Slashdot Mirror

Also take a look at its sister magazine Servo http://www.servomagazine.com/ .

More on the PC side but Linux based is Linux Format http://linuxformat.co.uk/ . It's about the only decent computer magazine that I have found that still has coding articles in it. I wish there was a Windows base magazine similar to Linux Format but unfortunately it seems publishers think only lusers use Windows and not coders.

2 or 3 linux magazines, that's more than I expected. Magazine publishers are very aware of their markets, and considering the number of magazines that make no money, this does suggest that there are more Linux users out there than I thought (unless Shuttleworth is buying them all up). Monthly sales run to 28k according to ABC figures.

Linux Format is looking for people to write articles for it, so if any geeks want to spread the word, go for it - you'll get paid too!

At http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page , they are also attempting to convert the PDF stories into WIKI format. This could be a a valuable repository of technical and historical information.

I support their efforts and release to LFX and an all rights I may hold in any contribution I may have made to LFX. (I was an early contributor and some of my work was not done under their standard contract.)

perhaps you need to give away free copies of a Linux magazine with every netbook sold?

People who buy Windows often don't know what they're doing with them anyway, give eg Linux mag away, and you'll get a lot less returns and happier customers.

RedHat does *not* hate CentOS... the issue has come up on the mailing lists over the years, and some see CentOS as the "gateway drug" that eventually brings more users to RHEL. Others feel that having CentOS around increases the RHEL{,-derived} userbase and therefore indirectly helps increase the quality of RHEL itself.

In fact, CentOS and Fedora shared a developer booth at FOSDEM this year.
http://wiki.centos.org/Events/Fosdem2007
http://spevack.livejournal.com/2007/02/25/

Additionally, it would have taken the author of TFA about 10 minutes of reasearch to turn up the FOSDEM tidbit and these little bits that make TFA completely irrelevant:
http://www.linux.com/?module=comments&func=display&cid=1161341
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=511
(scroll down to the RH Q&A) on the second link.

ripping off potential site names, I DO grouse (privately, usually) that a topic I submit is instead posted by someone else. I am pretty sure I submitted it to slash, but someone else gets credit. I suppose Slash only wants stories by non-controversial or non-looney types.

My submission/post, at 12:36 on Thursday:

"
TrollTech's GreenPhone discontinued...
[ Edit | Delete | 0 Comments | #185749 ]
Thursday October 25, @12:36PM
User Journal
Nothing emotional or rhetorical in this story submission. But, I did not see this coming. However, according to the article:

"Despite the announcement of the discontinuation of its flagship mobile phone development platform, the company also announced that the mobile phone would be superceded by a number of new devices, including that of portable media devices and additional mobile phones, although the new models are to be distributed by third-parties."

More at:

http://linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=613&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
"

Well ... it seems that the Fedora team (and Board Chairman) do not seem to share your opinion of CentOS (they must not have gotten the memo to hate CentOS before we shared a FOSDEM 2007 devroom). Also see:

LinuxFormat Article

I'm sure that Red Hat would be much better off if the people who want to install a free server did not install CentOS (which can easily run anything on RHEL later if support and a paid for OS is required) ... but instead used debian or ubuntu. Of course they wouldn't ... Red Hat benefits greatly because CentOS gets software installed that can easily move to their flag ship product when and if the time is right.

Also, take a look at the Red Hat bugzilla sometime and do a search for CentOS. The code base gets seen / installed by many more people on many more pieces of hardware, many of which would not have installed on RHEL but some other free OS if CentOS were unavailable. This allows RH to get feedback and bug reports from many more people to stablize their codebase. All the time, RH does not need to provide any real support to this group of people.

You can even argue that because of the popularity of CentOS combined with some big name 3rd party repositories like RPMForge and KBS CentOS Extras that a whole new need was demonstrated, and that the EPEL project was created to help fill that need. Again, Red Hat and RHEL users benefit greatly because of this colaboration.

There are other numerous advantages as well ... but that is enough for now. No, Red Hat is not loosing sleep because CentOS exists ... indeed, quite the opposite.

