02.04.12

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• More FUD Gone

  One of the key elements spread by FUDsters is the doubt about being able to do real stuff using */Linux. The naysayers trot out some pet application that they may never have used as an example of an application not available on FLOSS systems. The reality is that FLOSS on a general-purpose computer can do just about anything. Take Android/Linux, for instance. It’s on hundreds of millions of personal computers now and things like AutoCAD are available to run on it. The ISVs cannot pass up platforms that popular. And, yes, Android/Linux is a Linux distro…

• Kernel Space

  • Graphics Stack

    • Intel RC6 Support On The Sandy Bridge Desktop

      While RC6 support remains off-by-default as Intel developers are faced by RC6-related bugs affecting a small minority of Sandy Bridge users, this power-savings feature is not limited to only Intel mobile graphics. As discovered at Phoronix, RC6 can manage to boost the graphics performance beyond just extending your battery life. The RC6 performance boost is also quite visible on Intel Sandy Bridge desktop hardware too.

    • Codethink Senior Engineer Launches Open Source 3D Device Driver Project: LimaDriver.ORG

    • Radeon R600 Tiling Patches Are Ready

• Applications

  • The Best Calendar App for Linux

    The Best Calendar App for LinuxLinux users have a few calendar programs to choose from, but none of them are particularly spectacular—in fact, most of them aren’t very good at all. As such, we’re bending the rules of the App Directory and recommending that you use the awesome Google Calendar webapp for all your scheduling needs.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Compare And Synchronize Folders With FreeFileSync

    • Wget Download Manager

    • Hardening Postfix For ISPConfig 3

  • Games

    • Linux games compilation 11 – Don’t fear the numbers!

      Long time no see. It’s been a while since I’ve last written a mega-game compilation. You may believe that I’ve given up Linux games. Not at all. Linux gaming is alive and kicking. Not moving forward quite as fast as I’d like, but some games are making tremendous progress, others are sending awareness waves through the fabric of humanity, others yet are fresh new titles, a testament to the slow, yet persistent growth of Linux on the domestic market. More commercial games would be nice, but we’re not here to debate finance or politics. Not much anyway.

      Truth to be told, one day, I am going to run out of available titles for these kinds of reviews, so we will have to switch back to single game articles only. Not today. Luckily for you, I’ve managed to lay my hands on several more useful games, which you will probably like. Let’s see what we have.

    • MegaGlest: a fantastic, free software strategy 3D game

      When the Glest team started “Glest” as a college project a few years ago, they probably didn’t expect their game to go such a long way. While “Glest” stopped being developed a couple of years ago in 2009, it was forked in two different projects: GAE (Glest Advanced Engine) and Megaglest (the game I am reviewing in this article). So, how is it? The answer is simple: this game is incredible, polished, enjoyable, addictive, smart, and plain simply fantastic.

      A few years ago, the general consensus was that games could only be developed thanks to big investments, and that there could never be a really good games released as GPL. This theory was proved wrong several times, and I can say that MegaGlest is yet more evidence that fantastic games released for free can — and do — exist.

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • KDE Commit-Digest for 15th January 2012

    • Akademy 2012 Call for Papers; Registration opens

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • Alpine 2.3.6 released

    • Salix Live Xfce 13.37

    • KahelOS 020212

    • SimplyMEPIS 11.0.12

  • Debian Family

    • Iceweasel/Firefox 10.0 now in the Debian Mozilla APT Archive

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Video Review: Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 – Screenshots

          Well with the release of the Alpha for Ubuntu 12.04, I had to do a short video and screenshot tour. Join in the bandwagon parade of sorts leading up to the main release. Hey, dont get me wrong, I like parades….. I also have used Ubuntu for many years but currently I use Xubuntu but… I still enjoy Ubuntu…..

        • Comment: Unity can’t go it alone

          Open source experts like Red Hat and SUSE learned long ago how difficult and often unwise it can be to try to establish bigger projects with just their own distributions. If Canonical realises this, too, and changes its methods of operation accordingly, the Unity desktop will have a much better chance of becoming the third major desktop alongside GNOME and KDE.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Phones

    • Android, Tizen and the End of Java

      I wanted to call this piece Life, the Universe and Everything. If you’re an avid sci-fi reader, or you’ve at least read Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then those words might mean something to you, but this argument is not about the book, or Douglas Adams. Allow me to explain.

