Free Republic

Now is a particularly good time to ditch Windows for good, for workstations as well as servers. For instance, now that Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Server 2003 on July 13, you'll need to find something different to use for your servers. Whether it's switching from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 or to Linux-based servers--or changing out tired and faulty Windows Vista desktops for the alien Windows 7 or something more user-friendly--Linux provides you with freedom and freedom of choice. You might believe that dumping Windows and switching to Linux is a difficult task, but the change in thought and the...

Live CDs, DVDs or USB drives let you run Linux without actually installing it. Here are five reasons why you should.Computerworld - In the almost 20 years since Linux was first released into the world, free for anyone to use and modify however they like, the operating system has been put to a lot of uses. Today, a vast number of servers run Linux to serve up Web pages and applications, while user-friendly versions of Linux run PCs, netbooks, and even Android and WebOS phones. One incredibly useful way that Linux has been adapted to the needs of modern computer...

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. government staff suggested replacing Microsoft Corp. operating systems on computers with free alternatives in response to a call for ideas for Prime Minister David Cameron’s cost-cutting drive. Cameron asked the 600,000 government workers last month to make suggestions on saving money as his administration seeks to cut Britain’s record budget deficit. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne today published a sample of the 56,000 submitted ideas, which including abandoning Microsoft, switching office lights off and centralizing stationery procurement. “In terms of spending less, what about migrating the whole of government (the NHS, education etc.) from...

In terms of speed, we can't deny the fact that Linux has an edge over Windows. This is because Linux is more efficient in handling computer resources when compared to the more bloated Windows. Through this speed advantage, it has been utilized on mobile devices and desktop PCs with limited hardware capabilities. Compared with Windows, Linux desktop boots faster and applications open up quicker and run snappier inside it. Linux servers are favored against those running on Windows because aside from being fast, they are also reliable and secure. I can go on and on explaining about its quickness but...

SCO has filed its notice of appeal: 07/07/2010 - 881 - NOTICE OF APPEAL as to 876 Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law, 878 Judgment, 877 Order on Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law, Order on Motion for New Trial, Memorandum Decision filed by SCO Group. Appeals to the USCA for the 10th Circuit. Filing fee $ 455, receipt number 1088-1150192. (Hatch, Brent) (Entered: 07/07/2010) As you can see, they hope the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals will bail them out again:Plaintiff, The SCO Group, Inc., hereby appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the...

This month's article isn't much of an article, but more like an interview. It's not very technical, but potentially satisfying. True or False? If you have been around Linux for a few years, you may have been called an open source advocate, a computer guy or just a plain and simple nerd. Probably true, right? For years, that's how Linux has been seen by many outside the open source community, and even a few within it. This article, I mean interview, is a living example that this stereotype does not stand true any longer. About 15 years ago, when I...

I was looking at the Ubuntu and Lime linux threads, I would like to try using linux. Which is best for a complete noob such as myself? Lime seems to be easier? How do I go about getting it going after a download? Just wondering, heh. Thanks

Dell reckons Ubuntu offers more protection than Windows online as it convinces consumer PC shoppers they shouldn't be scared of Linux. In a statement flagged here by TheVarGuy.com, Dell picked on security as one of ten reasons why people should buy PCs running Canonical's Linux rather than Microsoft's operating system. According to Dell's site (here, and a PDF here (pdf) in case the page is moved): 6) Ubuntu is safer than Microsoft Windows: The vast majority of viruses and spyware written by hackers are not designed to target and attack Linux. Dell does not provide further details, but continues to...

“We’re either right or we’re not. If we’re wrong, we deserve people throwing rocks at us.”– Former SCO CEO Darl McBride in 2003*************************************************SCO’s long-running campaign against Linux may have finally been dealt a death blow. Late Thursday, the judge presiding over the company’s legal battle with Novell (NOVL) rejected its request for a new trial and upheld an April jury decision that determined Novell, not SCO, is the rightful owner of key Unix copyrights.“SCO argues that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law because the ‘verdict cannot be squared with the overwhelming evidence and the law,’” Judge...

Mac users will be able to download Portal, Football Manager 2010 and Torchlight at launch, with more titles added every Wednesday. "We're very excited to be bringing Torchlight to the Mac," said Max Schaefer, co-founder of Runic Games, the company behind the title. "Having Steam for the Mac solves so many problems for us as a developer."

