SeaMonkey 1.0 Is Released

While Firefox and Thunderbird are the poster children of open-source Internet application success, the program suite they sprang from, Mozilla, was reborn Jan. 30 under a new name: SeaMonkey.

Like the now obsolete Mozilla Application Suite, SeaMonkey 1.0 includes a Web browser and e-mail client, as well as a WYSIWYG Web page composer and a feature-rich IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client. For Web developers, it also includes Mozilla.org’s DOM (document object model) inspector and JavaScript debugger tools.

Unlike many modern browsers and some e-mail clients, SeaMonkey will run on older hardware and operating systems. For Windows, for example, SeaMonkey will run on Windows 98SE and NT 4 on 233MHz Pentium systems with only 64MB of RAM. On the Mac, SeaMonkey does require Mac OS X, (10.1 or later preferred), but it can run on Macs with 266MHz PPC chips and 64MB of RAM.

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iMac G5 vs. iMac Core Duo

It seemed so far away, when in June last year Apple announced their two year transition to Intel architectures; it also didn’t exactly add up. At their World Wide Developer Conference, Apple let the world know that every version of Mac OS X since 10.0 has been compiled and running on x86 hardware, so the OS was ready. Apple’s iLife and iWork suites are a great supporting cast to the OS, and those applications were either ready or very close to being ready. Yet Apple was telling everyone that they would start the transition by June of 2006 and be done with it a year later.

Everything started to make sense once Intel’s Core Duo launch was scheduled for the beginning of the new year, it was this chip that Apple would launch with, and why not as it has a guaranteed migration path over the next year? Core Duo platforms will eventually be able to be migrated to Merom based offerings (the two chips are pin-compatible) and using Core Duo on the desktop can tide users over until Conroe arrives if necessary. This way, Apple doesn’t have to worry about switching to the Pentium 4 and its high clock speeds and then over to Conroe with its lower clock speeds, explaining why one is superior to the other each step of the way. Apple gets a quick and easy migration to an architecture that today offers similar clock speeds to their G5 processors (at least at the low end and mid-range), and they get to boost clock speed and performance later this year with Conroe and Merom.

See what is the conclusion from anandtech.com team

Another good article for Mac Users: Coming soon: The Linux Macintel

And yet another good review from Stuff Magazine: Apple’s Intel iMac

Apache 2.2.0

It’s the undisputed king of the Web server world and the perfect illustration that slow and steady wins the race. The Apache Foundation has always moved deliberately when it comes to upgrading its Apache Web server. Version 2.2.0 is no exception, adding useful (but not jarringly different) capabilities for managing, securing and scaling the open-source Web server. For more information, go to httpd.apache.org.

INTEROPERABILITY
SCALABILITY
SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION

Continue reading …

Launch of SpreadKDE.org Promotional Community Site

The KDE marketing group is pleased to announce the release of SpreadKDE.org, the new home for KDE’s promotional activities. Such a hub for marketing activities has been sorely lacking in KDE until now, and we consider this site a to be a key milestone in establishing a solid foundation in growing KDE’s promotional activity.
In the past, the KDE community has had no centralized location for holding promotional materials or listing related tasks. However, with the release of SpreadKDE.org, we hope to meet and exceed those basic needs by:

• Providing a singular portal for KDE marketing materials
• Fostering a community for those interested in promoting KDE
• Aggregating marketing tasks and connecting those that need help with those who can help
• Storing related materials and documentation
• Concentrating and steering future KDE marketing goals
• Assisting and linking regional KDE groups, from new to established
• Coordinating KDE-related events

Google at work on desktop Linux!

Search engine giant preps own version of Ubuntu

Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business – desktop software.

A version of the increasingly popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as ‘Goobuntu’.

Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for.

It’s possible that it’s just one of the toys Googleplex engineers play with on Fridays, when they get time off from buffing the search engine code or filtering out entries about Tiananmen Square.

It could be for wider deployments on the company’s own desktops, as an alternative to Microsoft, but still for internal use only.

But it’s possible Google plans to distribute it to the general public, as a free alternative to Windows.

Google has already demonstrated an interest in building a presence on the desktop. At CES Las Vegas this month, it announced the Google Pack, a collection of desktop software bundled together for easy downloading.

The pack includes many apps which compete directly with the Windows bundle, such as Google Talk, Google Desktop, Mozilla Firefox, the Trillian instant messenger client, RealPlayer, and Picasa photo management.

Going the whole hog and distributing a complete desktop software suite would merely be another step down the same path.

However, entering the desktop software world would be a huge step. Making Goobuntu as easy to use as XP will require a lot more development. It’s unlikely to be ready for showtime any time soon, and it’s possible Google itself hasn’t finalised where the project should go.

Whatever Google’s intentions, the input of Google engineers and developers, writing new features and fixing bugs, will be a huge boost to the Ubuntu project.

Ubuntu, funded by the South African internet multimillionaire and occasional cosmonaut Mark Shuttleworth, is already emerging as a leader in the desktop Linux world.

It has built considerable momentum in the Linux community, and is starting to appear more widely. Shuttleworth is seeking to persuade white-box PC manufacturers to start shipping machines with Ubuntu preinstalled.

It is top of the Distrowatch download chart, is installed on up to six million computers, and doubling every eight months, according to estimates from Shuttleworth’s company, Canonical.