    • HP CEO says webOS will be better than ‘fragmented’ Android and ‘closed’ iOS

    • Android

      • Android is the number one mobile OS in the US

      • 5 Best Android Apps For Reddit Lovers

        When does the narwhal bacon? If you know the answer to that question, there’s very little doubt that you’re a regular Reddit user. Reddit, apart from being a social news website, has also become a cultural phenomenon. It has reached millions of internet users and has changed many lives since its inception. Though most users prefer browsing the site in its original avatar, that is the web-based version, there are some Redditors who need to upvote/downvote stuff even while they’re travelling. So, to fulfill that need, here are some of the best Reddit Apps for Android which will let you browse the site from anywhere.

      • MIUI Android ROM is going open source

      • Chinese OEM Xiaomi publishes MIUI open source code

      • DROID 4 rumored to launch February 9th for $199.99 on Verizon [updated]

      • Crittercism: “iOS apps crash more than Android apps”

        Startup mobile app monitoring firm Crittercism has released a new report which is bound to get people talking about Apple vs. Android all over again. As if the fanboys ever take a break. The crux of the finding is this: Apple and its various OS iterations is not any more stable than Android and its ‘fragmented’ ecosystem.

      • LG Reveals Pair of Unknown Androids in Certification Filing

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • 6 Reasons Why Windows 8 Tablets Are Not A Threat To Android

      Microsoft has lost the mobile war. The disappointing performance of Windows Phone even after two years of its release is evident that the market has moved on. Microsoft’s last bet is Nokia which dropped all of its own open source projects and promising OS such as MeeGo to become a hardware delivery truck for Microsoft’s Mobile OS.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open Source Based Workflow Management Systems

• Open Source Migration Checklist

• Next Gen File Systems for Open Source

• Taking the Open Source Pill

• My Experiences With Open Source

• Events

  • National Conference on “Emerging Trends in Open Source Applications and Cloud Computing (OSACC – 2012)” at Jamia

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox 11 to get add-on sync

      Following the update to Firefox stable earlier this week, Mozilla released today updates to its Aurora and Beta versions that introduce some pretty hefty changes for the Firefox on PCs.

    • Which Firefox is right for you — 10, 11, 12 or 13?

      As always, the rapid release cycle — a new version of Firefox ships every six weeks — means that changes aren’t as radical as you might expect considering the regular version number jumps. However, the latest batch of updates hints that some major updates are heading Firefox’s way over the next few months. Get a head’s up on what’s coming and discover which build is best for your personal needs with our updated guide to what the future holds in store for Firefox.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice stats: 400 total contributors, thousands of code commits every month

    The Document Foundation (TDF), which launched in 2010 to develop LibreOffice, has published statistics that illustrate the project’s rapid growth. Approximately 400 total developers have contributed code to the project. The number of contributors who are active each month generally ranges from 50 to over 100.

  • LibreOffice Development Status Report

• CMS

  • Open Source Software Helps Fitness Professionals Save Money, Time Inexpensive WordPress Themes eliminate the need for costly web design

• Healthcare

  • Open Source Tackles Healthcare In Places Microsoft Can’t

    At one hospital in Kano, Nigeria, 50 babies are born each day. And it’s not exactly prepared to handle them all. “We’re talking about one midwife taking three deliveries at a time,” says Evelyn Castle.

    Nonetheless, Castle aims to create digital records of those births and the hundreds of others happening across northern Nigeria each day — even as she and another American expatriate, Adam Thompson, are working to digitize the health records of adults across the region, including polio cases and expectant mothers who’ve tested HIV positive. It’s an enormous task, but the size is only part of the problem. Castle and Thompson are introducing western technology to facilities that aren’t familiar with it — and may not have the resources to handle what they are familiar with.

    “This is one of the most difficult places on the planet — in many ways,” says Andrew Karlyn, who spent three years as the country director in Nigeria for the Population Council, a nonprofit that seeks to improve living conditions in places across the globe. “If you’ve got a barely literate medical technician, who only knows how to use a microscope to look for Malaria and fill in a form, you can’t just put a fancy computer in front of him and expect him to use it.”

    Or, as Castle points out, if a midwife is juggling three deliveries at a time, recording the details isn’t high on the list of priorities.

