09.28.11

Links 28/9/2011: Linux 3.1 RC8, Gains for Android Tablets

Posted in News Roundup at 7:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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

GNU/Linux

Overcoming the “Required” Use of Microsoft in College

In this interview Daniel Bray (Lupine) of the Ubuntu Florida LoCo Team explains how he was able to use Ubuntu instead of Microsoft to complete his college degree. In an era when almost all schools in the United States require that its students use either Microsoft or Mac based technical solutions, Bray finds a way to exercise his freedom of choice and use Free and Open Source software to complete his degree.
PulseAudio Turns 1.0

PulseAudio, the sound server that has been adopted by KDE (and others), has reached version 1.0. According to the release notes, “The first thing you need to know is that 1.0 is just a number. We do not attach specific significance to the 1.0 moniker. It’s really just a way to clean up version numbers – it’s an eternal debate as to what constitutes “1.0 quality” and in the end we could easily go on forever with the previous numbering scheme.”
TLWIR 19: Intel, Openindiana and a Message to Redmond
Server
- Airbus parks supercomputers in containers
  
  Airbus is one of the first industrial HPC customers in the world to plunk its most recent supercomputers into containerized data centers.
  
  Hewlett-Packard inked a supercomputing upgrade deal with the aircraft manufacturer four years ago, and in the final phase of the contract earlier this year, HP put two of its Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD) containerized data centers at Airbus sites in Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany. Airbus, which has experience in cramming as many human beings as is physically possible into a small, confined space, undoubtedly admired HP’s ability to do the same with servers, storage, and networking inside modified shipping containers.
- Dell and Intel team on next-gen Linux supercomputer cluster
  
  The University of Texas has teamed up with Intel and Dell to build a Linux supercomputer cluster, as part of the National Science Foundation’s “eXtreme Digital” program. Due in 2013, the “Stampede” comprises several thousand Dell Zeus servers — each with dual eight-core Intel Xeon E5 CPUs, plus Intel’s new parallel computing “MIC” co-processors — and will be “the most powerful x86-based Linux HPC cluster” deployed in the U.S., say the partners.
- Netgear Improves Access and Security in Network Appliance
  
  The Netgear engine specifically looks at HTML files for threats. The UTM9S also provides an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to protect against network layer attacks. The UTM9S uses IPS signatures from the open source SNORT project as well as ones developed by Netgear. While the UTM9S is able to do both anti-virus and IPS security in one box, Leung noted that it’s not necessarily a replacement for a dedicated IPS device.
Kernel Space
- 89 trees missing from linux-next
- Webcam Drivers For Ubuntu
- Intel Mesa HiZ Performance On Sandy Bridge
  
  While there are still several days left of this year’s Oktoberfest, to take a short break this morning from benchmarking the wonderful beer, food, and Bavarian females, here are benchmarks of the new Intel HiZ Linux support. Just a few days ago a new, nearly ready patch-set was published for implementing hierarchical Z support within Intel’s Mesa DRI driver.
- Linux 3.1-rc8
  
  If you are an automount users (either the autofs variety or the nfs one), please give this a try. There’s been some changes in the automount logic: they are small and fairly obvious, and I doubt anybody will notice anything at all, but I’d still ask automount people to try it out.
- Graphics Stack
  - Glamor Project Is Called To Be Merged Into X.Org Server
    
    Glamor, an open-source project that up until now has received little community attention or public acknowledgement outside of its small development group, has now been called to be merged into the X.Org Server. But what is Glamor?
Applications
- Synchrorep: A simple way to synchronize folders
- CBZ, the MP3 of Comics
- Giada: Hard-Core Live Looping
- Terminator (Multiple Terminals In The Same Window) 0.96 Released
- Proprietary
  - Spotify for Linux Updates With Facebook Features
  - Spotify Opens Up And Works On Linux—But Makes Facebook Compulsory
- Instructionals/Technical
- Games
  - Speed Dreams 2.0 Beta 1 is up!
  - An Interview With Desura’s GNU/Linux Games Lead
    
    Josh (Cheese) Bush from Twolofbees.com let me know that has made an interview with rotektor (Tim Jung) who has recently been appointed GNU/Linux Games Lead for Desura , it comes with 3 parts – so here is the first part (the others will be published on his website in the next few weeks).
  - Desura Beta Client Hands-On Impressions
    
    Desura closed beta client was released few days back and only limited number of people got access to it.
  - The Future Of The Broken Hourglass
    
    Three years ago I’ve posted about a cRPG titled The Broken Hourglass.
    Unfortunately the game wasn’t developed as fast and professional as one could hope for, and it seems more like a hobby than a real effort to finish the game, so the development was abandoned.
  - Corsix-th beta 8 released!
    
