Azingo introduces new mobile Linux platform

Another mobile Linux platform, this time from Azingo, hit the market on Wednesday, joining an increasingly crowded market of Linux phone software.

Formerly called Celunite, Azingo aims to differentiate itself from the crowd by offering phone makers an entire package, including kernel, middleware, applications, development tools, and integration services.

"Mobile Linux has failed because there's a big integration problem," said Michael Mclaughlin, marketing director at Azingo. "People come with piece parts."

For example, companies such as MontaVista and Wind River make mobile Linux kernels, while others such as Trolltech, purchased by Nokia just this week, make application development environments. Phone makers typically must buy the different components, then struggle to integrate them. That puts mobile Linux at a disadvantage against some other mobile platforms, such as Windows Mobile, which comes complete, he said.

Azingo is offering a complete suite of mobile Linux software but will also help customers integrate different pieces if they choose components from different vendors, said Mclaughlin.

The applications Azingo offers as part of the platform include Web widgets that can deliver information such as weather and traffic, entertainment applications such as video and audio players, and productivity software such as e-mail.

Azingo hasn't announced any deals with handset makers planning to use its software. Mclaughlin said the company has been working with some of the well-known vendors and expects handsets running its software to ship in the fourth quarter.

The company isn't the only one offering the market a complete suite of mobile Linux software. A La Mobile has a similar approach, using some of its own software and integrating components from other vendors, including Trolltech. GUPP Technologies, a Malaysian company, announced in 2006 that it would use A La Mobile's platform.

Azingo will also compete against Android, Google's high-profile Linux-based mobile phone operating platform, which includes an operating system, middleware, and applications. Android phones are expected to become available in the second half of this year.

Source : http://www.infoworld.com

IBM adds Linux apps support to Unix servers

IBM has added a new capability to its virtualization platform that will allow Linux applications to run on IBM's Unix servers, the company announced Tuesday.

The "Lx86" capability, to be included in IBM's PowerVM virtualization software, allows x86-based Linux applications to run on IBM's System p and Power-based Unix systems without modification, according to IBM. The systems will automatically detect and run Linux-based binaries designed for x86 environments.

"Lx86 is a way to say, 'Whatever you have, it can run," said Scott Handy, vice president of marketing and strategy for IBM Power Systems.

The capability will simplify the consolidation of Unix and Linux server sprawls, Handy said. Running Linux applications in the Unix environment can reduce the cost of server consolidation and energy consumption and increase asset utilization, he argued.

Lx86 will be a useful tool for people looking to migrate from Linux systems to other IBM systems, IBM said. The company offers both Unix and Linux operating systems on its servers.

The capability will be included in all editions of IBM's PowerVM platform, which it also renamed Tuesday from the Advanced Power Virtualization platform.

The software now includes an Express edition targeted at SMBs. It allows customers to create up to three partitions on a server and control the use of processor cycles to get optimal performance. The Express edition will be shipped to customers soon, priced at $40 per core. PowerVM is also available in Standard and Enterprise editions.

IBM also announced that it will update its i5/OS operating system with support for Power6 processors. The update, called V6R1, includes improved performance, storage and security features, according to IBM.

The update supports IBM's Power6 EnergyScale technology for controlling energy use. The company also updated its Rational software tool set for the i5/OS, Handy said.

The i5/OS V6R1, for IBM's System i servers, will ship in March. It will also work with the company's new BladeCenter H server chassis, Handy said.
Source :http://www.infoworld.com

Nokia plays strong Linux hand withTrolltech buy

Analysis Nokia may be strengthening its ties with major internet brands to boost its Ovi web services portal, but for a company of this scale, there must also be an agenda to set its own standards in the evolving mobile internet market on which it has staked its future. The Finnish giant's latest software acquisition, of Norwegian Linux player Trolltech, gives it a strong vehicle to launch its own bid to dominate mobile open source standards, an area where Google and Intel have already made aggressive moves. This sees the handset giant making its strongest commitment yet to Linux in its Series 60 smartphone market, and setting Trolltech's Qt platform against other would-be dominant mobile web systems like Google Android and Intel Mobilin.

Nokia is given to acquiring small, clever companies - especially as it builds up its software and web services capabilities - rather than going for the high profile, difficult merger, and Trolltech is no exception. The smaller company is mainly known for its Linux-based Qt (Qtopia) user interface and mobile software development framework, which has recently become closely associated with the OpenMoko Linux initiative and which is an alternative to the widely used Gnome GTK technology, a key technology for Motorola and Intel, but one in which Nokia may now become less interested.

