Practical Technology

for practical people.

September 17, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Canonical partners with AMI, Dell & Intel

Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company is meeting with engineers and product managers from many top device and computer manufacturers in Taipei, Taiwan on September 24, 2010.

The commercial sponsor of Ubuntu will be hosting its second annual Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) at the Ubuntu Hardware Summit. Companies confirmed as attending include: American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), Phoenix, Compal, Dell, Foxconn, Intel, MSI, Marvell, and Quanta. In other words many of the leading PC, laptop, and tablet players will be there to learn about how to work with Ubuntu on boot time optimizations, hardware enablement, debugging, multi-touch, networking and more.

Why are they coming? I think it’s safe to say these companies wouldn’t be showing up if they weren’t interested in learning how to pre-install and deploy Ubuntu Linux on their devices.

More >

September 16, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

VMware is buying Novell

I’m not the least bit surprised that the Wall Street Journal is reporting that VMware will be buying Novell’s Linux business. After all, I suggested that VMware could really use Novell’s SUSE Linux for its future, and I also knew that Novell was in hot and heavy merger and acquisition talks earlier this week. My own sources have also now confirmed that VMware is Novell’s suitor.

I still don’t know those critical questions of how much, when, or any of the rest. According to the WSJ, and this I have been unable to confirm, Novell’s remaining assets, including NetWare, Novell’s old network operating system may end up in the hands of “Attachmate, which is owned by private equity buyout firms, which include Golden Gate Capital and Francisco Partners. Attachmate is a 30-plus year terminal emulation and networking company that could probably do a good job of supporting the last of Novell’s die-hard NetWare customers. In short, this part of the reported deal also makes sense.

Whether VMware will do a good job of taking care of SUSE Linux is another question. VMware CEO Paul Maritz is a former Microsoft powerhouse. Don’t think though that just because at one time he might have been in line for Microsoft’s CEO chair that he’s a good friend of Microsoft these days. When Microsoft rently took out an ad in USA Today urging businesses not to buy long-term VMware licenses, whatever love was left was lost.

More >

September 16, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

There will never be an IE 9 for XP

When it comes to Web browsers, I’m a Google Chrome fan. Before that I was a Firefox aficionado. I also thought though that Internet Explorer 8 was a real step forward. I’m also willing to believe that IE 9 will turn out pretty darn good too.

Based on my early play with it, I won’t go as far as Ed Bott does with his praise for IE 9, but I do think Windows 7 users will get a lot out of it. Mind you, I think they should also look at Chrome as well, and Firefox 4 as well. And, if you’re not running Windows 7–say you’re running XP, Vista 64-bit, Mac OS X, or any Linux–you’re not going to have any choice in the matter. IE 9 isn’t available on any of them. No, there won’t even be an IE 9 for Android.

In particular, it’s not now, never has been, and never will be available on XP. For some reason though I keep hearing from XP fans who are up in arms that Microsoft isn’t going to give them IE 9. Get over it already. Or, as Adrian Kingsley-Hughes put it so succinctly, “XP is dead people, time to get used to that.”

Yes, yes, we all know that most people are still running XP. Microsoft knows that too. Why do you think they’re using the IE 9 carrot to try to get people to upgrade to Windows 7?

More >

September 16, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Diaspora: It’s no Facebook… yet

Hundreds of millions of us use Facebook every day, but that doesn’t mean we like it. We like being able to connect with our friends. It’s the hoops we have to jump through to keep our privacy on Facebook that’s a pain in the neck. Diaspora, a home-grown, open-source project, is trying to answer that need with a social network that combines Facebook’s features with the users, instead of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in charge.

Diaspora got lots of fans when its student developers announced their plans this spring, but until now Diaspora has little to show. Today, September 16th, that’s changed. Diaspora is now available as a developers’ source code release.

This is not, let me repeat, not a release for every-day people. It’s for developers who know their way around social networking technology in general and can program in Ruby and Ruby on Rails. If that’s not you, then stick with Facebook for now.

If you are a developer with the right chops though, the core Diaspora programmers has now opened their project to others. The code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3). This is the GPL for server programs that are usually accessed with a desktop interface.

More >

September 15, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Are we really ready for IPv6?

I would love to believe the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the group that oversees the allocation of all Internet numeric resources, that 84% of ISPs and other major Internet groups are now using, or are about to use IPv6. But, I don’t.

Mind you, 84% of serious corporate Internet users should be at that point. We’re quickly running out of IPv4 addresses. Let me check right now. Yep, according to the IPv4 Address Report, we’re still on schedule to run out of all IPv4 Internet addresses on January 14, 2012.

I actually expect us to run out faster than that though. I strongly suspect speculators are already snatching IP addresses up the same way they did potentially popular domain names and for the same reason: to make money from selling them off in a seller’s market. In fact, I just noticed that in the week since I last checked the Internet IPv4’s drop-dead date, it’s already moved up from January 25th 2012. The buy-outs are already happening.

I don’t buy the most optimistic view of the IPv6 Deployment Survey (PDF Link) for several reasons. First, it’s a global, self-selected survey of the people and groups who work closely with regional Internet registries (RIRs) the group that issues Internet addresses to ISPs. In short, they’re the people who are closest to the coming Internet address famine. If they don’t get it, no one does.

More >

September 15, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Novell may be sold soon, but to whom?

The New York Post is not exactly where I look for business or Linux news, but it seems they’re on to something. In a September 15th story, the Post reported that “Novell Inc. has reached a deal in principle to sell itself in two parts, and is three to four weeks away from signing a deal.” My sources are saying the same thing.

I wish I had more to report, but I don’t. The deal seems to be that a technology company will pick up SUSE Linux; its open-source community and its distribution, openSUSE; and their associated technologies like Mono, the open-source adaptation of Microsoft’s .NET. The rest will go to a private-equity company.

Officially, Novell has told me “No comment.” Off-the-record, all I’ve got is that there are deals in the works, but that’s not much. Novell has been working on finding a buyer since at least May.

Whatever the merger and acquisition agreements end up being, I’m sure it will be for more than the $2-billion bargain-basement price offered by Elliott Associates in March of this year for Novell. That said it’s still possible that Elliott Associates may be the private equity firm in on the deal.

More >