Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 19/04/2009: A Lot from Android, Firefox



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • First look: Kogan Agora
    The Australian-owned Kogan Agora is among the first netbook on the market that comes out of the box with gOS, an Ubuntu-based Linux operating system that has the look and feel of Mac OS X. You get a dock, a set of freely movable widgets, and even windows that resemble Mac OS X.

    It would be safe to say that out of all of the netbooks out there running Linux, the Agora easily has the best Linux installation yet. gOS is more user-friendly and looks better than any other version of Linux we have seen.

    gOS is fast, too. Very fast. This is an excellent candidate for surfing the web, checking email, and writing documents with the keyboard and mouse easily rating among the best in the netbook-class. We expect that while there aren't as many programs available for Linux, users will still be able to get full use out of comparable applications such as Gimp, OpenOffice, and Wine which lets you run Windows programs under gOS.


  • Do operating systems still matter?
    This shift creates opportunity for open source, and particularly for OpenSolaris. Performance, scalability, security, etc. have never been an issue for Solaris, and neither has innovation (I often say that Solaris has innovated more than any other OS in the past five years which even in Linux circles is usually met with grudging agreement). The problem has been developer familiarity—in a world where developers know Linux, will they take the time to learn Solaris, no matter how much better or more innovative its features are? That was the impetus behind Project Indiana—lowering barriers to adoption for Solaris technologies like ZFS and DTrace. The cloud potentially lowers barriers to adoption even further: If you’re a Java or PHP developer, and DTrace is just a feature of the Java or PHP stack, fully integrated with the tools you use to build your applications—i.e., you don’t have to learn Solaris or even know it’s there to take advantage of DTrace—you’d probably consider that compelling, wouldn’t you? The OS is still there, and it still matters, but it plays a very different role.


  • Dumping Windows for Ubuntu
    After playing around with Ubuntu for a week, and noticing further deteriorations (either that, or I was just not in the mood for being sympathetic with Windows) I decided that it was time for another wipe all, reinstall all session, only this time, I decided that I wasn’t going to reinstall Windows at all, I was going to have a Ubuntu only machine.


  • Open source software - has its time come?
    If you ask Tom Watson, the UK's minister for digital engagement, the answer would be a resounding yes. Recently he issued a rallying cry for government to adopt open source technology in far greater volumes than it has in the past (and this is despite the fact that 35% of NHS organisations already use Linux in the backbone).


  • ETC Urges New Approach for Open Source Voting
    What remains to be seen is how long the government can hold out against the benefits of open source. TMC (News - Alert) recently reported that even the military is now considering a Linux-based operating system as a money saving option when compared to current costly proprietary OS’s.




  • Kernel Space

    • Linux Foundation using Drupal
      In 1996, Linux kernel development is what first attracted me to Open Source, and what led me to contribute to the Linux WLAN project in 1999. Ever since, I've worked on or with Open Source projects pretty much full-time.


    • Linux: Drivers Should NOT be Closed Source
      In one of my previous blog entries about a Dell Support issue some of the comments suggested that the reason we were in this mess was because of the inflexible nature of the Linux kernel, the start of which was this blog entry about how evil the GPL is when it comes to making closed source drivers and why this is stopping hardware manufacturers from contributing to the kernel.








  • Desktop Environments

    • Changes to the GNOME System Administration Team
      We'd like to announce a formal system administration team. GNOME has long had an informal sysadmin team that has managed the gnome.org services. Putting this team on a more formal basis similar to the GNOME Release Team will allow us to involve and recognize contributors more effectively, and better coordinate with other parts of the GNOME project.




    • KDE

      • KDE Brainstorm: 30 days, 700 ideas!
        As we have had the KDE Brainstorm running for almost a month, reaching its 700th idea today (excluding invalid submissions). This means 27 pages of well discussed ideas that are voted upon by users and managed by developers/staff are now available.


      • “Quarterly” Report: Yakuake
        First up is moving/rearranging tabs using drag and drop. Click and hold on a tab with the left mouse button (or right mouse button, if you’ve reversed them) and drag and drop to the desired location. Drop indicators will appear on the tab bar, indicating where you’re allowed to drop a tab. People using tabs in Konsole might be familiar with this behavior.












  • Distributions

    • Thoughts from a two-day-old Gentoo newbie
      Gentoo to me is easy and simple to use, just as the many distributions follow the holy philosophy, KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), but this is actual one. With Gentoo (after newbie phase), you control and know stuff well. The package management and system administrate management are also easy to use. Every distribution has own pros and cons, no one is perfect in all aspects. But there may be one is perfect for you, and I just found mine. I believe as long as you pay a little more efforts, you can transform Gentoo into an eagle and command it to fly.


    • Ubuntu 9.04: Faster, but more of the same.
      Another six months, another solid Ubuntu release. It's not exciting, but it does fulfill its traditional role of workhorse OS on my laptop. I'm okay with that. Trying to do too much rarely results in a useable product.








  • Devices/Embedded

    • Hard Plastic Books That Talk
      Although in many ways the less than $10 “Talking Books” lack features of the OLPC laptops, they also offer some advantages over their big brothers. The first is obviously in cost. Second, the audio-only interaction enables education where illiteracy often is a stumbling block. Paired with freely available audio recordings and the ability to record and share additional content, the Talking Books will be able to reach people that even the OLPC Project left behind.


    • Envizions Announces 3-D Online Community for Linux Game Console
      I have a confession: When I read press releases about Envizions' EVO Smart Console I am unsure if the company is run by self-assured, confident visionaries or if -- well, the situation is actually quite the opposite. I like (love?) the idea of an open source, Linux-powered gaming console. I like the potential it holds, the almost limitless features it could deliver, the creativity it could inspire.