Trolltech

The handset leader has got itself a bargain – NKr 843m (just $153.3m) for a mobile Linux platform that could give Nokia a viable position against Google Android and give it the chance to regain the initiative in mobile Linux and web interfaces, both vital technologies for companies looking to dominate the mobile internet agenda. The acquisition, which has been recommended by the board, is likely to close in the second quarter, and 66 per cent of the shareholders have already accepted the NKr16 per share offer (these include founder Haavard Nord; Vuonislahti Invest, controlled by fellow founder Eirik Chambe-Eng; Teknoinvest; and several funds managed by Index Ventures). Trolltech is publicly listed on the Oslo stock exchange.

Trolltech brings a well-respected software development framework geared to mobile devices, open source and web services. Tactically, its technologies could strengthen the competitiveness of Nokia's Series 60 and Series 40 development and user interface platforms, especially in the web services and Linux areas. The Finnish giant has been pushing its frameworks in these directions, and has open sourced part of S60, but is aware that these products come from a heritage of closed development environments and the Symbian OS operating system rather than Linux, and so could be presented as being less web-optimized than a system created from scratch for the open internet, like Android. Trolltech will help answer some of those criticisms and boost the capabilities of S60 on open platforms, as well as underpinning development of new services related to the Ovi mobile internet push. "Trolltech's deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time to market. This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40," said Kai Oistamo, executive VP of devices at Nokia.

Source :http://www.theregister.co.uk

Nokia spends €105m on mobile Linux developer

Finnish handset giant Nokia is buying mobile Linux developer Trolltech, in an all-cash deal valuing the company at about €105m.

Nokia is offering 16 Norwegian Kroner per share - about £1.47 - for the company. Trolltech shares were are up 56 per cent today at 15.6 Norwegian Kroner. Over 66 per cent of shareholders have already accepted the offer.

Trolltech's cross platform development software will help Nokia, and its partners, write applications which will run equally well on different mobile devices.

Kai Öistämö, Nokia's executive vice president of devices, said: “Trolltech’s deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time-to-market. This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40."

Nokia said it would continue to develop Trolltech products and support new and existing customers.

Trolltech is based in Oslo in Norway, but also has offices in Beijing, China, Brisbane, Australia, Berlin and Munich in Germany and Redwood City in California. It floated on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2006.

In the third quarter of 2007 Trolltech made revenues of 60.8m Norwegian Kroner(£5.6m) and Ebitda of 0.3m Norwegian Kroner (£27,000), driven mainly by development tools Qt and Qtopia.

The deal is subject to the usual regulatory and shareholder acceptance
Source :http://www.theregister.co.uk

IBM Turns To Linux In Desktop Campaign Against Microsoft

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has increased support for Linux with the introduction of versions of its Lotus Notes collaboration suite and Symphony productivity tools built to run on the open source OS -- and it's hoping the effort will help unseat Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) as the king of desktop software.

The company this week said it plans to ship what it calls its "Open Collaboration Client," made up of Lotus Notes 8 and Symphony, for Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Lotus Notes 8 includes e-mail, calendaring, and contact management modules, while Symphony -- available as a free download -- features word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications build on the open source OpenOffice.org standard.

IBM also said this week that it's working with Red Hat to develop a version of the Open Collaboration Client for small and midsize businesses, which are increasingly a focus for IBM.

Under the plan, Red Hat will offer to its customers a version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform packaged with Lotus Notes, Symphony, and IBM's Domino messaging server.

Red Hat also will offer technical services to help resellers implement the package for customers.

IBM last year said it would offer versions of Lotus Notes and Symphony for Novell's SUSE Enterprise Linux distribution.

By porting key software to Linux, IBM is looking to give businesses one less reason to buy products from rival Microsoft -- which IBM said offers "a proprietary desktop model."

IBM's Linux efforts will "further address customer demands around choice," said Inna Kuznetsova, an IBM executive with responsibility for Linux, in a statement.
Source :http://www.informationweek.com

Linux Kernel Hits 2.6.24

The first new Linux kernel of 2008 is now out, showcasing improvements that run the gambit of bug fixes to new performance and feature enhancements.

One addition found in the new 2.6.24 Linux kernel is the new ability for write-throttling code.

"This prevents one heavily-used block device from starving the other devices. so it's great for throughput enhancement," Joel Berman, director of marketing at Red Hat, told InternetNews.com.

Berman also said the new kernel's inclusion of what are known as kernel markers would prove very useful for developers. Kernel markers are used for deep tuning and debugging.

"This gets us closer to Dtrace, and makes SystemTap easier to use," Berman said. Dtrace is the Sun Solaris technology that uses dynamic probes to monitor system performance. SystemTap is a similar approach for Linux.

The Linux 2.6.24 kernel also improves kernel utilization by way of new group scheduling technology. Berman explained that new approach fairly allocates groups' CPU usage.

