Linux

When Linux was in its infancy, hardware support was one of the biggest issues for the open source operating system. Good drivers for everything from video, audio, network cards, human interface devices, and the like had to be reverse engineered and written from scratch by hackers. Broader support these days by major PC hardware and peripheral manufactures has made the Linux hardware compatibility more widespread, but no one's claming "mission accomplished" on this yet.

Hewlett-Packard is throwing its support behind the Debian Linux distribution, the first major hardware maker to align itself with the noncommercial community-based Linux offering.

HP says it will support Debian Linux on its ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers, and what it says is the industry's first Debian Linux customizable thin client from a major vendor, the new HP t5725 Thin Client server.

IBM's RFID Device Development Kit is part of IBM's Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK), which allows users to explore RFID infrastructure through a Java interface, learn about the included technologies and APIs, and develop support for new devices. The components of this Linux-based kit also allow the modification of its behavior to model solution-specific business processes and requirements.

Researchers have create a humanoid robot that runs on real-time Linux and holds promise for applications in education and research.

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology announced the development Thursday. Startups General Robotix, and Moving Eye, and Pirkus Robotix and Dai Nippon Technical Research Institute created HRP-2m Chromet, which is driven by ARTLinux.

IBM is making a full Notes client available for Linux a bit earlier than expected.

While IBM has long been an ardent Linux proponent and promised full support for Macintosh, Linux and Windows clients in its next release code-named Project Hannover, the company has accelerated the Linux piece. A Notes client for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 3, will be available on July 24, with a version for Novell SUSE Linux Desktop for Enterprise 10 version due within 90 after that, IBM said.

Novell officials have confirmed a release later this month of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, just one month after the company unveiled a free public preview of the software. The preview was the first opportunity many users had to test Novell's commercial version of the openSUSE desktop environment.

IBM has been a huge Linux backer since 1998, yet despite its love of the penguin, Big Blue's Lotus Notes product has never had a fully supported bona fide standalone client for the Linux desktop. That is, until now.

Which begs the question, why has it taken so long for IBM to support the Linux desktop for Notes users? The answer is fundamentally all about demand, opportunity and ultimately money.

IBM has certainly leveraged Linux for Lotus Notes in the past but never in a complete way for the Linux desktop.

Originally developed by German vendor SUSE

To lower support costs and make customers feel more comfortable with open-source software, Oracle announced a new program Monday to let its users know which Linux system configurations the vendor has pre-tested. Oracle's Validated Configurations program covers software, hardware, storage, and networking stacks for running Linux.

Customers can download a short document containing a list of the system configurations Oracle has pretested along with documented best practices from the Oracle Technology Network.

According to a Dell marketing director, computers that run the open source Linux operating system represent approximately 25 percent of the company's enterprise market sales. Reportedly, that 25 percent is primarily composed of sales stemming from migrations from proprietary Unix platforms like Solaris. According to Jay Parker, Dell's worldwide marketing director for PowerEdge servers, Dell expects to see even more Linux migrations in the future: