06.05.09

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• My Name is Mac and I am a Linux – Palluxo!

  It also runs Linux, which I just recently installed on it. I haven’t messed with it at all because I have been in Chicago all weekend, but it installed great and worked flawlessly for the half hour I spent configuring my settings.

  So now, I’m sure at least someone has wondered what I think about the Windows 7 RC. In short, I think that it is Vista 2. It is better than Vista 1, but still feels just like Vista. And it still has those annoying security pop-ups that they said they would get rid of.

• Intel Shows First Working Moorestown Prototypes

  During his speech, Chandrasekher was joined on stage by executives from hardware makers Inventec Appliances, Quanta Computer and Elektrobit, who all have working handheld devices based on the chips. The devices were all running the Moblin 2.0 version of Linux and are expected to hit the market early next year, company executives said.

• To Jim Zemlin this CompuTex represents progress

  While we sat we also compared netbooks. I showed him the HP Mini 1000 I bought at Fry’s, which only had Windows versions. He showed me an identical device (only with more internal memory) he had bought at the HP web site, for the same price I paid, and with Ubuntu Linux installed.

• Moving from Solaris to Linux

  Through the years I’ve worked on a lot of different flavors of “UNIX,” starting back when I was in college and then continuing on through graduate school and work. While there have been differences, a tremendous amount of knowledge and number of skills were easily transferred.

• Linux Outlaws 95 – All Those Sheep Got PDAs

  This week on Linux Outlaws: Google Wave, lots of Moblin news, Microsoft losing deals and sneakily installing Firefox plugins, Dan reviews Chakra and much more.

• ForLinux Launches First Enomaly Cloud Computing Service

  ForLinux announced that it will begin offering Cloud Computing services to its customers, using the Enomaly Elastic Computing Platform (ECP), Service Provider Edition. This will be one of the first ECP Cloud Computing service based in UK.

• Austria

  • AT: Education ministry supports GNU/Linux distribution for schools

    With support from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK), the third edition of a special version of a GNU/Linux distribution for schools has just been published.

  • Ingres and FRANK Linux Systems to Drive Open Source Technology in Austria

    FRANK Linux Systems is a specialized distributor, based in Austria, with a comprehensive range of open source software solutions.

• Kernel Space

  • NVIDIA’s Tegra takes on Intel in the MID/PMP market

    Tegra is bound to be a better fit in every conceivable way—performance, battery life, features—for a wireless, Linux-based MID/portable media player (PMP) than anything x86-based. This will be even more true once Adobe is done porting Flash and AIR to ARM (more on this in the next article).

  • X Input 2.0 Merged Into The X Server

    Just as planned, the X Input 2 protocol for X.Org has entered the master X Server code-base. X Input 2 (or Xi2 for short) is a significant update over the original X Input extension and allows for Multi-Pointer X support and other enhanced input features.

• Applications

  • This Week on Github: In Good Company

    A free lunch may still be a myth, but the benefits of free and open source software are already legendary. Businesses now readily embrace Linux, Apache, and scores of other packages up and down the so-called stack; companies such as MySQL have proven it’s possible to turn an open source project into a (very) profitable enterprise; and services like Dreamhost and WordPress are leading a new wave of businesses powered entirely by community-driven software rather than an impenetrable black tower of proprietary code.

  • Mondo & Mindi – Disaster recovery solution

    The ability to create bootable images with every backup is a great bonus. This allows you to mass-deploy your backups on multiple systems simultaneously, without depending on third-party operating systems (like CloneZilla, SystemRescueCD or others). You use your own kernel, with every backup bundled with it.

    Mondo is a highly useful solution to keeping your systems healthy in the long run. I highly recommend it.

    This article was inspired by a friend’s suggestion. Thanks, Dany!

  • Far Cry 2 Linux Server

    The version 1.03 dedicated Linux server to correspond to today’s new Far Cry 2 patch is now available, allowing the opportunity to host your own penguin-powered server for the shooter sequel.

  • SEO Tools For Linux

    Nearly every piece of software written that aids in search engine optimization is written for the Windows platform. Perhaps this is because most of these types of software come with a price tag, and I would venture to say that most Linux users are resistant to paying for any type of software. The Open Source community provides just about every kind of app a person needs, but some specialized kinds of apps are sometimes unavailable.

• Desktop Environments

  • Qt vs. GTK: Juk and Amarok

    I’ve mentioned a couple of times that, at least in my opinion, KDE is losing out to GNOME because there simply aren’t as many Qt applications as GTK ones. Competition breeds quality, and as a result, I find Qt applications in general to be inferior.

