I do think that the time of proprietary operating systems are coming to a close. There are too many free and open source solutions available and the most important part of any computing system, the data, can be easily transferred between them. So while windows keeps trying to entice the public with eye candy, MacOS keeps its hardware to itself and AmigaOS keeps with the unfortunate business decisions, the average Joe Blo and SOHOs will look around for alternatives. Enterprise businesses are like large religions. Stubborn and take several thousand years to make a minor change.
So the day comes and Linux has toppled windows off of its pedestal. Linus Torvalds is as revered as Bill Gates was and Richard Stallman is throwing chairs when he hears about the new, up and coming operating system. Linux is pre-installed on just about every single computer sold and the whole computing industry is geared around providing service and support for Linux. I just wonder if we, as Linux supporters, will be treating the advocates of the new prodigy operating system the same way windows supporters treat us today.
This week on the show: Sony disables Linux on the PS3 for good, SCO on the brink of death, Google’s plans for Froyo, Paul Frields to step down as FPL, new Gnome icons and a huge pale on Fab’s fart.
Doug Smith joins the FLOSS crew to talk about the ACM/IEEE Super Computing Challenge in New Orleans.
Guest: Doug Smith.
Well, I finally heard back from System76, and they told me something that changed the whole landscape. They had ONE Darter Ultra left!!!
Ken Starks As founder and Lead Director of The HeliOS Project, Ken Starks spearheads the effort to gather decommissioned or broken computers and refurbishes them. These computers are then given to Austin-area children who normally would not be able to afford one. To date, The HeliOS Project has placed more than 1000 computers.
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of four separate stable kernels: 2.6.27.46, 2.6.31.13, 2.6.32.11, and 2.6.33.2.
Google Docs is maybe the king among Web-based collaborative editing and document sharing applications, but the productivity suite from the all-mighty giant is not the only fish in the sea. An open source Web-based solution, co-ment provides an efficient document collaboration environment which offers everything you need to edit, annotate, and share documents. co-ment is not just a mere Web-based word processor, though. While you can use co-ment as a no-frills Web-based word processor, it's designed for easy and efficient document annotation.
Light and Fast Download Accelerator for Linux: Some of you may have used a download accelerator through a browser add-on but are not contented with the download speed gain. Perhaps you should try a light and fast standalone and desktop-based download manager that could help give considerable increase in download speed.
Ardour
Released under the GPL, Ardour is a hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation application that runs on Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OSX. The application aims to provide a digital audio workstation suitable for professional use with features such as recording, mixing, editing and mastering. Ardour relies heavily on plugins ot get some features to work.
Some Linux users insist that anything you can do on Windows, you can do better on Linux. While there's some truth to that, many of us have Windows applications that make completely leaving Windows close to impossible. Thats where CodeWeavers latest version of CrossOver Linux comes in.
The Wine development release 1.1.42 is now available.
What's new in this release:
* Support for shared 32/64-bit setups. * Dwarf debug info support for better backtraces. * More standard actions supported in MSI. * Support for TIFF image format in WinCodecs. * A number of Direct3D improvements. * Shell fixes for better Internet Explorer support. * Various bug fixes.
If you or your in-need friends or relatives can't boot into your Windows desktop, or you can't actually do anything once you're into it, booting up a live Ubuntu system from a USB thumb drive, or off a burned CD, can save your system, recover files, and pull off other miracles.
So last night I figured it was time to give Arch a spin on the Meso. Next to Slackware I have a real soft spot for Arch. It’s a great distrobution with fantastic documentation and a wonderful community.
Options traders demonstrated confidence in Qualcomm Inc., Micron Technology Inc. and Red Hat Inc., selling "put" options in all three technology companies in hopes the stocks stay strong in coming weeks.
Today marks the release of version 8.5 of SimplyMepis, the popular Debian based distribution that focuses on the K desktop environment. We decided to take it for a run and see if there have been any significant changes since the previous release.
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Overall Impressions:
Pro's:
* Based on Debian which means the package selection is quite good. * Plenty of configuration utilities for those uncomfortable with the console. * System feels stable. * Pre-installed browser plugins for Firefox save users some time tracking them all down.
Con's:
* Visually unappealing. * Welcome screen doesn't start at first bootup which negates any value it might add.
Kubuntu was my favorite distribution for a time, back during the KDE 3.5 series. I was a KDE user all the way back to 2.0. Before Kubuntu I used mainly Debian unstable on the desktop, and Debian stable on servers. Way before that, Red Hat and Slackware. Red Hat 5 was my first Linux, on actual 3.5" diskettes. Somewheres in there I used Libranet, which was a super-nice Debian derivative, but sadly it died with the passing of its founder.
Ubuntu just released the beta 1 version of their new LTS (Long Term Support) Distribution, Lucid 10.04. The theme is based on "light" and it looks great. Here's what to expect and what not to expect when you first install this new flavor of Ubuntu:
The first thing you notice when you launch the live CD is Ubuntu's new logo. Don't worry, they still have the basic logo but they added some new typography and use the logo like a registration mark. They went with the black desktop theme for their default which is fine, but they moved something around. The window manager buttons went from the right side to the left, which is difficult at first if you are not used to it.
Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx (10.04) isn't out yet but Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and Canonical, and his team look toward the October 2010 (10.10) release they're calling Maverick Meerkat. On his personal blog this morning, Mark wrote, "It’s time to put our heads together to envision 'the perfect 10'." Mark, himself, has a new vision for the upcoming release already knowing that 10.04 is almost "in the can." His new vision is one of lightness-lightness in footprint, in deployment and in support requirements. A grand vision but can he do it?
