07.14.10

Links 14/7/2010: Linux 2.6.35 Preview

Posted in News Roundup at 5:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications/Distros

    • 11 of the Best Free Linux Bibliography Tools

      Bibliographic software (also known as citation software or reference managers) plays a very important role in research. This type of software helps research to be published more quickly. Researchers amass a huge collection of bibliographic references which are pertinent to their field of research, and they need to cite relevant references in their published journal articles.

    • Master the Terminal With the Z Shell

      The Z Shell, zsh, is an advanced command interpreter for Linux and other Unix like operating systems. As a systems administrator, I’ve found that I spend almost all of my time in the shell, so spending some time customizing my environment really pays off. I started out on the Korn shell, ksh, and then moved on to bash, where I stayed for many years until discovering zsh. The list of features supported by zsh takes up several pages, but I have two favorites.

    • Simple Time Saving Scripts
    • Two Apps That Make Backup Less Chore, More Lifesaver

      Proper backups can mean the difference between a data disaster and a minor inconvenience. You don’t have to go to your file manager to drag and drop every bit of info you want to protect, though — there’s software to automate the process. Deja Dup and LuckBackup are two apps made just for that purpose — one for people who want to store the backup data locally, one for those who’d rather save off-site.

    • My Favorite 4 RSS Feed Reader Applications For Ubuntu

      A quick collection of my favorite RSS feed reader applications for Ubuntu desktop. Even though it is totally out of place in my Gnome desktop, Akregator is my favorite among the lot. But after exploring a bit further, I found feed readers like Yarssr really good and easy to use. So here is my list of favorite 4 feed reader applications for Ubuntu.

    • 8 Free Linux BitTorrent Clients For linux users

      BitTorrent is an open source peer-to-peer file protocol for sharing large software and media files. It is a well established protocol which accounts for a significant proportion of internet traffic. Many Linux companies rely on BitTorrent as a key method of distributing their software, relieving the bandwidth burden on their servers. Downloads get faster when there are lots of users downloading and sharing at once. So to provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 8 polished Linux BitTorrent clients. Hopefully,We think the software presented here represents the big players, and a wide range of interfaces and features.

    • Python Audio Tools, for the audio perfectionist

      Back in 2003, Minnesota developer Brian Langenberger began creating a set of labor-saving audio tools to convert FLAC files to MP3 files, MP3 files to WAV files, and other simple operations that were tiresome to do by hand. “They were for my own personal use, and limited in scope for a long time,” he recalls. But in 2006 Langenberger discovered the Construct Python library, which makes parsing and building binary files simple. “As my tools started to get more capable, I started to feel they were something other people might get some use out of.” In July 2007 he released the first public version of Python Audio Tools.

    • Instructionals

    • Reviews

      • Spotlight on Linux: Pardus Linux 2009.2

        Pardus Linux is one of those distributions that doesn’t get the attention it probably deserves. Pardus makes a wonderful desktop system for those that prefer ease of use. Available as an install image or live CD, it ships with lots of great applications, multimedia support, and browser plugins.

        The installer is as easy to use as any in Linux today. It’s your basic wizard-type, asking just a few questions before beginning. Users can choose between automatic or manual partitioning, but no package selection is necessary. Upon boot of the new Pardus system, a configuration wizard will appear allowing users to configure their mouse, set up themes and wallpapers, configure the network, use Smolt, and configure update and package preferences.

        [...]

        Advantages include an easy and attractive installer, complete system out of the box, and handy migration and customizing wizards. Disadvantages are harder to find, but perhaps their repositories aren’t as fully populated as some other distros. Otherwise, Pardus deserves its place right along side of other greats like Linux Mint, SimplyMepis, or PCLinuxOS.

    • New Releases

      • SystemRescueCd 1.5.6

        Gparted is a graphical tool for creating, deleting and copying partitions. Partimage is a tool that backs up entire partitions to a file on another disk. It’s about as a foolproof and complete a backup as you could make of a system partition, and if you’ve got the space, I’d recommend doing this before problems crop up. PhotoRec is a tool for the recovery of lost media such as photo, video and music data. It’s designed to work with a variety of media such as memory cards and PDAs and phones. ClamAV is an anti-virus program that can scan Windows file systems.

