• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Desktop

• Ubuntu-based netbook hits South Africa at $188

  Vodacom announced an Ubuntu Linux-based netbook for the developing world, to be initially be launched in South Africa for $188. The Vodafone Webbook offers a 10-inch screen, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage, a Vodacom SIM card slot, and a weight less than 2.2 pounds, says the mobile provider.

• ARM-powered Ubuntu ‘Webbook” Launches in South Africa

• Ubuntu 12.04 – Precise Pangolin planning prepared

  The Ubuntu Developer Summit 2011 is approaching and, as is customary, Mark Shuttleworth has laid out his objectives and themes for the fourth Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) release, Ubuntu 12.04, recently named Precise Pangolin. The two foremost issues on Shuttleworth’s mind are the fact that 12.04 is an LTS release and Ubuntu’s presence in the cloud; he is also aware of what Ubuntu owes to the work of other developers.

• Ubuntu daddy bets on desktop polish, ARM clouds

Kernel Space

• Jump-Starting Open Source Participation

  One of the great things about being The Linux Foundation is that we get to work with the foremost open source contributors in the world on a regular basis. What’s just as exciting, though, is watching companies evolve from traditional, closed source development organizations into full-fledged open source contributors. This is happening every day, and the pace is astounding.

  However, this transition doesn’t usually happen overnight. We’re often asked, “How can I be more effective at consuming open source and up-streaming our own code?” Most companies would love to be active participants but also recognize that it takes a number of years to get to where they want to get. The implied question is actually, “How can I accelerate this process so that I see the benefits sooner?”

  In a similar vein, we also get asked about starting new open source projects and releasing existing proprietary technology as open source. This trend is becoming increasingly common as companies discover their business partners have a vested interest in the success of their technology and are willing to share in the destiny of the code.

Applications

• Top Web Conferencing Software for Linux

  In the age of globalization, working with people from different parts of the world is common for many industries. Employees often have to travel long distances, which are not only hectic, but also costly for the company. Thanks to the fantastic state of the current economy, companies can no longer afford to spend extra money on travel expenses and accommodation. Furthermore, since travel often involves shifting between different timezones, employees are jet lagged and they aren’t able to perform at their fullest potential. And finally, there’s the environmental crisis, which is forcing more and more companies to go green and to cut out any unnecessary activities that may affect the environment, which obviously involves travel too.

  So, what’s the solution to this? Should we stop globalizing? The answer is No. Thanks to the marvelous advancement in modern computing, people from different parts of the world can now communicate without even leaving their own office. The technology I’m talking about is web conferencing. Web conferencing allows you to hold meetings, seminars (called webinars), annotate whiteboards, training events, lectures and more using the power of the Internet.

• Proprietary

  • Opera denies ignoring critical font manipulation vulnerability

  • Opera 11.52 Security update

    We have now released 11.52 addressing a 0 day security issue. We have at the same time thrown in some stability fixes.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How to Add a Random Quote as Your Signature in Evolution

  • Linux system and hardware monitoring made efficient

  • How to install Ubuntu 11.10 on Virtualbox

  • Rapache returns ?

  • Book Excerpt: The Python Standard Library by Example

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • How to Optimize KDE Desktop Effects

  • How I Learned to Love the KDE 4 Series

    For nine years, my default desktop was GNOME. About the third of the time, I’d use another desktop or a shell, either for the purposes of review or just for a change, but I’d always return to GNOME. It was a no-fuss interface in which I could do my common tasks without any problem. But a glitch on my system that left GNOME unstartable coincided with the release of KDE 4.2, and — not having the time to reinstall — I switched to KDE. I haven’t looked back since.

• GNOME Desktop

  • GNOME 3.2.1 Has Been Released

    A day after Owen Taylor’s announcement for GNOME Shell 3.2.1, here comes the final and stable release of the GNOME 3.2.1 desktop environment.

    GNOME 3.2.1 is the first maintenance release of the wonderful open source GNOME 3.2 desktop environment for Linux-based operating system.

  • GNOME 3.2.1 Brings A Bunch Of Bug Fixes

    The first point release to the Oktoberfest-christened GNOME 3.2 was released today. Like usual, this GNOME update (v3.2.1) just brings translation updates and bug-fixes. There’s also some “tiny improvements” but nothing major.

Distributions

• A Slackware Primer

• New Releases

  • Estrella Roja 11.10.20 (enlace reparado)

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

  • Mandriva 2011 PowerPack is in the oven

    With the advent of Mandriva 2011, Mandriva versions were reduced to only one. Previously, you could select among Free, ONE, and PowerPack. I was introduced to the world of Linux by the ONE version (back in 2009), but I paid for the PowerPack 2009 and 2010.

