• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

ES: Andalusia government studying switch to open source desktop

The government of Andalusia, one of Spain’s autonomous regions, is preparing to use a complete open source desktop environment. The analysis of requirements of such a desktop system is nearly completed, the next step will be a few small scale tests, according to a presentation by José Félix Ontañón, one of the software developers involved.

Ontañón talked about the plans by the Andalusian government at the Guadec conference that took place in The Hague, Netherlands, last month.

For the first test, several work stations in the administration will be running a number of open source applications on the proprietary operating system currently used by the administration. In a second phase, a limited number of these desktops will be converted to run a locally tailored version of a Linux distribution.

Live Penguins

I was in the Digital booth, which was near to the “Magic Software” booth when two men came up to the Magic booth and asked to see the penguins. The handler explained that the penguins were “resting” and the two men should come back in a couple of hours to see them. As the two people started to leave, I walked up to the group and said to the penguin handler “See that guy?” pointing to one of them, “None of this event would be here if it was not for him…..his name is Linus Torvalds. Show him the freaking penguins.” The handler then brought the penguins out, and Linus saw them and went on his way.

The next day a lady showed up with her two small children, one in a baby carriage, and asked to see the penguins. She was also told to “come back in a couple of hours”. The small entourage started to leave, and once again I wandered over to the booth:

“Remember that guy who was here yesterday who was the architect of the Linux kernel? This is his wife and two daughters, and my godchildren……get out the freaking penguins!”

About a month after Linuxworld I got a call from the show management. Apparently someone had written to the San Francisco Chronicle about how horrible it was that live penguins were “taken from the wild” and made to perform at the event, their “eyes open wide with fear”.

Leveraging proprietary software at the expense of customers

This behavior seems to be more and more common. The more specialized the software is, the more this seems to take place, too. The software vendors know their leveraging capabilities, and seem to adjust their pricing accordingly. They also lock in customers and use the same type of scheme that Microsoft does, thus forcing them to upgrade and pay over and over again.

As I have stated before, practice like this can be completely avoided by using open source software, which is immune to upgrade pricing, licenses, and other flaws of proprietary software. In the case here, I already know of an open source software package that could be used in its place, it’s called gLabels. But this would involve a lot of migration that is difficult to overcome. The options need to be weighed out, and action taken.

Desktop

• My ZaReason Laptop

  My new laptop is a machine which ZaReason was carrying until recently. It seems they have massively upgraded the version I currently have which provides me with a bit of jealousy and awe. For being an inexpensive machine it is plenty powerful for what I need. It is actually really damn powerful! It boasts an Intel Core 2 Duo T7100, 4 GB of memory, 160GB SATA drive, a NVIDIA GeForce 9200M, a 15.4″ widescreen display, camera, DVD burner, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, and the lists goes on. Hell, this thing even has HDMI, which I am proud to say, it is the only device in my house with such an option. Anyone have a high definition TV for me so I can test it out?

• ZaReason Terra HD

  Oh yeah, I always see people comment on blogs where Linux-laptop vendors are mentioned that they wish there was a company in their country selling these. Guess what? ZaReason ships internationally!

Audiocasts/Shows

• Linux Outlaws 165 – Hairy Fridays

  On the last show for a few weeks: Steam not coming to Linux, new Ubuntu release name announced, Intel buys McAfee, Linux gets Google Voice and Video Chat, Dan’s review of the HTC Desire and much more…

Kernel Space

• More Patches To Improve Linux Desktop Responsiveness

  About one month ago we reported on the emergence of patches that may fix the Linux desktop responsiveness problems, which is an issue that’s been experienced by many Linux desktop users in recent years. For Linux users it may take many seconds for a menu to appear when clicking on it or a half-minute to do a VT switch, but fortunately it’s becoming a thing of the past with these patches working well for many users and has since been integrated into the mainline Linux kernel. The story though is not over as even more patches have just been published to further improve the Linux desktop responsiveness.

• Using Disk Compression With Btrfs To Enhance Performance

  Earlier this month we delivered benchmarks comparing the ZFS, EXT4, and Btrfs file-systems from both solid-state drives and hard drives. The EXT4 file-system was the clear winner in terms of the overall disk performance while Btrfs came in second followed by Sun’s ZFS in FreeBSD 8.2. It was a surprise that in our most recent testing the EXT4 file-system turned around and did better than the next-generation Btrfs file-system, but it turns out that Btrfs regressed hard in Linux 2.6.35 as to be found in Ubuntu 10.10 and other soon-to-be-released distributions. However, regardless of where Btrfs is performing, its speed can be boosted by enabling its transparent zlib compression support.