For example, if there are four active groups, each group gets 25 percent of the CPU. If one group is made up of 10 users, another group has 100 and the other two have one each, the 100 in one group share their 25 percent of the machine.

Berman also noted that i386 and x86-64 sources for the kernel have been merged into one pool. That effort will help in quality assurance and removing duplication in patching.

Linux 2.6.24 also makes improvements for embedded developers. Jim Ready, CTO of MontaVista Linux, told InternetNews.com that that the inclusion of high-resolution and tickless timers for processors such as ARM MIPS should bode well. Both features are key components of a real-time Linux kernel.

"This is important for consumer and mobile devices that cannot run on Intel architecture," Ready said.

While the 2.6.24 Linux kernel has some specific areas of interest for Red Hat and MontaVista, a number of other other interested parties also made contributions.

According to the Linux Foundation's Linux Weather Forecast, more than 10,000 individual changesets were included during the 2.6.24 development cycle. Those changesets resulted in almost 300,000 lines of code being added to the kernel.

While Linus Torvalds is officially responsible for releasing the 2.6.24 kernel, the Linux Foundation Forecast noted that the new version's contributions came from 950 developers representing over 130 companies.
Source :http://www.internetnews.com

Fewer in Asia seek Linux support

A smaller proportion of Linux users in Asia sign up for enterprise support services, but that is "okay" by Novell global strategic partners' chief technologist Marcin Kurc.



According to Kurc, more organizations in Asia--compared to the West--adopt Linux for free and do not sign up for vendor support. However, this is rapidly changing as open source adoption matures to catch up with that in Europe and the United States.

Kurc said, in an interview with ZDNet Asia: "It's great that people are implementing Linux for free. I'm all for gaining mindshare." The Novell executive was in Singapore to speak at an event on Windows and Linux interoperability to employ server virtualization.

With time will come evolution, he said, and users will eventually develop a relationship with their open source vendor and partnered ISVs (independent software vendors).

"A smart CIO needs an agenda and strategy. With the fast-paced markets in Asia, you'll need to plan for bigger and better data centers. You need someone to call when something breaks," Kurc said.

And organizations in the region are fast catching up with peers in the West, as evidenced by the boom in China and India, he noted. "Asia's the fastest adopter because of the knowledge of other markets," he said.

Rival open source vendor Red Hat, recently went on a campaign promoting the use of virtualization in the region because it said the number of adopters is low.

Vijay Sarathy, Sun Microsystems' senior director of marketing for xVM, said in a statement Wednesday: "The virtualization market is still wide open. By many accounts, the number of servers that are virtualized is still in the single digits."

Kurc disagrees with this view. On the contrary, he said virtualization is so commonly deployed that "it is very hard to find someone who doesn't use it".

According to the Novell executive, with many companies already aware of virtualization's benefits, they now need to focus on the "big picture". Kurc explained that these organizations should fit the technology to their company's needs, as opposed to simply implementing it for technology's sake.

He raised the example of employing virtualization to prioritize critical systems over other functions, depending on the business' urgencies. "Using virtualization is all about stretching your resources," he explained.

Microsoft last year released its enterprise virtual server offering to compete with market leader, VMware. The release is supported by Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 and Sun Solaris 10.
Source :http://www.bangkokpost.com

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Wins SearchEnterpriseLinux.com 'Product of the Year' Gold in Linux Server Distributions Category

Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has been selected as Gold medalist winner in the SearchEnterpriseLinux.com 2007 'Products of the Year' awards, in the Linux Server Distributions category. This annual award is presented by the editors of TechTarget's Data Center Media Group.

The 'Products of the Year' awards were judged by the SearchEnterpriseLinux.com editorial staff, in conjunction with a team of users, industry experts, analysts and consultants. Judging was based on six criteria, including innovation, performance, ease of integration into existing environments, ease of use and manageability, functionality and value. Judges characterized Red Hat Enterprise Linux as "a solid choice for mainstream computing," and "a full-featured release that delivers on a range of roadmap commitments, especially for CPU support, drivers, virtualization and package updates and upgrades."

With solutions that span from the desktop to the data center, Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers compelling levels of performance, security and robustness, and is certified by leading enterprise hardware and software vendors. Enterprise Linux couples the innovation of open source and the stability of a true enterprise-class platform.

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 provides our customers with industry-leading virtualization capabilities, an impressive deployment ecosystem and world-record setting performance," said Scott Crenshaw, vice president, Enterprise Linux Business at Red Hat. "To be honored as one of SearchEnterpriseLinux's 'Products of the Year' is a testament to the validity of Red Hat solutions."

