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 Layoffs and Closures Now Reported in Africa
Microsoft Uninstalls Nigeria as it closes African Development Centre (ADC) in Lagos
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 08, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 08, 2024
Gemini Links 09/05/2024: Registered Computer Professionals and TLS (The Long Slog)
Links for the day
Links 08/05/2024: Android Malware and "AI" Hype
Links for the day
[Meme] Technical Committee With People Who Are Not Technical
the computing/computer industry being occupied by people who lack suitable background
The Demise of Computer Science Education
Education is essential for the future; without it, whole nations will perish
[Video] Prisons for the Minds and for Tech Workers
Today's video talks about what happens to workforces (across disciplines) in recent years
[Meme] Struggling to Leave Its Nazi Past Behind
digital arson
Microsoft Declines to Talk About How Many People It Has Just Laid Off
Hours ago in IGN: "Microsoft did not say how many staff will lose their jobs, but significant layoffs are inevitable. IGN has asked Bethesda for comment. Microsoft declined to expand further when contacted by IGN."
Microsoft Windows in South America: From 99% to 87%
the latest from statCounter
It's Rather Obvious Why They Try to Silence Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, and Daniel Pocock
Some of them already sent physically menacing messages to Daniel Pocock
IRC Network of Techrights Turns 3 (or 16 if We Count the Freenode Days)
In a few months IRC turns 36
Sedating Oneself (and Shareholders) With Fuzzy Buzzwords and Pointless Acquisitions
IBM trying to buy time
Clickfraud Spamnil Ran Out of Clickfraud Budget, Apparently
sooner or later charlatans and frauds run out of steam
Techrights Gets Under the Skin of Bad, Corrupt, Immoral People (That's a Good Thing)
Journalism is the lifeblood of democracy and free societies
Companies Do Not Shut Down Offices and Lay Off Staff en Masse (Morale and Reputation Issue) Unless They're in Deep Financial Trouble
Microsoft has been faking its financial performance for years
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 07, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 07, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
[Video] Leaving Microsoft Behind for the Sake of National Security
Threats to "National Security" aren't some users with an Android phone but Microsoft at the root of things
GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Now at 6% in France, According to statCounter
numbers from statCounter
Gemini Links 07/05/2024: Music Spotlight and Network Knobs
Links for the day
Only Weeks After Microsoft Closed Offices and Studios It is Closing Several More (Many Layoffs, Still Deeply Debt-Saddled)
When the sad news writes itself
Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela: GNU/Linux Reaches 9% (ChromeOS Included)
Venezuela must have lost interest in some American proprietary software when users were locked out of their own data (Adobe) and the costs could no longer be justified
[Video] Microsoft is Like Big Oil, Big Tobacco, and Other Perpetrators of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering
openwashing, Microsoft lobbying, and Microsoft subsidies (e.g. bailouts in the form of 'defence' contracts)
Security & Debian: Urgent: New Feed URLs after another WIPO censorship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
World Press Freedom Day: WIPO censors Debian suicide cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 07/05/2024: Smashing Windows (Moving to GNU/Linux) and Mastodon Time-wasting
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2024: Pulitzer for Supreme Court Expose, New Threats to Media Reported
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2024: Cheap EVs and Cloudflare Layoffs
Links for the day
Berlin police declined to investigate FSFE Nazi comparisons
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Communities Governed by Parasitic Elements and Girlfriends (Who Can't Understand Those Communities)
Karen Sandler and Molly de Blanc present at DebConf18
[Meme] You Can't Kill an Idea (or Facts)
Thankfully, in Western societies, there's still due process, rule of law etc. You don't just hire assassins or imprison critics
[Meme] Software in the Public Interest (SPI), Inc, Values Articles of Daniel Pocock at ~$5,000 Each (and Fails to Hide the Facts)
we are laughing, not grieving
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 06, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, May 06, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
[Meme] About 2,564 Internet Sites Now at Risk of Hostile Takeover by Microsoft-Sponsored Software in the Public Interest (SPI)
WIPO censors Debian suicide cluster
Links 07/05/2024: Burning Plastic Waste, Facebook Censoring Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/05/2024: Smashing Windows (Microsoft Losing Users to GNU/Linux), Sixty Years of BASIC
Links for the day