      • Parted Magic 5.0 Released, Powered by Linux Kernel 2.6.34.1

        Patrick Verner announced a few minutes ago (July 12th) the immediate availability of the new and major version of his popular Parted Magic operating system. Parted Magic 5.0 comes now with Linux kernel 2.6.34.1, GParted 0.6.1, Xorg Server 1.7.7, support for the French, German, Norwegian, Italian, Russian and Brazilian languages, a few updated packages, as well as some bug fixes and improvements. Parted Magic is an operating system created to help users easily partition their hard drives or perform various recovery tasks.

    • Fedora

      • Fedora 14 Theme Preview

        At last week’s design team meeting, we made a decision about the direction of the overall theme for Fedora 14′s artwork, which will affect – among other things – the default wallpaper. We decided on Kyle Baker’s submission, a Blender-created mockup depicting many lines coming together to form a solid figure, to serve as the basis of the visual concept of Fedora 14.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • 5 things to look forward to in Ubuntu 10.10

        Maverick Meerkat, the version of Ubuntu slated to be released later this year, brings with it several features and improvements that the Linux community has been eagerly looking forward to. I’ve taken a look at the blueprints for this next release, and picked out a few of the major items that Linux end-users will be interested in. Here are 5 things to look forward to in Ubuntu 10.10:

        1. Software Center enhancements

        A major focus of Ubuntu 10.10 is improving the software center, addressing many of the usability problems that have been sources of complaints in the past. Among these changes are:
        * Better Search

        I’ve heard this complaint quite a bit, including in the comments of my article covering things new Linux users need to know.

      • Ubuntu 10.10 Will Have a Revamped Installer

        Last week, we had the pleasure of talking to Evan Dandrea, Software Engineer on the Foundations Team at Canonical, about the upcoming installer of the Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system. Evan Dandrea is the creator of the Migration Assistant functionality in the Ubuntu installer (Ubiquity) and also co-maintainer of Ubiquity and maintainer of the USB Startup Disk Creator application.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • MeeGo keynote address at Akademy 2010

      To say you are “redefining the Linux desktop landscape” is a bold claim to make. It is even bolder when presenting a non-KDE project at the annual conference of KDE, one of the leading providers of desktop Linux software. However, that was exactly how Valtteri Halla, Director of Nokia MeeGo Software chose to title his keynote address.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Happy birthday, Open Source – you’re legal now

    Today is a landmark in open source history, the unofficial birthday of the movement. On this day, in 1992, version 0.1 of 386BSD (you might know it as Jolix) was released.

    Now, some might say March was the true birthdate, as that was the original release of 386BSD, version 0.0. Others point to Unix as laying the true foundation for Linux, which many credit for truly launching the open source revolution.

  • What FOSS communities can look like from the outside

  • Business

    • SugarCRM 6 Debuts with Open Source and Commercial Features

      After four months of beta availability and testing, SugarCRM today officially announced the general availability of its Sugar 6 CRM customer relationship management platform. Sugar 6 includes an open source community edition as well as commercially licensed professional and enterprise editions.

      With Sugar 6, SugarCRM is expanding its partnership base with enhanced extensibility that enables partner solutions. There is a new user interface that aims to make CRM users more productive with fewer keystrokes. While the Sugar 6 solution has open source technology at its core, users that download the open source community edition will get a different interface than users of the commercial professional and enterprise editions. For SugarCRM, the issue of being an open source company is all about being open to users.

      “As an open source project, we’ve given people a lot, and Community edition has helped us to get where we are today,” Martin Schneider, senior director of communications at SugarCRM, told InternetNews.com.

    • Has SugarCRM Violated Open Source Principles?

      The argument that SugarCRM is involved with now is very similar to the one that surrounds open core, where parts of an otherwise purely open project are not so open, with commercial interests driving the hybrid approach. Our own John Mark Walker wrote an interesting essay on open core here. And I defended the open core approach here.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Open source celebrity to visit Oz

      Stallman also founded the associated Free Software Foundation in the mid-1980′s and is the original author of a bunch of popular software projects — such as the Emacs text editor (although it does far more than that) and the GNU Compiler Collection.

      The Australian Computer Society has a listing on its events page detailing Stallman’s talk planned at UNSW’s Clancy Auditorium on Monday, 11 October, from 6pm. The event is being supported by National ICT Australia.

