04.04.12

Links 4/4/2012: GNOME 3.4 Live CD, GIMP 2.8.0-RC1

Posted in News Roundup at 5:20 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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

GNU/Linux

Desktop
- Little Drive, Big Deal
  
  You’ve heard of Linux, but haven’t had a chance to see what all the fuss is about. After all, your computer runs Windows. But what if you could plug in your USB drive and temporarily turn your PC into a Linux system? Even better, when you’re done, your machine will go back to its regular Windows-powered self, with no trace of Linux left behind?
  
  You can work this bit of OS prestidigitation with UNetbootin, a free Windows utility that downloads and installs any version of Linux to your flash drive, then makes that drive bootable. It’s an easy, hassle-free way to test-drive the OS, which runs entirely from the drive, making no changes whatsoever to your
Server
- Dell-Clerity: Shifting IBM Mainframe Apps to Linux, Windows
- Can An ARM-Based Supercomputer Become the World’s Fastest?
  
  Ramirez, a manager with the center, is in the midst of building a new supercomputer, called Mont-Blanc, that will use the same kind of low-power chips that you can find in tablets and smartphones today. Starting next month, his team will start assembling the first Mont-Blanc prototype using Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processors instead of the RISC or Intel x86-compatible processors that are used on virtually all of today’s supercomputers. The Tegra 3 will handle communications between different parts of the system while the actual number crunching will be done by yet-to-be-determined low-power multicore Nvidia graphics processors similar to the GeForce 520MX.
Kernel Space
- Android As A First Class Citizen To Linux Kernel
  
  Greg Kroah-Hartman was asked today during a panel he was moderating at the 6th annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit about Google’s Android on the mainline Linux kernel.
  
  For those that haven’t been paying attention, since last year there’s been a concerted effort to mainline more of Google’s Android changes into the mainline Linux kernel. Android patches that went into the mainline Linux kernel previous suffered some rot, but this latest effort has the backing of several companies and is finally coming to fruition within stable kernel releases.
- Who Are the ‘Unkown’ Linux Kernel Developers?
  
  There are a lot of different people that contribute code to the Linux kernel. In fact, according to the 2012 Linux Kernel Development report from the Linux Foundation, more than 7,800 developers from nearly 800 different companies have participated in Linux kernel development.
  
  Not all of those companies and developers participate in every kernel release. According to the report, for the recent Linux 3.2 kernel release, some 1,316 developers contributed, representing 226 different companies. While there is lots of participation, over the last five years the top 30 developers have contributed 20 percent of the total code.
- The Linux Foundation Releases Annual Linux Development Report
- How is Linux Built? Our new report and video.
  
  When you work for the Linux Foundation you get a lot of questions on just how Linux is built. Given the massive scale of the development and ubiquity of Linux today, some of us in the community might think everyone understands how the largest collaborative project in computing works. How you submit a patch. How maintainers work with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. But because of Linux’s unprecedented growth in mobile, embedded and cloud computing, among other areas, new companies and developers are looking to participate. More than ever before, actually.
- How Linux is Built
- Linux boss: We’re number one where it counts
  
  “We want to continue our trajectory in every corner of the industry,” Zemlin told The Register. “We’re seeing Linux as the primary platform for greenfield sites in large enterprises, the primary operating system for cloud computing build outs, and we’re seeing tremendous growth in mobile and the embedded markets.”
  
  While some in Redmond might point to the fact that Linux is still not king of the corporate desktop, Zemlin said that that battle isn’t particularly relevant anymore. People use a wider variety of computing devices to use computers, and the browser is the becoming the most common interface for most users.
- Linux Kernel 3.3.1 Is Available for Download
  
  Greg Kroah-Hartman announced on April 2nd the immediate available for download of the first maintenance release for the stable Linux 3.3 kernel series.
  
  Linux kernel 3.3.1 incorporates ARM fixes, updated drivers (wireless, Radeon), USB updates, as well as some improvements to various filesystem, such as CIFS, EXT4, XFS and NFS.
- Slideshow: Live from Collaboration Summit
- How Linux Talks to the Internet of Things: A Look at IEEE 802.15.4
  
  If you pay much attention to the futurists on the Web these days, no doubt you’re familiar with the term “Internet Of Things.” It may be yet-another-buzzword, but the central concept is quite real: the spread of low power, Internet-connected devices that use wireless networks to communicate with our PCs and servers. After all, you don’t need a computer in your water heater or electric meter: you just need a sensor, and way to read it remotely. Linux will be a major player in this space, but most developers still aren’t familiar with the network standards that make it work, like IEEE 802.15.4.
- What is tmpfs ?
- Graphics Stack
  - Non-Linux OSes Still Playing In An Intel UMS World
    
    While Intel has a lot of interesting work going on right now within their Linux kernel DRM driver and elsewhere within their open-source graphics stack, operating systems like OpenIndiana/Illumos and FreeBSD are still catching up, but they’re still a ways off.
    