    Another one of my favourite projects has had a new release, Corsix-th the open source engine for Bullfrogs old Theme Hospital has hit a new milestone!
  - 5 Open Source Android Games worth Trying Out
    
    The Android Marketplace offers a variety of games to choose from. Even though many of those games are absolutely free, only a handful of them are open source. While that may not bother many Android users, there are a lot of FOSS enthusiasts who love to have everything that’s open source. So, whether you’re an open source fanatic, or a FOSS purist, here are 5 great open source games that you can try out on your Android device.
  - Nikki 0.4: cannons, sounds, sharing and downloading levels
Desktop Environments
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
  - Meeting the KDesktop from Alt Linux
    
    What do you know about Russia?
    Vodka? Bears on the streets? Siberia?
    Any more stereotypes?
    Let me give you another one: Linux.
    Yes, Linux!
  - K3b Burns Hot, Burns Bright
    
    Linux users have a lot of good options for burning CDs and DVDs. K3b, however, is one of the best I’ve used. The latest version of K3b, 2.0.2, brings to Linux what Windows users have long loved in one of the leading CD burners of that platform, Nero. K3b is fast, simple to use, and has lots of options.
  - Google Summer of Code Achievements – Chapter One
  - Google Summer of Code Achievements – Chapter Two
- GNOME Desktop
  - GNOME 3.2 Has A New File Manager Available
    
    While not replacing the Nautilus file manager or playing a major role within the soon-to-be-released GNOME 3.2, there is a new GNOME file manager available.
  - Gnome Pie: A Cool New Visual Application Launcher
    
    Gnome Pie is an application inspired by a World of Warcraft addon called OPie, that tries to offer a different way of launching applications in Gnome.
  - GTK+ 3.2 Is Gold With Wayland, HTML5, Etc
    
    With the official release of GNOME 3.2 coming later in the week, Red Hat’s Matthias Clasen has christened the official version of the GTK+ 3.2 tool-kit. GTK+ 3.2 brings several interesting features since the inaugural GTK+3 release earlier in the year.
  - GNOME 3.2 Release Notes
Distributions
- There are over 300 Distributions of Linux- Which One Should You Use?
  
  Before discussing what distribution to choose, let me give you a brief history on Linux. Linux is an open source software that was developed by Linus Torvalds while a Computer Science student at the University of Helsinki. In 1991, in an effort to write his own version of the UNIX operating System, Torvalds wrote and published the binaries (the running programs in machine language) as well as the source code on the Internet inviting other programmers to join. Today it is one of the best and most ubiquitous operating systems in the world. Most importantly, it is free and open source under the GNU General Public License. It is also now one of the most popular operating system after Windows and MAC.
- Pardus 2011.2 has been released! A must try Linux OS
  
  Pardus Linux 2011.2 is now available. In this update release, the NetworkManager have been updated to 0.8.5.91, problems about adding VPN connections have been fixed, handle WLAN security passwords gracefully while upgrading distribution; ModemManager is updated to 0.5, improvements for Samsung modems, support access technology reporting for Qualcomm Gobi modems, fix communication with Nokia N900 devices; CUPS is updated to 1.4.8; LibreOffice is updated to 3.4.3, fixed crash closing document with footnotes; MPlayer – fixed crash playing subtitled videos which was triggered by FreeType 2.4.6 security update.
- New Releases
  - Tiny Core Linux 4.0 released
- Red Hat Family
  - Fedora and RHEL Documentation
    
    People say you don’t know what you have until its gone. I must say that the Fedora and RHEL documentation team’s produce is certainly one thing that I do take for granted… EXCELLENT documentation! Its always there, and generally excellent, if sometimes a bit hard to find in the wiki.
    
