Mozilla contributes $100,000 to fund Ogg development.
Mozilla has donated $100,000 to help fund a collaborative initiative with the Wikimedia Foundation to improve open standards-based technology for video on the web. more... and Opening Up Video on the Web and Mozilla Goes to Bat for Open-Source Video on the Web and why open video?

Debian goes into deep freeze.
We are now in deep freeze, which means that we'll only be migrating to testing packages that fix RC bugs. The weekend of February 14th is going to be our tentative target for release. Every other fix that doesn't make it in time will be r1 material. Please be sure to contact us about the RC fixes you'd like included in the point release! more...

KDE On Windows Challenges Microsoft On Its Own Turf.
When I first heard about the project of porting KDE on windows I was very skeptical of the reason behind it but not so much of the viability of such a project since Trolltech decided to release the Qt 4 license under GPL for the windows version. KDE on windows is an audacious project aimed at porting all KDE applications on MS Windows natively. KDE also has a similar project for Mac OSX. more...

Initial ext3 vs ext4 Results.
We’ve started to do some internal benchmarking of ext3 vs ext4 at myYearbook.com to see if what we’ve seen and heard about ext4 was really true. While the following benchmark is not in-depth, it does represent our initial findings, which match our anecdotal findings. more...

Linux Support For Microsoft's exFAT File-System.
Introduced in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and then last week as a Windows XP update was exFAT. exFAT, or the Extended File Allocation Table, is Microsoft's new file-system for use on mobile devices like large USB flash drives. exFAT addresses the file-size and partition size limitations of Microsoft's FAT32 file-system and brings other improvements to the table as well more...

Active Directory for Linux draws closer.
You may not consider it a "killer app" but one thing restricting Linux deployment in enterprises is an implementation of Microsoft's Active Directory (AD.) However, AD for Linux is on its way in Samba version 4 and is sure to annhilate a barrier to Linux adoption in business. more... and OpenChange, KDE bring Exchange compatibility to Linux.

Midnight Commander wakes from deep sleep.
The Midnight Commander file manager developers have restarted work on the, once quite popular, file manager for the Linux/Unix console. Midnight Commander was inspired by the famous Norton Commander for DOS. In recent years, there had been no development at all, but now a "Bugfix Release" 4.6.2 has been made available. more...

Location-aware software comes to the Linux platform.
Several powerful open source software frameworks aim to bring mapping and geolocation capabilities to the Linux platform. Ars takes a look at this emerging technology and how it is being used in several popular desktop applications. more...

Applications.
SoundConverter is the sound conversion application for the GNOME environment.
Childsplay is to be educational and at the same time be fun to play.

Misc.
SSD performance vs Linux kernel I/O scheduler in Fedora 10.
Linux also affected by hole in Ralink's Wi-fi driver.
NVIDIA Releases Four New Linux Drivers.
Wine-Doors 0.1.3rc1 (Rioja) Released.
Announcing Moblin V2 Core Alpha Release.
Obama administration seeks advice on benefits of open source.
Linux founder Linus Torvalds talks about open-source identity.
Essential Java resources.

How To Tips.

How To Installing VMWare Server 2 on Ubuntu Server 8.10.
How To Installing Lotus Symphony On Ubuntu 8.10.
How To Inkscape Tutorial - Raised Lettering Effect.
How To Tutorial - Using K3b.
How To Creating USB Startup Disks From Various Linux Distributions With UNetbootin.
How To Secure your IM conversations.

See you next Thursday 7 P.M. at Dooley's Pub, 442 Water Street, Eau Claire, WI.

EC_LUG