返回|
March 26, 2008 Perhaps what has given desktop Linux its biggest shot in the arm is the evolution of various disruptive technologies that have, by design, made desktop Linux adoption just that much easier. The following are some of the most disruptive examples of disruptive technology on the Linux platform – including current technologies and those whose adoption is coming just around the corner: WINE - Using Windows applications without needing to fall into the Windows licensing trap. Thanks to WINE, end users on the Linux platform are able to run a number of Windows applications without needing to utilize any sort of Windows emulators of any kind. How is it disruptive? WINE's very mission of allowing users to run software on their terms, regardless of the license that the software happens to use is particularly disruptive. Closed source, open source, whatever – it just works. What makes WINE such a killer app is allowing Linux users to use their existing Windows software without needing to purchase a copy of Windows to be run inside some sort of virtual machine. There’s no question that this disruptive technology has been a boon to desktop Linux adoption. Over the past 14 months I’ve reviewed two previous releases of Vector Linux: Vector Linux 5.8 Standard and Vector Linux 5.8 SOHO. Anyone who has run those versions of Vector Linux would find the new version quite familiar. In reality the changes between 5.8 and 5.9, which was released in December, are like day and night. For starters up until now Vector Linux was a 32-bit distro. A 64-bit version of Vector Linux 5.9 Standard is currently in beta and looks very promising. However, since it is still beta code I’m restricting my review to the 32-bit version.
Last year Vector Linux came in four flavors. The list has now been expanded to seven different variations on the distribution: Standard, Deluxe, SOHO, Live, Light, Mini, and Light Live. SOHO, with KDE as the default desktop and all the most popular applications, is the full featured version. Standard is based on the Xfce4 desktop and provides superior speed and performance. Both are freely downloadable. Deluxe, available for purchase, is Standard plus a second CD with additional applications including KDE and OpenOffice. Live, as the name implies, is a live CD version of Standard. Light is a paired down, extremely lightweight version designed to run on older systems with as little as 64MB of RAM. In reality it will run with less than that. Light is built around either a JWM or Fluxbox desktop and lightweight applications. Mini is a further reduced version of Light that fits on a 5cm/3″ mini CD and requires only 1.1GB of disk space. Finally, Light Live is, as you’d expect, the live CD version of Light. So far only new Standard and Deluxe versions have been released but the others, all in various stages of development and testing, can already be sampled. This review will stick strictly with the Standard version from here on out. My main box for testing Vector Linux 5.9 Standard my aging general purpose laptop, a five year old Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204 (1 GHz Celeron processor, 512MB RAM). Though this system has adequate memory for any current Linux distro it’s sufficiently challenged in terms of processing power for KDE to be sluggish and for Gnome to be noticeably slower than Xfce4 in most distros. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is the upcoming version of the Ubuntu operating system. The common name given to this release from the time of its early development was “Hardy Heron”.
Note: This is still a beta release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released in April 2008. If you want to know what are new features in this release check here
Before you start Upgrading you need to know the following points
Now you need to Press Alt-F2 and type update-manager  Dozens of network-attached storage (NAS) servers and other consumer appliances are about to gain mainline kernel and Debian GNU/Linux support. The 2.6.25 kernel, currently in the final stages of testing, will support Marvell's Feroceon micro-architecture and "Orion" SoCs, with Debian support close behind, sources say.
