07.30.08

Links 30/07/2008: Fedora 10 is Cambridge, Free Computers a Reality

Posted in News Roundup at 2:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Games : Jack Keane shipping for Linux
Fedora 10 Codenamed “Cambridge”

Cambridge was the Red Hat project that went on to form Fedora Core and it was the release name for Fedora Core 1. Now with Fedora 10, Red Hat has gone full-circle and its codename is Cambridge. This codename was voted on by Fedora contributors and among the other contenders were Farnsworth, Nitrate, Saltpetre, Terror, and Whiskey Run.
FSF works with Los Alamos Computers to provide free computers

Sullivan first heard about LAC when FSF supporters suggested linking to the company on the hardware list. The FSF had been interested in pre-loaded free systems ever since Dell started offering Ubuntu on some systems last year, and was even considering offering its own custom systems, but decided that working with an existing manufacturer was “a better option. We want to get these machines in at a lot of places,” Sullivan says.
South African sister companies praise Linux-based accounting program

Gospel Direct and Maranatha Record Co., sister companies based in South Africa, have exercised their faith in a Linux-based accounting program.
Pardus 2008 Review

Pardus 2008, to a green user, is your average desktop environment. Many of the gems of the system lie under the hood in utilities like TASMA and PiSi. It’s an easy system to get started with, but has some odd quirks such as PolicyKit problems and the somewhat hidden root account. In the end, it’s clear that a lot of effort went into making Pardus a usable desktop for anyone.
The 2.6.27 merge window closes

On July 28, Linus Torvalds released the 2.6.27-rc1 prepatch and closed the merge window for 2.6.27. That means we now know what will be in this kernel, which will probably be released sometime in October. Recent cycles have featured a lot of internal cleanup and relatively few new features, but 2.6.27 will reverse that trend somewhat. Linux users will see a lot of new things here.

Devices

Neuros open set-top box puts Linux in living rooms

There is already a very real community forming around the device and it has some nice features, such as Last.fm integration and the Neuros web browser, that have been implemented by volunteer contributors and Google Summer of Code participants.
Data acquisition computer runs Linux from flash

Moxa has introduced a 1U rackmount data acquisition computer with 16 serial ports and four 10/100 Ethernet ports, all on RJ-45 jacks. The DA-662-I runs Linux on Intel’s ARM-based IXP425 processor, with HTTP, telnet, and FTP servers, and PCMCIA, CompactFlash, and USB expansion.
RISC/DSP SoCs ship with Linux tools

Texas Instruments (TI) says it is now shipping all four of its OMAP35xx system-on-chips (SoCs), and it announced a Linux-based Digital Video Software Development Kit (DVSDK) to go with them.
Mobile computing now an open-source driver

“We’ve seen some amazing things happening in the Linux development process that’s really going to impact the mobile world,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, in a presentation at the Open Mobile Exchange portion of the conference. Zemlin explained that datacenter innovations pertaining to power consumption in Linux can be applied to the mobile world, translating to longer battery life. Real-time technology also is pertinent, he said.