11.03.11

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Desktop

  • Ed Bott, Apologist for M$, Does it Again

    I paraphrase for the situation: Every PC that is shipped with our booting key is a small victory; every PC that is shipped without is a small defeat. Total victory is the universal adoption of our standards by OEMs, as this is an important step towards victory for M$ itself: “A computer on every desk and in every home running M$’s software.”

    Good try, Ed, but I’m not buying it. Building in anything specific to the OS of a monopolist is dangerous. M$ has shown for decades that it doesn’t do anything that doesn’t bolster the monopoly. You should know better.

    On the other hand, OEMs don’t really love M$ and I expect most of them will provide some kind of kill switch for the lock-in but it will be more work to migrate more PCs to the light.

• Server

  • HP launches ARM-based blade servers with Linux support

    HP launched its Redstone server range using low-power processors from both Intel and ARM vendor Calxeda. HP claims Redstone servers are designed for testing and proof-of-concept, presumably the concept that it can produce ARM-based servers.

    The Calxeda Energycore processors in HP’s Redstone servers are 32-bit processors designed for massively parallel workloads with an 80Gbits/s crossbar between processors. Calxeda claims that when the chip is mated to 4GB of RAM the whole setup consumes just 5W under load and idles at 0.5W.

  • Need a Reliable Server?

    Netcraft’s latest report gives some clues. The world’s most demanding hosting companies run GNU/Linux. Of the top 42 most reliable hosting companies,

    * 2 run F5 Big IP,
    * 5 run FreeBSD,
    * 8 run that other OS, and
    * 15 run GNU/Linux.

  • October 2011 Web Server Survey

    Across the million busiest sites Apache and Microsoft each lose market share this month whilst nginx and Google see small increases.

• Kernel Space

  • Linus Torvalds: Secure Boot Is Good; But Can Be Used In Bad Ways

    It’s true that secure boot can be used for horribly, horribly bad things but using that as an argument against its existence at all is I think a bit naive and not necessarily right. Because if you do things right then it’s a really good thing. I would like my own machine to have the option to not boot any kernel, or boot loader, that is not signed by this signature.

  • Linus Torvalds: Steve Jobs Was An Exceptional CEO

  • Linus Torvalds: Why Linux Is Not Successful On Desktops

  • Linus Torvalds: Open Source Is Also About Spreading, Distributing Vision

  • Linus Torvalds: Google with Android has really been very successful

  • Linus Torvalds: I Don’t Have A Facebook Account, Google Plus Just Works Better For Me

  • Which Is Linus Torvalds’ Native Language: Finnish or Swedish?

  • Exclusive Interview With Linus Torvalds At LinuxCon Europe 2011

• Applications

  • Two decades of productivity: Vim’s 20th anniversary

    The Vim text editor was first released to the public on November 2, 1991—exactly 20 years ago today. Although it was originally designed as a vi clone for the Amiga, it was soon ported to other platforms and eventually grew to become the most popular vi-compatible text editor. It is still actively developed and widely used across several operating systems.

    In this article, we will take a brief look back at the history of vi and its descendants, leading up to the creation of Vim. We will also explore some of the compelling technical features that continue to make Vim relevant today.

  • Cheese Goes Great With Webcam Hams

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to Recover Deleted Files in Linux

  • Games

    • Voxatron, the new Indie game at HIB

      The organizers of Humble Indie Bundle today announced a new initiative on humblebundle.com, which allows anyone to buy Voxatron, an unreleased indie game for the PC at the price that you want.

      Voxatron, it’s at this time in Alpha stage, this game is a platform shooter retro-style, with more than 20 rich areas of enemies to defeat. The game is available for Windows PC, Linux and Mac, DRM-free, and with the guarantee that all future updates will be completely free.

