Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part II: SLED at H-P, SLES at IBM, and Xandros/Scalix

Chameleon tail



Summary: Another glance at H-P's embrace of SLED 11; other notable news about SUSE and Xandros

SLED



SOME days ago we commented on H-P's support of SLED. Further to that, all the following items mention Novell and SLED in the same context:





IDG reviewed SLED 11 and had some good words to share.

SLED's dual listing of certain applications in both the YaST resource management window and in the Control Panel had us scratching our heads on what to pick out of the many open source applications included with the bundle. This confusion extends to having Hardware>Control Center choices duplicated as Network Devices under YaST as well. There's no real harm in this double listing, it's just confusing.


SLED 11 was also reviewed by IT Pro, which gave it high marks.

The answer to the question of whether you could eliminate Windows on your desktop clients and replace them with SLED 11 is yes. There are very few remaining issues that will prevent SLED working with an existing Windows/Active Directory infrastructure. If your desktop systems are purely used for standard administration and Microsoft Office tasks, SLED 11 will do it, albeit at the potential cost of grumbling employees. For any worker with specific non-Office application requirements it’s more difficult of course, but SLED 11 is a good move along the road to complete interoperability.


SLES



On the server side, SUSE was not mentioned so much, but the following articles about 'clouds' showed IBM's role in spreading SLES:

i. Amazon EC2 Offers IBM Apps by the Hour

Amazon's Thursday announcement follows a February announcement of a partnership between Amazon and IBM to provide software developers pay-as-you-go access to development and production versions of IBM Information Management database servers, IBM Lotus content management, and IBM WebSphere portal, as well as middleware products, all running on Novell's SUSE Linux on Amazon EC2.


From Timothy Prickett Morgan:

ii. IBM slips Power6+ into racks, blades

IBM can throw more memory at each thread than an x64 box can, at least for now. And on virtualized server workloads, this is what matters as much (and perhaps more) than clock speeds. The Power 550 can support up to 80 logical partitions, which can run IBM's AIX or i operating systems or the Linuxes from Red Hat and Novell. It has the same I/O slot configuration and 3.5-inch disk bays as the Power 520, and its rPerf performance ranges from 21.18 (two cores running at 5 GHz) to 78.6 (eight cores running at 5 GHz).


iii. IBM unloads Nehalem towers, clusters

Anyway, with this week's announcement, the Nehalem EP servers announced in March - the x3550 M2 and x3650 M2 racks, the HS22 blade, and the dx360 M2 hybrid - can all be the foundation of a Cluster 1350. IBM can put Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, or Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008.


There is also some new information about SLE training for administrators.

Novell Linux Certifications

Novell recently rolled out one new Linux certification, the Certified Linux Desktop Administrator (CLDA), and is expected to soon go live with the Certified Linux Administrator (CLA), as well (the exam numbers are 050-708 and 050-710, respectively). Both consist of a single exam on SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 that's administered through either Prometric or VUE testing centers.


Xandros



The company bets and spends heavily on Presto at the moment. It still received some overage, e.g. from CNET Asia:

Though there are several "instant on" solutions out there, like Lenovo's Splash-top on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (pictured), Asus' ExpressGate and Xandros' Presto, you cannot actually boot into Windows immediately. Instead, what you are booting into is an alternative stripped-down Linux environment. Though there are many fctors involved, one of the reason Windows is unable to achieve instant boot times is because it has many background processes which require the system to run through many more lines of binary code compared with a Linux operating system.


This last sentence is poor because it shows that the writer is not IT-savvy or simply technology-illiterate. "Lines of binary code" hardly makes any sense. Here is another essay about Presto and here is the response offered to one person who is after Xandros/Eee despite the fact that Microsoft is said to be bribing ASUS for Xandros suppression.

Pasadena, CA: Hi Brian: I'm thinking about buying the ASUS EEE PC 1000 Netbook with Xandros Linux OS to avoid virus, malwares and all nasty stuffs. Do I/Should I install/use Linux anti-virus program like the free Avast Linux anti-virus program? Thank you, Don I've been reading your articles religiously :-)

Brian Krebs: I wouldn't worry about anti-virus software if you're running Xandros/Linux. Just make sure you follow best practices, such as not running the system all the time as "root". You might invest in a backup program to make an image of the drive (chances are extremely good that capability is built into the OS itself) in case something goes wrong.


