09.07.10

^{Gemini version available ♊︎}

Links 7/9/2010: Backports and Debian, GDB 7.2 is Released

Posted in News Roundup at 6:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux
- Distributions
- Devices/Embedded
Free Software/Open Source
Leftovers
Clip of the Day

GNU/Linux

Desktop
- Experiment: I’ve Got My Editor Using Linux
  
  Vincent’s computer is going to be spending a week running Linux. We decided to give him Ubuntu, for two reasons: the first is its excellent reputation for usability, and the second because of Wubi. This tool allows you can install Linux on the same hard drive as Windows—without having to repartition. It’s perfect for giving it a go without any stress, and uninstall it in Windows if you decide it’s not for you.
Applications
- Instructionals/Technical
Desktop Environments
- FOX Desktop and some graphical apps
  
  Before I show you another one like that, here are a few applications that are — and some that aren’t — inter-related.
  
  This is qutim.
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
  - Third beta of KDE PIM Suite uses Akonadi
    
    With KDE PIM Beta 3, version 4.4.93, the KDE Project developers have presented a development preview version of the Kontact personal information manager, which is built on the Akonadi framework for storing data. Originally, the integration of Akonadi was already planned for KDE 4.0, but it kept getting postponed. In version 4.4 of the desktop environment, the KDE address book is the first KDE PIM Suite application to use Akonadi.
- GTK/GNOME Desktop
  - GTK Impression – Nautilus Breadcrumbs
    
    Breadcrumbs give location information and links in a backward linear manner; whereas, navigation methods, such as search fields or horizontal/vertical navigation bars, serve to retrieve information for the user in a forward-seeking approach.
  - OMG! Exclusive: Interview with GNOME co-founder Federico Mena
    
    I am happy that the goal of “make a free desktop” is complete. I am extremely happy that GNOME has created a superb community of hackers and friends; good jobs for people, and tons of technology that people can now take for granted. Remember that back in 1997 we had basically nothing except for the operating system and compiler. You couldn’t browse your files graphically, you couldn’t log in graphically, you couldn’t listen to music, you couldn’t read mail in something that didn’t look like a hacker’s tool.
    
    What would I like to change? I would like the good hackers to be able to spend less time maintaining the stuff they already wrote – we need to make it easier to pass the baton to other maintainers. I would like GNOME to succeed in going past the traditional “desktop metaphor” – fortunately that is already work in progress.
Distributions
- Linux and Breakfast Cereals
  
  I got the idea for this post from this article (Caitlyn Martin, O’Reilly Broadcast), which is a response to this op-ed piece (Graham Morrison, TechRadar).
  I find it a little ridiculous that Mr. Morrison can seriously claim to not understand Linux package management after dealing with it for 12 years. But, then again, the article seems to support this as well. Follow the jump to read more about this.
  
  Let’s start with his analysis of Shotwell vs. F-Spot in Fedora. As Ms. Martin sharply points out, no one is forbidding the use of F-Spot in Fedora — it’s just that now people will have to download F-Spot if they want it (where before, people had to download Shotwell if they wanted it). Furthermore, Mr. Morrison’s assessment of Fedora users’ reaction to the replacement of F-Spot with Shotwell is wholly incorrect; for one, Fedora users are likely more experienced Linux users, so they would know how to get F-Spot if they so chose, and Shotwell is certainly more advanced than Microsoft’s Image and Fax Viewer — it has features like adjusting rotational orientation, red-eye, size, and hue. among others. In addition, as Fedora developer Adam Williamson (who, as I recently found out, commented on my review of Mandriva 2010.1 — yay!) explains, the reason to replace F-Spot with Shotwell was on account of the former’s bloatedness and lack of outstanding features versus Shotwell as opposed to F-Spot using Mono.
- PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family
  - Mandriva XFCE One edition
    
    The XFCE addict Mandriva community is proud to offer its latest release of the Mandriva XFCE One edition.
    This CDROM is based on the Mandriva Spring release (Kernel 2.6.33.5, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.8, OpenOffice.org 3.2.0) and offers the latest version of the XFCE environnment (4.6.2).
  - Screen capture tour of Mandriva 2010 Spring installation
- Debian Family
  - backports.org moved to backports.debian.org
  - Backports now an official Debian repository
    
    Every Linux distribution has to strike a balance between being up to date and being stable, between including the latest versions of software packages and retaining better tested, more mature versions. Fedora, for example, is known for having the very latest software, whilst Debian GNU/Linux has a reputation for being a particularly stable distribution, with the software included in each new release already well cured.
  - Canonical/Ubuntu
    - Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #209
      