    • Infos: The Humble Voxatron Debut (+ contest)

    • Two New Games Added to Latest Humble Bundle

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • KDE’s November Updates Improve Nepomuk Stability

      November 2, 2011. Today KDE released updates for its Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. These updates are the third in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.7 series. 4.7.3 updates bring many bugfixes and translation updates on top of the latest edition in the 4.7 series and are recommended updates for everyone running 4.7.0 or earlier versions. As the release only contains bugfixes and translation updates, it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone. KDE’s software is already translated into more than 55 languages, with more to come. The October updates contain many performance improvements and bugfixes for applications using the Nepomuk semantic framework.

    • Trinity Does New Release To Let KDE 3.5 Live Om

      While KDE 4.0 has been around for nearly four years (and most complaints regarding the initial KDE4 fallout have been addressed) and the last KDE 3.5 stable snapshot (v3.5.10) came three years ago, the Trinity Desktop Environment has issued an official release today to keep the KDE 3.5 desktop living.

      The Trinity Desktop Environment is designed to pick up where KDE 3.5 left off in keeping up with the KDE 3.5 branch development. There’s been bug-fixes, new features, and other work to make KDE 3.5 more relevant in today’s world. The version released today is Trinity 3.5.13.

    • The Grass has Always been Greener on the other Side of the Fence

      Now to my actual blog post: I appreciate the idea of the Trinity developers to bring back the KDE 3.5 desktop experience to those users who really want it. This is a great offer. Personally I doubt that the Trinity project is doing the effort in the right approach. Instead of just porting Kicker and KDesktop to Qt4/KDE4 they forked everything and the kitchen sink. I rather doubt that a team which is smaller than the KWin team is able to maintain not only KWin but also every other part of KDE 3.5 and now also Qt 3.

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • An interview with Equalis, a Scilab based business

    • SystemRescueCd 2.4.0

  • Gentoo Family

    • 10 Reasons Why I Love Sabayon Linux

  • Red Hat Family

    • Fedora

      • Bugside manners

      • Fedora to simplify filesystem hierarchy

        Since 1979 (or thereabouts), Linux and UNIX-like operating systems have followed a particular, if arcane, way of organizing files. Now the Fedora Project is proposing a plan that will drastically change the way this filesystem hierarchy stores binary applications… if they can work out the potential kinks.

        Specifically, the developers in the Fedora Project are proposing to move all executable files into the /usr/bin directory and their libraries into /usr/lib or /usr/lib64, as needed.

  • Debian Family

    • DebConf12 Nicaragua dates confirmed

      The Debian Project, the team behind the free Debian operating system, has confirmed the dates and venue for its next annual conference, DebConf12.

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 11.10: Looks Kind of Cool But Who Is It For?

          I decided to try out Ubuntu 11.10 on my Thinkpad T43. It was actually my first time using Unity, although I had used the Ubuntu Netbook Edition on a netbook, and I knew the two had similar UIs. This isn’t going to be a huge, in-depth thing because I don’t see how anyone is going to touch the Ars Technica review of 11.10 (DarkDuck’s Unity vs. GNOME3 review is also quite good).

        • Ubuntu Eyes Mobile Market

        • Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux will battle for mobile developers

          Canonical, which has great ambitions to extend its Ubuntu Linux to such devices as smartphones and tablets, is prepared to reach out to developers to get them to build the applications necessary to make the platform successful. But the company will have its work cut out for it, given that established providers on the market have a substantial head start.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • A little love for Linux Mint.

          • A tale of broken love to Kubuntu 11.10

          • Pinguy OS – A Fully loaded Ubuntu respin which should suit new Linux users..

• Devices/Embedded

  • Britain’s $25 computer is coming by Christmas

    Earlier this year British games pioneer David Braben surprised many people with the first appearance of the Raspberry Pi, a low-cost, open source computer aimed at children that he was helping to develop.

    Now, six months on from that initial blitz of publicity, he says that it’s almost ready to go on sale for the first time. A finished version is due by the end of 2011, he told GigaOM, specifically aimed at programmers.

  • Jungo Launches Automotive Connectivity Middleware for Linux-based Infotainment Systems

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Rear-seat touchscreen computer runs Android 2.3

        VizuaLogic announced a rear seat entertainment (RSE) touchscreen computer that runs Android 2.3. Integrated into a car’s front headrest, the “SmartLogic Android Rear Seat Entertainment Package” is equipped with a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a seven-inch capacitive touchscreen, plus Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR, USB, microSD, and HDMI connections.

