03.09.09

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers
• Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

GNU/Linux

• The Frugal Laptop

  I simply wiped the entire hard drive on the old laptop and installed Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu is a very user-friendly flavor of Linux that is arguably easier to install than Windows and runs very well on older hardware (not ancient hardware, just older hardware). All I had to do was burn an Ubuntu CD on my desktop machine, install it on the laptop, plug in my network cable on the laptop, and have Ubuntu update itself to all of the latest software and drivers. Boom – everything works like a charm, from the sound to the wireless. It took me about two hours, all told, and most of that time was simply waiting, meaning I walked away and did other things while things got set up.

• Blueprint for Survival

  Using the above base line, a switch to an Open Source, low-consumption model of computing in education alone would save about 20 jobs per LA and over a thousand nationwide.

  It would directly impact on schools and children because it would cover most of the educational psychologists, education welfare officers and school improvement partners that will otherwise get the chop in 2011.

  So Public Sector, make the changes now embrace FOSS early, it’ll be better than the dole.

  BTW, if you still need some more cash for jobs, get the Government to cancel some of those white elephant-database projects.

• How Linux Can Finally Rise Above Microsoft

  The conclusion? The Desktop. Why the desktop? Linux has already conquered the server market. All it needs to do for that portion of its audience is to continue to scale upwards and keep creating incredible, usable servers.

• How to run a successful Linux User Group

  If there was one thing Linux Format magazine learned from the Readers’ Round Table event it organised, it was that us Linux folk like to get out and have a good chat.

  Over the several hours we were all together, we covered dozens of subjects, and the conversation was lively and opinionated. And that was with only nine of us.

• Linux saves the day: why every good toolkit should have Linux

  No matter if you’re exclusively a Windows shop, every good IT technician needs Linux in their toolkit. A bootable Linux CD has saved my bacon more than once.

• Resurrect your old PC

  Rather than throw old hardware away because it can’t cope with Vista’s bloat, we show you how to put it to good use – read on to learn how to transform your old computer into a mail server, a fileserver, a web server, a spam blocker, a PC for kids and more!

  [...]

  The test rig used for testing most of the software we will discuss is actually slightly lower spec, it has a 700MHz Celeron processor, because that’s what I found in the pile of computer gear I never throw away in my loft, right next to my faithful old – but non-functioning – Amiga 4000.

• Installation easier on Unix servers

  Surprisingly, the Unix mail servers were all easier to install than the Windows ones!

  The four Unix-compatible servers, Communigate Pro, Kerio MailServer, Scalix Enterprise Edition and Zimbra Collaboration Suite all fit into our standard RedHat system quickly and simply, with minimal confusion.

  In contrast, MDaemon, Alt-N’s Windows-only tool, showed up without an installation manual and three anonymously named applications, leaving us confused about the order to install them or what to do once the three applications were installed. We eventually found an incomplete installation guide, contributed by a third party, posted on the MDaemon knowledge base.

• Open source microbloggers you should follow

  If you’re a fan of Identi.ca or Twitter and want to follow the alpha geeks of the free sofware world, we’ve put together a list of people to make it easy for you to find them.

• FLOSS Weekly 59: TuxPaint

  TuxPaint, the award-winning, multi-platform, art creation software for children.

  Guests: Bill Kendrick and David Bruce for TuxPaint

• Games

  • Bandits: Phoenix Rising Finally Gets A New Beta

    This morning the third closed beta for Bandits: Phoenix Rising was released by LGP’s CEO, Michael Simms. This third beta has some crash fixes and other work. In Michael’s mailing list message, he noted that he hopes to get the rest of the bugs fixed over the next month and then ship this six year old title to Linux users.

  • Emulation Explosion On the PS3 Via Linux

    The PlayStation 3 has recently seen an explosion of releases of emulators and games for the Yellow Dog Linux distro for PS3; once you have installed Yellow Dog Linux you then have the ability to try out MAME, SNES, Amiga, Dos, Commodore and Atari emulators (that’s the tip of the iceberg) and such games as Quake 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen 2 and Alephone. Time to start installing Linux on your PS3?

  • Sacred Gold is now, well, gold!

    It took a little longer than we had expected, but we can finally announce that Sacred Gold has been sent to the production company, and we expect it to be ready to ship in 2-3 weeks.

  • 5 Minutes of World of Goo

    Limux version

    Issues found in first five minutes
    None

    Five Minute Goodness
    Gooey goodness. Looks, plays, sounds just great. If I liked this kind of game I would be right into it.

