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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: EnGarde Size: 560.47 MB Status: no seeders and 6 leechers Added: 2007-08-07 17:46:37

Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: EnGarde Size: 558.12 MB Status: 3 seeders and 5 leechers Added: 2007-08-07 17:24:22

Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Puppy Size: 95.37 MB Status: no seeders and no leecher Added: 2007-08-07 17:14:20

Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: LinuxMint Size: 648.13 MB Status: 79 seeders and 49 leechers Added: 2007-08-07 16:58:34

Source: freespire

Freespire 2.0 has been released: "Freespire 2.0 is immediately available; the latest version of the free desktop Linux operating system. Building on the best of open source software using Ubuntu as its baseline, Freespire 2.0 adds legally licensed proprietary drivers, codecs, and applications in its core distribution, to .

Source: smoothwall

The first release candidate of SmoothWall Express 3.0 is ready for testing: "Express 3.0 is our latest version of the long running and successful SmoothWall Express firewall. This is a release candidate release, code name 'Sammy'. This means that this build will become the final version of SmoothWall .

Source: mint

Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of the Xfce Community edition of Linux Mint 3.0: "This is the first Xfce release of Linux Mint. It is based on Cassandra and comes with the following mint tools: mintInstall, mintDisk, mintWifi, xfcemintConfig, xfcemintDesktop. Although similar to the main edition, the .

Source: fedora

Jesse Keating has announced the release of Fedora 8 Test 1, the first development build of a brand new version of the popular distribution: "We interrupt your rawhide for a moment to make a small announcement. Fedora 8 Test one has been loosed upon the world. Included in .

Source: engarde

Guardian Digital has announced the release of EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.16: "Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.16. This release includes many updated packages and bug fixes, some feature enhancements to Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, and a few new .

Source: sabayon

Fabio Erculiani has announced the availability of an updated release of Sabayon Linux 3.4: "We are happy to announce Sabayon Linux 3.4 Revision E. Distribution updates: introduced a (teaser) pre-alpha release of the Entropy stack (Equo application); updated Portato to 0.8.0; updated Compiz Fusion to work with XGL .

Source: Linux Today

Linux.com: "Absolute, a lightweight Linux operating system based on the respected Slackware Linux distribution, just released version 12.0 "

Source: Linux Today

Raiden's Realm: "Out of the box, Linux Mint is supposed to be the 'click and go' linux distribution. Just boot the live cd, install it, and then you're ready to go without any huss or fuss. That's not exactly true "

Source: Linux Today

HowtoForge: "This howto shows you how to do a multi-site Drupal install on Ubuntu "

Source: Linux Today

Tech Republic: "SquirrelMail is a great option if you want to create Web-based e-mail for your company's Web-based mail server "

Source: Linux Today

InfoWorld: "I feel the same way about the notion that: 'access to the source code prevents vendor lock-in and is immeasurably important in keeping the OSS vendor focused on the customer '"

Source: Linux Today

ZDNet: "The authors of these articles appear surprised that the focus of LinuxWorld has been broadening over time to focus on how Linux is being used in the corporate datacenter and other important, related technologies such as virtualization "

Source: Linux Today

Blue GNU: "Save for the occasional references to the Free Software Foundation and FSF Europe, one might get the impression that the Free Software movement is floundering along, all but forgotten in the annals of history "

Source: Linux Today

Red Herring: "But though the move is a boost for the OS, analysts say it'll be years before desktop Linux can seriously threaten proprietary systems like Windows "

Source: Linux Today

InfoWorld: "'I don't use the word 'evil,'' says Mike Evans--though he acknowledges that some of his customers do see proprietary commercial software vendors that way "

Source: Linux Today

Linux Journal: "That's right: Microsoft has released not one but several pieces of code as open source. Moreover, it's submitting some of its home-grown licences to the Open Source Initiative for approval. So what is going on here ?"

Source: Linux Today

iTWire: "Wyse and Novell are working in partnership to deliver Suse Enterprise Linux on thin clients "

Source: Linux Today

internetnews.com: "'Interoperability' is a key buzzword that means a lot of different things In the case of the Open Solutions Alliance, it refers to interoperability across different open source applications "

Source: Linux Today

The Register: "The Linux desktop reminds us of a dog humping a table leg. It's both fun and disturbing to watch, but ultimately there's very little payoff from the exercise "

Source: Linux Today

internetnews.com: "Though IBM sells and supports both Novell and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Big Blue is getting closer with Novell, at least on the middleware side "

Source: Linux Today

Hoosier Penguin: "Because, I remember telling him then, EnterpriseDB didn't have an open source product, and my readers were a bit fed up with covering companies that claimed open source status that weren't "

Source: Linux Today

ZDNet Asia: "The success Sun Microsystems has seen from publishing the hardware designs of its Niagara processor is pushing the server and software company to continue its open source chip initiative "

