One almost unavoidable problem with using an operating system that is not used by the majority of people is compatibility, specifically hardware compatibility. While Linux supports an amazing number of devices out of the box and chances are if you put Linux on any random computer it will, for the most part, work, there are still many cases where having information about hardware compatibility can be useful. For example, suppose you are having trouble with a particular component and want to know if others have made it work or suppose you are buying a new part for your PC. This is where numerous sites that aim to provide information on the compatibility of hardware come in. Unfortunately, despite the large number of these sites, I often find that these sites are often not very useful. In this article I will define what a good site must have and look at a number of sites to see if they meet these standards.

Checklist for the Perfect Site

So what does a perfect Linux hardware compatibility site need? There are two major categories. First, having the information and, second, making it possible to find the information. In fact, as long as users can submit new information, the first part is not relevant unless the second part is implemented well. So the question is, what ways does a good site need to offer for searching through the information?

• By specific product names - This is the most obvious and is done well by most site. This would be useful to someone who is having trouble with a particular product or is looking at buying a specific product.
• By best compatibility - This is done by some sites, but not all. Although searching by the specific product is good if you already know what you want to buy, if you don’t yet know what you want to get, finding the device with the best compatibility could help you decide.
• By the features of each product - This is where every site I looked at fails. This feature comes in use when you want something specific, but don’t know exactly what product to buy. For example, suppose I wanted a black and white laser printer that had wireless networking. I could search for every single printer that fit those criteria or I could look at all the compatible printers and check each for the features I wanted, but both those approaches would take forever.

Grading the sites

Now that we have a way to grade each site, lets start looking at the sites.

LinuxQuestions HCL

Specific Product Name - Check!
Best Compatibility - No
Features - No

Linux Compatible

Specific Product Name - Check!
Best Compatibility - Check!
Features - No

Hardware4Linux

Specific Product Name - No
Best Compatibility - Check!
Features - No

As you can see, none of the sites I found scored well. In fact, I found even more sites that do not provide any search features at all that I did not include. If you think I incorrectly scored a site listed above or you know of a site that scores better than these sites, please leave a comment!

Note: I am away right now, so I cannot cover the daily news, but I want to continue daily content on this site. This article was written in advance and published automatically. Daily news will resume in a few days, or sooner, if I am able to get online while I am away.

Freevo Live, currently at version .15, is based on the Freevo “home theater platform.” Basically this means you get access to Music, Videos, Movie Trailers, Photos, and that kind of stuff, as well as a web browser. The interface is overall quite nice, but I did notice quite a few glitches here and there. For example, from the live CD, I cannot shutdown. Another annoying issue, though perhaps not a bug, is that you can only navigate down the menus and then if you go to the wrong menu you have to hit the home key, which takes you to the top of the menu tree. I could just be missing the button to go back, but something like that really should be intuitive.

Another thing that really bugs me is that the whole Freevo Live experience is a very simple select the menu you want and hit enter sort of thing, but when you go into the web browser, all that goes away and you just get a default web browser with nothing to make it look like the rest of Freevo Live and nothing to make it easier to control from the couch, unless I missed something. Despite these complaints, having a web browser in a home theater distro is really cool.

Unfortunately, the future of Freevo does not appear to have any major new features coming soon. In fact, it appears that due to limited time and developers, the project is not progressing very fast at all. On the bright side, however, it looks like there is still active development going on.

Although Freevo Live might not be perfect, if you don’t care about the minor annoyances mentioned above and you want a simple home theater computer, Freevo Live might serve you well.

Note: I am away right now, so I cannot cover the daily news, but I want to continue daily content on this site. This article was written in advance and published automatically. Daily news will resume in a few days, or sooner, if I am able to get online while I am away.

NimbleX is a small and highly customizable distribution designed to be used for anything. The coolest thing you can do with the current version is create your own version. In fact, you don’t even need to install NimbleX to make your own version. All you have to do is go to the NimbleX site and go through the slick-looking wizard and you get your own customized distro with whatever applications and artwork you want.

Aside from this slick feature, NimbleX is basically a very slim and customizable distro. Although I cannot say for sure, I would guess that this distro would be good for older computers.

