10.19.09

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Linux is just too open

  The Problem with Linux is that it is forthright, open and honest.

  Now I know how much the editors here hate when I anthropomorphize an operating system, but it is fundamentally true.

  Linux, in my view, remains almost too honest and too open.

  [...]

  Thus, they return to their old love and never really find out why so many open networking connections occur mysteriously in the background, beneath attire that they will never probe. And thus they will routinely be exposed to vulnerabilities that they could have potentially avoided with Linux.

  Sadly, perhaps Linux is just for those who can appreciate what’s underneath.

• A math teacher with his students bring Desktop4education to austrian schools

  This is an introduction to a case study that was published recently, this case study is a good example for everyone of us, if we need to extend the use of opensource and especially Linux we need to start from the basic, that are our children, and the best place where to start , are the schools .

• Tom’s Definitive Linux Software Roundup: Communications Apps

  In this segment, we will be focusing on communications applications. While these apps still rely on Internet access to function, their focus is to allow the user to communicate with other individuals using the Internet simply as a transit medium. We will go over Personal Information Managers (PIM), email clients, Instant Messengers (IM), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) clients. That means replacements for Outlook, Outlook Express, Trillian, and mIRC are to be found within. Many of these apps you may already be using in Windows. Mozilla Thunderbird, Skype, Pidgin IM, and others have native Linux installations available, too.

• Everything Linux store set for opening on Friday

  Open Source and web development consultancy Babel Com Australia has announced plans to open online retailer Everything Linux Store (ELS) as a bricks and mortar shopfront in Crows Nest, Sydney on October 23.

• Nanorobot Invention and Linux: The Open Technology Factor – An Open Letter to UNO General Secretary

  Abstract: This is an open letter, which discloses an outline on the current status of nanorobotic cutting edge technology trends in software development, bioinformatics, proteomics, nanotechnology, and manufacturing integration. It provides a layman’s description of a practical platform to effectively boost the development of nanobiotechnology, and to manufacture nanorobot hardware architecture for medical defense that will benefit humankind. The core description of the present initiative is based on Linux strategies. The basis and key advantages of such an approach are clearly described next. Nanotechnology should be used for peaceful purposes based on ethical practices to provide a human heritage. The nanorobot invention has an impact on current history and provides a legacy for coming generations.

• Desktop

  • KELLNER: Ubuntu Linux powers up

    I haven’t played with 9.10 yet, but I have used the most recent “stable” release, Ubuntu 9.04. It’s a very nice operating system: graphical, easy to learn, and equipped, out of the gate, with a Web browser, e-mail client and productivity suite. It loaded on my system without crashing the main OS, and it ran well. I could connect to the Internet without hassle, and thus had a world of options open to me

  • Migration from Mac to Linux

    When in OS X (and in Windows) the default action is a very predictable beast. You want to make sure this is mimicked in Linux. In GNOME you can right click a file, select Open With, and then set that as the default application for that type of file. As much as this might seem second nature, for OS X users this is simply not an issue. Having everything so well integrated is not a feature on OS X, it’s a requirement. So make sure everything works exactly as expected BEFORE the OS X user touches their Linux box.

  • Two ways Linux can win market share from Windows

    Ways I believe Linux can become the dominant operating system on desktop computers:

    1. Kids need to get used to it in school. As long as teachers accept free software from Microsoft and shun Linux in school, there is NO way Linux will become mainstream.
    2. Games! There needs to be a range of good quality easy to install mainstream commercial games that can work on Linux. There are a few, but too few and far between.

• Server

  • IBM plans big hardware upgrade next year

    IBM has tried to cut user costs in the current mainframe line by using specialty processing engines, such the Linux IFL processor.

• Kernel Space

  • Linux drivers for Visioneer & Xerox DocuMate Scanners

    JFL Peripheral Solutions has announced the availability of new Linux drivers, for Visioneer and Xerox DocuMate scanners.

