07.20.11

Links 20/7/2011: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Release Schedule, Linux-powered HP TouchPad Competitive With iPad, New OLPC Surfaces

Posted in News Roundup at 3:59 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux
- Distributions
- Devices/Embedded
Free Software/Open Source
Leftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop
- Chrome OS, like Tux, will never fly
Server
- LinuxCon Preview: Details on the Watson Exhibit
  
  After strutting its stuff on Jeopardy! earlier this year, IBM’s Watson will be included at LinuxCon in a special exhibit August 17-19, 2011. We got some time with the IBM Power Systems Product Marketing Manager Ian Jarman to better understand what we can expect and what Watson and its IBM team have been working on since their very public victory earlier this year.
- 12 Reasons Why Every Linux System Administrator Should be Lazy
- IBM Grows Second Quarter Revenues
  
  IBM (NYSE:IBM) reported second quarter fiscal 2011 earning on Monday, with both revenue and income growth, as multiple segments of its business expand. Part of the growth is fueled by IBM’s expanding presence in growth markets and some is coming at the expense of rivals HP and Oracle, especially in the Unix space.
Kernel Space
- Kernel Log: Further problems with UEFI
  
  Some UEFI systems that are shipped with Windows always use a secondary installation of the bootloader which is intended as a fallback; this prevents a correctly installed UEFI Linux from starting up. Also: Google has released its BadRAM patches after all, a Linus Torvalds has appeared on Google+, and Lennart Poettering has posted further material on systemd on his blog.
- Graphics Stack
  - S2TC: A Possible Workaround For The S3TC Patent Situation
    
    While S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) is widely used by many games and applications since its inclusion into OpenGL 1.3 and Microsoft DirectX 6.0, these lossy texture compression algorithms have not been implemented in the open-source Linux graphics drivers. This lack of open-source support is due to S3 Graphics holding the patent rights to this technology that they actively license to major hardware vendors. There long has been an external library that can be loaded and will work with most Mesa / Gallium3D drivers for advertising S3TC support, but it’s not found by default and it’s not included in leading Linux distributions due to these legal fears. There may now be a new solution for the S3TC Linux problem thanks to the advent of a new (and simpler) texture compression algorithm that can serve as a drop-in replacement.
  - NVIDIA Proposes Extending RandR
    
    While NVIDIA’s proprietary driver for their GeForce/Quadro hardware still lacks RandR 1.2+ support (that will hopefully change when RandR 1.4 is finally out), NVIDIA has proposed extending RandR to support over-scan compensation. This support isn’t for their mainline NVIDIA binary driver but rather their TEGRA Linux driver.
Applications
- One small step for [a] man… revisited using Audacity
- Instructionals/Technical
- Wine
  - CrossOver 10.1.0 released and CrossOver Games 10.1.1 released
- Games
  - Puzzle Moppet now on Gameolith!
  - Helena the 3rd The Grande Finale
  - Two Indie Linux Games to be Featured in ‘PAX 10′ this Year
    
    Two Indie Linux Games, Atom Zombie Smasher and Snapshot have made in the PAX 10 list this year and will be featured at the PAX Prime from August 26-28 in Washington. The PAX 10 is a showcase of independent games to be exhibited at the event.
  - OnLive Is Hiring More Engineers For Linux Client
    
    OnLive, the cloud gaming platform where games are rendered and stored on servers, already has Windows and Mac OS X clients, but a Linux client is in the works. Back in March there was a job posting by OnLive where one of the responsibilities dealt with feature design and development for multiple platforms, including Linux. There’s also been other signs of OnLive for Linux in the works. The latest sign is a new job posting yesterday for the Linux client.
Desktop Environments
- Thinking about Desktop Environments, Window Managers and how to get a lightweight desktop
  
  LXDE: LXDE is a light environment with the traditional layout. It does not have that much customizability, but it is perfect if you just want a simple, easy to use and complete environment. LXDE uses the Openbox window manager, so any themes for Openbox will work in LXDE. Many pieces of LXDE will also work in other environments, and are available in individual packages. LXPanel is a very useful panel as it contains an automatically updating menu. LXAppearance can manage GTK themes, icon themes, fonts and, with a plugin, Openbox themes. PCManFm is a light file manager although I prefer Thunar. Leafpad is a light text editor, and LXTerminal is a good terminal.
  
