HP Mini-Note + SuSE Linux = Eee PC killer?, Jun 22, 2008

HP's amazing 2133 Mini-Note is let down by a mediocre processor, but could SuSE Linux turn it into the ultimate travelling companion?

Windows XP comes to the tiny Eee PC this month and Asus has its sights set on students.

Apple's much-touted new operating system, OS X Leopard, is in some ways worse than Windows Vista, says the founder of the Linux open source project, Linus Torvalds.

European Union regulators said Monday they were again investigating software giant Microsoft Corp. this time on suspicion of abusing its market dominance by squeezing out competing Internet browsers and software rivals dependent on Microsoft programs.

After years of being strictly for pointy-heads, the open source operating system Linux is now in the mainstream. Underlining this, the US Walmart store chain is now selling consumer PCs with Ubuntu, one of the most popular versions of Linux

Brazil's government favors Linux and other free open-source software in its programs to provide computers to the needy, because using Windows can drive up costs.

Linux is shedding its hard-core techie image in a bid to woo ordinary human beings seeking an easy-to-use operating system that can be downloaded for free.

The open source movement gathered even more momentum in Australia this week with Novell becoming the latest Linux supplier to gain approval to sell products and services to the NSW Government.

"We have a saying in the Linux space, which is actually from Mahatma Gandhi: 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win'. I think that Microsoft has already gone through the ignoring and the laughing stage. They are fighting us and they know that the next stage is either win or lose."

When Novell, a company which once controlled the PC networking business, got into the Linux trade two years ago, there were great expectations. And the way the company went about its business, it looked as though all those expectations were justified.

Two complaints filed with the Australian consumer watchdog against the SCO Group are still active, contrary to SCO claims, the two complainants said today.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has launched a stinging attack on Australian developer Andrew Tridgell, accusing him of "screwing people over" in reverse engineering the protocols of a proprietary source code management system.

The founder of the OpenBSD and Open SSH projects, Theo de Raadt, has been presented the Free Software Foundation's 2004 award for the advancement of free software.

A report claiming that the Linux kernel will be rewritten to avoid patent infringements has been termed "a bunch of nonsense" by a spokesperson for the Open Source Development Labs.

Webmaster's note: The Linux Online staff sends their best wishes to Patrick and hopes for a speedy recovery

The founder of the Slackware Linux project, Patrick Volkerding, has put out an appeal for help, after having been diagnosed with Actinomycosis.

The SCO Group has apparently put off plans to launch a website providing infomation and commentary on the company's legal disputes.

As taxpayers, we are greatly concerned about the waste of government funds on overly-expensive software products when there are more competitive, lower cost alternatives, and it is gratifying that both the Government and the Opposition have recognised the dangers of vendor lock-in and the importance of having multiple suppliers of software products...

A Gartner statement claiming that pre-installing Linux on PCs encourages piracy of Windows has been challenged by the Open Source Industry Association.

The industry body for open source within Australia said in a statement that if Gartner's conclusion that pre-installing Linux encouraged people to steal copies of Windows were correct, then this "tenuous logic" could be extended by stating that pre-installing Windows in turn must clearly encourage people to pirate application-level software.

Australia's Open Source Industry Association has urged PC vendors to contribute to the development of the WINE Windows-compatibility layer in order to ensure that they continue to make some margin at least on their wares.

OSIA spokesman Steven D'Aprano said if WINE was nurtured then Linux would be able to run most Windows applications and could deliver higher margins and more control to the PC vendors.

The recent annual summit of the K Desktop Environment project witnessed several significant developments, one of which was the fact that developers got the HTML rendering engine used by browsers like Mozilla working with the KDE browser Konqueror.