    Of course, I can’t just say that and not back it up. In fact, I’m not even sure if I’m right! Because I’m using KDE 4.2 at the moment, I thought this would be an ideal time to really test some Qt and GTK applications extensively. In all cases, I tried to use Qt applications first, and only installed the GTK alternative if it either showed bugs, crashed, or simply irritated me to the point of madness after several days.

  • KDE for Windows in Trouble

    Ehrlicher would like to break away from his work with Windows and instead get involved with Linux development for KDE.

• Distributions

  • Slackware and Zenwalk

    I installed and all I can say is WOW! It’s a fantastic implementation of XFCE regardless of distribution. The Slackware speed and rc system are there, greeting me on each startup/login. XFCE is done brilliantly there and really feels like a superb implementation. Updating is a snap with netpkg, something I haven’t had any experience with…it does the job nicely though. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with Zenwalk and will be sticking with it for a while. I’ll post back from time to time with any tips or tricks I might find as I’m stretching my legs so to speak in my new environment.

  • 2009-06-04: CRUX PPC 2.5 released!

    CRUX PPC 2.5 is now available. Supports Apple 32bit “NewWorld” G3/G4 and Apple 64bit G5, Genesi PegasosII and Efika, Acube Sam440ep, IBM RS/6000 CHRP32 (604e), YDL Powerstation, IBM Intellistation POWER, and IBM pSeries RS64/POWERn.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Open source microcode gives OSD owners hope

    EMBEDDED SOFTWARE firm Cadenux agreed to release its SDIO and USB stack microcode for the TI DM320 as free software under a GPL license, giving Neuros OSD buyers some hope of finally getting Bluetooth on the unit as well as USB keyboard support. It just goes to show that a Linux OS with buggy proprietary code does not equal freedom.

    An open sauce based device surely has a better chance of beating planned obsolescence than a proprietary one, as we pointed out before in the case of the Nokie Nxx Linux based internet tablets. But running a Linux OS is only half of the story. Here’s how a new piece of open source microcode can give Neuros OSD owners some hope.

  • Phones

    • Google planning Android 2.0 for 2009

      Google is planning to release version 2.0 (code-named Donut) of its open source Android mobile operating system this year. While presenting the latest stage of development at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google announced that Android 2.0 should be ready in approximately three to six months.

    • BenQ backs Android

      BenQ has become the latest tech firm to join Android’s ever-expanding band of supporters by announcing plans to develop both a smartphone and a netbook based on the Google OS.

    • Not Just For Phones

      Android, the open-source version of a smart-phone software stack, is attracting some serious attention from the semiconductor industry and morphing into something far beyond the original statement of intent.

      An open source model remains a questionable rival in the smart phone market currently dominated by companies like Apple, Samsung or Palm. This is a market that typically runs, on average, at three to four times the pace of Moore’s Law. Even there, at least something is likely to stick with an open-source alternative, just as Linux has proven extremely resilient in a market where it was initially dismissed. On that assumption alone that many companies are willing to stake a claim.

  • Sub-notebooks

    • Acer will use Moblin Linux across its products

      The world’s third-largest PC vendor plans to roll out the Moblin Linux operating system, championed by Intel, in its products, a top executive said Wednesday.

    • Acer Android netbook to dual boot Windows

      Taiwanese firm Acer has announced that it plans to release its first Aspire One netbook featuring Google’s Android open source mobile operating system. Jim Wong, president of IT Products Global Operation at Acer said “The Android operating system offers incredibly fast wireless connection to the Internet; for this reason, Acer has decided to develop Android netbooks for added convenience to our customers”.

    • Moblin 2.0 – A New Way to Make a Netbook Sing With Linux

      As the Netbook market becomes thoroughly saturated with models from all the major PC vendors, the opportunity exists to explore new options for the operating system. Asus was first to market in late 2007 with their Eee PC and has since turned out more variations on that theme than you can shake a stick at. The original Eee PC boasted a Linux OS as one of its ways of keeping cost down, but later models have added Windows to the mix.

    • Future of netbooks, laptops unfolds at Computex

      The challenge for Linux

      Linux’s relatively brandless environment has been a challenge in an app-store world, although this week’s RealNetworks announcement of RealPlayer being preinstalled on Linux netbooks and Instant-On OS platforms is a big step for Ubuntu being able to keep up with the easy media-playing capability of netbook machines. It also adds some brand recognition and codec consolidation.

      Shown at Computex were several Moblin Linux-based netbook prototypes, as well the announcement of Ubuntu Moblin Remix, the next graphical interface evolution beyond Ubuntu and a possible candidate for an OS specifically geared towards ultramobile PCs such as netbooks.