It has spawned a number of different offshoots, including Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu (for schools).

The word Ubuntu means “humanity to others” in several African languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. It’s one of the founding principles of post-apartheid South Africa. The origin of the word ‘Goobuntu’ is not clear, though it does not appear in online Zulu dictionaries.

The Goobuntu.com domain has been registered in the past couple of days, though presumably not by Google. It now redirects to a Cuban portal. Perhaps Google will have to think of a new name for the system before they launch it to the wider public. ® -theregister.co.uk

Do You Wal*Mart?

I highly recommend to watch the following documentary on WalMart:

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

Get to know the facts and what this company has on offer!!!

If you have any recommendations on good documentaries, any subject, let me know, as I am into watching documentary movies.

2005 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards

LinuQuestions.org has put up a poll for favorite applications of the year. The poll will end on March 16th. Go to their site and vote for your favourite apps. The poll consists of the following and here is what I voted for:

• Office Suite of the Year – OpenOffice.org
• Text Editor of the Year – Kate, prefer Vim in CLI mode
• Window Manager of the Year – Enligtenment
• Graphics App of the Year – Gimp
• Desktop Environment of the Year – KDE
• Web Development Editor of the Year – Quanta, though don’t use it much
• Audio Multimedia Application of the Year – aMarok, what else
• Mail Client of the Year – KMail, as I use it, but also like Thunderbird
• Video Multimedia Application of the Year – Mplayer
• Windows on Linux App of the Year – Crossover Office
• Shell of the Year – bash, as I use it
• Open Source Game of the Year – none, as haven’t played them
• Browser of the Year – Firefox of course
• Messaging App of the Year – Gaim
• Distribution of the Year – take a wild guess!
• Security App of the Year – ClamAV
• LiveCD Distribution of the Year – Knoppix
• File Manager of the Year – Konqueror
• Database of the Year – MySQL (WP & aMarok are best with MySQL)
• IDE of the Year – Zend Studio, Eclipse is strong second (though not a programmer)

Unix is giving way to Linux/E-Trade Goes into the Great Wide Open

Unix is giving way to Linux

Linux and Open Source technologies have caused a tremendous inflection point in the enterprise space. Enterprises in India are transitioning towards supported and certified Open Source solutions to address critical business requirements. Looking back through the years that we have served the Indian market, Linux has come a long way in the enterprise space. Back in 2000, India was primarily a Unix market in the enterprise. With the entry of certified and supported Linux solutions, Unix users in India found Linux an attractive proposition to migrate to. Transitioning skill sets from Unix to Linux was fairly simple. Moreover, Linux reduced costs drastically, delivering the latest technologies that Unix vendors were struggling to offer.

Read more @financialexpress.com

E-Trade Goes into the Great Wide Open

Tests showed that the Linux box could handle about 180 users at a time, compared with 300 to 400 users on one of eTrade’s Sun 4500 servers. Performance on the Linux box dropped sharply when there were more than about 180 users, but, before that point, the Linux box performed faster than the Sun servers.

After the Linux box’s price was factored in, eTrade had itself a new computing platform. >>>>

OSS is an easier hack: Mitnick

In an exclusive interview on Friday, infamous hacker Kevin Mitnick told Tectonic that, given the choice between finding security vulnerabilities in closed and open source, he’d prefer to attack an open source environment.

“Open source would be easier [to hack],” admits ex-hacker turned security consultant Mitnick. “It’s less work.”

Mitnick says that open source software is easier to analyse for security holes, since you can see the code. Proprietary software, on the other hand, requires either reverse engineering, getting your hands on illicit copies of the source code, or using a technique called “fuzzing”.

More @ tectonic.com

CD/DVD layout for SUSE Linux 10.1

The following comes from opensuse.org mailing list.

here’s a detailed look at the CD /
DVD layout for SUSE Linux 10.1
In the retail box:
======================
1 DVD9 (double layered) for x86 and x86_64, binary rpms (source rpms are
available for download or sent out on request on an extra DVD to comply
with the GPL).
5 CDs for i386 containing only OSS packages, plus one CD containing closed
source add-on packages.
As before, the DVD9 version contains more packages than the CD version.
For download:
=============
A DVD version in two flavours:
- installable DVD5, one each for x86 and x86_64
- LiveDVD for x86 only
5 CDs containing only OSS packages, 1 CD containing closed source
add-on packages.
FTP tree with binary and source RPMs.
The DVD5 contains only packages which are also on the CD version.
Packages which are only on the DVD9 are also available in the FTP trees.
All non-OSS media and packages will be hosted on novell.com or suse.com,
not opensuse.org

Naming:
=======
The distribution is called “SUSE Linux”. The “OSS” string in the
download version is no longer used. The distinction between “clean” and
“tainted” versions is done with the addon CD.
Retail Download:
====================
The retail and download CD sets contain the same packages on the same
CDs, but will differ slightly in the selection of packages to install:
- The download version will not install non-OSS software by default.
We’re still working on the details of how the addon CD is handled.
- The retail version will install non-OSS software in the default
selection. It will be possible to deselect all non-OSS packages with
as few clicks as possible (by collecting them in their own selection).
CDs needed for standard installation:
=====================================
- Minimal install needs CD 1
- Standard install with either KDE or GNOME needs CDs 1-3
- Any non-OSS package needs the addon CD