The upcoming version (NimbleX 2008, now in beta) will feature a new way of installing that is supposed to let users currently running Windows install NimbleX with one click without messing with their current data. I decided I would try it out by creating a NTFS partition and trying to install NimbleX, but I could never make it install at all. Of course, it is a beta so this sort of thing is pretty standard. In addition, the new version will also include 9 desktop enviroments for you to choose from. Talk about customizability!

If you are looking for a distro that you can customize to have exactly what you need and nothing else to slow you down, you should definetly check out NimbleX.

Note: I am away right now, so I cannot cover the daily news, but I want to continue daily content on this site. This article was written in advance and published automatically. Daily news will resume in a few days, or sooner, if I am able to get online while I am away.

Dream Linux is a Debian-based CD distribution currently offering easy remasters, an unusual (and very good) installer, a dock, and more. In the upcoming version, Dream Linux 3.0, the distro has been rewritten to eliminate ties to pieces of other distributions and be a purely Debian-based distribution. The more noticeable changes include the awn dock replacing the Engage dock (on computers that can support it), the choice between GNOME or Xfce, and improved support for wireless cards.

For those who like to run lots of distributions on their computers, Dream Linux’s installer might be their favorite feature. The installer presents all of the settings on a single page, so you can see what you are doing before you click install. (The partitioner is not very good yet, but hopefully this will be improved before 3.0 final comes out.) Even better, not only can you put the bootloader in the Dream Linux partition, you can even have the installer add an entry for Dream Linux in your existing bootloader.

If you want to make your own distribution, Dream Linux includes a GUI tool to make simple changes to Dream Linux and burn it back onto a CD. Although this can be done fairly easily with other distros as well, you might as well give this one a try and see if you like it more.

Since Dream Linux has just been rewritten, there may not be any huge changes in this upcoming release, but Dream Linux still has plenty to offer.

Acer appears to be the latest company to announce a new UMPC, according to ZDNet. While very few details are known about their new UMPC, which will be available later this year, what we do know is that it will have a 7 or 9 inch screen and a price tag of about $470. In other words, it is meant to directly compete with the Eee PC. Although what operating system it will run is not known, Linux seems likely, since XP will be almost gone by the time it is available and, considering the price tag, putting Vista on it looks difficult.

Another thing that is interesting to note is that Acer previously said they would not get into this market, but after seeing the success of Asus, they changed their minds. To me, this says that this inexpensive laptop-like UMPC market will continue to expand or else Acer would not bother to get into the market at all.

As this market is expanding, all the competitors so far run Linux. (Note: I am not talking about UMPCs, but rather about inexpensive laptop-like UMPCs.) It will be very interesting to see if and when a product is announced that will fit this category and run Windows. When a good Windows product in this market comes out, do you think everyone will flock to it or will they keep buying the Linux ones? My guess is that unless Microsoft practically gives away Windows and Office, people will largely stick to Linux.

With all the enthusiasm around the Eee PC, we have already seen some customized distros for the Eee PC, but Linpus has something even more interesting to offer, according to Linux Devices. Linpus has just introduced a new Linux distro called Linpus Linux Lite, which is designed specifically for Eee-like devices. So what makes it so special? Two things. First, it incorporates an interesting balance between full Linux distro and Eee-like interface. Second, it is aimed at companies wanting to join the UMPC market.

With the Eee’s default interface, you are limited to basic tasks with very little ability to customize. On the other hand, that limited interface is very good for the small screen and a full distro may be too complex for many tasks. Imagine you want to use your UMPC on the road in the basic interface and than come back to your desk and connect it to an external monitor and use a full Linux desktop. Right now you would have to reboot into a different OS, but with the Linpus Linux Lite distro, all you have to do is press a button and you can switch from an Eee-like interface into a full KDE 3.5 desktop. (See this picture.)

Perhaps the most interesting part of this distro is just that it is a pre-baked UMPC Linux. This potentially makes launching a new UMPC a lot easier. No matter how customizable Linux is, not having to make your own distro to use on your hardware is a big deal. With a pre-baked UMPC Linux like this, the Eee could be getting some competition soon.

