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Posts in 2007 November
The first release version of the RadeonHD driver, the open-source driver for AMD (ATI) video cards, has just been released, according to Phoronix. Although the driver lacks many of the features of other drivers, the development has been moving rapidly and, hopefully, a new version with some of these features will be released soon.
This driver is the result of AMD releasing specifications and code for their video cards to Novell and the rest of the opens-source community. Novell is still doing most of the development, which may be why the process has gone quite fast.
Now that we have seen the results of AMD’s work with the open-source community, the question is: what about Nvidia?
Further reading: X.Org Wiki Page
The Cellphone Approach to PCs
Zonbu, maker of the subscription-based Zonbu Desktop, is expanding its offerings to include a laptop, according to LinuxWorld. At first glance, the Zonbu computers seem no different from the other inexpensive Linux computers, except a little cheaper, but what really makes them stand out is the new cellphone-style (get the phone free with a contract) approach. The $280 price tag for the laptop ties you into a two year $15.00 per month charge. (You can get the computers with a shorter contract or no contract, but it is far more expensive.) For this price you get transparent updates, free online support and hardware replacement, and 50GB of online, backed up storage. The idea is that the machine only comes with a small (60GB for the laptop, 4GB for the desktop) amount of local storage and additional online storage.
Another interesting thing to note about the Zonbu Laptop is the hardware maker, Everex. Everex is the company behind the gPC, another inexpensive Linux-based PC with a more standard buy-the-hardware-once approach.
Although the idea of a worry-free PC is great and it would help a lot more people back-up, in reality the market seems small. Many people will be nervous about having their data stored remotely (particularly with a small company), and when you factor in the service plan, the $200 gPC, with no monthly fee, sure seems like a better deal. Still, the Zonbu approach may be just what some non-techies are looking for in a computer.
(Note: I have not used any of the Zonbu products.)
Opinion: Competing Trends are Creating an Opening for Linux
Microsoft’s operating systems keep needing more and more resources, but consumers keep wanting cheaper and more portable hardware, hardware for which Vista is not well suited. This creates an opening for Linux, because it does not demand as many resources and is costs nothing.
Windows Vista has evolved from a less than perfect foundation dating back to MS-DOS. Now, it comes in four (or eleven) versions. The high end versions are capable, but expensive and very resource demanding. At the low end, Vista Home Basic is not particularly resource-demanding, but if you ask any tech reporter about it, they will tell you that there is no point in buying it, because it includes almost none of the new features of Vista. Although Linux has been around as least as long as Windows, it has managed to avoid the bloat and code confusion that plagues Windows. (It would be interesting to get someone involved in the kernel project to comment on how this happened.)
If you have been following the technology news for the past year or so, you may have noticed two hardware trends. Consumers want cheap hardware and they want portable hardware. We have seen this trend with the $200 gPC sold at Wal-Mart and Asus’s $400 Eee PC, both of which run Linux. The gPC is a very cheap desktop computer. Even if the hardware in it could run Windows Vista, adding a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium would more than double its cost at retail prices. The Eee PC, in addition to being very cheap, is also very portable and ideal for users who want to go everywhere with their PCs. In a laptop this small, it is simply not possible to fit the hardware required to run even the most basic versions of Vista.
Vista faces problems here. Cheap hardware becomes impossible if the operating system itself costs hundreds of dollars, and you just can’t fit much hardware into a highly mobile device. Linux solves both these problems. Linux has low requirements. Linux is free.
Amazon-RedHat Deal Now in Beta
A few weeks ago, Redhat announced that they were partnering with Amazon to provide RedHat-based servers in “the cloud” (fancy term for not locally, but through the internet instead) using Amazon’s web services. On Monday, RedHat opened this service up to the first clients as a public beta, according to CNET. This solution makes it possible for business to manage servers on a pay-as-you-go basis, instead of investing up front in the hardware and other costs.
