05.25.12

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Desktop

  • There’s trouble with three major Linux desktop application developers

    The Linux desktop has long had most of the apps anyone could ever really need. Sure, it doesn’t have some specific applications, like Adobe Photoshop or Quicken, but it had other apps. Such as Gimp for Photoshop and GNUCash for Quicken and QuickBooks that can do the job. Lately, however, companies that have supported Linux are moving away from the Linux desktop and that worries me. These companies and groups are: Adobe, Google, and Mozilla.

    The first one doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Adobe has long had a “difficult” relationship with Linux. We, the Linux community, wanted the full Adobe suite and what we got was Adobe AIR, Flash, and Acrobat. Well, we used to get AIR and Flash anyway. In February, Adobe announced that Adobe Flash Player 11.2 would be the last native version for Linux.

• Kernel Space

  • How to Become a Finalist: Inspired by Linux T-shirt Design Contest

  • Linux Support Finally For Creative Sound Core3D

    The Linux 3.5 kernel will introduce support for the Sound Core3D audio cards that were launched by Creative last year.

    Announced last year was the Creative Sound Core3D audio processors as the long-awaited successor to the Creative X-Fi audio processors. When the Creative X-Fi sound cards were introduced more than a half-decade ago, the Linux support for these sound cards were a big issue. There wasn’t any support at first (Microsoft Vista made Creative Labs dupe Linux), Creative then released a binary-only Linux X-Fi driver and to make matters worse was Linux x86_64-only. In the end, Creative’s binary Linux X-Fi driver was unmaintainable so they ended up joining the open-source bandwagon.

  • Graphics Stack

    • The Open-Source Graphics Card Is Dead

      Prior to LinuxTag Berlin later in the week, I have been visiting with Egbert Eich, the SUSE engineer, long-time X.Org developer, and former RadeonHD driver developer. Among the many Linux graphics topics being discussed in Frankfurt-Darmstadt, Egbert and I realized “that project to come up with an open-source graphics card” hadn’t been heard of in years. Hell neither of us could recall the name of the main project even though it was presented just four years ago at FOSDEM.

    • Canonical Makes Rare X.Org/Wayland Contribution

    • AMD Radeon Catalyst Performance: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

    • open graphics hardware is not dead

• Applications

  • Pyroom Text Editor Does Minimalism the Right Way

  • Magic the Gathering (RPG/TGC) Life Program

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to Increase Performance Ubuntu PC/Laptop with Low RAM

    • Build your own open-source cloud with ownCloud 4

    • Local streaming media server based on the icecast2 + mpd

    • How to install Speed Dials in Firefox — and how to back them up

    • Customize Your Galaxy Nexus LED

    • OpenLDAP Everywhere Reloaded, Part I

    • Geary: A Simple Email Client For Linux That Supports Threaded Conversation

    • Book Review: The Artists Guide to GIMP, 2nd Edition

    • How Install Elementary Desktop Environment in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

    • The Scarygliders X11rdp-O-Matic and RDPsesconfig : hotness upon hotness!

    • Virtual Multiserver Environment With Dedicated Web & MySQL, Email & DNS Servers On Debian Squeeze With ISPConfig 3

    • How to Defensively Partition Your Hard Drive in Linux

    • Weird Binding Stuff

    • Backing Up on Linux with Duplicity

    • Printer from Gnu/Linux without Linux

    • How-To: XBMC 11 the XBMCbuntu way

• Distributions

  • ROSA Marathon 2012 review

  • New Releases

    • Kanotix Hellfire 2012-05 & Kanotix Dragonfire Preview 2012-05

    • Debian Based Siduction 2012.1 Desperado Released

  • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • Mageia 2 Released

      Just two weeks after the Release Candidate, the final release of Magiea 2 was made available today. Mageia is a spinoff from the Mandriva distribution, which was created by a group of Mandriva developers and contributors because of the uncertainty about the future of Mandriva, and the long (and ever-increasing) delay in new Mandriva releases. In that regard this is a timely release, since there is once again discussion about the current and future state of Mandriva itself. As I see it, the Mageia 1 release was this teams way of proving that they could in fact accomplish what they set out to do, that being to set up a new distribution based on the state of Mandriva at that time. While there was a huge amount of work involved in that, the majority of it involved building the base for the distribution, getting all the bits in place, making sure that it all worked and that a finished product would come out the other end. There was a lot of “updating” in that release, especially because Mandriva itself had fallen pretty badly behind by the time they forked it, but there wasn’t a lot of new development or innovation in it. I see Mageia 2 as being the first time that they could really spread their wings, and they have done a very nice job of it.

