04.21.10

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Desktop

  • Wil Wheaton Prime uses Linux to bring you Evil Wil Wheaton sitting in Sheldon’s spot.

    If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time (or you’ve gone through the archives) you know that I love the Linux operating system. I first switched to Linux in 2002, and eventually ended up running a heavily-modified version of Debian for years, until I was seduced by the elegance and stability of OS X. From time to time, though, I grab a LiveCD (usually Ubuntu, these days, though I’ve gone through most of them at one time or another) and spend an hour or so poking around to see what’s new and how quickly I can break it.

    Shortly before I went to Vancouver for Eureka, I burned an iso of Ubuntu 10.4 beta, to see what all the fuss was about (short version: Ubuntu made some significant UI changes for that version, and a lot of Linux users are apparently as keen on change as Garth was in Wayne’s World.)

    My incredibly short review: I liked it.

• Audiocasts

  • FLOSS Weekly 117: Bob Jacobsen

    Tools for model railroad computer control and open source patents and licensing.

  • LB – Episode 53 – A New LB and Amahi by Linux Basement

• Graphics Stack

  • Linux KVM virtualization gains steam in cloud computing market

    The Linux KVM hypervisor is gaining steam in the cloud computing market, with two major vendors using the virtualization software to create cloud platforms to compete against Amazon’s popular EC2 service.

    IBM announced in March that its test-and-dev cloud service uses KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), and now hosting company The Planet has built a cloud service using a version of KVM.

• Applications

  • The mjpeg programs are a set of tools that can do recording of videos and playback.

  • Instructionals

    • System monitoring with Zenoss takes complexity out of configuration

    • Switch Lubuntu window controls to the left – Just like Ubuntu!

    • Change your xsplash Boot Screen with your desktop change in ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    • Ubuntu: Install Amarok 1.4 in 10.04 beta 2 (Lucid Lynx)

    • When “recovery” mode fails to boot

    • Using netstat

    • OpenSSL – Generate a RSA Key and Keystore

    • Howto Display Size of Files Under Files in Ubuntu

    • Help your eyes hurt less with Redshift in Ubuntu

    • How do I find my network information – in Linux?

    • Testing Wine 1.1.43 on Fedora 13 and Ubuntu 10.04

    • Pessulus- A lockdown editor for Gnome to limit users functionality access | Ubuntu

• Distributions

  • Sabayon Linux x86/x86-64 5.2 CoreCD Released

    The Sabayon Linux CoreCD edition is a minimalistic release designed to provide a foundation for building a customized installation tailored to the users specific needs.

  • Fedora

    • The name game, no. 14.

      Every release, we provide our community a chance to give name suggestions for the next one. Each consecutive name must be linked to the previous one, but that link must be different from the link that connected the previous releases. So for example, Fedora 12, Constantine, and Fedora 13, Goddard, are linked by being names of rocket scientists. Fedora 13 and Fedora 14 must share a different link.

    • A Music Lover’s Fedora Linux Workstation

      We’ve got here our very first entry for “The $100.00 (USD) Coolest Linux Workspace Contest”. It’s from Mauricio, a Music Theory student. If he wins the contest, he says that he will be using the money to buy a USB mic for some serious music recording.

  • Ubuntu

    • Announcing Getting Started with Ubuntu 10.10, Quickshot v1.0 and The Ubuntu Quickstart Booklet

      The Ubuntu Manual Team have decided on their goals for the Maverick Meerkat 10.10 release at the end of this year. We will continue to strive to make quality educational materials, to be an interesting project with a low barrier to entry and to use the latest technologies and develop our own applications and tools to help us achieve our overall mission as a project.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Tor on Android

    Tor is available for Android by installing our package named Orbot.

Free Software/Open Source

• Socrates on sharing knowledge

  I came across this text over at www.linuxformat.gr and it got me into a lot of thinking. I would like to thank NikolaosX1 for sharing the original post in Greek and Danae for the translation in English that follows.

  [...]

  After discovering this article I really wanted to write a post here expanding my thoughts on it and how they relate with Free Software. I decided to just express some initial points of concern I have instead, leaving it open for discussion. Here’s what’s troubling me:

  1. In general I don’t like taking words of great people out of context, nor misusing them just to make a point. I only use this quote here, with respective differences taken into consideration and respecting the analogy, to trigger a conversation. I already feel awkward, but I felt this was something worth sharing.