• Business

  • Semi-Open Source

    • Alfresco Enterprise 4 adds a free public cloud option

      Building on the enterprise CMS’s open source foundations, Alfresco has announced that, alongside the release of its subscription offering Alfresco Enterprise 4, it is rolling out a hosted, multi-tenant cloud version of the platform. Designed for enterprises that want control of their content with their own installations of Alfresco but would find it useful to have a globally accessible, controllable document store in the cloud, Alfresco are offering organisations, with or without its enterprise CMS, free accounts with ten gigabytes of storage on the Amazon EC2 hosted system.

• Funding

  • Science Startups and Basic Researchers Turn to Crowds for Funding

    Having branded itself “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects,” Kickstarter has become a hub for artists, writers, performers, and filmmakers to connect with philanthropists interested in underwriting their projects. But science is a creative endeavor too, and, like artists, inventors and researchers face dwindling support from traditional sources.

• Public Services/Government

  • Open-government advocates share their wish lists

    We asked open-data advocates to share their top wishes for a Quebec open government, and what provincial data they’d most like to see liberated.

• Programming

  • Craigslist Donates $100,000 To the Perl Foundation

  • Hands-on with Node.js support in Komodo IDE 7

    ActiveState has released a major new version of the Komodo integrated development environment (IDE). The update, which is called Komodo 7, introduces several useful new features and support for additional programming languages.

  • Bridging Git Over Open Source and Commercial

Leftovers

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Trademarks

    • Hey Advertisers! Stop Believing The NFL’s Lies About Trademark Law And Call The Super Bowl The Super Bowl

  • Copyrights

    • The SOPA War: Why the GOP Turned on Piracy (Opinion)

      For Republicans, opposition to intellectual property laws is starting to look like a political winner, and that should terrify Hollywood as it misreads where the pop-culture power base now lies.

    • SOPA Is Top Story for Young People

      Young people under 30 followed protests over SOPA more closely than news about the upcoming presidential election, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

      That makes sense to librarians. They know young people, who spend so much of their lives online would be likely to follow news involving sites they visit.

    • Tell The USTR To Stop Being A Pawn Of Hollywood Lobbyists

      Every year, the USTR puts out its infamously laughable Special 301 report (as I’ve pointed out in the past, I’ve seen people in the ideologically-aligned US Copyright Office mock the Special 301 report openly — showing that even those who support it know that it’s ridiculous). The way it works is that the USTR asks for comments about what countries aren’t doing enough to protect US intellectual property abroad, and then puts out a “who’s been naughty” and “who’s been extra extra naughty” list to publicly shame countries. It’s been so ridiculous that Canada — whose copyright law is much stricter than the US in many ways — is frequently listed as naughty, and has officially stated that it does not consider the Special 301 process to be legitimate.

    • Paramount Wants To Talk To Students About How They’re All Thieves & Then Ask For Ideas On What To Do

      As Hollywood struggles to come up for breath and understand the nature of what hit them last month in the SOPA/PIPA debate, it appears they’re still thinking that part of this is an “education” issue — and if they could just tell young people how evil file sharing is that everything would be good. A whole bunch of folks have been passing on variations on the news that Paramount Pictures (owned by Viacom — one of the major backers of SOPA/PIPA) wants to go talk to college kids.

    • Opposing Copyright Extension

    • Corporate Copyright Scofflaws 0012 – Sony Corporation

      The largest copyright pirates are the large corporations, particularly in the content distribution business. Yes, those companies who scream the loudest that their customers are ‘pirating’ movies, songs, books, etc. In this series, we are going to look at cases where these companies have engaged in large scale copyright infringement, or in other ways have been ripping off artists.

    • ACTA

      • Swedes out in force to protest anti-piracy law

      • Bulgarian MPs Wear Anonymous/Guy Fawkes Masks To Protest ACTA

      • ACTA’s EU future in doubt after Polish pause

        The chances of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement becoming law in Europe dwindled suddenly on Friday, after Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said he was suspending ACTA’s ratification in his country.

      • ACTA’s EU Future In Doubt As Poland Suspends Ratification

      • Watch Out: Widespread Protests Against ACTA Spreading Across Europe

      • Is The US Meddling In Polish ACTA Voting?

        Assuming this really was someone from the US embassy checking up on the whether Polish politicians were following the party line on ACTA — there’s been no independent corroboration yet — it does seem pretty extraordinary. Judging by the generally outraged tone of the 1100+ comments on this piece, the Poles themselves don’t seem very happy either. I think we can expect to hear much more about Poland’s resistance to ACTA in the coming weeks.