  • Mandriva 2011 Powerpack is Coming

• Red Hat Family

  • IcedTea 2.0 based on JDK7 – without CACAO

    Version 2.0 of the JDK build environment, IcedTea, has been published. The software harness enables compilation of the source code provided by the OpenJDK project using only free developer tools. This is the first version released that supports the new OpenJDK 7.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • What Makes the New Ubuntu 11.10 So Great?

      • Unity is the end of Ubuntu

      • As Ubuntu Linux Turns 7, ‘Precise Pangolin’ Planning Begins

        It was exactly seven years ago that the very first version of Ubuntu Linux–dubbed “Warty Warthog”–was released, kicking off a long line of increasingly popular versions of the free and open source operating system.

      • Seven Years Old

        Seven years ago Ubuntu 4.10, the Warty Warthog, was released. It was the very first Ubuntu release.

      • Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot)

        Released to schedule on October 13, Ubuntu 11.10 (codenamed Oneiric Ocelot) sees the end of official support for the GNOME desktop, the OS relying instead on Canonical’s own Unity desktop in either the default 3D or 2D mode. Oneiric is something of a consolidation release, with improvements mostly limited to completing the switch to Unity begun in 11.04, along with general polish in terms of look and feel. You can persue the official Ubuntu 11.10 release notes and take an online tour of Oneiric at the Ubuntu web site.

      • Precision Planning; Prepping for 12.04 LTS

        In just over a week, quite a large cross-section of the Ubuntu community and representatives from many free software projects and companies will gather in Orlando to map out the Precise Pangolin. Now’s the time to prepare for the event, with 11.10 out (well done everybody!) and the key infrastructure slotting into place.

        Figuring out the optimal balance of goals is the work of the summit, but we can lay out some over-arching themes that have been in progress during this meta-cycle and come to their full fruition in the LTS release. We can also remind ourselves of the ways in which an LTS is different, and the impact that will have on our choices in Orlando.

      • Introducing Ubuntu 11.10 Without Unity

        Now that Ubuntu 11.10 was released, we are proud to announce today, Octomber 18th, the immediate availability for download of a new Linux operating system based on the newly released Ubuntu 11.10 distribution.

        The new Ubuntu-based operating system introduced here is called Ubuntu GNOME Shell Remix and it’s build on top of the Oneiric Ocelot release, but without the Unity shell.

      • Ubuntu’s Adoption Curve, Past and Present

        We’re about to embark on a new cycle and with that comes the hopes of many that the Perfect LTS can be a really good break through release. I was reading a comment by the ever ready Jeff Spaleta over on Mark Shuttleworth’s Blog. His assertion was that Ubuntu has been loosing people according to the Wikimedia web stats data, so I decided to put this to the test.

      • Ubuntu 12.04 Will Be Pixel-Perfect: Mark Shuttleworth

        Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, chose the day when Ubuntu turned 7 to laid the plan of the next version of Ubuntu, code named Precise Pangolin.

        Ubuntu 12.04 is a very important release for Ubuntu and users as it is an LTS release. LTS means Long Term Support. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, releases LTS versions every two years and supports it for 3 years. What’s more interesting about the LTS version is that it is supported for 5 years on servers, thus making it perfect for enterprises and governments.

      • Ubuntu 11.10 review

        This new edition, dubbed the Oneiric Ocelot (it means “dreamy”), is much less adventurous. It brings no new features to speak of, just a clutch of interface refinements, more like a service pack than a new version.

      • This week in design: Floating orchestras, Mark Shuttleworth talks Ubuntu

      • From Warty to Oneiric, Ubuntu Linux turns 7

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • “Nokia’s N9: A Damaging Love-Hate Relationship”

  • Android

    • Sprint debuts $100 Android phones from Motorola and HTC

      Sprint unveiled two $100 Android 2.3 smartphones with 1.2GHz processors. The rugged Motorola Admiral offers a 3.1-inch screen and exposed keyboard, and operates on Sprint’s Direct Connect push-to-talk network, and the HTC Evo Design 4G is a four-inch “worldphone” that supports Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network.

    • Samsung beats Apple in smartphone sales

      SAMSUNG Electronics shipped more than 20 million smartphones in the quarter ended September 30, a person familiar with the situation said, beating close competitor Apple, which sold 17.1 million units in its fiscal fourth quarter, ended September 24.

