Former Red Hat employee Bernhard “Bero” Rosenkraenzer has resurfaced, after leaving Red Hat last fall, with a brand new GNU/Linux distribution meant for the average user. According to the distribution's web site, “The Ark Linux distribution is based primarily upon a Red Hat Linux 7.3 / 8.0 foundation. On top of this, we have added a new easy-to-use installer (an Ark Linux installation is only four mouse clicks away!) and extensively tailored the software applications and utilities included - all in an effort to ensure that Ark Linux provides superior ease-of-use and the features and functionality end users have told us they want.”
Every one sees them all the time and would probably miss them if they didn't exist. What are they? Icons! Torsten Rahn and Everaldo Coelho, the predominant icon duo in the KDE artist world, and creators of virtually all of the icons you see in KDE, spent some time with Open for Business' Timothy Butler discussing how the new Crystal icon theme came about, how it ended up replacing Mr. Rahn's HiColor theme, and the overall importance of icons to the enterprise desktop.
This year has proven most interesting for GNU/Linux. While there were not any amazing surprises, there were numerous events that are noteworthy for review. The upshot to all of this is that most of what happened was good overall for the Free Software community.
Less than a week before Christmas, MandrakeSoft has been forced to issue a second urgent call for support from users. Apparently, while the long-term outlook looks good for the company, the short-term is not quite as bright. The company has urged those enjoying Free copies of Mandrake Linux to consider supporting the company's efforts by joining the MandrakeClub or purchasing a products from MandrakeStore.
MandrakeSoft's new Multiple Network Firewall (“MNF”) specialty Linux distribution has been on the forefront of the computer news
for the last week, not so much because of its technical merits, but because of what appeared to be a reversal in
the company's policy on licensing. The distribution's creator and company co-founder, Gaël Duval, was kind enough to return to our hot seat and discuss both the licensing controversy as well as some other points about MNF.
The goal is tough, the reviewers tougher, and while the lineup of contenders are all worthy the award, only one will receive it. In this report, Open for Business' Timothy R. Butler grills Xandros in the first of a multi-part series to find out which vendor has created the best GNU/Linux distribution in town.
InformationWeek reports on the exciting news that 8-year old RedHat Software of North Carolina has made a profit for the first time. ” Leading Linux provider Red Hat Inc. climbed into the black for the first time in its eight-year history during the quarter ended in November. The company says it had a profit of $305,000 on revenue of $24.3 million for the third quarter. A year ago, Red Hat lost $15.1 million on revenue of $20.1 million.”