September 25, 2007
by sjvn01
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Xandros 4: The best desktop Linux for Windows users

What’s the best desktop Linux? For me, it’s SimplyMEPIS 6.5, soon to be replaced by 7.0. But this is both a dumb question and a dumb answer. The real question is: What’s the best desktop operating system for you?

If I told you the best 2007 car is a Mazda MX-5 Miata, I’d also be right, according to Consumer Reports. But what’s right for me, a middle-aged gent with a lovely wife and no kids at home, is not what’s right for a family of four. For them, a Honda Accord or a Toyota Sienna makes more sense.

It’s the exact same thing with desktop operating systems. With that idea firmly in mind, I’ve started looking at Linux desktops not for me but for particular groups of users.

For my tests, I’m going to use my Insignia 300a, an older, Best Buy house-brand desktop PC with a 2.8GHz Pentium IV CPU, a GB of RAM and an Ultra ATA/100 60GB hard drive. In short, it’s a decent, but in no way, shape or form, cutting-edge system.

I’m going to be starting my “best Linux desktop” series with a review of the best Linux for a Windows user who’s willing to install his or her own distribution. Don’t get me wrong. My pick for this user, Xandros’ Xandros Desktop Professional 4.1, could be installed by anyone who’s ever used a computer, but, and it’s a big but, some people get twitchy at the very idea of touching an operating system. For those users, there’s another story, but that’s a tale for another day.

Let’s start with the basics. Why is Xandros a good Linux for Windows users? Well, for starters, you can use it as a drop-in replacement for most Windows XP uses.

It works in both Linux- and Windows-based office networks. I’ve used Xandros Pro 4 on NT domains, AD (Active Directory) forests and Linux/Unix NIS (Network Information Service)-based LANs with no trouble at all. It just works. Frankly, it’s a lot easier to integrate Xandros into a Windows network than it is Vista.

Xandros 4 is designed for seamless integration into existing Windows-centric networks. It doesn’t just support the basics of domain and AD authentication. It also supports logon scripts and group policy profiles.

If you use the pre-installed Evolution 2.6.3 for your e-mail client and organizer, which I highly recommend, you’ll also find it integrates very smoothly with Microsoft Exchange e-mail and groupware. Since I consider Outlook as a security hole that pretends to be an e-mail client, I vastly prefer Evolution for use with Exchange or any other mail server, including Xandros recently acquired Scalix, a well-regarded open-source mail server. In addition, Microsoft recently licensed its Exchange protocols to Xandros for use in Scalix. This, in turn, means we can expect even better Exchange compatibility in Xandros Pro.

OK, so let’s say you’re not a Windows business user. What’s in Xandros for you? For starters, this distribution enables to both read and write to Microsoft’s NTFS (New Technology File System) partitions with Paragon Software Group’s NTFS for Linux 5.0. With it, you can read and write to your hard drive’s Windows NTFS partitions. Other Linuxes will let you read from NTFS, but Xandros makes it easy to get full use out of a dual Windows/Linux boot PC’s hard disk.

In addition, Xandros Professional deploys a customized KDE 3.4.2 desktop interface that looks and acts a great deal like the Windows XP interface. Trick the desktop out with Windows applications and an XP user could probably use Xandros for several days before figuring out that it really wasn’t XP.

Oh, yes, I did say Windows applications. Xandros includes CodeWeavers’s CrossOver Office 5.9.1. While not the newest version of this program that enables users to run many of the most popular Windows applications on Linux (that honor goes to CrossOver 6.1), it will give many Windows users all the applications they need. I’ve successfully run Office 2000 and 2003 suites, Quicken 2005, Windows Media Player 6.4 and iTunes 5.01 on it.

If you can live without Microsoft Office, the distribution also includes OpenOffice.org 2.0.6. It also includes a selection of some of the latest open-source software that appears on both Linux and Windows, such as Firefox and Thunderbird.

Xandros also includes the Xandros Network Connection System. I have to say it, combined with the file manager, makes accessing wired, wireless, mobile and VPN network-connected file and print servers easier than on any other system I’ve ever used. Hooking it up to any network is mindlessly easy. Want to use a printer on a Samba server? An NTFS drive hanging off an AD server? An NFS (Network File System) RAID running on Solaris? Click it, put in your user ID and password and you’re in business.

Underneath all this Windows-friendly goodness beats a heart based on Debian 3.1 Sarge. The Linux kernel, however, has been upgraded to version 2.6.18, with additional updates to proprietary ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers. This is certainly no bleeding-edge distribution. On the other hand, even by Linux’s high standards, Xandros is remarkably stable. Short of a power outage, I haven’t found anything that will take it down.