      In this issue we cover:
      
      * Farewell Ian
      * Ubuntu 10.10 Beta (Maverick Meerkat) Released
      * Xubuntu Winning Artwork
      * New Ubuntu Lucid Proposed Kernel
      * Announcing Ubuntu App Developer Week!
      * Welcome New Members
      * Why do you use Ubuntu?
      * First Kernel Triage Summit
      * Ubuntu in Education
      * Ubuntu Stats
      * LoCo Team Banners for Approved Teams
      * LoCo Testing Team HowTo
      * Ubuntu 10.10 Installfests
      * Ubuntu Global Jam – Another Success Due to LoCo Teams Participation
      * Testing your multitouch device
      * Incredible Stories Of Free Software and Open Source
      * Why I Have Nothing Interesting to Say
      * Understanding Membership Structures in Debian and Ubuntu
      * What I do
      * How My Work Benefits Free Software
      * Multitouch testers in the Hall of Fame
      * Using the Ubuntu Stack Exchange
      * Ubuntu 10.10 Countdown
      * In The Press
      * In The Blogosphere
      * HCI at Canonical
      * Thinking different at Canonical
      * Building Apps for the Cloud: How KnowledgeTree Used Ubuntu for Rapid Development of Its SaaS Offering
      * GUADEC 2010 Videos
      * IBM DB2 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
      * Canonical: Take 60 seconds with Henrik Omma
      * Embedded Linux Conference, April 2010 Videos
      * Ohio LinuxFest Proves Real FOSS Diversity
      * Featured Podcasts
      * Monthly Team Reports: August 2010
      * Upcoming Meetings and Events
      * Updates and Security
      * UWN Sneak Peek
      * And Much Much More
    - New Ubuntu font giving Maverick a miss?
      
      In a recent bug report opened by Alan Bell, he inquires whether the new Ubuntu font, commissioned to be designed specifically for Ubuntu by type foundry Dalton Maag will in fact land in Maverick.
    - When Things Go Well
      
      The Ubuntu 10.10 wallpaper selection is in the repositories and available for perusal. They are, as of the time of this writing, as follows:
      
      [...]
      
      If we ignore the Purple -6 Vomit of Inducing Horror, I would suggest that this is likely the most successful presentation I have seen in Ubuntu proper.
    - Flavours and Variants
      - mFatOS – Ubuntu On Steroids (Remastered Ubuntu)
        
        mFatOS has a very interesting approach to what a Linux distribution should look like: it comes with Firefox (with Elementary for Firefox by default), Chrome AND Opera 10.70 – all (well, except Opera) with some basic extensions such as AdBlock installed by default -, as well as lots of other applications such as: GIMP with single window mode support, Deadbeef, GnoMenu and Cradapio (so you can choose which one to use), Ubuntu Tweak, Nautilus Elementary, Virtualbox with USB support, Wine & PlayOnLinux, VLC, Avidemux, Audacity, Handbrake, Skype, WinFF, XBMC, Unetbootin, Bleachbit, Goldendict, Pinta, Wally and others as well as most applications which come by default in Ubuntu.
Devices/Embedded
- Phones
  - Android
    - Use Your Android Phone to “Jailbreak” Your PlayStation 3
      
      How cool would it be to jailbreak an iPhone using an Android phone? Alright, I’m already getting off topic, but you can jailbreak your PlayStation 3 using an Android phone. This method follows the news that one hacker was able to find a way to jailbreak (or – with more contextual relevance – mod) your console with nothing but a USB drive. He was selling that solution for $150, but this one is completely free if you already own an Android-based handset.

Free Software/Open Source

OpenMEEG: opensource software for quasistatic bioelectromagnetics

Interpreting and controlling bioelectromagnetic phenomena require realistic physiological models and accurate numerical solvers. A semi-realistic model often used in practise is the piecewise constant conductivity model, for which only the interfaces have to be meshed.
Open Innovation Awards 2010: List of Finalists
Open source projects under microscope

The 13 finalists in the Demo Cup, which is organised by the Open World Forum, will be assessed on their viability. The competition is held on 1 October, when each of the finalists has eight minutes to persuade the jury of their project’s worthiness.

The finalists are ActiveEon; Disruptive Innovations; Conecta Research; Hedera Technology; iceScrum; Jaspersoft; Mozilla; Obeo; Pentaho; O Engine; Pilot Systems; Talend and XWiki.
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- GDB 7.2 released!
  
