alll about linux

The Gentoo Release Engineering team proudly announces the release of Gentoo Linux 2006.1, the second release of the year. It builds on the strength of previous releases with several improvements. Featuring all of Gentoo’s well-documented advantages in flexibility, performance and portability, this release is now available on all supported architectures. It is a compelling choice for people desiring a flexible, powerful community-based Linux distribution.The 2006.1 release features many highlights that improve upon 2006.0. The AMD64, HPPA, x86, 32- and 64-bit PowerPC releases are built with and include GCC 4.1, a great improvement over version 3.4 used for 2006.0. Also included are the GNU C library version 2.4 and Gentoo’s baselayout 1.12.1, with improved system startup scripts. Alpha, x86 and AMD64 also feature a new profile layout, with separate sub-profiles for desktop and server systems. This makes customization much easier as the profile defaults can be pre-tuned to the type of system being used.

The Gentoo Linux Installer for the x86 and AMD64 platforms now features a networkless install mode, with a more streamlined configuration interface making a typical installation quicker and easier than ever. It also includes new and improved partitioning code that can make better use of existing partition setups with unusual arrangements and improved error handling to minimize the chances of damaged partition tables.

For the Alpha platform, the InstallCD now features the option to use a serial console for installation with minimal effort, and the stages are once again unified into one set for LinuxThreads and NPTL systems. The compiler used has been upgraded to GCC version 3.4.6, and it includes an updated glibc, to allow the unified stages for LinuxThreads and NPTL.

The SPARC release includes several improvements over 2006.0, including InstallCD support for systems with more than 4GB of memory and an updated toolchain bringing fixes for various compilation problems. Also new is InstallCD and kernel support for the new UltraSPARC T1 processor used in the Sun T1000 and T2000 systems.

Gentoo Linux 2006.1 now brings official support for the dual-core G5 processor on the PPC platform, support for the serial console on Apple Xserve machines and improved support for installation from a FireWire disk. Official stages are built for 64- and 32-bit userlands on generic PPC64, POWER5 and PowerPC 970 (G5) platforms, and GRP packages are available for the latest KDE, Gnome and XFCE releases on all of the above configurations.

Gentoo is also offering experimental stages for SuperH, the embedded processor developed by Hitachi in the early 1990s and most notably found in the SEGA DreamCast and several models of HP PDA. The port presently supports, and was developed on, the LanTANK system, with support for more systems planned in the future.

OpenOffice.org Premium is a free and open source enhancement of official OpenOffice.org plus some Extras for you to use.

Group of OpenOffice enthusiasts have released OpenOffice Premium, a new bundle that includes the OpenOffice suite and a grab-bag of extras, such as clip art, document templates, and fonts. The idea is to provide a package that is similar to a new installation of commercial office suites such as Microsoft Office and Corel Perfect Office, both of which come with a plethora of clip art and other goodies.

The choice of the word “Premium” for this bundle is somewhat misleading, as the package is available as a free download. Like many SourceForge web pages, the download page is more confusing than it could be, but I quickly found an international version of the bundle that came in at 243 MB. The full install is 441 MB, which is about twice the size of my install of Microsoft Office XP. This rough doubling of system requirements carries over to RAM usage as well: with the same document open, OpenOffice Writer used up 50 MB of memory, compared to 22 for Word. Nothing to be scared of, I think.
What’s new?

• Clip Art (currently more than 2,800 objects)
• Templates (number varies by language)
• Samples (number varies by language)
• Documentation (if available)
• Fonts (more than 90 fonts)

In this series, the IBM® Internet Technology Group designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available. If you followed the instructions in the previous articles, you now have a generic Drupal installation. You can begin to add content and modify the style. This article introduces the Drupal programming model used in developing Web sites and includes a description of different types of content, developing new features using modules, implementing hooks to enable those modules, and site URL design.

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Kerala’s Communist Party of India (Marxist) announced a three-year plan for children in 12,500 high schools to learn how to use Linux instead of Windows. “There may eventually be a few individuals at the margins who still choose to use Microsoft, but the majority should be free of this hardship,” said M.A. Baby, the state education minister.

Complete Survey

IBM is expanding its open source strategy beyond Linux by targeting eight new technology areas where it will focus open source attention going forward.

Last week at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, IBM said it would look to new open source business opportunities for client-side middleware, development tools, web application servers, data servers, systems management, hardware, grid computing and IBM research and consulting projects.

IBM was one of the first hardware companies to support Linux as a mainstream hardware OS, and the company says it hopes to take on similar leadership in these other areas. >>>>

YaST2-GTK is an effort to develop a GTK+ interface module for Suse’s setup tool YaST that started from Michael Meeks base code and was a Google’s Summer of Code project assigned to Ricardo Cruz.

Currently everything works, including the package selector, who still lacks some features. Expect some quirks, though they should be few and minor (I am excluding the package selector here… ). We will be working to get it shinning for the next Suse version.

Screenshots from openSUSE.org

Instalinux.com is a handy Web site from which users can create customized installation images for a handful of different Linux distributions.

The site’s service, SystemDesigner, is free, and administrators should find it particularly helpful when provisioning multiple machines—either physical or virtualized.

The Instalinux site was put together by former Hewlett-Packard employee Chris Slater, and SystemDesigner is based on HP’s open-source Linux Common Operating Environment project. >>>>

More than two years have passed since PalmSource–the Palm OS developer purchased by Access in 2005–released an update to the venerable operating system. But the next version, which is set for release next year, will be very different under the hood, according to Access executives Tomihisa Kamada and Didier Diaz.

The Access Linux Platform will still be able to run Palm OS applications, but Tokyo-based Access will use an open-source underpinning as its foundation. The mobile software maker asserts that this will make it easier and cheaper to get the update out to developers, who will likewise find it easier to take advantage of a wealth of open-source code to create Access Linux Platform applications.

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After the cola ban, it is now the turn of Microsoft to log out of Kerala. Children in 12,500 high schools in the state, India’s most literate, will not be taught Windows. Instead, instructors are lining up Linux for them. This is because Kerala has chalked out a plan for migrating its high school students to free software platforms in three years.Although Linux was already blipping on the Kerala IT@School project radar, and the plans of VS Achuthanandan’s government to develop the state as a Foss (free and open software systems) destination has expedited the open software plans.

“Free software guru Richard Stallman’s visit last week had nudged the schools to discard the proprietary software altogether,” state education minister MA Baby told FE. “Stallman has inspired Kerala’s transition to free software on the lines of an exciting model of a Spanish province, which did the same,” the minister said.

The Left Democratic Front government targets implementing an earlier government order that was issued during the previous United Democratic Front regime. The decision was taken in 2004 to push open source systems, but this was not actively followed, said Baby. Initially, schools were given the option to choose whether teachers were to be trained in Linux systems or Microsoft. The option has now narrowed down to migration.

In the current year, class VIII students have shifted to Linux. By 2007, class XI students and by 2008 class X students will follow suit.

Linux PC dealers are upbeat. “Offers of pre-loaded Linux operating system could fetch good hardware sales margins,” says PK Harikrishnan, president, Kerala Computer Manufacturers’ and Dealers’ Association. There are other reasons as well. A sting operation by Microsoft in October 2005 had not endeared the proprietary software to PC and peripherals dealers. Often PC vendors are caught between customers’ demand for free pirated software along with hardware, and the fine print of law. Some dealers in Kerala even see the Foss market as a narrow, but a safe corridor out of this mess. -the financial express