• DRBD: For When it Absolutely, Positively, Has to be in Sync

  DRBD is a kernel loadable module, and as of kernel 2.6.33 it is included with the mainline kernel. If you are running a Linux server that has any level of kernel revision past 2.6.33, you already have drbd available, and at most will need to load the management tools. If your server is older than that, you will need to download the tools and the loadable module to get it running.

• Graphics Stack

  • NVIDIA 256.52 Linux Driver Brings Fixes

    What this driver update though does provide is a fix that previously prevented XvMC (X-Video Motion Compensation) from initializing (but if there’s anyone still using XvMC in NVIDIA’s binary driver, you should really update your application and driver to utilize the much superior VDPAU API), support for the xorg-server 8 video ABI used by X.Org Server 1.9, a bug that caused extremely slow OpenGL rendering when on X screens other than screen zero when a compositing manager was in use, stability problems on select GPUs such as the GeForce GT 240, a slow kernel virtual address space leak with OpenGL/CUDA/VDPAU applications, and lastly is a bug-fix for hangs when using two or more VDPAU applications simultaneously.

Applications

• Use open source Calibre to help you manage your e-book library

• Audacious 2.4.0 Released – GTK2 Audio Player

  New GTKUI interface and new visualizer for blue scope plugin it’s all now embed inside GTKUI.

• Spicebird – An Email Client That Integrates A Calendar, Chat & iGoogle

  We have reviewed a number of free email clients before. There is the ever so popular Thunderbird, there is Evolution for Linux and then there is Outlook for Windows. An area where Outlook scores fair and square over the other email clients out there is the fact that it integrates common email-related tasks and thus takes care of many chores. You have tasks, calendar, email and social networking (via plugins) all built in into one interface and they all gel together.

  [...]

  All in all SpiceBird works well and does a good job of providing a single interface for tasks that you need to perform daily. The tabbed interface to track your tasks, calendar and emails all in one application is a big plus. The ability to add Google Gadgets to the start page is awesome.

• Psensor – A Graphical Temperature Monitor

  Psensor is a graphical hardware temperature monitor for Linux.

• Ofris – Deep Freeze Like Application For Linux [Ubuntu PPA]

• VLC 1.1.4 is released! PPA Ubuntu

  VLC 1.1.4 is released, this is the fourth bugfix release of the VLC 1.1.x branch. This release comes especially to fix important security issue that was discovered in most windows application, Linux in general is not affected by this security bug. So this new release is targeted for the windows platform.

• 11 Apache Technologies for the Enterprise

  The Apache Software Foundation, best known for the self-named popular open source Web server, has a variety of other technology that can help enterprises with databases, search, development, and more. Here’s an overview of the best.

• Proprietary

  • LinApp – Most Comprehensive Collection of Commercial Linux Applications I Have Ever Seen

    With Ubuntu 10.10 in the process of bringing a number of changes into Ubuntu Software Center including a proposal to provide support for commercial Linux applications, the significance of LinApp becomes even more important. The way they organize and manage their mammoth list of commercial Linux applications is something to be looked at for inspiration.

  • Makers of Pianoteq Talk Piano Modeling, Developing for Linux

    Pianoteq is an effort to model, rather than sample, acoustic pianos and other instruments on the computer. Now in its third major release, its interface and sound generation have each matured. Using mathematical models in place of recorded sounds, an entire grand piano fits in just a few megs of space, rather than requiring several DVDs, and the software maker claims the results can be more natural and playable.