    Its certainly not going away, nor ever I hope! My problem comes when I need to deal with other projects for the $DAYJOB and discover other project’s equivalent systems don’t have documentation to a level I have come to take for granted. Whether its my personal projects within and around Fedora, my dayjob RHEL component or open stuff I play with the documentation is normally good.
  - CentOS goes continuous
    
    CentOS is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). RHEL 6.1 was released in May, providing Red Hat’s customers with new hardware and security updates. CentOS is still not out with a CentOS 6.1 release, but they’re not leaving their users hanging.
- Debian Family
  - Derivatives
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - One Point Oh!
        
        So stay tuned for future improvements! And speaking of staying tuned, I’d also like to announce Planet PulseAudio. This is an aggregated feed of posts about PulseAudio. If you have a blog and write about PA, please get in touch and we can add your feed. The design is heavily borrowed from Planet GNOME so it should be familiar for some readers.
      - Unity Updates | Ubuntu
      - Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site
      - GNOME 3 Theme Added to Ubuntu 11.10
        
        Canonical added the default GNOME 3 desktop theme, Adwaita, to the default themes of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system, due for release on October 13th, 2011.
        
        Yes, you heard right: Adwaita is now part of the default themes of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system, alongside other popular themes, such as Ambiance and Radiance (see the screenshot below).
      - Flavours and Variants
        
        Quick Look: Bodhi Linux 1.2
        
        The Bodhi install is very easy and doesn’t take long since it’s based on Ubuntu. You’ll get to pick from a variety of themes before you use your desktop. Here are some screenshots of the install. See the image gallery for the full install.
Devices/Embedded
- ‘DragonBoard’ targets rapid Android prototyping on dual-core Snapdragon
  
  Bsquare announced a $299 Android development board incorporating Qualcomm’s dual-core, Snapdragon APQ8060 processor. The DragonBoard provides a variety of I/O including JTAG, Ethernet, and mini-USB, pre-installed sensor and connectivity (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) daughtercards, plus an optional $199 peripheral kit with a WVGA touchscreen, battery, and both five- and one-megapixel cameras, says the company.
- Phones
  - Samsung joins forces with Intel and Microsoft
  - Intel finds a way to let go of MeeGo
    
    MeeGo will become Tizen, Intel announced today.
    
    “Intel joined Linux Foundation and LiMo Foundation in support of Tizen, a new Linux-based open source software platform for multiple device categories,” the company said in a statement. “Tizen builds upon the strengths of both LiMo and MeeGo and Intel will be working with our MeeGo partners to help them transition to Tizen.”
  - MeeGo rebooted as Intel and Samsung launch new Tizen platform
    
    The Linux Foundation and the LiMo Foundation issued a joint statement on Wednesday morning to announce the launch of Tizen, a new Linux-based open source mobile operating system. The platform’s application stack and third-party developer frameworks will be built around standards-based Web technologies. The new Tizen website says that Intel and Samsung are jointly backing the effort.
  - Limo Foundation And Linux Foundation Announce New Open Source Software Platform, Tizen
  - Android
    - Amazon launches its Kindle Fire tablet
      
      The $199 7in IPS ultra-wide display, dual-core processor tablet weighs 14.6oz. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said at the launch that Amazon will ship “millions” of the devices, which run a customised version of Android, from 15 November.
    - The Amazon Kindle Fire is no iPad Killer
    - Bsquare punts Touchpad dual-core Snapdragon chip to Android coders
      
      TESTING OUTFIT Bsquare has released a testing and evaluation board featuring Qualcomm’s dual-core Snapdragon APQ8060 chip.
    - T-Mobile spawns high-end Android phones with 42Mbps HSPA+ and NFC support
      
      T-Mobile announced two smartphones that run Android “Gingerbread” on a dual-core, 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, feature eight-and two-megapixel cameras and near field communication (NFC) radios, and support the carrier’s 42Mbps HSPA+ 4G network. T-Mobile’s version of the Samsung Galaxy S II offers a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, while the HTC Amaze 4G supplies a 4.3-inch display as well as high-end camera features.
    - MeeGo and LiMo to merge, report claims, as MeeGo-driven Nokia N9 reaches market
      
      The Linux Foundation’s MeeGo project will merge with the LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation’s LiMo spec, bringing together two struggling open source mobile Linux projects, according to an industry report. Meanwhile, Nokia shipped the 3.9-inch Nokia N9 — the first MeeGo-driven smartphone, and most likely the last.
- Sub-notebooks/Tablets
  - More Xoom 2 images emerge as Amazon and BandN ready Android tablets
    