Further Reading: RedHat Press Release, previous CNET coverage
Canonical, Ubuntu’s sponsor company, recently added a new feature to Launchpad, the website that manages all the code and collaboration for Ubuntu and other projects, called the Personal Package Archive (PPA), according to Softpedia. The PPA enables individual (or groups of) developers to upload and collaborate on new packages or modified versions of existing packages without the need to formally join the Ubuntu project as a developer. The goal is for this to provide a way for anyone with good ideas and some development skill to receive feedback and contribute their ideas to the Ubuntu project without committing to becoming an Ubuntu developer.
Further Reading: PPA Quick Start (Launchpad Documentation)
Note: Sorry to everyone who commented that this is an old news story. I try to verify the accuracy (and I have previously found stories that were very inaccurate), but this one slipped through. This is about a year old, but it is still interesting. Sorry.
Everyone who uses open-source software knows that many people devote hours and hours to development, planning, art, and so on, but crop circles might not be the first thing that comes to mind when people think of open-source. The Oregon State Linux Users Group created a gigantic Firefox crop circle. (Picture) You can read more about the process at The Fox Tales or see a video about it here.
As it turns out, the Oregon State Linux Users Group is not a stranger to massive Firefox projects. They painted a huge version of the Firefox logo on the sidewalk and sent a balloon carrying the Firefox logo up into the sky.
It appears that this holiday season the gPC is not the only mainstream Linux PC to get a lot of attention. The Asus Eee PC, a $400 laptop that runs a basic version of Linux, is sold out at Amazon and Best Buy, where it has received a 4.5/5 user rating at both places. In addition, in Amazon’s top seller list for computers and PC hardware the Eee PC is number 10 and on CNET’s most wanted list the Eee PC is number 7.
As mentioned before, the Eee PC is the second low-cost Linux computer to be quickly sold out at major retailers in the past few weeks. It seems that mainstream Linux adoption will not come from the high end, but from the low end where all people need is a cheap computer to browse the web and do email. Hopefully, as Linux becomes more common, we will see much higher end PCs with Linux being sold just as fast, although this may take some time.
According to Softpedia, AMD (ATI) has released the latest version of their closed-source drivers. The big news with this set of drivers is the added support for the Ubuntu 7.10. Other than that, though, there is not much new. (Slow news week……)
AMD has begun releasing specifications to open-source developers and work has begun on an open-source driver to, hopefully, replace the AMD closed source driver at some point.
Following Ubuntu and Red Hat, Mandriva has said they will not pay money to Microsoft to be protected from unnamed patents, reports Linux Insider. Starting with Novell, Microsoft has convinced a number of companies to pay in exchange for an agreement that Microsoft will not sue them over certain patents.
Microsoft will not revel which patents they believe Linux is infringing on, which has lead many companies, such as Mandriva, and individuals to doubt that there is any real infringement on Microsoft patents. Because most Linux users believe that Microsoft does not really have a case against Linux, Novell and other companies (Xandros, Linspire, and even Samsung) that have paid Microsoft are frequently criticized, which could be another factor in Mandriva’s decision to decline the deal.
Foogazi posted a list of the top 15 ways to know if you are addicted to Linux. If you suffer from this severe mental “open-source-ness” problem, consult your local Linux user group’s doctor. (Just kidding.) Commenter ell asked what the method of rehabilitation is. My suggestion (I am not a doctor.) is to follow these easy steps:
- First you will need to acquire a Windows CD. Most Linux-addicted users are unable to force themselves to go to a store and touch a Windows box, so ask your friend. (Note: For the severely addicted, I recommend you ask in writing.)
- Next, set up dual-boot machine with Linux and Windows. At first give Windows the smaller partition, but slowly give Windows more space and Linux less.
- When you are ready to make the complete switch, buy yourself a nice new computer with Windows to ease the pain some. (Additionally, if you cannot stand Windows, install Firefox and VirtualBox.)
And now for my list:
You know it is a slow news week when…