Category: Linux

  • Flash Player 9 for Linux

    Now… available in Beta form… The Linux version of the Flash player has been stuck at 7 for some time, while many sites require flash 8 for video/etc… (The page to find the beta download is here.)

  • Software raid under linux (Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake)

    First, I should disclaim that this is going to be a brain dump of the resources and experience of a quick setup of Ubuntu 6.06 on a software raid based storage system. This may be less than ideal, but is doable and seems relatively solid as a system. First off, what is RAID (redundant array of independant/(*inexpensive) disks) So, several cheap hard drives put together in an “interesting” way. Now, increasing storage size isn’t something I’m too interested in, after all there are myriad other ways of expanding storage in a linux system (not to mention huge drives getting cheaper by the day.) My goal here is redundancy, I want to be able to lose a drive and still have the data, so RAID1 is what I’m setting up. We won’t get sidetracked into the other types.

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  • Mandriva 2007 download now available

    Several days ago there were announcements of the release of Mandriva 2007, only thing was, the download wasn’t available yet. Well, today the download appears available. I haven’t looked to see what differences there are between the free and the powerpack download (powerpack can be downloaded by club members as well.)

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  • Helixplayer to include Windows media file viewer

    WMV and WMA file formats (Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio) have been one of those sore spots for desktop linux. Yes, I KNOW mplayer and other players can handle them. (If the codecs are installed.) (and wine can run media player) But, there have been licensing issues there. The fact is, distributions that are strict about their “open source only” policy have a situation where those formats don’t work out of the box. That appears as though it will change soon as Real Networks includes open source codecs for those formats in it’s Helixplayer. DRM (Digital Rights Management) will not be supported in the helixplayer project.

  • KDE 3.5.4 on SuSE 10.1 VMware image

    It was just announced that there is a VMWare image available for download that includes SuSE 10.1 with KDE 3.5.4 installed and it’s also been updated to the most current releases of the other desktop software available for kde from opensuse. VMplayer (at least) is required, which is a free download from VMWare. VMPLayer can really be a useful way to test out a system before commiting to install it on a machine.

  • Wget user agent avoidance

    I use wget a LOT. Many times in working with a website I’ve got a ssh console opened to the site and if there’s a plugin that I’d like to download it doesn’t make sense to download and then upload, I want to just download it directly from xyz.com webserver to the website where it will be installed. However, many times people have set up rules to block wget downloads. Yes, I know people use wget to suck down entire websites, it uses up bandwidth, etc. etc. Well. Wget is capable of sending a different user-agent.

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  • Lenovo to preload Suse linux on thinkpads

    The Channelinsider is reporting that Lenovo will be the first tier one OEM to preinstall a linux distribution on generally available PC’s. For years, you either had to order large volume, or find a smaller name system builder to get linux preinstalled. Now, Lenovo will start offerning Novell’s Suse Linux on their Thinkpad T60p mobile workstation.

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  • Mandriva 2007 beta 1 is out

    Here is a link to the info page. It sounds as though there are several images available. Mandriva 2007 Beta 1 has Gnome and KDE centric 586 and x86_64 versions of cd images for download as well as an all in one (well – both architectures in one) DVD and cd set (6 disc cd set). They’re interested in people testing it out and reporting bugs. Not all new features are enabled and it is BETA so use it at your own risk.