Education

China, Japan To Utilize Linux More Often 19

Posted by Zonk from the stepping-out-and-meeting-people dept.
DIY News writes "Japan aims to switch some government computers to the free Linux operating system and reduce its dependence on Microsoft Windows. Japan is drawing up guidelines for its ministries recommending open source software such as Linux as an "important option" in government procurement, said an official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications." Relatedly, an anonymous reader writes "China will install a total of 141,624 new Linux desktops as school computers this year, according to an article at DesktopLinux.com. The PCs are ticketed for the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, for an educational program called the School-to-School Project. They will run Sun Wah Linux's Debian-based RAYS LX. The installation is claimed to be the largest procurement project in China's education history. Go Tux!"
Linux

Shuttleworth on Ubuntu's Direction and Intent 242

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the reasons-for-the-season-of-brown dept.
cj2003 writes "Mark Shuttleworth has released a FAQ about Ubuntu's Direction and Intent. It comments on the discussions of funding, of being a Debian-fork or not, of the strange names, and many other 'hot topics' relating to Ubuntu. In his own words: 'This document exists to give the community some insight into my thinking, and to a certain extent that of the Community Council, Technical Board and other governance structures - on some of the issues and decisions that have been controversial.'"
Debian

Debian Questions Trademark Policy 82

Posted by CowboyNeal from the precautionary-measures dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The OSS/developer community at large is paying more attention to the trademark issue, especially since Linus Torvalds bid to trademark the name 'Linux' in Australia failed recently. Branden Robinson, Debian's project leader, says the current trademark policy needs updating to ensure it has the appropriate level of protection against legal challenges. Robinson said there are various questions that project members must address when deciding how to change the policy. These include whether Debian Linux should have a trademark at all, and whether the trademark can be used to penalize those who 'prey upon' the community."
Software

Linux Standard Effort Edges Ahead 138

Posted by CmdrTaco from the for-some-definition-of-ahead dept.
ErikPeterson writes "The Free Standards Group has released its third version of the Linux Standard Base, an effort to unify some of the workings of the open-source operating system. The LSB is designed to make it easier for those producing higher-level software to support different versions of Linux. Pledges to conform to the requirements of Version 3 are Red Hat, Novell's Suse Linux, Asianux and Debian."
Software

Best Cross-Distro Installation Tools for Linux? 61

Posted by Cliff from the one-installer-to-bind-them dept.
swillden asks: "I need to package up some commercial Linux software for multiple distributions (Red Hat Enterprise 3 and 4, Fedora, Novell Desktop, SuSE Professional and Enterprise, Mandrake and Debian), and I'm wondering what tools others have found useful. The software is closed source and needs to be very easy to install. This has been an ongoing problem for commercial software on Linux for some time. Has there been any progress?"
Debian

Debian Core Consortium Releases First Code 126

Posted by CmdrTaco from the more-than-just-words dept.
daria42 writes "It looks like the Debian Common Core Alliance announced a while ago is going to make good on its promises: the project has released its first code this week. The release consists of a base installation of Debian 3.1 with the Linux Standard Base and security updates attached. But the project also looks like it has attracted some criticism from within the Debian developer community - with a spoof Web site having already been set up to poke fun at the Alliance."
Debian

Bruce Perens on the new Debian Common Core 21

Posted by Hemos from the talking-with-the-friends dept.
StromPetroke writes "On August 9th, online Linuxzine Mad Penguin conducted an interview with veteran Open Source advocate Bruce Perens on the DCC (Debian Common Core) Alliance. According to Bruce, the DCC will provide a way to "be able to certify to a Linux distribution, and then there will be multiple support providers who can support that same platform and who differentiate themselves at a higher level up the stack.""
Linux Business

Live-CD Firewall Solutions? 49

Posted by Cliff from the boot-and-work dept.
paRcat asks: "My company isn't huge, and up until now has done well enough hosting all of our websites/email/etc. We've done all of this over one T1, but recently added another circuit for that rare instance of a fibercut. So since then I have been researching different options for configuring the existing Linux firewall (debian+iptables) to allow using the second circuit for load-balancing and failover. The issues I'm running into mostly have to do with recompiling the kernel using certain patches and creating semi-elaborate routes. Faced with these options, I'm wondering if there are any open source firewall projects out there that will behave happily with the above scenario. Do any free projects actually give this level of connectivity without being overly difficult in the configuration? I've gone the compile-your-own kernel route in the past, but now I'd just like to drop in a premade solution. A configurable live-CD would be perfect."
Debian

