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Links 6/9/2010: Debian 5.0.6, Many More Android Tablets



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Contents





GNU/Linux

  • How Linux Got To China And The Nordic Open Source Miracle
    China’s and other emerging, or rather growth, countries' efforts around open source have made a lot of headlines in recent years. But how did, for example, Linux make its way to China? The story that should be told more often is that Helsinki University’s doctoral student Dr. Gong Min upon returning to China in 1996 had 20 diskettes in his luggage containing that moment’s version of Linux. Shortly after that first Linux distro (collection of software) was available in China.


  • Microsoft: Battle the Norm
    But Microsoft windows is normal and using anything else isn’t normal. We have a long way to go before Ubuntu is more recognised as a good technology, well made and not just used by social misfits and people who want to use obscure products to look cool.

    Even if you just think about the technical aspects there is just a barrier from service providers, shops and the media.

    One of the really nice things about Ubuntu is that it’s managed to improve (slightly) this by replacing the Linux brand in a lot of people’s minds1. More people seem to know about Ubuntu and FOSS by extension because of the work we do to be welcoming and accommodating to new users. But are we doing enough? What more could we do to reduce some of the social stigma of using none Microsoft products?


  • The Bizarre Cathedral - 80


  • Desktop



  • Server

    • A Bolder, Brassier VMware Emerges From The Cloud
      Microsoft, Red Hat and Ubuntu are all operating system vendors heavily invested in some other form of virtualization than VMware's. And they're all wary of VMware's widening ambitions and description of a future operating system for the data center, based on its own virtualization layer. Microsoft prefers to talk about Hyper-V and its management component, Virtual Machine Manager in Systems Center. Red Hat is sticking to its open source guns and going with KVM. Ubuntu also packages up KVM and Xen.


    • Zentyal 2.0 - A major new release of the Linux Small Business Server
      The Development Team of Zentyal, the Linux small business server previously known as eBox Platform, announced today the availability of Zentyal 2.0. Zentyal 2.0 is a new major release of this server software and it is based on Ubuntu 10.4 LTS distribution.






  • Kernel Space+MINIX

    • Are microkernels the future of secure OS design?
      MINIX 3 itself is still in development, but it is currently a working OS with many of Tanenbaum’s intended reliability assurance features already implemented. You can download it from the MINIX 3 Website and boot it from a LiveCD though, as Tanenbaum states, you should install it to a partition on the hard drive of a computer if you want to do anything useful with it.


    • Graphics Stack

      • Looking At The OpenCL Performance Of ATI & NVIDIA On Linux
        Recently we provided the first Linux-based review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 graphics card. Overall, this Fermi-based graphics card was a great performer for selling around $200 USD and is complemented by great video playback capabilities with VDPAU acceleration and great proprietary driver support. In that review we primarily looked at the OpenGL performance under Linux, but with NVIDIA's Fermi architecture bringing great GPGPU advancements for CUDA and OpenCL users too, in this article we are looking more closely at the Open Computing Language performance of this GF104 graphics card as well as other NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards.






  • Applications



  • Distributions



  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



      • Nokia/MeeGo

        • New MeeGo User Interface Screens Emerge
          We have been keeping up with the progress of Nokia’s and Intel’s collabortaive mobile operating system, bringing you screenshots of its first stable release to developers.




      • Android

        • Toshiba Folio 100 tablet review: first look
          After traipsing around the semi-completed halls of Berlin’s IFA show, it seems like every manufacturer under the sun has decided to release a tablet. Toshiba is no exception, but its Folio 100 tablet has decided to tread a slightly different path to its rivals. The 10.1in form factor and Android 2.2 OS come as no surprise, but Intel and Qualcomm don’t get a look in – instead Nvidia’s Tegra 2 takes centre stage.


        • ViewSonic ViewPad tablets review: first look
          With many of IFA’s halls still resembling something more akin to a building site than a cutting-edge technology show, we were surprised to find that ViewSonic’s stand was already up and running. And, to a chorus of heart-stopping crashes and bangs from the grumpy Germanic workmen nearby, ViewSonic gave us a hands-on look at its latest 7in and 10in ViewPad Tablets.


