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Links 4/5/2010: Opera EULA Tweaked for GNU/Linux, PlayOnLinux 3.7.6, KDE 4.5 Teaser, and Fedora 14 Names



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Another successful Company built around Linux
    I can remember when many opponents of Linux would claim that open source technology is not business friendly that the opportunities to profit are too limited. There are few people saying that these days even amongst the opponents. Many companies have profited from building services around Linux and many companies have risen through building products and services around Linux.

    The PTR Group is one of these companies. They have been around for 10 years now. They have enjoyed rapid growth with steady double digit annual growth percentages. They provide training to the two main distributors of embedded Linux products. They have been involved in getting Linux


  • Virtual Linux: Platform and OS Linux Virtualization
    Virtual Linux is accomplished through many techniques, ranging from emulation to platform to OS virtualization. Indeed, Linux is a unique operating system in its breadth of virtualization solutions that are available. In this article, we'll explore the various ways that virtualization is achieved and then review the various solutions provided through virtual Linux.

    When we talk about virtualization solutions, we tend to talk about specific products offered by specific companies. But when we talk about virtualization solutions with Linux, we instead talk about a rich and diverse open source ecosystem.


  • wearable linux computer, makes you feel like cap'n crunch
    This is the 1D/2D scanner imager available as an extension to the wearable w200 rugged Linux computer. Finally the Linux equivalent of the cap'n crunch secret decoder ring.




  • Desktop

    • Gamers Mad at Sony for Yanking PS3's Linux Compatibility
      A group of Linux users has filed suit against Sony, upset about the company yanking Linux capability from its PlayStation 3 (PS3) game console.

      When PS3 made its debut in 2006, it gave users the option to run a so-called alternate operating system, something that couldn't be said of Nintendo Wii or Xbox. The "Install Other OS" feature was popular among gamers who used Linux, the Unix operating system that is free to download.








  • Server

    • Inside NASA's world-class supercomputer center
      That place is the advanced supercomputing facility at the Ames Research Center here, the home of Pleiades, NASA's flagship computer, a monster of a machine that, with a current rating of 973 teraflops--or 973 trillion floating point operations per second--is today ranked the sixth-most powerful supercomputer on Earth.








  • Audiocasts







  • Kernel Space

    • Stable kernels 2.6.32.12 and 2.6.33.3
      The 2.6.32.12 and 2.6.33.3 stable kernel updates are out.


    • Linux 2.6.34-rc6 Kernel Released
      The complete change-log for the Linux 2.6.34-rc6 kernel can be read at Kernel.org.


    • Linux Versus E. coli
      Both Linux and E. coli are organized into hierarchies. But their hierarchies have different shapes. E. coli’s genome is dominated by workhorses. Middle-managers and master regulators make up less than 5% of the total number of genes. In Linux, by contrast, over 80% of the functions are in the upper echelons. Each workhorse in Linux is controlled to many middle managers. In E. coli, on the other hand, each workhorse gene is typically controlled either by a few genes or just one. And so in E. coli it’s the higher levels where genes have the most links, not the workhorses.




    • Graphics Stack

      • LLVMpipe: OpenGL With Gallium3D on Your CPU
        The software rasterizer used in Mesa that allows for software acceleration of OpenGL on the CPU without any assistance from the graphics processor has largely been useless. Even with a modern-day, multi-core processor, the performance of Mesa's software rasterizer has been abysmal. The performance of Mesa classic DRI drivers have traditionally been poor anyways compared to the high-performance, proprietary NVIDIA/ATI graphics drivers, but when dealing with just the software rasterizer there really aren't any games or applications that run well. Fortunately, software acceleration on Gallium3D is very much a different story thanks to LLVM.










  • Applications







  • K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)







  • Distributions



    • Fedora

      • Post-Goddard.
        Voting is now open for the Fedora 14 release name. Naming the next release is yet another way that our community is involved in making the future of Fedora. If you're a member of any group in Fedora (beyond completing the CLA), you can vote on this ballot.


      • Fedora 14 Might Be Called Fytnargin
        As was reported last month, with development on Fedora 13 winding down for a release in two weeks, planning for Fedora 14 has got underway. One of the first steps taken by the Fedora and Red Hat communities is coming up with a new codename for the next release, for which they have been reaching out to the community for in recent times.






    • Debian Family











  • Devices/Embedded

    • European embedded Linux show seeks presentation ideas
      The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) announced a call for papers for the next Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE), scheduled for Oct. 27-28 in Cambridge, UK. CELF is looking for a variety of technical presentations focused on the use of embedded Linux in consumer electronics products.




    • Phones

      • webOS update coming soon, PDK apps likely to land
        Well, what have we here? A friendly tipster, who just so happens to be a registered Palm developer, has sent us the latest informational email from the recently-swallowed outfit, and while the tone here may be gentle, the implications are certainly serious. According to the memo, a new webOS update is "coming soon," and developers are being alerted that they'll need to be prepared to test their apps when it hits.




