August 1, 2008
by sjvn01
1 Comment
The Linux Foundation has had several public meetings before, but they were really only for Linux developers and their best friends. Now, the Foundation is holding one for end-users: the Linux Foundation End User Collaboration Summit.
The meeting will be held on October 13 and 14th at the Desmond Tutu Center in New York City. The idea is to get end users and community developers together to try to co-ordinate what users want and what developers plan on delivering.
August 1, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments
It’s one thing to have a skunkworks operating system project, Midori, that could conceivably replace Windows. It’s another to actually have plans on how to switch users from Windows to Midori. Guess what? Microsoft actually does have such plans.
According to David Worthington, Microsoft isn’t only building a Windows replacement operating system, its “carefully conceptualizing a way to move millions of users away from the existing Windows codebase and onto Midori, a legacy-free operating system.”
The plans, which are far from being finalized, indicate the Microsoft is really running scared of Mac OS and Linux on the desktop. “Midori’s legacy-free objective [is] a preemptive strike against non-Microsoft operating systems, enabling the company to compete head-on by enticing customers to replace Windows with Midori instead of a non-Microsoft OS,” wrote Worthington.
I know many of you still have trouble with the idea that the Mac or the Linux desktop could possibly challenge Windows. Microsoft disagrees. Look at the numbers.
July 30, 2008
by sjvn01
3 Comments
Color me surprised. Dana Blankenhorn, a well-known writer about Linux and open source recently asked for someone—anyone–to send him a loaner Linux laptop to replace his now dead Windows laptop. What, he didn’t already have one?
Now, you can write about stuff that you don’t actually do yourself. After all, how many sports writers could even stand in against, never mind hit, a Jonathan Papelbon 96MPH fastball? But, I just assumed he was already running Linux on a daily basis. After all, that’s what I do.
I should also mention that Blankenhorn is a journalist who came to Linux, while I’m a techie who came to journalism. It’s a very different journey.
July 30, 2008
by sjvn01
1 Comment
No, I’m not talking about killing Vista. Microsoft is already burying that living dead operating system as fast it can. I’m talking about killing Windows itself. That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn from David Worthington’s story about Microsoft’s plans for Midori, a next generation operating system.
According to Worthington, who managed to get his hands on Microsoft’s internal documents, “Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity [a limited open-source] operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code. Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.”
Microsoft’s objective for Midori, writes Worthington, is no less than replacing Windows. “Microsoft is carefully mapping out migration strategies to move customers from Windows to Midori, its planned legacy-free operating environment, virtualization, and a composite application model that permits applications to be hosted by both OSes, are key to the strategy.”
It’s about time!
More >
July 29, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments
Likewise Software has released a new, open-source version of its eponymous AD (Active Directory) program for integrating Linux, Unix and Mac systems into AD.
Likewise Fall includes two main features. The most important, LWIS (Likewise Identity Services) enables you to use Active Directory Authentication for your Linux, Unix and Mac PCs. Likewise states that LWIS includes a full implementation of the DCE/RPC framework with support for Kerberos, NTLM and SPNEGO security protocols. The company also claims that LWIS will run on 118+ non-Windows platforms..
With just playing with Likewise Fall, I can say that the basic functionality is there. Using it I was able to join my openSUSE 11 desktop to my Windows Server 2008 AD.
July 29, 2008
by sjvn01
1 Comment
A new version of one of the two major Linux desktops, KDE and GNOME, came out today: KDE 4.1 While I don’t hate it, I don’t see myself switching over from KDE 3.5.9 either.
That said, I will say KDE 4.1 is an improvement over the last 4.x version. I hated 4.04. I disliked it so much that I suggested that it might be best to fork KDE into wherever it was that KDE 4 was going and restart major development work on the KDE 3.5 branch.
After working with KDE 4.1, the release candidate, for the last few days, I’m ready to eat some of my words, but not all of them. I gave the new KDE a trial run on my main Linux desktop. This is an HP A6040N Pavilion Desktop PC with its 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM and 320 GB of SATA hard drive with openSUSE 11. I also tried it on my Gateway 503GR. This system has a 3GHz Pentium IV CPU, 2GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon 250 graphics card, and a 300GB SATA hard drive. On this system, I was running Kubuntu 8.04.