  Xfce: Xfce is a more complete replacement for Gnome 2.X, although it is still missing some features. There are some nice xfwm themes, but Metacity themes often look better. Xfce 4.8 can now use Alacarte to edit it’s menus and, with the help of xfapplet, can use many Gnome applets such as Dockbarx and MintMenu. Xfwm contains it’s own compositor, making Xfce great for those who want to use Docky or AWN without Compiz. Xfce is admittedly not as light as it once was, but it is still lighter than Gnome 2 and is a suitable replacement.
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
  - Solution to “There seems to be a programming error in aptdaemon”
  - rekonq, 1 feature a week. #2
- GNOME Desktop
  - We have to let GNOME2 go
    
    We will try to make the migration as much comfortable as possible. We have to let GNOME 2.32 go to its destiny. R.I.P.
Distributions
- PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family
  - We start collecting wishes for new build system
    
    As you know, release of Mandriva 2011 is coming. After that our developers continue to upgrade and polish mandriva build system. We receive many requests from community, that new build system must have new features. So, for example, new policy to add/upgrage packets, new functionality to create own “spins”/distributions or just for building existing package but with other defaults, etc.
  - Upstream Virtualbox + openssl versions on mandriva
  - VirtualBox 4.1 Goes Gold
- Gentoo Family
  - Pardus 2011.1 review
    
    This article presents a review of the latest stable release, Pardus 2011.1, which was made available for download on July 12, 2011. It is the second this year and judging from the distribution’s recent release history, there should be one more before the end of the year.
- Red Hat Family
  - Red Hat Confirms Plans for North America Partner Conference
    
    Red Hat is gearing up to host a major North America Partner Conference (Oct. 26-28, Miami). The event signals a shift for Red Hat, which previously lumped partners and customers together at the annual Red Hat Summit. Here’s the update along with some insights from The VAR Guy.
    
    Yes, the annual Red Hat Summit and Jboss World conference continues to grow, attracting hundreds of partners and customers alike. But Red Hat is finally prepared to put a dedicated spotlight on its North American partners. The October partner conference is expected to include distributors, system integrators, VARs, solutions providers, ISVs and OEMs. Attendance will be invitation only. More information is expected to reach partners this month.
  - Fedora
    - Distro testing marathon – Fedora 15 – Day 2/3
      
      This is my second day with Fedora 15 Lovelock installed on my laptop. If you’ve missed the post about the first day you can find it here. Below are my thoughts about the Fedora experience
- Debian Family
  - Derivatives
    - Aptosid – An Overview
      
      aptosid might sound like a package management tool, but it’s actually a desktop-orientated (KDE4 or XFCE) Debian derived Linux distro. It’s more than a mere respin of Debian, but does it have what it takes to distinguish it from all of the other desktop distros?
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Release Schedule
        
        The release schedule for the upcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating system has been published on the Ubuntu wiki. The distribution will be released at the end of April 2012.
      - Flavours and Variants
        
        Linux Mint’s Debianized Xfce
        
        I discovered Mandriva in the wake of a catastrophe…but that is a story for another day, one which I shall spin when I write up my review of Mageia. I bring up Mandriva because in my life, the most usable desktop I’ve ever found has been in the Gnome variant of Mandriva 2010. Mandriva 2010.2 is still a go-to installation on the laptop, but that one (and 2010.1) gave me a little trouble with sound on the “Fun Computer”. Otherwise, they were perfect, but a little less perfect, so to speak. But the combination of the Mandriva Control Center and the cool, crisp Gnome design is hard to beat.
Devices/Embedded
- Open source remote controller flies model planes via Air Linux
  
  Open source hacker community Gizmo For You is developing a Linux-based controller and separate receiver device to remotely control a model airplane or other vehicle. Starting at $670, the battery-operated Open Source RC (OSRC) runs Linux on a Gumstix Overo SBC and includes a 4.8-inch display, a smaller monochrome status display, a 2.4GHz RF radio, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth for external thumbstick control.
- Gumstix, Inc. Introduces the $99 RoboVero™ Controller Board
- Phones
  - Android
    - 5 Android Apps for Google Plus!
    - It is time for Google to take control of Android
      
