Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part I: Ballnux Downtime, Presto Instant-on, and Other Xandros News

THERE HAS been no news about SLE* that we could find, but there were a few developments (and problems) for OpenSUSE over the course of the past week. There was also some coverage of public appearances from Xandros. We'll go through them quickly.



OpenSUSE



After a relatively long downtime, Zonker weighed in and eventually confirmed that all services had been fully restored.

The main service affected by the above incident is the downloads service. Novell has also released a live version of OpenSUSE with the latest KDE4, which is available for download.

New KDE Four Live CDs with KDE 4.2.1, KOffice 2.0 Beta 7 and much more are up.


Heise, whose affinity for SUSE is clear to see due to geography, republished the OpenSUSE roadmap.

Stephan Kulow, the OpenSUSE project manager, has proposed a roadmap for the future versions of OpenSUSE. While Ubuntu and Fedora distributions currently aspire to provide a new release every six months, which is loosely pinned to the GNOME development schedule, previously OpenSUSE did not have a have a fixed release schedule. OpenSUSE will now try to ship a new version every eight months as part of their new release cycle.


There was not much in the blogosphere about OpenSUSE, but it was mentioned among 10 GNU/Linux distributions at Device Ace.

It’s very easy to install openSUSE 11.1, then you will have too choose between KDE 3.5.10, KDE 4.1.3, GNOME 2.24.1, Xfce 4.4.3, and 3D desktop using Compiz Fusion or kwin/KDE4 desktop environments. After you customize your categories and sub-categories, then you should try applications like OpenOffice.org 3.0, Wine 1.1.9, NetworkManager 0.7, Firefox 3.0.4, Bittorrent, Pidgin 2.5.1, and Banshee 1.4.1 among many others. openSUSE 11.1 features 3G and Bluetooth support, it’s reliable, free to download, fun and easy to use, and it will help you to get the job done!


Some HOWTOs that we found about OpenSUSE are:

  1. Analyzing boot performance of OpenSuse 11.1 with bootchart


  2. Easy live upgrade from 11.0 to 11.1


  3. All in one Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Program for OpenSuse


There is likely to be lots more material in OpenSUSE Weekly News.

* openSUSE Project Meeting next Wednesday * openSUSE Trademark Guidelines Released * Ken Yap: How to clone a VirtualBox Linux VM to a real machine (v0.9) * 11.2 Roadmap and Fixed Release Cycle for openSUSE * Rupert Horstkötter: OSF Status Report #3


SUSE (SLES/SLED)



It was almost impossible to find anything, but SLES is mentioned in a sentence right here.

Most of those new features are also now available for Linux PCs, Ewing said. Altiris is supporting Novell Inc.'s SUSE and Red Hat Inc.'s Linux distributions, she said.


Novell's GNU/Linux business is also mentioned in a sentence in the British press.

It could be argued that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will suffer more than most in the present bleak economic environment. Shorter cashflow cycles, limited bargaining power, shrinking funds available for IT investment and a lack of internal resources all look to be daunting obstacles.

[...]

Nevertheless, the fees for commercial open-source packages such as those on offer from Red Hat, Novell or Ingres, can often equal the total cost of ownership of propriety software over time.


And again, former Novell employee Matt Asay mentions SUSE (Studio) very briefly in this list of companies.

In this way open source embraces the Web, rather than fighting it, and makes software development and delivery an ongoing process, fitting it to how enterprises actually consume software. Novell's SUSE Linux Studio groks this, enabling ongoing customization of Linux distributions. So does Red Hat's RHEL distribution, which lets customers subscribe to ongoing, updated software. So, too, does Zimbra, which adds to the subscription commercial extensions.


Xandros



There was almost more coverage of Xandros than there was of SUSE. It was mostly to do with Presto, which we wrote about last week. It actually made Slashdot's front page and also appeared in:

i. Exchange alternatives: Pros and cons

CommuniGate Pro (CommuniGate Systems), Kerio MailServer (Kerio Technologies), MDaemon Pro (Alt-N Technologies), MailSite Fusion (MailSite), Scalix Enterprise Edition (Scalix, a Xandros company), and Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Professional Edition (Zimbra, a Yahoo company).


ii. [Feature] CES Roundup: Equipment Makers Play for Survival (2)

Qualcomm Inc of the US is another hot prospect, exhibiting a notebook PC mounting its Snapdragon chipset for mobile equipment (Fig 11). It comes with RedFlag Linux and Xandros OS. The mobile phone network support provided by Snapdragon can be used for communication. CDMA Technologies vice president Mark Frankel of Qualcomm said, "We think this is the first Linux machine in the world capable of communication via the 3G network without any add-ons." It is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2009.


iiii. Bypassing Windows with a Quick Boot

Software called Presto could provide an alternative to waiting. Demonstrated this week at Demo, a tech conference held in Palm Desert, CA, it joins a handful of products that have emerged recently in an effort to get people working on their computers faster. These products, offered by companies including Intel, HP, and DeviceVM, generally allow a person to boot up in less than 30 seconds, and in some cases less than 10.


Presto made it into this list of "Cool New Technologies." It also appeared as a feature or merely mentioned in coverage from Canada where parts of the company are based.

Xandros is based in the U.S. with their development lab in Ottawa. They launched Presto, a software application allowing your computer to boot up in seconds rather than minutes. You don’t open up Windows, yet you still access most functions.


Lastly, to address a separate area of Xandros, a Xandros partner issued this press release about Scalix.

A spokesperson for Sentegrity, the exclusive distributor of all Xandros products and services in Latin America, Mexico and the Caribbean, today announced a new client in Ecuador.

The Hilton Hotel Quito Ecuador has standardized their email solution and chose Scalix as their only email and collaboration platform. Sentegrity systems integration partner, Eqtek, provided the hands on implementation and vital guidance to migrate the hotel’s 120 employees to Scalix.


In summary, although GNU/Linux thrives in general, SUSE seems to be slowing down and Xandros is moving to other areas that don't tackle the desktop market in the most direct of ways.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
 
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day