    • Mageia 2 Has Been Officially Released

  • Red Hat Family

    • Santos and Horizon Power select Red Hat technology

      Western Australian regional and remote electricity provider, Horizon Power, and oil and gas producer, Santos, have implemented technologies from open source company, Red Hat.

      Santos selected Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 5 and an open source thin client solution as it was seeking a cost-effective system that enables performance, simplified administration, improved data management, more support and avoiding third-party costs.

    • Red Hat Falls After Piper Sees Billings Growth Slowdown

      Red Hat Inc. (RHT) (RHT), the largest seller of the open-source Linux operating system, fell after an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. projected a slowdown in billings growth.

      The Raleigh, North Carolina-based company declined 3.4 percent to $54.43 at the close in New York, for the third-worst performance in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The stock (RHT) has climbed 32 percent this year.

    • Core JRuby developers move to Red Hat

      Engine Yard has announced that JRuby core team members Thomas Enebo and Charles Nutter are leaving the company to join Red Hat in an apparently friendly deal between the two firms. According to Red Hat’s Mark Little, bringing the two developers to the company “has been almost 2 years in the making”. In addition to JRuby, they will be working with various teams within JBoss and Red Hat on projects such as TorqueBox, Immutant and OpenJDK. Nutter commented on Twitter saying “I feel like this is my opportunity to really start contributing to OpenJDK rather than just evangelizing”.

    • Red Hat Appoints Arun Oberoi as Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Services

    • Fedora

      • Fedora moving to libusbx and announcing libusbx

        I’m happy to announce the existence of libusbx, a fork of libusb,. a bit late I must admit, as libusbx has been available for a while now, but as one of the people behind it I still wanted to mention it on my blog.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Community Leadership Summit 2012 Coming Soon!

        • The Canonical Community Team

        • Introducing Ubuntu Pidgin Lens for Unity

        • Ubuntu 12.04 and what it may mean for OS evolution

          Between Windows and Linux builds, I use each equally. This is partially because I’m a developer and also because Linux allows me to fully customize its desktop environment to meet my needs. This is pretty much the main reason people use Linux aside from the fact the OS is a lightning-fast open-source OS which continuously focuses on improving usability and functionality with every build and is constantly updated significantly. However, rather than changing core elements of usability and functionality, canonical has decided to focus more on simplifying the effort of finding files in a number of unique ways in the latest build released last month.

        • System76 Courts Ubuntu Users with Shiny New Laptop

          While Linux users may suffer the stereotype of being cheap, that isn’t stopping open source OEMs from courting customers willing to pay premium prices for premium PCs. Case in point: eRacks recently introduced a new line of high-end desktops, and System76 followed suit with the debut of the Gazelle Professional Laptop, which, for all its power, actually prices out quite competitively with PCs subject to the “Windows tax.”

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Linux Mint 13 “Maya” released!

          • Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon: A Spectacular GNOME 3 Fork

          • Dream Studio 12.04 has been released

            Dick MacInnis has announced the release of Dream Studio 12.04, an Ubuntu-based distribution with a goal of helping users to create graphics, videos, music and websites.

          • Linux Mint 13 Rallies Behind Gnome

            With the new version of Linux Mint, released Wednesday, the developers behind the open source Linux distribution have put all energies behind Gnome, offering two versions of the desktop interface.

          • Linux Mint 13 Is Based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

• Devices/Embedded

  • $35 Raspberry Pi Gets Camera Module

    The tiny Linux device which has lived up to its hype has now given more reasons to buy this device. In a blog post Liz discloses that the foundation is working on an experimental camera which will be released later this year.

  • Wind River Offers Support, Services for Intel Data Plane Development Kit

    Wind River’s support offerings for Intel DPDK include standard and premium support. Premium support includes a dedicated team of managers and engineers, service level agreements, detailed reports and extensive onsite coaching assistance. Wind River Test Management and Wind River Simics simulation tools also work seamlessly with the Intel DPDK and Wind River Linux as well as many other Linux distributions.

