Slashdot Mirror

Here's the relevant updates:

Fedora Core 5:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-June/msg00629.html - 2007f, pushed June 27
FC5 had already reached EOL when 2007g came out, so it didn't get that one, but 2007f is enough to fix this issue anyway, and besides all users should upgrade to a supported release.

Fedora Core 6:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-June/msg00543.html, pushed June 25
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00391.html - 2007g, pushed August 27

Fedora 7:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-July/msg00370.html - 2007f, pushed July 19
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00379.html - 2007g, pushed August 23

RHEL (all versions all the way down to 2.1!):
https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2007-0689.html - 2007f, pushed July 19
(2007g has not been pushed to RHEL, but 2007f is enough to fix the NZ issue.)

All these are in the regular updates repository which is enabled by default.

Here's the relevant updates:

Fedora Core 5:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-June/msg00629.html - 2007f, pushed June 27
FC5 had already reached EOL when 2007g came out, so it didn't get that one, but 2007f is enough to fix this issue anyway, and besides all users should upgrade to a supported release.

Fedora Core 6:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-June/msg00543.html, pushed June 25
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00391.html - 2007g, pushed August 27

Fedora 7:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-July/msg00370.html - 2007f, pushed July 19
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00379.html - 2007g, pushed August 23

RHEL (all versions all the way down to 2.1!):
https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2007-0689.html - 2007f, pushed July 19
(2007g has not been pushed to RHEL, but 2007f is enough to fix the NZ issue.)

All these are in the regular updates repository which is enabled by default.

Here's the relevant updates:

Fedora Core 5:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-June/msg00629.html - 2007f, pushed June 27
FC5 had already reached EOL when 2007g came out, so it didn't get that one, but 2007f is enough to fix this issue anyway, and besides all users should upgrade to a supported release.

Fedora Core 6:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-June/msg00543.html, pushed June 25
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00391.html - 2007g, pushed August 27

Fedora 7:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-July/msg00370.html - 2007f, pushed July 19
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2007-August/msg00379.html - 2007g, pushed August 23

RHEL (all versions all the way down to 2.1!):
https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2007-0689.html - 2007f, pushed July 19
(2007g has not been pushed to RHEL, but 2007f is enough to fix the NZ issue.)

All these are in the regular updates repository which is enabled by default.

install it with less clicks than it takes to install Windows. Provide apps for it.

Done.

Mainstream a Linux server.

Done.

Mainstream Linux apps.

Done, done, and done.

The point is, make the consumer, a.k.a. Joe Notageek feel comfortable that it is easy to use, that he can buy applications for it at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, or Amazon.

That's the point? That point sucks. Here's the point. Make the user (note my lack of the word "consumer" anywhere in this) feel comfortable that it is not only easy to use, but is a better way. You don't have to go buy shit. It works already, and if you need more, it's a few clicks (and $0.00) away. That's the point.

As I was talking about compiling, it's really easy.

Grab the patch for the scheduler you'd like, apply it, compile. Run and enjoy! I happen to run this one:

http://people.redhat.com/mingo/cfs-scheduler/

This is no fairy tale, take a look at:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=223606
and
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=234348

PS/2 mouse doesn't work under kernel-2.6.20-1.2933 which seems to be what Ubuntu 7.04 uses.

I am not trolling I am just telling it like it is, mouse doesn't work, which to me is a showstopper bug in any operating system.

This is no fairy tale, take a look at:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=223606
and
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=234348

PS/2 mouse doesn't work under kernel-2.6.20-1.2933 which seems to be what Ubuntu 7.04 uses.

I am not trolling I am just telling it like it is, mouse doesn't work, which to me is a showstopper bug in any operating system.

2.6.22-ck1 2.6.22-cfs-v19
quake + 0 loops 41 fps quake + 0 loops 41 fps
quake + 1 loop 3 fps quake + 1 loop 41 fps
quake + 2 loops 2 fps quake + 2 loops 32 fps
quake + 3 loops 1 fps quake + 3 loops 24 fps
quake + 4 loops 0 fps quake + 4 loops 20 fps
quake + 5 loops 0 fps quake + 5 loops 16 fps

I bought an Intel 965 based motherboard for my new computer because Intel have open source drivers but I've been disappointed at the lack of progress with them.

