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Video Demonstration: Linux on an iPod In his recent feature Get the most out of an old iPod, my co-editor Adam mentioned installing Linux on your iPod. This may seem like a crazy thing to do, but YouTube member greg1717 posted a video of his iPod running Linux in action, and it looks damn cool. After the jump, check out a video of browsing photos, playing video and playing games all on a 3G iPod.

Thursday February 02, 2006 (03:01 PM GMT) By: Brian L. Shaver Poker is everywhere nowadays, from television to books to poker rooms popping up in almost every casino -- and of course, you can play poker online. Unfortunately, many of the most popular sites say they require Windows. However, as with most software strings that bind you to a particular proprietary operating system, these bonds are easily cut. Looking to improve my game but frustrated by some sites' lack of support for Linux clients, I sent an email to the support for PokerStars, one of the first online gaming sites...

Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, has fleshed out his unhappiness with GPLv3 in three recent posts on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML). Torvalds previously stated that the kernel will remain under the licensing terms of GPLv2. Yesterday, Tovalds offered his opinion as to where the battle over DRM should take place: I would suggest that anybody who wants to fight DRM practices seriously look at the equivalent angle. If you create interesting content, you can forbid that _content_ to ever be encrypted or limited. In other words, I personally think that the anti-DRM clause is much...

The System Designer allows you to design a Linux system profile which can be downloaded onto a single network install image. When inserted into a target system, the boot image will automatically build the system per your design -- all hands free, all via the network, no additional media required.

Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business - desktop software. A version of the increasingly popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as 'Goobuntu'. Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for. It's possible that it's just one of the toys Googleplex engineers play with on Fridays, when they get time off from buffing the search engine code...

In an exclusive interview on Friday, infamous hacker Kevin Mitnick told Tectonic that, given the choice between finding security vulnerabilities in closed and open source, he'd prefer to attack an open source environment. “Open source would be easier [to hack],” admits ex-hacker turned security consultant Mitnick. “It's less work.” Mitnick says that open source software is easier to analyse for security holes, since you can see the code. Proprietary software, on the other hand, requires either reverse engineering, getting your hands on illicit copies of the source code, or using a technique called “fuzzing”. Fuzzing means putting fake data –...

Sun is keener than ever to port Linux to its new multicore T1 chip, even if it's not expected to happen for six to nine months. The company has made T1 servers available to Linux developers and is working with unnamed Linux distributors to develop the port. And while a port may be completed this year, it will be a while before Linux on T1 appears in production environments; application certification and support will be needed as well. Mike Splain, chief technologist for Sun’s Scalable Systems Group, believes Linux running on the company’s eight-core chip will open up new options...

Linus Torvalds has weighed in on the debate over the draft of version 3 of the GPL in a post on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) this afternoon. Torvalds says that the Linux kernel "in general" has always been covered under version 2 of the GPL, and that that isn't going to change. Torvalds made the statement on the LKML to clarify the version of the GPL covering the Linux kernel. While many GPLed projects include the clause, "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version," which would allow anyone to license code under the...

Red Hat representative Gillian Farquhar announced last week that the company plans to add support for Apple's new Intel Macs to its popular distribution. Fedora and several other commonly used Linux distributions support the PowerPC architecture used by Apple in the past, and Red Hat wants to ensure that its software will continue to run on new Apple hardware in the future. The current impediment is the Extensible Firmware Interface, a relatively new BIOS replacement designed by Intel that is not yet commonly used or widely supported. Linux EFI support already exists in the form of elilo, a special version...

What's Left Of Unix? Vendors are scrapping over what remains of a once-hearty market. By Charles Babcock, InformationWeek Jan. 23, 2006 For 35 years, the Unix operating system has been a mainstay of the computer industry, from its origins as a time-sharing system used by horn-rimmed academics to its central role running some of today's most powerful servers. But enthusiasm for this sophisticated piece of code is in decline as sales flatten, while Linux, the Unix-like alternative, thrives. Which leads to the inevitable question: Is Unix itself on the wane? The past few years haven't been kind to Unix. Two...

Red Hat and Suse have released patches for a critical security hole in their Linux distributions that stem from a vulnerability in the KDE desktop environment.KDE is a user interface package used with several versions of Unix and Linux. The KDE hole was discovered Thursday and rated critical by both Red Hat and the French Security Incident Response Team (FrSIRT).It affects the JavaScript engine used in various parts of KDE, including its Konqueror Web browser. The flaw could allow a remote attacker to launch an overflow attack and run arbitrary code on the user's machine, FrSIRT said.Users could disable JavaScript...

