Practical Technology

for practical people.

May 9, 2007
by sjvn01
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Red Hat shows its Global Desktop Cards

Red Hat Inc. on May 9 announced the availability of a new client product, Red Hat Global Desktop, at its annual Red Hat Summit tradeshow in San Diego. This desktop aims to deliver a modern user experience with an enterprise-class suite of productivity applications.

Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens stated, “Users, requirements and technologies have changed so dramatically over the past few years that the traditional one-size-fits-all desktop paradigm is simply exhausted.”

“Commercial customers are still begging for desktop security and manageability for their knowledge workers; consumers are rapidly adopting new online services and applications; and developing nations are looking for affordable information technologies that bypass traditional desktops entirely. Our strategy is to deliver technologies that are specifically appropriate to these varied constituents,” Stevens continued.

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May 2, 2007
by sjvn01
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What’s what with openSUSE, ZENworks, YaST

In late April, SUSE Project Manager Andreas Jaeger announced on the openSUSE list that “Beginning with the next alpha release of openSUSE 10.3, alpha 4, ZENworks will be gone. Instead, openSUSE “will use the native tools only — Zypper, openSUSE-updater, and YaST.”

Now, Bruce Lowry, Novell Inc.’s director of PR, explains in his blog what this means for Novell’s enterprise SUSE Linux operating systems.

Lowry opened by writing that, “openSUSE will now be focusing on native software management using YaST and ‘zypp,’ the package-management library. As a result, openSUSE 10.3 will not include the ZENworks Management Daemon.”

Starting with openSUSE 10.1, the openSUSE group, with Novell’s support, changed the default package management software from SUSE 9 and 10’s YOU (YaST Online Update) to zypp. This is a backend library that uses RPM (RPM Package Manager) packages for installing, removing, and querying program packages. This new program is an attempt by Novell to marry the best features of SUSE’s yast2 package manager and Ximian’s libredcarpet. It’s also used by ZMD to create the system-tray notification applet, zen-updater.

This change did not work well. There have been several updates to the new package management programs. Despite all these improvements, the combined package system did not work well.

Since openSUSE is the community Linux that becomes, after it’s tested out and matured, the basis for SLED and SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop/Server), the question arises: “What does this mean for Novell’s enterprise Linuxes?”

Lowry explained that, “First, and most important, patch, update and software deployment will remain compatible between SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 and future Novell solutions, so that customers can rest easy that their existing update systems will work for the entire supported life-cycle of their SUSE Linux Enterprise investment.”

He went on, “The openSUSE team decided to focus their efforts on YaST and ‘zypp.’ Why? The short answer is that ZENworks is not necessary for openSUSE. OpenSUSE is targeted at the technical enthusiasts who want a cutting-edge distribution to sample the latest and greatest Linux technology. Most openSUSE users deploy one or two servers in their environment. They don’t need the capabilities inside ZENworks to manage those one or two servers. In order to patch one or two servers in a non-mission-critical environment, YaST and the ‘zypp’ tools are sufficient.”

Thus, the work for integrating the ZENworks client — zmd — and SUSE Linux is being given to Novell’s engineers. They will “continue to work on automatic detection and integration of SUSE Linux Enterprise systems into a ZENworks infrastructure, while maintaining the high standards of interoperability, scalability, security and performance customers expect from Novell technologies,” wrote Lowry.

“The ZENworks component ‘zmd,’ as well as its associated command line and graphic interface tools, remain available and supported for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. Going forward, ZENworks Linux Management will remain Novell’s solution for enterprise-class resource management for desktops and servers,” Lowry continued.

“We are currently designing SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, which is targeted to provide “interface-compatible” utilities to rug – the command-line interface that complements the ZENworks software management environment. OpenSUSE delivers most of this interface compatibility in its “zypp” environment.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 will also include the well-known graphical interfaces [YAST] for software management,” concluded Lowry.

The result will be that the current ZENworks components will be changed by Novell’s engineers to work better in the commercial versions of Linux. In the meantime, openSUSE will continue its work with Zypper, openSUSE-updater, and YaST. Zypp will stay in both, as the core package update component.

A version of this story first appeared in Linux-Watch.

April 30, 2007
by sjvn01
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Dell to choose Ubuntu

Officially, Dell Inc. hasn’t said a word yet about which Linux it will be preloading on its desktops and laptops. Several sources within Dell, however, have told DesktopLinux.com that Dell’s desktop Linux pick is going to be Ubuntu.

While unable to confirm this through official Dell channels, we have heard the same story now from several internal Dell sources. They tell us that the Austin, Texas, computer giant will be preinstalling the newly released Ubuntu 7.04. These systems will be released in late May 2007.

According to our sources, Ubuntu will be released on a Dell e-series “Essential” Dimension desktop, an XPS desktop, and an e-series Inspiron laptop.