    • Android Ice Cream Sandwich versus iOS 5: Killer features

      Yet, this comparison must be done. For one thing, Google and Apple have both recently unveiled huge changes that respectively make their mobile operating systems far more powerful, and in some ways more similar to each other. For another thing, weighing the pros and cons of each platform against the other is a scenario that’s played out daily among many people who are deciding which phone to buy.

    • Samsung beats Apple in smartphone sales

      A lot has been written about the red hot battle between smartphone giants Samsung Galaxy S2 and iPhone 4S. Analysts and tech observers dissected specs and compared features, but there was no consensus. However, the battle of wits took a turn when two were dragged to a brutal, unforgiving drop test. And hold your breath, Samsung Galaxy S2 took the prize for being sturdy.

    • Sprint Announces $99 EVO Design 4G for October 23

      Sprint has added yet another member to their growing family of EVO products today, tapping the EVO Design 4G with an October 23rd release date. Bowing at a mere $99.99 ($50 mail-in rebate), the handset is the first in the product line to feature World Roaming capabilities. Hardware for this Android 2.3-powered phone include 1.2GHz processor, a 4-inch qHD display, and a pair (5-megapixel rear, 1.3-megapixel front-facing) of cameras.

    • Sprint announces $99 Motorola Admiral for October 23

    • Motorola RAZR Ice Cream Sandwich update coming early 2012

      Motorola has revealed that the Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Motorola RAZR will be pushed out OTA at the beginning of 2012.

      The Motorola RAZR was announced on Tuesday at a New York event for the Verizon network in the US, before the European announcement was made on Wednesday in Berlin.

    • Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source

      Google has confirmed that the source code for Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ will be made public, after it refused to release the code for its predecessor ‘Honeycomb.’

    • Anti makes wardriving child’s play with a rooted Android phone

      There’s a lot of focus on security these days. Web security, keeping your passwords intact, and maintaining a secure online presence. Viruses, malware, and anything that can come from the web, right over your net conenction and cause an untold amount of devastation to your world. A valid concern, for sure, but I have found that by adjusting your browsing behavior and looking before you click can often remove most of the threat.

    • Google says Android 4.0 source code to be available “soon”

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Kobo spins its first color Android e-reader

    Kobo announced a $200 Android 2.3 tablet with a seven-inch, 1024 x 600 pixel AFFS+ anti-glare display. The Kobo Vox eReader features an 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, and access to the Kobo eBook Store, says the company.

  • Asus names Eee Slider release date

    First demo’d way back in March 2011 – we tried it out back then – the Slider is a 10.1in, 1280 x 800 screen on the back of which Asus has built a slide-forward base unit, complete with Qwerty keyboard.

  • Asus’ Transformer Prime may launch with Ice Cream Sandwich

    As expected, Asus chairman Jonney Shih was on hand at All Things Digital AsiaD conference where he gave the world its first look at the next-generation Android tablet. According to Engadget this tablet will be known as the Transformer Prime when it debuts on November 9th. Specifications include a quad-core Tegra 3 Kal-El processor, and an 8.3mm thick body with USB and mini-HDMI ports.

  • Netflix now officially supports Android 3.1 tablets

    Netflix has released a new version of its video-streaming app for Android devices that officially adds support for Android 3.x (Honeycomb) tablets. The October 19 release of Netflix app v1.5.0 build 360 also extends Netflix’s Android support to Canada and Latin America for the first time.

“Open Source Leverages The Wisdom Of The Masses”

Events

• Perens joins keynote speakers for LCA 2012

  One of the first luminaries of the free and open source software world, Bruce Perens, has been announced as the second keynote speaker for the 13th Australian national Linux conference.

  LCA 2012 is scheduled to be held in Ballarat from January 16 to 20, the first time the event has moved out of a capital city either in Australia or New Zealand: it has been hosted across the Tasman twice.

• Zentyal Summit 2011: 11-12 November 2011, Zaragoza (Spain)

• VISTA Expo and Symposium Nov 17-20

• SCALE 10X to host SCALE Kids Conference

• Digital pathology consortium ready for open source business

  The Open Source Digital Pathology Consortium (OpenDP), which announced its formation earlier this month at the Pathology Informatics 2011 meeting in Pittsburgh, plans to engage academic medical centers, research institutions and digital pathology manufacturers to create an open source community to contribute and build open source tools for digital pathology.

SaaS

• Cloud, open source, and new network models: Part 2

• Services, Production and Clouds

  He views cloud computing as being primarily a story of production. For users, cloud computing can be viewed as an enhanced dynamic utility, making intensive computing much more accessible and thus diffusing the potential for innovation. For providers, cloud computing significantly improves their ability to deliver very high volume of services at significantly lower costs and higher quality. For both users and providers, cloud computing truly represents the industrialization of information-based service activities.