    Pianoteq, which runs as do its rivals on Mac and Windows, is also unusual in providing support for the Linux operating system – something some developers have claimed isn’t practical with commercial music software. And a new “Player” addition, announced this month, makes it more affordable. In addition to software development, the team has even launched an extensive piano restoration effort:

    http://www.pianoteq.com/kivir

    I’ve been impressed with my time playing with Pianoteq’s software. That’s especially meaningful to me, as my background in music has been on acoustic pianos, back to when I was literally old enough to reach the keys for the first time. But I also wanted to know more about how this software developed. Its rigorous approach to modeling has attracted a lot of attention in the virtual instrument world, and the fact that it targets Linux alongside Mac and Windows challenges notions that commercial software can’t make it on the free operating system.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Rupee symbol in openSUSE Edu li-f-e

  • Create A Full System Backup Or Custom Live Ubuntu / Debian CD With Remastersys

  • Enable Surround Sound system (5:1) in Ubuntu

  • Online collaboration with Feng Office

  • Howto Install OSS4 in ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) for better sound quality

  • How to Customize Shortcut Keys for Any Linux Application

  • Turn your Linux computer into a wireless access point using hostapd

  • Rescuing a hosed system using only Bash

  • My life with Ben, episode 1

  • VMware Server 2.0.2-x On Ubuntu Server 10.04 With VMware Remote Console Plug-in

  • Learn Linux, 101: Maintain the integrity of filesystems

  • Ubuntu Linux solution stack implementation, Part 1: Introduction to the UNIX environment

  • Ubuntu Linux solution stack implementation, Part 2: Solution stack download and installation

  • Ubuntu Linux solution stack implementation, Part 3: Demo application

  • Ubuntu Linux solution stack implementation, Part 4: Solution stack setup and integration

  • Booting iso images with GRUB 2

  • Fix low screen resolution at Ubuntu 10.04 start up

  • Install Ubuntu from a Linux partition

  • How to mount Linux LVM volume partitions on Linux

  • Single vs. Double Quotes in Bash

  • How to use custom keyboard shortcuts for a better workflow

  • Configuring Conky The (Very) Easy Way

  • MySQL SELECT Statement 101

• Wine

  • PlayOnLinux 3.8 is out! Major new features : Record games, wine import, Cedega import, Offline wine

    This new version comes with a lot of new features and fixed many bugs, some plugins are now integrated in this software, adding a lot of features like for example: Capture – a new feature that allow you to record your games while playing, Other new features are wine import,PlayOnLinux_016 Cedega import, Offline wine and more.

• Games

  • GOL’s Competition Under Way !

    Gaming On Linux resumed it’s competition after the failed attempt last time.
    LGN and GOL made competitions back then, asking for news/articles – but sadly it didn’t go well for both of us.

  • TORCS Brings Open Racing to GNU/Linux

    One of my favorite GNU/Linux games is Tux Racer, a game where the famous Linux penguin, Tux, races down the ski slopes on his belly at dangerously high speeds. I was also a big fan of the Playstation race car series, Gran Turismo. I decided to skip the Playstation 3, but I used to play Gran Turismo a couple of years ago before I got rid of my trusty PS2.

  • The Chzo Mythos Gets An Update

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • KDE Release Party in Madrid

  • New KDE Desktop! Version 4.5 not perfect, but much better!

    So of course, while I’m spending a glorious and relaxing week hanging out in Boulder, Colorado, the KDE community is working overtime fixing a few showstopper bugs. Version 4.5 of the KDE Software Collection (also known as KDE SC) was released Tuesday, a week late from the original release plan, but it looks like a pretty good one.

  • Updates on Plasma land!

    Playing with dataengines I started to hack on another topic: sharing of articles on Akregator. I started to feel too much dependent on Google’s infrastructure and decided to move some of my stuff “out of the cloud”. I started with Google Reader and put all my feeds on Akregator. Kudos for Google for allowing me to export my list of feeds and kudos to Akregator that imports the file. Everybody is happy and Google is not evil trying to hold my data.

  • KDE 4.5 Window tiling

    Fast-forward to now and Microsoft claims to have innovated a new feature. Soon after that KDE refines the same feature and ads it into 4.4. Of course 4.4 was still suffering from numerous bugs. Fast-forward a little bit further into now and you have 4.5 which squashes tons of bugs and offers an amazing desktop that includes a bug-free tiling experience!

Distributions

• Hands On With The VIA ARTiGO A1100

  Overall, I would say that SliTaz is the best fit. Seeing as most things worked fairly well right away, and no closed-source code was needed (this is an opensource blog after all) I would rate SliTaz an 8 of 10. The only reason for point docking being that overall performance left something to be desired. The best performance goes to Slackware. The boot time was bad, but once booted Slackware was a charm.

