09.27.11

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Linux users, start your engines

  Unless you’re a motorhead to a varying degree — and an older one at that — you probably don’t know who John Cooper is. His contributions in racing circles — putting the engine behind the driver in his Cooper Formula 1 cars in the late 1950s — would normally cement his place in automotive history, but he didn’t stop there.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Going Linux Sep 25: #151

• Kernel Space

  • Kernel.org Still Struggles To Return

    Accessing Kernel.org will simply result in a “Down for maintenance” message. It’s also in a similar manner for Linux.com, which was exploited earlier this month. LinuxFoundation.org is at least back online.

  • Linus Torvalds’s Lessons on Software Development Management

    If anyone knows the joys and sorrows of managing software development projects, it would be Linus Torvalds, creator of the world’s most popular open-source software program: the Linux operating system. For more than 20 years, Torvalds has been directing thousands of developers to improve the open source OS. He and I sat down to talk about effective techniques in running large-scale distributed programming teams – and the things that don’t work, too.

• Applications

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Playing DVDs on Ubuntu

    • How-to Change Boot Order in Ubuntu 11.04

    • systemd for Administrators, Part X

    • Grub Customizer 2.2 released and installation instructions included

    • Activity Log Manager- Clear History, Prevent activities from Logging by File Type/Application

    • Five Quick digiKam Tricks

    • Linux Server Hardening

    • Log In As Root in Live Mode (Linux Mint)

    • Avoid Using which(1)

    • [How To]: Install Ksplash Screen Themes | KDE 4.x

    • Creating A Bootable USB Device On Linux Mint 11

    • Automatic Login For SSH/SFTP on Ubuntu

    • Book : Backtrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing by Vivek Ramachandran

  • Games

    • Amnesia the Dark Descent

      Today we’ll take a look at a great Indie title Amnesia the Dark Descent, it’s been released 1 year ago, but i discovered it few days ago.
      This is a Survival-horror game that has had a lot of success, is an expertly crafted tale of terror as well as searching that utilizes its active dynamics to enthrall players with a method that every tale should have.

• Desktop Environments

  • Fighting the Schism of Free Software

    Over a decade ago an event happened which is still influencing our life in free software. Instead of one, two projects emerged to bring a fully free desktop to Linux based systems. Back then we failed to see the advantages of having multiple available desktop environments and we basically created a schism between the KDE and the GNOME world.

    The Schism is still in place!

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • Still hating Kde4/cups

      Overall KDE4 doesn’t limit my working overly compared to KDE 3.5 (although, so far as I can remember, it doesn’t improve it). One area where it particularly falls down is in printing. I have remarked earlier on the absence of kprinter.

    • KDE’s Infrastructure.

      During KDE’s (one of the largest open source communities around, with about 2500 active developer accounts with direct write access to many millions of lines of code across dozens of products, and large numbers of external contributors) ongoing migration from SVN to Git, GitHub was never considered as an option because the community considers it unacceptable for an open source community to throw their weight behind a proprietary solution.

    • [Artwork]: 10 Ksplash Screen Themes For KDE 4.x

      A great Ksplash theme collection for KDE 4.x featuring many Linux distributions. Innovative themes designed to be suitable to many users who would like to customize the default Ksplash theme.

  • GNOME Desktop

    • 7 new but very beautiful conky setups for your linux desktop

      If you are a Linux user, you must already know about conky, one of the coolest Linux applications. Last year, Techdrivein introduced an awesome collection of beautiful conky configurations. But since we gradually have more Linux users, new conky setups have been created everyday. So here are 7 new but amazingly beautiful conky configurations that will make your Ubuntu/Linux destop look more awesome than ever.

    • GTK+ 3.2 Released With HTML5 (Allows Applications To Run In A Web Browser) And Wayland Backends Support

    • Cardapio Menu Gets A GNOME Shell Extension

      Cardapio is a menu for GNOME that can work as a panel, AWN or Cairo Dock applet and even as a stand-alone application.

• Distributions

  • Hello again, Chakra

    Given the short time that has gone by since I last tried Chakra, I’m impressed with its progress.

  • The Air Force’s secure Linux distribution

    Outside of the U.S., there are several “national” Linux distributions. These include China’s Red Flag Linux; Turkey’s Pardus, and the Philippines’ Bayahnian. Other countries, like Russia, are on their way to moving their entire IT infrastructure to Linux and open-source software. In the U.S., the government, especially the military, makes use of Linux all the time. Indeed, Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), the most popular software set for hardening Linux against Linux is sponsored by the National Security Agency. But, there hasn’t been a national American Linux desktop distribution… until now.

  • New Releases

    • A Bundle of Updates Give 10 Linux Distributions a Boost

      With so many Linux distributions to choose from, it can be difficult to keep tabs on them all. Over the past few weeks I’ve written about Bodhi Linux–a lesser-known but nice (and increasingly popular) flavor of Linux–as well as Arch Linux and Mandriva. But today I’d like to round up other distributions of the free and open source operating system that have released key updates recently.

