Author Archive

Disruptive technologies meet staid businesses. Stuart Cohen is bringing the open source development model together with big business, and finding it to be a perfect fit. Joe Brockmeier talks to Cohen about the Collaborative Software Initiative’s first year, and where it’s going from here.

Likewise CEO Barry Crist talks about the importance of interoperability, the differences between the corporate and open source communities, and what’s ahead for Linux.

So, now that the dust is starting to settle from the news that Sun is buying MySQL for a staggering $1 billion pricetag, let’s take a look at the larger picture– how is consolidation going to affect the open source ecosystem? MySQL was the first project in 2008 to be absorbed this way, but it certainly won’t be the last.

This week we spent some time talking to Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon, and External Projects Developer Liaison Jorge Castro, about the Ubuntu community, Personal Package Archives, and where Linux is headed in 2008.

In this podcast, Ted Ts’o, the Linux Foundation’s newly appointed Chief Platform Strategist, takes a few minutes to talk to Linux Magazine about his new role with the Linux Foundation, the status of Ext4, the Linux Standard Base, and more.

I’ve often wondered why Apple maintains a server OS and product line. From what I can see, they don’t seem at all serious about the server market.

No doubt you’ve heard the prediction before — “this is going to be the year of the Linux desktop.” At the risk of being repetitive, though, I’m going to go ahead and say it: 2008 really could be the year of the Linux desktop.

After months of media-built hype, the mythical “gPhone” was unveiled this week as Android, a Linux-based software stack for building mobile phones. Despite the disappointment, Android might be just what the market needs, if the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) can actually get an open stack shipping on real devices.

Once again, the Linux Foundation Desktop Linux (DTL) workgroup is polling users to find out what desktop Linux really needs. While the foundation folks conduct the poll (and I’d encourage Linux Magazine readers to participate), let me share my top three priorities for the Linux desktop in 2008: Applications, multimedia, and polish.

IT Jungle reports on some of the Shorty’s compelling features, including its suitability for deployment in normal office environments:

As the Mozilla folks start making plans to plan for the Mozilla 2 codebase, Matt Gertner over at the AllPeers blog has a radical suggestion: Dump the Gecko rendering engine and embrace WebKit.

Every year, Linux Magazine starts the new year off with a look at the top 20 companies that we think will be particularly influential in the world of open source software. Our editorial crew has some strong opinions in this area, but we’re also looking to Linux Magazine readers to sound off and tell us what companies will lead the way in 2008.

VMware made announcements yesterday that might spell an end to one of the biggest problems facing Linux: Hardware compatibility. If you think you missed the hardware compatibility announcement yesterday, don’t worry: The answer lies in VMware’s ESX 3i, the Open Virtual Machine Tools announcement, and the announcement of a draft specification for a portable virtual machine format.

Linux Magazine is looking to find out a little bit about your organization’s IT infrastructure. Do you use virtualization? Is green computing a priority? Is your organization adopting multi-core CPUs or taking a wait-and-see approach to upgrades? What applications are the most important for your organization?

 

If you need to run multiple distros at the same time, test out new kernels, or just want to test new software in a ’sandbox,’ User Mode Linux is perfect for the job. Here’s how to get started.

If you use Linux on your desktop, you may wonder if you’re susceptible to those pesky software infections known as viruses, worms, and trojans. Well, like the doctor says, “There’s good news, and there’s bad news.” Read this feature to learn your prognosis.

Imagine this scenario: you have twenty servers under your care, some running Red Hat Linux, some running Solaris, and a few machines running Debian. You want to make sure that all of the systems have the same network configuration, but you don’t want to log in to each machine and make the changes by hand. Unfortunately, you also know that it won’t be easy to write a simple shell script to automate the task because each system’s layout is a little bit different. Making simple changes to all machines on your network, without automation, can be quite a hassle. Happily, that’s what Cfengine is for.

Linux has always offered lots of tools that make it easy to work remotely over a network. However, many of those tools were highly insecure. OpenSSH changes that and keeps your communications secure.

There are Linux User Groups just about

Whether you enjoy building your own system