• A few notes for Arch Linux

  Probably 95 percent of the Arch screenshots you see include a nifty logo and rundown on the guts of a system. For example …

• New Releases

  • BlankOn 6.1 (Sajadah)

  • Elastix 2.0.2

  • NuTyX 25082010

  • Clonezilla 1.2.6-11

  • AUSTRUMI 2.1.7

  • Mandriva Linux 2010.1

    Mandriva Linux 2010 Spring is available in three editions: One, Powerpack and Free, for architectures i586 and x86-64. One and Free can be free downloaded from official Mandriva mirrors and via BitTorrent. To download these versions, visit this page. A Community version (community supported) based on Xfce of the One version will also be available. You can also download directly via BitTorrent from this page. The Powerpack version is a commercial version available for purchase on the Mandriva Store site. For more information on differences between versions, visit this page.

  • Parted Magic 5.4 Moves to Linux Kernel 2.6.35.3 to Fix Issue

    Just a few days after Parted Magic 5.3 came out, an update was released, mainly to fix an issue affecting the previous release. Parted Magic 5.4 fixes an issue which caused keyboard input to slow down. Despite the short time between releases, several other issues have been fixed as well and some packages updated.

  • NetSecL 3.0 Released

    It was time for a change and we at NetSecL realized that, the new version of NetSecL 3.0 is a live DVD + installation based on OpenSuse. Once installed you can fully enjoy the features of GrSecurity hardened kernel and penetration tools OR if you like to do some penetration testing you can directly run all tools from the live DVD. NetSecL firewall is included as always and most of the penetration tools are ported to the new platform. Also we’d like to mention that we’ve got many other programs up and running with GrSecurity enabled, which is great success especially when it comes to programs like wine, OpenOffice, Vuze, Qemu and many gnome applications. The password for both admin and root user on the DVD is linux.

  • Lunar Linux 1.6.5 (i686 & x86_64) ISO’s released

    The Lunar team proudly announce the final release of Lunar Linux 1.6.5 codename ‘Mare Ingenii’!

    The last known issues with the ISO have been resolved. We added support for hybrid ISO in the last minute, which mean it’s a lot more easy to install lunar from an usb-stick from now on. The developers are currently brainstorming and voting on ideas to further improve the state of Lunar, an announcement about this will be made later. We also plan to let our users, yes you, to chip in with ideas that will be up for voting within our community, but more on that later. Enjoy the release of Lunar 1.6.5!

• Red Hat Family

  • Fedora

    • Fedora Users gather together in Switzerland

      One highlight is the Wired Dreams party on Friday, 2010-09-17, after the first event day just next to the primary event location featuring free (as in creative commons) live music and delicious free beer (with some mugs in form of free as in free beer).

    • What I want from Fedora

      Fedora doesn’t suck, but it could be a lot more useful to a lot more people. And either I am right, or I am wrong. Policy, feedback, goals, all of these things will determine how many of the things I would like to see are feasible, in line with Fedora’s longer term vision, and so forth. So let’s see a very specific vision and direction and all be much happier for it.

• Debian Family

  • Canonical/Ubuntu

    • The New Wallpapers and Theme of Ubuntu 10.10

      Canonical uploaded today the new wallpapers and default theme for the up-coming Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system. Seventeen new beautiful wallpapers and a lightweight and eye-candy theme will please every existing and future Ubuntu 10.10 user!

    • Canonical’s X Gesture Extension Being Re-Evaluated

      Earlier this month Canonical introduced its own multi-touch framework for Ubuntu that is set to premiere with Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick Meerkat” and it’s called UTouch and is joined by their own gesture/touch language. That same day as announcing UTouch for Ubuntu that will support devices like the Apple Magic TrackPad and Dell XT2, Canonical proposed the X.Org Gesture Extension to the X.Org development community. While it’s good to see Canonical making more contributions to upstream projects that it depends upon for Ubuntu Linux, the X.Org Gesture Extension is already being re-evaluated and may in fact not be needed.

    • Ubuntu 10.10 Software Center – Application That Received Maximum Attention Perhaps

    • Ubuntu 10.10 Gets New Default Wallpaper Collection, Upgraded Light Themes

Devices/Embedded

• HD-ready IP set-top offers Android integration

  According to In Media, an existing version of the !ROFL is running an In Fusion software stack, — presumably based on another version of embedded Linux — that is said to be already shipping in handheld devices in China.