  • Google’s Schmidt Pledges Raspberry Pi Linux Computers to U.K. Schools

    As we’ve reported, the diminutive $25 Linux computer dubbed Raspberry Pi is attracting developers and tinkerers, and we’ve also noted that it could succeed where projects like One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) ran into roadblocks–in the educational market. In fact, the tiny devices (see the motherboard shown here) have already drawn interest from educational system and technology industry leaders. Now, in a very promising step for the Raspberry Pi movement, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has pledged to give U.K. schools Raspberry Pis and pledged to train 100 teachers in how to pass Linux skills onto students.

  • New Android Mini Computer at $74; A Competition to Raspberry PI and Aakash Tablet?

  • The Raspberry Pi: A Review

    Even if the Raspberry Pi is under-powered for desktop work, I have only high regard for the stated goal of the design: an affordable platform for the next generation of hardware and software designers. Considering that the higher-end model is a mere US$35 (plus shipping, handling, and tariffs), the actual bang-for-the-buck is amazing.

  • Phones

    • Android

      • VIA Launches its Banana PC, i.e. The $49 Android PC

      • VIA Is Still At It: They Launched A $49 ARM PC

      • VIA reveals Rasberry Pi competitor running Android

      • Sony: All tablets, all regions to see Android 4.0 by end of May

      • Samsung Galaxy S III smashes preorder records in U.K.

      • Google’s Astonishing Android About-Face

        “The North American mobile market is changing,” asserted Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot. “Stats show that, for the first time, contract renewals are down. People are switching to pay-as-you-go plans that cost less than half as much per month, often with fewer limitations. These customers are buying their devices outright, not having the cost hidden away in an expensive multiyear contract, and Google’s plan is a natural for them.”

      • Android Malware Genome Project launched

        At this year’s IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, security researchers from North Carolina State University (NCSU) announced the launch of the Android Malware Genome Project. The goal of the new initiative is to find, collect and analyse Android malware and share it with other researchers around the world.

      • Tasting the Ice Cream Sandwich

        Owners of Android handsets can be forgiven for feeling frustration over how long it took to get an update from the 2.3 “gingerbread” release. Google’s flat-out effort to improve tablet support led to a 3.0 (“honeycomb”) release that was not deemed suitable for handset use—or for open-source release. It was only with the 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS) cycle that all that new code became available for handsets—sort of. Six months after the 4.0 release, your editor finally got his hands on a device that can run it; what follows is a review of sorts.

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • KDE introduces Vivaldi tablet

    • KDE launches Partner Network for Vivaldi Tablet, other devices

    • Faster, Revamped Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Pictured, Now Incorporates S-Pen

    • Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Redesigned To Hold S-Pen

      When we played with Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 at Mobile World Congress one complain that we had was there was no place to hold the S-Pen, the core feature of Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Considering the fact that S-Pen was the integral part of the tablet the missing slot was a deal-breaker. It’s more like missing SIM card slot for a smart-phone.

    • Official: HTC tablets will not be updated to Android 4.0

      HTC’s official Android 4.0 update list includes the majority of the phones which have been rolled out within the past 12-18 months. We’re glad HTC will be keeping most of its newer phone up to date, but we did miss one important piece which was tucked inside HTC’s list. HTC’s Android tablets (the HTC Flyer, EVO View 4G and Jetstream) will not be updated to Android 4.0.

      HTC did not explain why their tablet lineup was being abandoned. When it comes to hardware, the HTC flyer variants and the HTC Jetstream have more than capable of handling Google’s latest Android built. But the issue probably has more to do with HTC’s tablet strategy than anything else.

    • Rugged Android Tablet Redefines Tonka-Tough… and Ugly

      Rugged Android Tablet Redefines Tonka-Tough… and UglyDesigned to be used by those who are actively getting shot at in warzones, not just those of us who are clumsy with our gadgets, the new Rampage 6 tablet is even more rugged than Panasonic’s Toughbook tablet. Though, far less capable.

    • Google 7-inch tablet PC to ship in June with initial volume of 600,000 units

Free Software/Open Source

• 61% of the top 10k sites on the web are served by open source projects Apache and nginx

  Uptime monitoring service Pingdom analyzed the top 10,000 websites on the web and unsurprisingly found out that 74.6% of them are served on web servers run by open source software.