Free Software/Open Source

• An interview with Equalis, a Scilab based business

  Equalis supports all these needs by providing a complete Scilab support programs including: training, deployment, real-time support and consulting. Equalis also drives the Scilab product development roadmap to meet customer needs by accelerating bug fixes and including feedback on the strategic product roadmap. Additionally, Equalis also develops and supports exclusive premier software features and application modules to augment the baseline platform to meet its customers’ specialized needs.

• SaaS

  • http://www.muktware.com/news/2855

• Semi-Open Source

  • Zarafa to unveil free web meeting plug-in

    Messaging and collaboration specialist Zarafa is set to unveil a new web meeting plug-in for its groupware product. According to the company, the free plug-in for the Zarafa Collaboration Platform (ZCP) currently supports up to three users, works regardless of each user’s email client or platform (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux), and does not require registration.

• FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Nominations are open for the 14th annual Free Software Awards

    The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the GNU Project today announced the opening of nominations for the 14th annual Free Software Awards.

• Programming

  • Eclipse is celebrating its 10th Birthday

    It is just a decade since IBM released the Eclipse project under an open source licence and the Eclipse Consortium, consisting of IBM, Borland,Rational, Suse, TogetherSoft, was announced.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Have your HTML5 and native app too

  • A browser to resolve mobile app development confusion?

    I read with interest the recent announcement by AppMobi that they are producing a browser for Apple iOS and eventually Android that will go beyond the basic HTML5 capabilities.

Leftovers

• Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?

  According to the StatCounter analysis Windows 7 overtook XP in the United States in April 2011 and in Europe in July. However, in Asia Windows XP still retains a clear lead at 55% in October compared to 36% for Windows 7.

  [...]

  StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample of over 15 billion page views per month (4 billion in the US) from their network of more than three million websites. NetMarketShare data collection network has over 40,000 websites, and counts unique visitors once for visit for day. In summary, NetMarketShare’s data is compiled from approximately 160 million unique visits per month.

  What that means is that StatCounter counts all page views while NetMarketShare looks at single site visits. That in turn imples that very active users of a particular operating system would weigh more heavily on StatCounter’s numbers.

• Finance

  • “OCCUPY WALL STREET” to Occupy WBAI

    A new show on WBAI starts this Wednesday: OCCUPY WALL STREET RADIO. From the streets to airwaves, the movement that began five weeks ago as a Day Of Rage takes to the airwaves on the only station that broadcasts the voice of the 99%. The initial Occupy Wall Street Radio airs Wednesday October 26th, from 6:30 to 8 PM. Going forward, the show can be heard Monday through Friday from 6:30 to 7 PM. The show will offer a regular check in for the latest breaking news from the streets. Hear the voices, the heart, the soul of this 99% growing and now global movement.

  • People’s Trial Of Goldman Sachs By Occupy Wall Street

    Taking their inspiration from the Bertrand Russell public trials of U.S. government officials held during the Vietnam War, the proceedings will include expert analysis by Cornell West and Chris Hedges, as well as testimony from individuals directly affected by Goldman Sachs’ policies.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • What CIOs Need to Know about Intellectual Property Law

    While nearly every CIO should worry about IP issues, there are exceptions. Andrew “Andy” Updegrove, a founding partner of top technology law firm Gesmer Updegrove, explains that if you’re CIO of, say, a government agency, there is “little, if anything” to get worked up over. Such a CIO likely never has to worry about her agency being sued by anyone, nor will she be selling products to others.

    That’s also the case for CIOs of most non-profits, or at least smaller ones. “Having some degree of oversight by a lawyer should cover just about everything they would need to know, because their exposure to the outside world might be limited to a Web site,” says Updegrove. “As long as they ensure that all proprietary software has been paid for and is not being used in violation of its terms, there should be little exposure and therefore no need for much knowledge.”