• Cloudera and SGI Partner to Take High Performance Computing on Apache Hadoop to the Next Level

• Nuxeo Takes Enterprise Content Management Platform into the Cloud

• How Yahoo Spawned Hadoop, the Future of Big Data

  The email went to Eric14. His real name is Eric Baldeschwieler, but no one calls him that. At fourteen letters, Baldeschwieler is a mouthful, and he works in a world where a name takes a backseat to an online handle.

  The sender was Rob Bearden, a serial entrepreneur from Atlanta, Georgia, famous for actually making money from open source software. He e-mailed Baldeschwieler because he was looking to build a new company around what is widely regarded as The Next Big Thing in corporate computing. The irony is that Baldeschwieler worked for an outfit few would associate with enterprise technology. And if you listen to the pundits, it wasn’t a technology company at all. He worked for Yahoo.

Databases

• DOCOMO Chooses Couchbase NoSQL Technology

• Couchbase and NTT DOCOMO Expand Relationship with Strategic Investment

• MySQL Performance Tool Jet Profiler Adds Multiple Language Support in their Latest Release

• Big Data, MapReduce, Hadoop, NoSQL: The Relational Technology Behind the Curtain

  Hadoop has its limits for Big Data analytics – and relational databases may have more of a future than you think.

• SkySQL has many gains in first year

  Exactly one year ago, a group of former employees of what was once the company with the most popular open source database, MySQL, came together to form SkySQL, a fork of the project.

CMS

• New Features for Joomla 1.7

  Joomla 1.7 stable release was available on the 19th July 2011. The new features are primarily behind the scenes, and are not as “visible” as features have been for other Joomla upgrades. Yet the new features are very powerful and they include one click upgrades, and Joomla Platform is now split from the cms.

• Top 10 Benefits of Drupal

  Drupal is an open-source rich with several resources that make it incrediblybest alternative amongst all available open source CMS (content management systems) applications. It makes the mission of web application development so unproblematic and picturesque that you can build Drupal based lovely website on your own. You even don’t need to be professionally solid for web designing or development.

• Your Input: 2011 State of the Open Source CMS Market Survey is Out

Education

• Moodlerooms Ensures Standards Compliance for Moodle 2 User Community

• Cengage Will Partner with Moodlerooms, Unicon for Tighter Integration

  Cengage Learning has announced it will partner with Moodlerooms and with Unicon on open source learning projects. Both partnerships are designed to increase functionality for the respective learning platforms through Cengage’s new service, Mindlinks.

• Hackers are vital to the university culture of openness and innovation

  Have you noticed anything missing from the ongoing phone hacking scandal involving the News of the World? There are no hackers involved. This is the latest example of hacking’s troubled history with the mainstream media, which confuses the “playful cleverness” of expert computer programmers with the malicious meddling of computer crackers and criminal journalists. With this confusion, the rich and fruitful history of the true hackers is diminished and a thriving intellectual culture focused on problem solving, self-directed learning and the free exchange of knowledge is undermined.

  Much has been written about hackers and hacking, but rarely is it contextualised as part of the scholarly tradition. Yet careful reading of the history of hacking reveals that it is very much a part of the work and values of universities and that the hacker ethic is shared, in part at least, by most academics working today.

  We can trace the history of hacking back to MIT University in the early 1960s and greater access to shared computers. At the core of hacking is the academic practice of peer review: the opportunity for academics to closely examine, modify and use other people’s work. Hackers extended this through the creation of legal licenses that allow the copyright holder of software to grant anyone the ability to use, modify and re-distribute their work providing the modified version is licensed under the same terms. The great MIT hacker Richard Stallman called this hack Copyleft and his general public license (GPL) has become the most popular open-source software licence in use today. In 2001, Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig founded Creative Commons, an organisation that borrowed much from these free software licences to create a similar set for other types of creative works. The activity of hackers has provided academics and their institutions with the legal basis upon which to overcome the traditional restrictions of copyright and permit the public use, modification and redistribution of research articles, research data and teaching materials.

Business

• Email Firm Open-Xchange Names GM Americas, Announces Expansion Plans

• Business gives open source thumbs-up

  Around 50% of surveyed companies claim that vendor-supported open source software provides either the same or better features and benefits than proprietary software.

  This is the key finding in this year’s ITWeb open source survey, administered in conjunction with Linux Warehouse, which attracted more business management respondents than last year’s survey.
  Click here

  The majority of respondents voted overwhelmingly that open source is either the same or better than proprietary in terms of features, speed performance, ease of use, tools and utilities, documentation, technical support, cost of ownership, scalability and ease of change.

