Tux Watch

The results of Linuxquestion.org’s Voting for its Members Choice Awards [here] have finally been announced [here] with Ubuntu taking the lead again on the Linux Distribution of the Year Choice by the website’s users with KDE being the dominant Desktop Environment. Knoppix still leads the show for Live Distros and Firefox continues to be the king of web browsers. Mysql continues to the bag Mr. Favorite choice while GIMP is the best Graphics App of the year. Cheers to Linuxquestion.org users, great going!

Here are the official results for the 2006 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards:

• Distribution of the Year - Ubuntu (26.44%)
• Live Distribution of the Year - Knoppix (26.22%)
• Browser of the Year - Firefox (74.61%)
• Database of the Year - MySQL (61.68%)
• Office Suite of the Year - OpenOffice.org (89.79%)
• Desktop Environment of the Year - KDE (56.58%)
• Video Media Player Application of the Year - mplayer (41.93%)
• Video Authoring Application of the Year - Kino (27.81%)
• Audio Media Player Application of the Year - amaroK (57.07%)
• Audio Authoring Application of the Year - Audacity (67.07%)
• Multimedia Utility of the Year - K3b (69.51%)
• Messaging Application of the Year - Gaim (51.52%)
• Window Manager of the Year - Fluxbox (21.44%)
• IDE of the Year - Eclipse (34.47%)
• Mail Client of the Year - Thunderbird (52.74%)
• Text Editor of the Year - vi/vim (38.42%)
• Graphics Application of the Year - GIMP (65.60%)
• Security Application of the Year - nmap (20.94%)
• Windows on Linux Application of the Year - Wine (50.10%)
• Web Development Editor of the Year - Quanta (36.34%)
• Shell of the Year - bash (89.45%)

Thanks to our friends from the UNDP-APDIP-IOSN International Open Source Network’s ASEAN+3 Node in the Philippines [here] who only recently organized the Asia Source 2 FOSS Camp in Indonesia [here] have produced a CD Package, filled with useful FOSS based free business applications titled SME-in-a-Box. I was lucky enough to be there and recieve a copy of the CD the content of which I will now be sharing through TuxWatch.org exclusively for our readers.

“SME-in-a-Box�? is a toolkit designed to meet the specialized needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The aim is to provide a selection of peer-reviewed software and material, which help businesses to grow. SME-in-a-Box leverages the power of FOSS for social and economic development. The collection comprises of software and manuals for general use of SMEs in their daily operations and management. Online links for each application will be conveniently included on this website directing the end-user to relevant websites and thus, gaining quick access to both downloades and advanced technical documentations and case studies.

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Asterisk [here] is a complete IP PBX in software created by Mark Spencer of Digium, Inc in 1999. Asterisk runs on a wide variety of operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Sun Solaris providing all the features of a PBX advanced features of high end/cost proprietary PBXs. It supports Voice over IP and is interoperable with almost all standards-based telephony equipment and the best part of it, it uses relatively inexpensive hardware.

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An interesting article from the IBM Website [here] that a lack of physical memory can severely hamper Linux performance. In this article, learn how to accurately measure the amount of memory your Linux system uses. You also get practical advice on reducing your memory requirements using an Ubuntu system as an example. A much-touted benefit of Linux is that it is more efficient than Microsoft® Windows®, and will therefore perform better on less than cutting-edge hardware. This performance makes Linux a very attractive upgrade for the many people who have old Windows 98-era boxes still sitting around that are no longer being treated to the latest and greatest software (particularly security patches).

The article walks readers through the basics of memory, choosing the right desktop environment with appropriate applications, removing unwanted services and settings, appropriate planning and then how to optimize your system.

According to the Guardian Digital-EnGarde Secure Linux website [here], the EnGarde Secure Community is a secure distribution of Linux engineered from the ground-up to provide organizations with security required for creating a corporate Web presence and conducting e-business online. EnGarde can be used as a Web, DNS, E-mail, Database, E-commerce and general Internet Server platform with security as a primary concern. I call it “Linux Truly Secure By Design” since it complies to SELinux security audit measures as well as follows the principle of Linux application design, that is, “Secure By Design” though many may disagree.

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FreedomHEC is the hardware conference [here] where you’ll learn how easy it is to make your hardware compatible with free, open source operating systems such as Linux, and available to new markets such as servers, next-generation entertainment devices, and more.

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Storix Inc [here] has introduced a new software that lets customers back up, migrate and provision new Linux and AIX systems. Storix System Backup Administrator (SBAdmin) is a feature-rich AIX and Linux based Backup and Disaster Recovery application, which provides an easy to use graphical user interface for centralized management of system and data backup. SBAdmin is available for standalone systems, or as a network administrator used to manage backups and restores across the network.

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I have found Ohloh to be a very interesting tool for supporting my FOSS research activities. Ohloh [here] is an online service that accumulates an enormous database of Free and Open Source Software development facts indexing a well over 3,000 projects and 220 million lines of source code and most amazingly, Ohloh has followed the history of these lines of code, to identify when and by whom all of this code was written. Recently an

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According to the Software For [website], Software for Starving Students is a free collection of programs organized for students (also available to anyone). They’ve gathered a list of best-in-class programs onto one CD (one disc for OS X, one for Windows), including a fully-featured office suite, a cutting-edge web browser, multi-media packages, academic tools, utilities and more. Why did they put this collection together in the first place? Well, they say the at the cost of a college education is always increasing and usually faster than students can earn money. They hope that

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If you’re looking for an Enterprise FOSS Billing solution to run either on Linux or an Apache Web Server environment, your search may just be over. The FOSS community has long been criticized from not providing Billing solutions but that has only been some FUD from the closed source product developers and misinformed users.
Jbilling Enterprise Open Source Billing System dates back to 2003 and over the years has evolved into a very stable and robust product deployed in production environments in many companies around the world. Jbilling supports simple business rules, complex billing

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The Mandriva Linux Desktops are one of those Linux Distributions that get your heart pumping and wanting to get a deeper look into it or try it out with your own hands. Mandriva was originally developed by Mandrakesoft (originated by Gaël Duval, Co-founder) and was formerly known as Mandrakelinux/Mandrake Linux later being acquired by Conectiva and Lycoris. It originally came as derivation from Red Hat Linux version 5.1 carrying KDE version 1.0 way back in July 1998. It has now left Red Hat far behind and now comes loaded with a number of administration tools originally developed for (more…)

Yeup, if you haven’t visited the Songbird’s Nest, now is time since Songbird has been the talk of Linux Town back since mid this year. Songbird is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source. I am really impressed with its Graphical User Interface and tool layouts. Songbird is a Cross Platform player supporting Windows, Mac, Linux available in 30+ languages as well as providing 64-bit support. So if you want to get the divine tast of entertainment, why not visit the Songbird website to tryout the player to Play music and to Play the Web.

Are you in search of a good Audio Media Suite for Linux? I just happened to stumble upon BMPx Media Player that supports audio play libraries, CD, Shoutcasts, Icecasts, Last.FM, Podcasts. More information is available on their website. BMP is still under development and (more…)