Source: Linux Today

internetnews.com: "The first rule of Fight Club is to not speak about Fight Club. That is unless of course you're an open source vendor that, by definition, aims to make everything open and available "

Source: Linux Today

Product-Reviews: "Medison, who [is] a smallish Swedish PC company [is] claiming that they will be selling a basic Linux based laptop for a mere $150 "

Source: Linux Today

Phoronix: "A friendly penguin has told us at Phoronix that Google is looking to team up with OpenMoko for their 'gPhone '"

Source: Linux Today

LinuxDevices: "It's finally happened. Motorola last month quietly shipped its first Linux-based mobile phone 'bound for North America,' in its words "

Source: Linux Today

InformationWeek: "The LiMo Foundation, a collaborative project developing a Linux-based platform for mobile phones, announced Monday five new core members and seven associate members have joined the foundation "

Source: Linux Today

InfoWorld: "Making separate but critical points about the path of the Linux kernel, the maintainer of the kernel on Monday stressed there is no need to worry about forking and not to expect a move to the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 "

Source: Linux Today

The Inquirer: "Red Hat-sponsored open source project Fedora 7 will be the platform for the Creative Commons LiveContent CD, which showcases open source software "

Source: Linux Today

PC World: "While it will be delightful to use this laptop with wifi at a public library or other hotspot, the truly exciting feature on this laptop is the 56kbps modem. A dialup modem exciting? Sure "

Source: Linux Today

InfoWorld: "Mozilla does not set security policy at late-night pyjama parties "

Source: Linux Today

LinuxDevices: "Palm's Linux-based Foleo 'mobile companion'--expected to ship 'this summer,' according to Palm--will utilize Wind River's embedded Linux distribution and tools "

Source: Linux Today

The latest Apache numbers from the new Netcraft survey look grim, but ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn debunks that notion and a Linux Today reader opines why in the long run, a decline in Apache might bring the end of Windows faster.

Source: Linux Today

LWN: "We interrupt your rawhide for a moment to make a small announcement Fedora 8 Test one has been loosed upon the world today "

Source: Linux Today

CNET News: "Eric Acker, head of litigation for the San Diego office of global law firm Morrison & Foerster, has a formidable history, including 45 jury trials as a federal prosecutor "

Source: Linux Today

Computing: "Britain gets taken for a ride yet again "

Source: Linux Today

internetnews.com: "Taking advantage of the power of multiple CPUs is a common task in modern computing environments. Taking advantage of multiple graphics processors is not "

Source: Linux Today

eWeek: "Microsoft has succeeded in fracturing the Linux and open-source community with the patent indemnity agreements it has entered into with several prominent vendors, Ubuntu leader and Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth told eWEEK "

Source: Linux Today

InformationWeek: "The Open Invention Network members share their Linux patents with each other and offer the prospect of a joint defense if Linux is confronted with a legal challenge "

Source: Linux Today

Netcraft: "At the time, Apache's market share advantage seemed insurmountable. But less than two years later, Microsoft has narrowed that 50 percent gap to 16.7 percent "

Source: Linux Today

BetaNews: "Following in the footsteps of Dell, Lenovo said Monday that it plans to give both consumers and businesses the option to have Linux installed as the default operating system over Windows on select models " More details from a Computerworld article added.

Source: Linux Today

Linux.com: "If there's one thing the world doesn't lack for, besides bad movie sequels and dishonest politicians, it's collaboration software "

Source: Linux Today

KernelTrap: "Some entertaining lguest documentation discussed in an earlier story was merged into the mainline kernel with the commit message, 'the netfilter code had very good documentation: the Netfilter Hacking HOWTO '"

Source: Linux Today

HowtoForge: "This article shows how you can use an iPod on a Linux desktop with gtkpod (a graphical user interface for Apple's iPod) "

Source: Linux Today

The Official Blog of Elmer Thomas: "An essential skill for the tech entrepreneur is to be able to quickly produce prototypes "

Source: Linux Today

Debian Admin: "ProFTPD is a proven, high-performance, scalable FTP server written from scratch, with a focus toward simplicity, security, and ease of configuration "

Source: Linux Today

HowtoForge: "This document describes an implementation of a large-scale messaging solution relying on the AXIGEN Mail Server software "

Source: Linux Today

LinuxInsight: "Well, they're not working together. Unless you're not willing to tweak it a little bit. So, out of the box, you won't be able to test brand new Linux CFS scheduler, merged in the 2.6.23-rc1 release "

Source: Slashdot: Linux

mrcgran writes "Dell announced the availability of Ubuntu in Europe and future plans for China. 'I hinted at this before, but today, it's official: Dell announced that consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany can order an Inspiron 6400 notebook or an Inspiron 530N desktop with Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed In his LinuxWorld keynote, Kevin Kettler announced that Dell and Novell intend to offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 factory-installed on select consumer notebooks and desktops in China.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot: Linux