• Simon Phipps is the new OSI President

• Open Source: Why Are You Still Waiting?

  You see, since 2003 open source has been intertwined with Brazil’s government, which claims to have realized hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings. Critics with something to lose–notably Microsoft–claim that government workers immediately load up their Linux workstations with Windows, making the open-source desktop an illusion. Besides, Microsoft says, its software offers “better value” when the benefits are weighed against the costs.

• Hughski ColorHug field report, or “test”, or “review”

  When Richard Hughes, founder of Hughski Limited announced an “open source” colorimeter with full GPL source code and even Linux support late last year, he offered a developers’ discount for testers and early adopters. So I was quick to give him a nod on that one. A few weeks ago I was informed that now I could have one if I still wanted it, and I did. And two days ago my ColorHug arrived, and here it is:

• Events

  • OpenGeo to Present at FOSS4G Central and Eastern Europe Conference

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Meet Webmaker: Mozilla Launches “Summer Code” Web Love-in

• SaaS

  • Hadoop – The Small Application for Big Data

• Databases

  • 451 Research delivers market sizing estimates for NoSQL, NewSQL and MySQL ecosystem

    NoSQL and NewSQL database technologies pose a long-term competitive threat to MySQL’s position as the default database for Web applications, according to a new report published by 451 Research.

    The report, MySQL vs. NoSQL and NewSQL: 2011-2015, examines the competitive dynamic between MySQL and the emerging NoSQL non-relational, and NewSQL relational database technologies.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Greek municipality of Pilea-Hortiatis migrating to LibreOffice

    The Greek municipality of Pilea-Hortiatis, just east of Thessaloniki, is migrating all of its PCs to the free and open source suite LibreOffice, with the help of the Greek Linux User Group. Greeklug explains in a statement published on 27 March that it has finished the migration from a proprietary office suite on 91 PCs. Still to be migrated are 45 PCs.

  • VirtualBox 4.1.16 Has Support for Linux Kernel 3.4

    Oracle announced a few minutes ago, May 22nd, the immediate availability for download of the popular VirtualBox 4.1.16 virtualization software.

• Education

  • On the purpose of education

    This is something that has mattered to me for all my teaching career. When training, I took Terry McLoughlin’s optional philosophy of education module; this was the best bit of the course, certainly the one that had the most lasting effect on me as an educator. After three years of a maths degree to sit in seminars where students took responsibility for introducing each week’s topics seemed revolutionary then. We talked and thought about what education was for, something we find a little time for now in my own lectures at Roehampton. The idea that captivated me then, and remains the touchstone for me still, is that of rational autonomy.

• Business

  • A Bold Move To Open Source Your Core Business

  • Who Hears Hortonworks? Actuate & Dr Seuss

    Open source Business Intelligence (BI) vendor Actuate has gone on the tech dating game and formed a new collaboration to match its BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) with the Hortonworks data platform to enable big data visualisation technologies.

• FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Free software and the necessity for idealism

    Free software idealism is a necessary and desirable part of the software landscape, says Richard Hillesley…

• Project Releases

  • Nmap now fully ready for IPv6

    Nearly three years after the last major release of Nmap, version 6.0 of the open source network scanner has been released. Nmap is a popular utility for scanning and mapping network ranges to extract information about the systems attached to the network and the network’s topology. In version 6.0, the developers have added full IPv6 support while enhancing Nmap’s scripting engine, web scanning, mapping GUI and scanning performance, while also introducing a new tool called Nping.

  • LLVM 3.1 Officially Released

  • LLVM 3.1 Compiler Infrastructure released

• Public Services/Government

  • First Open Government Summit to debate Open Source in the Public Sector

    The first Open Government Summit will take place on May 30th in Central Hall Westminster, London and will examine how the open source model allows public sector organisations to be more efficient, save money, meet mission-critical IT demands and improve their services.

    Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “The advantages of open source for government IT are well documented and will lead to efficiencies and savings in the delivery of public services. How to implement open source solutions most effectively is an important matter, and I am pleased that the summit is devoting time to discussing it.”

