Linux Archive

Christopher Hallinan examines the bootloader's role in a system, followed by an introduction to some common features of bootloaders. He also takes a detailed look at a popular bootloader used for embedded systems, and introduces a few of the more popular bootloaders.

The Linux kernel has been updated with several serviceability improvements, chiefly around the kdump and SystemTap features. The kdump enhancements should improve the ability to reliably and quickly create crash dumps that can be analysed offline. The new SystemTap features enable IT professionals to debug a running system in real-time without affecting performance or recompiling.

The Symphony OS Project is pleased to announce the release of Symphony OS 2006-12. This release, the first since May, brings more stability and enhanced features to the young desktop environment and Linux Distro. Based on Debian Testing, Symphony OS 2006-12 also now includes the gnome-system-tools within it's System target menu providing GUI system management functions that were missing from previous releases. The system also features Firefox 2, many other updated packages, and performance improvements.

By focusing on the analysis of data captured using signal handlers, you can speed up the most time-consuming part of debugging: finding the bug. This article gives a background on Linux signals with examples specifically tested on PPC Linux, then goes on to show how to design your handlers to output information that lets you quickly home in on failed portions of code.

"Mid November, Steve Ballmer said 'Linux uses our intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.' Many people didn't understand what he really meant, among them the LXer editors. Therefore, LXer sent an Open Letter to the Waggener Edstrom Rapid Response team, and two weeks later, the answers are in (no pun intended). Check the full story for the answers a Microsoft Spokesperson gave us, which hopefully can answer some of our questions."

European governments have long complained about their dependence on Microsoft's software, but their rhetoric has not turned into a mass migration away from Windows. During the past few years, Europe's elected officials have made a lot of noise about ambitious projects to switch to open source software, including big migrations of government PCs in France, Germany, Spain and Norway. Yet the actual migrations have been negligible. More than 95 percent of all PCs used by European government workers still run on Windows, according to the market research firm IDC.

Gael Duval has announced the first test release of Ulteo, a new distribution started by Mandrake-founder Gael Duval. From the release announcement: "Here is the first public version of Ulteo! Its codename is 'Sirius' because we want to make it a star." From the release notes: "This installable live CD is based on Debian and Ubuntu packages. It's installed on the hard-drive using 'Yuch'. A daemon, called UGD (Ulteo General Daemon), is always connecting to Ulteo servers to see if a newer, more up to date system is available. It can then upgrade to this new system." Ulteo is based on Ubuntu 6.06 and uses kernel 2.6.15, X.Org 7.0, KDE 3.5.2, and Firefox 1.5.0.8. The CD image is available for download. Update: Screenshot tour. Rejoice, boys and girls.

As part of the 2.6.20 development process, patches adding support for the 'PS3 game console and other devices' (built on top of the IBM Cell) have been merged. The code has been written by Sony.

The title of the article seems completely wrong to you? Naturally it would, when you daily read something like this. But I do state all this stuff is being a big mistake, if not worse. I am sure, that Linux is now close to extinction, and still is getting closer and closer to the point of no return.

In the first Ulteo NewsLetter, Gael Duval says that the first .iso of an installable Ulteo live CD will be released on December 5th or 6th. "For this first alpha release, be prepared to dive a bit inside the system to understand the potential of Ulteo. On the desktop you will find only a few differences with what you can use or see when compared to a graphical environment on other distro's. Maybe then you will understand what makes Ulteo different, and you will start to think about the next steps of development."

Linux Tech Daily reviews Arch64 and finds it to be a solid and fast system. Arch64 is committed to staying truly 64bit.

"The recently announced agreement between Microsoft and Novell has resulted in much concern that it could be harmful for Linux and other free software. However, the agreement itself, as well as its timing and comments made by Microsoft executives about it, may actually be a very good thing - and perhaps even worthy of celebration!"

French députés' offices will be equipped with a Linux operating system and open source productivity software. There will be 1154 French parliamentary workstations running on an open source OS, with OpenOffice.org, Firefox and an open source email client.

While Microsoft may cast the Nov. 2 patent cooperation agreement it pushed on new partner Novell Inc. as a way to protect corporate users of the SUSE Linux operating system from potential lawsuits, CIOs today said they weren't worried in the first place.