Given that 3d multimedia desktops are the new sexy which all distros seem to be getting into I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be much progress on getting it fixed on what is (as far as I am aware) the only open-driver supported 3d hardware available (at least until AMD release their 3d specs).

What shared/global filesystem and clustering solution will Sun be providing to compete with Linux' free and relatively-mature clustering?

http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/

Granted, ZFS could be superior to EXT3 over CLVM, though last I heard ZFS still needs performance optimization..

... grinding that anti-MS axe.

Hey, that's not fair. I stand up for Microsoft now and then. Were those posts not helpful?

The Fine Article is about HP selling consumer desktop PCs with Linux, though. I don't what your post has to do with that but you anonymous cowards aren't getting astroturf points off of me today. Instead I'll provide informative topical discussion and foil your evil plot.

The original source for this story is apcmag. From that article:

Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest PC manufacturer, has announced it will start selling Linux-based PCs from $AU600 in Australia.

I can only hope this is a pilot, with PCs for the US market to follow. Like many of the people leaving comments on that story, I would like to buy some Linux laptops from HP here in the US. I would also like to see a choice of processors. This is a nice start though.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop also comes with OpenOffice preinstalled, Firefox for web browsing and Evolution for email.

That sounds like a full featured environment for the average user. Much better than Microsoft Works, a non-removable trial copy of Office and the usual collection of junkware that comes with a Windows PC. With compatible software vendors like this impressive list finding commercial software for your HP/Red Hat system should be no trouble. Dag has a whole bunch of free stuff available for it too. I imagine Windows users will have a hard time understanding that yes, you can just click on one of thousands of great free programs and it will install but it won't turn your PC into a spam zombie. It shouldn't take them long to get fond of it though. That's a significant change for people used to dealing with a software vendor that's proud that three quarters of a million of their customers were infested with root kits.

Windows gamers will be relieved to hear that for a measly $5/mo they can join Transgaming and play Windows games. If they have Windows programs they don't want to throw away like one of these, Wine will be a nice free addition to their Red Hat desktop. If they prefer a professionally maintained compatibility engine they might like Codeweavers' Crossover Linux which supports these programs and only costs $40.

The list of hardware known to be compatible with RHEL 5 is impressive, as is the list of systems that are certified and supported.

Disclosure - I also don't work for anybody mentioned here or sell their stuff. My opinions belong to me and I'm not getting paid to have them. YMMV, yadda yadda.

The choice of Red Hat as a partner in this venture shows just how GNU/Linux

... grinding that anti-MS axe.

Hey, that's not fair. I stand up for Microsoft now and then. Were those posts not helpful?

The Fine Article is about HP selling consumer desktop PCs with Linux, though. I don't what your post has to do with that but you anonymous cowards aren't getting astroturf points off of me today. Instead I'll provide informative topical discussion and foil your evil plot.

The original source for this story is apcmag. From that article:

Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest PC manufacturer, has announced it will start selling Linux-based PCs from $AU600 in Australia.

I can only hope this is a pilot, with PCs for the US market to follow. Like many of the people leaving comments on that story, I would like to buy some Linux laptops from HP here in the US. I would also like to see a choice of processors. This is a nice start though.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop also comes with OpenOffice preinstalled, Firefox for web browsing and Evolution for email.

That sounds like a full featured environment for the average user. Much better than Microsoft Works, a non-removable trial copy of Office and the usual collection of junkware that comes with a Windows PC. With compatible software vendors like this impressive list finding commercial software for your HP/Red Hat system should be no trouble. Dag has a whole bunch of free stuff available for it too. I imagine Windows users will have a hard time understanding that yes, you can just click on one of thousands of great free programs and it will install but it won't turn your PC into a spam zombie. It shouldn't take them long to get fond of it though. That's a significant change for people used to dealing with a software vendor that's proud that three quarters of a million of their customers were infested with root kits.