The e-series systems are budget-priced PCs that start at $408 without a monitor. The base systems come with 512MB of RAM and a 160GB SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) hard drive. It appears that Dell will only be offering Ubuntu on one of the two systems in this family. The E521 is powered by an AMD Sempron 3400+ chip and uses a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU (graphics processor unit) for graphics. The alternative, the E520, uses an Intel 2.8GHz Celeron D processor.

There are four XPS models, which are meant for home users. Each includes a 19-inch flat-panel monitor. Presuming that Dell delivers Ubuntu on the least expensive of these systems, the XPS 410, the base system would cost $899. It comes with an Intel 1.8GHz, Core 2 Duo Processor E4300, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB SATA hard drive, and a 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache for graphics.

Finally, for the laptop, there are three e-series Inspiron notebooks with prices ranging from $899 to $1,149. Unlike the other systems, we were unable to narrow down which is the most likely to be sold with Ubuntu.

All of this line can run with up to an Intel 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo Processor T7400. On RAM, the systems range from 512MB to 1GB. All can be upgraded to 2GB of RAM. Their primary difference is in their screen size. The E1405, which is designed for business travelers, has a 14.1-inch WXGA+ display. The E1705, dubbed by Dell as the Entertainment Powerhouse, has a 17-inch wide-screen display.

That Dell chose Ubuntu wasn’t much of a surprise, since Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell had already announced that he is running that distribution on his home laptop. Michael Dell is currently using Ubuntu 7.04 on an extremely well-equipped Dell Precision M90. His system uses an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 Processor, which runs at 2.33GHz and comes with a 4MB cache. It also comes with 4GB of DDR2 (double-data-rate) 667MHz DRAM, a 17-inch WXGA+ wide-screen LCD, a 160GB 7,200-rpm SATA hard drive, a 8X DVD +/- RW optical drive, and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 512M graphics card.

Sources also indicated that Dell has decided to go with Ubuntu because a large number of people who answered its Linux desktop survey indicated that they wanted Ubuntu. While Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, recently said he can’t comment on whether or not his company has been talking with Dell, sources close to the company indicate that Dell and Canonical have been having talks for several months now about Ubuntu running on Dell’s computers.

A version of this story first appeared in DesktopLinux.

April 30, 2007
by sjvn01
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One Small Step against DRM

One advantage of the Apple TV is that if your DVDs are stored on a server you can watch any or all of them without ever bothering to put a DVD in your player again. The trick was, of course, how to get your DVD into your computer in the first place. Well, actually, that’s not much of a trick. Programs like the open-source HandBrake and Nero 7 Nero 7 make it possible to rip DVDs and covert them into Apple TV friendly MP4 files. The real problem for many people is: “How do you do it legally?”

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April 27, 2007
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu Lays Down the Trademark Law

Trademarks have recently become something of an issue in open-source circles. Debian, for example, recently took exception to Mozillas Firefox trademark rules and called its version of the popular browser, IceWeasel. So, Ubuntu has decided to address possible trademark issues by creating its own trademark policy.

Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu, announced the trademark policy in his blog on April 25. Shuttleworth also explained why the Ubuntu leadership felt it had to create such a policy. “Classically, software freedom was about the copyright license associated with the code. But patents and trademarks are now being brought into the mix. For example, the discussion around Mozillas trademark policy was directly linking the concept of “freedom” to trademark policy as much as code copyright license,” Shuttleworth wrote.

Another factor doubtlessly was that Canonical is seeking to turn Ubuntu into a major business Linux distribution. As Mark Webbink, Red Hats deputy general counsel and secretary, said in 2004, Red Hat has no problems with anyone using its source code. But Red Hat does have problems with anyone using its name or its trademark “shadowman.” That, Webbink said, Red Hat guards zealously. “In the open-source economy, its the Red Hat brand, as well as its service, that carry value.”

So it is that there are many Linux distributions based on Red Hats code, such as CentOS. CentOS, however, cant use the trademarked name “Red Hat.” Instead, it describes its code as coming from “sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor.” And, that while it “aims to be 100% binary compatible,” the company does make changes to the packages “to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.”

Ubuntus trademark policy opens by stating whats covered by the policy. “Canonical owns a number of trademarks and these include UBUNTU, KUBUNTU, EDUBUNTU, and XUBUNTU. The trademarks are registered in both word and logo form. Any mark ending with the letters UBUNTU or BUNTU is sufficiently similar to one or more of the trademarks that permission will be needed in order to use it.”

Non-profit groups using Ubuntu for open-source community purposes are exempted from this requirement. On the other hand, a non-profit group that takes Ubuntus code, makes minor changes to it and then releases it falls into a different category.

This story first appeared in Linux-Watch.