  2. I am aware that FLOSS has other “rules” and “freedoms” to define itself and I have in mind that the quoted text is far from expressing the Free Software ideology. However I agree with the initial writer. For me, the idea behind Socrates’ words in a way demonstrates the substance of Free Software, and the “sharing knowledge” concept is one of the reasons that drove me into this community in the first place.

• How Hard Can it Be? DIY OCW

  One of the miracles of free software is that it always begins with one or two people saying: “hey, how hard can it be?” The miracle is that they say that even when “it” is an operating system like GNU, or a kernel like Linux, or a graphic image manipulation package like the GIMP. Despite the manifest impossibility of one person writing something that usually requires vast, hierarchical teams, and months of planning, they just start and the miracle continues: others join in and the thing grows until one day, with the help of a few hundred friends, they achieve that impossibility.

• Databases

  • NoSQL – Apache Cassandra Release 0.6

    The Apache Software Foundation recently announced Apache Cassandra Release 0.6, a NoSQL database. As a reformed database architect, I was intrigued by the appearance of yet another data management model.

• Business

  • MuleSoft Helps Canonical Compete in the Linux Enterprise Server Space

    I had so much fun writing about Ubuntu last week, I thought I would return to the topic with some new Ubuntu news and analysis. Two pieces of news on Ubuntu today. First of all they announced the imminent release of the LTS Server edition 10.4. In a related announcement MuleSoft and Canonical announced a partnership in releasing an updated Tomcat package for Debian and Ubuntu that makes it easier for developers to use.

• Open Access/Content

  • The dangers of growing DNA databases

    Scientific data sharing has become big news in the wake of the theft of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit and ensuing investigations. Although the CRU researchers appear to have had an attitude towards data sharing that breached generally accepted scientific ethics, the process of actually sharing the data would have been anything but straightforward. The CRU had no procedures in place for data sharing, the data came from a variety of sources with no standardized data format, it was a mix of published and proprietary information, etc. In short, it’s one thing to decide to share the data, another challenge entirely to actually do so.

  • BitTorrenting biology, getting the big picture in search

    The biosciences, like other branches of research, are being dragged into the digital era. This is in part because traditional mediums of communications, including journal articles, are migrating online, and in part because high-throughput approaches to biological research are producing staggering amounts of data that can only be stored in digital form. A couple of papers released by PLoS ONE have presented new approaches to both aspects of digitization that, in essence, simply involve modifying tools that are common outside of the field specifically for use by biologists.

  • University told to hand over tree ring data

    Queen’s University in Belfast has been told by the Information Commissioner to hand over 40 years of research data on tree rings, used for climate research.

    Douglas Keenan, from London, had asked for the information in 2007 under the Freedom of Information Act.

  • Linked Data and the Leaders’ Debate – My Challenge

    For example – can someone write me a Linked Data query to show how much is spent by the government on UK education quangoes?

  • CloudMade’s OpenStreetMap Surges On Wikipedia-Like User Passion

    The number of contributors to OpenStreetMap has grown steadily over the years. A year ago 110,000 individuals had added or edited data. Today it’s up to 245,000 individual mappers. An average of 7,000 edits an hour are made to the data.

  • An Open Mind

    If the mission of the university is the creation of knowledge (via research) and the dissemination of knowledge (via teaching and publishing), then it stands to reason that giving that knowledge away fits neatly with that mission. And the branding benefits are clear.

    The Open University, the distance-learning behemoth based in England, has vastly increased its visibility with open courses, which frequently show up in the Top 5 downloads on Apple’s iTunes U, a portal to institutions’ free courseware as well as marketing material. The Open University’s free offerings have been downloaded more than 16 million times, with 89 percent of those downloads outside the U.K., says Martin Bean, vice chancellor of the university. Some 6,000 students started out with a free online course before registering for a paid online course.

  • Khan Academy Goes CC BY-SA

    David Wiley has a new post expressing frustration that the Khan Academy, an OER repository, did not have a clear license. Shortly after Wiley’s post the Khan Academy added the CC BY-SA license.

• Standards/Consortia

  • What will the browser look like in five years?

    The web browser was just another application five years ago. A useful app, no doubt, but it played second fiddle to operating systems and productivity software.

    That’s no longer the case. Browsers have matured into multi-purpose tools that connect to the Internet (of course) and also grant access to a host of powerful online applications and services. Shut off your web connection for a few minutes and you’ll quickly understand the browser’s impact.