    Pushed out yesterday was an updated Intel graphics driver for the OpenSolaris-derived OpenIndiana. This new Intel X.Org driver is derived from xf86-video-intel 2.9.1… Yes, what was released as upstream in October 2009 while the latest Linux users are now running xf86-video-intel 2.18.0 with many, many features and changes since that point.
  - Intel outlines open source development projects
    
    The director of Intel’s Open Source Technology Center Imad Sousou outlined the chip giant’s plans to invest in the open source community and provided an update on two key projects, speaking at the Linux Foundation’s Collaboration Summit in San Francisco.
  - Kernel Log: Intel hibernate bug fixed
    
    New versions of the Linux kernel fix a bug in Intel graphics drivers which could cause memory corruption. AMD has released X.Org drivers for its new Trinity processors. In September there will be a conference for X developers in Nuremberg. Progress has been made on GPGPU support in Mesa 3D.
Applications
- Recoll Looks High, Looks Low, Finds Your File With Ease
  
  Recoll is a powerful yet simple-to-use full-text desktop search tool that indexes the contents of many file formats. You can perform simple searches as well as advanced operations like searching for the author, file size, file format as well as operators like “AND” or “OR.” And setup is a breeze.
- Instructionals/Technical
- Games
  - Excited.
  - Wanna play Steam games now?
  - Exclusive: Much Awaited Game Client Finally Running Natively on Linux
    
    One of our reader has emailed us a link to a working test build of a popular game client. This client is long awaited by Linux gamers and the company behind it is undoubtedly the leader in computer game distribution industry.
  - Trine 2 Finally Arrives on Linux
    
    Dear Linux gamers, the wait is over, as Frozenbyte unleashed a few days ago the Linux version for its award winning Trine 2 cross-platform game.
    
    Trine 2 is a side-scrolling puzzle adventure/action game developed by the Finnish studio Frozenbyte, will be ported to Linux and officially launched sometime during 2012.
    
    There’s no official announcement from Frozenbyte about the Linux client but it is available for download if you purchase it from here.
  - Linux Tycoon lets players “manage” a Linux distribution
    
    Bryan Lunduke, software developer and host of the Linux Action Show podcast, has announced the beta release of his game, Linux Tycoon. The game lets players manage the daily tasks involved in creating a popular Linux distribution. Players assign people and resources to development tasks and their distribution is rated by the number of users compared to its competitors.
  - Valve seeking out Linux developers
Desktop Environments
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
  - Krita Coming With Photoshop File Import Feature
    
    Krita is a very powerful image editing tools similar to GIMP and Photoshop. KDE’s own Photoshop Krita will soon be seeing a major upgrade with the upcoming version 2.4.
  - KDE Ships April Updates to Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform
- GNOME Desktop
  - elementary GTK Theme 3.0 Released
  - GNOME 3.4 Live CD Available for Download Now
    
    After the successful release of the GNOME 3.4 desktop environment on March 28th, the GNOME Project are once again proud to announce that a Live CD Linux distribution with GNOME 3.4, based on Fedora, is now available for download.
  - GNOME 3.4 Looks Good and Feels Good (Eventually)
Distributions
- What DEFT brings to the table
- New Releases
  - Elastix 2.3.0
- Red Hat Family
  - CentOS Desktop
    
    I may be (half) joking sometime, but it happens to be serious too: encountered an old laptop (in bad shape, lot of dead pixels and such, it was a workhorse back in its time) which refuses to play along with Windows: bluescreen at startup, bluescreen at fresh install, hardware problems. The first thought: memory problems but memtest96 running from a Fedora live CD disagrees… but if I booted the device from that CD, just for the kicks I booted the distro (F14): works correctly, no lock-up, even WiFi is supported OOTB (so I suspect the hardware problem lies with the video card and is triggered by real use, not by the VESA driver).
  - Red Hat’s $1B milestone notable but chump change vis-a-vis overall Linux industry
    
    The Linux Foundation’s exec director saluted Linux distribution leader Red Hat for reaching $1 billion in revenues but pointed out that the overall Linux industry is worth many, many billions today.
  - Red Hat Turns More Into More
    