This is just a tad late: Ulteo has been around for a while. The first time I heard it was in back in Nov 06.

I can't see how the supposed One-Page SLA could ever work in real life: where's the response times, where's the priorities, etc, all sorts of basic things people how sign SLAs first ask about?

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/images/rhel5/rhat-sla .png

Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but: http://linuxformat.co.uk/makeitwithmono/entries.ph p?entry=177 (voting will start in a bit).

Personally I don't think a new site is the best approach compared to aggregating current sites. Communities are hard things to build, and allowing artists choice in their site will prevent 50+ incompatible systems trying to fulfill a centralised need (the reason Jabber was formed, and why Canonical don't release Launchpad source)

Alan Cox pointed out in 2005 that there are patent reasons for the non-adoption of IPv6:

"The whole history of the steam engine was held up because the original creators of the steam engine thought high-pressure steam was a dangerous evil and sort of refused to grant rights to their patents to any of the high-pressure steam people. High-pressure steam was the future, as it turns out, but it was held up for almost 20 years.

"The same has happened with IP version 6. You notice that everyone is saying IP version 6 is this, is that, and there's all this research software up there. No one at Cisco is releasing big IPv6 routers. Not because there's no market demand, but because they want 20 years to have elapsed from the publication of the standard before the product comes out - because they know that there will be hundreds of people who've had guesses at where the standard would go and filed patents around it. And it's easier to let things lapse for 20 years than fight the system."

You might think that, in the era of "internet time", 20 years would be an impossibly long delay. Amazingly, we're already 12 years down, only 8 to go.

If IPv4 addresses will run out in 7.5 years, here's a prediction: some of the class-A blocks assigned to large companies and mostly unused will be reclaimed, even though this will extend the useful life of IPv4 by only a year or so, because that will allow sufficient time for the patents to expire.

IPv6 is a prime example of how intellectual property law sometimes stifles progress: where patents are wrongly granted for obvious incremental improvements to an existing technology, and the mess has to be resolved by either litigation or procrastination.

Haha, do you guys know that C# is an open standard, and so is CLI (.Net). I suggest you read the Mono FAQ, it will go over anything I can say a lot better.

I'm just surprised because I hear many people putting Mono and C# down pretty quickly when, when in fact thanks to these things, there have been quite a few innovative things done on the Desktop for Linux, including Banshee, Tomboy, Beagle, and many many more.

Typically the reason for such comments is either ignorance (I don't mean to troll, just trying to think of what can be the cause), as in, the people don't really know the situation, or just doing it because everyone else does it. There's a whole Mono section in the current issue of Linux Format Magazine which seems to kind of inform people on just how Mono is benefiting the Open Source community.

The point isn't for everyone to like it, but at least respect it, after all it's just another Open Source initiative/project and we all should stick together :) Just curious why there's such behavior/attitude towards it.

Yes, Future does publish Linux Format. No, there's no danger - the loss is due to the over-valuation of some titles that Future bought, so this is really a one-off thing to balance the books. Stevie is scary, but smart: revenues are up 6% this year, Future is still making a profit, so everything is OK. This is only really "more regrettable signs of a a fading print industry" if you don't understand that a company can make a profit while still reporting a loss ;)

Glad you like the magazine - do you read the blog too? http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/blog

Canonical Ltd. is a major financial sponsor of Ubuntu, but (AFAIK) provides very little guidance of the project.

I actually considered going to work with Canonical when Mark [Shuttleworth] was starting it, and there were a couple of problems with that. I think that Mark is eventually interested in having a successful and profitable company, and I don't believe that Linux distributions are a natural fit for for- profit enterprise. Indeed, if you go on my website I have a very long paper on the economics of open source, and one of the things that you can derive from that is the fact that open source works almost worst for a for-profit Linux distribution. ...

As far as Canonical is concerned, one thing that struck me about Mark is that he really insists on control. For example, when I considered being an employee one of the things standing in the way was the fact that Mark doesn't give his employees stock in his companies. If I'm going to work for someone I'm going to be a little entrepreneurial about it, so I felt that although Ubuntu and Canonical could do a great deal for Debian and be excellent community members, they were never going to be the core, and we could actually get closer to the core by following what I have set up for UserLinux.