The distribution is also LSB (Linux Standards Base) 3.1 compliant. It is also one of the first commercial distributions to integrate the Portland 1.0 tools. Developers can use these tools to create applications that can easily integrate into a Linux desktop regardless of whether the desktop is GNOME or KDE based.

That’s all well and good, but here’s the important part. This really is a Linux distribution that a Windows user can use without tears. To quote Kim Brebach, from his recent overview of Linux desktops, “Xandros did exactly what it claimed: open an easy passage for Windows users through the mountains of Linux.”

Exactly. That’s why, for me, Xandros is the Linux for Windows users who have grown sick and tired of Windows’ endless security holes and the occasional crash. Xandros just works, and it works enough like Windows XP that even the most Linux-phobic user will be able to appreciate it.

Xandros Desktop Professional pricing starts at $99.99 per desktop. There is also a free version of Xandros 4.1, this Open Circulation edition, but for some reason Xandros makes it difficult to find. A BitTorrent link to it can be found on an otherwise idle Xandros fan site. You can also download a 30-day trial version for free.

A version of this story first appeared in DesktopLinux/

September 24, 2007
by sjvn01
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First U.S. GPL lawsuit heads for quick settlement

The first U.S. GPL-related lawsuit appears to be headed for a quick out-of-court settlement. Monsoon Multimedia admitted today that it had violated the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License version 2), and said it will release its modified BusyBox code in full compliance with the license.

Monsoon Multimedia has stated that it is currently in settlement negotiations with the BusyBox project to resolve the matter without going to court. The company also said in a statement that it intends to fully comply with all open-source software license requirements. The company plans to make its modified BusyBox source code publicly available on on its website in the coming weeks, it said.

This matter came to the public attention when the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) announced on Sept. 20 that it had just filed the first-ever U.S. copyright infringement lawsuit based on a violation of the GPL on behalf of its clients, BusyBox’s two principal developers. GPLv2-licensed BusyBox is a small-footprint application that implements a lightweight set of standard Unix utilities. It is commonly used in embedded systems.

The developers of BusyBox came to the SFLC after unsuccessfully trying to resolve the issue with Monsoon into on their own. One of the conditions of the GPL is that re-distributors of GPL-licensed software are required to ensure that each downstream recipient is provided access to the source code of the program. On the company’s own website, Monsoon Multimedia had publicly acknowledged that its products and firmware contain BusyBox. However, the company has not provided access to the underlying source code.

While not well known in most open-source circles, BusyBox is used in virtually all Linux-based devices. First created by Bruce Perens, the well known open-source software advocate and developer, it combines tiny versions of many common Unix/Linux utilities into a single small executable. By providing mini-replacements for many of the GNU utilities, embedded developers get much of the expected functionality of the GNU utilities without the space requirements.

Monsoon makes consumer devices primarily for home multimedia users. Its line includes such products as Hava, a place- and time-shifting TV recorder. This is an embedded Linux device that’s similar to the Slingbox. The company also offers SnappySoft, Windows Media Center video capture software.

The original SFLC complaint (PDF Link) on behalf of the BusyBox developers requests that an injunction be issued against Monsoon Media. It also requests that damages and litigation costs be awarded to the plaintiffs.

However, in a statement, Eben Moglen, Founding Director of the SFLC, explained, “Free software licenses such as the GPL exist to protect the freedom of computer users. If we don’t ensure that these licenses are respected, then they will not be able to achieve their goal. Our goal is simply to ensure that Monsoon Multimedia complies with the terms of the GPL.”

“Since we intend to and always intended to comply with all open source software license requirements, we are confident that the matter will be quickly resolved,” Graham Radstone, chairman and COO at Monsoon Multimedia said today in a statement.

The SFLC was unable to comment about Monsoon’s announcement since Daniel Ravicher, the primary attorney working on this case, is traveling today.

A version of this story was first published in LinuxDevices.

September 22, 2007
by sjvn01
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Coming soon: automatic Linux driver upgrades

Linux users want two things for their hardware: drivers; and easy access to those drivers. The first is finally happening; and now, thanks to a Dell Linux project called DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support), the other is on its way.

Dell and Linux distributors have been working on DKMS for about five years now. Its purpose is to create a framework where kernel-dependent module source can reside, so that it is very easy to rebuild modules. In turn, this enables Linux distributors and driver developers to create driver drops without having to wait for new kernel releases. For users, all this makes it easier to get up-to-the-minute drivers without hand compiling device drivers.

