01.25.12

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Linux Australia: preaching to the converted isn’t enough

  Last year, Linux Australia released the raw data from a survey which has been set in train by James Turnbull, who held the position of president for the first half of 2010 before he stepped down to take up a job in the US.

• Linux.conf.au 2012 photos

• Desktop

  • Spain’s Extremadura Moves 40,000 PCs to Linux

    Teodomiro Cayetano López, Extremadura’s CIO (Chief Information Officer), confirmed on January 23rd that the administration of Spain’s autonomous region will move all their desktop PCs to Debian Linux.

  • On the Topics of Software, Average Users and User Friendliness

    The term “average user” is something you hear thrown around a lot with regards to software. Pro-Linux, on the desktop, people often make claims on why it Linux ready for this “average user” (shoot even I’ve done it on occasion). There are also those who feel Linux should be pigeon-holed into a server room and on to mobile devices, they will make the exact opposite claim. They say Linux on the desktop isn’t ready for this “average user”.

  • */Linux PCs for Consumers

    Some examples:

    * Qooq – A PC for cooks, not geeks. It’s hardened for the kitchen and is a tablet that’s goop-proof and with a stand for zero/one-hand operation. It runs Linux on ARM and is loaded with content for cooks: recipes, techniques.
    * Dell is selling GNU/Linux PCs in over 100 stores in China.
    * Acer sells them (Walmart, and Amazon)
    * HP sells them and they have retailers for them.
    * Lenovo is selling millions of them for schools and students (Classmate PCs).

• Server

  • Infiniserv launches Linux-based UK cloud

    Infiniserv has launched a cloud for UK businesses based around the open-source KVM hypervisor.

• Kernel Space

  • 4Linux, Erlang Solutions and Linux Professional Institute Join The Linux Foundation

• Applications

  • Fotowall Has a Sharp Eye for Sweet Collages

    Fotowall features a simple and fun interface for creating photo and image collages. Fotowall lets you design from scratch a montage of photos and word blocks. You can add special visual effects to individual photos as well as the entire canvas. The ease of using Fotowall stems from its real-time design canvas window. You place photos and text directly where you want them, then bring in the effects.

  • Proprietary

    • Untethered Jailbreak iPhone 4S and iPad 2 Under Linux

      The Chronic Dev Team has just released a few minutes ago the a new version of their Absinthe jailbreak tool for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices, bringing support for the Linux platform.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Addendum to second installment: a TeX/LaTeX template for outlines

  • Games

    • Hack, Slash, Loot – A New Roguelike/Dungeon Crawler Released for Linux

      Hack, Slash, Loot is a single-player turn-based dungeon crawler Linux. You take control of a lone hero and explore sprawling dungeons, fight dangerous monsters and plunder valuable treasures.

    • OilRush Gold!

    • Unigine OilRush Officially Ships Today For Linux

      Unigine Corp met their latest deadline and will officially be shipping the gold version of their Unigine OilRush real-time strategy game today for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows gamers.

    • Steam rumors are flying again, but Desura beat them to open source

      The Desura game client is not only available for open-source-loving players, but also now for developers. They’ve released the client on Github as Desurium under GPL v3.

      Desura is similar to the Steam gaming platform in that they both are a way for gamers to buy downloadable copies of a lot of really great games, often for equally great prices. Desura adds the option for developers to include Desura-only functionality in their games.

• Desktop Environments

  • GNOME Desktop

    • ‘Cinnamon’ GNOME 3 fork now ‘fully stable’ with version 1.2

      The Linux Mint team announced the first “fully stable” version of its new GNOME 2.x-like “Cinnamon” fork of the GNOME 3.x desktop environment. Available for several major Linux distros, Cinnamon 1.2 is more customizable than GNOME 3.x, restores much of the GNOME 2.x interface, and adds features such as new desktop effects and layouts, a configuration tool, and five new “applets.”