  • Kernel Log: Coming in 2.6.32 (Part 1) – Network subsystem and network drivers

    Between Thursday evening and Friday morning, Linus Torvalds released the fourth release candidate of Linux version 2.6.32, although, due to the typing error in the first release candidate (RC1 was mis-labeled RC2), it is called 2.6.32-rc5 instead of 2.6.32-rc4.

  • NVIDIA GeForce GT 220

    To Linux users these graphics cards are also interesting in that they fully support all of the current features of VDPAU for Linux video decoding, including MPEG-4 support. We picked up an XFX GT220XZNF2 GeForce GT 220 1GB graphics card for this round of benchmarking on Ubuntu Linux.

• Applications

  • 10 of the Best Free Linux Relational Databases

    A relational database matches data using common characteristics found within the data set. The resulting groups of data are organized and are much easier for people to understand. In such a database the data and relations between them are organised in tables. A table is a collection of records and each record in a table contains the same fields. Certain fields may be designated as keys, which means that searches for specific values of that field will use indexing to speed them up.

  • Articles : Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker 2.4 Release!

    The Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker 2.4 Release has arrived! Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker is an open source game design program for kids and adults featuring in game map/world creation! The focus is to make the process of creating games and worlds easy enough for kids but powerful enough to create full game projects. Supports Windows, Linux, Mac (we someone to compile the binary!).

  • Stumbling and Sniffing Wireless Networks in Linux, Part 1

    Do you need to stumble or sniff networks? Do you need to do a Wi-Fi site survey, troubleshoot network annoyances, or make sure your employees (or children) aren’t misusing the Internet? Sure you can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on commercial network analyzers–usually for Windows–but Linux and the open source community offer some great tools.

• Distributions

  • Review of iMagic OS 2009.9

    In September, the iMagic team released iMagic OS 2009.9. The iMagic OS distribution has a lot of strong selling points. They offer a modern, easy-to-use desktop with all the common media codecs and plug-ins an end user would expect from a desktop OS. The iMagic distribution also claims the additional bonus of being able to run Microsoft Windows applications out of the box. The iMagic project leader, Carlos La Borde, was nice enough to provide a copy of the project’s latest release for me to test drive.

  • Is there a best distro?

    What is the best Linux distribution? Not what is the best distribution for a server or what is the best distribution for a netbook, but what is the best general distribution. This made me step back and think for a couple of seconds. All of the distributions start from the same point. The kernel is essentially the same in every distribution, so that is not a differentiator. All of the distributions contain a selection of rich applications, and many distribution contain the same selection of applications, so that is not a clear discriminator.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Hilal Computers to make GITEX debut

      Hilal Computers was appointed a Red Hat Advanced Business Partner (ABP) for IT infrastructure in August 2009. It is the only Red Hat-certified partner in Bahrain with the technical and business capabilities to deploy Red Hat open source solutions and support in locally.

    • Open source, free software and Linux – How does Red Hat make money?

      Red Hat is the leading software company using the open source model. We’re a member of the S&P 500 and one of the fastest growing, most profitable public software companies. We’re best known for the Linux operating system where we have 80+% share of paid Linux. But we also have a full suite of enterprise infrastructure software and basically open source software is a development model where source code is open and freely redistributable.

  • Debian Family

    • Review: Parsix GNU Linux 3.0 Kev!

      It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon here in BC Canada. What a better day to look at Parsix GNU/Linux 3.0 “Kev” for my first time. A little background about this distro from Parsix.Org.

    • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 164

      Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #164 for the week October 11th – October 17th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 9.10, Unseeded Universe/Multiverse Final Freeze Schedule, Ubuntu Open Week: November 2-6, 2009, LoCo News, New lpx project group for Launchpad extensions, Launchpad’s status page, Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week, Stefan Lesicnik: Debian 2 Ubuntu – Security FTW, Ubuntu-UK Podcast: Beautiful Chaos, 0 A.D. Promises Real Gaming for Ubuntu, and much, much more!

