2004 September

If you work at or for an enterprise who needs a collaboration solution, or if you would like to host one yourself for a club or organization, chances are you’ve seen Exchange/Outlook, Lotus, and SuSE Linux Open-Xchange Server. I don’t know about SuSE’s package, but the former two are rather expensive.

That’s the word going around at the moment according to internetnews.com. Neither company has commented on the rumor, and MontaVista has flat-out denied it. Time will tell.

WINDOWS IS ‘free’ in Iran, but even there is an increasing move towards Linux, according to an AFP report.

Linux Forums has a good interview with Andreas Girardet, the developer of the Yoper Linux distribution. I’ve seen Yoper around, including on a Linux Format magazine DVD, but this is the first I’ve seen more than just the basic details.

Microsoft has hit out to the competitive threat of cheaper open source software by deciding to reveal the source code for its Office productivity suite to governments around the world.

Sun fired a major counter-offensive against Linux nemesis Red Hat Tuesday by announcing hefty discounts on its forthcoming Solaris 10 Unix upgrade on commodity hardware.

Gentoo Linux Security Advisory GLSA 200409-26
Severity: Normal
Title: Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, Epiphany: New releases fix vulnerabilities
Date: September 20, 2004
Bugs: #63996
ID: 200409-26
View

Got an old iPaq laying around that you’re not using? Or perhaps you have one and just want to get your new favorite OS (Linux, of course) onto it? Then check out this IBM DeveloperWorks article and, as the subtitle says, “put a penguin in your pocket.”

The latest version of the Linux Mobile Guide — formerly the Linux Laptop HOWTO — has just been released over at TuxMobil. It’s written in HTML, and all 181 files can be downloaded in .tgz format for your desktop, .ipk for your mobile device, or simply viewed on the web.

Most small to medium-sized businesses don’t or can’t keep a dedicated tech staff on-hand to run their systems, but they still require things like file and print servers, gateways, firewalls, and perhaps even web and mail servers. To make life easier, they’ll often search for a single solution to save time, money, and space.

The International Open Source Network has recently put together a Flash-based training utility based on their already-existing manuals for Linux users. It is currently in the preview stage, and is available for for public review here. As long as you have Flash on your system, you should have no problem accessing the file.

Open Office has released OpenOffice.org 1.1.3rc, which includes bug fixes done since the 1.1.2 release. The official announcement gives a list of the bugs fixed.

One of the early reviews on Mandrake 10.1 Community Edition is in. So
what’s the verdict? According to the reviewer, this edition is good for
home users, but business users should probably wait for the Official
version. The article
looks at what’s new as well as great features vs. not so great features.
Not a very lengthy review but should [...]

So how much would you pay for a logo? Ten, twenty, maybe even thirty dollars? What about it if it was the logo for Lindows now known as Linspire? Ah, see that changes things a bit, does it not?

That’s right folks, the US Navy is going Open Source according to the Linux Journal. Seems like the US military is getting more and more into the whole Linux scene. Whether it is running the countries defenses or keeping basic, mundane systems running, I think the US military is on the right track.

Looks like Microsoft is beginning to budge a little bit on its closed source code policy, at least with its approach when dealing with governments and international organizations. In specific non-profit cases, it has decided to allow certain entities access to the source code so that they can take the time to review it. This [...]

What is rsync? As the name implies, it’s a tool for synchronizing files. In a new Linux.com article, you are introduced to rsync as an effective backup tool. Learn the basics of backing up mainly “what to back up, to where, and when.” The author is very thorough in his coverage of this material even including [...]

Here’s a quick tip related to using USB keys and similar devices on your Linux system, specifically dealing with direct mounting or using /etc/fstab for quick and easy access.

Joe Barr’s latest CLI Magic column, “Taming a wild mount”, is a solid introduction to the mount command.

After reading my DOSEMU post from 8/26, gnomie Andrew Rodland dropped me a line to tell me about DOSBox, another x86 emulator with DOS support. Andrew says it does a better job with DOS games, so I dropped on by their SourceForge page to check things out.