10.15.11

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Kernel Space

  • The Most Successful Open Source Software in the History

    Reason of the first one: Linux + GNU = GNU/Linux. From Linus Torvalds declared in 1991 that he created new OS based on Minix kernel has now been close to 20 years. At that time, most of the web server is Linux system.

  • Answers to some common kernel.org account questions

• Applications

  • The Best Video Chat App for Linux

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to Protect your Mac & Linux Computers from Hacks by Creating an iptables Firewall

  • Games

    • Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle Breaks a Million

      A few other statistics of note: 231, 799 copies of the HFSB were purchased, roughly two-thirds of them by Windows gamers and the remainder split fairly evenly between the Mac and Linux crowds. Linux gamers paid the highest average price at $9.61, followed by Mac owners, who ponied up an average of $6.95, and finally the Windows cheapskates, who as usual brought up the rear with a sub-average $4.13.

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • KDE celebrates 15th birthday

• Distributions

  • Red Hat Family

    • The Best Video Chat App for Linux

    • Red Hat Takes Its Hat Off to Dennis Ritchie

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 11.10 released today, try it in your browser

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot is now available

        • Ubuntu unveils Oneiric Ocelot update

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Released

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Overview

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot – download live, any problems?

        • Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) released

        • +
          Ubuntu 11.10: A Linux Option for Cloud Services Providers?

          Canonical’s Ubuntu 11.10 debuted today. Best-known as a desktop Linux distribution, Ubuntu 11.10 also has server and cloud aspirations. Indeed, the Ubuntu Cloud Infrastructure effort now leverages OpenStack, LXC, Juju and multiple virtualization technologies. But will cloud services providers (CSPs) and channel partners embrace Ubuntu 11.10 for their public and private cloud efforts? Before you answer that question don’t forget that rival Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE and CloudLinux are working overtime on their own cloud initiatives.

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Released

        • Ubuntu 11.10, the Linux you’ve been waiting for

        • Linux Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” Available For Download

        • Canonical Lays Ubuntu Cloud Claim

        • Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot)

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Server tames cloud with Juju, Openstack, says review

          Ubuntu Server 11.10 is more compelling than as ever as a Linux distribution for cloud deployments, says this eWEEK Labs review. A lack of updated documentation and some other rough edges give pause, but the new Juju cloud deployment framework and tighter OpenStack integration should make “Oneiric Ocelot” a winner when it arrives in its LTS version in April.

        • Ubuntu Linux 11.10 is the “Oneiric Ocelot”

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Puppy Linux 5.2 Wary proves big operating systems come in small packages

            Ubuntu Linux may have grabbed a lot of headlines when version 11.10 was released earlier this week, but it’s not the only Linux-based operating system to get an overhaul this week. Today Puppy Linux 5.2 Wary was released.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Delta selects Sysgo’s ELinOS Linux product

    The R&D site in Bern develops power supplies for telecom applications. One of the modules developed in Bern is the control and supervision unit PSC 3. For several years, a commercial real time operating system is used. To prepare the upcoming extensions within the next generation of Telecom Power Supplies, Delta has decided to replace the operating system by Sysgo’s ELinOS.

  • Linux-based network camera design supports up to 1080p@60fps

    Nexvision announced a Linux-based network video camera reference design with remote accessa dn analytics based on the Texas Instruments 1GHz, DSP-enabled DM8148 DaVinci processor. The CAMSMOOV also integrates an FPGA, as well as a camera with up to four camera processing boards supporting up to 1080p@60fps H.264 video at up to 12 megapixels, plus sensors and a variety of wired and wireless I/O.

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Google and Samsung reschedule Android “Ice Cream Sandwich” event

        Google and Samsung have announced a new date and time for their joint Android event; the original event, which was scheduled to take place on 11 October, was postponed by the companies last week. According to AllThingsD, the joint event will now take place on 19 October at 10:00 am HKT (3:00 am BST) in Hong Kong, at its AsiaD conference.

      • Is Android’s bane a boon for Free Software?

