11.19.10

Links 19/11/2010: GNOME 2.32.1 Released, Debian GNU/Linux Recruits Women

Posted in News Roundup at 3:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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

GNU/Linux

Desktop
- Could the Windows Comparison Game Hurt Linux?
  
  Competition is good, blogger Robert Pogson told Linux Girl.
  
  “If we cannot out-perform that sad imitation of an OS that M$ produces, GNU/Linux should be shut down,” Pogson asserted. “In my experience, GNU/Linux has out-performed M$ since 2000 because GNU/Linux did not crash and was much easier to manage and cost less.”
  
  Of course, “we should check our rear-view mirrors occasionally to see what the competition is doing,” he added. “I don’t see MacOS as much competition since it does not run on the same hardware by decree, so there is no proper way to compare.”
- French Gendarmerie switch 85,000 PC’s to Ubuntu and save €€€
  
  The police force has been able to tailor Ubuntu Desktop to meet its exact requirements. Gendarmerie Commandant Jean-Pascal Chateau says: “We have a lot of personnel who work in the field. The fact that Ubuntu Desktop is so easy to use is a huge benefit. Agents can personalize their desktops to fit their needs. That means that they can access the same desktop environment no matter which workstation they log in from.” He adds: “Now staff are more motivated and we’ve reduced costs and introduced solutions that better match our needs.”
Server
- The Linux Box Goes Live With Community Edition of its Innovative Email Archiving, Retrieval and Reporting Software System
  
  The Linux Box Corporation’s (www.linuxbox.com) first commercial software product, an advanced email archiving, retrieval and reporting system, has gone live in a community edition and is available for free download at www.enkive.org.
- Linux servers for Windows folk: go on, give it a bash
  
  But Linux makes a great server OS, and all the guff about GNOME versus KDE and so on becomes completely irrelevant. The vast majority of Linux boxes have no graphical interface at all – they’re headless servers, silently slaving away in corners of computer rooms or in racks in datacentres. In fact, there’s a very good chance that the router connecting you to the Internet right now is a Linux box, and pretty much anyone can configure one of those these days. You point a web browser at its IP address, fill in a few boxes, and you’re good to go.
- London Stock Exchange hires 81 C++ developers for delayed Linux system
  
  The London Stock Exchange has hired 81 open source software staff for the development of the delayed Linux-based system being implemented on its cash markets.
Ballnux
- Samsung Galaxy Tab source code released
  
  Samsung has released the open source portions of the Galaxy Tab operating system and made them available for download. Of course, much of their software isn’t open source, so don’t expect to see everything in the code. It is very refreshing to see manufacturers quick to comply with the license agreements, and my hat’s off to Samsung for this.
- Video Face-Off: Android Galaxy Tab vs. the iPad
- Everything you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy Tab
  
  Next to the Apple iPad, it may be the most anticipated tech product of 2010. You could even claim that a big part of its anticipation is actually due to the iPad. Of course, I’m talking about the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the first major Android slate to give the iPad a run for its money in the touchscreen tablet market.
- Samsung Galaxy Tab review
  
  Although the Tab’s diagonal screen size is only 2.7 inches smaller than that of the iPad’s, the device itself is nearly half the size and weight – in short, it’s a much tidier little package. Though not as slim as perhaps we’d have liked, the ability to operate the Tab single-handed and drop it in our back pocket is a massive advantage in terms of overall usability.
Kernel Space
- Graphics Stack
  - Linux 2.6.37-rc2 Kernel Released; So Far Looks Painless
    
    Now the Linux 2.6.37-rc2 kernel is available as regressions are addressed in time for the final Linux 2.6.37 kernel release several weeks down the road.
Applications
- Clam AntiVirus management tools
  
  We’re seeing Linux platforms implementing anti-virus software mainly to scan email messages going in and out for viruses. Claim AntiVirus is one of them that is free and is widely used.
- Weirdest Undreamt Use Case
- I Hate Thunderbird 3.x
- Back In Time, a Free and Simple Backup Software for Linux
  