When US Air Force researchers last year created the mother-of-all-processors using Sony PlayStation-3 game consoles, it seemed like a stroke of cost-saving genius.To deliver a 53-TerraFLOP processing cluster, the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., hoovered up 1,700 PlayStation-3 game consoles, then harnessed the power of their combined processors to evaluate new breakthroughs in technology for synthetic aperture radar, high definition video and something called "neuromorphic computing". At the time, the researchers noted that two PlayStation-3 consoles provide 150 GigaFLOPs of processing power for $600, but a single 3.2GHz cell processor delivers 200 GFLOPs for $8,000. Why spend the...

Well, that is part one of our Ubuntu 10.04 LTS vs. Windows 7 testing. As much as we would have liked to see Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx handily beat Windows 7, this was not the case, but to some extent the opposite. Windows 7 in some of the tests possessed definitive leads over Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with the OpenGL performance when using the proprietary ATI/AMD and NVIDIA graphics drivers, which have largely shared code-bases between Windows and Linux. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS also had its leads in some areas while in many of the tests the differences between the two operating systems...

May 07, 2010 Free Software and Tech Progress By Keith Curtis Moore's law has been humming along for four decades now, doubling our CPU power every eighteen months. Cellphone-sized devices today have more capacity than a stadium of computers from twenty years ago. Networked digital computers are giving us new forms of collaboration on a massive scale, causing our society to enter the digital renaissance. We now have the tools to solve some very tough problems; one might argue that we never could cure cancer without creating computers and the internet first. While the shiny hardware always gets all the...

It seems that every time Ubuntu gets an update there's talk about how the new version will finally usher in the era of user-friendly Linux and turn the open-source operating system (OS) into a serious competitor to OS X and Windows. We've been running the latest version, 10.04 (code-named Lucid Lynx), since it first hit beta in mid-March. While we have a hard time seeing it replace Windows 7 anytime soon, the regular six-month intervals of serious improvements are finally paying off in an arguably consumer-ready OS. A Completely New Look *********************snip***************************** image at website***************************************************** The other major new feature...

After months of wrangling within the company, Lexmark has stepped up to become a Linux and open-source friendly company. We are seeing how far this Linux support extends as we try out the Lexmark Pro905 Platinum multi-function printer.

Yesterday, April 1st, brought the inevitable round of high-tech hijinks, as individuals and companies jockeyed to see who could be funnier. My personal favorite was Google renaming itself to Topeka, a move sure to consternate anyone not in the know and amuse those who were. One tech company, however, released a software update that was decidedly unfunny. In a March 28 announcement on the PlayStation blog, Sony revealed that a new firmware patch (v. 3.21) for the PlayStation 3 would disable the “Install Other OS” feature on existing PS3 devices. In other words, no Linux on any PS3s. This follows...

It's over. The jury has found that the copyrights did not go to SCO under the APA or anything else. The verdict is in. Novell has the news up on their website already, but I heard it from Chris Brown also. Here's the brief Novell statement:Today, the jury in the District Court of Utah trial between SCO Group and Novell issued a verdict. Novell is very pleased with the jury’s decision confirming Novell’s ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux. Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on...

Ubuntu is Linux for the rest of us. It is simple to install and use. Despite that, not that many users are on board with estimates of 1-2% of all computer users running various Linux operating systems. But with the release of Ubuntu 10.04, there might be a few reasons to give it a try. It is currently in beta, so you may not want to install it on your primary computer. The stable release will come on April 29 according to the Ubuntu web site. You can download a live DVD image to give it a try. A live...

These graphics processors may not be as powerful as the discrete ATI/AMD and NVIDIA offerings, but they're low-power and there is no limit to how many can be connected to a single system (besides USB 2.0 bandwidth deficiencies). This is also running a fully open-source driver stack. AMD previously showcased a 24 monitor setup on Linux using their Eyefinity Technology, but that required four high-end ATI Radeon graphics cards and their proprietary driver stack in an unreleased form.

I am looking for some help. I have an older application that is not 64-bit. It will run on Win 7 32-bit and also in virtualization on Win 7 Pro & Win 7 Ultimate. The problem is Win 7 64-bit Home - the most popular version.