    • Top 5 New Things in Ubuntu 9.10

• Devices/Embedded

  • MontaVista rev’s carrier grade distro for 4G

    MontaVista Software announced a new release of its Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) 4.0 compliant Linux distribution for networking customers, adding support for 4G wireless networks including LTE and WiMAX. MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) 5.1 also integrates OpenSAF High Availability (HA) capabilities and is the first to offer virtual routing and forwarding, says MontaVista.

  • Phones

    • Moto Android 2.0 smartphone revealed

      Motorola’s upcoming Android smartphone has finally been revealed in a set of front-and-back pictures published online.

    • Android based e-reader tips up

      SPRING DESIGN has taken the wraps off the Duet Navigator, a dual-screen e-book reader that runs the Android OS and offers both a text reader and a web browser.

    • Quick guide to webOS

      webOS itself is a Linux-based operating system but with Palm designed components on top of it. It gives it a rather curious mix of open source foundations and very effective proprietary guts at the same time, and the result is an agnostic way of integrating your social networks and other forms of communication. It’s the default and entirely locked-in operating system for the Pre and will also be at the heart of the Palm Pixi which we’ll probably see before the end of the year.

    • Carrier goes negative on iPhone in Droid ads

      Verizon Wireless has tipped details about an upcoming Android phone in TV ads that hype a “Droid” phone while bashing Apple’s iPhone, says eWEEK. Meanwhile, the Boy Genius Report has published a first-look preview of the Motorola Droid (previously called the “Sholes”) and calls it “the Android device to beat.”

    • Droid TV ad pulls no punches in attacking the iPhone

      The Motorola Droid smartphone that will ship in November from Verizon Wireless could well be the game-changer supporting analyst forecasts that the Android operating system will dominate those from the iPhone and the BlackBerry by 2012.

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • CrunchPad to launch by Christmas?

      Popular Mechanics magazine crowns the unreleased Crunchpad tablet as its ‘Breakthrough Product’ for 2009 – a sign that the affordable Linux tablet could be released by year’s end.

    • Uruguay government gives every student a laptop

      The laptops in question go by the name of the XO, and are brightly coloured, very basic netbooks which run on a Linux operating system called ‘Sugar‘.

    • OLPC in hands of all Uruguay’s primary kids

    • Uruguay becomes first nation to provide a laptop for every primary school student

      Uruguay’s been a huge fan of the One Laptop Per Child initiative for quite some time, and while we’re still unsure if it’s the entity’s biggest customer, the aforesaid nation is certainly doing some serious business with Nicholas Negroponte and Company.

Free Software/Open Source

• Opening my Eyes to Another Advantage of Openness

  It was chaired by Michal Tsur from Kaltura. It was a company I’d already come across, but it was a good opportunity to learn a little more:

  Kaltura’s platform includes an easily customizable set of widgets that seamlessly integrate into video applications on web platforms of any kind. Publishers can deploy existing widgets and apps or take advantage of Kaltura’s open architecture in order to develop new ones.

  Whether you need a basic online video platform or one with a robust set of advanced features – Kaltura has a solution for you. Our open framework provides everything you need to design, develop, and deploy rapid and cost-effective video applications on any site.

  Interestingly, Kaltura does not employ the currently-fashionable “open core” approach of providing some of its code under a free software licence, and add-ons under proprietary ones.

  Instead, it’s a pure dual-licensing set-up: the same code is available under free (GNU Affero GPL) and non-free licences, for all the usual reasons.

• OpenBSD 4.6 release ships new services, eases installation

  The OpenBSD project has announced the availability of release 4.6, which debuts a new mail server and an easier installation among many other feature enhancements and bug fixes for the open source operating system.

  OpenBSD founder and release manager Theo de Raadt announced the installer has “almost been rewritten, primarily with a focus on simplifying the installation process”.

• On Mobile Phones, Firefox’s Big Bet Is Nokia & Android

  With little or no chance of ever being able to make it through the draconian approval process of Apple’s iTunes App Store, Mozilla, the not-for-profit organization behind the Firefox browser, is betting on two major, if emerging, mobile operating platforms: Maemo, Nokia’s new Linux-based operating system, and Google’s Android OS. But don’t count on Mozilla supporting RIM’s BlackBerry OS anytime soon.