For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.
Source :http://www.centredaily.com/

Google Android trashing Linux’s good

Google is one of the most ubiquitous brands alive today and typically partner organizations benefit from that star power. But Linux-based Google Android may be broadcasting the wrong message.

In 2005, “Google acquired Android Inc., a small startup company based in Palo Alto, CA . . . At the time, little was known about the functions of Android Inc. other than they made software for mobile phones. This began rumors that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market, although it was unclear at the time what function they might perform in that market,” according to Wikipedia.

The Android team continued on at Google, developing the Linux-based mobile operating system.

Fast forward three years to 2008 and Google has just released an early development kit for Android to developers. But, the development kit does not include any source code, and that has developers frustrated, according to MercuryNews (registration required).

It has companies interested in Android wondering, what has Google been doing for the last three years? “For the first time, developers are griping about Google the way they used to complain about Bill Gates & Co. The search giant’s phone software is buggy, they say, and lacks key features.”

And, because Android is Linux-based, the penguin will be receiving lots of peripheral attention. If Android succeeds, consumer confidence in Linux will improve as callers begin to use it on a daily basis. If Android fails, Linux may receive negative attention and lose the support of the consumer masses.

Either way, the pressure is on for Google Android to deliver quickly because “Microsoft, which has been shipping its Windows Mobile operating system for five years, said programmers have created more than 18,000 applications to run on Windows Mobile devices - everything from astrology charts to business expense management tools.”

Source :http://tech.blorge.com

IGEL’s Latest Linux Firmware Delivers Smartcard Security and Convenience for Virtual Desktops

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IGEL Technology today announced its latest Linux firmware upgrade enhancing the broadest and most powerful range of thin clients on the market. The firmware delivers enhanced security through smartcard authentication of RDP sessions with the inclusion of the new Winconnect RDP client. When combined with the integrated Leostream client already included in IGEL’s Linux firmware, organizations can deploy virtual Windows PCs using secure two-factor authentication and single-sign-on security.

The upgrade also allows users to run multiple remote desktops in separate windows on the same screen. This function is ideal for programmers or financial traders who previously had to switch between remote desktops using hotkeys since each desktop filled a whole screen and could not be windowed. The upgrade gives users a far better overview in multi-desktop environments.

Additional features in the Linux firmware includes the FireFox 2 web browser with its improved tabbed browsing, integrated search, integrated Popup-Blocker and protection against Phishing. Users will also experience enhanced video performance and support for a broader range of media with the latest version of mplayer.

“The introduction of our latest Linux firmware allows RDP users needing access Terminal-Services or virtual PCs increased security using smartcard authentication while taking advantage of secure and time-saving features such as single sign-on. Once again IGEL has proven that its thin client range is the most user-friendly and comprehensive on the market,” said Stephen Yeo, worldwide strategic marketing director for IGEL Technology.

The IGEL Linux firmware is immediately available at www.MyIGEL.com.

About IGEL Technology

IGEL Technology is the world’s number three thin client vendor and the market leader in its home country of Germany (Q3 2007 IDC). The company produces the industry’s widest range of thin clients, based on Linux and Microsoft Windows, giving customers access to the richest set of digital services through the very powerful, IGEL designed, firmware. Form factors include traditional desktops, mobile tablets, integrated LCD units, quad screens and PC to thin client conversion cards. All IGEL thin clients come with the bundled, easy to use, IGEL Remote Management software, giving you maximum remote control with the minimum cost and hassle. IGEL supports the broadest set of digital services including terminal emulation, web, ICA, RDP, Virtual Desktops (VDI), Java and native SAP. All devices support smart cards for maximum security and this includes integration with Citrix Password Manager’s Hot Desktop allowing sub 10 second boot times for roaming workers.
Source :http://www.businesswire.com

Mandriva and Turbolinux Join Forces to Unite Linux

Mandriva Linux and Turbolinux are collaborating to create a common base for their respective Linux distributions. The joint effort will be called Manbo-Labs and involves developers from France, Japan and Brazil.

While the Manbo-Labs effort is new, tying together multiple Linux distributions with a common base is not. In fact, Turbolinux and Conectiva Linux were part of the 2002 UnitedLinux effort to build a common Linux base. Conectiva has since merged with Mandrakesoft to form Mandriva.

Novell and SCO (with its Caldera Linux product) were also part of the effort. UnitedLinux completely fell apart by 2004 for a number reasons, including the fact that SCO turned against Linux.

According to Mandriva at least, the Manbo-Labs partnership is not a United Linux rehash.

"The point of Manbo-Labs is not to create a common distribution but a common set of very low-level components like kernel, gcc, glibc and Xorg," Ann Nicolas, director of engineering at Mandriva, told InternetNews.com.