• Distributions

  • A Short Trip Down Memory Lane

    About a year after my first install of Ubuntu, I posted THIS at Scot’s Newsletter Forums, a site which has since become my second home. Some of my opinions have changed since then. For instance, I don’t use KDE anymore (not since 3.5). I also don’t care for Google too much these days, not since they’ve started showing their greedy fangs… “Do no evil” Pffffft! Yeah, right. Anywho…

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat joins Ubuntu in patching Linux kernel exploit

      Red Hat and Canonical have released patches for a vulnerability in Linux kernels 2.6.39 and above that enables attackers to gain root access on a system. Proof-of-concept exploit code was posted last week after “CVE-2012-0056″ was exposed — thanks to Linus Torvalds announcing a kernel patch before Linux distro projects had had time to apply it.

    • Red Hat Encourages Open Collaboration by Establishing Independent Board for Open Source Project GlusterFS

      The creation of an independent board is expected to foster more contributions and participation from third-party sysadmins, developers and independent software vendors (ISVs). With meetings scheduled on a quarterly basis, the GlusterFS Advisory Board includes open source experts from a number of large companies making their mark in the industry.

    • Fedora

      • A Rolling-Release Version Of Fedora Is Discussed

        A discussion erupted this morning among Fedora developers about having a version of Fedora Linux that operates on a rolling-release model similar to Arch Linux, Gentoo, and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus

        • Ubuntu’s HUD

        • Moving Away from Menus: Is Ubuntu’s HUD Change We Can Believe In?

        • Ubuntu Linux dumps menus, replaces them with a search box

        • Ubuntu re-invents PC menu systems with new HUD interface

        • Heads up, Linux fans, Ubuntu’s ditching menus

        • Ubuntu 12.04 HUD Supports Voice-Based Menu Commands

        • HUD’s up! Ubuntu creates menu-free GUI

        • HUD to replace menus in Ubuntu 12.04 – a further kick to the hornet’s nest?

        • HUD: Ubuntu`s New Smart Menus, Announced By Mark Shuttleworth

        • Status of Ubuntu for ARM Laptops and Servers

          David Mandala, Manager of the ARM Team at Canonical talks about the status of Ubuntu Linux on ARM Laptops and Servers, and about their plans for Ubuntu on ARM until 2014 and beyond. Who wouldn’t want to buy an awesome $199 ARM Powered Ultrabook, 13.3″ screen, ARM Cortex-A9 1.5Ghz TI OMAP4460 or 1.8Ghz TI OMAP4470, thinner, lighter than Intel Ultrabooks, 2x longer battery life on a smaller thinner battery (10x with the sunlight readable Pixel Qi), 1GB or 2GB RAM for full speed Chrome and Firefox web browser speeds?

• Devices/Embedded

  • Is a $35 PC the Future of Computing?

    As the economy continues to recover, many companies are seeking ways to streamline efficiency without spending a fortune. One area of efficiency that has seen a significant boost recently is low cost computing.

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • US tablet ownership almost doubles over the holidays

    • Barnes & Noble to Offer Nook Discount to Subscribers of 2 Publications

      Barnes & Noble, in a move to increase sales of its Nook devices, will offer deep discounts on them to customers who also buy subscriptions to the Nook editions of People magazine or The New York Times, the retailer is expected to announce on Monday.

      The promotion, which will run through March 9, is also intended to have readers associate Nook devices not just with e-books, but with magazines and newspapers as well. Publishers of magazines, especially titles aimed at women, say that they have sold a surprisingly high number of subscriptions for magazines available on the Nook Color.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open source Malwr analysis launched

  A free web-based malware analysis tool powered by Shadowsever has launched this week that aims to shake-up vendor-controlled and proprietary systems.

  The tool, dubbed Malwr, is designed to provide security professionals with a free and customisable open source malware analysis tool.

• Free open source application developed for study of fluid dynamics

  “In engineering circles, the discipline is known as computational fluid dynamics,” noted research associate Francisco Palacios, who led the team. “Creating custom software applications to accurately model the interactions of an object in flight can take months, even years, to write and perfect. And yet, when the student graduates, the software is often forgotten.

• Google’s Android App Inventor Goes Open Source

  Google, along with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has decided to open source the Android App Inventor code

  The developers at MIT stated that for the time being the App Inventor will not accept any contribution made to the code, however, it will definitely do so in the near future. Also, there will be periodic updates to the system to keep it at par with what’s running on experimental MIT Systems.