• Open-Xchange Adds SVP Sales and General Manager

• Semi-Open Source

  • Aveksa hopes new data access tool opens markets

    Waltham-based enterprise data security form Aveksa Inc. has launched a new product that taps the open source model and will hopefully bring in a new customer base to the company.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• New version of the Archimedes package for semiconductor device simulations has been released

  Archimedes is the GNU package for semiconductor device simulations that has been released for the first time in 2005 under GPL. It has been created by Jean Michel D. Sellier who has been, since then, the leader of the project and the main developer. It is a free software and thus it can be copied, modified and redistributed under GPL. This is one of the big advantages of using Archimedes.

• FSF Campaign Against Secure Boot

• FSF Campaigns Against Windows 8′s Secure Boot

Project Releases

• The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache Cassandra™ v1.0

• Apache launches Cassandra database project for enterprise use

• Apache Cassandra reaches foretold version 1.0

  The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has announced the release of version 1.0 of the open source, highly scalable, column-oriented, distributed “NoSQL” database, Cassandra. The release comes just under five months after the release of the previous version, 0.8.0, and since then the developers have added support for data compression to reduce the volume of data on disk on Cassandra nodes and have improved the memory and disk space management with off-heap storage of the row cache and self tuning memory tables.

• OpenELEC 1.0 Released

  After more than two years of constant development and a year of open beta testing, the team of the OpenELEC Project are pleased to announce OpenELEC Version 1.0

Public Services/Government

• Department of Immigration revises open source tender

  The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) is reviewing a planned web development and hosting tender that appeared to favour open source over proprietary technology.

  The department issued a pre-release notice on September 29 for a new business application and website for the Office of the Migration Agents’ Registration Authority (MARA), which sat under its remit.

  MARA needed to replace an existing Microsoft Access database with a secure, user-friendly and “innovative database solution … built upon proven open-source frameworks and technologies”.

Openness/Sharing

• Spies Want to Go Open-Source to Stop the Next WikiLeaks

  At their main trade show GEOINT this week, the intelligence community talked a lot about making progress in preventing the next Bradley Manning from leaking government secrets. Keeping a tight grip on sensitive information has proved to be a challenge for spies in a technological age that celebrates the free flow of data, but Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, thinks they’re making progress. “The trick is, can we allow robust sharing for analytical and operational purposes and protect the information at the same time?” Rogers told Eli Lake at The Daily Beast. “I argue yes, there are lots of ways to do it.”

• The Open Source Geospatial Foundation and the International Cartographic Association (ICA) Memorandum of Understanding

• Goepel increases engagement in open source initiative

  Goepel electronic has developed a new demonstration kit within the framework of the goJTAG initiative.

  In addition to the USB 2.0 controlled Boundary Scan controller, PicoTAP and respective software, it contains a specific demo board for practical exercises.

• How to become a data journalist: open source tools for journos

  Data journalism: the new, wild frontier where the intrepid reporter is free to create any informative and investigative project their heart desires – providing that they have the tools to do so.

  But how do you get started? Where are these mysterious programmes that make data journalism accessible to the regional reporter and independent blogger?

  Never fear, launching an investigative project based on data needn’t be a huge financial expense. There are plenty of open source technologies out there to satisfy the aspiring data journalist.

• How an extinct zebra could upend the networking market

  The growing popularity of software defined networking has resulted in a spurt in networking startups, and that is going to get a further boost in coming months thanks to Google and an open-source project shepherded by the Internet Systems Consortium, a non-profit entity. The ISC is supporting a project to stabilize and test Quagga, open-source networking software. The project, called the Open Source Routing Project, is exciting because it could help make a cheap, open-source router a reality.

• Open source film awaits your remix

  A Melbourne-based director Ryan Alexander Lloyd has released the raw footage of his upcoming film onto the internet for free.

• Open Data

  • Public data for all – opening up Europe’s public sector

    I’ve said before that I’m a big fan of open data. Opening up public data will get citizens involved in society and political life, increase the transparency of public administration, and improve public decision making. Those benefits cannot be overestimated. And public data can be used in many unexpected ways, too: as the father of the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, put it: “if people put data onto the web… it will be used by other people to do wonderful things in ways that they never would have imagined”.

