12.15.11

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Kernel Space

  • Kernel Log: Coming in 3.2 (Part 4) – Infrastructure

    Changes to the memory subsystem promise improved response times and performance. From Linux 3.2, device-mapper supports thin provisioning and is able to use this ability for improved snapshot functionality.

  • Download Linux Kernel 3.2 RC5 and Linux Kernel 3.1.5

    Linus Torvalds and Greg KH announced a few hours ago, December 9th, that another Release Candidate version of the upcoming Linux kernel 3.2 and the stable Linux kernel 3.1.5 are both available for download.

• Applications

  • Test Ubuntu Tweak 0.6, Now With Unity Settings, Theme Changer And More

  • 8 nice text-based applications in Linux

  • Blazemeter Brings Apache JMeter to Cloud

    The world of application and server load testing has traditionally been limited by the availability of on-premise resources. With a new service from startup Blazemeter, that changes as load testing can now be done via a self-service cloud model.

  • Top 25 Best Linux Performance Monitoring and Debugging Tools

    I’ve compiled 25 performance monitoring and debugging tools that will be helpful when you are working on Linux environment. This list is not comprehensive or authoritative by any means.

  • DIY: Get top-quality open source security tools in one distro

    Once you use the open source Network Security Toolkit distribution, Jack Wallen predicts you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

  • LightScribe in Linux: Make Gorgeous Discs in Ubuntu

    The tools that you will be using, surprisingly, come from Lacie. Here are the three tools that you will need to download first. All of them are prepackaged .debs.

    LightScribe System Software Package

    LightScribe Simple Application

    LaCie 4L Labeler Utility

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to edit commited subversion logs?

    • Installing Lighttpd With PHP5 And MySQL Support On CentOS 6.0

    • HOWTO install PowerDNS on CentOS

    • Remote GUI administration over SSH

    • Nmap Network Probing Cheatsheet

    • Weekend Project: Run Your Own Q&A Site with Coordino

    • Controlling Your Linux Server Using Twitter

    • Project Management with Redmine

    • Tutorial: Put your bookmarks online with SemanticScuttle

    • Backup all databases nightly w/ mysqldump

    • Guile 2.0 manual available from your bookstore!

  • Games

    • Infos: The Humble Indie Bundle #4

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • Plasma Active Two Released

    • KDE’s Plasma Active Two Released: Run Linux On Tablets

      With Plasma Active, KDE project has shown how you can take customize the DE for different class of devices — while traditional desktop users can use the ‘future’ perfect and advanced Plasma Desktop, space restricted netbooks can take full advantage of Plasma Netbook, the Plasma Active emerges as a great solution for touch based devices.

  • GNOME Desktop

    • The 2011 GNOME User Survey Results

      As mentioned when announcing the survey, several months ago I was contacted about hosting the 2011 GNOME User Survey after the GNOME Foundation itself wasn’t interested in collecting the feedback from their users. The survey ran for October and November on Phoronix, and now I have finally had time to dump the results and look.

• Distributions

  • The five fastest-booting Linux distributions

    Reboots tend to be rare with Linux. Usually, they’re due to a kernel update or an environmental issue. But regardless of the reason, it’s crucial it come back to life quickly. One issue surrounding Linux of late is boot time. Some distributions have made it a key feature to attract users. Some have even succeeded in reaching that magic 10-second number. But which distributions boot fastest? Let’s take a look.

  • New Releases

    • TurnKey 11.3

    • UPR 10.04r2

    • KahelOS 111111

    • DoudouLinux 2011-11

    • [untangle] 9.1 Changelog

    • Puppy 5.3.1

    • SystemRescueCd 2.4.1

    • GParted 0.11.0

    • Fermi 6.1

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat Storage Appliance Integrates Gluster With Linux

      Some vendors move faster than others when it comes to integrating products from an acquisition.

      Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) acquired storage vendor startup Gluster in October for $136 million. Now Red Hat is already out with its first Gluster-based product, The Red Hat Storage Appliance. The new appliance integrates components from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with Gluster.

    • Fedora

      • Fedora 16 KDE review

        Fedora 16 is the first version of Fedora where the installer creates GPT partitions by default – in standalone installations. So if you are going to install Fedora 16 KDE or any version of Fedora 16, GPT is a new feature that you will encounter during installation. GPT, or GUID Partition Table, makes it possible to create more than four primary partitions, and partitions that are more than 2 TB in size. If you are interested in this subject, you might want to read Fedora 16 GPT disk partitioning guide.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Introducing Ubuntu Cities Scope for Unity

          Starting with today we will introduce new plugins for the Unity interface of the Ubuntu operating system, called Lens and Scopes, that will make your Unity experience much better.