Windows gamers will be relieved to hear that for a measly $5/mo they can join Transgaming and play Windows games. If they have Windows programs they don't want to throw away like one of these, Wine will be a nice free addition to their Red Hat desktop. If they prefer a professionally maintained compatibility engine they might like Codeweavers' Crossover Linux which supports these programs and only costs $40.

The list of hardware known to be compatible with RHEL 5 is impressive, as is the list of systems that are certified and supported.

Disclosure - I also don't work for anybody mentioned here or sell their stuff. My opinions belong to me and I'm not getting paid to have them. YMMV, yadda yadda.

The choice of Red Hat as a partner in this venture shows just how GNU/Linux

... grinding that anti-MS axe.

Hey, that's not fair. I stand up for Microsoft now and then. Were those posts not helpful?

The Fine Article is about HP selling consumer desktop PCs with Linux, though. I don't what your post has to do with that but you anonymous cowards aren't getting astroturf points off of me today. Instead I'll provide informative topical discussion and foil your evil plot.

The original source for this story is apcmag. From that article:

Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest PC manufacturer, has announced it will start selling Linux-based PCs from $AU600 in Australia.

I can only hope this is a pilot, with PCs for the US market to follow. Like many of the people leaving comments on that story, I would like to buy some Linux laptops from HP here in the US. I would also like to see a choice of processors. This is a nice start though.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop also comes with OpenOffice preinstalled, Firefox for web browsing and Evolution for email.

That sounds like a full featured environment for the average user. Much better than Microsoft Works, a non-removable trial copy of Office and the usual collection of junkware that comes with a Windows PC. With compatible software vendors like this impressive list finding commercial software for your HP/Red Hat system should be no trouble. Dag has a whole bunch of free stuff available for it too. I imagine Windows users will have a hard time understanding that yes, you can just click on one of thousands of great free programs and it will install but it won't turn your PC into a spam zombie. It shouldn't take them long to get fond of it though. That's a significant change for people used to dealing with a software vendor that's proud that three quarters of a million of their customers were infested with root kits.

Windows gamers will be relieved to hear that for a measly $5/mo they can join Transgaming and play Windows games. If they have Windows programs they don't want to throw away like one of these, Wine will be a nice free addition to their Red Hat desktop. If they prefer a professionally maintained compatibility engine they might like Codeweavers' Crossover Linux which supports these programs and only costs $40.

The list of hardware known to be compatible with RHEL 5 is impressive, as is the list of systems that are certified and supported.

Disclosure - I also don't work for anybody mentioned here or sell their stuff. My opinions belong to me and I'm not getting paid to have them. YMMV, yadda yadda.

The choice of Red Hat as a partner in this venture shows just how GNU/Linux

What is the cost of this computer with XP/Vista in comparison. We have seen this happen before where Dell shipped FreeDOS systems that actually cost more than with Windows (which means there is definitely malarky going on there).

No malarky, Red Hat charges for RHEL. Prices range from $80 to $339 depending on whether or not you want support for 2 CPU sockets, more than 4 GB RAM, virtualization, server applications (apache, samba, nfs). Keep in mind that Red Hat is offering support.

https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/desktop/

Odd, mine (Europa + WTP) loads up with projects and plugins and all at 104,324 K in Windoze. 300 is more for when you dive in... First of all, you should get the mustang JDK for Java SE 6 from Sun. Then if you're just going to make some simple java app, you could get Eclipse IDE for Java Developer's here: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ If you're into web based development, you'd be wiser to go here (Red Hat Developer Studio - basically Europa + WTP + extra stuff in an easy package): http://www.redhat.com/developers/rhds/index.html If you're not actually a programmer, and want to make some pretty html/css with eclipse, there's always Aptana: http://www.aptana.com/ ... which you could also use as a perspective for developing a normal app.

I would think this is a non-issue I'm not a Linux expert but a quick search....

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2006-0318.html ... seems to indicate at least red-hat and probably most Linux distro's come with DHCP server support for unicast responses and would not have this issue with Vista.