        As Android began its remarkably rapid ascent to become the world’s leading smartphone operating system (depending on how and where you measure it), its “almost open” code was widely accepted as good enough, given that what we had before so was so much worse. The idea that a Linux-based offering could not only be taken seriously by ordinary users, but might actually beat everything else – even the near-mythic iPhone – seemed so extraordinary that we were willing to overlook those proprietary blobs floating around in the sea of otherwise free code.

        But as Android woes have mounted, and the spectre of a Microsoft tax being applied more and more widely has loomed ever larger, there is an interesting possibility: that people will start to think more seriously about creating truly free mobile phone stacks. There are already a number of attempts out there, in various stages of completion.

      • Motorola Droid RAZR Specs Said to be Faster Than the iPhone 4S

        A source of BGR has confirmed a few specs of a certain Droid device that Motorola and Verizon are rumored to be launching next Tuesday and they’re quite awesome. We’re still uncertain about the name but we do know that it will be one of the following names:

        * Droid HD
        * Droid RAZR
        * Droid Spyder

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • Latest ‘Cruz’ Honeycomb tablets start at $200

      Velocity Cruz has begun shipping two Android 3.2 tablets, dropping the price of the eight-inch, 800 x 600 Cruz T408 by $40 to $200 and selling the 10.1-inch, 1024 x 600 Cruz T410 for $300. Both the T408 and T410 are equipped with a 1GHz, Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, capacitive touchscreens, and front-facing cameras, says the company.

    • Motorola and Best Buy Announce the XOOM Media Edition

      We can’t say we didn’t see this coming after being leaked a while ago, but the exact specifications and details remained a mystery until todays announcement.

Free Software/Open Source

• “Open Source Gives Me High-Quality Solutions”

  Robert Lemke, lead developer of TYPO3 Phoenix, speaks on how open source has gradually come at par with commercial solutions, won over both government and private organisations and what problems it simultaneously needs to address. He also tells Linux For You, about introducing new techniques ‘Aspect-Oriented Programming’ and FLOW3 at the OSI Days in November.

• SaaS

  • Cloud, open source, and new network models: Part 1

    What is the network’s role in cloud computing? What are the best practices for defining and delivering network architectures to meet the needs of a variety of cloud workloads? Is there a standard model for networking in the cloud?

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Post-PC LibreOffice heads for Web, iOS, Android

  • LibreOffice To Go Online, Will Run On Android

  • OpenOffice.org “can’t be allowed to die”

    A major fundraising campaign is starting on 13 October to save the open source productivity suite OpenOffice.org. After splitting with Oracle, its the main sponsor, on 1 June the lead developers behind the software have issued a statement committing themselves to continuing as an association and financing itself through user donations.

• CMS

  • Agencies see advantages to open source content management systems

    Many people were terrified when the Commerce Department first considered moving to an open source content management system for its main website, the agency’s new media director said Thursday.

• Business

  • Diaspora Prepares to Launch Open Source Social Network

    Diaspora is most famous — that is, in the geeky contingents where it is known — for the promise it holds as a distributed, open source social network that allows users to control their own data. But 18 months after it began as a project on Kickstarter that attracted donors like Mark Zuckerberg, it has also won a reputation for more promise than delivery.

    After Diaspora emailed its users to ask them to donate this week, having published an expense report that showed its $200,000 in Kickstarter money had all been spent, some assumed the end was near.

  • eWEEK Readers Trust Open Source

    Two out of three readers use open source, but some of you don’t trust it. Next: choose a tablet for business!

  • Semi-Open Source

    • Q&A: NGINX’s Andrey Alexeev Discusses The Open Source Web Server

• Public Services/Government

  • Government of Paraguay Going to FLOSS in 2012

  • Paraguay aims to switch to open source software

• Programming

  • “Open Source Gives Me High-Quality Solutions”

    The Apache Subversion (SVN) open source version control system is out with its 1.7 release today. The new SVN 1.7 release adds new features such as HTTPv2 and WC-NG that improve performance and make version control more efficient for developers.