• Next-gen ARM cores break memory barrier, add hypervisor support

  ARM Holdings has provided new details about its next-generation Cortex-A series processor core, currently code-named “Eagle.” In a presentation at this week’s “Hot Chips” conference, the company described relevant extensions to its ARMv7-A architecture, including hypervisor extensions and the ability to address more than 4GB of RAM.

• Phones

  • Open Source Phone Tech Could Result in Cell Carrier Rate Drop

    According to Engineering for Change blogger Rob Goodier, cell phone carriers could cut costs and pass savings on to customers by taking advantage of the open source technology created by a team of engineers in the telecom industry.

  • Android

    • Sprint Epic 4G Rooted Before Launch

      Members of the Android community have done it again by gaining root access on the unreleased Samsung Epic 4G. This device is not yet available to the public, but as you can see, some lucky folks who already have the device have already done it. Those of you who plan on rooting your Epic 4G on launch day, the method already works. That makes 3 out of 4 Galaxy S devices rooted so far. Let’s see if the Fascinate can meet the same fate before launch.

    • Fennec: Firefox For Android, Nokia N900

      This first Alpha release of Fennec for Android is an exciting first step in bringing browser choice and customization, along with a seamless Web experience across devices, to a leading open mobile platform. Now, developers have the power to use the latest Web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to to build fast, powerful and beautiful mobile apps and add-ons that can reach many millions of devices.

    • Mozilla Releases Fennec Alpha for Android and Nokia N900

    • How Do Google’s Free Phone Calls Impact Chrome OS?

      Along these same lines, it’s also interesting to note that Google recently added video chat features for Gmail users on Linux. Remember that Chrome OS is positioned to work with applications and data in the cloud. It’s not positioned as an OS for local apps. If users can make VoIP calls that cost nothing or nearly nothing from their Chrome OS devices, and use all their cloud apps too, Chrome OS netbooks instantly become interesting phone/computer hybrids—as do potential Chrome OS tablet devices.

• Tablets

  • 3 Reasons Google Should Make its own Tablets

    The Google Nexus One experiment was a success in showing the market what Android phones could do, and how competitive they could be. Having similar flagship tablets would have the same results by creating a controlled environment for development and optimization. This would accelerate adoption of the platform, which is what Google really wants. It’s not a hardware company, after all.

Getting Started As An Open Source Contributor

Projects

• Add Subtitles or Captions to Any Web Video with Universal Subtitles

  The heavy lifting of subtitling a video is done via a browser-based javascript widget with tools that help users add on-screen text without re-uploading or re-transcoding the original video. The project’s Web site serves as a collaborative space where community members can work together on larger video projects, get advice, and track which captioning and subtitling requests have the greatest need. Both the widget and the Web site are licensed under the AGPL license.

• Make Cool Interactive Maps with Polymaps

  Whether you want to display an interactive map of local farmers’ markets on your blog or you’re trying to put together a clickable map displaying branch offices on your corporate Web site, there’s a good chance Polymaps can help you get the job done. It’s a free, open source JavaScript library for making dynamic maps in a Web browser.

• Archive Your Tweets for Posterity with yourTwapper Keeper

  Online Twitter archive service Twapper Keeper has just released yourTwapperKeeper, an MIT-licensed, server-based app that functions essentially the same way as the Web-based version. Once downloaded and installed, yourTwapperKeeper lets users define Twitter searches by keyword or hashtag and stores results locally for later retrieval.

Oracle

• Java developers’ reaction to Oracle, Google lawsuit

  What do the programmers and companies that depend on the Java software family make of Oracle suing Google? To find out, we asked them.

• Google backs out of JavaOne conference

  A quick look at the JavaOne conference schedule reveals some sessions that were to be conducted by Google, including one entitled “Cloud Cover: Testing Techniques for Google App Engine,” presented by Google software engineer Max Ross. Google also was to participate in a panel session entitled “Taking Java to the Sky: Cloud Computing 2010 Expert Panel,” as well as another session, “High-Performance Java Servers at Google,” featuring Google software engineer Dhanji Prasanna.

Healthcare

• Astronaut Live! VistA Training September 25-26th, Houston, Texas

  Two day weekend format and much lower price! The third edition of Introduction to VistA System Administration with Astronaut will be held in Houston, Texas, September 25-26th.