As I understand this issue Vista is fully compliant with the DHCP standard and it is the DHCP servers failure to fully implement the DHCP standard and support unicast responses which is the problem.

I think this issue is only going to occur with old legacy systems and routers.

In which case if you were Microsoft what would your care factor be? How long do you allow for support for old legacy systems which are not standards compliant?

Audio.

Please read Lennart Poettering's 2007 Linux Symposium paper Cleaning up the Linux audio desktop mess.

And if you actually look at the pricing page at Red Hat site you will see that:

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform (Unlimited sockets)
Standard Subscription 1 year 12x5 phone support, 1 year web, unlimited incidents $1,499
Premium Subscription 1 year 24x7 phone support, 1 year web, unlimited incidents $2,499"

Where is the "if you want 24/7 support, you'll pay more."

And more.
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL -5-manual/Cluster_Suite_Overview/index.html

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Advanced costs $2,499 per server per year without add-on features, like an application server and clustering."
So how the fucking RH doesnt have clustering support, HA support...

s/inefficient BSD crap/functions that result in silent loss of data/

The drivers is in the kernel tree. You should not buy any hardware that is not supported or preferable tested and certified for your enterprise distribution.

https://hardware.redhat.com/hwcert/index.cgi

Hey everyone.. I work on the JBossTools and RHDS Team and just wanted to give some community-level info about our project.

Red Hat Developer Studio is our commercial offering of the JBossTools open source project (formerly known as JBossIDE), which has a vibrant community of users and contributors. You can check out our project(s) at the following URLs:

JBossTools main page: http://jboss.org/tools
JBossTools blog: http://jbosstools.blogspot.com/
JBossTools 2.0.0.beta3: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=22866&package_id=242269&release_id=531957
RHDS 1.0.0.beta1 (based on JBossTools 2.0.0.beta3): http://www.redhat.com/developers/rhds/index.html

Feel free to drop by #jbosstools on freenode, we'd love to hear from you!

I simplified the fucking explanation due to being tired, sue me.

https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHE L-3-Manual/release-notes/as-amd64/RELEASE-NOTES-U2 -x86_64-en.html

From the reference itself
" Software IOTLB -- Intel® EM64T does not support an IOMMU in hardware while AMD64 processors do. This means that physical addresses above 4GB (32 bits) cannot reliably be the source or destination of DMA operations. Therefore, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 2 kernel "bounces" all DMA operations to or from physical addresses above 4GB to buffers that the kernel pre-allocated below 4GB at boot time. This is likely to result in lower performance for IO-intensive workloads for Intel® EM64T as compared to AMD64 processors.

  Lack of 3DNow!(TM) instructions: -- Intel® EM64T does not recognize the prefetch and prefetchw instructions while AMD64 processors do. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 2 kernel excludes these instructions in both C and assembly language code and therefore will suffer a small amount of performance degradation."

Where is the software support, for one?

You guys keep waiting for MS to fuck up. Give me a reason to get rid of them first!

I'm certainly not onboard with MySQL's decision... but as for Red Hat, they technically do make all their source available: ftp://ftp.redhat.com. It ends up being the foundation for CentOS, as well a host of others. How is that not playing nice?

If you ask Oracle - they didn't fork it. They are just offering support and patches to RHEL - and pulling out all the proprietary RH stuff so that they can put it out there themselves, at least that is how I understand it.

"All the proprietary RH stuff" is just some trademarked logos and occurrences of the literal string "RedHat". That's about the only difference between RHEL and CentOS.

The Linux-Watch article you linked to doesn't make sense, either:

The database giant claims that Red Hat only provides bug fixes for the latest version of its software. Thus, Oracle executives say, this often requires customers to upgrade to a new version of Linux software to get a bug fixed. Oracle's new Unbreakable Linux program, on the other hand, will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux. In other words, Oracle will provide the same level of enterprise support for Linux as is available for other operating systems.