By now, everyone has heard of the XO laptop (better known as the $100 laptop that costs $200) and the Eee PC. Both are examples of inexpensive ultra-mobile computers that run Linux. Although they both serve different purposes, they are technically similar in many ways. Another interesting aspect of these laptops (or at least the XO laptop) is that Microsoft is scared of them, and with good reason. The market for these inexpensive UMPCs is growing and already some of the best known devices run Linux. Right now, Linux has some significant advantages for use on this new class of computer including ease of customization, price, and minimal hardware requirements. On June 30, the minimal requirements argument will become even more compelling.

When June 30th comes, Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP. This leaves UMPC makers in a difficult position. Not only does Vista have all the problems of XP mentioned above, but it also requires even more expensive hardware. When you are trying to bring the price down to around $400 or even less, every dollar you can save on hardware is important and by discontinuing XP, Microsoft is increasing the gap between Linux and Windows in how much money must be spent on hardware. In this way, Microsoft is hitting themselves on the head in a market where they are already losing and they very much want to win.

Following Sun’s recent purchase of another open-source company, MySQL, Sun has just bought Innotek, according to Information Week. Innotek is the supporting company behind the VirtualBox virtualization software, which is distributed in both open-source and proprietary versions. VirtualBox emerged as a frequently used virtualization product quite recently, but it already has features that compete with larger proprietary-only companies.

Although it is impossible to know for sure, this acquisition seems likely to be a good thing for the development of VirtualBox. Sun has previously shown their awareness of open-source software with their support of Open Office and there is no reason to believe they will do anything other than put more resources into the development of both versions of VirtualBox. Although it seems unlikely that there will be any very noticeable changes to VirtualBox in the near future, in the long term this acquisition should be good for VirtualBox.

After many of the Linux expos/conventions/meetings/whatever people point out that there seem to be a lot of Macs. So the first question is why do Linux people buy Macs? While, I think few people would dispute that Apples is really good at design. When you look at a standard Dell computer and a MacBook, the MacBook looks way, way better. There are a few other small reasons a Linux geek might use a Mac, such as already owning one, but I doubt that sort of thing is really the explanation for all the Macs.

This reasoning might seem a little counterinuitive at first. Who would think that Linux geeks would care about having their laptops look pretty? Really, though, this is not anything new. Compiz Fusion is, while also in some ways being useful, largely about looking cool. When openSuse came out with a pretty installer, it made news. Ubuntu’s new theme for 8.04 (now cancelled) got a lot of attention. All this points to one thing: Linux geeks really do care about how their computers look.

This still leaves the question of why Macs? Surely there are other companies that make cool looking laptops right? While… I guess there is Alienware, but they are on a fine line between “cool” and “just wierd,” so who makes laptops to rival the design of the MacBook and MacBook Pro? As far as I know of, not really anyone. I am sure there are companies out there trying to compete with Apple’s designs, but they don’t seem to be doing so well since Apple is still considered the king of design.

We already have companies like System76 and ZaReason making Linux-based computers, but why doesn’t one of these companies try more for style. Sure it might require more initial investment, but don’t you think a laptop designed to rival Apple’s designs would attract customers?

If you have not already heard, SCALE, or the Southern California Linux Expo, is now underway. So far, the most interesting news comes from ZaReason, a manufacturer of many Linux-based computers and a reseller of Everex’s gPC and CloudBook, regarding gOS on the CloudBook. According to Click, the CloudBook will now run a version of gOS with GNOME, instead of Enlghtenment, showing that Everex is continuing to improve their software.

When gOS first came out on the gPC, it was criticized heavily. At CES, Everex released gOS 2.0, which I hoped would solve some of the problems people had had with the original gOS. I don’t know for sure if it did, because I never saw another review (the EEE had already taken the attention from the gPC.) Anyway, more improvements always help, but is changing to GNOME an improvement? I think so.

You could argue forever about desktop environment x being better than desktop environment y, but I don’t think anyone would dispute that more people use GNOME than Enlightenment. Because of this, more it is easier to find people who can help you with GNOME and there are more people working to develop GNOME. Perhaps if Everex was a software company the second argument would not be relevant, but Everex is really a hardware company using Linux to enhance their products. It is always good to see more improvements to the inexpensive Linux computers, so good job Everex. (Note: I am assuming this is an Everex modification, not a ZaReason modification, but I suppose it could be something ZaReason is doing.)