  Release 7.2 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available via anonymous FTP. GDB is a source-level debugger for Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Pascal and many other languages. GDB can target (i.e., debug programs running on) more than a dozen different processor architectures, and GDB itself can run on most popular GNU/Linux, Unix and Microsoft Windows variants.
Project Releases
- Jabber client Gajim 0.14 released – gets audio/video support, gelolocation & more
  
  A new version of oft-forgot desktop Jabber client Gaijm has been released.
Government
- Neelie Kroes European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda Europe 3.0 Address at Erasmus University Rotterdam Rotterdam, 6 September 2010
  
  ICTs and particularly the Internet have the power to either strengthen or break this fragmentation and loss of human essence. We must therefore ensure that we anchor the digital revolution in European values of freedom, openness and solidarity so that the use of technology benefits our society.
Standards/Consortia
- Taking Openness to the Next Level
  
  The people behind the ODAI have come up with some very concrete proposals on how to apply open source’s idea to open standards. Inspired by the Open Source Definition, the group has drawn up the Open Design and Architecture Initiative (ODAI) Definition, with ten parts to it that are almost identical to the OSD. The only one that differs is that “Source Code” is replaced by “Design and Architecture Materials”. This is because the ODAI is dealing with is materials associated with the drawing up of a standard; so although they will be freely available, the final result of the standard – code, for example – may not be.
  
  Still, it’s a very interesting example of how the ideas behind open source and the Open Source Definition have been transposed into quite a different realm, and at a different level of the conceptual stack. It mirrors closely – and was partly inspired by – the Open Source Hardware Definition that does the same, and about which I wrote recently. That’s important because it indicates that was not just some one-off idea, but part of a larger trend to adapt key aspects of the open source world to other spheres. I’m sure will see other examples in due course.

Leftovers

5 great content discovery sites which aren’t Digg

Digg isn’t about to shut its doors, but I do get the feeling that regular, loyal Diggers are looking to take their custom elsewhere. Judging by the ‘Reddit incident’ on Monday, where Digg users revolted in favor of Reddit, it looks like a mass exodus might already have begun.
Science
- Awesome death spiral of a bizarre star
Security/Aggression
- Tony Blair Cancels Book Signing Over Protests
Finance
- Gold & Silver Trading Biggest Scam in History Financial Armageddon Could Result
  
  Between silver and gold, silver gives the much stronger appearance of giving an investor a more viable short term reward. Since the DOJ and SEC started investigating JP Morgan Chase’s very likely manipulation of silver, you no longer see silver pushed down hard after it has rallied up. In fact an interesting phenomenon has taken place recently regarding silver. Silver and gold used to be joined at the hip in that both would go up and down together as a matter of course. However, silver has continued to go up regardless of when gold goes down. Even more remarkably, silver has recently continued to go up even if the stock market goes down. This shocking behavior of silver only strengthens the case that JP Morgan was manipulating the silver market. That the silver market has such staying power is not really surprising given the big picture of high deficits, a weak dollar, a weak euro. Silver stands out as a relatively safe investment perhaps the safest investment anyone with a some extra money can make. Right now its just under $20 an ounce which is a whole lot more affordable for the average person than gold at around $1250 per ounce.
Intellectual Monopolies
- Copyrights
  - ISP Hits Back At U2 Manager’s Billion Dollar Piracy Bonanza Claims
    
    Last month, outspoken manager of U2 Paul McGuinness penned a piece titled “How to Save The Music Industry”. Among other things, McGuinness suggested that ISPs were unlikely to help the music industry in their battle against illegal file-sharing since they are the ones benefiting from the “multi-billion dollar bonanza” it has generated. UK ISP Entanet are not happy.
  - ACTA
    - ACTA: Please Do What Simon Says…
      
      I don’t need to add much to that – I’ve already written about the horrors of ACTA ad nauseam (and it is pretty nauseous). The key point is that we are just nine signatures short of getting the necessary majority for the Written Declaration to have real power: please send a message to any of the MEPs listed on Simon’s other blog, who haven’t signed yet, and who could make all the difference…
  - Canada
    - An Explanation Of My Views On Copyright Part One
    - An Explanation Of My Views On Copyright Part Two
    - James Moore gets Cartoond
      
      Another member of James Moore’s party, Harold Albrecht, has taken to lying about the opposition’s plans for copyright reform. Here is my article. Albrecht is trying to shield Moore’s Bill C-32 which sells out Canada’s current copyright. More sensible alternatives exist than Moore’s bill.
    - ACTA keeps chugging along
      
      Canada’s Heritage Minister James Moore blocks citizens from following the Twitter feed he uses in his capacity as a federal Cabinet Minister.
      
      So far there are 60+ citizens who have been blocked. There are probably a great many more because Twitter users are not notified when they have been blocked.