  Back In Time, a Free and Simple Backup Software for Linux: I’ve already tried and tested a good number of backup software for Linux, but I know there are still plenty of excellent backup tools that I missed so I always take time to search for more. Hence, I bumped into Back In Time, a simple backup utility for Linux that is inspired by Flyback and Timevault. One of the main goals of the project is to get and combine the best features of Flyback and Timevault and put them all on Back In Time.
- Proprietary
  - How To Easily Install Microsoft Office 2007 On Linux
    
    “Play On Linux” may sound like a toy, but if you want Microsoft Office working on your Linux machine it’s a seriously useful program to have around. User generated scripts make light work of the usually complicated process of installing Office in Linux: there’s no manually installing DLLs, no figuring out which version of Wine will work and no manually installing Internet Explorer to get everything working.
  - Meet your new address field, mouse gestures, and updated mail panel and extensions
- Instructionals/Technical
- Wine
  - Test-driving Bordeaux 2.0.8
    
    We, as computer users, run applications — all sorts of them. We browse the web with an program, send e-mail via another, write up reports, crunch numbers, listen to music, transfer files and store contacts using a long list of different applications. There are thousands upon thousands of programs floating around the digital world and there’s one problem: they don’t all run on your operating system. Almost all of us, at one time or another, will come to a point where we have an operating system and matching programs that do almost everything we want and, on the other hand, a program which doesn’t run natively on our OS of choice.
  - CodeWeavers Crossover Come To The Light Sale
    
    Codeweavers offers downloads of its Crossover Games for $39.95 and Crossover Professional for $69.95 If you apply coupon code “ComeToTheLight” this will drop CrossOver Games to $29.96 And Crossover Professional to $52.46 That’s 25% off and the lowest total price we have seen since a 1-day sale in October 2009. CrossOver enables you to install Windows applications and games on Intel-based Macs and Linux.
- Games
  - Catan Online World
    
    Catan Online World is a Java-based game where you can play different versions of “The Settlers of Catan” board game as well as other games by Klaus Teuber against other players via the Internet.
  - Desctruction Derby – 1995 Wreckin Car Games
    
    Destruction Derby is a 1995 video game developed by Reflections and published by Psygnosis, the former of which would later develop the successful Driver series. It was released for PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and MS-DOS (PC).
  - Smokin’ Guns – FPS – Spaghetti Western genre
    
    Smokin’ Guns (SG) is a first-person shooter video game. Smokin’ Guns is intended to be a semi-realistic simulation of the “Old West’s” atmosphere and was developed on id Software’s Quake III Arena Engine. Gameplay as well as locations are inspired by Western movies, particularly from the Italowestern respectively Spaghetti Western genre.
  - Kristanix Games Ported To GNU/Linux !
    
    Kristanix Games announces the release of Linux versions of its most popular games.
  - Pacmanic – Pacman Clone in 3D
    
    The object of the game is to eat all of the dots in the maze while avoiding the ghosts. At the maze you can find large shiny dots. These are called Power Dots. When the hero eats one of these, he becomes more powerful for short time. During this time the ghosts turn blue and you can eat them.
    
    Every level a bonus will appear near the ghost house. You have ten seconds to eat this bonus. Sometimes you can find the red teleporters. When you enter through one, you will come out on the opposite side.
  - LGP Has Been Down For A Month And A Half
    
    This summer on Phoronix there was an article entitled Is LGP Going The Way Of Loki Software? The situation of Linux Game Publishing was looked at where this company over nearly a decade has ported around two dozen games to Linux, but as of late there’s been little activity. In fact, for the past month and a half they haven’t even been online due to a complete failure of their only server.
Desktop Environments
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
  - KMyMoney 4.5.1 stable version is out
    
    The KMyMoney Team is pleased to announce the release of KMyMoney version 4.5.1.
    
