OpenSUSE Linux Tips, tricks, how-tos, opinions, and news
My Resume - My LinkedIn Profile - twitter: @scottmmorrisNow here's a pretty cool implementation of Linux:
Kontron is readying an Intel Atom Z530-based box computer designed for rugged railway applications. The MicroSpace MPCX28R Railway Box PC is protected for railway use with EN50155 certification, TX compliance, extended temperature support, 1.5kV isolated power, and M12 connectors for Fast Ethernet, USB, and power, says the company. The Linux-compatible MicroSpace MPCX28R is suitable for passenger infotainment, security, and other railway applications, says Kontron. Built around the original 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 CPU and SCH US15W northbridge/southbridge, the MicroSpace MPCX28R supports up to 1GB of DDR2 RAM, the company says.
Steven Rosenberg gives Ubuntu the boot and makes a move to Fedora 12. The result? He got his Intel 830m video card to work. Nice!
At the recommendation of reader David Gurvich, as well as the enthusiastic endorsement of "Linux Outlaws" co-host Fabian A. Scherschel and Larry "the Free Software Guy" Cafiero, I burned my first Fedora disc in some time and am testing Fedora 12 in the live environment.
My latest foray into distro-hopping — live CD/DVDs only at this point — is prompted by this week's total fail in turning off kernel mode setting and getting the screen to work in Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 3. That method (turning off kernel mode setting) worked like so much magic in Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 2 and Sidux 2009-04 (basically Debian Sid in late 2009).
But that hack did nothing for me in Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 3. Yes, dear readers, I know you hate to hear me whine and complain and would rather I file a bug report. I will do so, using my ever-loving Launchpad account, rest assured.
But in the interim I'm looking for any and every solution that will carry my now-two working Intel 830m-equipped laptops through the next year.
I'm crossing my fingers (but have nothing concrete at present) that Debian Squeeze will accommodate Intel 830m, and I'm hopeful that Ubuntu Lucid will work this out (although a regression between alpha releases doesn't bode well).
I've also established that PC-BSD 8.0 (and by extension FreeBSD 8.0) has no problem whatsoever with Intel 830m video.
And today I burned a Fedora 12 live image and am running it right now.
Read "You know what's working on my laptop with Intel 830m video? Fedora 12, that's what"
Linux boots in less than 1 second? Yes, it does.
Excerpt:
MontaVista Software has always been a leader in embedded-Linux commercialization. The company has developed Linux-development platforms since 1999, when founder Jim Ready pledged to bring ‘100% pure Linux’ to the world under the GNU (GNU’s not Unix) GPL (general public license). Since then, MontaVista has specialized in embedded and real-time Linux.
Its approach is not simply an RTOS (real-time operating system) that runs Linux as one of its tasks. The company has changed the Linux kernel to provide determinism and real-time performance in a real Linux operating system. Cavium Networks recently acquired the company, which just announced the release of Version 6 of its operating system.
In addition to designing real-time Linux, MontaVista has been working on the development of real-fast Linux, a Linux operating system that boots in less than 1 second. The team who worked on the project includes Alexander Kaliadin, Nikita Youshchenko, and Cedric Hombourger. Many on the team also worked on the MontaVista real-time Linux. ‘One of the first things we did years ago was to make the Linux scheduler pre-emptive and deterministic,’ says Hombourger. These fast-boot developments are not necessarily limited to real-time or an embedded Linux; however, they can get a conventional Linux distribution to boot in 1 second, as well.
Carlie: What is it that you do for Linux Journal?
Shawn: That's a scary question for your boss to ask... :)
Carlie: I meant "Tell our readers what you do for Linux Journal". :p more>>
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration on Tuesday declassified part of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative created during the Bush administration, outlining offensive and defensive strategies for protecting information networks. The initiative was originally intended to unify efforts of a number of government agencies into a comprehensive strategy to protect the nation's computer networks. 'One area in which the government did officially disclose new details was Einstein 3, a program to protect civilian government systems from intrusion by deploying sensors on the networks of private telecommunications companies. For the first time, the government disclosed officially that the program would use technology developed by the NSA, the nation's largest intelligence agency. It also said that the Department of Homeland Security, which would run the program, would share malicious code data with the NSA but not the content of communications, such as e-mails.'"
This one is from the Bush administration. Probably means he's dumping it for one of his own.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CWmike writes "A hedge fund that is already one of Novell's largest shareholders offered on Tuesday to acquire the struggling, cash-rich enterprise software maker for $2 billion. The unsolicited offer, from New York-based Elliot Associates L.P., is for $5.75 per share in cash, a dollar per share more than Novell's closing price Tuesday of $4.75. The offer caused Novell's stock to leap 29% to $6.15 in after-hours trading. Because Novell is so cash-rich — it had $991 million in cash and equivalents at the end of January (PDF) — Elliott says the deal values Novell as an enterprise alone at about $1 billion."