        • Samsung Galaxy Tab review: first look
          The Galaxy Tab’s beauty is more than skin-deep, however. Before you even lay a finger on the Samsung-skinned Android 2.2 OS, the 7in TFT display [sadly not AMOLED, as we had hoped] beams forth with rich, saturated colours and wide, wide viewing angles. It’s by far the best we’ve seen at the show, and not least as the 1,024 x 600 resolution keep everything looking pin sharp. It’s simply glorious.


        • Android accounts for one-quarter of mobile web traffic, says Quantcast
          It's terribly difficult to get reliable statistics, as numbers tend to vary drastically depending upon whom you ask, but if you're inclined to believe that Android is mopping up Apple and RIM's declining mobile mindshare in the US, you'll find nothing but corroboration from Quantcast.


        • New Android 2.2 build leaks out for Nexus One, minor improvements noted
          Well, well -- what have we here? Word on the street has it that we're looking at a new, unreleased (officially, anyway) Froyo build for Google's now-tough-to-locate Nexus One.






    • Sub-notebooks



    • Tablets

      • Elonex releases tablets in the UK
        Elonex has just revealed a plethora of tablet devices that are touted to go on sale in the UK, where they have been priced at affordable levels. We're talking about €£99 to €£159, and at those sticker prices, chances are pretty high that interest will be strong. The eTouch line will start from 5-inches in size, going all the way to 10-inches if you need something larger. Powered by the Google Android operating system, they might come across as cheap substitutes for the Apple iPad, but will utilize a widescreen display instead of the iPad’s 4:3 screen. Each purchase will come with keyboard docks to further enhance their functionality when attached.








Free Software/Open Source



  • SparkleShare Shaping Up to be Slick FOSS Alternative to Dropbox
    If you love Dropbox for easy file sharing across computers but are longing for something free and open source, you're wish is closer to be granted. The team of developers behind the GNU GPLv3-licensed SparkleShare released a beta version of its new app and it's shaping up to be pretty slick.


  • Open source Plex media center to run on LG TVs
    Plex source code is hosted on GitHub and is licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public Licence (GPLv2), apart from the Plex Media Server which is currently closed source and connects to the GPL licensed client over the network.


  • [Free Software Magazine] Newsletter, 3 September 2010


  • Web Browsers

    • Chromium Now Prompts You With a Choice of Search Engines Available
      Chromium and Google Chrome had this feature in a more subtle way before. It never blatantly asked the user to choose the search engine of choice. But interestingly, I didn't saw this feature in the new Google Chrome 6. So is this a feature only for Chromium? Most probably.


    • Mozilla

      • Start of feature cull for Firefox 4
        Mozilla has confirmed that it has started culling features for version 4.0 of its open source Firefox web browser. According to the Mozilla Platform Meeting Minutes from the 31st of August, the first feature that will be removed is the Account Manager, previously only rated as "at risk".







  • SaaS

    • Free, as in Fear
      There is a reason there are ~150 people in #openstack on IRC. There is a reason people are submitting patches.

      This isn’t because of Rackspace. This is because of how the community has been engaged and the promise of a truly open cloud framework.

      There are two other things worth noting for people who haven’t followed this story and can’t be bothered to get the facts straight. First, there are other entities involved in OpenStack, not the least of which is NASA. Maybe you have heard of NASA? I don’t think NASA is in this beholden to Rackspace. OpenStack will evolve in the direction that is a combination of the collective utility of the community and whoever chooses to actually contribute code. Which brings me to the second point, code wins. If you think something should work a certain way, prove it with code.




  • CMS

    • Diaspora coming


      It's probably not true to say that everybody hates Facebook. But there are many millions (of the hundreds of millions that use the site) that claim to hate Facebook's cavalier approach to privacy and founder Mark Zuckerberg's equally vague approach to the future of our privacy. There are even groups dedicated to encouraging users to leave Facebook (some on Facebook itself, ironically).

