Linux in the news

Quickbooks: the missing link for small business Linux (NewsForge)

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller suggests that the lack of the QuickBooks accounting package on Linux is preventing many businesses from migrating away from Microsoft platforms. "Last week I was talking with a small business IT consultant who switches clients' servers to Linux (and Samba) all day long without any problems, but finds few clients interested in moving their desktops to Linux. The reason? "QuickBooks," he said. While there are many small business accounting packages that happily run on Linux, including GnuCash, Quasar, SQL-Ledger, and AccPac, QuickBooks dominates this market. And its loyal users don't want to switch to another package even if it's just as good as -- or possibly better than -- QuickBooks."

Comments (29 posted)

Students uncover dozens of Unix software flaws (News.com)

News.com reports on flaws found in Unix applications by graduate students. "Students of iconoclastic computer scientist Daniel Bernstein have found some 44 security flaws in various Unix applications, according to a list of advisories posted online. The flaws, which range from minor slipups in rarely used applications to more serious vulnerabilities in software that ships with most versions of the Linux operating system, were found as part of Bernstein's graduate-level course at the University of Illinois at Chicago."

Comments (22 posted)

Linux Bangalore 2004 Wrapup (KDE.News)

KDE.News covers the 2004 Linux Bangalore conference. "Scott Wheeler and Sirtaj Singh Kang with much appreciated help from Kabir Husain represented KDE at this year's Linux Bangalore, India's largest Linux and Open Source event. Many of the 2800 visitors stopped by the KDE booth where KDE 3.3, a Knoppix desktop and KDE CVS (on Scott's laptop) were demonstrated or dropped into one of the two talks."

Comments (none posted)

SCO conference call transcript (Groklaw)

For those of you who were unable to have the pleasure of listening to SCO's conference call, Groklaw has posted a transcript.

Comments (4 posted)

Microsoft, Autodesk sign patent pact (News.com)

News.com reports that Microsoft and Autodesk have signed a patent pact. "Under the pact, the two companies will gain access to each other's patents in a variety of areas, including data management, collaboration, digital effects, digital rights management, project management, computer-aided design and location-based services. Microsoft has been stepping up its activity on the patent front, ramping up its own filings and at the same time trying to ink cross-license deals with other tech companies. Microsoft has been using the combined power as a marketing vehicle against Linux, noting that it indemnifies its customers against potential patent infringement claims."

Comments (3 posted)

Poland Comes Through! - Software Patents Off the Agenda This Year (Groklaw)

Groklaw carries a press release from NoSoftwarePatents. "This just in. Poland refused to go along with the software patent rubber stamp: "The Software Patent Directive has been withdrawn from the Agenda of the Agricultural Council. Poland's minister Marcinski requested it firmly at the beginning of the meeting. The Commissioner expressed regret, but the A-item has been deleted and will not be decided this year.""

Comments (17 posted)

Linux champion Munich welcomes patent delay (ZDNet)

ZDNet UK reports from Munich, which welcomes the delay in the European software patent directive. "Christian Ude, the mayor of Munich, has hailed Marcinski's actions and hopes that changes can now be made to the directive. 'Thanks to the courageous action by the Polish representative it has become clear that the concerns that have been voiced [about the directive] have not yet been dispelled, and that a further discussion in the EU Council is urgently required,' said Ude in a statement on Wednesday."

Comments (none posted)

Torvalds: a Solaris skeptic (News.com)

News.com talks with Linus Torvalds about Solaris and many other topics. "Which is not to say that 2.7.x won't happen--it probably will in a few months--but it does mean that the stable release branches are starting to overshadow the development ones. I think that's both a sign of maturity and of the fact that the stable releases are so important to so many people these days that you can't leave them behind as easily."

Comments (11 posted)

Linux Music Blossoms with Rosegarden (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet has an interview with the developers of Rosegarden. "When it comes to producing music with Linux on a professional level, Rosegarden includes the basic features that you would expect to find in a commercial music sequencer and scoring package: MIDI and audio recording and sequencing, sound effects and synth plugins, and a score editor. The array of additional stuff this free program offers is staggering when one considers that it is, as of this writing, on the eve of its version 1.0 release."