    I got in touch with Charles McCathieNevile, Opera chief standards officer and a speaker at the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo, to discuss the the current role of web browsers and their near-term future. He shares his predictions in the following Q&A.

Leftovers

• YouGov/Murdoch Distort Poll To Stop Lib Dem Momentum

  The proposition above is, obviously to anyone, not really a question but a set of dubious propaganda statements designed to influence the interviewee.

• Whitehall and suppliers in ‘old boys club’, alleges Indian offshorer

  Vineet Nayar, chief executive at HCL, told the Financial Times that the companies had a “stranglehold” on the market, with almost no room for other suppliers to participate. Weeks away from a general election, the issue is becoming increasingly heated, and the Conservative party has insisted that it would open up the market to more companies if it wins on 6 May.

  Nayar did not name the companies he alleged to be dominating the market, but Patrick Dunleavy, chair of the public policy group at the London School of Economics, told the newspaper that five companies including HP-EDS, IBM and BT run an estimated 90 percent of government contracts. Other suppliers commonly selected by the government include Fujitsu, Logica, Civica, CSC and Accenture.

• Science

  • Lousy DNA Reveals When People First Wore Clothes

    Using DNA to trace the evolutionary split between head and body lice, researchers conclude that body lice first came on the scene approximately 190,000 years ago. And that shift, the scientists propose, followed soon after people first began wearing clothing.

  • Maxed out: How long could you survive a vacuum?

    Sadly we know how long humans can survive if suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space. Three Soviet cosmonauts died in 1971 when a faulty valve caused their Soyuz 11 capsule to depressurise at an altitude of 168 kilometres, shortly before re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Investigations revealed that the cabin pressure dropped to zero for 11 minutes and 40 seconds, until the capsule hit the atmosphere. The crew died within 30 to 40 seconds from hypoxia. “You need both oxygen and air pressure to deliver oxygen to the brain,” says Jonathan Clark, a former space shuttle crew surgeon.

• Security/Aggression

  • The dangers of growing DNA databases

    The practice of retaining genetic samples from people arrested for a crime but not convicted is growing in the U.S. It has serious human rights implications.

  • News From The Pavement: Dispersal Zones

    Last summer, The Pavement’s reports into Operation Poncho – a City of London’s scheme to wake rough sleepers in the middle of the night to “wash” where they were resting with freezing cold water – hit national headlines. Their night disturbed, many homeless people reported their inability to sleep, and felt it was a brutal attempt to damage them psychologically. Human rights legal teams labelled the process inhumane.

• Environment

  • Illegal logging in Madagascar [Flash warning]

  • World forests ‘being flushed down the toilet’

    As global population grows and access to sanitation improves, the world’s forests are “under assault” from paper companies competing to respond to growing consumer demand for toilet tissue, the only paper product that cannot be recycled after use, writes the Worldwatch Institute.

  • Statement on deforestation and palm oil

    Today, in a letter to Greenpeace, Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe sets out the steps Nestlé is taking regarding palm oil. He emphasises: “Nestlé is highly concerned about deforestation in Indonesia and other countries, and we support a moratorium on the destruction of rainforests.”

  • Betting on Climate Change: Corporations Stand to Make or Lose Billions

    “If you think about Brazil, their two biggest industries are mining and agriculture,” Friedberg says. “That’s billions of dollars, and there’s a massive market for developing crop insurance. If we can figure out agriculture and do it right, the opportunity is huge to go country by country.” Does he believe that global warming is already noticeable? “Oh yeah,” he says. In just the three years that Weatherbill has been collecting data, extreme weather events have risen 8 percent.

  • Some catching up: Asilomar

    Spending a week on the beautiful North California coastline with a bunch of interesting people talking about a fascinating topic is obviously a chore, but I girded my loins and took the plunge. The Asilomar meeting on the regulation of geoengineering research was intended to echo the Asilomar meeting of 1975, which set out procedures for moving beyond the moratorium on genetic engineering experiments that had been set up the year before.

    [...]

    The other 4 lessons are: Nobody has any clear idea how to resolve the inequalities inherent in geoengineering; People will be talking about banning field experiments; It’s all about the money; and trust is everything.

• Finance

  • I.M.F. Lends Its Support to Charging Bank Fees

    The International Monetary Fund has endorsed proposals to charge a levy on the largest banks for the cost of any future government-led rescues as well as a tax based on bank profits and compensation.