• Houston The Place to Be Late September, Early October

  Astronaut VistA training September 25th-26th

  AMIA CMIO boot camp Sept 29th-October 2nd

  Open Source Health Conference September 29th-30th

  Texas Health IT Summit September 30th-October 2nd

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• H-node

  The h-node project aims at the construction of a database of all the hardware that works with a fully free operating system. The h-node.com website is structured like a wiki in which all the users can modify or insert new contents.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Data

  • Can Work on an Open Source Map Project Make Money for its Founders?

    My old friend Serge Wroclawski has been working on OpenStreetMap.org (OSM) for a number of years now. He’s done this because he sees this as a worthwhile project — an open source, user-editable worldwide map — rather than as a way to make money. And that’s good, because Serge has made exactly $0.00 so far from his OpenStreetMap.org work. But this may change before long.

Security/Aggression

• Chilcot inquiry accused of fixating on west and ignoring real victims

• The dangers of ‘rapture’ theology

• Researchers Cripple Pushdo Botnet

  One of the interesting aspects of the original version of Pushdo is that its creator was using it not just to send spam, but also to spread other pieces of malware. This has become a more common business model in recent years as bot herders have looked for new ways to make money from the millions of compromised PCs under their control.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Yes, we broke the law as climate change activists. And this is why

  Like the Greenpeace protesters who occupied Kingsnorth power station three years ago, we argued that any crimes we committed paled in comparison to runaway climate change.

  Like them, we aren’t robbers, kidnappers or terrorists. We are secretaries, parents, cooks, community workers, architects and saxophonists. We are part of a growing movement of concerned citizens who are prepared to put our bodies in the way of dangerous high-carbon developments.

• UN report on Nigeria oil spills relies too heavily on data from Shell

  The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is preparing to issue a report announcing that 90% of the oil spills in Ogoniland, Nigeria, are caused by the locals stealing crude from pipelines – and that Shell’s aged pipelines and ill maintained installations account for a mere 10% of the spills. Why so little, we might ask?

  The UNEP has now admitted this figure is based on data from the oil industry and the Nigerian government. It’s not surprising that this is in line with what Shell used to claim in the 1980s – that about 80% of the oil spills were caused by vandalism or sabotage. This claim that infrastructure has been sabotaged is particularly attractive to oil companies, because they are then exempted from paying compensation for any resulting spills. Why accept responsibility for polluting the locals’ creeks, swamps and farmlands and destroying their livelihoods when you can blame the very same people for the mess now coating their own backyards with a toxic gloss?

Intellectual Monopolies

• Patents, Trademarks & All that Jazz

  Ah, well! But, here I am… using a cheap laptop and running a bunch of Free Software apps written for the sake of peace and love by some hippies to write this blog post. Funny, as it might sound, I somehow feel this is the right thing to do. I mean anyone with a sane mind would rather be on the Grateful Dead’s side than Britney Spears’. What about you?

  Oops! I hope the MAFIAA doesn’t come after me for illegally linking to mp3 files in my blog post.

  Ironically, Facebook would have gone out of business if all its users stopped sharing.

• Copyrights

  • TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard

• Distributions

Open source scores

Microsoft is laggard in everything except desktop operating systems, Office and gaming. Internet Explorer has not been able to pass the Acid 3 test which signifies that it is not standards-compliant.

What Mr Scott would fear to accept publicly is the rise of the Ubuntu operating system and how the future release (Meerkat) is being adapted to netbooks (where Win 7 has not been ported). Mobile applications have been hammered and its newer version was greeted with a big yawn. It’s difficult to compare search engines in terms of content but Microsoft-funded agencies have been claiming Bing’s “meteoric rise”. The fact is that Google does not need to shout about its offerings.

There is a serious lack of choice from OEMs while buying new hardware. Mr Scott may not be aware that Linux has been ported to almost everything under sun. I run my entertainment servers attached to Wi-Fi that streams music and is connected to the web on 10-year-old legacy systems ported to Unix which does not need a reboot. Windows does not provide “support” to old hardware.