      One of the reasons Android has grown like no mobile platform in history is the open nature of the OS. OEMs, developers and buyers have flocked to a platform that allows modifications across the board, creating the ability for anyone to make Android look and work in many ways. The looseness of the Android platform has been its biggest draw, but there is such a thing as too much openness, and it is beginning to impact customers in ways that Google surely didn’t intend to happen.
    - Popular Android Game Apparatus Gets 3 New Levels
- Sub-notebooks/Tablets
  - OLPC Plans Solar Charging, Satellite Internet for XO-3
    
    One Laptop Per Child is developing new functionality and protection features for its upcoming XO-3 tablet with the hope to attract more interest in the device.
    
    OLPC is designing rubber covers intended to protect the tablet but that could also integrate solar charging, satellite Internet or external keyboard capabilities, said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop Per Child.
    
    The tablet was originally announced in late 2009 with a projected price of under US$100. The XO-3 will become available early next year or perhaps sooner, and price is still being determined, but it will still be under $100, Negroponte said.
  - HP officially launches webOS TouchPad … again?
    
    When HP bought Palm last year I was hoping we would see less confusing messages and a more targeted focus for webOS with lots of resources to turn out great products. Instead, we end up with a rather lame tiny smartphone and then a tablet that was put on sale and then “officially launched” almost three weeks later. Yes, in case you didn’t know HP’s official launch for the HP TouchPad webOS tablet was yesterday, 17 July. I guess the 1 July release was just a practice run or something.
  - HP TouchPad 32GB WebOS tablet
    
    HP was right not to fear invidious comparisons with the iPad.

Free Software/Open Source

It’s Time for Packt’s Open Source Awards

Has it been a year already? It must have because Packt Publishing (news, site) is launching its annual Open Source Awards, formerly the Open Source CMS Awards, designed to recognize and support promising open source projects . This year’s awards will be very similar to the awards in previous years, but there are a few changes.
Open Source Pulse Sensor Project Looking for Funds

An interesting new project on Kickstarter is raising money to support the creation of a small, cheap pulse sensor. The device is being developed on the open source Arduino platform so that it can be easily integrated into other projects.
vSphere 5′s licensing opens the door for open source
10 things to think about to improve software product descriptions
Web Browsers
- Mozilla
  - Firebug developer joins Chrome browser team
SaaS
- OpenStack turns 1. What’s next?
  
  OpenStack, the open-source, cloud-computing software project founded by Rackspace and NASA, celebrates its first birthday tomorrow. It has been a busy year for the project, which appears to have grown much faster than even its founders expected it would. A year in, OpenStack is still picking up steam and looks not only like an open source alternative to Amazon Web Services and VMware vCloud in the public Infrastructure as a Service space, but also a democratizing force in the private-cloud software space.
- Yahoo and open source
  
  Yahoo is a well-known user of, and contributor to, open source projects. The company is most closely associated with Hadoop, and rightly so, as it is this open source project’s biggest contributor. Last month, it sponsored the Hadoop Summit 2011, in which its internal Hadoop experts, and others, ran a collection of workshops on the distributed workload operating system. It even announced that Yahoo had collected some top Hadoop engineers and spun off a new company, Hortonworks. Hortonworks hopes to sell Hadoop consulting services to enterprises.
- The big deal about big data
- OpenStack Turns One; What’s Next For The Open Source Cloud?
Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
- VirtualBox 4.1 has been released! PPA Ubuntu
  
  Oracle today released VirtualBox 4.1, a new major release. Introducing VM clones, this mean the ability to clone virtual machines via the GUI and VBoxManage, the New Advanced wizard for creating new virtual disks and virtual disk copy also for 64-bit memory limit is up to 1 TB. For guest Additions, status of modules and features can now be queried separately by the frontends, Experimental support for PCI passthrough for Linux hosts
- Free hypervisor adds virtual machine cloning
  
  Oracle released a new version of its free virtualization software, now offering an easy way to clone virtual machines (VMs). VirtualBox 4.1 also includes a memory limit increase to 1TB for 64-bit hosts, guest support for Windows Aero, a new UDP networking tunnel for interconnecting VMs, and support for SATA hard disk hotplugging, among other cited new features.
- Oracle Improves VirtualBox 4.1
  
