At The People Behind KDE this week an interview with the man who represents what working and contributing to a project like KDE stands for. He is outspoken, always helpful, has broad view of things that KDE needs and it's future, he is passionate about politics and social issues. He is from Cowtown, in The Great White North: Canada's own Aaron Seigo!

Read the full thing here

Learn how to use The GIMP's powerful layer and pattern tools by framing a digital photograph in the digital darkroom of MozillaQuest Magazine's (mozillaquest.com) Mike Angelo. This tutorial is based upon GIMP 1.3. Thus it also is applicable to GIMP 2.0 and in effect previews GIMP 2.0. You can apply the basic skills, elements, and principles that you learn in this tutorial to edit and manipulate photos, clipart, scanned images and other digital graphics with The GIMP. You also can use the GIMP to design and create all sorts of stunning computer graphics and images from scratch. GIMP is an excellent, pixel-based, image manipulation and editing program. It's free and open source software. GIMP is a cross-platform (XP) program for the BSD, Linux, UNIX, Mac, and Microsoft Windows platforms. GIMP looks and feels much like Adobe Photoshop. Unlike Photoshop, GIMP is free and does not need to be registered or activated. The GIMP 1.3/2.0 desktop and UI make GIMP as easy to use as Photoshop, perhaps even easier. Think of the GIMP and Photoshop as similar software products of comparable quality.

Check MozillaQuest.com for the full story and links!

Mandrake Linux 9.2 for AMD64 is now available with BitTorrent (4 CDs) for silver members. Most of the i586 RPMs are compatible with that release and you will see that this edition is on the average 20% faster than a traditionnal 32-bit system. In addition, AMD64 users will find new commercial RPMs as new NVidia drivers, updated Java RunTime Environment and j2sdk 1.4.2 RPMs.

And, the three first ISOs of a new Powerpack 9.2.1 release include all official updates -- some packages built for the Club such as Gaim 0.74 (which now supports MSN messenger), the latest Mozilla 1.5, and a new OpenOffice with additional patches and improvements.

From Open:

Free at last: Business communicators can get to know the wonders, wallops, and weaknesses of soft phones by downloading free Linux soft phone from telephony whiz-kids, Zultys Technologies. This week, find out what Zultys offers in telephony solutions for any business where mobility is required, plus honest observations about VoIP's technology kinks.

From Linux Journal:

Sisler High school is the largest high school in Manitoba, with approximately 1,600 students and 120 staff members on campus. The school offers many computer courses at different levels, ranging from computer programming and office skills to vocational subjects, such as trouble-shooting personal computers, networking and advanced operating systems. In 2002, due to a letter from CAAST (Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft), the school spent more than $50,000 to make sure we had all the necessary licenses for our software.

I have been using and teaching Linux on both the high school and university levels since the mid 1990s. I have set up a variety of Linux servers for a variety of purposes: Web server, shell accounts, Java/C++ programming, routers, as well as HA (high availability) clusters and Beowulf clusters.

From Open:

This week, Open magazine discovers a sure example of what happens when a smart startup builds a business on sweat, good ideas, and a LAMP unto its feet. We talk to the executive VP of iStockphoto, who not only uses MySQL but unashamedly drops its name as the company's database of choice to impress partners who, like his team, are impressed with all MySQL can do.

From LinuxGames:

That tirelessly coding fairy godmother of the Linux gaming community, Ryan "icculus" Gordon, has posted news that a 64-bit native version of the UT2004 demo (see our previous post) for AMD's AMD64 line of processors is now available. This package includes both the client and the dedciated server. Ryan cautions people to consider several factors when evaluating the AMD64 build. The compilers/drivers on this architecture aren't nearly as mature as you might be used to on a 32-bit system, so don't be too critical about performance just yet. If you don't have an Opteron, Athlon64, or Athlon FX processor then this build is useless to you. If you don't have a 64-bit operating system, then this build is useless to you. And, finally, there are reports of system lockups and reboots when running this binary: you have been warned. In short, you probably shouldn't be running this on your company's mission-critical webserver.

Read the full thing here

MozillaQuest Magazine (mozillaquest.com) reports: SCO could end up suffering a fatal blow to its anti-Linux war if the U. S. District Court for Utah grants Novell's Motion to Dismiss the SCO v Novell lawsuit. On the other hand, refusal of the Utah Court to dismiss the lawsuit could mean that SCO does indeed have a claim to the Unix copyrights. A decision to dismiss this lawsuit also could have ripple effects against SCO in its lawsuits with IBM and Red Hat.

The motion is based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure12(b)(6), which allows a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit when the Plaintiff (instantly SCO) does not stand a snowball's chance in Hawaii of winning the lawsuit.

From the Cooker Mailing List:

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/torrent/MandrakeLinux-10.0-rc1.torrent

• We revert to XFree 4.3 for license reason.
• We remove japanese fonts for license reasons.
• New Drakfax.
• Drakconnect must still have some troubles.

-- Warly

From /.:

"Another big name looks like it's going to shack up with Linux. Shuttle, the maker of those small little cube looking PCs, is adopting Mandrake Linux with their newest network appliance XPCs. You can check out a review of the machine at Sudhian."

Read the full thing here