    • Tinycore 4.0 released

      Yesterday has been released the version 4.0 of Tinycore linux, one of the smallest linux distribution around.
      You can find the detailed changelog in their official forum, among many updates some are:

      * Updated kernel to 3.0.3
      * Updated udev to 173
      * Updated glibc to eglibc-2.13
      * Updated e2fsprogs base libs to 1.41.14
      * Updated gcc base libs to 4.6.1
      * Updated util-linux base libs to 2.19.1
      * Updated eglibc for 486/586 support.
      * Updated base Xlibs (microcore users need to get new Xlibs.tcz)
      * Updated all the custom core utilities to use the new repository area.
      * New loadcpufreq to handle module loading.

  • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • Mandriva 2011 Hydrogen Reviewed | Geared for the cloud with an eye on Unity and Gnome 3 shell

      Mandriva 2011 is attractive with ease of use improved and some new additions. Mandriva Linux has made a great come back after going through several tough times of financial crisis. This product from Rosa Labs, sure is appealing. Let us look at some of the new features of Mandriva 2011.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Fedora

      • Anaconda Whiteboards

        David Lehman and Will Woods are in the Boston area this week so along with Chris Lumens, Peter Jones, and David Cantrell we’ve all been whiteboarding away, planning and refinement on the upcoming Anaconda UI redesign that is scheduled to land in Fedora 17.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 11.04 Gets Positive Review On Indian News Station CNN-IBN

          Ubuntu bagged itself some mainstream media exposure this weekend when it was reviewed on Indian news channel ‘CNN-IBN’.

          As part of the stations 25 minute technology segment, ‘Tech Toyz‘, the English language news network featured a short review of Ubuntu 11.04.

        • Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 Beta Released | Introduce Plugin Management System

          Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 has been released. Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 will introduce some new features and new user interface design kinda looks suitable to the upcoming release Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. Now it’s available to install for tester and developer through Launchpad PPA.

        • Five topnotch replacements for GNOME 3 or Ubuntu Unity

          You’ve heard the talk, the complaints, and the scathing reviews. Both GNOME 3 and Ubuntu Unity have been met with a hailstorm of bad publicity — so much so that people are turning away from adopting Linux — at least Linux that uses either of these two desktops. So if you want to switch to Linux but you don’t want to use either of these desktops, what can you do? Well, I’ll give you five what-to-do’s that will ease the troubled Linux desktop selection.

        • Ubuntu Development Update

          Sticking exactly to the plan, we are quickly moving towards the release of 11.10, and it’s only three weeks until then. If you like partying, start organising your local release party soon! Beta 2 was released yesterday, so give it all the testing love you can. You won’t be disappointed, there’s something great and new in there for everybody.

        • A Tale of Two Betas (almost)

          I don’t often write about pre-release versions of Linux distributions any more – I did for a while, but the amount of negative feedback I got compared to the benefit I felt it was providing became too great. I’ve decided to make an exception this time, though, because there are two particularly interesting new releases coming up – Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, and openSuSE 12.1. I was thinking that I would have the added incentive of both Beta releases coming out on the same day, but openSuSE decided to push theirs back because they are still working on some difficult conversions to systemd, so I just downloaded Daily Build 301 instead of the actual Beta release. They say that the final release date (10 Nov) will not be changed as a result of this delay, though. The screen shot below was made on my HP dm1-3105ez, after installing Ubuntu 11.10 Beta-2.

        • Series: Introduction to Ubuntu Development – Part 6

          This is the sixth article in a series to explain the basics of Ubuntu Development in a way that does not require huge amounts of background and goes through concepts, tools, processes and infrastructure step by step. If you like the article or have questions or found bugs, please leave a comment.

        • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 234

          Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #234 for the week September 19 – 25, 2011, and the full version is available here.

        • Ubuntu 11.04 vs. Ubuntu 11.10 Benchmarks

          At the request of many Phoronix readers, here are some benchmarks comparing the 64-bit performance of Ubuntu 11.04 versus a recent development build of Ubuntu 11.10. Six different systems were benchmarked for this comparison.

        • Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site

          I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a significant milestone in the ongoing effort of making Ubuntu a target for app developers: the new Ubuntu App Developer site.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Linux Mint Computer Case Stickers… For Europe?

            Linux Mint is said to be gaining ground on Ubuntu’s popularity dominance lately. This means more folks are using Linux Mint than ever before. These users are bound to be distributed throughout the world – granted with a large concentration in Europe. But there are sure to be users in the USA, Asia, Australia, and South America too.

          • AriOS 3.0 – Not as good as its predecessor

            Now, AriOS 3.0 is out there. As a potential candidate to becoming a complete, truly successful Ubuntu derivative, an accolade which has so far been reserved to only Linux Mint, I took the distro for a spin, with high spirits and higher expectations. Tested: the 32-bit version, on my T60p experimentation rig. There’s a 64-bit version, too.