  VirtualBox 4.1 is being officially released today, debuting new features that expand the use cases and deployability for the virtualization software. VirtualBox came into Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) as part of the Sun acquisition in 2010. The technology is used both as a desktop virtualization tool on the client side and as a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) delivery server side.
- Oracle revs VirtualBox, mushrooms memory
  
  The open source VirtualBox hypervisor for PCs and servers got a major release on Tuesday when Oracle – which controls the VirtualBox project – kicked out version 4.1.
- Oracle Girds VirtualBox for Enterprise Use
- VirtualBox 4.1 Supports Upto 1TB RAM
- IBM to donate Symphony code to Apache for consideration
  
  Six weeks ago I noted here that Oracle had to decided to offer the codebase for OpenOffice.org, the open source word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet software suite to the Apache Software Foundation. Two weeks after that, Apache voted to accept the proposed project for incubation. Now, one month later, IBM is announcing that it will offer the Symphony source code to the Apache OpenOffice incubator for consideration. Why and what does this mean?
CMS
- Joomla 1.7 Improves Open Source CMS
- Joomla Expands Beyond Content Management
Business
- consilium1 Announces Leadership Expansion to Support Growth in Open Source Adoption
  
  consilium1, a specialized information technology consulting services company, announced today that Mark Lugert has joined the c1 executive team as Vice President, Professional Services. In this role, Lugert will be primarily responsible for driving the expansion of the company’s burgeoning Open Source Adoption practice.
- SugarCRM, Pentaho Proclaim Partner Momentum
- Semi-Open Source
  - OpenGeo and Tascomi Announce Partnership to Support Users Across the UK and Ireland
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- Interview: Kuno Woudt, MusicBrainz
  
  During November 2010, I travelled around Europe, meeting various free software developers on my way to FSCONS, the annual free software conference, in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Leftovers

Computer scientists say it’s time to start looking at treatment of data waste

Hasan and Burns analyzed three computers: a MacBook laptop, a desktop running Ubuntu Linux and a Fedora Linux fileserver in the University Library (Linux is a variant of the Unix operating system used primarily at educational and research institutions).
How to move your Facebook photos to Google+
Security
- Lulz Security hackers target Sun website
  
  A group of computer hackers has tampered with the website of the Sun, owned by News International.
  
  At first, readers were redirected to a hoax story which said Rupert Murdoch had been found dead in his garden.
  
  A group of hackers called Lulz Security, which has previously targeted companies including Sony, said on Twitter it was behind the attack.
PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
- ALEC, For-Profit Criminal Justice, and Wisconsin
  
  As the first half of 2011 has revealed, Wisconsin is not a moderate “purple” state, but a state divided between staunchly “blue” progressives and righteous “red” right-wingers. That rift is particularly apparent in legislative conflicts over the criminal justice system, a debate spurred by corporate interests represented in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and perpetuated by ALEC legislative members, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
  
  Wisconsin’s history and public policy reflects the red/blue divide. It is the state that gave birth to the Republican Party, which supported slavery abolition, and the John Birch Society, which opposed the civil rights movement. In the first half of the 20th Century, the state elected both progressive hero Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette and right-wing extremist Joe McCarthy. It is the state that elected both former Senator Russ Feingold (D) and Representative Paul Ryan (R).
- ALEC Exposed: Milton Friedman’s Little Shop of Horrors
  
  Although he passed away in 2006, states are now grappling with many of the toxic notions left behind by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.
  
  In her groundbreaking book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein coined the term “disaster capitalism” for the rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock. The master of disaster? Privatization and free market guru Milton Friedman. Friedman advised governments in economic crisis to follow strict austerity measures, combining radical cuts in social services with the full-scale privatization of their more lucrative assets. Many countries in Latin America auctioned off everything standing — from energy and water utilities to Social Security — to for profit multinational firms, crushing unions and other dissenters along the way.
Censorship
- Telex to help defeat web censors
  
  Data smuggling software could help citizens in countries operating strict net filters visit any site they want.
  
  Developed by US computer scientists the software, called Telex, hides data from banned websites inside traffic from sites deemed safe.
  
  The software draws on well-known encryption techniques to conceal data making it hard to decipher.
  
  So far, Telex is only a prototype but in tests it has been able to defeat Chinese web filters.