    Margins matter. The more Red Hat (NYS: RHT) keeps of each buck it earns in revenue, the more money it has to invest in growth, fund new strategic plans, or (gasp!) distribute to shareholders. Healthy margins often separate pretenders from the best stocks in the market. That’s why we check up on margins at least once a quarter in this series. I’m looking for the absolute numbers, so I can compare them to current and potential competitors, and any trend that may tell me how strong Red Hat’s competitive position could be.
  - Porticor Joins Red Hat Innovate Initiative
    
    Porticor®, the leading cloud data security company delivering the only cloud-based data encryption solution that infuses trust into the cloud by ensuring customer keys are never exposed, today announced it has joined the Red Hat Innovate™ program, enabling Porticor to leverage the power, openness and collaborative nature of open source communities, including enhanced access to Red Hat collaboration initiatives and software programs.
- Debian Family
  - Derivatives
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - 5 problems with Ubuntu 12.04 part 1: Unity Dash usability issues
      - Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin: Will April Be A Magic Month?
      - New Canonical Tool Tackles ‘Hyperscale’ Data Centers
        
        In the run-up to the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Linux later this month, Canonical is offering its new “Metal-as-a-Service” provisioning and management tool for customers who want to test it out with the new Ubuntu beta.
        
        The MaaS tool, a component of Ubuntu Server 12.04, helps IT administrators configure and manage large-scale server farms — including those used to provide cloud computing services.
      - Flavours and Variants
        
        Installing Kubuntu 12.04 On Older Non-PAE Computers
        
        Kubuntu Active 12.04 beta 2 screen shots
Devices/Embedded
- Mentor Embedded Linux supports open source Yocto Project
  
  Mentor Graphics Corporation has released its next generation Mentor Embedded Linux platform that includes support for the Yocto Project, an open source collaborative project established by The Linux Foundation. The Mentor Embedded Linux platform helps developers build Linux-based embedded systems, independent of hardware architecture. With the new Mentor Embedded Linux platform, developers also gain the ability to easily select the best Linux kernel for their needs, irrespective of the kernel developed by Mentor Graphics or by a semiconductor company or by any third party.
- Phones
  - Android
    - First impressions of my new Android phone
- Sub-notebooks/Tablets
  - Motorola’s WebTop 3.0 Software Launches Android 4.0 RAZR in Tablet Mode
    
    Motorola has cleverly followed in the footsteps of the upcoming ASUS Padfone. Previously, the Motorola Lapdock will connect to a Linux desktop OS once a compatible Motorola smartphone is plugged in, as seen in our Motorola Atrix review. However, the new WebTop 3.0 software update will instead display an ICS tablet mode when connected to one of their Android 4.0 devices.
  - Vivaldi open source tablet launch pushed back a month

Free Software/Open Source

Adobe releases open source malware classification tool

Adobe Systems has released a malware classification tool in order to help security incident first responders, malware analysts and security researchers more easily identify malicious binary files.

The Adobe Malware Classifier tool uses machine learning algorithms to classify Windows executable and dynamic link library (DLL) files as clean, malicious or unknown, Adobe security engineer Karthik Raman said in a recent blog post.
As Yahoo Trims Down, Open Source Contributions Could Pick Up
Forrester Predicts Increase in Use of Open Source DI Tools
The next train at platform #1 is open source
Events
- Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit – see the stream
Web Browsers
- Mozilla
  - Writing a web app
SaaS
Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
- OmniTI Debuts OmniOS, an Open Source Operating System for the Solaris Community
CMS
- Westpac New Zealand using Open Source CMS SilverStripe
- Joomla surpasses 30 million download mark
  
  The organization announced the landmark download count this morning, also saying that its CMS is used to 2.7 per cent of the Web. The downloads of Joomla grew from 22 million in March 2011, and the actual number of downloads is higher than the count since the organization started counting in 2007, and the software has been available since 2005.
Education
- Totara Learning Solutions Extends the Life of Moodle 1.9
Business
- opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM Update
Funding
- Open-source customer relationship management service SugarCRM raises $33M
BSD
- The longest DragonFlyBSD review ever — coming up in Click
  
  My DragonFlyBSD 3.0.1 review is finished. (Finally!!) It will appear here in Click in six daily parts starting the morning of April 4, 2012. A new part will appear at 3 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time each day until all six are exhausted on April 9. Read them all and I bet you’ll be exhausted, too.
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- GIMP 2.8.0-RC1: 1st release candidate now available
- In Braga
  
  Please fill out our form, so that we can contact you about future events in and around Paris, Avignon, Marseille, Braga, Lisbon, Madrid, which RMS visited while he was in Europe on this last trip.
Licensing
- First Creative Commons 4.0 draft open for public comment
  