If they'd done even the slightest bit of research, they could have compared that to RedHat's claims of seven years of maintenance. If they wanted to do actual journalism, they would have pressed Oracle for specific examples of times RedHat has fallen through on that promise and (if they'd given any) seen what RedHat has to say in their defense. As far as I've seen, RedHat's support is as good as advertised.

Sorry, can't resist. You should also create a http://redhat.com/~mingo/leartime-patches/ set to translate all the kernel messages into Shakespearian English.

Hey, do you ever get that mixed up with http://redhat.com/~mingo/realtime-patches/ ? :)

> IIS6+ deals with HTTP requests at a kernel level. That is core
> functionality such as responses, caching, etc are all dealt with
> at ring0. Performance is unbeatable.

Tux spanked IIS silly last time I looked. Doing HTTP in the kernel isn't a security trade-off many admins have traditionally been prepared to make. Perhaps tux will gain more traction on virtualized hosts where security may be less critical.

I think it's obvious that the "Insightful" comment was referring to RHL, not RHEL. I'm pretty darned sure the moderators know about both RHL and RHEL, but are only calling RHL the "desktop" product for the purposes of this thread. I don't think this is a good time to argue about the difference between "desktops" and "workstations." Or "enterprise products," "small business products," and "home products."

Red Hat has a solid desktop as it is, much more stable than Ubuntu especially if you know how to configure it right. The majority of the installations I have done over the years have been a Red Hat project because of its stability.

Secondly, Ubuntu's support is expensive even for Microsoft standards. RHEL has plans that range from 80 USD (Basic Desktop) to 2,500 USD (Premium Server). It's much more competitive than the Microsoft range of products especially for businesses. Commercial support for Ubuntu starts at 250 USD per year all the way up to 4,000 USD (pricing list). Even for basic 9x5 support, Red Hat is substantially better priced than Ubuntu.

To say to a business owner that they have to receive support from someone they will never see who will never give them a guarantee to make sure the product works is just stupid. "As Is" is a horrible business model especially for businesses that can't afford to take risks. Like another post said, businesses like accountability especially when something goes wrong. If the support in which they had paid for fixes the problem then there isn't a problem and there is less litigation overall. I'm glad that they are focusing on a competitive product especially in the form of a desktop distribution. It's good to hear that someone within the Linux community is starting to do something with legalizing certain video formats. For a community to depend on software from Microsoft in order to run various types of media is weird. For a community that tries to spend so much time trying to make alternative ways in doing the same thing as other operating systems it kind of makes me indifferent that they haven't done this already. All in all, it shows that someone is going in the right direction by taking an initiative to fix the problem.

Last but not least, Red Hat has been established long before Ubuntu ever gained popularity. Ubuntu gained popularity around the 5.10 release and even then it was buggy. Red Hat has been around for years and has always maintained a consistent amount of popularity throughout that time. They are a good business but if you like to have a system in which you can do what you what, experiment with the latest software, my suggestion would be to compile Linux from source. If you don't want to do that then Ubuntu would be a decent alternative especially for college students and other people who can't necessarily afford the money but can afford the time. All in all, there is the business perspective as opposed to the personal perspective and they are two very different things. You can't assume that you can make a product that covers both sides that makes everyone happy. As long as there are reasonable alternatives then it helps cover a variety of concerns for a varying range of people.

Red Hat has a solid desktop as it is, much more stable than Ubuntu especially if you know how to configure it right. The majority of the installations I have done over the years have been a Red Hat project because of its stability.

Secondly, Ubuntu's support is expensive even for Microsoft standards. RHEL has plans that range from 80 USD (Basic Desktop) to 2,500 USD (Premium Server). It's much more competitive than the Microsoft range of products especially for businesses. Commercial support for Ubuntu starts at 250 USD per year all the way up to 4,000 USD (pricing list). Even for basic 9x5 support, Red Hat is substantially better priced than Ubuntu.