          • Why I chose Zorin OS 5 Ultimate as my go-to distribution

            I changed my Ubuntu workstation from an Ubuntu Ultimate Edition distro to Zorin OS 5 Core. After a week or so I liked it so much I upgraded to Zorin OS 5 Ultimate and installed Zorin Core (the free version) on my other machines. The reason for the changes was quite simple. Zorin OS 5 Ultimate gave my workstation the baseline Ubuntu 11.04 plus the Gnome desktop with features that keep the UI very straightforward and clean. The other machines are kept busy doing distributed processing work for BOINC projects like SETI, Einstein and LHC so their OS and UI needs are minimal. Zorin Core provides the same UI but the distro installs with fewer extra programs to update and maintain.

          • Muon Package Management Suite

• Devices/Embedded

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Samsung signals HD smartphones with supersize screens

        Samsung had its hands full today, launching several phones, including this refreshed Galaxy S II with a large HD screen.

        The Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE – which was announced in Korean this morning – sports a 4.65in OLED display with a resolution of 1280 x 720. The handset is apparently the first with an OLED display to feature a higher pixel density than 300ppi, rocking in at 316 pixels per inch.

        Other features include 16GB of storage, an 8Mp camera with 1080p video recording, NFC support and a large, 1850mAh battery.

      • Android ‘most popular’ with smartphone buyers

      • Survey says: Innovators prefer Android

        About 40 percent of U.S. mobile phone users over age 18 now have smartphones, and Google’s Android OS runs on over 40 percent of them, says Nielsen.

Free Software/Open Source

• How open source got its groove back

  Portland’s lure lost some luster when the Great Recession hit.

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Does Mozilla’s Response to Enterprises Focused on Firefox Go Far Enough?

      As we reported back in June, while many users applaud the rapid release cycle that Mozilla announced for the Firefox browser back in February, not all IT administrators are among the fans. It’s easy for consumers to forget that businesses have much more stringent requirements for accepting new applications of all sorts, including browsers, into mainstream use. There are security concerns, compatibility concerns, and more. Mozilla officials have already announced that they take the protests from the IT community seriously, and have a working group focused on delivering Extended Support Releases (ESRs) specifically for businesses that want to use Firefox. Do these efforts from Mozilla go far enough, though?

    • Mozilla Addresses Problems with Add-Ons and Firefox Releases

    • Mozilla Firefox 7 Released

      With the rapid release cycle and all, we are seeing more releases of the Firefox browser than before. Mozilla just pushed Firefox 7 to the official ftp server to prepare for today’s release of the browser. Firefox 7 is actually the first version of the rapid release cycle that is showing big improvements over previous versions.

    • Firefox Memory Leaks Once Again Causing Frustrations

      Three and a half years after developers plugged “hundreds” of memory leaks in the Firefox browser that had slowed many PCs to a halt, memory leaks in Firefox 6.0.2 are apparently once again frustrating users.

      In a number of issues posted on Mozilla’s support message board over the past several weeks, users report repeated instances of Firefox eating more than 1 GB of memory during basic tasks. Some memory leaks have been tied to browser plug-ins, while other users insist they are doing nothing exotic to cause such significant memory use.

• Databases

  • Oracle’s Commercial Moves with MySQL are Drawing Scrutiny

    When Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun Microsystems, the very first question we asked was what would become of the open source MySQL database and Sun’s record of openness with it. The general concensus around Oracle’s plans was that the database giant would position MySQL as a way to onboard users to its commercial offerings. (Oracle offers an Enterprise edition.) There is now debate about the extent to which that is happening, especially because Oracle has just released three commercial extensions for MySQL.

  • MySQL at the core of commercial open source

    Oracle last week quietely announced the addition of new extended capabilities in MySQL Enterprise Edition, confirming the adoption of the open core licensing strategy, as we reported last November.

  • MySQL.com Hacked to Serve Malware

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Registration opens for LibreOffice conference

    The event promises to bring together some big names in the industry, with the sponsorship list including Novell, SUSE, RedHat, Canonical, and Google among others. Attendance is free for all.

  • Three Magnifiques Extensions to Sweeten Your Office Suite

    Over the weekend, LibreOffice took the Experiment award for most appreciated software at the Open World Forum in Paris. I use LibreOffice every day, so I definitely think the award is well-deserved. Although I use some extensions, LibreOffice (and OpenOffice) have a collection of add-ons that I haven’t even explored yet. Here are three particularly useful add-ons to improve your office tools:

  • libreoffice Bug Submission Assistant postmortem

Leftovers

• Finance

  • Solyndra Failure Hits Goldman’s Reputation: William D. Cohan

    Since the financial crisis hit, investment banks have been rightly criticized for their tendency to be more concerned with their own trading profits than the well-being of their customers. Sometimes, however, an investment bank can take the whole client service thing a bit too far.

    Take, for instance, the case of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and its client Solyndra LLC, the California-based solar-panel maker that filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 6 and dismissed its 1,100 employees.

  • 80 ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Arrested

    Dozens of demonstrators who have vowed to “occupy” Wall Street were arrested Saturday on the seventh day of a social media-fueled protest against U.S. banking institutions, according to protest organizers.

  • Is the Eurozone Market About to Collapse?

    That’s what Wall Street trader Alessio Rastani says in this extraordinarily candid interview on the BBC. “This economic crisis is like a cancer,” he tells the host. “If you just wait and wait hoping it is going to go away, just like a cancer it is going to grow and it will be too late.”