      The alternative to Facebook, some are hoping, is a new, distributed social network that builds in strong privacy controls from the outset. It's called Diaspora and its makers are a group of university students from the US. The group are now getting ready to launch a developer version later this month and go into public beta in October. But can Diaspora offer what users want or is it too late?






  • Semi-Open Source/Servicing



  • Project Releases



  • Openness/Sharing

    • P2P Hopping Protocol
      A key question is how do your route over a peer-to-peer network a message from one node to another with only the hash of the source and target nodes. None of the nodes have a general routing table or a full view of the network topology. Still, we can route the message from hop-to-hop by, at each hop, reducing the "distance" between the message and its destination. The distance is measured not is physical or network distance, but in the difference between a node identifier and the target of the message. In any case, it works quite well.




  • Programming

    • ActiveState Emphasizes Key Enterprise Programming Issues, Adds Python Modules for GUI Development, Database Connectivity and Cryptography
      ActiveState, the dynamic language experts offering solutions for Perl, Python, and Tcl, is adding key Python open source packages to its ActivePython Business, Enterprise, and OEM Editions specifically to help enterprise developers. Python modules have been added for Graphical User Interface (GUI) development, secure connections with a wider range of proprietary and open source databases and incorporation of core cryptographic capabilities to ensure secure, authenticated connections to databases, servers and web services.


    • Rails 2.3.9 extends bridge to Rails 3
      The release of Rails 2.3.9 by the Ruby on Rails developers will allow Rails coders an easier transition to the recently released Rails 3. The deprecation and renaming of a number of functions now means that, if a Rails application runs on Rail 2.3.9 with no deprecation warnings, then "you're looking good for an upgrade to Rails 3" according to the developers.


    • Second alpha for Python 3.2 arrives
      Continuing the efforts to improve and stabilise Python 3.x, the developers have released the second alpha of Python 3.2. Since the moratorium on changing Python 3's language syntax from last November is still in effect, there are no changes in the language or its built-in types in this release. Alpha 2 builds on August's initial alpha release which saw improvements in handling the Python Global Interpreter Lock for better multithreading.






Leftovers

  • Pac Rim CAFTA Challenge of Salvadoran Environmental, Mining Safety Policies Given Go-Ahead by Tribunal
    This month, the Obama administration must decide how to proceed with Bush’s leftover Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which contains the same CAFTA special rights for foreign investors and private enforcement of them through “investor-state” tribunals. A CAFTA panel for another mining-related investor challenge brought against El Salvador by Milwaukee-based Commerce Group for $100 million was constituted a few weeks ago.


  • Security/Aggression



    • New government ID cards easily hacked
      The sensitive personal information found on the new German identification cards with data chips scheduled for nationwide introduction this November can be easily hacked, according to testing done by a TV news show.


    • Iraq WMD dossier was 'reviewed' to match Labour spin, memo reveals


    • Looking for Tony Blair's memoir? Try the crime section
      But a Facebook page was today inundated with pictures of the former prime minister's book in odd places after thousands joined a group entitled "Subversively move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section in bookshops".


    • America's real school-safety problem
      Last fall, a Delaware student was suspended from school after bringing a knife into his classroom. Because of his school's zero-tolerance weapons policy, he was suspended for 45 days and forced to attend an alternative school. Swift justice? Perhaps -- except that the student, Zachary Christie, was a first grader at the time and the "weapon" was his Cub Scout-issued fork-spoon-knife tool. When his case received national attention, his punishment and the school's policy were swiftly revised -- part of the growing groundswell of opposition to zero tolerance.


    • Airline CEO: Nix co-pilot, save money
      He's already suggested installing coin-operated lavatories and selling standing room on flights, so it may not be surprising that the latest idea from the colorful CEO of Ryanair is once again pushing air travelers' buttons.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • A climate warning from the deep


      Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.