To say to a business owner that they have to receive support from someone they will never see who will never give them a guarantee to make sure the product works is just stupid. "As Is" is a horrible business model especially for businesses that can't afford to take risks. Like another post said, businesses like accountability especially when something goes wrong. If the support in which they had paid for fixes the problem then there isn't a problem and there is less litigation overall. I'm glad that they are focusing on a competitive product especially in the form of a desktop distribution. It's good to hear that someone within the Linux community is starting to do something with legalizing certain video formats. For a community to depend on software from Microsoft in order to run various types of media is weird. For a community that tries to spend so much time trying to make alternative ways in doing the same thing as other operating systems it kind of makes me indifferent that they haven't done this already. All in all, it shows that someone is going in the right direction by taking an initiative to fix the problem.

Last but not least, Red Hat has been established long before Ubuntu ever gained popularity. Ubuntu gained popularity around the 5.10 release and even then it was buggy. Red Hat has been around for years and has always maintained a consistent amount of popularity throughout that time. They are a good business but if you like to have a system in which you can do what you what, experiment with the latest software, my suggestion would be to compile Linux from source. If you don't want to do that then Ubuntu would be a decent alternative especially for college students and other people who can't necessarily afford the money but can afford the time. All in all, there is the business perspective as opposed to the personal perspective and they are two very different things. You can't assume that you can make a product that covers both sides that makes everyone happy. As long as there are reasonable alternatives then it helps cover a variety of concerns for a varying range of people.

Dell's Ubuntu laptop deal showed that Microsoft Vista at $50 (according to engadget), but Red Hat's Enterprise desktop varies from $80 to $339 which isn't exactly cheaper for Aunt Tillie. Note that Canonical support is cheaper for 9x5 ($250) but they also offer 24x7 support ($900).

But is Red Hat trying to follow in Microsoft's steps confusing users with 4 desktop package options? Although Canonical is catching up with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Gobuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Media Center.

What is the news here? Red Hat is in the desktop market already, thought their offering is more geared or at least branded for the enterprise use: Red Hat Enteprise Linux 5 Desktop. It seems that they are just going to brand their Enterprise Desktop, add some multimedia and maybe a new colorful GNOME theme and call it Global Desktop Linux. Whoah!

The real news in here I would say is that Red Hat is gearing towards other than corporate customers. The question is, is this a defensive maneuver against Canonical or does Red Hat see that the consumer desktop linux market could be opening up? Or is it both? Could be both.

The second question, if they are not doing this purely for playing defense, is how serious they are? Are they so serious that they will maybe make a new multimedia player for Linux, or will they bundle in example iTunes or Real with it, or are they just going to hack up the usual suspects. I really would hope that they have something new to offer, as basically the situation is that multimedia support works but is not plea sent. Peasent here means the same as user experience with iTunes and in less extend Windows Media is.

Why don't we all install liberation fonts and be done with it?

Only if, by "wanting", you mean "isn't exactly the same as Windows", or "when I disable anti-aliasing and use unhinted fonts, the fonts look like they've not been hinted".

On an LCD display with subpixel rendering enabled, or a high-res CRT with greyscale AA enabled, Linux fonts are usually fine. The font renderers work the exact same way that Mac OS X works, with one exception. FreeType's auto hinter produces a result that's somewhere between Apple's (antialiased, but slightly fuzzy fonts), and Microsoft's (hammer everything strictly onto the pixel grid, even if it destroys the look of the font), and looks fine when used with the common Linux fonts, or with Apple's OS X fonts. It looks absolutely horrible if you use Microsoft's fonts, since they were all designed for monochrome hinted display, with the newer ones being designed for Microsoft's ClearType renderer. They all look hideous on Mac OS X, or on Linux (unless you enable the bytecode hinter, and disable all anti-aliasing, in which case it looks identical to Windows without ClearType).

The only reason to use Microsoft's fonts is to get a font of a similar style, which has compatible glyph metrics. In which case, you may as well use RedHat's Liberation Fonts.

If you check out here you will notice that Alfresco is listed at the number one project on the Red Hat Exchange. So maybe their downloads are three-times higher because Red Hat advertises for them for free. I dunno about you, but I would won't believe the results until they adjust for that (i.e. "Where did you hear about Alfresco?").