Sixth DebConf Ends in Success 112

Posted by Hemos from the great-news-for-debian dept.
fabbe writes "The 6th annual Debian Developers Conference (DebConf) was held in Helsinki, Finland from July 10th to July 17th 2005. With over 300 registered participants from around 40 countries, this was the largest DebConf to date. More than 20 sponsors provided DebConf with a total budget of around 125,000 euros. The conference featured talks, workshops, demonstrations, coding marathons and round table discussions on various aspects of the Debian Project. The presentations were captured by the DebConf5 Video Team and are available online at at Debian's site. "
Hardware Hacking

Full Debian ARM for Under $200 233

Posted by timothy from the neato-keen dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With minor elbow grease, you can now set yourself up with a complete Debian ARM Linux box for under $200. This is thanks to Peter Korsgaard, who figured out a cool byteswapped kernel hack for the little $99 Linksys NSLU2. Add a $99 USB harddrive, and the tiny, cute, quiet 'Slug' can run any of about 16,000 Debian ARM packages, 24x7, for pennies per month worth of electricity, since ARM is still orders of magnitude more power-efficient than anything x86. Serve files, music, web pages, printers, backups, kernel images, webcams/motion detection, firewalls/routers, wireless access point... or whatever. Oh, did I mention you can overclock the Slug?"
Debian

Debian Sid Moves to X.Org 212

Posted by CmdrTaco from the politics-and-guis-oh-my dept.
debiansid writes "Yes, Debian sid finally has X.Org. The Changelogs suggest that some work has been taken from the Ubuntu packages of X.Org. Here is an article that gives details on how to migrate to X.Org on sid. This article, by the way, has been posted from an X.Org based X-Window System, and it really IS much faster than XFree86."
Linux Business

New Debian-based Enterprise Linux? 145

Posted by timothy from the rumorous-rumor dept.
arkanoid.dk writes "Sources close to Progeny, Mandriva and Turbolinux report that a new Enterprise Linux distribution is on its way. Apparently, the distribution will be based on Debian 3.1 Sarge and will form the foundation of the next server distributions from the three companies. The three companies hope that the new distribution will enable them to compete with the market leaders Red Hat and Novell Inc's server distributions. An interesting part is that the new system should support both DEB (Debian package) and RPM (Red Hat Package Management) to enable better cross-compatibility with other Linux flavours. The vendor said: 'It will have a nice, Web-based front end for service management, which Sarge lacks. It's basically oriented toward edge-of-the-network type applications, such as ISP software.'"
Security

Debian Addresses Security Problems 118

Posted by Zonk from the quick-turnaround dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After suffering manpower shortages and other issues, Debian says it has finally addressed concerns that it was falling behind on security. Debian's elected leader Branden Robinson yesterday flagged an inquiry into the processes by which security updates are released, citing a potential lack of transparency and communication failures. It was also an appropriate time to add new members to Debian's security team, as several have been inactive for a while, Robinson said. Debian initial security problems can be found in this earlier Slashdot posting."
Debian

Debian Struggling With Security 264

Posted by Zonk from the invaders-at-the-gates dept.
Masq666 wrote to mention a ZDNet article discussing difficulties Debian is having with security updates. From the article: "...Lack of manpower also appears to be adding to Debian's security woes. Michael Stone, another member of Debian's security team, expressed his frustration to the organisation's security e-mail mailing list in mid-June, saying there was no effective tracking of security problems."
Communications

The Book of Postfix 103

Posted by timothy from the danny-boy dept.
danny writes "Do you run a mail server using Postfix? If so, then you should check out the latest addition to my book reviews, a look at Hildebrandt and Koetter's Book of Postfix." Read on for the review.
Data Storage

PetaBox: Big Storage in Small Boxes 295

Posted by timothy from the always-impressive dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com is reporting that a Linux-based system comprising more than a petabyte of storage as been delivered to the Internet Archive, the non-profit organization that creates periodic snapshots of the Internet. The PetaBox products, made by Capricorn Technologies, are based on Via mini-ITX motherboards running Debian or Fedora Linux. The IA's PetaBox installation consists of about 16 racks housing 600 systems with 2,500 spinning drives, for a total capacity of roughly 1.5 petabytes, according to the article. Now to strap one of those puppies to my iPod!" The Internet Archive continues to astound.
Mozilla

Firefox Faces Trademark Issues 429

Posted by CowboyNeal from the all-in-a-name dept.
daria42 writes "The Debian development community is currently hotly debating whether the Mozilla Foundation's strict trademarks policy violates Debian's social contract. However, in a twist, it appears Mozilla has not received approval for the Firefox trademarks yet, and the Firefox name may already be taken in the UK and Germany. The foundation has not applied for the Thunderbird trademark anywhere yet."

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