Linux

A Linux kernel programmer has got Linux running on a logical domain, Sun Microsystems' term for an operating system partition on its newer UltraSparc-based servers.

"I just recently finished writing preliminary support for Linux to run as a guest under Sun LDoms," said programmer David Miller in a blog posting Wednesday.

Sun servers can be sliced into smaller pieces in a variety of ways. First came hardware partitions, which electrically isolated groups of processors so separate operating systems could run on each. Next came containers, which are independent slices of a single instance of Sun's Solaris operating … Read more

Dell's showing Linux a little more love this week.

Two more of Dell's consumer PCs now can be preloaded with the Ubuntu version of the open-source operating system, the company announced Wednesday. The Inspiron 1420N notebook and Inspiron 530N desktop can be ordered with Ubuntu 7.04, bringing the company's Linux-based offerings to five. Last month, Dell said the E520n desktop, E1505n notebook and XPS 410n desktop would come with Ubuntu.

Dell says the new offerings are again in response to customer feedback. The Round Rock, Texas, company has attempted to engage better with customers in recent … Read more

The data in this Goldman Sachs report is dated (2003) [PDF], but it provides an interesting historical look at what we thought Linux would do back in 2003, and what it actually has done. The good news: the data is off. Goldman Sachs underestimated just how prevalent Linux would become in just four short years. For example, Goldman Sachs' survey revealed that only 39% of enterprise IT respondents were using Linux, but today that number is ~100%. Open source does quite well when the customer gets to vote.

It's going to be a long decade for Microsoft and the UNIX vendors especially because, as PJ at Groklaw notes, the widespread adoption in enterprise IT is only one instance of Linux's growing dominance. Significant, but it's the global tidal wave that should be of more concern to the proprietary vendors. Perhaps this is one reason for Microsoft's patent noise?

Linux-on-Intel appears likely to emerge as the dominant platform in corporate data centers....… Read more

It's just one man's opinion, but I always like to hear what the end customer thinks about technology. While I'm not a big believer in the Linux desktop (at least, as a direct competitor to OS X and Windows in the US/EMEA enterprise market), I'm glad to see SUSE Linux Desktop pass the test with the CIO of CareGroup:

...Halamka found in SUSE a version of the Linux operating system that didn?t crash or lock up once during the month he used it; that booted quickly (within 30 seconds); that was easy enough to … Read more

At least Microsoft is back to normal. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Bill Hilf takes a familiar (if a bit worn and tired) swipe at Linux in the enterprise:

In the enterprise, it's not enough just to be a cheap operating system. You need to have applications for it, and it needs to be highly supported.

Fortunately for Bill, he need not worry. Linux comes with superior support to Microsoft's because, oddly enough, the business model around Linux is predicated on support, not licenses, so Linux vendors like Red Hat, Novell, and Canonical/Ubuntu can't get by on marketing and sales sleight of hand. It's really Microsoft that needs to answer Bill's critique, not Linux. Linux also has applications in multitudes and, despite all that, still delivers significantly more value than Microsoft's Windows operating system.

But you don't have to believe me. It's the customer who consistently delivers this message. CIOs rank Microsoft a distant #6 to Red Hat (#1) and Novell (#5) in terms of value, according to CIO Insight's annual report. Truth really stinks, at least if you're Microsoft.… Read more

The open-source Mono project will show off an early version of Microsoft's Silverlight browser plug-in running on Linux later this week.

Work on the plug-in, called Moonlight, was started only in May, after Microsoft's Mix conference. Moonlight uses version 1.1 of Silverlight, a browser plug-in for displaying interactive Web applications, which is due in the fall.

Once completed, Moonlight will allow Linux users to see Silverlight content on the Web, such as videos, and run rich Internet applications.

According to Miguel De Icaza, Mono project leader and Novell open-source president, Mono engineers have been working 14-hour days … Read more

Anyone expecting a technical and legal partnership between Microsoft and Ubuntu distributor Canonical to follow existing Microsoft-Linux deals will be disappointed--at least for now.

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth in a blog posting on Saturday said a deal that resembles the pacts that Microsoft has signed with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire is not on the table.

He said Canonical has declined to talk to Microsoft about any agreement that provides legal protection to Ubuntu users related to "unspecified patents."

"Allegations of 'infringement of unspecified patents' carry no weight whatsoever. We don't think they have any … Read more

Microsoft views its string of deals with Linux vendors--the latest being Linspire, announced this week--as part of a broader companywide push to improve interoperability.

That's the word from Tom Robertson, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards, and Jean Paoli, its general manager of interoperability and XML architecture (and a co-creator of the original XML standard). On Friday, the pair published an open letter, again calling on the industry to give the Office Open XML document format a fair shake as a standard.

Technology and legal pacts with open-source companies serve dual purposes, they said in an interview … Read more

Mark Shuttleworth is on a quest to control the British media. Or maybe he isn't, and it's the British media that is on a quest to give him maximum coverage. Whichever it is, my recent trip to London had Mark on the BBC and in this Economist article about free software, and Ubuntu's role in it.

Mark does an excellent job of balancing idealism and pragmatism in how he approaches open source, which comes across perfectly in the article:

...[O}pen-source software tends to polarise opinion. It has vociferous critics who suspect that software written by idealistic nerds, and made available free to anyone who wants to download it, must be some kind of communist plot. Zealous believers, meanwhile, long for open source to triumph over the evil empires of commercial software. This clash is often depicted as an epic struggle for supremacy between Linux and Microsoft's proprietary Windows operating system. But the truth is that most computer users do not know or care about the politics of open-source software. Mr Shuttleworth says most people simply want to read their e-mail, browse the web and so on.… Read more