptop to boot? This wouldn’t be easy.
But, brave soul that I am, I decided to give it a try. This is what I found. I warn you now, it’s a tale of both triumph and tragedy. Well, OK, so it’s really a story of what worked and what didn’t work, but you get the idea.
July 17, 2011
by sjvn01
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Top Five Linux Contributor: Microsoft
Cats and dogs; apples and oranges; Linux and Microsoft. Two of these three things do not go together. Would you believe that Microsoft—yes Microsoft—was the fifth largest contributor to the soon to be released Linux 3.0 kernel? Believe it.
In a Linux Weekly News story, currently only available to subscribers, an analysis of Linux 3.0 contributors reveals that Microsoft was the fifth largest corporate contributer to Linux 3.0. While only 15h overall, that still puts Microsoft behind only Red Hat, Intel, Novell, and IBM in contributing new code to this version of Linux.
To be exact, Microsoft developer K. Y Srinivasan gets the credit for helping to improve Linux. Of course, as you might guess, neither Srinivasan nor Microsoft are doing this due to any particular love tor Linux per se.
The vast bulk of Microsoft’s contributions has been to its own Hyper-V virtualization hypervisor drivers.
July 17, 2011
by sjvn01
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Skype Holes
f you really know how Skype works, you know it’s about as safe as juggling firecrackers. Skype, the popular VoIP program, relies on every PC running Skype between you and who you’re calling to serve as stepping stones for your conversation. That’s bad. What’s worse is when Skype doesn’t check to see if Skype calls are actually sent, or received, by the right people.
Or, to quote Levent “Noptrix” Kayan, the security researcher that uncovered this hole, “Skype suffers from a persistent Cross-Site Scripting [XSS] vulnerability due to a lack of input validation and output sanitization of the ‘mobile phone’ profile entry. Other input fields may also be affected.”
What does that mean for you? Noptrix explained, “An attacker could trivially hijack session IDs of remote users and leverage the vulnerability to increase the attack vector to the underlying software and operating system of the victim.”
In plain English, it’s simple for a hacker to take over your Skype session as you login to Skype. From there it’s not much of a trick to take over your Windows PC or Mac and start causing real trouble.
July 14, 2011
by sjvn01
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IBM throws its source code and support behind OpenOffice
Of all the companies that support OpenOffice, there were only two that didn’t support the LibreOffice fork: Oracle and IBM. I could understand Oracle. While Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, didn’t really care about OpenOffice–after all Oracle essentially gave OpenOffice away to The Apache Foundation–I also know that Ellison wasn’t going to let The Document Foundation, LibreOffice’s parent organization, dictate terms to him. But, I’ve never quite understood why IBM didn’t help create LibreOffice. Be that as it may, IBM will be announcing tomorrow that it’s donating essentially all its IBM Lotus Symphony source code and resources to Apache’s OpenOffice project.
In an e-mail to the Apache OpenOffice e-mail list, IBM’s Open Document Format (ODF) architect Rob Weir let the cat out of the bag that IBM would be putting its Symphony code and resources behind OpenOffice.