Applications

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Install the Wacom Bamboo driver in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx using PPAs (tutorial/howto)

Distributions

• Red Hat Family

  • Vyatta routing software certified for IPv6

PixelLight Open-Source Cross-Platform 3D Engine

It’s built entirely in C++ and already runs on Windows and Linux, with test versions already running on mobile devices and web browsers. Definitely looks like something to keep an eye on.

Open-source 3D engine PixelLight released

Brazil goes all-digital with 2010 census

Better known for its beaches and passion for soccer, Brazil also happens to be the world’s second-leading open source country (just behind the U.S.) and boasts an IT services sector that rivals China and India. The South American country is now putting its digital leadership on display by carrying out its first-ever paperless, all-digital population census.

Government saving with open source

Achieving significant efficiency savings and more from IT is possible – Peter Dawes- Huish, CEO, LinuxIT, considers how open source based systems and outsourcing can provide the solution

I attended a seminar the other day and I was amazed just how much misinformation there was around the adoption of open source based software and the services surrounding it. The reasons, the strategies, the options, the benefits it offers both the private and public sector today.

I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because open source (OS), by its very nature with such a developer led resource is such a fast moving field, or those within the OS community and providers of Enterprise Open Source, like LinuxIT, just need to work harder at getting across the ability of OS to transform the management and performance of IT environments. Its ability to contribute towards IT innovation, interoperability, reliability, flexibility, return on investment and so on.

Web Browsers

• Chrome Patches Show the Power of Open Source–and Google

SaaS

• Eucalyptus Strengthens Its Back End

  “We believe the Amazon API is becoming the industry standard, and that many companies will follow it,” Mickos said.

Oracle

• The future of Solaris

  In 2005, Sun released the source code to Solaris, described then as the company’s crown jewel. Why do this? The simplest answer is that Solaris had been losing ground to an open source competitor in Linux. Losing ground was a symptom of economics. Students who had once been raised on Solaris were being inculcated with Linux knowlege. The combination of Linux and x86 were good enough and significantly cheaper; new companies for whom the default had once been Sun/Solaris/SPARC were instead building on x86/Linux. OpenSolaris along with x86 support were specifically intended to address this trend. Indeed, the codename for OpenSolaris was “tonic” — the tonic for Solaris’ problems.

CMS

• Replacing SharePoint with Open Source CMSs

  Probably the most compelling reasons to deploy an open source solution instead are price and flexibility. The licensing costs of SharePoint, plus Windows Server, plus SQL Server and the rest of the bundle are not insignificant. If you’d prefer to avoid becoming too deeply entrenched in Microsoft-based solutions, you’ll find several open source alternatives — and three I personally recommend: Alfresco, MindTouch, and Drupal.

  Why those, and not some of the other open source CMSes? Alfresco and MindTouch are two of the most feature-compatible replacements for SharePoint. Drupal is not a direct replacement for all of SharePoint’s features, but handles many of the use cases for which SharePoint is popular. All three not only enjoy a strong user and developer community, but also have strong commercial support, making them much more suitable for enterprises that choose open source but still seek support and training services.

• Open-source Diaspora set launch date

  Diaspora, an open-source social network describes itself as “privacy-aware, personally-controlled”, will be launched on 15 September, according to the developers.
  The project is considered as an alternative to Facebook, but many believe that it is difficult to challenge the world’s largest social network, which has 500 million users and is estimated to be worth $33bn currently.
  A team of four US students built up Diaspora trying to solve some of the problems appeared in Facebook, when it was criticised for being overly complex and confusing, as well as privacy concerns. “We want to put users back in control of what they share,” Max Salzberg, one of the founders said.
  Diaspora made headlines earlier this year when Facebook was in intense criticism.

• Facebook alternative Diaspora eyes launch date

• Elgg, the open source social networking CMS announced version 1.7.2

  A new version of the popular open source social networking CMS, Elgg has been released! 1.7.2 is primarily a bugfix release.

Business

• U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Marine Corps Replace Legacy Systems With Jaspersoft Business Management Software

  Jaspersoft, the world’s most widely used business intelligence platform, today announced the Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite has been selected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), to bring more cost savings and flexibility to their BI deployments.

