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So you thought Linux was the key to the Eee PC’s success? Not so, according to ASUS. “The bulk of the requests and requirements we see in the marketplace are for the model with Windows rather than Linux,” says Henry Lee, Acer’s senior product manager. “It’s a give and take between simplicity of usage for the masses versus full customisation. The Linux version is really only to use exactly what is provided, and someone in the know can easily remove what’s been installed. But consumers are accustomed to the Windows environment, and the Windows version will be a stronger player eventually.” Editor’s Note: More broadly, this piece examines whether the popularity of the Eee and its Linux-bearing cousins will be sustained, or if they will ultimately get beaten out in the netbook space by Windows-based versions. What do you think?

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 2.6.26 yesterday on the Linux kernel mailing list. This release, which has been under development for about 3 months, comes after 9 release candidates.Major changes in this release are support for read-only bind mounts, KVM on additional architectures, wireless mesh networking (802.11s), x86 page attribute tables, improved webcam support, and per-process securebits. Another major new feature in this release is the integrated kernel debugger (KDB), which was included despite objections by Torvalds who has vetoed similar additions in the past because he believes that the absence of a debugger encourages more careful development.

According to the Linux Foundation’s kernel Weather Forecast some of the features that are going to be the focus of development now that 2.6.26 is released are the new Ext4 filesystem and preemptible spinlocks.

The full changelog and patch (7.3 MB compressed) are available from kernel.org. For additional details, see the release announcement on LKML and the Linux Weather Forecast web site. For an overview of the new features, check out the coverage on KernelTrap and at the Kernel Newbies web site.

One of the perennial jibes about open source is that it never innovates. This conveniently forgets that the World Wide Web was released as free software (Tim Berners-Lee contemplated using the GNU GPL before he decided to release it into the public domain). Despite the ludicrousness of the accusation, it is nonetheless always good to have further counterexamples.

A case in point is Loopfuse, which offers open source software for marketing ? hardly a field you associate with free software. As its Web site explains:

LoopFuse is the enterprise-grade marketing and sales automation suite offering organizations the ability to generate leads from their website, score and route leads, marketing campaign capabilities, full web analytics support, and full CRM integration with most major vendors. LoopFuse also offers the capability to measure ROI within marketing and sales department initiatives.

Here Loopfuse’s co-founder and CEO, Roy Russo, fills in the background to his company and its JBoss connection, explains why so many of the top open source startups use his product, and how the competition between open source and Software as a Service (SaaS) is likely to pan out in the future.

GM: What’s the background to the company’s formation? Where did the name come from?

RR: The original idea behind the company came about after 3 years at JBoss, using a competing product that severely lacked in usability and was insanely expensive to maintain and manage. After months of deep research in to the industry, several of us decided that we would focus our decades-combined email marketing, demand generation, and enterprise architecture experience in this industry that was dominated by one player with an overly complex and over-priced offering, backed by lousy support.

It was a natural progression for us: Our years at JBoss seasoned us for just this sort of undertaking… entering new markets with a better product, support, and pricing offering, while facing larger entrenched competitors. All I can say is that Marc Fleury taught us well.
The LoopFuse name is a take on ?Closed-Loop Marketing?, which is the traditional marketing term used for some of the functionality we provide.

GM: What business problems are you helping companies solve? How are marketing and sales different in the era of Web 2.0?

RR: The idea behind our flagship product, LoopFuse OneView, is simple: empower marketers with a complete suite of automated tools to better capture, nurture, qualify, and route leads to their sales people. In essence, we’re helping organizations lower their cost of customer acquisition, shorten their sales cycles, align sales and marketing goals, and improve overall operational efficiency. Ok, so that?s the marketing answer… in Roy-speak it translates to, “We help companies make more money”.

The benefits of our solution, are that it helps any-and-all business with an online presence. Web 2.0 companies are online 24/7 by nature, and pump a lot of money in to online marketing initiatives. What we bring to the table, is the capability for Web 2.0 companies to measure and refine what?s working and what?s not, by determining ROI and capture rates on all online marketing programs.

GM: Who are your main rivals in this space?

RR: Honestly, we only run in to one rival in the space, and it is the self-proclaimed ?industry leader?, Eloqua. The fact that it is the only rival we see, is testament to us being savvy marketers and separating ourselves from the bottom-feeders in the industry.

source: www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=975 buy cialisbuy cialisbuy levitrabuy levitrabuy propeciabuy propeciabuy somabuy somabuy levitrabuy cialisbuy propeciabuy levitrabuy somabuy cialisbuy propeciabuy levitrabuy somabuy cialisbuy levitrabuy propeciabuy soma

When NASA needs an operating system for a Mars lander does it go knocking on Bill Gates’ door? The answer is no. The newly arrived on the planet Phoenix Lander is powered by a variation of Linux running on a specially hardened CPU and motherboard produced by IBM.