TechGeek sends us to eWeek, where Mark Shuttleworth is quoted to the effect that Microsoft has succeeded in fracturing the Linux and open-source community with its patent indemnity agreements. Quoting: "Microsoft's strategy was to drive a wedge into the open-source community and unsettle the marketplace, Shuttleworth said. He also took issue with the Redmond, Wash., software maker for not disclosing the 235 of its patents it claims are being violated by Linux and other open-source software. 'That's extortion and we should call it what it is,' he said." Shuttleworth added, "I don't think this will end well for the companies that slipped up and went down that road."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot: Linux

lymeca writes "Groklaw reports that Google has become the Open Invention Network's first end-user licensee. The OIN was established by companies such as IBM, Red Hat, and somewhat ironically Novell to accumulate patents and license them royalty-free to any company promising not to leverage their own patent portfolio against key applications available on GNU/Linux, including many GNU projects as well as Linux itself. Google's support bolsters the OIN's effectiveness as a shield against patent attacks against GNU/Linux and many popular applications that run on it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: eWEEK Linux

Fedora 7 has been chosen as the platform to showcase Creative Commons-licensed multimedia content.

Source: ONLamp.com

XPath is a complex query language that provides substantial
benefits. It treats XML as a database, permitting queries as
powerful as SQL SELECT. This post shows how to use a nifty
visual explorer, XPath
Checker, to write aggressive and accurate queries. Then
we install these queries into test cases using
assert_xpath.

This experiment uses Ruby on
Rails and REXML.
The techniques will port easily to most other web platforms.

XPath Checker

Whip out your Firefox web browser, and install
XPath Checker from here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1095


It will help us reveal the inner secrets of a sample
website, such as Google:



That Context Menu option produces this popup window:



The XPath Checker shows us where the edit field lives, at
“/html/body/center/form/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/input[2]“,
and it rendered a copy of the edit field for us.

(And note that Google still uses the CENTER tag - how quaint!)

XPath Checker generated a very long XPath. It’s too
fragile for production code or tests, XPaths should be short
and accurate, not long and fragile. An XPath should always
return the same match, even if all the HTML around
it changes. For example, if CSS zealots got their hands on
Google’s front page, and changed that CENTER into a DIV,
an XPath locating the entry field should still pass.

To fix this, we install Firebug, and use Inspect
Element to locate a relevant characteristic of that edit field.
We will use it to write a shorter, more accurate XPath:



That tells us how to write an XPath that’s unlikely to
break (until we localize!):



The @title matches our input field’s
title=’Google Search’ attribute.

(Read an XPath
tutorial to learn how these fields work. Test cases that
use assert_xpath often exploit these expressions
to accomplish the traditional mission of
assert_equal.)

Note that when you type “//input“, alone, into the
XPath field, you get several more matches,
including the search button itself. An XPath is a relational
query, like an advanced Regular Expression, or a SQL SELECT
statement. Each component of the query narrows its search
results. Like a SQL SELECT statement, the goal of an XPath is a
narrow match that only returns the results you need.

When you use an XPath in developer tests, they should work
to describe the situation you need. A more specific query,
“//form[ ‘f’ = @name ]//input[ ‘Google Search’ = @title ]“,
also matches our INPUT field, and it enforces the program
requirement that the INPUT field should live inside a FORM.

Retrofitting assert_xpath

Let’s write a test case that simulates developing
Google’s front page. We use assert_tidy to
convert the page into a REXML::Document, and use
assert_xpath on our new query:

def test_google
require 'open-uri'
google = open('http://www.google.com/').read
assert_tidy google, :quiet
# puts indent_xml # temporarily inspect the HTML we got
assert_xpath '//form[ "f" = @name ]//input[ "Google Search" = @title ]'
end


Note that most developer tests (”unit tests”) should never
pull a web page across a wire. They should use a test pattern
called “Mock the Server”, to internally calculate the page and
then test it without serving it. Ruby on Rails makes this very
easy, and web platforms that lock you into one vendor’s
server make it very hard.

And note that Google’s homepage is not well-formed
XHTML. assert_xpath requires that, so we use
assert_tidy to clean up the source. Sometimes
adding tests to legacy code is more important than fixing its
broken tags. A new project should always write well-formed
XHTML, and should not need assert_tidy.

After ensuring this case passes, we refactor it for
readability. Statements should not do too many things (even in
Ruby!!!), so we break up that assert_xpath into
two distinct lines. assert_xpath
allows us to extend a query by nesting it:

assert_xpath '//form[ "f" = @name ]' do
assert_xpath './/input[ "Google Search" = @title ]'
end


The dot . character links the
inner XPath to the outer one. Without it, the
// notation would
start the search over from the top of the document.