According to Dell, this separate framework for delivering drivers will remove kernel releases as a blocking mechanism for distributing code. The net effect, Dell hopes, is to speed up driver development by enabling quicker testing cycles. This also means that better tested code can be pushed back into the kernel at a more rapid pace. It’s also nice for developers and maintainers, as DKMS only requires a source tarball in conjunction with a small configuration file in order to function correctly.

What makes this project more interesting for all Linux users is that another project related to the DKMS project, mkrpm (make RPM), now adds automatic lines with modalias information. Modalias, for those of you who aren’t Linux device driver developers, is a data structure that’s used to hold the information that a device presents to the kernel.

Why is this important? Because, as Matt Domsch, Dell’s Linux technology strategist, explains, “This will eventually be used to automatically download drivers that match the hardware you have in your system but which aren’t presently in your $distro’s kernel.”

This isn’t pie in the sky technology. Dell already uses it. “Dell uses DKMS to distribute updated device drivers for RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), and Ubuntu built against those products’ gold kernels. “This lets us fix and replace individual device drivers to support new hardware without having to respin the whole CD like we wound up doing for Ubuntu,” said Domsch.

DKMS also has other advantages. While it currently works with Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu, DKMS was always designed (PDF link) to be both Linux distribution and hardware architecture agnostic. It was also built to be used by a variety of software distribution tools such as RHN (Red Hat Network), Kickstart and PXE (Pre-Execution Environment), and YUM (Yellow Dog Updater).

The current source code can be downloaded from the DKMS file site. Alternatively, it’s also available at this time on several distribution repositories, including Ubuntu Universe for Gutsy, Fedora Rawhide, and Fedora 7 testing.

Basic information on the project is in a paper from the Proceedings of the Linux Symposium, Dynamic Kernel Module Support: From Theory to Practice (PDF Link) by Matt Domsch and Gary Lerhaupt. If you’re interesting in working on the project, you can join the dkms-devel mailing list.

September 18, 2007
by sjvn01
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Mozilla spins off Thunderbird

In July, Mozilla executives admitted that they weren’t quite sure what to do with Thunderbird, the open-source e-mail client, since Firefox, the popular open-source Web browser, demanded most of the company’s attention. On Sept. 17, Mozilla announced that it had decided to spin Thunderbird off into a company of its own: MailCo.

The plan is for Mozilla to establish a new company to develop Internet communications software based on the Thunderbird program, code and brand. The new initiative also aims to nurture a robust developer ecosystem in order to drive improvements through open source and community innovation. This was the same path that Mozilla took with Firefox.

Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker had admitted that the popular e-mail client had taken second place in July, and the company was looking beyond Mozilla to find another way to advance Thunderbird.

Both the Mozilla company and the Mozilla Foundation considered several options for Thunderbird. These included creating a new non-profit organization like the Mozilla Foundation, making Thunderbird a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, or release Thunderbird as a community project supported by a small independent services and consulting company being “formed by the Thunderbird developers to continue development and care for Thunderbird users,” said Baker.

In a more recent blog, Baker described what Mozilla plans for MailCo. The goals for the new company are:

* Take care of Thunderbird users
* Move Thunderbird forward to provide better, deeper e-mail solutions
* Create a better user experience for a range of Internet communications — how does/should e-mail work with IM, RSS, VOIP, SMS, site-specific e-mail, etc?
* Spark the types of community involvement and innovation that we’ve seen around Web “browsing” and Firefox.

To make this happen, David Ascher, currently CTO and vice president of engineering at ActiveState, an open-source development tools company, will join Mozilla to establish MailCo. Ascher has been an active member of the Mozilla community since 2000, initially as the lead of Komodo, a Mozilla-based IDE (integrated development environment). He is also an established leader in the open-source community, including his role as a director of the Python Software Foundation.

Mozilla will provide $3 million seed funding to establish this new company. According to Baker, “We’ll be setting up MailCo in the coming weeks. Part of this is forming the team of people, part is developing a transition plan to move Thunderbird into MailCo gracefully while supporting the Thunderbird users. That will take some time. We’re on the path now, though, and that’s a great thing.”

A version of this story first appeared in DesktopLinux.

September 14, 2007
by sjvn01
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SCO goes belly-up

Years after it was first predicted, The SCO Group, a Unix and mobile software distributor better known for its Linux litigation, has filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

SCO’s Board of Directors unanimously decided that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its customers, shareholders and employees. At the same time, SCO’s subsidiary, SCO Operations, has also filed a petition for reorganization.

In the U.S. court system, a case filed under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code is often called a “reorganization” bankruptcy. In the case of a corporation going Chapter 11, its funds exist separately and apart from its owners, the stockholders. Therefore, a Chapter 11 doesn’t put the personal assets of the stockholders at risk aside from the value of their investment in the company’s stock.