  • SEC chief pledges better oversight of banks

    The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday pledged better oversight of the nation’s largest banks after criticism that the agency failed to spot accounting tricks at investment bank Lehman Brothers before it collapsed.

  • What links the banking crisis and the volcano?

    As New Scientist magazine points out, an event like this would knacker most of the systems which keep us alive. It would take out water treatment plants and pumping stations. It would paralyse oil pumping and delivery, which would quickly bring down food supplies. It would clobber hospitals, financial systems and just about every kind of business – even the manufacturers of candles and paraffin lamps. Emergency generators would function only until the oil ran out. Burnt-out transformers cannot be repaired; they must be replaced. Over the past year I’ve sent freedom of information requests to electricity transmitters and distributors, asking them what contingency plans they have made, and whether they have stockpiled transformers to replace any destroyed by a solar storm. I haven’t got to the end of it yet, but the early results suggest that they haven’t.

• Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

  • Now charlatans will know to beware the geeks

    A year ago, I went to a London pub to speak at a meeting for the apparently doomed cause of libel reform. Simon Singh had written an article which was true and important about the dangers of the quack therapy of chiropractic healing. Then, like so many authors and publishers before him, he learned English law persecuted rather than protected honest argument and that he was in trouble.

    The British Chiropractic Association was suing him for saying that there was “not a jot of evidence” that its members could help sick children by manipulating babies’ spines in accordance with the teachings of a more-than-usually nutty American faith healer.

  • The Fujian Three sentenced for slander

    Three bloggers from Fujian who spread information online relating to the alleged rape and murder of Yan Xiaoling were found guilty of slander on Friday. AP reported that self-taught legal expert Fan Yanqiong received a two year sentence, whilst two others, You Jingyou and Wu Huaying, will each spend one year in prison.

  • Which bad law would you scrap first?

  • Hitler Is Very Upset That Constantin Film Is Taking Down Hitler Parodies

  • Everyone Who’s Made a Hitler Parody Video, Leave the Room

    One the most enduring (and consistently entertaining) Internet memes of the past few years has been remixes of the bunker scene from the German film, The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich (aka Der Untergang). EFF Boardmember Brad Templeton even got in on it, creating a very funny remix with Hitler ranting about troubles with DRM and the failure of DMCA takedowns to prevent fair uses. (Ironically enough, that video resulted in the Apple Store rejecting an EFF newsfeed app.)

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Gallo Report: policy brief against biased industry-funded figures

    La Quadrature du Net sent a letter to the members of the JURI committe of the European Parliament, along with a 8-page policy brief on the Gallo report. La Quadrature urges EU citizens concerned about the future of copyright and patent enforcement, fundamental rights, and the Internet, to contact them as well.

  • Music Industry Warns That It May Sue UK File-Sharers

    The BPI has warned that it may be forced into suing UK file-sharers, despite the recent passing of the Digital Economy Act. In an interview yesterday, Chief Executive Geoff Taylor said although the industry would prefer for file-sharing to be dealt with via ‘technical measures’, they might still have to sue some people.

  • Debating Traditional Knowledge Legislation

    A rather different view is the attack on the idea of traditional knowledge being granted legal recognition and protection. The proponent of this view seem concerned that the idea of collective ownership of knowledge will subvert their view of intellectual property. In their view knowledge can be viewed as property which can be owned by an individual or (more likely) a corporation, and as a commodity, traded, rented out and the like. Since they generally also represent those corporations that have amassed large inventories of copyrights, trademarks and designs they are also concerned that traditional knowledge will subject them to claims of ownership of the same material.

  • Copyrights

    • Self-Published Titles Topped 764,000 in 2009 as Traditional Output Dipped

      A staggering 764,448 titles were produced in 2009 by self-publishers and micro-niche publishers, according to statistics released this morning by R.R. Bowker. The number of “nontraditional” titles dwarfed that of traditional books whose output slipped to 288,355 last year from 289,729 in 2008. Taken together, total book output rose 87% last year, to over 1 million books.

    • What If More Money Makes People Less Inclined To Create?

      The entire premise behind copyright law is that by making sure there is enough financial remuneration, people will be more interested in creating more great content. The argument of those who push for ever stronger copyright law is always based on this very premise, with the often explicit claim being “if artists can’t make enough money making art, they’ll do something else instead,” while suggesting that would be a net negative to society. Now I’m all for artists making money and being able to create more art. It’s why I spend so much time discussing business models that work for those artists. But what if that entire concept — that we need this monetary incentive to create — is bunk?

