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Links 06/12/2009: FreeNAS Moves to GNU/Linux



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Contents





GNU/Linux

  • FreeNAS Switching From FreeBSD To Debian Linux
    "FreeNAS, a popular, free NAS solution, is moving away from using FreeBSD as its underlying core OS and switching to Debian Linux. Version 0.8 of FreeNAS as well as all further releases are going to be based on Linux, while the FreeBSD-based 0.7 branch of FreeNAS is going into maintenance-only mode, according to main developer Volker Theile. A discussion about the switch, including comments from the developers, can be found on the FreeNAS SourceForge discussion forum. Some users applaud the change, which promises improved hardware compatibility, while others voice concerns regarding the future of their existing setups and lack of ZFS support in Linux."


  • FreeNAS ready for the next step – Future of FreeNAS
    - Volker, the current FreeNAS project leader and main developer, will create a new project called “‘OpenMediaVault” based on a GNU/Linux using all its experience acquired with all its nights and week-ends spent to improve FreeNAS during the last 2 years. He still continue to work on FreeNAS (and try to share its time with this 2 projects).


  • Meet Your Linux Journal Team
    Here's your chance to get a peek at the awesome group of people I get to work with behind the scenes at Linux Journal.




  • Desktop

    • Never mind virtual desktops - what about the apps?
      On the other hand, application virtualisation may offer a way of delivering a new application into an environment which, without the virtualisation capability, wouldn’t allow the application to run – for example running Windows applications in a Linux environment or vice versa.






  • Server

    • Intel Unveiled Sincle-chip Cloud Computer in a Press Event
      The SCC operates with a customized version of Linux. As SCC has the cores it is able to run an OS instance, Intel and its partners have a possibility to work with various networking arrangements on the software side and then decide what works best.


    • The Linux answer to Windows SBS is clear
      This is the problem the Clear Foundation want to tackle head on with the release of the ClearOS 5.1 small business server Linux distribution.








  • Applications







  • Distributions

    • Pentoo 2009.0 Screenshots
      Pentoo Linux is a Gentoo-based Linux distribution that runs as a Live CD or Live USB. Pentoo has been designed to provide a penetration testing and security assessment solution through the use of Nessus and Metasploit. Pentoo uses the Enlightenment window manager, is optimized for Pentium III architecture, and supports package modularity like Slax.




    • Red Hat Family

      • Fedora 12 and unprivileged package installation
        Since the release, and all of the publicity and complaints, the maintainers of PackageKit have decided to remove the feature. Out of this controversy, though, are lessons for any project regarding security, transparency, and system defaults. There were no real complaints about the existence of the feature, rather it was the choice to make it the default, coupled with a lack of any notice of the change, that led to the outcry.


      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux tuning tips help boost performance
        Shakshober and Larry Woodman, a Red Hat consulting engineer, lead four-day performance tuning courses for advanced users throughout the year and offer a briefer version for intermediate users annually at the Red Hat Summit.










  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones

      • Video Review: Nokia N900
        Here's our 15 minute video review that covers the UI, webkit web browser, video playback and much more...


      • Nokia plans one Linux phone
        Nokia Oyj plans to install Linux software on just one new smartphone next year, a source told Reuters on Monday, dampening prospects of a quick makeover of the Finnish group’s struggling product line-up. But a spokesman said the world’s biggest handset maker had no plans to sell its manufacturing plants, clarifying earlier comments by an executive in the run-up to the firm’s strategy update on Wednesday.


      • Google image search coming (eventually) to Android
        Google is working on a mobile application that enables Android smartphone users to take a photo and run an image search to bring up additional information, says eWEEK. The Google Visual Search technology could also be used to drive mobile advertising based on taking photographs of billboards, says the story.






    • Sub-notebooks

      • Netbook Makeovers, Cloud Censorship, and a Lucky Backup
        I shouldn't have to come clean on this, but I will. I'm not the world's biggest fan of Microsoft Windows (really?) but I recognize its position in business and on most of the world's desktop. But trust me. It doesn't belong on a netbook.

        So what does? Linux, of course. The kind of Linux that was designed for a netbook. In the hours that followed my decision to scrap Windows from yet another computer, I tried Easy Peasy (based on Ubuntu 8.04), Moblin, and Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 which is based on the current Sue Graftonesque release "K is for Karmic Koala" (there's a thread on my WFTL-LUG titled "Sue Grafton meets Linux" so I couldn't resist).