The CPU may not sound very exciting, and certainly would not be of interest to the average computer gamer. The Rad6000 CPU is a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set CPU) that has been hardened to withstand the ravages of radiation in space. Built by IBM it clocks in at a screaming 33mhz. For those of you not familiar with the gobeldy gook that computer geeks espouse, 33mhz is about equivalent to the old and very obsolete Intel 386 processor that was all the rage a decade ago. You certainly could not run Microsoft Vista with this kind of speed.

As far as RAM is concerned NASA doesn’t need a lot, it is rumored that a scant 128 megabytes is all they need.

When it comes to software NASA need something that is bullet proof, and bullet proof software is what NASA is great at. It is not often that they make mistakes. At the heart of the Phoenix Lander is a variant of Linux, VxWorks, this is an embedded Operating System (that means it lives on a chip). It is designed in such a way that you don’t get the dreaded Microsoft ‘Blue Screen Of Death’, thats because it is pretty damn difficult to reach out to Mars and reboot the lander after the Operating System crashes. In the event of a serious problem VxWorks will reboot into a ’safe mode’, and wait for the controllers on earth to reactivate it, or send a patch for the problem.

The Phoenix Lander is not autonomous, it needs to be told what to do, and when to do it, but because of the huge distances involved there is a 20 minute delay from the time a command is sent from Earth and the time it is received on Mars. For that reason alone it is necessary for the software to have inbuilt ’self preservation’ tendencies.

NASA gets around the 20 minute time lag by sending a whole days worth of tasks at one time, I guess you could call it a daily ‘To Do’ list. This list is in the form of computer code written in a programming language called ‘C’. The NASA programmers and engineers sent approximately 1000 to 1500 instructions to the lander every day. One mistake in the code results in a day lost, or even worse damage to the equipment on the lander. I have been in the computer industry for over 30 years, and the industry standard for developing computer code is that the average programmer can write and test about 10 lines of code a day. In layman’s terms, if your computer program has 100 steps in it, it will take you 10 days to write and test it. NASA are doing what a regular programmer would take nearly 5 months to achieve in 24 hours!

I have nothing but respect for these people. Great job guys!

Simon Barrett

Torvalds: not one to mince his words…

1. “Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free.”

2. “Microsoft isn’t evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.”

3. “My name is Linus, and I am your God.”

4. “See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.”

5. “The Linux philosophy is ‘Laugh in the face of danger’. Oops. Wrong One. ‘Do it yourself’. Yes, that’s it.”

6. “Some people have told me they don’t think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph.”

7. “Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.”

8. “When you say, ‘I wrote a program that crashed Windows,’ people just stare at you blankly and say, ‘Hey, I got those with the system, for free.’”

9. “I don’t doubt at all that virtualization is useful in some areas. What I doubt rather strongly is that it will ever have the kind of impact that the people involved in virtualization want it to have.”

10. “Now, most of you are probably going to be totally bored out of your minds on Christmas day, and here’s the perfect distraction. Test 2.6.15-rc7. All the stores will be closed, and there’s really nothing better to do in between meals.”

Theres been a question I have seen on multiple occasions both on the “How do I explain Linux to a Windows user” end as well as the “What is Linux?” question. That got me thinking.. what is the best way to explain Linux to a normal Windows user who has never heard of Linux? Have you ever been using a laptop in a public place, or have someone over at your house, and you’re running Linux and someone asks you why it looks different? Do you take the easy way out and say “it’s Linux, it’s like Windows but different!” or do you actually explain what Linux is? Here are some ideas of getting the message across as easy and straightforward as possible.
Explaining Linux to a Windows user

Here are a few ideas you can put together to help you explain Linux:

* Every computer has an Operating System. Windows is an Operating System. So is Linux.
* Linux was written in the early nineties by a college student name Linus.
* Linux is not owned by any one person.
* Linux is free, unlike Windows. Most people pay the Windows fee when they buy the computer that comes “pre-installed” with Windows.
* It’s fun to use.
* You have complete control of all aspects of the operating system.
* It’s “look and feel” is completely customizable. You can make it look like Windows or you can make it look unique.
* You can’t use all of the same software applications that you use on Windows, but there are alternatives to windows programs.
* If your computers primary use is for playing popular computer games, hold off on installing Linux.
* Linux is secure and practically virus and spyware free.
* It can be a lot faster than Windows with the right setup and configurations.

How do you explain Linux to a Windows user?

Have you ever was bored by installing some script via FTP, where you need to download archive to your PC, than unpack and upload every file to your hosting?(which could take a while even on speed connection if program contain many small files).
If you have a Linux based hosting and SSH option in your account, you don’t have to do this anymore, such script installation steps would take only few seconds. Also using SSH you can delete, change permissions, backup databases, move files and directories in very fast manner, usually in much more productive way than with control panels provided by hosting.

Example of how to install Joomla on hosting with SSH support:

1. First, you need some SSH client, for Windows I would recommend PuTTY which is freely available for download. For Linux I’m using OpenSSH, but PuTTY could be used as well.