  The non-profit Creative Commons (CC) organisation has released the first draft of version 4.0 of its suite of Creative Commons licences and is asking for feedback from the community. Diane Peters, CC General Counsel, writes in a blog post that the draft focuses on three overarching design goals: consideration of the needs of users who cannot use the current version 3.0 of the CC licences because of conflicts with national laws; maximum interoperability with other “copyleft” licences; and longevity and ease of use.
- Announcing New Open Compliance Template
Openness/Sharing
- An Open Source Live Bus Data Monitor
  
  Many cities have acknowledged this problem and offer open APIs with real-time bus data. This is crucial, as any bus rider knows that buses rarely arrive on time, because, unlike subways, buses are dependent on traffic and delays caused by riders. But it’s also a hindrance to taking the bus: who wants to wait at a lonely bus stop, which is subject to the elements and may not be safe? Not to mention boring.
- Takeda joins open-source research consortium
  
  Japan’s Takeda has become the latest pharma company to join the open-source Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), which determines the three-dimensional structure of biomedically-relevant proteins.
- Qbo robot strips for open-source titillation
  
  The Qbo robot may be open-source, but open-casing is what creators TheCorpora have been showing recently, stripping the sensor-studded ‘bot down and then reconstructing it in a new timelapse video. Intended to be straightforward for robotics tinkerers to put together themselves, the footage shows the 168 minute build from the basic Qbo frame up to the various ultrasonic sensors, PC mainboard, camera-toting head and more.
- Open Data
  - Next generation open data: Personal data access
    
    Last Monday I had the pleasure of being in Mexico City for the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) High Level Meeting on e-Government. CIO’s from a number of countries were present – including Australia, Canada, the UK and Mexico (among others). But what really got me going was a presentation by Chris Vein, the Deputy United States Chief Technology Officer for Government Innovation.
    
    In his presentation he referenced work around the Blue Button and the Green Button – both efforts I was previously familiar with. But my conversation with Chris sparked several new ideas and reminded me of just how revolutionary these initiatives are.
Programming
- SourceForge Chosen by BerliOS as a Trusted Partner to Deliver Open Source Downloads

Leftovers

Security
- Anonymous China: Hundreds of Beijing’s Government Websites Defaced
  
  The Anonymous hacking collective has landed in China, home of some of the most tightly controlled internet access in the world, and defaced hundreds of government websites in what appears to be a massive online operation against Beijing.
Environment/Energy/Wildlife
- The Fracking Frenzy’s Impact on Women
  
  Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has generated widespread media attention this year. The process, which injects water and chemicals into the ground to release “natural” gas and oil from shale bedrock, has been shown to contribute significantly to air and water pollution and has even been linked to earthquakes. But little has been reported on the ways in which fracking may have unique impacts on women. Chemicals used in fracking have been linked to breast cancer and reproductive health problems and there have been reports of rises in crimes against women in some fracking “boom” towns, which have attracted itinerant workers with few ties to the community.
Finance
- Exclusive: The $1.3 billion bond deal haunting Goldman
  
  The Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to bring charges soon against Goldman Sachs (GS) for a 2006 mortgage investment deal. The agency hasn’t said which one yet, but Fortune has learned there’s a good chance the SEC’s case will focus on Fremont Home Loan Trust 2006-E, a bundle of more than 5,000 mortgages that has cost investors, including mortgage guarantor Freddie Mac and by extension U.S. taxpayers, an estimated $545 million.
Intellectual Monopolies
- Copyrights
  - Copyright paradigm shift in visegrad countries
    
    The field of copyright is associated with important cultural, social, and technological aspects, all of which have to be taken into account when formulating policy in this field. In the last 20 years, copyright and patent holders in different fields of industry and art have entered into a period of redefinition. Today, the copyright that served to protect the interest of creators in the last centuries is a barrier of invention and knowledge-sharing.
  - US government: We hear there’s child porn on those Megaupload servers, judge!
    
    Megaupload wants the servers back to help with its defense, but with most of its assets seized by the federal government, it can’t pay for them. Carpathia would normally wipe the servers and lease them to new clients, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation is demanding that legitimate users of the site be allowed to retrieve their personal data first. The Motion Picture Association of America doesn’t want this to happen without assurances that its copyrighted content won’t be retrieved and distributed again; besides, it might want the servers for a future lawsuit of its own. And the federal government yesterday announced that the servers “may contain child pornography,” which would render them “contraband” and limit Carpathia’s options for dealing with them.