      • Linux Is Regaining Netbook Market Share Quickly
        Despite this ABI Research published some new data last month and the results may surprise you. They place the 2009 market share for Linux on netbooks at 32% with 11 million units preloaded with Linux shipping this year. In an interview with DesktopLinux.com, Jeffrey Orr of ABI makes clear that dial boot machines (i.e.: the Acer Aspire One AOD250-1613) and machines that are purchased with Windows but later have Linux loaded do not count in the 32% number. That number is pure Linux sales. This data confirms comments made first by Jay Pinkert and later by Todd Finch of Dell that one third of their netbooks sales are Linux machines and that there is no higher return rate for Linux systems than there is for ones sold with Windows preloaded.












Free Software/Open Source

  • The best helmsmen stand on shore
    Bruce Byfield is completely unaware of this too. In his latest misguided rambling 'Open Source Projects and the Meritocracy Myth' he lists a number of major projects with paid developers. As if meritocracy is and should only be applied there.

    First, he obviously doesn't understand the full concept of meritocracy. Meritocracy in FOSS is about merits, not just "who is the best". If a paid developer can spend eight straight hours per day and provides most of the code he will obviously rise in the ranks, a fact that is clearly supported by the findings of the FLOSS polls, that infamous report that everybody likes to quote and nobody obviously read. Furthermore, in our capitalist world those who pay call the shots. The privilege that the community has is that if it doesn't like it, it can fork. Something that Eben Moglen recently confirmed.

    [...]

    Meritocracy is not the guiding principle of the FOSS ideology. It simply works best for these thousands of unpaid volunteers you're so eager to insult and attack on each and every opportunity you get. Proof? Here you got it. Source? FLOSS polls!


  • Episode 128: Beam it up, F-SPOT!
    You can participate in episode planning in the Wave. It is open for everybody.




Leftovers

  • Inquiry of Philippines Massacre Urged
    Two United Nations human rights officials urged the government of the Philippines on Thursday to pursue a thorough investigation of the election-related massacre in which 57 people were killed, and the police recommended that murder charges be filed against 11 more suspects.

    [...]

    Mrs. Arroyo, who has been under intense pressure to take action on the killings, attended a wake Thursday for some of the journalists who were killed and spoke to their relatives. “We will help in the studies of the children as well in finding justice,” Mrs. Arroyo said.


  • AWESOME: Ancient Pompeii Ruins Now on Google Street View
    Google’s Street View service, which lets you zoom into Google Maps and stroll through the city streets in a 3D environment, is amazing in its own right, but it just got twice as amazing with the addition of the ancient ruins of Pompeii.




  • Environment

    • Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling
      In 2006 the new Canadian government announced it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%.


    • UK should open borders to climate refugees, says Bangladeshi minister
      Up to 20 million Bangladeshis may be forced to leave the country in the next 40 years because of climate change, one of the country's most senior politicians has said. Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Bangladesh's finance minister, called on Britain and other wealthy countries to accept millions of displaced people.


    • Climate Change, Climate Sceptics and Open Data
      With the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen starting on Monday, it is of vital important that there is consensus on the scientific evidence about climate change, in order to inform debates about the best course of action for the international community. Sharing the same basic picture about the climate, global warming and the impact of human sources of carbon dioxide (regardless of the details of this picture, regardless of differences in opinion about the most appropriate course of action in reponse to it) is surely a critical prerequisite to effective and fruitful negotiations.


    • Release of global-average temperature data
      This data is a subset of the full HadCRUT record of global temperatures, which is one of the global temperature records that have underpinned IPCC assessment reports and numerous scientific studies. The data subset will consist of a network of individual stations that has been designated by the World Meteorological Organisation for use in climate monitoring. The subset of stations is evenly distributed across the globe and provides a fair representation of changes in mean temperature on a global scale over land.








  • AstroTurf

    • How the Afghan Surge Was Sold
      When ABC News, for instance, looks for someone to help explain the president’s decision to send more troops, they turned to Kimberly Kagan. In this segment, Kagan plays the role of Beltway policy wonk, describing how U.S. troops will initially surge to southern Afghanistan (”Those forces would go in, they would protect the population they would interact with local elders, village elders, try to figure out who those bad guys are in those communities and figure out different ways of making those communities safe,” she says). But there’s no mention of the fact that she played a role in shaping the strategy.

