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LINUX NEWS

LinuxAtHome (1629) - This site has news from lots of Linux feeds.

Linspire - is a very easy to use desktop replacement for Windows based on the Debian desktop distribution. It can also work with a dual-boot Windows environment without a lot of effort. Load this on an old laptop or workstation with a Pentium II or III cpu and be amazed at what you can do with only 256meg of RAM and a 20 GB hard disk. The desktop metaphors are similar to the Mac and are easy to pickup without a lot of training.

Ta FUSION and FRONTIER - Are you thinking about converting from Windows to a Linux Desktop? Then you owe it to yourself to check out this product. These new Linux Distributions are ready to go out of the box, take little setup or tweaking for even the novice user and best of all its designed and built in Colorado.

Robotics Trends (1561)
Robotics Trends is an online news and opinion portal that identifies and interprets business and technology developments in the personal, service, mobile and military robotics markets, through exclusive features, insightful analysis and the latest news on the robots and robotic technologies that assist, entertain and protect us.

SearchEnterpriseLinux.com (318)
SearchEnterpriseLinux.com provides a one-stop information, news and advice resource for IT shops who use or plan to use Linux.

Zotero: A seriously useful research tool

By: Dmitri Popov

If you spend most of your time doing research on the Web, you need Zotero, a Firefox extension that helps you manage research sources. With Zotero installed, Firefox is not confined to the Web, and you can use it as a standalone application for all sorts of online and offline research.

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Recent Articles

Reports of Red Hat's death at Oracle's hand are premature

By: Joe Barr

Commentary: Is it just me, or is Oracle biting off more than it can chew with its foray into the land of Linux support services? In one corner, we have a finely-coiffed prince with a rapper's ego, Larry Ellison, and his database empire. In the other, we have Red Hat: almost synonymous with Linux, especially in the business world, and long a pillar of the free/open source community.

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Review: Ubuntu Edgy is nice, but not so edgy

By: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

The Ubuntu team is scheduled to release Ubuntu 6.10, codenamed Edgy Eft, today. After working with beta and release candidates over the last few weeks, I've found it to be a solid and usable upgrade for Dapper -- but not a particularly cutting-edge release.

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Automatically add contacts to KAddressBook with KBBDB

By: Mayank Sharma

Managing your address book and appending new addresses can get tiresome. If your email client is KMail, KBBDB can help with part of the job. This Perl-based filter sits idle waiting for messages to show up, then extracts any new sender's email address into KAddressBook.

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Review: Firefox 2.0 is a solid improvement

By: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

Not to be outdone by the debut of Internet Explorer 7 last week, the Mozilla team has released Firefox 2.0 with a minor makeover, a few new features, and a number of enhancements to existing features. It's not a drastic change from the 1.5 series, but Firefox 2.0 bring enough improvements to make the upgrade worthwhile.

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Xandros layoffs? Just staffing 'adjustments'

By: Lisa Hoover

Xandros, a distributor of Linux desktop and server operating systems, caught at least five of its employees by surprise last week by suddenly terminating their employment without warning. While CEO Andreas Typaldos says the move is simply an "in-flight adjustment," at least one former employee questions that statement.

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Vim tips: Working with external commands

By: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

Vim is a powerful editing tool, but there are some things it just can't do. However, Vim lets you access shell commands and utilities without leaving Vim, and that lets you perform some amazing tricks.

Some facts you need to know about before downloading any Linux distributions:

Linux, together with a set of GNU programs, is an operating system. That is, Linux is not a single program or a suite of tools. Most "versions" of Linux, known as "distributions", are available to download free of charge. However, there are some things you should know about downloading and installing Linux:

First, you don't have to actually install Linux in your hard disk to use the Linux operating system. There exist several "versions" of Linux that can be downloaded an burned to a CD. These variants of the Linux operating system, known as "Live CD" versions, will boot Linux directly from the CD on systems that are capable of doing this. (most PCs manufactured in the last 7 to 8 years will allow this). Memory requirements vary, so please consult our list of Live CD distributions on our distributions page (choose the option 'Live CD' from the 'Category' menu). There are several popular Live CD distributions, such as MEPIS, Knoppix and Slax. Most major Linux distributors (SUSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu) also offer Live CD versions of their products.

If you're interested in running Linux indefinitely or permanently, you can also download versions designed to be installed on your hard disk. Here is some information you should know.

You should have a high-speed Internet connection (T3, T1, xDSL, cable modem). Trying to download a major vendor's version of Linux will most likely be a frustrating experience with a dial-up modem connection.

You'll need the ISO images or a DVD image for the distribution you want to download which you must then copy or "burn" into a CD or DVD.

If you already run another operating system, you must re-partition your hard disk in order to install a "standard" Linux distribution.

When you download Linux from the Internet. You are not entitled to that particular distributor's technical support. You will have to look for the documentation that you need in order to resolve any problems you might run into or seek appropriate help on websites or in other Internet forums.

In other words, if you don't have a high-speed connection to Internet or a drive that writes to blank CDs or DVDs, then downloading is probably not the best way for you to get a full-featured Linux distribution. You can, though, depending on your location, get Linux free in magazines or from retailers that will sell you a distribution on one or more CDs at very low cost. Distributions obtained in this way do not usually include documentation or support. There are also many books that include a Linux distribution.

If you don't know how to partition a hard disk or you have very little experience with installing and maintaining an operating system, you can still install Linux fairly easily by purchasing a boxed set. In this case, the cost of Linux system increases, but on the other hand, you will be provided full documentation, step by step installation instructions and in many cases free technical support for up to 90 days by phone or e-mail.

If you're still not quite sure you want to make the leap to Linux, you may want to at least get a feel for how it looks. This can be as simple as using your favorite Internet browser. The O'Reilly website offers a series of slideshows with screenshots that will give you an idea of the look and feel of many Linux distributions. This can be helpful when choosing which version of Linux is right for you.

Regardless of the way in which you obtain a Linux distribution, we at Linux Online feel that switching to Linux will be a positive experience. You will see your knowledge of computing increase at the same time as your productivity. You will be able to do much more with your computer and at a fraction of the cost of proprietary operating systems.

For more information, we also recommend you read our Linux Online FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and our page: So You Want to Use Linux? which talks about Linux migration.