"Putting together efforts, resources and experience is our common objective to make both distributions more competitive and efficient, as maintaining a complete base system needs quite a big amount of resources," she added.

GCCand glibc are key infrastructure elements of an operational Linux system providing code compilation and code libraries. Xorg is a key foundation element for providing a GUI in Linux distributions. The Manbo effort will not be jointly working on the GNOME or KDE desktop layer that sits on top of Xorg.

"Manbo-Labs work will benefit both on the desktop and the server side, as hardware support and management can be as tricky in server and desktop oriented distributions," Nicolas explained.

Nicolas noted that the Manbo partnership is not about shared revenues; it's about shared development. She explained that Manbo is a joint financial effort to fund engineering dedicated to base system development. As part of the effort, Turbolinux and Mandriva are sharing developers in labs working on development, quality assurance and independent hardware vendor partnerships to certify the base system.

"The main goal is to get concrete result as a set of common components that will improve quality and efficiency in Turbolinux and Mandriva," Nicholas said. "These components would have to be recognized by hardware manufacturers to help global certification and support."

Although Turbolinux and Mandriva will share a common base, the Linux vendors have different views when it comes to Microsoft. In October 2007 Turbolinux and Microsoft signed a deal for interoperability and patent protection; Mandriva has no such agreement with Microsoft.
Source :http://itmanagement.earthweb.com

Reiser4, btrfs, ext3 and ext4 Linux file systems news

Several new developments around the Reiser4, btrfs, ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems, which are mostly used under Linux, have been published in the last few days. It appears that Namesys, the company behind the development of Reiserfs and Reiser4 and founded by Hans Reiser, who has been accused of murder, is no longer in operation. The company web page had sporadically not been available for weeks; now, even the DNS entry for namesys.com has disappeared. Namesys employee Edward Shishkin confirmed in an interview with CNet news service that the company's "commercial activities" had ceased

and that there was a problem with the web page.


However, he and several other developers would continue to develop the Reiser4 file system. The file system's source code is now available for download as a patch for Linux versions 2.6.22 and 2.6.23 on a web page maintained by Shishkin. Reiser4 also continues to be part of Andrew Morton's mm developer kernels and received several updates in the recently released version 2.6.24-rc8-mm1. Whether the file system will be integrated into the "official" kernel maintained by Linus Torvalds remains unclear even years after the introduction of Reiser4. Without a company or Linux distributor to guarantee its long-term development, chances for its integration remain slim.

Based on ext3, the ext4 file system is actively being developed. Kernel version 2.6.24, which is expected for release during the coming weekend, offers additional new features. "Uninitialized Block Groups" are to speed up the process of creating and checking ext4 file systems, while "Flexible Block Groups" speed up the processing of large files on file systems with small block sizes. Ext4 will maintain its experimental status. Apart from the ext4 improvements, two patches (1, 2) designed to speed up the checking of ext3 file systems in various ways are also being discussed by developers on the kernel mailing list.

The developers of btrfs, which has been redeveloped from scratch, have released version 0.10. It allows the size of btrfs file systems to be changed in runtime environments. An add-on serves for converting ext3 file systems to btrfs. Like ext4, btrfs is still being developed and should not be used in productive environments. With its new ideas, btrfs has already caused quite a stir in the Linux world; however, considerable work remains to be done according to developers until the file system is complete.
Source :http://www.heise.de

Linspire Offers $199 Linux-Based Desktops Through Sears

Linspire, the San Diego-based developer of the Linspire and Freespire community desktop Linux operating systems, announced a $199 Linux PC, after $100 mail-in rebate, through retailer Sears' Web site. The desktop is also the first Linux PC pre-installed with the beta CNR Client, a software delivery service.

"As the cracks in the adoption for desktop Linux continue to show, when these systems start coming out the channel starts to wake up," said Linspire CEO Larry Kettler. "As hardware comes down in price, the value price point is an opportunity for system builders of all sizes."

The configuration includes an Intel (NSDQ:INTC) Celeron 420 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of memory, 80GB of hard drive space, a keyboard, speakers and mouse. Also included are a 15-in-1 memory card reader, an optical drive, and Linspire's Freespire 2.0 operating system, built atop Ubuntu 7.10.

Kettler said that every year the channel has the opportunity to look at the Linux-based desktop market, and admits "the year of desktop Linux" is yet to arrive.

"The low-end, value-priced PC is an entry point to the desktop Linux marketplace," he said. "I think the combined efforts of everyone will continue to break the market open a little bit more for desktop Linux."
Source :http://www.crn.com

Sears sells latest sub-$200 Linux desktop PC

For the second time since October, a sub-$200 fully equipped Linux desktop PC is available for sale to U.S. consumers.