Comments (11 posted)

A Distributed Discussion with Elliotte Rusty Harold (O'ReillyNet)

O'Reilly has an interview with Elliotte Rusty Harold. "In this interview, Java Network Programming, 3rd Edition author Elliotte Rusty Harold discusses the improvements and hazards of networking in Java, as well as the evolution of Java itself."

Comments (none posted)

Site Review: Loads of Linux Links (NewsForge)

NewsForge reviews the web site Loads of Linux Links. "Imagine a Web site that has over 4,000 links to sites of interest to Linux enthusiasts. Forget about dead links, because this site would be vigilantly maintained by a small group of people totally committed to the work of providing useful content. Instead, expect fresh links several times a week with handy accessories like quick links to related pages. That site already exists. Loads of Linux Links (LOLL) lives at Sourceforge.net as a GPLed software project."

Comments (none posted)

Site review: Linux Game Tome (NewsForge)

NewsForge reviews the Linux Game Tome web site. "The site has a quirky 1950s television ad feel to it that makes you want to look around, even if you're not a big fan of computer games. Each game's listing shows the author, a screenshot, basic information such as licensing, cost, and type of game, user ratings, and links to the game home page and download page. A comment section at the bottom of each game's page allows users to share opinions and ask questions."

Comments (none posted)

Meet OpenVPN (Linux Journal)

Hans-Cees Speel shows how to set up OpenVPN in a LinuxJournal article. "A disadvantage of plain IPsec is its notorious complexity: many, many things can and do go wrong. To the rescue, then, comes OpenVPN, a full-blown open-source VPN solution based on SSL. OpenVPN offers the same functionality as IPsec in tunnel mode; you can tunnel entire networks through it. In this article, I focus on using OpenVPN as a road warrior's VPN solution."

Comments (12 posted)

Ready, Aim, FireFox (IT-Director)

IT-Director looks at the Firefox 1.0 release. "One view is that Microsoft will respond to FireFox by achieving feature parity and will maintain its dominant market position simply through the sale of new PCs. Maybe so, but FireFox is not a solo product. There is also the ThunderBird email client and the SunBird calendar. Add Open Office to this and you have a pretty good PC product portfolio. What is happening is that an Open Source stack is gradually developing on the desktop and, if it becomes popular, it really will be a threat to Microsoft's hegemony."

Comments (4 posted)

Book Review: Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal reviews the book Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management. "Marc Delisle has written Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management as a tightly focused tutorial that is as successful at guiding its readers along its stated path as it is at avoiding the common pratfall of straying off target."

Comments (none posted)

Application of the Month: KPilot (KDE.News)

KDE.News has announced a new KDE Application of the Month article on KPilot. "A new issue of the series "Application of the Month" has been released. It covers an application from the KDE PIM suite called KPilot. Besides the application review we interviewed its current maintainer Adriaan de Groot. KPilot is a replacement for the Palm Desktop software from Palm Inc, which makes your Palm/Palm Pilot/Visor handheld capable of exchanging information with your KDE powered computer."

Comments (none posted)

Ease of computing (MaJe Online)

MaJe Online looks at the use of smart media cards and digital cameras under Gentoo Linux. "The Gnome project released version 2.8 with support for the Hardware Abstraction Layer, and the D-Bus message support. With this, their ambhition was to make it extremely simplified for the end user to mount and explore volumes, and even perform automated tasks with certain types of volumes. One example being to "import digital photos when a camera is attached". Fortunately, Gnome detects when a volume is mounted that contains only images. Truly, this caught my attention."

Comments (none posted)

Further Details About the Mozilla Firefox 'New York Times' Advertisement (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine covers a few glitches that were encountered in the process of submitting a large advertisement for FireFox 1.0 in the New York Times. "The striking two-page ad ran a little later than originally planned: the team were not happy with the early designs and a late decision was made to move to two pages. The huge number of donor names (all of which had to be verified) and software rendering problems also contributed to the delay. A few donors were disappointed to find that their names were not printed correctly in the advert. Some had their first names and last names transposed, others had their names were misspelt and a few were missed off completely."

Comments (none posted)