I agree with the things you said, however, I'll raise you one more and say that it is also because Linux doesn't have some kind of unified marketing team. This is apparent from your argument about LDAP solutions for Linux, when a few exist such as Novell's eDirectory and Red Hat's Directory Server. There's probably quite a few other implementations, but it's very hard to find out about these things unless you spend the time hunting them down. A person making these type of big decisions doesn't have time to do this, but they do have time to sit down with someone from MS and have them go over things for them. After all, marketing is a big reason why MS is top dog right now.

Linux-Vserver as well. It's even used in the OLPC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-VServer

Virtualizing a system can be cheap if the correct virtual machine is chosen. For instance, Linux-VServer (http://linux-vserver.org/Overview) is a very cheap virtual machine that can be easily used to split a linux system into several separated security containers, each one running an independent application/service. It uses Copy-on-Write to share the same system files until one of the containers modifies the file. Only then the file is duplicated on disk, and even so only the modified blocks, so it is very cheap on resources.

This paper has an interesting description of Linux-VServer:
Linux-VServer - Resource Efficient OS-Level Virtualization - https://ols2006.108.redhat.com/2007/Reprints/potzl -Reprint.pdf
"Linux-VServer is a lightweight virtualization system
used to create many independent containers under a
common Linux kernel. To applications and the user of a
Linux-VServer based system, such a container appears
just like a separate host.
The Linux-Vserver approach to kernel subsystem containerization
is based on the concept of context isolation.
The kernel is modified to isolate a container into
a separate, logical execution context such that it cannot
see or impact processes, files, network traffic, global
IPC/SHM, etc., belonging to another container."
"While a typical Linux distribution install will
consume about 500MB of disk space, our experience is
that [with copy-on-write file system] the incremental disk space required when creating a new container based on the same distribution
is on the order of a few megabytes."

It is so cheap that even the OLPC laptop (not the most powerful computer on Earth...) uses it!
http://www.olpctalks.com/ivan_krsti/ivan_krstic_ta lks.html - interesting bit: "The interesting thing about this by the way is, people are terrified of how are you going to do virtualization on a 466 Mega hertz CPU. With the Linux VServer, the overhead you pay is 32k per task struct, but there is 0% measurable CPU overhead with up to 65,000 virtual machines running . 'll let that sink in for a few seconds. It lets us do full network-stack isolation lets us completely isolate the filesystem, it lets us do this copy and write mode with just a twist on what immutable links do so we can actually do the said at no overhead on the file system. It provides various hooks which we can use, we can add scheduler bios for system services etc. directly on the kernel. There are no policies with this so the mental model is simple. We tell our application developers essentially, the mental model is that you are the only application executing on the machine and you can use a number of the interfaces that we provide to interface with the rest of the system but essentially, you are the only application running on the machine."

Flash file systems

Because of the particular characteristics of flash memory, it is best used with specifically designed file systems which spread writes over the media and deal with the long erase times of NOR flash blocks. The basic concept behind flash file systems is: When the flash store is to be updated, the file system will write a new copy of the changed data over to a fresh block, remap the file pointers, then erase the old block later when it has time. One of the earliest flash file systems was Microsoft's FFS2 (presumably preceded by FFS1), for use with MS-DOS in the early 1990s. Around 1994, the PCMCIA industry group approved the FTL (Flash Translation Layer) specification, which allowed a flash device to look like a FAT disk, but still have effective wear levelling. Other commercial systems such as FlashFX by Datalight were created to avoid patent concerns with FTL.

JFFS was the first flash-specific file system for Linux, but it was quickly superseded by JFFS2, originally developed for NOR flash. Then YAFFS was released in 2003, dealing specifically with NAND flash, and JFFS2 was updated to support NAND flash too. In practice, these filesystems are only used for "Memory Technology Devices" ("MTD"), which are embedded flash memories which do not have a controller. Removable flash media, such as SD and CF cards and USB flash drives, have a controller (often built into the card) to perform wear-levelling and error correction, so use of JFFS2 or YAFFS does not add any benefit. These removable flash memory devices are often used with the old FAT filesystem for compatibility with cameras and other portable devices. Controllerless removable flash memory devices also exist; For example, SmartMedia is even electrically compatible with the Toshiba TC58 series of NAND flash chips.