Starting today, Sears.com is selling a Mirus Innovations Inc. desktop machine that runs Linux from Linspire Inc. for $299, minus a $100 mail-in rebate, Linspire said in a statement. Another $15 discount is available through this Saturday, for a final price of $184.99. Shipping is an additional $16.50.

The new Linspire/Mirus PC includes an Intel Celeron 420 1.6-GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a 56Kbit/sec. modem, a CD-RW burner, a media card reader, a keyboard, speakers, a mouse and Linspire's Freespire 2.0 Linux operating system. The machine also comes with basic CNR Service, which gives users one-click online access to free Linux software. It does not include a monitor.

San Diego-based Linspire said it teamed with Walnut, Calif.-based Mirus to build a machine that would provide low-cost computing capabilities and open-source software for consumer and business customers.

"Our system builders have been forging new ground in the low-end Linux PC market for over five years now," Larry Kettler, president and CEO of Linspire, said in a statement. "This latest system from Mirus Innovations is the most robust hardware and software configuration, and offers the best value for under $200 to date."

The new PC offers improved out-of-the-box file format and multimedia support, including MP3, Windows Media, Real Networks, Java, Flash, ATI, nVidia, Wi-Fi and others, according to the companies. The Freespire 2.0 operating system also includes legally licensed proprietary drivers, codecs and applications in its core distribution. Freespire is a community-influenced, Ubuntu-based Linux distribution.

Last October, an Ubuntu Linux-equipped PC built by Fremont, Calif.-based Everex went on sale in selected Wal-Mart stores for $200.
Source :http://www.computerworld.com

Can Linux finally unite Korea?

With just weeks to go before South Korea's presidential election at the end of last year, Seoul's newspapers were full of stories about historic North-South cooperation.

Among the pictures of the departing South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun walking across the border to clasp hands with North Korea's Kim Jong-il and freight trains crossing between the countries for the first time in 56 years, there was just enough room on a few of the front pages for reports of a technology deal struck between the two leaders.

Groundbreaking project

Under the banner of "Hana Linux" - literally "One" Linux - the two countries have agreed to work on a groundbreaking IT development project that might shatter the final Cold War boundary.

South Korea is one of Linux's biggest converts. Since discovering the free operating system in 2003, officials have unveiled plans to switch all government-run offices to Linux. Now under the terms of the agreement signed between the two states, South Korea will set up Linux training centres in North Korea.

Lee Yon-nim, 28, is a former IT consultant at Posco, a South Korean steel exporter. "Why Linux? Because it's free. Government offices don't have to buy licences for it, unlike Windows, which can end up costing an enormous amount. In theory, having a standardised version for the North and South will help matters enormously if the countries do unify in the future."

Moon Hwi-tak, chairman of Gongae Software, the South Korean company behind the development of Hana Linux, says: "Linux is widely used all over the world, and different countries, different companies have all added different functions and tools to suit their needs. If companies in Korea all use their own versions, it will waste time and money and cause confusion. A unified version will solve a lot of potential problems."

Moon adds: "Political cooperation is already under way, and this is going to benefit IT development in a big way for the North and the South. Sharing technological knowhow and manpower will help us become more competitive in the international IT market."

Sceptics believe they are being fed the dream that IT is going to magically lead to reunification. Optimists, meanwhile, are asking if technology is really about to produce light at the end of Asia's dark political tunnel.

Many believe there is another, deeper reason for Korea developing Hana Linux. Says Lee: "Korea wants this version of Linux in order to be different. People here have had to fight for their political freedom from Japan, China and other countries since the beginning of Korean history. So they like having their own special way of doing things. It makes them feel independent."

Indeed, when it comes to IT, South Koreans do things differently. Almost everyone in the country uses Korean search engine, Naver; Google is considered a poor man's substitute. MSN's Messenger plays second fiddle to the local Nate On service. Virtually the whole of South Korea snubs Windows Media Player for Gom Player. The list goes on.

Hong Young-jun, 27, a Ph.D student at KAIST, a South Korean University dedicated to IT, thinks North Korea is making a bold move. He says: "Until very recently, Pyongyang has only used IT for military purposes. Opening North Korean society up to the internet and mobile phones will make it difficult for the government to control freedom of expression in the way it has done since the 1950s."

Note of caution

However, Lee warns that IT collaboration may not be the golden ticket the South Korean government hopes it will be. "Hana Linux doesn't have a future," she says. "Trying to bind North Korea to one operating system will not work if the country opens up. Once they see other operating systems available, they will look elsewhere."

Hong agrees. "One thing we can be sure of is that the North has no intention of being bossed about by the South when it comes to IT - or anything else."
North Korea goes digital

2003: North Korea says it has set up its first internet connection. It also established the Korean Computer Centre, with branches in Europe and China, with the assistance of businessman Jan Holtermann, who says: "North Korea is the India of the future."