    Motorola Mobility is prepping two successors to its Xoom tablet, including an e-reader-focused 8.2-inch model, according to several reports. In other Android tablet news, the original Xoom did surprisingly well in recent Consumer Reports rankings, Amazon is expected to unveil an Android tablet/ereader on Sept. 28, and Barnes & Noble is readying three replacements to the Nook Color.
  - Digitimes Research: Android tablet sales growing steadily
    
    Digitimes Research has analyzed figures from Google about the company’s certified devices that have connected to Android Market each month, and pointed out that monthly sales of Google certified Android tablets grew from an average of less than one million units in the second quarter of 2011 to 1.5 million units in August, according to senior analyst of Digitimes Research, Luke Lin.
  - Few hundred thousand HP Linux tablets sold out in a day
    
    After HP liquidated its remaining TouchPad tablet inventory last month by marking down the prices to $99 for a 16GB tablet and $149 for a 32GB model, the company placed one more order with its suppliers which was expected to result in a few hundred thousand more TouchPads heading to America.
  - Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet
    
    Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), the world’s largest online retailer, unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet computer, taking aim at Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s bestselling iPad with a device that’s smaller and less than half the price.
    
    The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek. The device, a souped-up version of the Kindle electronic-book reader, will run on Google Inc.’s Android software, the Seattle-based company said. Amazon also introduced a touch-screen version of its e-reader, to be called Kindle Touch.

Free Software/Open Source

Open Source, Open Mind

I’ve been a big advocate of open source software since I learned about the model of software licensing and development 10 years ago. I am a big believer that many minds produce great things, so the idea that a community of users would develop and improve software to the benefit of the community really appealed to me. Open source is often a great solution for cash-strapped libraries that can adopt tools like Open Office for free instead of paying for Microsoft Office licenses on all of their computers.
Luis Iván Cuende García demonstrates the power of Free Software and the determination of a fifteen year old

A few months ago I went to Campus Party in Spain. I have blogged about Campus Party before, so I will not spend a lot of time and space here on that topic.

I will tell you about a young man, Luis Iván Cuende García, who was fifteen years old when I met him but who had released his own distribution of Linux called “Asturix”. He, his father and his friend Ricardo had all traveled to Campus Party at the invitation of the Campus Party management.
FLOSS for Science Books August 2011
Web Browsers
- Mozilla
  - Firefox 7 arrives with reduced memory footprint
    
    Mozilla has released a new version of the open source Firefox Web browser. The update brings a much slimmer memory footprint courtesy of Mozilla’s MemShrink project. The new release also includes some improvements to hardware-accelerated rendering on Windows, support for the W3C navigation timing specification, and an opt-in system for collecting performance data.
  - Mozilla Firefox Significantly Reduces Memory Use to Make Web Browsing Faster
  - Download Official Firefox 7 and Thunderbird 7 for Linux
    
    Ladies and gentlemen, dear readers, Mozilla unleashed a few minutes ago (September 28th) the final and stable version of the highly anticipated Mozilla Firefox 7.0 web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird 7.0 mail client for Linux, Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
  - Mozilla Firefox 7 Released | Reduces Memory Usage | What’s New
    
    Mozilla Firefox 7 has been released. The new release fixes some stability issues and several bug fixes. Mozilla Firefox 7 available to Download for Linux, MAC OS X, and Microsoft windows. Also available to install on Ubuntu “Natty, Oneiric” using PPA.
  - Mozilla Improves Memory Usage with Firefox 7
  - Memory comes to the fore in Firefox 7
SaaS
- Piston launches OpenStack cloud OS for private clouds
  
  Piston Cloud Computing came out of stealth mode today, launching an OpenStack-based cloud OS that allows enterprises to build private clouds that meet security and compliance requirements. Former NASA and Rackspace execs are leading the charge. The OS will be generally available Nov. 29.
- Twitter Storm: Open Source Real-time Hadoop
  
  Twitter has open-sourced Storm, its distributed, fault-tolerant, real-time computation system, at GitHub under the Eclipse Public License 1.0. Storm is the real-time processing system developed by BackType, which is now under the Twitter umbrella. The latest package available from GitHub is Storm 0.5.2, and is mostly written in Clojure.
Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
- A year after the fork: LibreOffice is growing and going strong
  
  Today marks the one-year anniversary of The Document Foundation (TDF) and the LibreOffice project, a promising community-driven fork of OpenOffice.org (OOo). The project has seen considerable growth during its first year of existence. TDF estimates that there are now 25 million LibreOffice users worldwide.
- Will Oracle Turn MySQL Into ‘Crippleware?’
  