• Sun

  • MySQL cofounder says Oracle should sell database

    Oracle should resolve antitrust concerns over its acquisition of Sun Microsystems by selling open-source database MySQL to a suitable third party, its cofounder and creator Michael “Monty” Widenius said in a blog post on Monday.

  • NoSQL: Distributed and Scalable Non-Relational Database Systems

    Non-SQL oriented distributed databases are all the rage in some circles. They’re designed to scale from day 1 and offer reliability in the face of failures.

  • Sun tunes its VirtualBox

    The most popular virtualization tool distributed by Sun Microsystems – and one whose future as an Oracle product is in question – is VirtualBox, and the software was just updated with a new 3.0.8 release.

• FSF/GNU

  • An Interview With Mako

    My name is Benjamin Mako Hill. I am 28 years old, male, and I live in Somerville, Massachusetts just outside Boston. My day job is doing research at MIT. I am a fellow at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media and am currently doing work on a PhD somewhere between the Sloan School of Management and the MIT Media Lab.

• Licensing

  • GPLv2 clause 6

    This week I was in Grenoble for the Embedded Linux Conference Europe. On the seond day of the conference — Friday — I was one of the few people wandering around in a suit. Even the guys who normally wear suits had dressed down to deal with the nitty-gritty of kernel threads, time sources, and boot time optimization.

    [...]

    PS. Thanks to Saul Goode for some very careful and relevant comments to my previous writing on the GPL version 2; in particular pointing to the US Copyright Code and how it doesn’t restrict running the program at all — as indeed the GPLv2 itself writes “The act of running the program is now trestricted.”

Leftovers

• Silvio Berlusconi’s TV company filmed bribery case judge

  Italian magistrates and the opposition have complained after a TV channel owned by Silvio Berlusconi secretly filmed a judge who ruled against him in a bribery case.

• Details On the Raj Rajaratnam SEC Insider-Trading Case

  Today, billionaire hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was arrested on insider-trading charges. The SEC filed a formal complaint in court alleging that Rajaratnam tapped into his network of friends and close business associates to obtain insider tips.

• How Wall Street is making its billions

  Wall Street banks have had profitable quarters. JPMorgan Chase reported $3.6 billion in profit (more than $1 billion per month). Goldman Sachs was only slightly behind, at $3.2 billion. These profits supposedly came from “trading.” I asked a friend who has worked in the money business how this was possible. “For someone to make money trading, there has to be someone on the other side of every trade who is losing money. Where does each bank find someone who can lose $1 billion every month?”

• Former Goldman Sachs Exec Named SEC Enforcement Division COO

  Robert Khuzami and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division have a new chief operating officer, according to Bloomberg News. Adam Storch, a 29-year-old former Goldman Sachs manager, joined the SEC staff Tuesday, and the agency announced his new post in a statement Friday. His primary task will be to make the division more efficient.

• VisiCalc turns 30 and SocialCalc turns 1.0

  According to my notebook from 1979, 30 years ago today Dan Fylstra, head of Personal Software, our Bay Area publisher, told me that he had the first production VisiCalc packages in hand. I received mine the next day (Saturday delivery). So today, for argument’s sake, is the 30th anniversary of the shipment of VisiCalc 1.0. (Well, actually, we called it version 1.37, but it was the first packaged version produced and sold in volume.)

• Internet/Censorship/Web Abuse/Rights

  • UK.gov back to the drawing board on DNA retention

    The government has dumped a heavily-criticised plan to retain the DNA profiles of innocent people for up to 12 years, after the researchers behind evidence it was based on disowned the policy.

  • UK.gov convinces just 2,000 Mancunians to join ID card trial

    The government’s ID card pilot scheme in Manchester has failed to capture the North West’s imagination with just 2,000 volunteers coming forward to date.