Linux and Technology blog

Dedicated Compiz web site and forums

rakeshvk — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:13:43 +0000

Compiz is a compositing window manager that uses 3D graphics acceleration via OpenGL. It provides various new graphical effects and features on any desktop environment, including Gnome and KDE.

Window management has never looked so enticing: Through OpenGL accelerated compositing, Compiz provides tons of new visual effects. It’s also flexible enough so you could easily add more through a plugin system.

Compiz is compatible: Any X Window System based desktop environment, including (but not limited to) Gnome and KDE, is supported.

Choose Your Logo

The final round of voting has begun! To see the logos that made it to the final round please go to the Contest Page. A voting thread has been posted on the forum, and we encourage anyone to register and vote in this poll.

Click here to go to the Compiz web page

SLED 11 Branding..a sneak preview of things to come

rakeshvk — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:47:50 +0000

Preview of things to come…

skydome pics for XGL + Compiz

rakeshvk — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:38:18 +0000

Download them from moosy’s flicker. click here

openSUSE 10.2 Is Done!

rakeshvk — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:26:36 +0000

Great News … Andreas Jaeger sent an email to the openSUSE mailing list last night to announce that the new version of openSUSE Linux, that is, version 10.2 has gone gold and is ready for release.

Our build folks have created the first set of ISO images and will continue to create all of them — and the complete ftp distribution — early next week. We’ll start syncing soon the images to the ftp mirrors so that they have all files on thursday, 7th December, for the announcement.

CD production is starting now and I hope to see some shiny green openSUSE 10.2 boxes on the shelves before Christmas.

Waiting to get my hands on latest and greatest distro

Checkout the announcement on Suse Mailing list openSUSE 10.2 is done!

GIMP is more powerful than most people think

rakeshvk — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:23:44 +0000

These are the tutorials at the gimp.org site. They are arranged into categories including Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, Photo Editing, Web, and Script Authoring.

GIMP Tutorial

Microsoft Follows Oracle In Tighter Linux Embrace

rakeshvk — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:39:14 +0000

Agrees to back use of SUSE Linux with Windows, plans joint work with Novell

Microsoft Corp. last week announced a deal to promote the use of Novell Inc.’s SUSE Linux operating system alongside Windows in mixed server environments — a move that came just a week after nemesis Oracle Corp. significantly tightened its embrace of Linux.

Microsoft isn’t taking as big a leap into Linux as Oracle, which plans to clone Red Hat Inc.’s market-leading version of the open-source operating system and offer technical support to users at what it described as discount prices relative to what Red Hat charges.

Under its deal with Novell, Microsoft doesn’t plan to sell or support SUSE Linux. Instead, it will recommend the software to Windows users who want to add Linux systems. It will also purchase from Novell and then distribute about 70,000 coupons annually that entitle users to a year’s worth of maintenance and support on SUSE Linux. The two vendors said they will do joint development work in several technology areas, including virtualization of Windows on SUSE Linux and vice versa.

read full news from computerworld

NVIDIA brings Vista-esque graphics to Linux

rakeshvk — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:15:32 +0000

NVIDIA has officially released a Linux driver that supports a compatible version of the AIGLX instruction set.

The new driver, which was released yesterday and comes in at 12MB, adds a whole host of other features for users of the open source OS, including GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, a better display control panel and even support for Quad SLI.

The introduction of AIGLX-compatible instructions means that Linux users now have what is essentially a turnkey solution for Vista-level graphics. The latest build of Ubuntu, a consumer-oriented Linux distro, introduces desktop rendering with 3D hardware by combining the with Beryl window manager, in the same way that Vista does through the Aero glass interface.

Getting this desktop acceleration to work previous required some hackery, but now NVIDIA is providing the functionality for GeForce users in a far easier way.

This means that Linux joins Apple OSX on the list of operating systems supporting 3D hardware acceleration before Vista, which will finally join the fray on November 30 for business users and January 30 for consumers.

The increased stability and featureset will also be a bonus to those Linux users who have previously bemoaned NVIDIA’s approach to the platform.

You can pick up the drivers here –bit-tech

Bangalore readies for ‘one of world’s largest’ FOSS events

rakeshvk — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:08:59 +0000

FOSS.IN, a Bangalore-based annual event that calls itself “one of the world’s most focussed Free and Open Source Software events”, has announced its Nov 23-25 meet will have 82 talks and tutorials.Organisers of the FOSS.IN said they faced “truly a Herculean task to wade through the tonnes of amazing talks and tutorials”. Many good talks were left out for unavailability of slots, said organisers.

By its sheer size and participation, FOSS.IN has become one of the largest and most focussed Free and Open Source Software events, held annually in India.

Over the years it has attracted thousands of participants and organisers assert that the speaker roster reads like a who’s who of FOSS contributors from across the world.

Each year about 1,500 techies from what is India’s closest equivalent of a Silicon Valley flock to the meet, marked by inexpensive entry fees, some geeky tech talks, and a chance for India’s Open Source community from diverse states to meet up.

Key organiser Atul Chitnis said: “FOSS.IN/2006 will be full of technical talks, discussions, workshops and tutorials related to FOSS projects and technologies.”

click here for list of talks scheduled for FOSS.IN

Novell Answers Questions from the Community

rakeshvk — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:01:49 +0000

Since the announcement of the Novell-Microsoft agreement on November 2, we have been flooded with questions from the open source community about what this deal means to the Linux, the open source community, and even what this deal means for Novell. We will use this page to answer as many of those questions as possible. Check back frequently, as we will continue to add more answers as quickly as possible.