    This version contains several fixes for bugs found in 4.5.0 since it was released almost three months ago as the stable release for the KDE Platform 4.
  - Polishing
- GNOME Desktop
  - GNOME Shell – Then And Now (Or How Unity Has Influenced It)
    
    I the past I have commented on how GNOME Shell’s redesign is heading towards what Canonical’s Unity looks like currently. Well, today a reader, Frederico Araújo, left a very interesting side-by-side comparison of GNOME Shell during its initial stage and now. He also added comparison with Unity. It is a very interesting comparison and we thought we’d share it. Do leave your thoughts in the comments.
  - 7 Brilliant GNOME GTK Themes
    
    GNOME Shell is the future of GNOME desktop and its already evolving quite beautifully. You might want to check out our collection of breathtaking GNOME Shell themes too.
  - GNOME 2.32.1 released
    
    The first update to GNOME 2.32 (and my own first release) is now available. It provides bug fixes, translation updates and the usual care and kindness that our brave GNOME developers and contributors deserves to details.
  - GNOME 2.32.1 released
    
    The GNOME Release Team have issued version 2.32.1 of the GNOME desktop for GNU / Linux and Unix, the first maintenance update to the GNOME 2.32 series. According to GNOME developer Luca Ferretti, the latest stable release includes a variety of bug fixes, translation improvements and minor updates to the included GNOME packages, such as the Empathy instant messaging app and the Evolution mail client.
  - OpenRespect: It’s About Time
    
    I will admit that, despite Bacon’s arguments to the contrary, OpenRespect is coming across as a defensive move on behalf of Bacon’s employer, Canonical. Canonical has been the target for a lot of frustration from the broader community lately, some of it perhaps deserved, and some perhaps not, so it’s a reasonable assumption that the Ubuntu Community Manager might want to deflect.
  - Make the GNOME panel font bold, italic, bigger, smaller etc
  - 10 Incredible Icon Sets for Ubuntu/GNOME
    
    Elementary project is one of the most talked about and actively developed open source project meant to provide much needed finesse to Linux desktop. Download Elementary Icon Theme. Also, check out beautiful Elementary theme for Ubuntu as well.
  - Beautify Ubuntu Desktop Window Border with Emerald Themes
    
    If you want to decorate your window border, you can try following installation and setup.
Distributions
- Pardus
  
  I think I will stick with Pardus on this laptop, for a while, and see how it goes. If I ever get around to my long term plan of upgrading my parents’ computer from Windows XP then Pardus could be a strong candidate for that too. It’s impressive.
- Announcing Bodhi Linux
  
  You may have noticed the blog has been rather quiet the last couple of weeks, this is because I have been working on a project. Last month I posted details about an E17 LiveDVD I was working on that was modeled after PinguyOS. It weighed in at a 1.4 gig download that was jam packed with every application you might ever use. It was also slightly crude in some aspects (such as the Enlightenment desktop it contained was compiled and installed from source).
  
  [...]
  
  The Bodhi is built from an Ubuntu 10.04 minimal disc, but you will notice it does contain some Ubuntu 10.10 features. Backported via the Bodhi Repository, are the 2.6.35 kernel and the newer Ubiquity installer. Also enabled by default are the Ubuntu partner repository, Medibuntu, and GetDeb.
- Reviews
  - A Linux server OS that’s had 11 years to improve
    
    Review: SME Server is pretty much the original ready-rolled server distribution. Although it has changed hands – and names – a few times, it’s been around since 1999, when it was known as e-Smith, a name you’ll still see in a few places.
- Red Hat Family
  - RHN Satellite 5.4, the second analysis
    
    My first analysis and the first experiances of RHN Satellite 5.4 have been very good, I was quite excited.
    
