The past week was a fairly busy one for Novell (many events showed up in the RSS feeds) and it was a busy one for me as well, so I'm likely to have missed some stories. After a year of procrastination (primarily because of dedication to Free software and Linux advocacy), I finally submitted my thesis yesterday. I was prepared to do this a year ago when I was 24, but there was no harm in waiting. With that out of the way, in weeks to come this Web site can hopefully be made more active. Posting frequency is likely to increase.

Here are some of the news stories about Novell, which were not covered before.

OpenSUSE

A VMWare image of the latest OpenSUSE 10.3 is now available for download.

The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell.

[...]

This VMWare image lets you try it out without installing it or even rebooting your machine, and works in the Free VMWare player.

Installation & multimedia support is something which the OpenSUSE Web site covered last week.

openSUSE 10.3 has seen a lot of changes with the media selection; the most prominent one being the new 1-CD installation for KDE, and 1-CD installation for GNOME. Multimedia support in the distribution has also been improved, with MP3 support out-of-the-box for Banshee and Amarok. Today we bring you a special double-bill covering these two stories, and we’ll be talking to Michael Löffler, the Product Manager of openSUSE, to give us a little more insight.

Virtualisation was another.

Some changes in openSUSE 10.3 have ensured that if you are interested in just about any type of popular virtualisation, then openSUSE is the operating system to be on. From Xen to VirtualBox, QEMU and KVM — it’s all available in the new version. Today we’ll be going through a few of these new additions and we’ll be talking to Frank Kohler, the project manager for Virtualisation at SUSE, to help us learn a bit more.

Stephan sent the following E-mail to the "announce" mailing list on Tuesday:

Hi!

As mentioned in the RC1 announcement, we're doing only internal testing of the following release candidates to avoid storming the mirrors. But we decided to upload the live CDs, so you can test these and see if there are regressions in what you reported.

You can find them at http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3-RC2/iso/cd/

80397c4ffb1c33097303b70c6863b63e openSUSE-10.3-RC2-GNOME-Live-i386.iso ed7abd1d1517e5dd6505a03c17343a71 openSUSE-10.3-RC2-KDE-Live-i386.iso

Please note that we do not have set _any_ passsword this time.

Greetings, Stephan

I'm actually surprised to find that I have not been kicked out of the numerous SUSE/OpenSUSE mailing lists that I've been subscribed to for years.

Here is a video of OpenSUSE in its green 'gown' (OpenSUSE has only recently returned to its green origins).



Here is some community feedback:

We’ve been hard at work on openSUSE 10.3, to be released in a couple of weeks. RC1 marked the “transition point” for me. I’ve moved my main machines over to 10.3 RC1 from 10.2. It’s very nice to be running the latest GNOME again.

As usual, Susan Linton had the detailed report.

OpenSUSE 10.3 final is due out in just a few days, so let's take a look at the progress.

Another quick look at the 64-bit version of OpenSUSE 10.3 (RC1):

This is an actual recollection of how I installed Suse Linux 10.3 RC1 64bit onto my system. I downloaded this version for testing as well finding the difference between 64bit and 32bit version of Suse Linux.

There's no point in pretending. OpenSUSE is a top-notch distribution, but given its ties to Novell, this site calls for a boycott against it. Stories such as this one from Andrea bring regret to mind because some really talented and passionate developers are probably unable to make up for their managers' poor and selfish decisions.

We have mastered now the media and will now prepare our staging server and then give the mirrors some GBs to download and distribute.

Some nice photos therein.

Last night, Novell expressed its desired to find the next Ted Haeger, AKA Reverend Ted (well, a personal interpretation anyway).

From the message [opensuse-announce] openSUSE is looking for a Chief Linux Evangelist:

To strengthen the openSUSE project we're looking for an enthusiastic Chief Evangelist to: - promote and spread the adoption of openSUSE - be a public face for the project on conferences and events - act as voice of the community back to Novell's leadership team - develop and nurture the openSUSE communities - pro actively drive openSUSE marketing

This is a global role and as such, you can be located anywhere in the world.

For detailed information see [http://www.novell.com/job_search/servlet/eJobSearch?Detail=007086] We're looking forward to you!

-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex

They probably should consider Francis.

Ways That Novell Helps Linux and Open Source

Novell impresses with some real contributions to open source, including its involvement in Intel's power-saving project.

Intel yesterday launched an open-source project called LessWatts.org, which it hopes will reduce the power consumption of Linux-based servers, PCs and other devices.

[...]

Oracle, Novell and Red Hat are among the projects participants.

There is also the work on ATI's (AMD) open source driver.

NOVELL SUSE has released an alpha level video driver for ATI Radeon R5xx/R6xx boards, it says on its website.

More recently, Mr. Kroah-Hartman told us all that he would work full-time on development of open source drivers, which is excellent.

Remember Greg Kroah-Hartman's comments earlier this year about offering up free Linux driver development for all companies willing to provide hardware specifications to the developers? Novell has realized the potential of this open-source work and is now allowing Greg Kroah-Hartman to work full time on developing free software drivers that are free of charge to companies that are interested.

Identity Management

Novell keeps bragging about its important identity management endeavors. A Novell partner chose Novell Identity Manager for its new solution and New York City's Transit seems to give more bragging rights..

New York City Transit moves more than 7 million people each day. To do that overwhelming task requires a high level of synchronization among its 49,000 staff members spread out in 500 locations. This year, the Transit Authority is evolving to a computerized environment not only for its mammoth train control system, but also for its employees.

NYC Transit sought a solution that would ensure its employees and contractors could quickly and securely access network applications and buildings. Revoking network and building access for terminated employees was also time consuming and posed security risks. NYC Transit selected a Novell identity and security management solution consisting of Novell Identity Manager and Novell Access Manager to automatically synchronize user identities across multiple access systems and operating platforms. Employees and contractors have role-based access to applicat

Here is Novell's press release about Bandit.

As part of the "Control Your Identity" campaign launch, Novell will conduct a live demonstration of the Bandit Project's DigitalMe and Windows CardSpace information card selectors using Bandit Cards to perform identity transactions online at the Digital ID World Conference this week in San Francisco. Further promotion will take place at various IT industry events over the next six months, culminating at Novell's annual BrainShare€® user conference in March 2008.

Miscellaneous News

Here is a nice story where Novell's Linux solutions are used.

Windsor’s “mixed source” approach includes OpenOffice, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and proprietary technologies like Microsoft Windows Server, Novell NetWare and Novell ZENworks.

Here is another.

on Edwards, an IT Officer for the two faculties, said: "We knew that finding an affordable solution that could work seamlessly in a Netware environment and that would effectively transition us to a networked storage model while giving us reliability, support, and ease of use was going to be a challenge. Like most educational establishments, for us, money is not a bottomless pit. Our servers and direct-attach storage infrastructure were dated and we wanted to deploy a cost-effective, network-based data protection solution that would work with our Novell and Linux servers."

Novell is also a Gold Sponsor of the annual "IAITAM conference.

IAITAM 2007 Annual Conference & Exhibition announces HP, Novell and other leaders in the IT Asset Management space as sponsors of the November 7-9 event in Palm Springs California.

Until next time...