Stories by Don Marti

Qumranet claims responsiveness, admin advantages for new desktop virtualization product

Qumranet has released its Solid ICE desktop virtualization product to general availability this week. The company claims responsiveness and administration advantages over thin client solutions based on the results of pilot projects for several large customers, and today's released version adds multi-monitor support, in demand in the financial industry.

New kernel puts a spotlight on memory hogs

Jon Corbet analyzes the 2.6.25 kernel, out last night.

Linux-proof business

Julie Bort talks with Jeremy White about Wine. 1.0 coming up.

Kernel as hypervisor: Andrea Arcangeli

You're now with Qumranet which is the company behind KVM. Can you briefly tell me about the design of KVM and how that differs from previous virtualization approaches such as Xen and VMware?

Zvents releases open-source cluster database

Event search firm Zvents is releasing a massively parallel database server, based on a published Google design, as an open source project. The new software, Hypertable, is designed to scale to 1000 nodes, all commodity PCs, said Doug Judd, principal search architect for Zvents.

A practical guide to Ubuntu Linux

With all the people out there willing to offer help on Linux, getting started should be pretty easy. But with many options in introductory books and easy-to-install distributions, choosing a place to start can be the hard part.

MySQL, Solaris share performance tuning feature

Sun just announced its acquisition of MySQL, but for several months the open-source database has been getting the performance tracing integration with the Solaris platform that it needs to follow through on Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's committment to performance improvements.

Real or fake Linux PC? Everex will know

PC vendors haven't been eager to know how many users run Linux when it's preloaded on their low-end PCs, and how many replace it with an infringing copy of Microsoft Windows. Everex, the latest company to introduce a low-priced desktop Linux system, will have the information, however, thanks to the software update system behind its Linux distribution.

Linux tool points out power-wasting applications

Linux systems' power consumption is rapidly becoming a top concern for operators of large data centers. A University of California Berkeley study recently attributed 90 percent of the increase in data center power consumption to servers priced at less than US$25,000 each, the market where Linux is most important.

Linux contributor base broadens

As the number of Linux kernel contributors continues to grow, core developers are finding themselves mostly managing and checking, not coding, said Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of USB and PCI support in Linux and co-author of Linux Device Drivers, in a talk at the Linux Symposium in Ottawa last week.

ZFS on Linux: It's alive

If you like Linux for the long list of supported hardware but Solaris for the advanced new ZFS filesystem, a new development project might have a happy surprise for you.

Can Linux close its technical gaps?

Legal threats may be the high-profile risk for Linux, but the popular open source kernel project is coming face-to-face with key technical shortcomings, too. As the Linux Foundation plans its first Collaboration Summit for June 13 through 15 at the Google campus in Mountain View, Linux contributors are speaking out about kernel gaps that have no solution readily in sight.

Linux driver development project bears fruit

Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman, who leads the development of several kernel subsystems including USB and PCI, admits that his January offer of free Linux device driver development was "marketing hype" -- but says it has brought companies and developers together anyway.

Dell, Lenovo sell Windows-free laptops for Linux customers

Two leading hardware vendors, Dell and Lenovo, are quietly selling laptops without preloaded Microsoft Windows to Linux customers who know where to look, says Lincoln Durey, CEO of EmperorLinux, an Atlanta reseller that customizes, installs and supports Linux on the major-brand laptops it sells.

Wind River buys real-time Linux technology

Embedded OS and tools vendor Wind River Systems announced Tuesday that it is acquiring the RTLinux patents, copyrights, and trademarks of pioneering embedded Linux firm FSMLabs. Wind River will also assume FSMLabs' RTLinux customer relationships in the embedded systems market.