Linux Archive

In an interview with ZDNet U.K., the Linux 'kernel hacker' gives his views on the GPL, 64-bit computing and why grandmothers should want to use Linux. Alan Cox is generally referred to in the open-source developer community as a "kernel hacker"--someone whose programming responsibilities cover the Linux kernel, or core, itself. Thousands of developers all over the world, from hobbyists to IBM engineers, are constantly contributing to open source software, so Cox's role of organizing and applying improvements is vital.

Especially if you're just starting out in embedded development, the wealth of available bootloaders, scaled-down distributions, filesystems, and GUIs can seem overwhelming. But this wealth of options is actually a boon, allowing you to tailor your development or user environment exactly to your needs. This overview of embedded development on Linux on IBM's developerWorks will help you make sense of it all.

"Even computer programmers can sometimes let their emotions get the better of them. 'If I made a great product, and Microsoft offered me a lot of money, I would spit in their faces,' says Brett Slatkin, a student at Columbia University in New York. His colleagues roll their eyes and accuse him of being stuck at the 'hippy stage.' But when talk turns to the serious business of programming, they are of one pragmatic mind." Read the rest of the story at MCNBC.

Yellow Dog Linux is a complete, Red Hat and RPM based operating system for PowerPC computers. Terra Soft is now taking pre-orders for YDL 2.2 which includes an array of powerful updates, improvements, and support for newer Apple hardware, including improved nVidia support, KDE 2.2.2, Gnome 1.4, kernel 2.4.18, XFree86 4.2.0, and more than 1000 applications to choose from.

FreeHackers.org features two very interesting, long interviews, taken at FOSDEM 2002, the "Free Software and Open Source Developers Meeting" in Brussels just a few days ago. The first interview is with Guido Van Rossum, the Python creator who recently received the FSF 2002 award. The second interview is with six KOffice members talking just about everything.

The once Mac-skeptical, David Coursey (executive editor at ZD AnchorDesk), seems to have turned into a huge Mac fan, it seems. In his latest editorial he says that "These desktop Linux people are just like the adherents to any concept that has failed in the marketplace of ideas: They don't know when to let go, and make fools of themselves as a result." and "How you build a vibrant computing platform when nobody is willing to spend money on it escapes me." and "Linux servers are a cause for concern in Redmond and a source for happiness in data centers worldwide. Desktop Linux, on the other hand, is rapidly being assigned to the trash pile of computing history. Like scientific socialism, it will go down as an idea that sounded good on paper but didn't work in the real world."

"Full-fledged 64-bit versions of Linux will replace lesser software in the most-powerful IBM servers. The change is expected to take place next month." The news story is at ZDNews.

"It happens to everyone eventually. You walk into the office, turn on the desktop PC and you're greeted with ugly beeping and no video. The slightly acrid tang of electrical smoke reaches your nostrils and you know that before you've even begun your day, it's already over. You say a small prayer to the computing gods that it's not the hard drive that's fried and you turn everything off before you begin unplugging peripherals." Read the rest of the article at LinuxOrbit.

Great news for the Linux desktop users. Robert Love's patch which turns the Linux kernel to behave like a preemptive one, has been accepted to the development 2.5.x Linux source tree. Preemptiveness greatly improves UI responsiveness (for example mp3s won't skip when you do something CPU heavy at the same time and you won't experience as many UI "locks" during normal usage). Our Take: Let's hope that SGI's XFS will also make it to be included by default to the 2.5.x Linux kernel.

DesktopLinux.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum interviews Abhi Datt, Chief Software Architect and founder of Project ELX, a new project to create a uniquely easy-to-use Linux distribution. Abhi Datt describes his vision for Project ELX, lists the main features of the ELX Linux distribition, provides an update on the status of ELX, and shares his thoughts on how Linux can succeed on the desktop and elsewhere.

This PDF tutorial will teach you how to optimized i686 binaries that should run on Athlon, Duron, Pentium IV, PIII PII, Pentium or Celeron based PC. The tutorial also teaches how to specifically optimize QT and KDE and includes some interesting links to some more Linux optimization sites.

"Linux users' and developers' lives have just gotten a little easier. The Free Standards Group released two tools on Thursday intended to ensure that all Linux applications can run on any Linux Standard Base-compliant version of the open source operating system: LSB 1.1 and Li18nux 1.0. Some commercial application developers, including Microsoft, have slammed open source development, saying that it lacks the necessary controls to define the common programming standards that need to be used across different projects to ensure compatibility." Read the rest of the story at Wired.

"A proposal to help Linus Torvalds keep up with patches for Linux has sparked a controversy over whether the operating system has outgrown its creator. On Monday, Rob Landley, a computer programmer, writer and Linux evangelist, posted a proposal to the Linux kernel development list calling for a "Patch Penguin"--a person who would help integrate fixes for the myriad of small problems that plague the current development kernel, Linux 2.5." Read the rest of the story at C|Net News. In other Linux news, test kernel 2.5.3 was released yesterday.

"Sony says it will begin selling disks to install Linux on PlayStation 2 and tools to develop Linux applications. Kits will include a 40GB hard drive, keyboard and mouse." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.