    • Lawrence Lessig: “Getting Our Values around Copyright Right”

    • Nokia launches free music service in China

      Joining Google Music China in the trend of attracting users with free content, Nokia has launched a free music service in the PRC.

  • Printing/Digital

    • Why Old Media and Social Media Don’t Get Along

      I’m just soooooo tired of the doom and gloom. It really makes one want to give up on the main stream media (like many, many, many people under 30 have). But, we can’t. We’ve got to save these guys from themselves – the institutions and the brands matter (I think). So, in that pursuit, let’s tackle the beast head on, again.

    • Rolling Stone Releases Entire Archive on the Web

      Everyone must get stoned — Rolling Stoned, that is. Starting today, the mag beloved by aging mamas and papas and young music fans alike is making its entire collection of magazines (43 years’ worth) available on the web — for a price.

      Although much of the content will, in fact, be free, RS plans to charge a fee for full access to all content new and old: $3.95 per month or $2.50 dollars per month with a year’s subscription, according to AFP. The move comes as part of the mag’s overhauled website, which will also feature more audio and video content.

    • Digital Textbook Sales in U.S. Higher Education — A Five-Year Projection

      Our five-year projections assume a current market share of 0.5% for digital textbooks in the U.S., and an average yearly increase in sales growth of approximately 100% over the next five years. We project that growth to taper to approximately 30% annual growth for the ensuing five years (2015-2019).

  • Canada

    • Lawyer Claims TorrentFreak Abused Canadian Democracy

      Last summer, TorrentFreak encouraged its Canadian readers to have their voice heard in the country’s public consultations on copyright reform. The response to this call for action was overwhelming, and as a result a pro-copyright lawyer is now claiming that we “systematically abused” Canadian democracy.

    • A Call For Disclosure – Who Do The Professionals Represent And Why Are They Hiding The Connection?

      As a writer and musician I’ve always been interested in copyright. It’s part and parcel of what I do. However until last summer I wasn’t involved in the discussion of where copyright in Canada should go. In fact you can blame my current high level of interest in copyright law on TorrentFreak.

  • ACTA

    • ACTA: Signature collection for Written Declaration 12 continues

      Leaks of the ACTA text show that dangerous provisions have been pushed by the negotiators and that the agreement could have severe consequences on freedom of expression, access to medicines and innovation worldwide1. Although the upcoming establishment of transparency is a positive step, the substance of this international agreement harmonizing civil and criminal enforcement of copyright, patents and trademarks must be openly debated. This fundamental discussion is long overdue.

    • ACTA: Partial transparency isn’t legitimacy

      After more than two years of opaque elaboration, ACTA negotiators have finally bowed to the pressure of NGOs and citizens worldwide.The European Parliament, as well as various institutions and industries have also opposed the negotiating process and the potential consequences of this non-amendable plurilateral agreement.

    • Tech companies fear implications of trade pact

      Companies across the technology industry — from Internet access providers to social networking sites to video-sharing services — are bracing for this week’s release of a draft of a trade agreement that they fear could undermine all sorts of online activities.

      [...]

      The Bush administration began negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, in the fall of 2007 in an effort to harmonize intellectual property protections across different nations. The far-reaching agreement would encompass everything from counterfeit pharmaceuticals to fake Prada bags to online piracy of music and movies. Once ratified, trade agreements take full effect and a country can face complaints for noncompliance.

    • ACTA arrives (and it’s gotten a tiny bit better)

      We’ve been covering the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for two years now, and in that entire 24 month period no official text of the agreement has been released. Remarkable, really, given the intense scrutiny, but there you have it.

  • Digital Economy Bill

    • UK LibDems pledge to repeal the Digital Economy Bill

    • Parliament, politics, participation and repeal of the Digital Economy Act

      When the Digital Economy Act (DEA) passed into law, it prompted many anguished posts and tweets about a broken political system, asking how MPs could cave in to lobbyists and vested interests, impose censorship, remain oblivious to the online debate (or “social media whingeing” as it was also called) and fail to recognise the impact on young people.

    • Join Coadec’s List of Supporters

      After a successful meeting last week, Coadec has decided to focus its energies on two fronts in the short-term:

      1. Supporting efforts to get the Digital Economy Act repealed.

      2. Participating in the consultation processes on how the Act is implemented.