      USA Today, by contrast, quotes Fred Kagan on the troop increase and the prospects for improved security (”the good news is the administration does not seem to be planning that a rapid turnaround will take place”), but also mentions that he helped McChrystal with the assessment. CNN, quoting Fred Kagan in this segment, does not.

      [...]

      More importantly, think tanks served as a sort of advance guard for a troop increase, with some pundits pushing early — and hard — for an escalated involvement. Here’s Cordesman, arguing in early August for more troops and fewer allied caveats. And here’s a CNAS brief from back in June. Not everyone one McChrystal’s advisory team signed on to the surge — Shapiro of Brookings, for one, did not advocate more troops — but the panel’s bipartisan design helped lend more weight to the general’s recommendations.








  • Internet/Censorship/Web Abuse/Rights

    • EU-Consultation On The European Citizens’ Initiative
      The Lisbon Treaty introduces a new form of public participation in European Union policy shaping, the European citizens’ initiative, which enables one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States to call directly on the European Commission to bring forward an initiative of interest to them in an area of EU competence. Before citizens can start exercising this new right, a few ground rules and procedures have to be laid down in an EU regulation.


    • The Lisbon Treaty - What Really Matters (in under three minutes)
      One controversial issue, which arose at the drafting stage, related to the removal of “competition policy” as one of the EU’s objectives from the draft Treaty. Instead, a legally binding “Protocol on Internal Market and Competition” was compiled, stating that “the internal market as set out in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union includes a system ensuring that competition is not distorted”. However, the European Council’s Legal Service also provided an opinion confirming that the fact such reference is omitted from the EU’s objectives would not, in any case, prevent the EU legislator from acting under Article 308 to ensure competition is not distorted.


    • Turkey tests new means of Internet control
      "All internet communication data goes to foreign countries and then it returns. This activity has a security aspect," said Acarer. I can't be 100% certain but I think most of Turkish citizens would probably rather have their data go live somewhere on a Google server in California than to be looked at by Turkey's intelligence services - on a server in Istanbul. But then again I may be misjudging the mysterious Turkish soul.


    • Police U-turn on photographers and anti-terror laws
      Police forces across the country have been warned to stop using anti-terror laws to question and search innocent photographers after The Independent forced senior officers to admit that the controversial legislation is being widely misused.


    • The Digital Economy Bill - a first critical look
      ...the Bill has an inflexible and stereotyped view of the way in which access to the internet is provided which ignores many useful and important business models: many business from Weatherspoons and Macondalds to the British Library and local community access projects will be affected and may have to cease to provide internet access.


    • “Do I have the right to refuse this search?”
      Within the last few months, I have been singled out for “additional screening” roughly half the time I step into an airport security line. On Friday, October 9, as I stepped out of the full-body scanning device at BWI, I decided I needed more information to identify why it is that I have become such an appealing candidate for secondary screening.

      Little did I know this would be only the first of many questions I now have regarding my airport experiences.

      Over these last few months, I have grown increasingly frustrated with what I view as an unjustifiable intrusion on my privacy. It was not so much the search (then) as it was the embarrassment of being singled out, effectively being told “You are different,” but getting no explanation as to why.








  • Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights

    • Spanish online community ablaze as government questions Internet rights – #manifiesto
      If that wasn’t enough of a sign as to how much of an online movement this has become and the attention it’s getting, in the afternoon, after the failed meeting, President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero came out in a press conference to appease tensions, stating that “no website will be shut down”, discrediting the Culture Minister.

      But it got bigger. Press coverage has been impressive. Last night at 8pm, an unofficial protest—a walk—was called, in defense of our fundamental internet rights. As far as I know, people came out in protest in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Vigo, Bilbao, Palma, Malaga, Granada, La Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. And I’m sure there are more. We mobilized for internet rights, without which we wouldn’t have been able to mobilize in the first place. Whatever comes out of the commotion now, whatever final decisions are drawn (unlikely to happen quickly), this spectacular reaction is something to talk about.


    • Anti-Piracy Group Calls in Debt Agency To Collect ‘Fines’
      DigiProtect, the anti-piracy company that makes money from threatening alleged file-sharers with court unless they pay up a ‘fine’, has a worrying new tactic. Hoping to scare letter recipients even more than they already do, the company is now sending more threats via a debt collection agency.






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