      • Nokia

        • Comparing Maemo & Ubuntu
          While I’ve occasionally been critical of Ubuntu as a project, it is a distribution with very open processes, for the most part.

          I’d like to compare the experience of a casual Ubuntu user, an engaged Ubuntu user, an Ubuntu developer, and an upstream application developer to the equivalent MeeGo or Maemo experiences.

          The casual Ubuntu user gets regular stable updates on a predictable schedule, with long-term supported versions less frequently, but still on a predictable schedule. Stability, releases, this user doesn’t want to know what happens behind the scene, he wants to get software when it’s “done”.


        • MeeGo Presentations from the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit
          The MeeGo project was featured in two keynotes and an all day session during the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. It was a great opportunity for me to meet more of the people who are contributing to MeeGo in person, and I was very happy with the MeeGo content at the event. In addition to great presentations, we had a lot of audience engagement, questions and discussion, which is critical during this early period for the project.








      • Android

        • Multitasking the Android Way
          Android is fairly unique in the ways it allows multiple applications to run at the same time. Developers coming from a different platform may find the way it operates surprising. Understanding its behavior is important for designing applications that will work well and integrate seamlessly with the rest of the Android platform. This article covers the reasons for Android's multitasking design, its impact on how applications work, and how you can best take advantage of Android's unique features.

          [...]

          So far, we have a way for applications to implicitly do work in the background, as long as the process doesn't get killed by Android as part of its regular memory management. This is fine for things like loading web pages in the background, but what about features with harder requirements? Background music playback, data synchronization, location tracking, alarm clocks, etc.


        • Adobe Giving Free Android Handsets To Employees?
          BGR is reporting that Adobe will be giving away free Android handsets to their employees. While this has not been confirmed yet, it is believed that Adobe will give their employees a phone running Android 2.2 with Flash so that they become comfortable developing with Flash on the Android platform.


        • TMO Announces MyTouch 3G Slide!
          So, it sports Android 2.1, comes in three colors, has Swype installed, and has a pretty nifty screen. What's missing from this press release though? How about a processor speed?












    • Sub-notebooks











Free Software/Open Source

  • Musings of an open source peddler


  • When can’t MATLAB add up?
    Update: Just had an email from someone who points out that Octave (Free MATLAB Clone) can handle 64bit integers just fine

    octave:1> a=int64(10); octave:2> b=int64(20); octave:3> a+b ans = 30 octave:4>




  • Oracle

    • Thanks for Suggesting Better Default Settings
      Many thanks go out to everyone who added one of the 90+ suggestions for the Better Defaults collection. Impress is currently in focus for Project Renaissance, so any suggestions relevant to Impress (presentation application) have now been taken to be evaluated by the iTeam. Those entries are therefore now in italics.








  • CMS

    • State of Drupal presentation (April 2010)
      Two weeks ago at DrupalCon San Francisco I gave my traditional state of Drupal presentation. A total of 6000 people watched my keynote live; 3000 were present at DrupalCon, and another 3000 watched the live video stream. Nonetheless, a lot of people asked me for my slides. So in good tradition, you can download a copy of my slides (PDF, 48 MB) or you can watch a video recording of my keynote on archive.org.








  • Government

    • Even the 'worst' open government plans include open source
      An independent group released its rankings for U.S. government agencies' open government plans and said Treasury, Defense, Management and Budget, Energy and Justice had the weakest plans of the lot.

      NASA came out smelling like a rose, with the strongest-ranked open government plan, followed by the EPA and HUD, according to the rankings by OpenTheGovernment.org.

      [...]

      Some agencies have said they plan to revisit their plans based on the group's evaluation, so OpenTheGovernment.org will re-evaluate them in June. It'll be interesting to see how the use of open source continues to evolve in open government.


    • The spy who came in from the code
      If you were going to pick an adjective to describe the Central Intelligence Agency, "open" wouldn't immediately spring to mind. But according to Carmen Medina, who recently retired from the CIA and will speak at Gov 2.0 Expo, openness is just what the agency needs.






  • Licensing

    • Is an open license enough?
      Recently I have been trialling a new web based account/billing software. It is not a very mature project, but the features listed and performance so far have me believing that this is potentially a good solution. Also it is written in a language I am comfortable with (PHP), and it has an open license (GNU AGPL). Hence I may be able to contribute.








  • Standards/Consortia

    • Happy Birthday ODF!
      On the Saturday 1st of May 2005, ODF 1.0 became an ISO standard. So as Rob Weir and the ODF Alliance already did, let me wish as well a happy birthday to OpenDocument Format. By this I would like to celebrate the fact that after 5 years, ODF is alive, kicking and growing its market share at a nice rate. But I would also like to thank everyone behind ODF, the engineers, the OASIS consortium, the volunteers, the implementers, and the users. Without you ODF could not exist, and as ODF 1.2 is almost out of the door it’s good to see how much the ODF ecosystem has grown and is growing.








Leftovers





Clip of the Day



NASA Connect - EOM - Angle Activity (1/1/2000)

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