The kernel will include patches from the Orion git tree maintained by Nicolas Pitre and Lennert Buytenhek. The two notable ARM Linux hackers were hired by Marvell to add mainline Orion support, according to Martin Michlmayr, an HP engineer who led the Debian project for several years. After 2.6.25 ships, Debian support will not be far behind, Michlmayr suggested, commenting, "Debian support is mostly waiting for the 2.6.25 kernel release; most of the basic support will be done in time 2.6.25 is out." Debian support should make it much easier for hobbyists, experimenters, and developers to install Linux on Orion-based devices, including lots of network-attached storage appliances that run Linux, as well as wired and wireless networking equipment and other consumer devices based on other OSes. Sandeep Shah, Marvell's director of marketing, said, "While we support several operating systems (Linux, VxWorks, netBSD, to name three), the [Orion-based devices] that are most visible in the Linux community today are the NAS ones." 据Northbridge Venture Partners公司与开源软件商务会议在3月15日发表的一篇有关开源软件未来的研究报告称，开源软件优于传统软件地方是成本、灵活性和不依赖于厂商。这是开源软件吸引人的三个主要因素。 今天 Opera 第一个通过了 ACID 3 测试，得到满分，并放出了截图。Webkit 也接着宣布满分通过 ACID 3。而 Firefox 这方面的进度却大大落后了，目前仍然是60－70分。Mozilla 开发者 Rob Sayre 发博文，称 Acid3 测试根本没用，还指出了一个在 Acid 3 作弊的链接。博客原文翻译：
我本来在看 Mozilla 通不过 Acid3 测试的所有结果列表，却发现改正大部分问题对网络和浏览器都没有什么好处。它们确实是Firefox 的 bug ，也都会被修复（除了SMIL，这是什么烂东西 ），但是对用户和网页作者来说并没有什么影响。通过测试不过是摆个支持标准的姿态。我觉得在文字节点还不能共用的时候测试createNodeIterator 没有意义，而且非常虚伪。 将有成堆的网络附加存储(NAS)服务器和其他顾客用具将可能获得干线内核和Debian GNU/Linux支持。据新闻来源透露，内核的2.6.25版本现在已经到了测试版的最后阶段，它将会支持俊茂微电子(Marvell)的Feroceon微架构和“Orion”片上系统(SoC)，随后Debian支持将关闭。 昨日Linux教父Torvalds发布了2.6.25版内核的RC7版本，并宣称“请好好测试它，因为我们对最终的真实的2.6.25版本充满期待”。据称最新的内核本周就会登场。 昨日,英国标准协会BSI已经修正了自己的立场,将投票支持微软的开放式Office Open XML格式OOXML成为国际标准。据国外媒体报道,有内部人士透露,决策小组内部已经达成了5比1的局面,赞成OOXML格式成为国际标准。其中唯一有可能持反对意见的小组成员应该是IBM,他们之前主推开放式文件格式ODF,不赞成OOXML成为国际标准。 前一段时间，我们为大家介绍了 Banshee 1.0 Alpha 1。时隔两周，Banshee 又发布了 1.0 Alpha 2，其中最主要的是添加了视频播放及管理功能。至此，Banshee 已经成长为一款综合而全面的媒体播放工具。
此外，在 Banshee 1.0 Alpha 2 中也添加了其他一些细小的特性，比如改进了对暗色 GTK 主题的支持、书签扩展已移植到核心、对列表视图中的列处理进行了改善，等等。更详细的内容可以查看 Banshee 1.0 Alpha 2 发布注记。 Banshee 1.0 Alpha 2 可从这里下载。使用 openSUSE 10.3 的朋友可以通过这个链接来安装 Banshee 1.0 Alpha 2。 |
Linux has a negative image associated with it; a most unfortunate affliction when that image is contrary to the truth. I'm occasionally asked "why do you bother with Linux?" by people who haven't used it recently under the assumption that it's difficult to use, counter intuitive, geeky, nerdy and any number of other adjectives. However it is my intention to raise awareness that Linux is remarkably usable these days, so on that note let's start looking at how Linux has outgrown that stereotype.
1. Excellent, mind numbingly easy media supportThere was a time where only the hardcore (self proclaimed geeky) types would bother with Linux because getting media (videos, most notably) to work fully was a pain in the backside. Over the past 12 months that situation has changed drastically and now the majority of distros come with either codecs preloaded (so your videos work directly post install) or a handy little application telling you what codec you need to play that video, as well as a link to the online repository to get it. Have you tried getting videos to play on a fresh Windows XP install recently? You need to know what you're doing and that's not true with modern Linux. 2. Being 100% user orientedModern Linux is more in line with the times; we don't want a bare operating system (a la XP), we want out of the box functionality and most releases I've tried of late have that in spades. Most angles are covered from GIMP, OpenOffice.org, KSnapshot (and so on) which means that an average user could install something like PCLinuxOS 2007 and not need to obtain more software. The user is a massive consideration with modern Linux and I really like that - Apple understand this but Microsoft don't. Here are 5 funkalicious tips to improve your Linux desktop.