Have a question you want to ask? Click here to send it to Novell.

read the full Q&A

Microsoft & Novell Enter Linux Partnership

rakeshvk — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 16:56:24 +0000

Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. on 2nd of Oct announced a set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build, market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft® products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective products. These agreements will be in place until at least 2012. Under this new model, customers will realize unprecedented choice and flexibility through improved interoperability and manageability between Windows® and Linux.“They said it couldn’t be done. This is a new model and a true evolution of our relationship that we think customers will immediately find compelling because it delivers practical value by bringing two of their most important platform investments closer together,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “We’re excited to work with Novell, whose strengths include its heritage as a mixed-source company. Resolving our patent issues enables a combined focus on virtualization and Web services management to create new opportunities for our companies and our customers.”

Under the agreement, Novell is establishing clear leadership among Linux platform and open source software providers on interoperability for mixed-source environments. As a result, Microsoft will officially recommend SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers who want Windows and Linux solutions. Additionally, Microsoft will distribute coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support, so that customers can benefit from the use of an interoperable version of Linux with patent coverage as well as the collaborative work between the two companies.

“Too often technology companies ask their customers to adapt to them. Today we are adapting to our customers,” said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell. “Microsoft and Novell are enabling customers to take advantage of each other’s products where it makes sense in their enterprise infrastructure. We jointly believe that our business and patent agreements make it possible to offer the highest level of interoperability with the assurance that both our companies stand behind these solutions.”

Time to go and bet on Microsoft and Novell stocks Think it is too early to come up with any objective analysis. Guess time will tell. Being frank, I don’t have time to read all this.Related:

Joint letter to the Open Source Community

From Novell and Microsoft

Today’s announcement of the collaboration between Microsoft and Novell marks the beginning of a new era: Microsoft is coming to terms with Linux. Read more +

Over the past six years, we’ve seen the effect that the open source community has had on Microsoft. They’ve shared some source code, driven community projects like IronPython and WiX, and they continue to work with a number of open source software companies like JBoss, SugarCRM, XenSource, and Zend.

However, today’s news is a big step forward for the Linux market. Today, for the first time, Microsoft is collaborating directly with a Linux and Open Source software vendor. With this news, Microsoft is saying that Linux is an important part of the IT infrastructure.

More importantly, Microsoft announced today that it will not assert its patents against individual, non-commercial developers. Novell has secured an irrevocable promise from Microsoft to allow individual and non-commercial contributors the freedom to continue open source development, free from any concern of Microsoft patent lawsuits. That’s right, Microsoft wants you to keep hacking.

Why is Microsoft doing this? Because they recognize that customers today are deploying mixed source solutions – Windows and Linux – and they want these solutions to work well together. This will help Microsoft by making it easier for Linux customers to deploy Windows in their Linux environments. Microsoft is committing significant resources to promote joint Windows-Linux solutions. This is all about co-existence and giving customers greater choice.

The collaboration has multiple pieces:

Patent coverage

The concern over potential patent infringements makes some people nervous about the deployment of open source technologies.

To do this, Novell and Microsoft are providing covenants to each other’s customers, therefore releasing each company from the other’s patent portfolio.

What it really means is that customers deploying technologies from Novell and Microsoft no longer have to fear about possible lawsuits or potential patent infringement from either company.

Virtualization

Microsoft and Novell will collaborate in enhancing and developing the functionality required to efficiently virtualize Windows on Linux and Linux on Windows.

Both will now be first class citizens in data centers, addressing the needs of mixed environments. They will both enjoy optimized, supported and tuned device drivers to maximize their potential.

Virtualization Management

As a plus, the companies will work together to implement the necessary standards to manage data centers that run mixed environments (WS-Management).

Novell will develop tools to manage virtualized Windows machines, and Microsoft will develop tools to manage virtualized Linux systems.

Office Open XML

Novell engineers have been working for the last year together with Microsoft engineers through the ECMA TC45 working group in producing a complete specification that would allow for interoperability across office suites.

Novell will develop the code necessary to bring support for Office Open XML into OpenOffice, and we will contribute that support back to the OpenOffice.org organization. We will also distribute the Office Open XML plug-in in our own edition of OpenOffice. In addition, we will participate in the Open XML Translator open source project.

Collaboration Framework

One of the most important components of the collaboration agreement today is that we have setup a framework between Novell and Microsoft to discuss future collaborations.

Today’s announcement marks the beginning of a new era, and should not be considered a limitation. With the collaboration framework in place, we will periodically evaluate areas where we can work together improving the interoperability of our products.

Mono, OpenOffice and Samba

Under the patent agreement, customers will receive coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice as well as .NET and Windows Server.

All of these technologies will be improved upon during the 5 years of the agreement and there are some limits on the coverage that would be provided for future technologies added to these offerings.

The collaboration framework we have put in place allows us to work on complex subjects such as this where intellectual property and innovation are important parts of the conversation.

Novell customers can use these technologies, secure in the knowledge that Microsoft and Novell are working together to offer the best possible joint solution.

This is a watershed moment for Linux. It fundamentally changes the rules of the game. We’re really excited about this deal, and we hope you are too.