2004: Naenara, meaning "My Country", North Korea's first portal, is launched. It is banned by South Korea, which fears its use as a propaganda tool.

October 2007: Kim Jong-il declares to the South Korean press: "I am an internet expert."

End 2007: Pyongyang confirms that a South Korean-run industrial park in Kaesong, North Korea, will be allowed to use computers with internet access.

Recently: South Korea has produced an "IT Terminology Dictionary for Inter-Korean use" in an attempt to prevent two different sets of technological jargon appearing on the two sides of the border.

2008: The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology will enrol students for the first time this year. Officially a joint North and South Korean project, the institution was mainly funded by companies and groups from the South, as well as China and the US.
Source :http://www.guardian.co.uk

Mandriva, Turbolinux enter Linux alliance

Forgive me if I sound skeptical, but during the nine years I've covered Linux, not once have I seen a favorable outcome to the partnership of the type Mandriva and Turbolinux announced Wednesday.

Tokyo-based Turbolinux and Paris-based Mandriva said they'll unify their products to use a common base system in an endeavor called Manbo-Labs. The first software to employ this base will be Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring, the companies said.

"By pooling together common engineering resources, Mandriva and Turbolinux will be able to invest more in technology and product quality," the companies said in a statement. This should help expand the list of compatible hardware and lead to stronger relationships with software and hardware companies, the Linux sellers predicted.

his sort of partnership makes sense in a world where much of the software that goes into a Linux distribution is already shared. But in the past, such alliances haven't amounted to much.

One prominent example is UnitedLinux in 2002, which pooled the resources of Suse Linux (before Novell acquired it four years ago), Turbolinux (which earlier had aspirations beyond just its current Japanese market focus), Conectiva (which merged with Mandrake to become Mandriva), and The SCO Group (which previously had been named Caldera before it switched from selling Linux to selling Unix and suing Linux advocates). But the effort to provide a collective counterbalance to Red Hat's dominance fell apart, and the UnitedLinux lights went out in 2004.

Then there was the Linux Core Consortium in 2004, which was essentially UnitedLinux reconstituted without Suse and with another company, Progeny Linux. It also didn't amount to much.

More recently, several allies whose products were based on the Debian Linux distribution also tried banding together as the Debian Common Core (DCC) Alliance. Other members of that group included now-defunct Progeny Linux, Knoppix, Xandros, Linspire, Mepis, Credativ, GnuLinEx, Sun Wah, and User Linux.
Source :http://www.news.com

Linux available on ThinkPad T61 and R61

In August, Lenovo announced that Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 would be available on ThinkPads in the fourth quarter of 2007. Though that didn't happen, Lenovo finally released details Tuesday.

Novell SLED 10 will be available on the ThinkPad T61 and ThinkPad R61 with Intel Centrino processors. Operating system features include the Firefox Web browser, RealPlayer, Macromedia Flash Player, OpenOffice, and more.

Lenovo says it will provide customer support for the hardware and the operating system, while Novell will be responsible for updates. The lowest-end model will be $949, and both models are available beginning Tuesday.

Next month ThinkPads with Penryn chipsets from Intel will start shipping with Linux as well.

Linux has chiefly been popular on servers and more recently has made inroads in embedded computing devices such as phones, but it's never made much headway on desktop and laptop PCs. Nevertheless, Suse has long championed Linux on PCs, and Novell took up the mantle when it acquired the Linux seller four years ago.
Source :http://www.news.com

Hard cash, cold logic: Linux

On May 26, 2006, Elcot (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu) let in its first penguin. Things would never be the same again.

That day, Elcot's managing director, C. Umashankar, walked into his office in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and was handed a brand new laptop. He recalls promptly giving it back to his PA. "I asked him to load Suse Linux on it. I guess he was surprised. But when the installation -- complete with drivers and wireless networking -- only took 45 minutes and very little external effort, there was a new confidence in my PA." That confidence spread quickly. And with it came more penguins. Within weeks, the Rs 750-crore Elcot was undergoing a enterprise-wide migration to Suse Linux. A year later, Umashankar and his team had moved 30,000 computers and 1,880 severs belonging to some of the state's schools to Linux -- creating possibly the largest Linux rollout in India.

March of the Penguins

The decision to move to Linux could not have been anything if not daunting. As the nodal agency for information and communication technology of a state with the population of the UK, Elcot has enormous responsibilities -- current projects include creating an electoral database and photo identity cards, computerizing land records and driving licenses, producing eight million farmers cards and 18 million family cards (used by families below the poverty line to draw monthly rations from the PDS), among others.