When SCO filed for Chapter 11 it was also given an automatic stay of time during which all judgments, collection activities, foreclosures and repossessions of property are suspended and may not be pursued by the creditors on any debt or claim that arose before the bankruptcy petition filing.

Continue Reading →

September 7, 2007
by sjvn01
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AMD partners with Novell to open source ATI graphic drivers

AMD announced on Sept. 7 a major strategic change in open-source graphic processors support.

The company announced it would provide open-source information and a development package supporting the ATI RadeonHD 2000 series ATI Radeon X1000 series of graphics processing units on Linux desktops.

Beginning the week of Sept. 10, AMD and Novell‘s SUSE Linux engineering team will join forces to release the needed source code and hardware specifications to create open-source 2D graphics drivers for the Radeon chip family. Over the following months, AMD will continue to work with the open-source community to enable 2D, 3D and video playback acceleration to provide the best possible experience on the Linux desktop.

At the same time, AMD will continue to work on ATI’s proprietary, high-performance Catalyst drivers. With the forthcoming Catalyst 7.9 software release in September, AMD will add Linux support for the ATI Radeon HD 2000 series of graphics processors. In addition to expanded GPU support, Catalyst 7.9 is designed to improve performance across the board. In Q4 2007, AMD’s Catalyst software package for Linux will add support for AIGLX (Accelerated Indirect GLX). AIGLX is an enabling technology that allows Linux users to enjoy a rich visual 3D user interface with the 3D Compiz Linux desktop.

An early preview of this driver by the reviews site Phoronix showed that even in beta the AMD fglrx 8.41 driver gives Linux users “truly a new experience on the ATI Linux front. The new driver delivers massive performance improvements.”

“AMD has a proven track record of collaboration with the software ecosystem to support the needs of the open-source community,” said Phil Hester, AMD’s senior vice president and CTO at AMD, in a statement. “With this announcement we’re demonstrating our commitment to respond to the needs of the open-source community and adopt a consistent approach across CPU and GPU technologies. By supporting open-source drivers on our industry-leading ATI Radeon graphics processors, we accelerate innovation across the entire AMD platform.”

Ever since AMD, an open-source supporter, bought ATI in July 2006, there has been speculation that AMD would open source ATI’s proprietary graphics drivers.

As John Cherry, the Linux Foundation’s global initiative manager, blogged recently, “During the state of the Linux round-table discussion on the first day of the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, James Bottomley [Linux kernel developer] had asked the panelists what are the top two things each panelist would like from the Linux community. Among the panelists was Google’s Chris DiBona, who is the open-source program manager at Google. His response was interesting when he had said the following: ‘I would love to get either NVIDIA and ATI to actually give us the specs on the drivers we want or let’s just reverse engineer everything and do it ourselves.'”

AMD, with these moves, seems to be actually delivering more than the minimum that DiBona had requested. Novell and AMD have worked closely together for a number of years to bring technology to the open-source market.

“The lack of open-source drivers for graphics hardware has long been a major obstacle for Linux developers and Linux desktop users,” said Nat Friedman, chief technology and strategy officer for open source at Novell. “Our ultimate goal is complete, high-quality, open-source drivers for all video hardware. Today’s announcement brings us one major step closer. Novell is pleased to have extended our collaboration with AMD to deliver the initial drivers that will allow open-source developers to make the Linux experience even better on desktops, laptops and workstations, and we look forward to contributing this initial code to X.Org.”

As part of opening up the ATI drivers, AMD consulted with leading members of the open-source community and the X.Org community to ensure that the driver addressed the needs of both open-source developers and Linux users. AMD hopes that the release of these specifications will allow the development community to partner with AMD to drive new innovations for the Linux desktop.

AMD will provide on-going support for this project with an in-house development team.

“AMD announced its intention to extend support of open source ATI drivers at Red Hat’s Summit conference in May of this year, so we are delighted that the work necessary to achieve this has come to fruition,” said Brian Stevens, Red Hat’s CTO, in a statement. “This action affirms AMD’s commitment to Linux and the open-source community and will greatly improve the ‘out-of-box’ experience for users. AMD’s decision has a strong supporting business case, demonstrating that Linux clients represent a significant market opportunity. It is a bold
decision for AMD, and they deserve full credit.”

Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu’s founder, added, “The combination of AMD’s graphics hardware and open-source innovation will accelerate the emergence of new desktop computing technologies. AMD’s timing is excellent, given the surge in Linux desktop adoption and the focus now in the open-source community on next-generation visualization and desktop interaction models.”