Finance

• Fed Too Chummy With Goldman Sachs, GE: Report

  The Federal Reserve needs to take steps to control the conflict of interest involving Reserve Bank directors that also run some of the largest Wall Street banks and U.S. corporations, including Goldman Sachs(GS) and General Electric(GE), a government audit report on Wednesday said.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Flu with that Burger? ALEC Wants Sick People Serving You Food

  Last week, the city of Philadelphia mandated paid sick days for “workers whose employers have contracts with the city or apply for city subsidies.” Last month, Seattle also passed a paid sick leave ordinance. Connecticut passed a bill in June that will make it the first state in the nation to mandate paid sick leave for service workers. Food service workers are a special concern of such laws.

  Workers in these locations will no longer have to come to work with the flu or other infectious illness, endangering the health of their coworkers and customers and exacerbating their own health.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Connecting Europe: Commission offers broadband a boost of €50-100 billion

  It’s my dream to get Every European Digital. And that means everyone needs to be covered by fast broadband connections.

  The economic benefits are clear: increasing broadband penetration by just 10 percentage points can boost GDP by 0.9 – 1.5%. But we face problems in delivering new networks: insufficient investment, problems in accessing capital, and a weak business case for operators to roll out everywhere. And we also face difficulty in making online public services available across Europe.

• Do Bell’s Throttling Practices Violate CRTC Net Neutrality Rules?: It Says P2P Congestion Declining

  Bell’s letter raises several interesting issues. First, it is an acknowledgment of what groups like CIPPIC, PIAC and others were saying as far back as 2009 in the net neutrality hearing. Peer-to-peer traffic is declining as an overall percentage of network traffic and the stresses on the system are far more likely to come from online video services such as Netflix.

Copyrights

• Copyright Debate Hits the House of Commons: Opposition Won’t Support C-11 Due to Digital Locks

  Copyright dominated debate at the House of Commons on Tuesday as Bill C-11 was the primary subject of debate. Digital locks was one of the most discussed issues (new levies were the other), with the main opposition parties lining up to oppose the bill due to the digital lock provisions. For example, the NDP’s Charlie Angus stated:

• Free Justin Bieber! (Why Streaming Shouldn’t be a Felony)

  U.S. authorities have demanded the extradition of Justin Bieber, the Canadian singer who turned blatant copyright infringements into a profitable career. The teen star is accused of streaming unauthorized songs to millions of people without compensating the copyright holders and now faces a 5 year prison sentence.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

GNU/Linux Inside stickers are back and better than ever!

We are proud to reintroduce our popular GNU/Linux Inside stickers. The new sticker features the same artwork as the classic GNU/Linux Inside sticker but is now on a much more durable sticker backing, perfect for putting on your phone or laptop. The stickers are 1-inch in diameter, and made of heavy duty aluminum.

Applications

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Install Mplayer and Multimedia Codecs (libdvdcss2,w32codecs,w64codecs) on ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric)

  • Use httperf for Server Benchmarking

  • Detecting Malicious Traffic in HTTP Headers

  • Unattended SSH with Smartcard

    I have several backup servers that run the excellent rsnapshot software, which uses Secure Shell (SSH) for remote access. The SSH private key of the backup server can be a weak link in the overall security. To see how it can be a problem, consider if someone breaks into your backup server and manages to copy your SSH private key, they will now have the ability to login to all machines that you take backups off (and that should be all of your machines, right?).

  • Building a powerful & affordable firewall with Linux

    It’s no doubt that one of the leaders for network equipment is Cisco Systems. Newer Cisco devices are starting to use what Cisco calls its “IOS-XE” operating system, which is a customized flavor of GNU/Linux. Yes, GNU/Linux, which should not come as any surprise as GNU/Linux is used on countless high level appliances and security devices. In fact, there are hardly any appliances or security devices that run Windows for the operating system. Why? Because GNU/Linux is highly scalable, powerful, reliable, and a better overall solution than Windows.

    I have always been a huge fan of using GNU/Linux for building my own firewall boxes. First, old machines like Pentium II or Pentium III boxes are perfect for this. These boxes will easily run even the latest version of GNU/Linux. The Linux kernel itself has many functions built in for network routing, traffic shaping, bridging, virtual IP addresses, and just about anything else that a firewall needs to support. And the fact that Cisco now leverages the Linux kernel for its appliances tells me that even Cisco agrees.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • blackPanther OS v11.1 Darkness is Out

  • Press Release: Sabayon Linux 7 Core Releases

• Gentoo Family

  • Sabayon 7 GNOME 3 review

    Sabayon is a Linux distribution described by its developers as “… a bleeding edge operating system that is both stable and reliable.” It is based on Gentoo, a source-based (Linux) distribution. The latest edition, Sabayon 7, was released just last week (October 10 2011 to be exact). Sabayon has support for all the known free desktop environments, but this release, as is customary, includes 32- and 64-bit installation images for GNOME 3, the K Desktop Environment, and Xfce only.