  • Government reneges on open source promise for Cloudstore 2.0

    The UK government has finally unveiled the second iteration of its Cloudstore after a number of delays, and has reneged on its pledge to make version 2.0 open source.

  • Crisis does not foster Greek open source adoption

    Greek public administrations in practice use almost no open source, in spite of a law approved by the Greek parliament in 2011 that promotes the development of open source. European funded initiatives like Open-Source for European Public Administrations (Osepa) could change that, those involved say.

• Openness/Sharing

  • ArduPilot Mega 2.0 Does Drone Autopilot on the Cheap

    This one is for all those autonomous vehicle makers out there who need a cheap autopilot system to make it go. Among the bits of awesome seen at the 2012 Bay Area Maker Faire, was the ArduPilot Mega 2.0 (APM2) from 3D Robotics, a complete open source autopilot system.

  • Open Data

    • What is open data?

      Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.

      The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other “Open” movements such as open source, open content, and open access. The philosophy behind open data has been long established, but the term “open data” itself is recent, gaining popularity with the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web and, especially, with the launch of open-data government initiatives such as Data.gov.

  • Open Access/Content

    • Protests demonstrate growing demand for open access to research

      Last week, Winston Hide committed what he called “a toxic career move.” Hide, an associate professor of bioinformatics and computational biology at the Harvard School of Public Health, publicly resigned from the editorial board of Genomics, an influential journal in his field.

      “No longer can I work for a system that provides solid profits for the publisher while effectively denying colleagues in developing countries access to research findings,” he wrote in a piece for the Guardian. “I cannot stand by any longer while access to scientific resources is restricted.”

  • Open Hardware

    • Open source hardware: Fast and malleable

      SparkFun is not like BMW. We will never be the company to produce the luxury market version of breakout boards and development tools. I believe the only way SparkFun will survive this quickly changing world is to be malleable. We have to be ready to change.

• Programming

  • Open Django Builds Open Source Web Democracy

    Developers “more interested” in framework’s data models than operating system or GUI

  • Python modules you should know: PyGPGME

  • GCC Explorer – an interactive take on compilation

    One of the things I spend a fair amount of time doing at work is compiling my C/C++ code and looking at the disassembly output. Call me old-fashioned, but I think sometimes the only way to really grok your code is to see what the processor will actually execute. Particularly with some of the newer features of C++11 — lambdas, move constructors, threading primitives etc — it’s nice to be able to see how your elegant code becomes beautiful (and maybe even fairly optimal) machine code.

• Standards/Consortia

  • OpenDocument specification humour

Leftovers

• Hardware

  • Google (GOOG): Your New Hardware Supplier?

• Finance

  • Goldman blames hedge fund victim in Hudson CDO fraud case

    Remember the case over Goldman Sachs’s Hudson CDOs, in which U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero wrote a scalding opinion in March? Marrero refused to dismiss fraud claims against the bank, in a ruling that detailed Goldman Sachs’s alleged scheme to shed exposure to subprime mortgages by dumping toxic collateralized debt obligations on an unsuspecting public. This week Goldman had a little something to say about the case, and — surprise! — it’s not an apology.

• Internet/Net Neutrality

  • The Internet Puts Up A Billboard In Front Of Lamar Smith’s Office: Don’t Mess With The Internet

    You may recall that, back in March, on a whim based on a discussion at SXSW, Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin (from Reddit) teamed up with Holmes Wilson (from Fight for the Future) to crowdfund a billboard to go up in Lamar Smith’s district in Austin. It turns out that you internet people don’t mind paying after all, and helped fund two billboards which have now gone up in Smith’s district, including one across the street from his office in San Antonio, and a second one on “Lamar Blvd” in Austin

  • FCC boss backs usage-based pricing for cable Internet access

    The head of the Federal Communications Commission said he supports cable companies’ charging for Internet based on how much a subscriber uses the service, and also welcomed a cable industry initiative to share Wi-Fi hotspots around the country.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • ACTA

      • Action Required on Crucial ACTA Votes Next Week

        Next week, parliamentary committees of the European Parliament will vote on ACTA. Citizens keen to see this agreement rejected must act and contact members of the legal affairs (JURI), industry (ITRE) and civil liberties (LIBE) committees, who will cast their votes on the 30th and 31st of May.

      • CEFIC ACTA support letter to MEPs