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Panasas system storage maker, based in Fremont, Calif, has recently announced that it will open source the code of DirectFlow parallel file system client software. The parallel network file system (pNFS for short) refers to a Panasas technology for improving the customer development of parallel storage solutions and also brings an innovative solution to the so-called storage I/O bottlenecks.

As company officials stated, pNFS is expected to run on Linux, Windows and also UNIX-like versions. According to their statements, they will
be open-sourcing the code of DirectFLOW client for Linux, especially to the storage and developer community and also the object layout driver and iSCSI drivers. As it is said on its website, the parallel NFS is an extension to NFS v4 that allows clients to access storage devices directly and in parallel thus eliminating the scalability and performance issues associated with NFS servers in deployment today. This is achieved by the separation of data and metadata, and moving the metadata server out of the data path.
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The scope of this guide is to repair or install MP3 support in (K)Ubuntu distributions. Why repair? The answer is very simple: a few days ago, after a recommended update offered via the Adept software, the MP3 support in my Kubuntu operating system suddenly disappeared. Amarok, Juk, Kaffeine and even the Audacious player did not want to play my MP3 files. Moreover, I tried to play an .m3u Live Radio stream and… guess what? Amarok did not load the stream; it complained about some .aac playback (I looked in the stream’s properties and the stream was a live.aac file).

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, also known as MP3, is the most popular audio format used these days by many people around the world. Unfortunately, the MP3 audio format is restricted in Ubuntu distribution because of copyright or legal issues in some countries. For more
information you can visit the official Ubuntu Licensing web page.
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The latest device I’ve heard to make use of the Linux operating system was the SMS FoxBox, a small gateway launched by Acme Systems and used for sending and receiving short text messages through a commercial SIM card. SMS FoxBox also offers support for email(smtp/pop3), mysql and web interfaces and it comes equipped with a GSM quad band modem, a SD/MMC memory card, which can store up to 1 million messages and it also takes in an Apache web server to handle the SMS queues.

FoxBox is based on a 2.6-series Linux kernel, developed by KDEV, with busybox providing also a shell environment. The devices’ s primary user interface is provided by the Boa servers.The standard software coming with the device takes in: an SSH server, telnet server, SMS server, fetchmail, procmail, mailsend, PHP5, and an FTP server. Firmware is remotely upgradable via LAN, Web, FTP, or SSH. The SMS to TCP/IP functions provided by the gateway would therefore include: SMS to/from : email, Postfix, MySQL, web scripts, desktop widgets, MS Access, Macromedia Flash animation or MS Outlook.

Highlights:

- Radio or TV shows with live interaction with the public, such as real-time SMS polls
- Data processing for alarms and measure/control units
- Sending and receiving SMS from a web site
- Mass SMS message distribution
- Server control via SMS
- SMS-based order processing systems

The user interface comes with many message management facilities. It has an inbox and an outbox, and also provides an addressbook with group messaging facilities and tools for setting up polls as well as configuration tools. There is another aspect that is worth mentioning here, as it has proven very useful for many users. That would be the Custom application interface, which provides users the capability to write shell scripts and connect them to the system’s event handler.  [via]

Mad Tux store comes with a catchy offer: an ultra-low-cost Linux PC which, despite the unbelievable low price, provides a series of cool features. As I was saying, the price is very low, more specifically it is just $139.00. But the monitor and keyboard are not included and you’d have to buy them for yourself. The MT-100 Low-Cost PC belongs to the Affordable Linux PCs series which takes in many other similar offers, one of them being the MT-220 2.66 GHz 64-bit Affordable Performance PC which costs only $179.00.

According to their website the MT-100 computer has the following configuration:

- VIA C7 1.5GHz processor
- 256MB DDR2 RAM included
- 13.5GB 7200RPM Hard Disk
- 100Mbps fast-ethernet port
- UltraDMA EIDE controller
- Memory expandable to 2GB
- Two 32-bit PCI slots
- Two IDE connectors onboard
- 128-bit 3D/2D Graphics engine
- Full-featured AGP v2.0 compliant 4x transfer mode AGP controller
- VIA VT1612A 6-channel audio codec, Intel AC’97 compliant
- Two PS/2 ports for mouse and connector, one serial, one parallel port, one VGP port, one LAN port, four USB 2.0 ports and audio jacks.

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Dell reportedly will release its new Ubuntu-powered computers on May 24. In his blog, LinuxQuestions.org founder Jeremy Garcia writes that a Dell staffer told him, "We will be launching a Linux based OS (Ubuntu) on the E520, 1505 and XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24."