• Actuate BIRT named best open-source BI offering

• Actuate Upgrades BI for Maximo

• Interview: Pentaho Exec Doug Johnson on His New Role as CFO

• Pentaho Names Doug Johnson Chief Financial Officer

• TomatoCart: Bringing “Fahrvergnügen*” to OSC shopping carts

• CIGNEX announces an alliance with NetworkGulf to provide Enterprise Open Source Solutions in UAE

• A Dialogue with Digium’s Danny

  In 2007, Danny Windham left Adtran, and came to Digium to be its new CEO. Mark Spencer opted to return to a technology focus and holds the roles of CTO and Chairman. The company is private, but seems positioned for continued growth. In January of 2009, NoJitter reported Open Source had grown to 18% of the North American Market. Digium moved from its startup digs into a custom-built 60,000 sq ft new headquarters. The company enjoys partnerships with several established players including Polycom, IBM, even Skype.

• Motorola Buys Cappuccino Framework Creator 280 North For $20 Million

  Cappuccino is an open source framework aimed at making web software comparable to a desktop equivalent—an expertise Motorola will presumably apply to their own apps.

• LongTail Gains Rights to Open Video Ads

  It’s an exciting move for do-it-yourself video publishers: LongTail Video, home of the popular open source JW Player, has acquired the rights to the Open Video Ads (OVA) project. OVA is also open source, and was created to help content creators deliver IAB-standard video ads.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Software Freedom Law Center to Announce Opening of Branch in India to Serve Global FLOSS Developers

  The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) will announce the opening of its new international branch in India at the upcoming Software Patents and the Commons conference in New Delhi. The expansion will allow the SFLC to continue its mission of promoting and defending Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) on a global scale.

Government

• U.K. releases its first contribution to Drupal

  The U.K. government has just released its first contribution to the Drupal community.

• Data.gov.uk releases open-source code

• Government still not using open source

  Government reluctance to use open source software is creating problems for cost savings at a local level, a councillor has said.

  The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead has been trying to move away from Microsoft software options in favour of moving towards more cost effective open source software.

  Computer Weekly reported that this could save up to one third of the council’s IT costs.

Openness/Sharing

• Designing culture: The other community plumbing

  4. Don’t be Tom Sawyer.

  Here stood the board fence which tom sawyer persuaded his gang to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing. Tom sat by and saw that it was well done.

  Tom Sawyer is interesting because Tom, by being a smooth talker, convinced everyone to do his work for him. Many companies approach their community strategies as having other people painting their fences. The popular term now is crowdsourcing. In this model, a company says “I have a lot of problems. Maybe I can convince a bunch of people to do my work for me.” Sometimes it works, like Dell’s IdeaStorm. But it works only for big, powerful brands. It doesn’t work when a company asks for help, and everyone ignores them. And it doesn’t work because as a company, you can’t build a community around yourself.

• Pharma’s Future: Open-Source R&D

  The future of pharmaceutical R&D may lie in open-source research, with key data being made available to a number of people, including college students and university researchers, in an open and collaborative process. Open-source drug development would leverage an online community of computer users worldwide.

• Open Hardware

  • Open Source: A Developing Robotics Industry

    The Menlo Park, Calif-based company, founded in 2006, develops open-source hardware and software for the robotics industry. Its robot PR2 (Personal Robot 2) is being sold as an example of what software developers can do with an open-source robotics platform.

Programming

• Ruby on Rails 3.0 due this week

  Ruby on Rails 3.0, a major upgrade to the popular open source Web development framework, is due in a final release this week, the founder of the framework, David Heinemeier Hansson, said on Tuesday.

John Lennon’s loo fetches £9,500 at auction for Beatles fans

A porcelain lavatory which John Lennon told a builder to use as a “plant pot” has fetched £9,500 – nearly 10 times its guide price – at an auction today.

The loo was used by the music legend when he lived at Tittenhurst Park in Berkshire between 1969 and 1972.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Walter Reed says it mishandled nuclear material

  The military’s flagship hospital acknowledged Thursday it mishandled two packages of radioactive material last spring in an incident regulators said may have exposed staff and patients to elevated radiation levels.

• MIT researchers unveil autonomous oil-absorbing robot

  The system, called Seaswarm, is a fleet of vehicles that may make cleaning up future oil spills both less expensive and more efficient than current skimming methods. MIT’s Senseable City Lab will unveil the first Seaswarm prototype at the Venice Biennale’s Italian Pavilion on Saturday, August 28. The Venice Biennale is an international art, music and architecture festival whose current theme addresses how nanotechnology will change the way we live in 2050.