    • ARM Remains Linux Only, No Windows 7 Support

      Despite previous rumors, the Redmond, Washington-based software giant Microsoft has officially confirmed that its next-generation Windows 7 operating system will not provide consumers with support for ARM-based devices. According to the company, the upcoming Windows release, due out on October 22, will be enabled on x86 and x64 platforms and will not be available for the upcoming wave of ARM-based smartbooks,
      netbooks, notebooks and PCs. However, the company did not say anything about the potential of enabling ARM support for a future release of its operating system, leaving some hope for those who are looking to switch to one of the upcoming devices built on NVIDIA Tegra, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or other ARM-based chip.

    • Taiwan and Computex seek ways out of their box

      Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation was here, trying to get all these folks out of their box. But Microsoft is so dominant he was lucky to get a morning seminar, on the show’s third day, at an outlying venue far from the main action.

      So he hung up a banner reading “Linux Forum 2009,” he was preceded by a speaker from the Moblin project, which the Linux Foundation now hosts for Intel, and he gave his pitch….

Free Software/Open Source

• Asian Open Source Software Center (AOSSC) Alliance Formed by 10 Countries and Regions to Push Development and Adoption of Open Source in Asia

  Ten Open Source Software Centers and related promotion organizations in Asian countries and regions announce today the formation of Asian Open Source Software Center (AOSSC) alliance/network to further promote the adoption, and development of open source software (OSS) technology among Asian countries. The participating countries and regions include China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

• Transmageddon and Arista pursue simple transcoding

  Christian Schaller’s Transmageddon and Daniel Taylor’s Arista are both easy-to-use video file conversion tools for GNOME, but they share more than just a vision for simple file transcoding. Rather than competing head-on (or attempting a merge), the two developers are collaborating in the middle; sharing information and utilizing the similar aims of their projects to strengthen the underlying GStreamer multimedia framework on which both code bases depend.

• Atlassian’s Summit, and its Freebies for Open Source Developers

  In Oliver Marks’ post, you can watch a 6-minute video showing a portion of Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brooke’s keynote address at the Atlassian Summit. It illustrates how Atlassian has made good use of OpenSocial for extending applications.

  Jira (shown below, with a tour online here) is Atlassian’s flagship product, and is a bug and issue tracker aimed at developers. FishEye is the company’s web interface into source code repositories. Bamboo automates the process of source code compiling and testing. Confluence is Atlassian’s enterprise wiki and collaboration product.

• Winning the war won’t secure peace for open source

  Open source may have won the argument, but that does not mean the world will now change, says Mark Taylor.

  According to Mahatma Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”*. So by that reckoning, it must be pretty much ‘job done’ for free software.

  Over the past few months I have experienced the eerie sensation that no-one is fighting us any more. Not only are audiences polite, enthusiastic and well informed at conferences, they are almost all using free software already.

• USM project to bolster nation’s cyber security

  The collaborative project, which also includes the U.S. Navy and the nonprofit Open Source Software Institute based in Hattiesburg, will look at ways to protect government computer systems that use open-source software against the growing threat of cyber terrorism.

• Business

  • Open source clicking the channels

    Given all of this actvity among channel players and resellers — along with the continued and expanded embrace of open source software among SIs, service providers and others — it seems open source is now indeed clicking the channels.

  • Cisco Discovers Open Source IP PBX Threat, Opportunity

    The sleeping giant has awakened. It looks like Cisco Systems is addressing the potential Asterisk open source IP PBX threat — and opportunity. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy at Cisco Partner Summit.

    Cisco announced a series of small business solutions today. Buried within the announcement was an IP Telephony Gateway that allows small businesses to “connect their open source IP PBX to existing analog phones and fax machines.”

  • Sony Ericsson Using Drupal

    Sony Ericsson’s first Drupal web site was officially launched yesterday at the JavaOne conference. The site, called Sony Ericsson Labs, is a community website to shares application concepts with everyone who is interested in mobile applications and where new ideas can begin to take shape.

  • Zmanda backs up MySQL to your cloud of choice

    Open source backup and recovery provider Zmanda, today announced that Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) now allows MySQL databases to be backed up to a destination of choice, including a remote cloud storage service. ZRM also allows on-premises MySQL databases to be backed up to the upcoming Sun Cloud Storage Service, which enables DBAs to create disaster recovery archives of databases on a flexible, secure and open public cloud.

  • Big data and Cloudera: Follow the money

    Cloudera on Tuesday is expected to formally announce the closing of a $6 million series B funding round led by Greylock (whose past investments successes include Red Hat among many others).

• FSF/GNU

  • It’s time for the community to take charge of its brand

    There are a couple of “beginner’s mistakes” when thinking about Free Software in general and its commercial application, in particular. One is to believe there was a substantial difference in the software referred to by the terms “Free Software” and “Open Source.” There isn’t. As far as the actual software is concerned, both terms are as synonymous as things get in real life, with experts debating about details around the fringes. The differences between the terms lie in framing and brand.