Windows Mobile devices are very versatile. They can (sort of) run Android, Ubuntu, plus other flavors of Linux. In this video, it appears that someone has figured out how to run Maemo on an HTC HD2, or it's very possible that they are simply using a VNC client to access an Nokia N900 (which is a Maemo device) through the HD2. What do you think?
Android is looking good, no doubt about it. What has started as a Linux-based OS for handsets (i.e., mobile phones) has now rapidly spread to different devices. There are small tablet computers like Archos' Internet tablets and Enso's zenPad, e-book readers like Barnes & Noble's nook and Spring Designs Alex, and even a netbook - Acer's Aspire One D250 (actually dual boots with Windows 7).
The lightweight computers run on Ubuntu and come pre-loaded with IBM's office productivity suites built on OpenOffice.org code.
The arrival of JooJoo seemed kind of fishy because 1) it was April Fool’s Day, 2) there was so much buzz on the blogosphere about this weekend’s release of the iPad that it just had to be a joke and 3) Engadget said it was so overwhelmed with iPad coverage that it wouldn’t have its own review out until next week - and readers should not expect a side-by-side comparison to the iPad right away.
Linux developers should be able to build applications for this platform without too much trouble, since the OpenTablet's "Flash applications may invoke class modules that are written in C/C++" and its "application hosting framework controls the loading/unloading of applications." I can also see the OpenTablet doing well in businesses since "The system is fully managed with a device management system client that allows the server to monitor the device, provision the device, and send notifications (e.g., firmware updates or domain-specific messages such as peak pricing notifications for energy)." That means that, unlike the iPad, it should be easy to manage OpenTablet in a corporate network.
MyPaint is a lightweight, easy-to-use open source painting application that you might not have heard of before. Unlike some of the more mature open source raster-graphics applications (such as Krita or Gimp), MyPaint doesn’t try to do everything: it’s not a photo editor, it doesn’t bother with paths, geometric shapes, text manipulation, or fancy masking options. Instead, it focuses on one and only one use: painting.
MyPaint is built around use with pressure-sensitive graphics tablets, and puts natural-media-simulation first. There is only one “tool” per se, the paintbrush with which you draw directly onto the image. However, you can choose from dozens of different profiles with which to use that brush, simulating everything from charcoal to pencil, to ink to watercolor. Each has a different behavior, including the way it responds to pressure, speed, changes in direction, and interacting with pixels already on the canvas.
The Romanian Ministry of Education and Research has launched the "The Teacher - Educational Software Developer" strategic project that is to be implemented between September 2009 - September 2011 (24 months). The target of the project is three million pupils around the country.
In the project, eighty experts will train 1,500 pre-university teachers from all over the country to develop the competences that they need in order to create their own educational software applications and to improve their ability to use teaching-learning interactive methods.
To cut this post short, I would like to introduce you to my “new” favorite and best Firefox Add-On of the month called Cool Previews!
It’s April 2nd, so the Apache Software Foundation’s 2010 April Fools’ joke is over. Here is why I liked it a lot. It represents a hypothetical: What if the ASF and its projects could be bought? Or, if not bought, then put under control or strong influence of corporate interests like in traditional open source consortia? It would put the very software infrastructure we take for granted under partisan control and there is no guarantee that those partisan or corporate interests would be in the interest of the public good.
this clip show some of the games/apps/etc that come pre installed with pc-bsd
The SFLC's founding director, Eben Moglen, said in his talk that the movement has reached "a point of inflection." The challenge it will face in "Free Software: Phase Two" is to explain the relationship between privacy, the integrity of human personality, and free software. The movement will have to figure out how to convince people they need a solution to a problem they don't know exists, he said. "It's not about we're done. The war is over. It's about, what's next."
GPL enforcement is successful in Europe. In several court decisions and out of court settlements the license conditions of the GPL have been successfully enforced. In particular, embedded systems are the main focus of such compliance activities. The article describes the practice of enforcement activities and the legal prerequisites under the application of German law.
Ruby Summer of Code has announced it raised $100,000 in three days, allowing it to sponsor up to twenty interns. The Ruby Summer of Code is modelled on Google's Summer of Code, but focusses on the Ruby community.
This week the German and the Austrian team >published a press release about our DFD activity (at the moment only in German)). The news that we and FFII will give our this years DFD price to Deutschlandradio (Germany) and Radio Orange 94.0 for their use of Ogg-Vorbis already got good media coverage on Gulli, Golem, Heise, Netzpolitik, OSZine, and Pro-Linux.
Just say no to Word, Excel attachments say free and open software campaigners
[...]
Microsoft and Apple formats are against freedom, says FSF
Documents, spreadsheets and presentations sent in Microsoft Word or Excel native formats, or documents created in Apple’s iWorks, are proprietary and incompatible with freedom and an accessible web, the group says.
Prosecutors said that excluding Pfizer would most likely lead to Pfizer's collapse, with collateral consequences: disrupting the flow of Pfizer products to Medicare and Medicaid recipients, causing the loss of jobs including those of Pfizer employees who were not involved in the fraud, and causing significant losses for Pfizer shareholders.
"We have to ask whether by excluding the company [from Medicare and Medicaid], are we harming our patients," said Lewis Morris of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Our review of The Settlers 7 concluded that fans of city building, micromanagement RTS games could do worse than check it out, with particular reference to the robust community features of online multiplayer.
Sounds great! I'm sure we're all going to love it! There's just one problem - most of us can't, thanks to ongoing issues with Ubisoft's controversial new "always online" DRM.