      British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute animals suggests a sea passage once divided Antarctica 125,000 years ago. The discovery was made for the ongoing Census of Antarctic Marine Life project and involved comparing bryozoans from the Ross and Weddell seas. These two seas are separated by the west Antarctic ice sheet, one of the planet's largest masses of ice. Bryozoans found in the Ross and Weddell seas should have been fairly different in structure if the sheet had been stable and ancient. The two populations would have slowly evolved in different manners, if the sheet was millions of years old.






  • Finance



  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Flash Player as a spy system
      If a forged certificate is accepted when accessing the Flash Player's Settings Manager, which is available exclusively online, attackers can potentially manipulate the player's website privacy settings. This allows a web page to access a computer's web cams and microphones and remotely turn the computer into a covert listening device or surveillance camera.


    • Phone-hacking inquiry was abandoned to avoid upsetting police


      The Home Office abandoned plans to establish an independent inquiry into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal last year after a senior official warned that the Metropolitan police would "deeply resent" any interference in their investigation, according to a leaked government document.

      As Alan Johnson came close today to accusing Scotland Yard of having misled him over the scandal, a leaked Home Office memo shows that the last government decided against calling in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary after intense internal lobbying.

      Stephen Rimmer, the Home Office director general for crime and policing, warned that Scotland Yard would "deeply resent" a review of its investigation by the inspectorate and that it would send a message that "we do not have full confidence" in the Met.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Sending letters to your MP.
        One of the features of this site is an interface to send a letter to your MP. We are in the process of drafting a new letter which focuses on Bill C-32 and TPMs. There is an existing general copyright letter which I've updated that may be more what you would like to send.


      • The Economist:: the World Wide Web is fracturing
        In the end, the bleak look is softened by The Economist's usual on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other outlook such as, 'Yet predictions are hazardous, particularly in IT." I wouldn't hold my breath unless the consumer is heard and is listened to.


      • ACTA

        • Written Declaration 12/2010 signatories list


        • ACTA: TELL YOUR MEP TO SIGN WRITTEN DECLATION 12


        • Is Your MEP Aware Of ACTA?
          Right now, a new trade agreement is being secretly negotiated that could impose on European businesses draconian rules that could result in new forms of legal action. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) goes far, far beyond the scope of its name and in fact attempts to "harmonise" (read: impose the worst parts of each region's policy) the treatment of copyrights, trademarks and patents internationally. It is attempting to achieve by secret treaty what democratically-elected governments globally have declined to do.


        • URGENT: Has Your MEP Signed The ACTA Written Declaration?
          The following had NOT signed at 11pm UK time on Monday:

          * William (The Earl of) DARTMOUTH * John Stuart AGNEW * Marta ANDREASEN * Richard ASHWORTH * Gerard BATTEN * Godfrey BLOOM * Sharon BOWLES * Philip BRADBOURN * John BUFTON * Martin CALLANAN * David CAMPBELL BANNERMAN * Michael CASHMAN * Giles CHICHESTER * Derek Roland CLARK * Trevor COLMAN * Nirj DEVA * Diane DODDS * James ELLES * Nigel FARAGE * Vicky FORD * Ashley FOX * Julie GIRLING * Daniel HANNAN * Mary HONEYBALL * Richard HOWITT * Stephen HUGHES * Syed KAMALL * Sajjad KARIM * Timothy KIRKHOPE * Elizabeth LYNNE * David MARTIN * Linda McAVAN * Arlene McCARTHY * Emma McCLARKIN * Claude MORAES * Mike NATTRASS * James NICHOLSON * Paul NUTTALL * Brian SIMPSON * Peter SKINNER * Struan STEVENSON * Catherine STIHLER * Kay SWINBURNE * Charles TANNOCK * Geoffrey VAN ORDEN * Derek VAUGHAN * Glenis WILLMOTT * Marina YANNAKOUDAKIS












Clip of the Day



Puppy Linux Lucid Puppy 5.11 Install Tutorial & Screencast Review



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