Weather it be speed, or just look and feel, here are some of my favourites. (All these tips were written and fully work on a Ubuntu desktop, but theres no reason why they wont work on any other Linux distribution). Please remember to back your data up before attempting any of these as we cant be responsible for any damages. All these tips require using the big scary terminal, but only very minimal knowledge of it and the ability to follow instructions. 1. Terminal Greeting - Look and Feel For our first tweak, we will be using a program called Figlet to create a nice little welcome message when you start your terminal. Here’s how to do it. Simply Install Figlet from Synaptic or by sudo apt-get install figlet next type the following line into terminal: sudo gedit /home/username/.bashrc Obviously, replacing “username” by your username. Next scroll down to the very bottom of the file and add this line: figlet “Uberl33t”;echo -n ‘With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’; echo Finally, save the file, exit terminal and open a new terminal and you should see something special. 2. Minimal Swapping - Speed This is a very well known trick, but one of my favourites. We all know RAM is faster then your Swap Disk/Page File. By default, Ubuntu sets its “swappiness” to 60. But if you have over half a gigabyte of RAM you might consider changing that so your ram gets used more, thus speeding up your system. (Swappiness uses a value between 0 and 100 to determine how often it uses its swap disk over RAM, a lower number therefore uses ram more often). Here’s how to do it: Level: Intermediate Michael Galpin (mike.sr@gmail.com), Developer, eBay 18 Mar 2008 Eclipse has become the premier integrated development environment (IDE) for Java™ developers everywhere. Eclipse is definitely not a one-size-fits-all system, though. Its plug-in architecture allows you to add the features you need. This is even more important in large organizations like eBay. Such organizations have very specific needs. Eclipse makes it easy to not only tailor a solution to those needs but also to scale that solution across a large organization. Here in Part 2 of a two-part "Eclipse at eBay" series, we will look at some of the organizational needs of eBay and how it has used Eclipse to fill those needs. We will concentrate on how eBay has used Eclipse, but the beauty is that you can employ similar tactics for your organization. This article assumes a rudimentary familiarity with Eclipse. We will talk about the eBay Development Environment (EDE), which is based on Eclipse V3.2 and requires JDK V5.0 or later (see Resources for links). Some familiarity with Web development, including HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, is useful, but not required. Software development comes in all shapes and sizes. It is a hobby for many folks. It is a great business for doing consulting. It is also done by organizations, both very small and very large. When you are developing software on your own, you pick the tools you like. You write code the way you like. You keep track of your code and maybe perform some backups periodically. As soon as you start working with others, things become trickier. This equation only gets more complicated when the development is being done by an organization of thousands. Luckily, Eclipse is up to this challenge. It provides a powerful tool for standardizing around. The extensibility afforded by its plug-in architecture makes it easy to tailor its functionality to your organization, regardless of its size. To demonstrate, we will look at how eBay has used Eclipse to meet its needs. It is that time of year again: a new Ubuntu release is upon us. The beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 was released a few days ago, so I decided to give it a try and see what new features and improvements they have shoved into this one. As always, this is as much a preview of the latest GNOME release (2.22) as it is of Ubuntu itself. Read on for the preview.