    I also was very happy to be able to sync the rhel-x86_64-server-6 channel on the newly upgraded master satellite. First tests on test systems registered to the master (=staging) Satellite have all been successful.
  - Linux, Open Source & Ubuntu: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Is Ready for Heavy-Duty Computing
  - Red Hat Educates Professors About Open Source
    
    Provider of open source solutions, Red Hat, expanded its outreach to introduce open source into the computer science curriculum at leading colleges and universities. The company is a member of Teaching OpenSource ( News – Alert) community and acts as its catalyst. It sponsors Professors’ Open Source Summer Experience (POSSE) workshops.
  - Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Trickle-Up Effect
    
    The announcement of a royal wedding is a cause for excitement among loyal subjects, but it’s also an opportunity for assorted tea-towel vendors, commemorative plate makers and many other people to make a great deal of money off the back of it.
    
    And so it is with enterprise server operating systems. Last week’s release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.0 generated much excitement from its loyal customers. Many of Red Hat’s partners are hoping the release will provide them with an opportunity to make a great deal of money off the back of it, too. Although the RHEL 6.0 server OS includes numerous significant new features — a new hybrid 2.6.32 kernel; support for more cores and memory; better reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities; the ext4 file system by default; and so more — it was hard to discern that from the clamor of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) hardware partners preparing to make money by selling more of their lovely server boxes and associated services.
  - Red Hat sizes up NZ for 2011 growth
    
    Channel growth is encouraging open source vendor Red Hat to consider establishing a local office next year. Sydney-based Max McLaren, Red Hat’s ANZ general manager, says growth in its business here would justify the investment but it’s too early to treat it as definite. “We’ve always had aspirations to open an office in New Zealand. It’s just a question of when.”
    
    In September Red Hat posted global revenue and operating income increases of more than 20 percent over the previous year, and McLaren says local growth echoes that of the company overall.
  - FLOSS Weekly 142: CentOS
    
    Hosts: Randal Schwartz and Dan Lynch
    
    CentOS is an enterprise-class Linux distro derived from sources freely provided to the public.
    
    Guest: Karanbir Singh for CentOS
  - Fedora
    - Quality journalism
      
      At the end of the last week the FOSS news exploded with titles about Fedora and Wayland, in many cases going as aggressive as “Fedora to ditch X.org for Wayland” and “May bring Wayland Fedora 15″, all of them based on an insightful post made by ajax, the X.org maintainer in Fedora, but most of the time letting out relevant details as “eventually”, “not usable default”, “something you can play with” or “don’t have a timeframe”.
      
      The result was a flood of posts, comments, dents, twitts and so, many of them based only on partial titles and raving about how awesome Wayland is going to be, now that Red Hat will put resources behind it (that’s really jumping to a conclusion!). Net effect: the community moved focus from singling out Canonical for they anti-community perceived Wayland announcement from a couple of weeks ago. That’s good relations with the press! And that’s spinning!
    - Quick update on my upgrade to Fedora 14
      
      This is why, folks, everyone always recommends just going for a fresh install. Upgrades always require a bit more work.
    - Spotlight on Linux: Fedora 14
      
      So, if you’re in the market for a new or additional Linux distribution, Fedora can most assuredly fill the bill. Many think of Fedora as a distribution for more advanced users, but it can fit into just about any routine.
- Debian Family
  - Debian GNU/Linux 5 “lenny” [Review]
    
    Debian GNU/Linux 5 is highly recommended to people who want a robust system which simply works. If you are running a server, or otherwise need a platform which doesn’t keep changing, Debian 5 is a brilliant choice. If however you want a more up-to-date system, it is preferable to use one of the many Debian-based distros such as Ubuntu, or use Debian testing.
  - Debian Trying to Recruit More Women
    
    The Debian Women project is beginning training sessions to encourage more women to participate in the nuts and bolts of Debian development. Alexander Reichle-Schmehl (Debian spokesman, event organizer, and developer) said in a recent press release that “the main goal of this initiative is to encourage more people, and specifically women, to contribute to Debian while introducing them to different aspects of the Debian Project.”
  - Benchmarks Of Debian Etch, Lenny & Squeeze
    
    With Debian 6.0 “Squeeze” set to be released in the coming months, we have decided to run a set of benchmarks looking at the performance of Debian 6.0 across different sub-systems relative to the performance of Debian 5.0 “Lenny” and Debian 4.0 “Etch” to see how this new release may stack up.
  - Canonical/Ubuntu
    - Respect Freedom, Not Pragmatism
      
      Having just discovered this “openrespect” thing, I have to say I find the whole idea rather sinister. It seems to me that Jono Bacon is endorsing a sort of moderation, or more bluntly, censorship of criticism, in order to silence those who oppose pragmatic concessions that undermine our ideals.
      