    • Android

      • Android set-tops, TVs, VoIP phones are coming
        It's official: The Google-designed Android platform is reaching out beyond the cellphone.

        Android set-tops, TVs, VoIP phones, Karaoke boxes and digital photo frames are coming soon to a retailer near you.

        The world of Android is rapidly unfolding in Asia. Software developers, chip suppliers and system companies are all racing toward the same goal: enabling the development of lean and mean, efficient consumer products built on Linux, open source and free software.


      • Android-based PMP to ship in October
        GiiNii will ship its Android-based portable media player (PMP) and digital picture frame (DPF) in October and January, respectively, according to a spokesperson. The Movit Mini portable and larger Movit Maxx DPF include touchscreens, WiFi, a webcam, and optional Bluetooth, says the company.


      • Confirmation: Motorola Will Deliver an Android-Based Set-Top Box
        Recently, we've covered several new opportunities, including non-phone platforms such as netbooks, e-ink devices, and set-top boxes, for Google's open source Android operating system. Today, GigaOm and Information Week are discussing confirmation of what is likely to be the first fully-realized, non-phone hardware implementation of Android: a set-top box from Motorola called "au Box."


      • Google CEO Eric Schmidt: Android Poised to Have Strong 2009
        Google executives used the company’s April 16 earnings call as a chance to talk about the expansion of Google Android, their open-source operating system for mobile devices, onto mini-notebooks, known popularly as "netbooks."












Free Software/Open Source

  • Open Source Software for Automation and Other Industries
    Open Source is a way to get a broader community to help with development and to share in its costs. OSADL allows those members interested in developing particular Open Source software to come together in an OSADL project supported by membership fees. With the agreement of a majority of members, OSADL can delegate the development of Open Source software components.


  • 12 Open Source Games that Don't Suck
    Open source rocks. A year or two ago I had no idea what was available out there for free...well, except for the torrent sites, not that I ever visited any of those. ;) From entire operating systems to just about any sort of application under the sun, you can find open source and/or free software. Not to mention other free fun stuff (like pr0n :p). Just finding www.openoffice.org was amazing for me, and 7-zip, and of course Firefox, and Thunderbird.. the list goes on, and I'm not including all the fun stuff I have found since I started using Linux.


  • PrismTech Enables Hughes to Switch to Open Source Middleware Technology
    PrismTech, a provider of advanced software integration and infrastructure solutions, has successfully helped Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes) migrate its VisionEMS Network Management solution to OpenFusion JacORB, an open source CORBA implementation.




  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla Prism - Site-Specific Browser
      Alongside Ubiquity, Prism seems another fine candidate for the future Internet. They both blur the distinction between desktop and web. If you're an old-timer, you may instinctively flinch from "Web 2.0" stuff, because you don't like the bells and whistles. No need to do that with Prism. If anything, Prism is spartan and glitter-free. It's a clean, lean, practical utility. What more, it can add to the security and stability of your browsing.


    • Things You Didn't Know About Firefox Browser Tabs
      Sure, you use Firefox, but are you really making the most of it? I mean, I know plenty of users who never bother to change the home page, even though they always go straight to another site upon starting the browser. (Just make that site your home page, people!)

      And then there's tabs. I've found that not everyone knows everything they should know about Firefox tabs.


    • Mozilla Weaves a New Services Backend
      Still, ambitions remain high. Weave represents a new model for Mozilla, where users rely on Mozilla for more than just a browser interface, but for data as well. In some ways, the effort can be seen as competitive with social bookmarking sites like Delicious, though the overall goal for Weave is intended to be broader than just bookmarks.








  • Bioinformatics

    • Bioinformatics Open Source Conference, Stockholm, Sweden
      The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) will be held on 27 and 28 June in Stockholm, Sweden.

      A variety of open source bioinformatics packages are used by the research community across many application areas and enable research in the genomic and post-genomic era. Open source bioinformatics software has facilitated innovation, dissemination and adoption of new computational methods, reusable software components and standards.








Leftovers



  • Copyrights

    • Why the Pirate Bay verdict is GOOD for piracy
      All in all, thanks to today's verdict - which I do hope would be overturned in higher courts - we should expect piracy to emerge as a full-fledged political issue, at least in Europe. This is no longer a debate about entertainment. As of today, it's a debate about digital liberties. I think that the record industry does not fully grasp the level of political resistance it's going to face from the young people in Europe and elsewhere. They remain ignorant at their peril.


    • Music bill forces police off beat
      Wiltshire Police officers have been banned from listening to music after the force received a €£32,000 bill from the Performing Rights Society (PRS).


    • Legally Speaking: The Dead Souls of the Google Booksearch Settlement
      In the short run, the Google Book Search settlement will unquestionably bring about greater access to books collected by major research libraries over the years. But it is very worrisome that this agreement, which was negotiated in secret by Google and a few lawyers working for the Authors Guild and AAP (who will, by the way, get up to $45.5 million in fees for their work on the settlement—more than all of the authors combined!), will create two complementary monopolies with exclusive rights over a research corpus of this magnitude. Monopolies are prone to engage in many abuses.

      The Book Search agreement is not really a settlement of a dispute over whether scanning books to index them is fair use. It is a major restructuring of the book industry’s future without meaningful government oversight. The market for digitized orphan books could be competitive, but will not be if this settlement is approved as is.










Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Natasha Humphries on globalization and job security with Free Open Source Software 02 (2004)

Ogg Theora





Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
 
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
Microsoft is in effect collapsing
Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
we're on the right track
Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
Links for the day
The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
"Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
Abuse of Process
5RB is employing people who help violent men
What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
"Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
Unable to find a business model
GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
Wayland is Bad for the Planet
If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
Microsoft is a very malicious company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
On Microsoft Layoffs
we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
Links for the day
Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.