    Score
    7/10 I just think it deserves a seven.

    Windows Version

    Issues found in first five minutes
    Only runs as administrator.

    [...]

    0/10 Sorry, but any game… Game, get it? This is a game and not a disk formatting tool. This is not a DBMS or a web server or a mail server or a registry editor or a tool to add users to the system… This is a GAME dammit.

• Distributions

  • Zenwalk 6.0 has been released !

    We are proud to announce the 6th major version of Zenwalk GNU/Linux. This release comes with the biggest changelog in the history of the project to offer many new features and optimizations.

  • Installing Debian on a Cobalt Qube 3

    The Cobalt Qube 3 is an entirely different beast from the first two models in this line. This is the third Qube I have received free but it could not be more different from the other two.

  • Qimo

    • Tykes Need Linux Too

      In our efforts to get GNU/Linux-based computers into the hands of students, we find that the majority of our machines are going to kids from ages 10-16. That’s an accurate age demographic for those who receive what we give. In most cases, the child has already been exposed to a Windows machine but oddly enough, bears almost none of the hesitancy to learn a new system.

      Much unlike their parents. (“Can’t you just make it LOOK like Windows?”)

      Yes I can.

      No I won’t.

      Lately we’ve received a larger number of requests where the children in the family are younger than the usual requester. Our first install this Saturday morning was no exception to that influx.

    • Qimo, Linux 4 Kids

      I really like Qimo as a project; it has the interests of children at heart and particular those who might be disadvantaged in some way, so it’s worthy of support for those reasons alone.

  • Red Hat

    • Fedora 11 preview

      Fedora 11 Alpha came out a month ago, 2 days later than the initial schedule, and it has recently entered its “Feature Freeze” state.

      Codenamed Leonidas, Fedora 11 is due to be released on May 25th and it includes a large number of new features (most of them have already been approved).

  • Ubuntu

    • Ubuntu is based on Debian unstable

      Debian is well known and regarded as a product, the Debian system itself. In addition to this end product, the Debian community produces a variety of useful by-products. One of the most celebrated is Debian “unstable”, which despite its unglamorous name is an incredible achievement. It represents the collective work of a vast number of developers, who package and maintain essentially all of the free software available.

Free Software/Open Source

• Drupalcon: Drupal Adds Install Tools, Support

  Drupal announced easy installation tools, named Acquia Stack Installer, that bypass much of the command-line steps a Drupal installation traditionally required.

• Starting to organize Thank a dev day

  So, organizing of the first TADD has begun. For now, the date would be 27.3 this year, which will be fixed to “last Friday of every March“.

Leftovers

• Davenport Lyons Threatens to Sue Wikileaks Over Publication of Extortion Letter – Wikileaks

  Claims that the extortion letter is protected by copyright and cannot be posted online.

  Late last year, Wikileaks obtained a copy of one of the extortion letters sent by the infamous law firm Davenport Lyons. The law firm, at the time, had been sending tens of thousands of these letters which threatened to take the recipients to court if they don’t pay just over 500 pounds. The original goal was to deter alleged copyright infringers, but in a strange twist of fate, the law firm is now actively trying to censor the letter itself claiming that the letter is protected under British copyright law.

• 7 Ways to Stop Uncle Sam from Spying On You

  You say you have no secrets. Your life’s an open book. You have nothing to hide. But still, do you really want to make it easy for Uncle Sam — or anyone else for that matter — to rifle through your contact lists, read your e-mails or monitor your cash flow?

  Probably not.

  But privacy advocates say it’s never been easier for the government to collect information about you.

• Copyrights

  • Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011

    His response: It’s all part of a master plan. The labels fully understand that recorded music, streamed or downloaded, is going to be free in the future (we’ve argued this relentlessly). CD sales continue to decline by 20% per year, and the only thing that’ll stop that trend is when those sales reach zero. Nothing will replace those revenues.

  • Sita Sings the Blues is finally free!

    After years of wrangling, Nina Paley’s acclaimed, brilliant short film, Sita Sings the Blues is finally available as a free, open-licensed downloads. Paley spent a shocking amount of time and money fighting over the copyrights to the 1920s jazz music that is integral to the film (some have likened it to Betty Boop in Bollywood, which is catchy, but fails to capture the fantasticness of the film), Paley’s finally secured a license that allows her to distribute the whole movie, for free, forever, under a remix-friendly license.