You will be happy to find out that you no longer have to boot the entire live desktop before you can install Ubuntu. On the CD's GRUB menu, there is now an option called "Install Ubuntu", which will load the installer, but not the entire live desktop. Good effort, since I do not really use the live desktop anyway. Ubuntu 8.04 comes with X.org 7.3, which adds some interesting, and long-overdue, capabilities to Ubuntu: dynamic changing of resolutions. As far as I am concerned, we break out the champagne, since this is a feature many, many have waited for. It is a shame it has taken so long, but at least we can enjoy it now. A configuration utility has been included (peculiarly located in the Applications menu, instead of the Configuration menu), which also allows you to manage any secondary displays. Laptop users, rejoice. Another long-overdue and much-awaited update is that Nautilus can now actually be welcomed into the 21st century. GVFS, the new userspace virtual filesystem, improves Nautilus' performance across the board, and thanks to PolicyKit, Nautilus will actually prompt for the root password if you try to access a restricted location or file, something other operating systems and file managers have been able to do since Citizen Kane came out. Sadly, PolicyKit does not seem to have been integrated fully just yet. If you open as a normal user, say, sources.list, in gedit, edit it around a bit, and try to save it, you cannot. It will not ask you for the root password - it will just simply say "I'm afraid I can't do that", and offer a cancel button. Something to work on for the future. PolicyKit did find its way to other areas, such as the various configuration panels. This means that you can now authorise just actions, instead of entire applications/panels. Ralph Morelli, professor of computer science at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., has a double motive in spearheading the Humanitarian FOSS Project (HFOSS). The project's mission of providing free software development to help solve real-world social issues is a noble reason to rally the participation of college students who will spend their summers learning how to be part of the open source development community. But this NSF-funded project also hopes to show that humanitarian software development projects are a great way to revitalize undergraduate computing education. Enrollment in US computer science programs has been declining in recent years, according to the National Science Foundation. NSF's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) devised a special initiative, called CISE Pathways to Revitalized Undergraduate Computing Education (CPATH), to award grants to educators who are "creating new approaches" to computer science education. HFOSS got its start after one of Morelli's former students, Trishan de Lanerolle, returned to Trinity after a vacationing in his homeland of Sri Lanka. "He came back and told me about Sahana, a disaster management and recovery system. He said he met some of the developers, and that this was an open source project. I had been getting interested in open source software, especially after reading in ACM a column by David Patterson, ACM's president. He said that undergraduate computer science curricula are not doing anything with open source, and we should be teaching it." Another column by Patterson that Morelli read, written soon after the Hurricane Katrina disaster, encouraged his readers to get out and help their neighbors. “Ubuntu”是近两年来最火的一个流行词，得益于“善待他人”的理念和活跃的社群，Ubuntu渐渐形成了属于它独有的文化。
抛开操作系统本身，我们来看一组趣味的图片吧！
—– 摩托罗拉限量版金质Ubuntu手机，抢购啊！~
Ubuntu机房，清一色Ubuntu操作系统。
一个图像浏览器和多媒体播放器，它能够支持大约400种文件格式。XnView同时还支持动画gif、多页面tiff、多图像图标以及mpeg、 avi、 wav、aiff和Quicktime格式的文件。此外，XnView还具有浏览器、幻灯片、屏幕捕捉、缩略图制作、批处理转换、十六进制浏览、拖放、通讯录、扫描输入等功能。该软件支持44种语言，并能够在Linux/FreeBSD/Irix/Solaris/HP-UX/AIX等操作系统中使用。 下载:XnView 1.93.2 Lite
日前，亚洲年度国际开源峰会－2008亚洲开源软件高峰论坛暨软件展（Asia OSS Conference and Showcase 2008，简称AOSS 2008）在广州亚洲国际大酒店拉开帷幕。此次论坛凝聚了亚洲开源的主要推进力量，超过20个国家和地区的政府、开源机构代表以及行业专家到会，共同探讨区域开源产业合作，推动开源代码软件发展，促进亚洲各国开源软件的交流和合作。作为国内系统运行管理软件市场的先行者和倡导者，日立信息系统（上海）有限公司此次首次携带Linux版本JP1软件参会，成为AOSS 2008又一新亮点。
大学校园是Ubuntuer的聚集地。Ubuntu那炫目的特效以及它那共享互相的精神吸引了不少的在校大学生。而且学生们有足够的时间和热情来帮助其他爱好者。正因为如此Ubuntu官方提供Ubuntu校园社团的建立和活动展示的平台，你可以在那里寻找你所在的区域的社团，他们将提供面对面的支持 服务，你也可以申请加入到这个社团。
上图即为Ubuntu中文站官方为Ubuntu校园社团开辟的版块  你还在等什么呢？如果你是一个大学生，你是一个Ubuntu的爱好者，就赶快行动吧！ |
Disruptive Technologies that Affect Deskto...
LinuxDaily.net 由一个Linux爱好者创办
Copyright © 2008 Linux Daily, All Rights Reserved
ICP备案编号：京ICP备xxxxxxxx号