And assert_xpath permits : as an
abbreviation for .//, so this is the final refactor:

assert_xpath '//form[ "f" = @name ]' do
assert_xpath :'input[ "Google Search" = @title ]'
end


Now we upgrade to check we indeed have a submit button:

assert_xpath '//form[ "f" = @name ]' do
assert_xpath :'input[ "Google Search" = @title ]'
assert_xpath :'input[ "submit" = @type ]'
end


That shows how assert_xpath’s blocks are
very handy, to batch together related contents. The blocks
can nest together, matching how the source HTML Elements
nest together.

When adding assert_xpath assertions to a
project, you should alternate between adding developer tests
and using XPath Checker to investigate that your expressions
work the way you think they do. XPath’s
power can lead you to write assertions that pass for the wrong
reason, if you are not careful.

XPath Can See Around Corners

Suppose Google’s home page were very dynamic, and that
various program systems could influence its input elements. We
might feel we need an assertion showing that the Submit button
was always the very next input element after the edit
field:

assert_xpath '//form[ "f" = @name ]' do
assert_xpath './/input[ "Google Search" = @title ]/../input[ "submit" = @type ]'
end


The “..” means to step back to the
parent tag, and search inside it again.

That query only detects that the Submit tag is any
sibling, not the next sibling. To figure out
how to test this, use XPath Checker, and enter “.//input[ “Google Search” = @title ]/../input“. Note that we get 4
input fields. The extra criterion, “[ “submit” = @type ]“, would have simply picked one of
them, without enforcing its location.

The “direction” of an XPath query is called its “axis”. The
default axis, /, reaches from container to contained nodes.
Fiddle with XPath Checker to see where other axes reach, such as
“following-sibling::“.

The query “.//input[ “Google Search” = @title ]/following-sibling::input” will
return the two submit buttons after the edit field:



To restrict our query to return only the very next input
field after the edit field, add the [1] index:



When we select the node by index, not by attribute, we
restrict everything down to the exact minimum that can pass our
test:

assert_xpath '//form[ "f" = @name ]' do
assert_xpath './/input[ "Google Search" = @title ]' do
assert_xpath 'following-sibling::input[ 1 = position() and "submit" = @type ]'
end
end

That test case can only pass if the very next input after
the edit field is the submit button. And “1 = position()” is the
explicit form of the “[1]” shortcut. Use position()
when you need an “and” criterion.

Using XPath as relational queries helps us decouple test
cases from production code, leading to fewer false negatives
when we run each test batch.

Source: ONLamp.com

But I don’t want to live in a world where the only thing the Internet is useful for, or effective at, or pleasant or fun, are activities where someone is making money from me.

— Mitchell Baker, The Internet and the Public Good

I feel the same way about free software.

Source: Linux DevCenter

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been able to borrow a friend’s laptop: a Gateway w730-K8X (Athlon Mobile 4000+ processor, ATI X600 graphics, 1024 RAM). She has the 64-bit version of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn installed. I’ve installed and worked with 64-bit Linux on servers over the past couple of years, mainly running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, but this is my first chance to play with 64-bit Linux extensively on a laptop.
First, the machine is wonderfully fast at everything I’ve tried to do with it. 64-bit Ubuntu does have some minor quirks. The most noticeable one is that sometimes sound works and sometimes it doesn’t. If I don’t hear anything when GNOME starts then I won’t have sound until I reboot. She obviously has ALSA configured correctly since there is sound more often than not. I also noticed that some graphical apps don’t have .desktop files in /usr/share/applications and consequently don’t show up in the menu. When it comes to anything truly important, though, 64-bit Feisty does seem to work very well.
I also got to compare Network Manager to WiFi-Radar and while both applications saw the same wireless networks in the area it turns out that Network Manager connects to a network with a weak signal much more readily than WiFi-Radar does. Kudos to Ubuntu on their wifi app.
There is one obvious question, though: am I really gaining much by moving from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS on a 64-bit box. For most things the answer really is “no”. I booted the Wolvix-Cub 1.1 live CD with the copy2ram option and the system just flew. Part of that was because of the lack of disk I/O, of course, but part of it is that there really isn’t much of a performance lift if any. There is a perception that you absolutely, positively have to run 64-bit on a 64-bit box. One person in the Wolvix forum even opined that “32-bit is so 1998″. I’ve installed a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit server more often than I care to recall simply because certain apps just didn’t work properly in a 64-bit environment.
Is there ever a benefit to a 64-bit OS other than the gee whiz factor? Of course there is. If you do serious number crunching or serious multimedia work (i.e.: 3D rendering) you will definitely see a performance improvement. I do, in fact, recommend installing a 64-bit version of Linux provided everything works properly for you. That isn’t always a given.
Oh, and yes, I thoroughly enjoy working on a very fast system.
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