Flash file systems

Because of the particular characteristics of flash memory, it is best used with specifically designed file systems which spread writes over the media and deal with the long erase times of NOR flash blocks. The basic concept behind flash file systems is: When the flash store is to be updated, the file system will write a new copy of the changed data over to a fresh block, remap the file pointers, then erase the old block later when it has time. One of the earliest flash file systems was Microsoft's FFS2 (presumably preceded by FFS1), for use with MS-DOS in the early 1990s. Around 1994, the PCMCIA industry group approved the FTL (Flash Translation Layer) specification, which allowed a flash device to look like a FAT disk, but still have effective wear levelling. Other commercial systems such as FlashFX by Datalight were created to avoid patent concerns with FTL.

JFFS was the first flash-specific file system for Linux, but it was quickly superseded by JFFS2, originally developed for NOR flash. Then YAFFS was released in 2003, dealing specifically with NAND flash, and JFFS2 was updated to support NAND flash too. In practice, these filesystems are only used for "Memory Technology Devices" ("MTD"), which are embedded flash memories which do not have a controller. Removable flash media, such as SD and CF cards and USB flash drives, have a controller (often built into the card) to perform wear-levelling and error correction, so use of JFFS2 or YAFFS does not add any benefit. These removable flash memory devices are often used with the old FAT filesystem for compatibility with cameras and other portable devices. Controllerless removable flash memory devices also exist; For example, SmartMedia is even electrically compatible with the Toshiba TC58 series of NAND flash chips.

Religion notwithstanding, it will become microkernel-like, because a monolithic kernel just doesn't scale. It's as simple as that.


Nice theory. Unfortunately it seems the kernel developers that are actually working on making Linux scale to NUMA systems with O(10000) processors disagree with you: https://ols2006.108.redhat.com/2007/Reprints/lamet er-Reprint.pdf

We're talking about two different things. You're assuming that average people, when faced with two options, will pick the difficult one with no benefit to themselves, magically listening to an inconvenient person telling them that the easy option is "amoral". I'm more concerned with how Stallman will get people to actually listen to him. At this rate, he's bound to have as much success as the anti-whalers.

If your goal with life is improving society rather than achieving personal success, this works perfectly fine. It's just about the same choice that Stallman made and it's the same choice that thousands of free software programmers make when they use their spare time making software that the whole society benefits from.

Besides, Stallman has on numerous occasions mentioned ways to make a living while making free software, and many of the aforementioned free software programmers use these. Making private software (software that will never be released to the public, intended for use in only one place), doing support, making donationware or doing something other than programming all make you a living, whilst avoiding making proprietary software.

OOo tries to map them to the closest equivalent available. Which aren't always pixel-perfect equivalent

RedHat recently released some liberation fonts which have the exact same metrics as Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier. The fonts look a good deal different, but the metrics are identical, so you can have the exact same layout as a document using the corresponding Microsoft font.

Red Hat do this because Xen trademarked the term and restrict its usage.

The comment about libvirt is funny though. I would invite anyone to come and look at libvirt and particularly the mailing list archives and to decide for themselves if libvirt is really "proprietary software published openly" (whatever that even means).

Rich.

"Total revenue for the quarter was $118.9 million, an increase of 42% from the year ago quarter and 7% from the prior quarter. Subscription revenue was $103.0 million, up 44% year-over-year and 7% sequentially." Net income for the quarter was $16.2 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, compared with $13.8 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, in the year ago quarter. Non-GAAP adjusted net income for the quarter was $33.7 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, after adjusting for stock compensation and tax expense as detailed in the tables below. This compares to non-GAAP adjusted net income of $28.0 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, in the year ago period.

RPM database corruption was a very real problem when they changed to RPM4. That'd be RHEL2/FC2 or 3 if I remember correctly? Anyway, I too had to delete stale locks and rebuild the database more times than I care to remember.

Oh, there we go.