...According to Attorneys Wasabi Systems Releases a New Study Analyzing Sarbanes-Oxley Risks Associated with Linux NORFOLK, Va.--Jan. 18, 2006--Many companies using Linux for embedded applications may be unwittingly violating the Linux license and even breaking federal securities laws, according to a white paper released today by Wasabi Systems, a leading embedded operating systems provider. The white paper, When GPL Violations are Sarbanes-Oxley Violations, is the first in a series of legal studies analyzing the common misperceptions and risks associated with Linux and its license, the GNU General Public License (GPL). Future white papers will look at the GPL implications of...

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Discussion Draft 1 of Version 3, 16 Jan 2006 THIS IS A DRAFT, NOT A PUBLISHED VERSION OF THE GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE. Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make...

When the Mars rovers blasted into space to begin a 60-million mile journey to the Red Planet, Linux was there to help NASA get them off the ground. In fact, some form of Linux has been present at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., for years, assisting researchers with projects that range from unmanned space flight to deep space exploration. Even more amazing perhaps than multimillion-mile journeys through space is that on many of the desktops within the lab, Linux is the preferred operating system. At the JPL, it is common to see Red Hat Inc., SuSE...

IT directors shouldn't worry about SCO Group's latest sallies in its legal war on Linux vendors IBM Corp. and Novell Inc., says attorney Thomas Carey. It's just more posturing, or as Shakespeare said, a tale "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." In this interview, Carey explains why SCO has no case, predicts the open source legal fields of battle for 2006 and discusses SCO's claims against Novell. Carey chairs the Business Practice Group of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP, an intellectual property law practice in Boston, Mass. Carey's IT background includes a stint as a programmer for the city of...

THE UNITED STATES Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) has prepared a report for the government that claims that fewer vulnerabilities were found in Windows than in Linux/Unix operating systems in 2005. Cert included under the Linux umbrella Mac OS X, as well as the various Linux distributions and flavours of Unix. It claimed that the Unix camp had more than twice as many vulnerabilities as Windows. The Cyber Security Bulletin 2005, said that out of 5,198 reported flaws, 812 were Windows operating system vulnerabilities, while 2,328 were Unix/Linux operating bugs. The remaining 2,058 were multiple operating system vulnerabilities. It is...

This is the way the world of Linux ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang. I grew up on a Unix command-line. BSD, I believe. I have dim memories of dialing up on a black and green Wyse50 terminal, sending e-mail with 'mail', reading newsgroups and playing Nethack in all its ASCII glory. I even became rather adept at vi. I was happy, ecstatic even, wrapped all snug and safe in my warm, green world of text and terminal beeps. But my friends all had 'IBM clones', and as I grew, so too did the technology. My early...

Newly formed PC builder/reseller SeaScape LLC will introduce its first batch of pre-loaded Linux desktop computers within the next few weeks, company president James Rhodes told DesktopLinux.com on Friday. The systems will be based on Linspire's Linux desktop. The fledgling Albuquerque-based company, founded last month, partnered with Linspire to use Linspire Five-O in all eight SeaScape microATX models. Customers will be able to purchase customized computers through the company website based on their particular needs and requirements, Rhodes said. "Linspire Five-O is definitely the most user friendly Linux operating system to use on a daily basis," Rhodes said. "We feel...

< Years into case, SCO asserts copyright infringement By Stephen Shankland http://news.com.com/Years+into+case%2C+SCO+asserts+copyright+infringement/2100-1016_3-6022453.html Story last modified Fri Jan 06 15:49:00 PST 2006 < After three years of accusations, SCO Group has finally begun aiming a legal charge of copyright infringement toward a Linux supplier. The claim is in an amendment SCO proposes to make to its lawsuit against Novell, whose sales of Linux, SCO argues, violate SCO's purported Unix copyrights. SCO filed its request to add the claim on Dec. 30, nearly two years after it first filed its suit against Novell. In the proposed claim, the Lindon, Utah-based SCO...

1.i am not a MS hater, i just wanted something without all those virus problems. i do have a theory that the virus programs are all writen by linux users.(smiles) 2.i have tried most of the top 50 distros at distrowatch and hated most of them. i came close to keeping desktopBSD but it pissed me off too. in the end most distros just don't work after you install them. they either come broken or just plain lack the programs for the things i need installed. then came pclinuxos OMG!!!!!! wow!!! it really works. samba hooked up to my...