2. Next you need to connect to your account through SSH program, in PuTTY find menu Session and input host you wish to connect, usually it would have format like yousiteurl.net but in some cases it may look like this ssh.yoursiteurl.net(you can find this info it in control panel or check with your hosting support), change protocol to SSH and click “Open”, you can also save session parameters for future use.

3. Once you click open you’ll need to input login and password, in most cases it’s same as main login and password for your account, but some hosts setup different login and password, so it’s better to check it out first.

4. Once logged in, you should see prompt like this:
Quote
Last login: Fri Feb  8 20:33:30 2008 from 92.113.60.216
yourlogin@yoursiteurl.net[~]#
.
Now you need to proceed to directory you wish to install script. You can do this either using console commands or by launching MC(MidnightCommander) file manager which preinstalled on many machnies. If you choose second way simply type mc.
If first method type ls and you’ll see structure of directories in your account which would look less or more like this:
Quote
./              .contactemail       .htpasswds/     .spamassassin/
../             .cpanel/           temp.tmp      .spamassassinenable
access-logs@    .cpanel-datastore/  .lastlogin      spamreport/
auto-whitelist  .cpanel-ducache     logs/           .sqmaildata/
.bash_history   .cpanel-logs        mail/           tmp/
.bash_logout    .dns                .mailboxlist    .trash/
.bash_profile   .emacs              .mc/            www@
.bashrc         etc/                .mysql_history  .zshrc
.canna          .filter             public_ftp/
.cedit/         .ftpquota           public_html/

There should be directory which called either “docs”, “public_html”, “www”, or “www@”. This directory is the place where your site is stored and therefore you need to upload your script there. Once it found simply type cd www.
You can also check in your FTP program where you usually upload your files e.g. if it’s “/home/yourlogin/public_html” in SSH type: cd /home/yourlogin/public_html
If you’re in doubt, feel free to ask here, just don’t reveal any passwords or login info publicly, it’s dangerous!

5. Now we ready to download our script, for example I’ve choose Joomla which seems to be popular lately, but this example would work with many other software including forums and blogs scripts. First choose file you need to download: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/
on download page copy link you wish to download in clipboard, I’ve choose to download: Joomla_1.0.15-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2

To download this file type this: wget http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/6828/22536/Joomla_1.0.15-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2
In few seconds file will be downloaded to current directory of your hosting account.
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6. now you need to unpack it, if you’re using command line type ls first, to see the name of the file and type:
tar jxvf Joomla_1.0.15-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2
If you don’t wish to type whole string, try this:
tar jxvf Jo[TAB]
(by [TAB] I mean hitting “Tab key”) So if there are only one file in directory which have it’s name started from “Jo” shell will complete name for you, if there are more files like this you’ll see prompt to choose one from list.

In most cases files in these archives are packed with correct permissions so you don’t need to change anything, which is also advantage of using SSH method. So once you’ve unpack file you’re ready to continue with web installation steps.
Article doesn’t look short, but it’s only to describe the way how it’s working, in reality it takes less than half minute to perform all all these steps once you get used to this way of working.

Let me know if it was useful, and if you got some troubles, feel free to ask and I’ll try to help you.

Is user laziness, and I find myself to be a big culprit.  I find some things so much easier on Linux than windows.  But I find more and more things that are easier on windows than linux, and not because linux is lacking, just that I’ve used windows for many years, and its second nature to me.  I can do it much faster on Windows because I don’t even have to link about it, my mind already knows where all the points to click are.  With Linux I need to think about it more and there is the time to set it up and I find myself going okay this will take 5 minutes in Windows, or 20 minutes in linux.

The Truth is, if I took the time to spend the 20 minutes on Linux the next time I tried to do it it would probably take 10 minutes, and then the next time 5.  But its trying to teach my brain not to go the easy way seeem sto be the hardest thing to do.

Biggest example.  I have all my subversion repostiories already linked in windows, and I’ve been using netbeans for years.  It takes me 2 minutes to do an update with Tortoise SVN and go into netbeans, compile, test and deploy knew aps.  I’ve done it every morning for 3 years.  In linux theoretically it should be even easier since in NetBeans 6 it works as the subversion client.  However I don’t have everything set up yet, so there is going to be a 30 minute setup while I link to all the subversion repostitories, assign all the libraries etc. etc. etc.  Its very lazy of me I know but its so much simpler just to reboot into vista, compile deploy, then reboot back to linux.

I really need convince myself to not do that.  I think might have to be something where you need to do it cold turkey, don’t dual boot, just go 100% linux and no windows.  Otherwise windows will just be your crutch.

Its very hard to do but if you have the option of going back to windows you will, not because its better, but because its more familiar.

France’s ministry for education has migrated 2,500 servers across its 30 local education authorities to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in line with the ministry’s open-source investment strategy to avoid problems associated with vendor lock-in.

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25)host

host is a simple utility for performing DNS lookups. It is normally used to convert names to IP addresses and vice versa. When no arguments or options are given, host prints a short summary of its command line arguments and options.

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