• Open source ‘Malwr’ analysis tool launched

  A free web-based malware analysis tool powered by Shadowserver aims to shake up vendor-controlled and proprietary systems.

  The Malwr tool is designed to provide security professionals with a free and customisable, open-source tool.

• Web Browsers

  • Chrome

    • 6 Google Chrome remixes worth trying

      Once upon a time there was a browser named Firefox — an open source project that many people happily picked up and spun off into their own versions with names like Iceweasel and Pale Moon. Now the same thing has happened with Google Chrome. Its open source incarnation, Chromium, has become the basis for a slew of spinoffs, remixes, and alternative versions.

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox in 2012

      The first public version of the browser called “Firefox” — a 0.8 release, came out 8 years ago. With that release and the 1.0 release later that same year, we showed the world that browsers mattered.

      Innovative new features like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, spell-checking, integrated search, and browser add-ons, re-invigorated not just the browser market, but the entire Web. We put users in control of that mess of windows, and the horrible pop-ups from advertisers and malware makers. We made it simple for users to customize their experience and to find what they were looking for without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

• Business

  • yaSSL Marks Growth of Embedded SSL in Findings from 2011 Annual Report

    yaSSL, the open-source embedded SSL provider, celebrates the increased demand for its device encryption technology.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Crowdsourcing the State of the Union

  • State of the Union address to get crowdsourced captioning online

• Programming

  • make

Leftovers

• Nielsen’s report and Video on the Web

  In the United States, Nielsen has long been the main source of data for evaluating television shows and stations for advertisers. It’s considered a very reliable source. So their inclusion of data on web video watching habits in their 2011 report on the “The U.S. Media Universe” is a real boon to anyone planning to enter this field. It’s interesting to ask what are the consequences to free culture productions and the free software used for creation and consumption of video arts.

• Censorship

  • Georgia Lawmaker Looking To Make Photoshopping Heads On Naked Bodies Illegal

    Well, the Uptons are in luck. Sort of. The Agitator informs us that Georgia State Representative Pam Dickerson is looking to close this legal loophole by making it illegal to “intentionally cause an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction in such a manner that a reasonable person would conclude that the image depicted was that of the person so wrongfully identified.” This would include using a person’s name, telephone number, address or email address.

  • The Day the Internet Fought Back

    Last week’s Wikipedia-led blackout in protest of U.S. copyright legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being hailed by some as the Internet Spring, the day that millions fought back against restrictive legislative proposals that posed a serious threat to an open Internet. The protests were derided by critics as a gimmick, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes it is hard to see how the SOPA protest can be fairly characterized as anything other than a stunning success. Wikipedia reports that 162 million people viewed its blackout page during the 24-hour protest period. By comparison, the most-watched television program of 2011, the Super Bowl, attracted 111 million viewers.

  • Mobilizing the Public Against Censorship, 1765 and 2012

    Last week’s protests against two bills aiming to curb copyright infringement and piracy on the Internet were jarringly familiar to scholars of the American Revolution. After all, we’ve seen this narrative before. In seeking to solve a problem, legislators propose a bill that directly affects the flow of information. Those whose businesses would bear the brunt of the laws see it as a direct assault and mobilize in opposition. The public responds to the rhetoric, rallying behind the call to prevent censorship and protect the free exchange of information. The government backs down in the face of the outcry, but promises to revisit the underlying issues. That description of the Internet protests of 2012 echoes in unnerving detail the Stamp Act crisis of 1765, the moment when dissent against imperial control morphed into a Revolutionary movement.

  • Kingdom relieved after US internet law fails to pass

    The postponement of two US internet piracy bills last week was met with relief by human rights and media experts in Cambodia, who say the overreaching grasp of the proposed legislation would hinder the internet’s progress and growth in the Kingdom.

    The US House of Representative’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) had aimed to require that internet providers block access to websites accused of piracy and would criminalise the unlawful streaming of copyrighted material by domestic or foreign websites.