Came across this (short but interesting) interview with Jeremy Allison, one of the project's lead developers, where he talks about Samba 4:

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modloa d&name=News&file=article&sid=217

Any software that has a 'Susan Stage' has got to be cool :-)

If you are bandwidth challenged (as I was until recently) then you have a number of options.

• Go with a distro that lets you do a netinstall and only download what you need.
• Go with a smaller distro. This is linux. You have the choice. Choose a distro that comes with everything. Choose a distro that fits on one CDROM. Choose!
• Work with the Fedora team to produce a netinstall version of Fedora (or pay someone else to do it for you.
• Get a friend with a faster internet connection to download it for you
• Pay somebody or another somebody to download it for you
• Buy a magazine that has a cover disc with the distro on it.

Disclaimer: Some options may be overly expensive or impractical due to your geographical location. Don't winge. Pick a different option.

This is how my wife transitioned to Linux. Firefox, OO.o, Evolution, etc. was introduced to her one at a time until one day she realized my Linux desktop didn't look so different from her Win2000 desktop.

Linux Format not as good as LJ, but often comes with a CDROM of linux software.

sys admin is interesting from time to time.

Nuts & Volts has PC projects from time to time.

I also like Popcom and ARRL mags.

linux format
forbes
fhm
maxim uk

I read Linux Format. It has current news, reviews of new open source software, programming tutorials and tutorials on specific programs etc. They also have a dvd full of the latest free software which saves downloads which is very useful for people with limited bandwidth.

FYI, SuSE produces Knoppix-like bootable CD called "SUSE LINUX for i386 Live-Eval". I revieved a copy via a magazine. It is kinda slow and not the best for using from the CD-ROM, but it provides a good intro and demo of SuSE Linux without having to install it to your hard drive.

Notes: I recommend that you try it if you have enough memory - 256MB isn't enough,but 512MB or 768MB should work well (since it has to be loaded into RAM with no HDD install). I perfer Fedora Core 1, but my advice should give you an easy way to try SuSE.

Before I had adsl i would regularly buy linux format

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/

which regularly had linux distros bundled, and also all latest versions of kde, gnome, gimp etc.

Articles were very good as well, they did charge about 6 though.

I think that PCplus also bundle linux distros like mandrake and knoppix, however the magazine itself tends to be aimed more at novices

You can always resubscribe.

Or, better, you can *not* resubscribe. Linux Magazine and Linux Format (in the UK, but relevant anywhere) are both better publications.

And if I had to choose just one Linux information source, it'd have to be Linux Weekly News -- high quality journalism and analysis in a very timely fashion, written by people who know what they're talking about.

Okay, it's a heady subject, I'll admit. I read this article in Linux Format magazine about steganography, wherein the least significant n bits of an image's pixels are hijacked for hiding data. The image changes so little that the average viewer can't detect it, and heaps of data (pardon) can be hidden there. Will the next P2P app use steganography to hide (music, et al) files in very large graphics? I'd think that courts would have a hard time determining that the original file wasn't just coincidentally the same as the encoded bits.

Ouch.

I'd seriously contact a Lawyer and get a stipulation to your employment that removes responsibility for anything that happens to your network as a result of not having *some* type of encryption/authentication on your WiFi segment.

Then you and your boss sign it.

Maybe then he'll trust your expertise, 'cause that's why he hired you, right? (sarcasm)

At the very least you should investigate FreeS/WAN or some commercial VPN solution. The VPN client is as simple as a double click. After bringing up the VPN if you authenticated correctly, you'd have access to the internal network resources

Linux Journal and Linux Format have had articles recently on setting up FreeSWAN. Specifically the latest Linux Journal on the newsstands now has an article introducing FreeS/WAN.

If you have the cash then you can splurge and just buy something from CA or Cisco. :)

But you really need to convince your boss that this is a bad idea. Find something from Gartner Group or some marketroid publication... Something!!! :)

BTW. Glad you gave no hints about your geographical location in your posting. That would have been bad.

