Linux

Novell will include its "Beagle" search engine and virtualized server and storage features in SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, one Novell executive said.

As it officially launched SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 at Brainshare 2006 Monday, Novell vice president Holger Dyroff gave an overview of features planned for SLES 11, expected to ship in mid-2008.

For instance, SLES 11 will offer virtualization for servers and storage, enhanced security via support for AppArmor's profile management and CIM, a compiler and run-time, and identity management and provisoning, Dyroff added.

This may seem like a shock, but is it possible that the Linux patching has surpassed the Mac and Windows operating systems? Recent vulnerabilities in Adobe Macromedia Flash and Mozilla Firefox that can affect multiple operating systems highlight a weakness in the Mac and Windows auto-update process because they're primarily focused on patching Apple and Microsoft specific issues.

TiVo uses the open source Linux operating system in its digital video recorders and gets a lot of heat from people in the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community because those boxes aren't as open as hackers would like them to be.

Oddly enough, however, Linus Torvalds, who created Linux and oversees its development, isn't among the complainers. In an e-mail interview with Forbes, he explains his position.

In the early 90's Apple was desperate for a new operating system. Past failures such as Pink and Copland left the company in need of a quick fix. With a lot of money in the bank, they started looking outside the company for a solution. The field was narrowed to NeXT and Be, companies started by ex-Apple employees. In December of 1996 a choice was made, to quote Gil Armelio, "We picked Plan A instead of Plan Be.", marking the return of Steve Jobs to Apple. Few can argue that Apple made the right decision, Apple's success under the leadership of Steve Jobs is legendary.

Novell Inc. recently unveiled updates to the Linux graphics subsystem that are aimed at making it a more attractive operating system for desktop users.

The improvements to X over OpenGL (Xgl), the graphics technology that underlies Linux, will render images faster and improve 3D graphics and video for users running Linux-based desktops, said Charlie Mancusi-Ungaro, Novell's director of marketing for Linux and open source.

The Linux kernel is now up and running on an Intel iMac, and as such the Linux guys have beaten the windows guys. "Using elilo and a modified Linux kernel, we can boot from a USB hard disk on the 17" iMac Core Duo. We are using the hacked vesafb driver to inherit the bootloader's framebuffer, keyboard and a USB network card work. Gentoo runs and can compile the Linux kernel." Note that you can't really do much more than stare at the shell prompt, as no graphical environment boots yet.

Network install over LAN is an essential option for system administrators. Utilizing tools such as Kickstart or AutoYaST, they can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that would normally be asked during a typical Linux installation, and use it to install the operating system and software on multiple machines. Based on this technology, LinuxCOE makes it possible to create an ISO image which can start an automated installation over the network. Most Linux distributions support automated and remote installations.

Motorola first announced its intention to migrate its mobile "smart" phones to embedded Linux in 2003. The first such phone to reach the market was the A760 in the fourth quarter of that year. Today there are a dozen or so models (differing product numbers in different markets and minor hardware variations lead to different counts), but there are still no significant ecosystems for third-party applications or developers. Is Motorola's switch to Linux a hit for the company but a miss for end users? This is not to say that there is no development happening on these phones.

Do you ever send confidential/extremely personal information or documents via e-mail? Did you know that when you do this, you're trusting every single sysadmin that runs every single one of what might be dozens of servers between your computer and the intended recipients, plus anyone who has hacked any of these servers? Encryption technology works better than trust, says Alizard. In this article, learn how to use GPG, the encryption software built into most Linux distributions.