• Civil Rights

  • Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • New Market Research: Music Streaming Services Halve Illegal Downloads

      For a long time, the copyright industries have taken the position that they won’t launch new digital music services until piracy is “solved” – or at least punished. The inevitable consequence of that position is obvious to everyone outside the copyright industries – people turn to other, unauthorized sources to satisfy their musical needs. Fortunately, a few startups have launched pioneering digital music offerings and some, like Spotify, look like they might succeed.

    • MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren’t Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought

      Wow. Chris Dodd is not only an asshole, he’s a stupid, tone deaf asshole. And so are all the asshole Democrats who are on the wrong side of this issue because they want money from Hollywood. Guess what, Democrats? You’re finally starting to reclaim the populist mantle that could help you win back congress and keep the White House. You may want to, you know, get on the right side of public opinion you idiots.

    • Wil Wheaton Says Chris Dodd Is Lying About Lost Jobs; Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy

    • Do Pirate Sites Really Make That Much Money? Um… No

      One of the key refrains from the supporters of PIPA and SOPA in pushing for those bills was about how “foreign pirates” were profiting off of American industry. However, as we’ve suggested plenty of times in the past, there’s little evidence that there’s really that much money to be made running such sites. Even more amusing, of course, is that the MPAA/RIAA folks have to both argue that “people just want stuff for free,” and that these sites are raking in money from subscription fees at the same time — an internal contradiction they never explain. I’ve asked MPAA officials directly (including on stage at the Filmmaker’s Forum event last year) that if these lockers are really making so much money, why doesn’t Hollywood just set up their own and rake in all that cash. The only answer they give, which doesn’t actually answer the question, is that it’s cheaper for cyberlockers since they don’t pay royalties. But that’s got nothing to do with why the Hollywood studios don’t get this money for themselves. Of course, the real reason — somewhat implicit from the MPAA’s comments — is that it knows these sites don’t make that much money.

    • MPAA’s Chris Dodd & NATO’s John Fithian Face Sundance Wrath Over SOPA/PIPA

      The panel’s moderator called the MPAA and NATO to task for the legislation’s effective defeat: “You got your butt kicked.” It follows heavyweights like Google, Wikipedia, and thousands of websites joining forces and protesting what they claimed was a move to suppress free speech.

    • Senator Leahy Hands Republicans A Gift By Giving Them Credit For Delaying Vote On PIPA/SOPA

      We’ve noted how intellectual property issues are historically non-partisan. Sometimes, that’s good, because it means that debates on the issues don’t fall into typical brain dead partisan arguments. Sometimes, it’s bad, in that it basically means both Republicans and Democrats are generally really bad on IP issues… happy to give industries greater and greater monopoly rights for no good reason. However, we noted an interesting thing happening on the way to the collapse of PIPA and SOPA: the Republicans were first to come together as a party and decide to speak out against these bills, recognizing the groundswell of public interest. That resulted in Republican leadership coming out against the bills, and Republican Presidential candidates all rejecting the approach in the bill. The Democrats, who have traditionally been considered more “internet friendly,” simply couldn’t bring themselves to go against Hollywood and unions — two regular allies.

    • ACTA

      • What Is ACTA And Why Is It A Problem?

        Yesterday I noted that the anti-SOPA/PIPA crowd seemed to have just discovered ACTA. And while I’m pleased that they’re taking interest in something as problematic as ACTA, there was a lot of misinformation flowing around, so I figured that, similar to my “definitive” explainer posts on why SOPA/PIPA were bad bills (and the followup for the amended versions), I thought I’d do a short post on ACTA to hopefully clarify some of what’s been floating around.

        [...]

        In the meantime, for folks who are just getting up to speed on ACTA, you really should turn your attention to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), which is basically ACTA on steroids. It’s being kept even more secret than ACTA, and appears to have provisions that are significantly worse than ACTA — in some cases, with ridiculous, purely protectionist ideas, that are quite dangerous.

      • Poles Protest ACTA Online and on the Streets

        Hundreds of people waged a street protest in Warsaw on Tuesday to protest the government’s plan to sign an international copyright treaty, while several popular websites also shut down for an hour over the issue.

        Poland’s support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has sparked days of protest, including attacks on government sites, by groups who fear it could lead to online censorship.