Lastly, this German press release acts of a reminder that Scalix still plays a role at Xandros.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft: Our "Goodwill" Gained Over 51 Billion Dollars in the Past Nine Months Alone, Now "Worth" as Much as All Our Physical Assets (Property and Equipment)
The makeup of a Ponzi scheme where the balance sheet has immaterial nonsense
FSFE (Ja, Das Gulag Deutschland) Has Lost Its Tongue
Articles/month
Ian Jackson & Debian reject mediation
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
How to get selected for Outreachy internships
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Red Hat Corporate Communications is "Red" Now
Also notice they offer just two options: MICROSOFT or... MICROSOFT!
 
Pranav Jain & Debian, DebConf, unfair rent boy rumors
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 27/04/2024: Kaiser Gave Patients' Data to Microsoft, "Microsoft Lost ‘Dream Job’ Status"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/04/2024: Sunrise Photos and Slow Productivity
Links for the day
Almost 2,700 New Posts Since Upgrading to Static Site 7 Months Ago, Still Getting More Productive Over Time
We've come a long way since last autumn
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 26, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, April 26, 2024
Overpaid lawyer & Debian miss WIPO deadline
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Brian Gupta & Debian: WIPO claim botched, suspended
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Microsoft's XBox is Dying (For Second Year in a Row Over 30% Drop in Hardware Sales)
they boast about fake numbers or very deliberately misleading numbers that represent two companies, not one
[Meme] Granting a Million Monopolies in Europe (to Non-European Companies) at Europe's Expense
Financialization of the EPO
Salary Adjustment Procedure at the EPO Challenged
the EPO must properly compensate staff in order to attract and retain suitably skilled examiners
Links 26/04/2024: Surveillance Abundant, Restoring Net Neutrality Rules (US)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/04/2024: uConsole and EXWM and stdu 1.0.0
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2024: XBox Sales Have Collapsed, Facebook's Shares Collapse Too
Links for the day
Albanian women, Brazilian women & Debian Outreachy racism under Chris Lamb
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Microsoft-Funded 'News' Site: XBox Hardware Revenue Declined by 31%
Ignore the ludicrous media spin
Mark Shuttleworth, Elio Qoshi & Debian/Ubuntu underage girls
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Karen Sandler, Outreachy & Debian Money in Albania
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 25, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, April 25, 2024
Links 26/04/2024: Facebook Collapses, Kangaroo Courts for Patents, BlizzCon Canceled Under Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/04/2024: Music, Philosophy, and Socialising
Links for the day
Microsoft Claims "Goodwill" Is an Asset Valued at $119,163,000,000, Cash Decreased From $34,704,000,000 to $19,634,000,000 and Total Liabilities Grew to $231,123,000,000
Earnings Release FY24 Q3
More Microsoft Cuts: Events Canceled, Real Sales Down Sharply
So they will call (or rebrand) everything "AI" or "Azure" or "cloud" while adding revenues from Blizzard to pretend something is growing
CISA Has a Microsoft Conflict of Interest Problem (CISA Cannot Achieve Its Goals, It Protects the Worst Culprit)
people from Microsoft "speaking for" "Open Source" and for "security"
Links 25/04/2024: South Korean Military to Ban iPhone, Armenian Remembrance Day
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2024: SFTP, VoIP, Streaming, Full-Content Web Feeds, and Gemini Thoughts
Links for the day
Audiocasts/Shows: FLOSS Weekly and mintCast
the latest pair of episodes
[Meme] Arvind Krishna's Business Machines
He is harming Red Hat in a number of ways (he doesn't understand it) and Fedora users are running out of patience (many volunteers quit years ago)
[Video] Debian's Newfound Love of Censorship Has Become a Threat to the Entire Internet
SPI/Debian might end up with rotten tomatoes in the face
Joerg (Ganneff) Jaspert, Dalbergschule Fulda & Debian Death threats
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Amber Heard, Junior Female Developers & Debian Embezzlement
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Video] Time to Acknowledge Debian Has a Real Problem and This Problem Needs to be Solved
it would make sense to try to resolve conflicts and issues, not exacerbate these
Daniel Pocock elected on ANZAC Day and anniversary of Easter Rising (FSFE Fellowship)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Video] IBM's Poor Results Reinforce the Idea of Mass Layoffs on the Way (Just Like at Microsoft)
it seems likely Red Hat layoffs are in the making
Ulrike Uhlig & Debian, the $200,000 woman who quit
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 24, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day