        • Paypal support coming to Ubuntu Software Centre

          It’s been a long time in development, but we’re finally drawing close to releasing Paypal support in Ubuntu Pay, the payment service behind Ubuntu Software Centre. Here are a couple of screenshots to whet your appetite…

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Pear OS Linux version 3.0 named “Panther” has been released

            The Pear OS linux is from France and it is purely based on Ubuntu and Debian. It design and look is mixture of Ubuntu and MAC OS X. The login screen, top panel and window are look like Ubuntu and the Dock at bottom gives you the taste of MAC OS X.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Pandaboard ES launches packing ARM A9 power

    Pandaboard.org has unveiled a new and small mainboard that is called the Pandaboard ES. This little board is one of the open source parts that is designed to be a development tool for running Android 4.0 ICS when it lands. The board is intended to support the Android Open Source Project. The little board is price very well.

  • Adlink tips Android-ready ARM modules for under $100

    Adlink announced it will release a range of ARM-powered COMs (computer-on-modules) next year that sell for “far below $100,” supporting operating systems including Android, Linux, and Windows 8. The devices, which will consume less than three Watts, will employ a still-unnamed, ARM-oriented format recently announced by Kontron.

  • Phones

    • Android

      • 100 Top Android Apps of 2011

      • Meizu spins dual-core 1.4GHz Android phone

        Meizu announced a high-end Android 2.3.5 phone equipped with an eight-megapixel, f/2.2 backside-illuminated camera with 1080p video recording. Aimed at the Chinese market for now, the Meizu MX features a 1.4GHz, dual-core Samsung Exynos 4210 system on chip (SoC), 16GB of storage, a four-inch, 960 x 640 pixel display, and a micro-SIM slot supporting pentaband 3G with HSPA+ support, says the company.

      • Renault tips Android IVI system, seeks app developers

        Renault announced an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system that will arrive in its Renault Clio 4 and Zoe cars in 2012. R-Link is built around a seven-inch touchscreen tablet — reportedly running Android on a Texas Instruments ARM processor — and will feature TomTom navigation, telematics controls, multimedia, speech recognition, and an open SDK for third-party app developers.

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • Tablet smackdown: Galaxy Tab 10.1 vs. iPad 2

      Before launching into this review, which pits Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 against Apple’s iPad 2, I took a few days to familiarize myself with the Galaxy Tab’s Android 3.1 (“Honeycomb”) OS. The thing is, I’d already used iOS on an iPod Touch for two years, but was a rank newbie when it came to Android.

    • Samsung To Put TouchWiz On Ice Cream Sandwich

      I don’t know if you are a TouchWiz fan or not. If you don’t know what TouchWiz it then you probably wont care. TouchWiz is Samsung’s skin for Android devices. It offers some cool features and has its own share of fans and hater. Irrespective of that Samsung is determined to put TouchWiz on top of Ice Cream Sandwich on its Android 4.0 phones.

Free Software/Open Source

• Events

  • Help us make LibrePlanet 2012 a success!

    The dates have been announced for our next conference — March 24th and 25th 2012, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. A call for papers has also been announced. The conference will include talks from the FSF staff and board, GNU project contributors, and other members of the global free software community. I hope you will join us!

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Security: Mozilla reacts to Google funded study

      For Mozilla, sandboxing isn’t everything. A precision made following the release of Accuvant Labs study.

• SaaS

  • Cloudera Expands Hadoop Management for the Enterprise

    The Apache Hadoop project has generated a lot of hype as being the poster child for the phenomenon known as Big Data. The practical reality though is that Hadoop works best with a distribution of complementary tools and applications that fully enables an effective Big Data deployment.

• Databases

  • Doing geospatial business with FLOSS: An Interview with CartoDB

    This week we have for you an interview with Simon Tokumine and Javier de la Torre from CartoDB, an open source geospatial cloud database with a business model. Enjoy the interview!

  • Facebook shares some secrets on making MySQL scale

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Hudson spinoff Jenkins gets commercial backing

    Java platform-as-a-service cloud provider CloudBees has launched a commercial version of the Jenkins CI (continuous integration) platform, the company announced Wednesday.

    An increasing number of enterprises that use Jenkins for their application development are using the software in production settings, said Steve Harris, who is CloudBees’ senior vice president of products. The company had surveyed Jenkins users and found that 80 percent deploy Jenkins in “mission critical” duties.