  • Key Milestones Over 10 Years of Eclipse

    As we get ready to celebrate 10 years of Eclipse, I thought it would be interesting to look back on the major milestones in the Eclipse community, ie. what were the major events that have helped shape and drive the Eclipse community. Here is my list but please feel free to add your own in the comments. We have also created a slide show of these milestones available at the end of the post.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Gate One brings open source SSH to HTML5 browsers

    Version 0.9 of Gate One, an open source terminal emulator for HTML5 web browsers, has been released. This is a beta level build – the first public release as the developer works towards a stable 1.0 version. The software makes use of WebSockets to connect a server backend written in Python and a frontend written for modern browsers in JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS. The frontend doesn’t require any browser plug-ins to be installed.

  • New ODF 1.2 format

    The latest Open Document Format, ODF 1.2, was finally approved by the OASIS committee. It is a major milestone, as the previous version (1.1) dates back to 2006. ODF is also a standard under the ISO committee, but in its even older 1.0 instantiation.

Leftovers

• Google Kills Open Source Code Search, Plus Kills Buzz

• Health/Nutrition

  • Children Gardening in Sewage Sludge: Los Angeles Schools Alerted

    This week, CMD’s new Food Rights Network sent letters to thirteen schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that have “organic” school gardens adopted by Hollywood’s Environmental Media Association (EMA). As we reported in May, EMA teamed up with sludge-marketing corporation Kellogg Garden Products, which sells products made from Los Angeles area industrial and human sewage sludge with the label “quality organics” and which used the gardens for photo ops with sludge products.

• Security

  • WineHQ database breached; Fedora Project forces password change

  • Linux System Hardening

• Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Progressive Group Pressures Major League Baseball To Drop Glenn Beck

• Finance

  • Protesters plan to ‘Occupy’ London, Rome, Auckland

    That’s the word going out on the Web to rally street protests on Saturday around the globe from New Zealand to London, Frankfurt and, of course, New York.

    Protesters got started early in Italy, where students managed to break into the hall of the Goldman Sachs building in the heart of Milan’s financial district, a few steps away from La Scala opera house, police said. The protesters were quickly dispersed.

• PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • ALEC Politicians Spin Special “Interest” Bill to Protect Corporate Wrongdoers as “Job Creation”

    For years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been itching to protect big corporations from high interest rates charged in cases where corporations have killed or injured Americans. Now, Wisconsin politicians serving on key ALEC task forces are pushing a bill embracing this idea as part of ALEC alumnus Scott Walker’s latest effort to force the ALEC agenda into law based on claims that doing so will help “job creators.”

  • Progressive Group Pressures Major League Baseball To Drop Glenn Beck

    The progressive group Americans United for Change is launching a campaign against Major League Baseball (MLB), pressuring the group to cut its ties to right-wing pundit Glenn Beck due to his history of controversial statements.

    Beck recently left his high-profile spot as a host on Fox News to launch his own online network, GBTV. This spring, MLB Advanced Media, the interactive arm of the MLB, teamed up with Beck and agreed to provide him with a streaming video platform. Along with Beck’s show, MLB Advanced Media streams more traditional sports fare, such as baseball games and March Madness.

• Civil Rights

  • The conference on Technological Surveillance and Free Software

    Yesterday I attended a conference titled “Technological Surveillance and Free Software”, which was organized by the School of Information Technologies of the university where I work. This activity was part of the actions to start the migration to FLOSS in the university.

    The speaker showed a clip from one newspaper displaying the headline “State institutions using more free software everyday”. This piece of news was published yesterday, too. That was something I did not expect!

• ACTA

  • The European Parliament services denied the existence of ACTA documents four times

    The European Parliament services denied the existence of INTA coordinators’ minutes (regarding ACTA) four times. Under EU law, Institutions can refuse access to documents in some cases. But EU law does not provide a possibility to deny or obfuscate the existence of documents. See our 5 October letter to the INTA secretariat.

  • FFII requests European Parliament’s Legal Services’ opinion on ACTA