      [...]
      Here’s one thing he can start doing right away: spend a little less time respecting corporate thugs like Microsoft, and a little more time respecting our Freedom.
    - Ubuntu’s Feature Friction
    - Ubuntu: Innovative or reckless?
      
      Ubuntu chief Mark Shuttleworth is making some bold and potentially risky decisions about the future of Ubuntu Linux.
      
      It’s been almost a year since Mark Shuttleworth relinquished the reins at Canonical, stepping down as CEO to take a more hands-on approach in the company that is the backer of the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Judging by the various sharp turns Ubuntu has taken in the past year his steerage is starting to have an effect.
    - The monospace is coming
      
      In contrast to a proportionally spaced font a the characters in a monospace occupy all exactly the same width. In the past monospace type was used on typewriters, and more recently in some specialised printing environments such as Credit Card embossing, or ticketing. Today, monospace fonts are primarily used within a programming environment working on terminal windows. The monospace font answers the need for clear code structuring and predictable line lengths. Using monospace fonts allows the programmer to immediately spot a mis-typed character or double space, any of which would prevent the code from compiling as expected.
    - Living with Linux: installing and using Ubuntu Netbook Edition
      
      There’s no way I’d revert to XP now, because Ubuntu does everything I need my netbook to do in roughly half the time.
    - No Maverick PPA For Unity
      
      There was consensus in the porting team around this. Of course, if anyone in the community wants to take the time to make a Maverick PPA, run with it, but it is felt that the resources are better spent focusing on Natty right now. I agree with this too.
    - Slew of New Business Tools Coming to Ubuntu
      
      If you use Ubuntu in your company, you’re already familiar with its many advantages for businesses. But guess what? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, as they say.
      
      Particularly in the wake of the release last month of Canonical’s user-friendly Ubuntu 10.10, or Maverick Meerkat, partners have been virtually lining up outside the company’s door to help deliver business tools with high-level commercial support.
    - Flavours and Variants
      - The Perfect Desktop – Linux Mint 10 (Julia)
        
        This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 10 (Julia) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Linux Mint 10 is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 10.10 that has lots of packages in its repositories (like multimedia codecs, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Skype, Google Earth, etc.) that are relatively hard to install on other distributions; it therefore provides a user-friendly desktop experience even for Linux newbies.
Devices/Embedded
- Multi-touch in Ubuntu using Kinect
  
  I’m not quite sure how this incredibly slick proof-of concept (i.e. hacky first version) video showing off multi-touch in Ubuntu using Microsoft’s recently launched Kinect hardware passed us by, so props to yo2boy for sending it in.
- Linux distros advance on the networking front
  
  Wind River announced that Arkoon Network Security will use Wind River Linux to develop its FAST 360 family of network security devices. Meanwhile, Wind River rival MontaVista Software announced it has joined the OpenSAF Foundation, which promotes the high availability middleware integrated into recent releases of MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition.

Free Software/Open Source

Web Browsers
- Mozilla
  - AniWeather, Display Weather Conditions In Firefox
    
    What’s the weather like today? If you want to answer that question you will have to either find it out by yourself, for instance by stepping outside, by asking other people or with the help of weather reports. AniWeather displays weather conditions in the Firefox web browser, unobtrusively. I did not see the weather conditions directly in the browser after installation. That’s usually caused if the add-on places them in a toolbar that is hidden by default. In this case the icons were displayed in the Navigation Toolbar which is hidden in my Firefox installation.
  - Mozilla millions still 86% Google cash
    
    Google still provides 86 per cent of Mozilla’s revenue, according to the open source outfit’s latest financial statement.
    