    From the perspective of brand management, Open Source is a failed re-branding effort over which its creators lost control, followed by brand degradation through abuse and over-extension into areas such as business and development models. This has become another beginner’s mistake in Free Software, as highlighted in “What makes a Free Software company?”.

• Browsers

  • Google Chrome For Mac, Linux Released To Developers

    However, the company is discouraging average users from downloading the browser-in-progress unless they really know what they’re doing.

  • June 5, 2002: Browser, Philosophy Born of Turmoil, Defeat

    The first browser wars effectively ended in 1998 when Microsoft Internet Explorer toppled Netscape Navigator.

    Throughout the the mid-1990s, the makers of the two most popular web browsers battled tooth and nail to capture the largest share of users among the web’s early adopters. Even though the geeks tended to favor Navigator, every new Windows computer shipped with IE on the desktop, giving Microsoft a significant advantage.

  • Which Mozilla blurb works best?

    I’d be interested in hearing which if any of these directions resonate with people. They probably won’t get used for anything exactly as is. But reactions are super helpful in coming up with things we’ll actually use in the end. I’ve created a short survey with this in mind — if you’re interested in this topic, please take 30 seconds to fill out the survey. Also, if you’ve got alternate riffs on the text above, feel free to post them here as a comment.

  • Happy Birthday, Mozilla – and Thanks for Being Here

    There’s a number of noteworthy points here. The first is that the Mozilla project was originally a browser *suite*, which included an email reader and a chat client as well as a browser. This was a throwback to the old Netscape Communicator suite, on which it was based.

• Openness

  • With an Eye to London, More Transparency in US Expense Accounts

    Yesterday, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that House office expenses will be published online, vastly streamlining public monitoring of Representatives spending habits. The move will put the current paper records online “at the earliest date,” making each purchase publicly accessible.

  • Open Source Sensing Initiative

    What’s particularly noteworthy is the fact that open source sensing is seen as a way of offering security while dealing with various threats to privacy and freedom that sensor technologies obviously present. Openness may help square the circle here, is the hope.

Leftovers

• Keep the Libel Laws out of Science

  UK libel laws are famously unbalanced, and allow the rich and powerful to bully challengers who have truth on their side. That’s bad enough, but when it crimps the practice of science itself, as here, it’s even worse:

  The use of the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence discourages debate, denies the public access to the full picture and encourages use of the courts to silence critics. The British Chiropractic Association has sued Simon Singh for libel. The scientific community would have preferred that it had defended its position about chiropractic through an open discussion in the medical literature or mainstream media.

• EFF Launches TOSBack – A ‘Terms of Service’ Tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and More

  “Terms of Service” policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information. But most web users don’t read these policies — or understand that the terms are constantly changing. To track these ever-evolving documents, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is launching “TOSBack”: a “terms of service” tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and other major websites.

• Copyrights

  • Six months later, no ISPs joining RIAA piracy fight

    Last December, the music industry’s message to song writers, publishers, and musicians was that antipiracy help was on the way. Hopes soared after the major labels announced that they had convinced a group of telecoms to work with them.

  • BitTorrent users spend money, too

    Vuze logo Vuze — the company that’s trying to sell licensed, high-def videos to users of the BitTorrent file-sharing software — has spent much of the past two years trying to persuade Hollywood that its users are customers, not thieves. So far, however, the major studios have entrusted little to Vuze beyond movie trailers and other promotional videos. Now Vuze is trying to prod Hollywood with some eye-opening data about its clientele’s buying habits and purchasing power: in addition to being copyright infringers, they spend a lot of money on movies and movie-watching gear. Said Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa, “Those users are actually Hollywood’s best customers.”

  • Advocacy Group Says Canadian ISPs Should Be Required To Hand Over Subscriber Data Without A Warrant

    Rob Hyndman points us to the news that a Canadian “victims advocacy group” called Victims of Crime has put out a report on how the government should deal with “internet-facilitated child sexual abuse.” You should recognize that the recommendations are ridiculous by the way they describe the problem: “internet-facilitated child sexual abuse.

  • British Government Says No To Three Strikes

    The British government has been working on its “Digital Britain” report, which covers a range of tech issues, including copyright and file-sharing. Earlier drafts of the report basically seemed like a proxy for the recording industry, as the government looked to set up an agency run by the industry itself to police copyright infringement.

  • Government Intranet Packed Full of Warez

    Since 2005, a Brazilian senator has been pushing for tough new ‘cybercrime’ legislation which would include measures against file-sharing. However, before thinking of unleashing new laws on the public, the government should look closer to home, since the senate’s intranet is loaded with an impressive amount of warez.