Well, now keep in mind that they are in bed with Satan. :)
Linux has a tendency to lessen the following problem. Have you ever seen a zombie Linux box? Let alone 12 Million of them.
northernboy and many other readers sent news of the beheading of the Mariposa botnet with three arrests in Spain. "Defense Intelligence of Ottawa working with ISPs and Spanish authorities have taken down yet another > 12M PC botnet, called Mariposa. The three top-level operators are in custody, but remain anonymous under Spanish law (how quaint: apparently in Spain, the accused have some right to privacy). AP is claiming that the botnet included systems in roughly half of the Fortune 1000 companies, scattered over 190 countries. Interesting details: none of the three principals has a prior criminal record. Although apparently hardworking, they are not uber-hackers, but rather had connections to the Spanish mafia, which apparently helped to equip them. At the time of arrest, they were not showing signs of their significant new income level. From the article: 'Chris Davis, CEO of Ottawa-based Defence Intelligence, said he noticed the infections when they appeared on networks of some of his firm's clients, including pharmaceutical companies and banks. It wasn't until several months later that he realized the infections were part of something much bigger. After seeing that some of the servers used to control computers in the botnet were located in Spain, Davis and researchers from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center joined with software firm Panda Security, which is headquartered in Bilbao, Spain. The investigators caught a few lucky breaks. For one, the suspects used Internet services that wound up cooperating with investigators. That isn't always the case.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sure, IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker shows Windows beating Linux handily. But that's not the whole story.
I just read a piece mainly quoting Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier, the openSUSE Community Manager. He mentions that at the beginning of the Novell/Microsoft deal, all the naysayers got the press. His thought is that a lot of good has come out of the agreement.
Excerpt:
“When Novell and Microsoft signed a deal to support Windows and Linux in the enterprise, it caused a furore. Three years on, the deal shows that Microsoft really does acknowledge the value of Linux in the enterprise – at least that’s the view from the OpenSUSE community.”
“Novell was the first company to get Microsoft to acknowledge Linux as a contender in the market – and the effect of that has been under-rated,” says Brockmeier. “Do you remember the way Microsoft used to talk about Linux? In that dismissive fashion?”
“Once you get to the point where Microsoft feels the need to deliver Linux to its customers, you have a huge tacit acknowledgement that Linux is suitable for the enterprise,” he says. “That’s an enormous thing that I don’t think Novell has gotten enough credit for.”
Read the rest of “Microsoft ‘Has Acknowledged The Enterprise Role Of Linux’“
Any reactions to this article? I mean the world hasn’t exploded yet. However, Microsoft does have a reputation which makes many people not trust them or their motives.
What do you all think after reading that article?
Coming in from ZDNet, music to my ears… Daryl McBride is canned from SCO. No more President/CEO for SCO. Apparently, some one must have finally taken the red pill.
Excerpt:
“Remember SCO?
Back when I started writing about open source and Linux, in 2005, you couldn’t swing a cat without catching someone with an opinion about SCO.
SCO claimed Linux was infringing its patentscopyright. SCO claimed it owned Linux. SCO sued IBM.
CORRECTION: Microsoft claims patent rights on Linux code. The SCO case was about copyright.
Once SCO built a railroad of lawsuits, made it race against time. Now it’s done.
As quietly as possible last week, through a required SEC filing, SCO quietly canned CEO Darl McBride, the architect of its audacious ‘better luck through lawsuits’ business plan.
They didn’t just ease the man out. They eliminated the positions of CEO and president, which McBride held. The top name on the org chart is now COO Jeff Hunsaker (above), whose background includes stints at WordPerfect, Novell and Corel (so he knows from failure).
Anyone have a few words they want to say over the body?”
OK, it wasn’t an excerpt. It was the whole thing. You can’t prune news as beautiful as this.
Good old Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols. Excellent article, man. Linux is taking the recordbooks by storm according to his latest article.
He says,”Once upon a time, supercomputers used special vector model processors to achieve their remarkable speeds. Then, at the dawn of the 21st century, people began working out how to achieve record-breaking computer speed by linking hundreds or thousands of commercial microprocessors running Linux and connected with high-speed networking in MPP (massively parallel processor) arrays. The supercomputing world has never been the same. Today, Linux rules supercomputing.
The latest ‘Top 500 supercomputer’ list of the fastest computers on the planet makes that abundantly clear. Broken down by operating system, this latest ranking has 469 of the top 500 running one kind of Linux or another.