BTW... get encryption or get a signature!

Well according to Linux Format the reason you need a NVidia card for UT2003 is that only a commercial driver can implement the patented S3 texture compression used by UT2003! Sounds like the beef there is with Epic not ATI. btw, is there a good source on how to get cvs X up and running (on debian for preference)? I got a new laptop with an ATI M9 a couple of weeks ago and know that this is only supported in CVS at the mo. The last times (4+ years ago) I tried compiling X things worked far less than wonderfully!

I have never seen a Debian machine in a production environment. Seriously. Every production Linux machine I see is Red Hat. Netcraft seems to agree too. I rarely see Debian, but I see Red Hat all the time when doing netcraft lookups.
Maybe if by admin you mean, "personal SMTP/DHCP/Firewall server on DSL in my closet" then sure.

This morning on my way to work I bought copy of Linux Format to read on the train (LXF28 June 2002). On page 8 (Linux Webwatch) was a section on creating music on Linux which included a few interesting links.

Ardour - record 24 or more channels of 32-bit audio at 48kHz

TK-707 - a soft drum machine based on Roland's precursor to the legendary 808

Slab - another audio recording tool that consists of a virtual tape deck, a mixer, a wave editor and some audio mixing tools.

Open Music This project provides a spectrum of Licenses for musicians to realease their music under (influensed by the GPL).

This sounds a bit like Cooltown which is HPs project to get everything connected. It's pretty Linux-centric too. The UK magazine has Cooltown as it's cover feature this month.

How much do you want to bet this breaks samba. How much do you want to bet that Microsoft won't release enough information for the samba team to quickly support the new file system. How much do you want to bet this has nothing to do with making a better file system and more to do with killing non-Microsoft servers. I would give any other company the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft's history, however, proves everything they do is to increase marketshare and nothing to do with making a better OS.

The FTP install is actually fairly easy. I can understand wanting the media though.

I wouldn't expect to see Quicktime for Linux anytime soon.

However, an interesting fact: according to last month's Linux Format (a really good UK Linux mag, IMO) Apple actually changed their license so that CodeWeavers could legitimatly use the Windows Quicktime 5 plugin for Netscape under Linux.

So again, don't expect to see a native version of Quicktime for Linux anytime soon... but don't expect Apple to completely ignore Linux either. (Insert obligatory plug for Codeweaver's plugin here... here's mine: Quicktime works great even on my laptop! Try it out!)

Hence my question: Is there a website which provides comparative reviews of open source software or more simply put, which says which freely distributed software, not necessarily open source, is the crème de la crème for the Linux/FreeBSD platforms?
Before one could find such reviews on the LinuxWorld website. Right now there is a terribly expensive and I do not know whether very objective, monthly publication called Linux Format (its website just contains Slashdot-like news).

Singing Skunk, singing false, so lonely!

I am a freelance journalist, having written Linux related articles/workshops/reviews for Future Publishing's titles PCPlus and Linux Format and I can say, hand on heart, that I have never given a favorable review to a product that didn't deserve it. I have given some bad reviews to what I believed to be bad software and I have never been co-erced by anyone to alter the outcome of a review.
Journalistic integrity is obviously of the utmost importance, but we are just people and it is more than likely that you may not agree with our opinions. In the world of free software that's ok because you can still evaluate the software we are reviewing to see if you like it and not have to worry about feature limited demos, timeout, nag requesters, etc.
In my opinion, reviews of free software should be taken as a guide to what is available - it's then down to each user to determine if they agree or not.
To reviewers, if you are co-erced by companies to give good reviews then it seems almost certain that they are not confident in their products and probably don't deserve good reviews. There is no point encouraging people to use/buy crap software - the world has enough crap software already.

I didn't know there was a linux magazine?

There is also a UK Linux magazine Linux Format, published by Future Publishing. It's not a bad mag (I have to say that or i might upset someone i know ;), and you can get a World Wide subscription if you really want to.