  • Sabayon 7 Core, SpinBase, ServerBase and OpenVZ Released

    Fabio Erculiani proudly announced last evening, October 18th, the immediate availability for download of the Sabayon Linux 7 CoreCDX, SpinBase, ServerBase and OpenVZ editions.

    Sabayon Linux 7 CoreCDX, ServerBase and SpinBase editions are designed for Linux experts and advanced users that want to set up a home server or create their very own operating system, based on Sabayon.

• Red Hat Family

  • Fedora

    • Kororaa 15.1 (Squirt) released

      The second release of Kororaa 15 (codename “Squirt”) has been released. Version 15.1 is available for download, in 32 and 64 bit with KDE 4.6 and GNOME 3.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu Turns 7 Years Old, First Ubuntu Was Released Today

        Ubuntu has made some major wins this year as Indian Judiciary system switches to Ubuntu from RHEL. One of the reasons could be Ubuntu’s ease of use and focus on desktop users as compared to RHEL. Ubuntu also made a major win by being selected by Amazon and HP for their servers. 2011 may bring the much needed profitability to Canonical, the company which has been funding Ubuntu for all these years.

      • Ubuntu 12.04 – Precise Pangolin planning prepared

        The Ubuntu Developer Summit 2011 is approaching and, as is customary, Mark Shuttleworth has laid out his objectives and themes for the fourth Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) release, Ubuntu 12.04, recently named Precise Pangolin. The two foremost issues on Shuttleworth’s mind are the fact that 12.04 is an LTS release and Ubuntu’s presence in the cloud; he is also aware of what Ubuntu owes to the work of other developers.

      • Gnome 3 Can Be Hacked By Home Users On Ubuntu 11.10

        Let’s get one thing clear, Gnome 3 is here to stay no matter what Linus Torvalds thinks. Yes, it will continue to improve and add more features as the time passes by. Same will happen to Canonical’s Unity. It is the future. You can either hold onto the past and refuse to embrace newer technologies, or take the road to innovation. I never had issues with Unity or Gnome 3 shell, I had issues with bugs in Ubuntu 11.10, which stopped me from doing important work. I do trust the developers of Canonical (and they have some of the best developers in the world) to fix those bugs.

        When I look at Windows 8 or Apple Mac, I feel lucky. While Windows users will be stuck with Windows 8′ Metro UI, we have couple of options. If you don’t like Gnome 3 Shell, you can go to Unity or XFCE or LXDE or KDE.

      • Ubuntu 11.10 and the Oddly Oneiric ‘Countdown’

        “I just got to look at the countdown and….wow is that REALLY dumb!” said slashdot blogger hairyfeet. “Did they learn anything from those moronic house parties MSFT had? If you want to generate buzz that sure isn’t the way to do it. Is there ANY non Ubuntu user that would be impressed?”

      • Flavours and Variants

        • The Perfect Desktop – Kubuntu 11.10

          This tutorial shows how you can set up a Kubuntu 11.10 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. Kubuntu 11.10 is derived from Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) and uses the KDE desktop instead of the GNOME desktop.

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Android

    • 3 Free Apps to get the most out of your NFC-enabled Android

    • Android 4.0 upgrades will soon be available

      According to Google’s Andy Rubin, you will now be able to upgrade your current Android OS to the latest Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0 by November.

    • Andy Rubin: Android 4.0 to be open sourced by year end

      Speaking at this week’s AsiaD conference in Hong Kong, Andy Rubin, Google Senior VP of Mobile and the man in charge of Android development, confirmed that the source code for the next major update to Android, version 4.0, will be available as open source “a couple of weeks” after the recently announced Galaxy Nexus smartphone ships next month.

      Code-named “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS), Android 4.0 was first revealed yesterday (19 October) alongside the new Nexus device, at a joint Google and Samsung event. The new version of the mobile operating system includes features from both the current phone version, 2.3.x “Gingerbread”, and the tablet version, 3.x “Honeycomb”. While it will reportedly work on both large- and small-screen devices, it was only demonstrated on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone.

    • Android 4.0 Source Code To Be Released Soon

      Google was criticized for holding back the source code of Honeycomb. There was a valid reason behind that move. Google wanted to bring an end to the fragmentation in the Android market. Releasing the Honeycomb code meant giving it to OEMs to put it on their devices, which would further increase the fragmentation.