    On Thursday, Mozilla released its audited financial statement for 2009, and as in previous years, an unnamed search company is listed under “concentrations of risk.” In 2008, Google accounted for 91 per cent of Mozilla’s revenues, so the risk has dropped. But 86 is still a very large number.
  - The State of Mozilla
    
    Mozilla has filed its audited financial statements for 2009. This is the perfect time to look at the state of the Mozilla mission, our successes, our opportunities and our challenges.
Oracle
- New: OOo-DEV 3.x Developer Snapshot (build DEV300m93) available
  
  Developer Snapshot OOo-Dev DEV300m93 is available for download.
  
  DEV300 is the development codeline for upcoming OOo 3.x releases.
- New: OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 Release Candidate 5 (build OOO330m15) available
CMS
- LCDTV.net – New Online Magazine Using Drupal 6
  
  LCDTV.net is an online magazine dedicated to LCD TV information and LCD TV Reviews. It employs several journalists to stay up to date with the latest technology news related to LCD televisions, has a large database of the latest TV specifications, and offers enthusiasts the opportunity to write in-depth TV reviews receiving full byline credit getting paid for their efforts.
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- GNU Robbo 0.66
  
  GNU Robbo is a free open source reimplementation of Janusz Pelc’s Robbo for the Atari XE/XL which was distributed by LK Avalon in 1989.
- Cateia Games Are Coming To GNU/Linux !
  
  But since then Cateia Games developed a new engine which games can be easily ported to GNU/Linux.
Programming
- Hard Lessons Learned: Malicious Ads on SourceForge

Leftovers

11 OSes that Tried (and failed) to Take Down Windows
Dirty PCs: How much filth can you take?
Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
- Now Hotpot? Google Probes Have Got to Stop
  
  Sometimes you can deconstruct what Google is trying to do, and it’s always off-base. The company should be concentrating on getting the results you actually want not some artificial results it thinks you want.
- The rise of Google – should we be worried?
- FBI brass ask Google, Facebook to expand wiretaps
  
  FBI Director Robert Mueller III and General Counsel Valerie Caproni were scheduled to meet with “managers of several major companies” including Facebook and Google, according to The New York Times. It wasn’t clear how the companies responded.
Intellectual Monopolies
- Copyrights
  - English High Court decides that “making available” over the internet occurs only in jurisdiction where servers are based
    
    In a Judgment handed down on 17 November 2010, Mr Justice Floyd in Football Dataco Limited, The Scottish Premier League Limited, The Scottish Football League Limited and PA Sport UK Limited v Sportradar GmbH and Sportradar AG held that the act of making available to the public by online transmission is committed and committed only where the transmission takes place.
  - Canada
    - How the new copyright bill will affect Canadian culture
      
      However, those who developed the new bill know they are legislating technologies that may not even exist in a few years’ time. That’s why the new copyright law, should it pass, would go through a mandatory review after five years.
    - Responding to ACTRA: Group Calls C-32 a “Disaster” and Proposes Six Part Fix
      
      ACTRA completed a two-day lobbying blitz in Ottawa yesterday, bringing some Canadian television stars to convince MPs that Bill C-32 is a disaster that is bad for consumers and creators. While ACTRA isn’t proposing anything to solve the consumer problems, it is promoting six changes to Bill C-32. I review each proposal below, but it is first worth watching an interview on CTV with ACTRA’s Ferne Downey and Corner Gas’ Eric Peterson. Downey makes the startling comment that she is not a proponent of free market theory that users will pay for the content they like. Meanwhile, Peterson, who starred on a show that aired on free, over-the-air television without any levy but supported through commercials, now claims that “free” will eliminate the creation of new Canadian content.
    - How should Canada protect its culture (or should it)?