In short, there are a million ways they can blow it.

And with no vendor support, the odds were against them.

Meanwhile, in his office, Umashankar had other problems. Like many pioneers, his vision held good only where his voice reached. Leading his secretariat to his vision of the Linux-enabled enterprise was one thing, convincing other government agencies that Elcot shifted gears with, was another.

But Umashankar knew what needed to be done. He was convinced that it was only a matter of time before the price of staying proprietary became crushing. With every technology refresh, with every piece of additional hardware, with every new school that his department provided for, with every new service they wanted to offer various government bodies and with every new PC Elcot bought, staying proprietary came at a significant price.

By the first week of June 2006, Umashankar started moving Elcot's desktops to Suse Linux OS. The entire organization followed in phases, and slowly at first. The migration of over 200 desktops at Elcot's HQ took just over eight months.

"During the migration although there were no issues, like all new things, it faced resistance. But once people started using it, they saw benefits and became fond of it. We won't go back, this is an irreversible process," says P.R.Krishnamoorthy, senior business development manager at Elcot.

As users caught on with Umashankar's infectious enthusiasm, they started getting more familiar with the features of their new OS. Soon a cycle of interest developed and users found new ways of switching mail clients to work on Suse Linux.

"First they migrated from Outlook Express to Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows. From there they took the mail folder and put it into the Suse Linux system, and started operating Thunderbird over Suse Linux system. Novel, isn't it?" Umashankar asks proudly.

This interest helped his campaign to migrate completely to Suse Linux, from a 100 percent Windows environment.
Source :http://www.linuxworld.com.au

Lenovo releases Linux Thinkpads

LENOVO has said that it will release a SUSE Linux version of its ThinkPad range in the middle of January.

The PC vendor has been promising the Linux versions of the machines since before Dr Spinola was born, but for some reason they had not tipped up.

According to Desktop Linux a Linux version will appear on its Intel Centrino-powered ThinkPad T61 and R61 14-inch-wide notebooks.

Lenovo said it will place it on Penryn-based ThinkPads by February.

The spec of the T61 is interesting but the graphics card, an Intel GMA X3100 GM965 on the motherboard, limits it a bit. It will hit the streets for $949 which is only $20 less than the same laptop with Vista on board.

On the whole it is hard to see the point. Desktop Linux points out that it does mean that Lenovo will finally join Dell as one of the first top-tier PC vendors to offer pre-installed Linux desktops to its customers. But if these products are not significantly better or cheaper than Windows versions it is hard to see how in the long term it could be good for Linux.
Source :http://www.theinquirer.net

Torvalds: Linux ‘built on trusted relationships’

"I have a policy that he who does the code gets to decide," said Torvalds, the Linux project coordinator who has written approximately 2% of the Linux code since creating the operating system in 1990.

Torvalds made his comments during the first of a two-part interview with Jim Zemlin, chief executive at the Linux Foundation. Torvalds is a Fellow at the foundation, which funds his work. He can be heard in his own words via podcast on the Linux Foundation website.

Torvalds also said GPLv2 remained his open source licence of choice for the Linux kernel and that he would be pragmatic on future decisions, but that stance would not blind him to investigating the General Public Licence version 3 under specific circumstances. He said trust is the fuel that is energising the Linux development process and commercial vendors can only establish that trust via actions not words.

The mythical "Linux community" did not refer to one big happy open source family, he said, but the development process was made up of many groups, some with different ideals and goals.

He said companies and individuals have to build trust. "What happens is people know. They've seen other people do work over the last months or years, in some cases decades, and they know that, 'OK, I can trust this person. When he sends me a patch, it's probably the right thing to do even if I don't understand quite why' and you kind of build up this network."

In terms of licensing, which has been a hot topic since the GPLv3 was introduced last year, Torvalds said he would remain pragmatic. GPLv3 and GPLv2 pointed to the philosophical differences between open source and Linux on one side and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) on the other.

"One of the few reasons I see why Version 3 might be useful is simply there ends up being tons of external code that we feel is really important and worthwhile that is under the Version 3 licence," Torvalds said.

Torvalds said Linux participation remained largely in western Europe and the US, and the only factors excluding others from participation were connectivity, language and cultural barriers.

He expected embedded and mobile devices to have the greatest impact on Linux in the near future, and the issue with mobile devices was the limited keypad and screen size. He also said the popularity around Linux was changing attitudes around device drivers, but that Linux still did not have the kind of support he wishes it had.

"It used to be that very few hardware manufacturers really actively tried to help Linux people write drivers. And now, at least, I'm personally getting the feeling that the companies that don't try to help, at least with documentation and sometimes even with writing drivers themselves, are starting to even be a minority."
Source :http://www.computerworlduk.com