      Google clearly stated that Honeycomb was a quick-fix for tablets and it was working on the next version of Android which will run on all Android devices – it was dubbed IceCream Sandwich. Google made it clear that it will release the source code of IceCream as soon as it is available.

    • The Android source is back online

      The Android source repository has been offline since the kernel.org compromise; it has now returned on a new site. Services like Gerritt will take a little longer still. “To reiterate, these servers contain only the ‘gingerbread’ and ‘master’ branches from the old AOSP servers. We plan to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it’s available on devices.”

    • Google Serves Up Ice Cream Sandwich With a Nexus on the Side

      Ice Cream Sandwich is a redesign of the Android OS. It has a highly visual interface, a facial-recognition feature and home-screen folders.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Asus’ new Android Transformer tablet going quad-core

    Asus Chairman Jonney Shih unveiled his company’s next-generation Android tablet today, a 10-inch model in the Transformer family that will come with Nvidia’s quad-core Kal-El processor.

Events

• Coverage Of LinuxCon Prague, Czech Republic

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Unattended SSH with Smartcard

    I am in Toronto right now, spending a week with Mobile folks. It has been about 6 weeks since I started working on a mobile extension, and the list of dirty tricks we employing to get things done is growing. Some of these hacks are there because there is no alternative, and some are there because I just didn’t figure out the right way to do it.

SaaS

• SGI to sell Cloudera software and services

  Linux server specialist SGI is moving further into the big-data market: it has signed a partnership agreement with Cloudera Inc., the provider of Apache Hadoop-based data management. Under the terms of the agreement, SGI will distribute Cloudera software pre-installed on SGI Hadoop Clusters.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Interview: Jesper Schmidt Hansen, author of GNU Octave Beginner’s Guide

  This week’s FLOSS4Science interview is with Jesper Schmidt Hansen, nanofluidics scientist and author of the GNU Octave Beginner’s Guide, one of the few books on GNU Octave besides the official GNU Octave manuals. Remember that you can leave comments or questions at the end of the post. Enjoy the interview!

  F4S: Hello Jesper. Please, give us a brief introduction about yourself.

  Jesper: I currently hold a position at Roskilde University, Denmark, where I investigate fundamental phenomena in nanofluidics. I have been a postdoctoral fellow at Swinburne University, Australia, and at Pierre et Marie Curie, France. Before my academic career I did a Ph.D. in soft condensed matter.

• GNU/Linux Inside stickers are back and better than ever!

• gnutls 3.0.4

Project Releases

• Rapid7 announces Community Edition of Metasploit

  US security company Rapid7 has announced the launch of a Community Edition of the popular Metasploit exploit framework. According to Rapid7 Chief Security Officer and Metasploit Creator HD Moore, “The best way to tackle the increasing information security challenge is to share knowledge between practitioners, open source projects and commercial vendors.”

You Must Be Dumb To Use Windows Phones: Steve Ballmer

HUMOR: Steve Ballmer, the chair-throwing CEO of Microsoft, yesterday said that you need to be a computer scientist to use Android. He said that Windows Mobile is the best selling mobile platform in the world and even the dumbest person on the planet can use the Windows Phone. “You don’t have to be smart to use Windows phones,” said Mr Ballmer.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Major Loophole Remains in Net Neutrality Resolution

  Negotiations on a weak Net neutrality resolution are coming to an end at the EU Parliament, with the vote taking place tomorrow. After much reluctance, the conservative (EPP) group has finally agreed to endorse a call for a timely assessment of further regulation on Net neutrality. However, the text still includes a major loophole allowing operators to implement Internet access restrictions on the pretext of managing congestion.

• Net Neutrality Resolution Adopted in EU Parliament

  The “Industry” Committee of the EU Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution on Net neutrality. Through this vote asking the European Commission to promptly assess the need for further legislative action, the Parliament is taking a strong stance in favour of Net neutrality. Pressure now increases on EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who may soon be forced to break away with her failed “wait and see” approach and take action.

ACTA

• Negotiator’s notes on ACTA

• ACTA discussion heats up

  Meanwhile there is still some struggle about the delivery of the Europarl legal opinions, and it seems unclear to observers what DEVE would do. This week there was a dinner meeting of the Kangeroo Group. Velasco-Martins of the Commission claimed they could properly respond to any criticism and asked member states to be more specific. Given the track record of the Commission in the case, the legal loopholes and a missing criminal acquis their chuzpe is astonishing. The Commission largly builds its confidence that the Treaty is legally permissable on the TRIPS agreement which was concluded by Member States prior to all the relevant EU Treaties reforms, and with a competence reservation by the Union.