  Since Oracle obtained MySQL in the Sun takeover, many FOSS folks have been wary of Oracle’s plans for the open source database, a wariness that wasn’t eased by Oracle’s handling of the OpenOffice/LibreOffice split. When a couple of weeks ago we learned that Oracle has added three commercial extensions to MySQL, many figured that was the beginning of the end of MySQL as a free and open project.
- September 28, 2011
  
  The Internet, September 28, 2011 – The Document Foundation (TDF) celebrates its first anniversary, one year after the unveiling of the project and the release of the first beta of LibreOffice. “What we have achieved in just twelve months is incredible,” says Charles Schulz, a member of the Steering Committee. “Let’s have a look at some numbers: we have 136 members who have been nominated for their contributions to the project; we have some 270 developers and 270 localizers (although we always want to attract more), many of whom are also members; we have over 100 mailing lists, with over 15,000 subscribers, half of whom receive all our announcements; and there have been thousands of articles in the media worldwide”.
BSD
- What Can Your Team Learn from a Bike Shed?
  
  Because of his position in the FreeBSD project at that time, Kamp was particularly annoyed by the pattern he was seeing, which is why he sent his thoughts to the email list. “You see it in politics, from national to school board and boy scout meetings,” he says, adding, “You see it in pretty much any meeting in a corporate context where somebody has a ladder to climb.”
  
  Not that this would have any relevance in your life. Oh, no. I’m sure you’ve never seen any behavior like this at all. But play along, because a friend might have experienced “bike shed” moments. Right. A friend.
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- Who Will Lead Free Software in the Future?
  
  What, I wondered, happens when Stallman no longer leads? Will new intellectual leaders emerge, or will free software be limited to a single generation?
Project Releases
- Airtime 1.9.4 released with .deb packages for Ubuntu & Debian
  
  Airtime 1.9.4 has been released with new DEB packages for Ubuntu and Debian that keep installations automatically updated with the latest version. Airtime 1.9.4 also includes the new file storage system with ‘watch’ folders, allowing stations to magically synchronise files and to easily browse their audio archives, as well as Shoutcast support, improved front-end widgets, and extensive bug-fixes.
Programming
- ESC – #Parasoft C/C++test has multiple new features

Leftovers

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone.

A recent blog post dealt with my suggestion that PC users should switch to Linux and ditch Windows. Once they make the move to Linux, they’ll no longer need to pay for computer repairs (antivirus, spyware cleaning, etc.), especially those offered by online services are constantly advertised on cable television.
Science
- NASA’s Testing Laser Internet. In Space. Laser. Space. Internet.
Security
- That Was the Breach That Was
  
  The attack on Kernel.org last month was “a big wake-up call,” according to Green Armor’s Joseph Steinberg. “This breach could have been astronomically worse. If the attack had been carried out with more sophistication, the attackers could have done a lot worse damage than they did. The gut feeling is that it is more of an accidental intrusion.”
Privacy
- Facebook stores up to 800 pages of personal data per user account
  
  Facebook consistently reappears in the news with regards to privacy and the data it keeps on each of its users. For example, earlier this week an engineer working for the social network had to explain why Facebook tracks you even when you’re logged out.
- sjvn01
  Facebook: The Spy in Your Network
  
  I used to like Facebook. Oh, its security and constantly changing privacy protection was a bad joke, but it was still the best way to find and keep in touch with old friends from high school (Hi Cathy!) and the like. That was then. This is now.
  
  It was bad enough that Facebook tries to harvest your phone number, in the new Facebook Open Graph platform you can share all kinds of usage data with your advertisers… uh friends. With the new Facebook, you can automatically share what movies you’re watching on Netflix, what music you’re listening to on Spotify, and what’s you’re reading on Flipboard.
Copyrights
- Illegal download law fails [Ed: spot the mistake]
  
  Files containing movies and music are spread between different computers on the internet and bittorrent software is used to find the file parts and reassemble them. Some files, such as the open source Linux operating system, have no copyright, while files of music, movies and television shows belong to copyright holders.