• Business

  • JetBrains turns IntelliJ IDEA up to 11

    JetBrains, developers of the IntelliJ IDEA polyglot IDE, have announced the release of version 11 of IDEA with enhanced performance, improved version control support, an updated UI, and platform improvements on Mac OS X and Linux. Since October 2009, when the open source version was announced, IntelliJ IDEA has been available in two editions: an open source community edition for Java, Groovy and Scala development, and a commercially supported, more fully featured “Ultimate” edition with support from frameworks like Java EE and Spring, and tools to assist deployment and debugging.

  • Semi-Open Source

    • JasperSoft Advances Business Intelligence for Big Data

      Open source business intelligence vendor takes a different approach to analyzing Hadoop.

• Project Releases

  • gnutls 3.0.9

  • FreeIPMI 1.0.10 Released

• Public Services/Government

  • White House releases early test code for Data.gov platform, moves closer to open source reality

    The White House’s Open Government Partnership inched closer to maturity last week, with the release of a new open data platform, designed to help other governments set up their own Data.gov portals. On Wednesday, Data.gov developer Chris Musialek posted the first pieces of early test code for the unfortunately named “Data.gov-in-a-box” — an open source version of the US and Indian governments’ respective data portals. Both countries, in fact, have been working on the platform since August, with the Obama administration pledging some $1 million to the effort.

  • Report: DARPA Cozies Up to Open Source

    Among organizations that favor closed technology development, DARPA would have to qualify as one of the most traditionally closed outfits of all. The United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency routinely pops up with new inventions, many of which would impress James Bond, but the inventions are typically shrouded in secrecy and mystery until they arrive. After all, lots of them are intended for battlefields, where the element of surprise can matter a lot. But Ars Technica reports that DARPA is exploring some new technology development models, including embracing open source principles. This makes a lot of sense.

• Openness/Sharing

  • The importance of Wikipedia

    Mirror mirror on the wall, what’s the most important open source project of them all?

    * Are you asking about economic impact? Then it’s probably Linux, or maybe the Apache Web server.
    * Are you asking about user base? In that case I’m thinking Google’s Android, or Mozilla.
    * But if you’re talking about active participation, getting people’s hands on the guts of the thing, having them donate that back to the commons, and fulfilling the idea behind open source, there can be only one answer. Wikipedia.

    Wikipedia has over 100,000 active volunteers working in 270 languages. You’re probably most familiar with the English language version, with its 3.8 million articles. But that’s less than 20% of the total, which now comes to over 20 million.

  • Data

    • What’s Holding Back the Age of Data

      Which is essentially where the data market is today. Everybody understands that data has value; there is little consensus on how, where and via what mechanisms it should be distributed, licensed and sold.

  • Open Hardware

    • The making of Arduino, an open source electronics prototyping platform

      The Arduino is a fantastic example of multiple things–a platform for rapid prototyping (a crucial component of the open source way), a hacker ‘scratching his own itch’ (I need a platform for my students) in public where other people could adapt his creation for their own wildly different uses, a way to lower the barriers to access of technology creation.

Leftovers

• Security

  • OpenDNS tool secures DNS traffic

• Finance

  • Protesters Occupy Goldman Sachs

    The reason several hundred protesters have congregated on West Street is that Goldman Sachs can be found there. And, today, Occupy Wall Street has gone squidding just outside. The idea comes from Matt Taibbi’s “nailed-it” description of the banking giant as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Many umbrellas sporting makeshift tentacles and ad hoc hats with angry squid eyes cap the march, which leaves simultaneously from two locations: City Hall and Zuccotti Park.

    The march is timed to coincide with an effort in West Coast cities to shut down ports, with New York occupiers showing solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, and elsewhere – all of whose occupations were evicted just like the de facto flagship one in New York. According to Boots Riley of the Oakland hip-hop outfit The Coup, “Occupy Oakland called for this massive coordinated blockade as a way to strike back at the 1% after their attacks on the Occupy movement and their continued assault on working and poor people.” New York couldn’t have picked a more apt 1 percent target than Goldman, as Taibbi’s depiction hints.

    “Everybody pays their tax,” chant the marchers. “Everyone but Goldman Sachs.” The reference is to Goldman’s shady accounting, which allows the corporation to grossly underpay its federal taxes.

  • Goldman Sachs + Warren Buffett = Not Many Jobs

    More than two years into the five-year program, which planned to reach and nurture 10,000 small businesses, just 5 percent of that goal has been met, and Goldman is reassessing the amount of time it will need. And what of Buffett, who has maintained an active role (though not a financial one) in the plan? The often chatty co-sponsor declined to comment.

• Civil Rights

  • A Reminder: There Is No Such Thing As A Secret. Ever.

    It’s quite funny watching aghast at the news that the FBI was using Carrier IQ to spy on citizens.