To be exact, 391 are running their own house brand of Linux. Sixty-two are running some version of Novell’s SUSE Linux, including such variants as UNICOS/lc and CNL (Compute Node Linux). Red Hat and its relatives, including CentOS, come in second with 16 supercomputers.”
You know Microsoft would only say something like this if there was absolutely no other alternative. They are marketing experts, not software experts. And apparently, the software experts that contribute to Linux have created an OS superior enough that, with little to no marketing/advertising, it enjoys a quickly-expanding install base.
Excerpt:
“While Linux on servers is a well-established market among business customers, Linux as a viable alternative to Windows on PCs has never taken off. However, the emergence of the netbook as a low-cost, smaller form factor to the traditional notebook PC has certainly changed that, so much so that Microsoft lately has been pushing a lightweight notebook as an alternative to netbooks, Helm said.”
Read Microsoft acknowledges Linux threat
Celebratory wallpaper:
Click for full-sized wallpaper.
I found this spectacular article on reasons to consider Linux in a down economy. Actually, they work in any economy. Take a look:
10. Value – Linux has value to a worldwide group of consumers. It runs most of the world’s mission critical websites and is the platform of choice for server virtualization.
9. Less Hardware Overhead – You can still run world class websites, applications, and services on a machine that is outdated by today’s standards. And you have the added bonus of being able to outrun those applications compared to their Windows counterparts.
8. Active Development – Linux is actively developed meaning that new hardware drivers are available as soon as a new device hits the market and improvements are being made on a daily basis to the kernel and supporting code. No need to wait two or three years for the next belated and bloated version from the other guys.
7. Choice – Linux gives you a choice to do things differently and better in your home, office, or data center. Having a choice is good for consumers because it means that vendors and programmers are trying to get your attention by creating quality products for you to use. Competition creates better products and services which is a boon to you and your budget.
6. Multiple Distributions – I’ve heard this one used as a negative part of a campaign by Microsoft claiming that there are too many Linux distributions. Balderdash! Having a system that meets any need from cell phones and wristwatches to supercomputers is just what we need to solve the problems at hand. Having only one distribution is like needing to build a house but finding only a screwdriver in your toolbox.
5. Open Source Model – The Open Source Development model helps everyone in the Linux community from end users to other developers all the way up to C-level executives. The way in which this model helps is that all development is open and source code is available for all to see and improve upon. You can create applications and alter the Operating System itself for any purpose.
4. Available Development Community – Want to contact the developers who created a particular application, protocol, or service? You can. You can submit bug reports, email them directly, and in some cases speak directly to them on the phone. You can even submit your own code that will be included in a major distribution. You have real input to Linux and Open Source software.
3. Unix Stability – Linux is based on Unix and shares its multi-tasking, multi-user, and stable kernel and filesystem structures. For mission-critical environments, you need this kind of stability. Stability means not only that you don’t have to reboot the machine for software installations, driver updates, or even network changes but also that you’ll enjoy uptimes measured in years not days.
2. Compatibility – The old argument was that Linux wasn’t compatible with Windows but through the magic of Samba (File and Printer sharing), Wine, and Cygwin; Linux and Windows are very interoperable and can share files, applications, and services.
1. Commercial Support – Another old complaint from the Redmond camp was that Linux is supported by a bunch of amateurs and part-timers. Red Hat, Novell, Xandros, IBM, HP, Dell, Canonical, and others have thrown their significant financial and human resources behind Linux. Linux has commercial support–even from Microsoft.
Read “10 Reasons To Choose Linux in a Bad Economy”
Red Hat has set an example for us this Christmas season. Plans were made for a no-holds-barred holiday party. Instead, they decided to donate funds, food, and even coats. They are donating enough money to pay for 800,000 meals at the chosen food bank, Feeding America (formerly known as America’s Second Harvest). Economic troubles, resulting in fewer philanthropic donations, created a need. Red Hat rose to the occasion. Hats off to them for setting a great example for the rest of us. What a miracle and blessing it would be for many of other corporations followed in their footsteps.
Excerpts:
“She (DeLisa Alexander) declined to say how much money Red Hat will donate, but it’s enough to pay for about 800,000 meals at food banks run by Feeding America. In the Triangle, the group runs the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina and the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.”
“Red Hat workers also are organizing canned food drives and other efforts in conjunction with the food bank donation. In Raleigh, executives will give cash for every 500 cans collected, Alexander said. Again, she declined to name a dollar amount. The company’s Dallas office is organizing a coat drive.”
Read the rest of the story: Red Hat Chooses Food Bank Over Festivities
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