  • Project Releases

  • Government

    • UK government workers say dump Microsoft for open source

      USE OPEN SOURCE is UK government officials’ answer to Prime Minister David Cameron’s request for ideas to cut expenses, suggesting that the civil service stop buying Microsoft software in favour of free alternatives.

      Last month Cameron asked more than a half million UK government workers for cost-cutting suggestions to help trim Britain’s looming fiscal deficit. Over 56,000 ideas were submitted and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne published a sample of them on Friday 9 July.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Author Puts Novel Online For Free… And Gets A Book Deal
    • Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency

      Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network based digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. Advantages:

      * Transfer money easily through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen.
      * Third parties can’t prevent or control your transactions.
      * Bitcoin transactions are practically free, whereas credit cards and online payment systems typically cost 1-5% per transaction plus various other merchant fees up to hundreds of dollars.
      * Be safe from the instability caused by fractional reserve banking and bad policies of central banks. The limited inflation of the Bitcoin system’s money supply is distributed evenly (by CPU power) throughout the network, not monopolized by the banks.

    • Open Data

    • Open Hardware

      • ACTA briefing by De Gucht in the European Parliament

        This blog is the infoHQ for an open source hardware conference that we, Bug Labs, MakerFaire and littleBits will be hosting in NYC on September 23 called the Open Hardware Summit. We are incredibly excited by the opportunity to make it happen and look forward to telling you all about it.

        When I was growing up, Popular Science was my favorite magazine and Heathkits were my favorite toy. Building, modding, breaking, creating things in a haze of solder smoke pretty much defines a good portion of my childhood. In fact, I’m convinced that one of the reasons I got into college is I was able to show off the polyphonic synthesizer I designed and built using scrap parts from the Moog factory down the street. Hardware was fun.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Point and click GUIs: why are we still stuck with them?

    Even a good smartphone can make the PC feel clumsy; I often prefer reading emails on mine. Replying to them is out of the question, but as a viewing device it’s very pleasant and provides temporary relief from what is becoming an overly familiar and oppressive desktop computing experience.

  • Gadgets and conflict minerals: tech companies can do more to avoid enabling human rights abuses in DRC

    Global Witness has issued a report with guidance for gadget makers on how to avoid supporting violence and human rights abuses when sourcing minerals from “conflict sources.”

  • Google Says That Employees Change Search Rankings

    I’ve known about this for several years but wasn’t able to get anyone from Google on the record. These Google employees have the power to promote or even completely erase a site from the Google index.

    This admission is potentially a very large problem for Google because it has maintained that its index rankings are unbiased and are computed from a natural pecking order derived from how other sites find a specific site important.

    The Google algorithm is a mathematical expression drawing on the PageRank patented method (named after Larry Page, co-founder). It counts how many links to a web site come from other web sites and determines the importance of that web site for millions of search terms. These rankings are worth huge amounts of money to many web sites and changes in rankings can put companies out of business.

  • Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers

    The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.

  • If We Ban Violent Video Games, Why Not Violent Theme Park Attractions?

    I’m hoping to get some input from readers as I look to finish up an amicus brief for the forthcoming Schwarzenegger v. EMA video game case. (Respondent briefs are due in mid-Sept and the State of California just filed its brief with the Court today). You will recall that the Supreme Court accepted the case for review in April, meaning it will be the first major case regarding video game speech rights heard by our nation’s highest court. It raises questions about the First Amendment status of games and what rights minors have to buy or play “violent” video games. One section I hope to include in the brief I’m working on deals with how other forms of media content are increasingly intertwined with video game content. In it, I explain how video games are less of a discreet category of visual entertainment than they once were. I’d welcome ideas for other examples to use relative to the ones you see below.

  • Science

    • Antidepressants in the water are making shrimp suicidal

      Improving human mental health is having some serious unintended consequences for our friends in the ocean. Exposure to antidepressants makes shrimp five times more likely to place themselves in life-threatening situations, and the broader effects could damage the entire ecosystem.

  • Security/Aggression

    • Barefoot Bandit’s 2-year run from law is over

      The teenage “Barefoot Bandit” who allegedly stole cars, boats and airplanes to dodge U.S. law enforcement was nabbed Sunday as he tried to make a water escape then brought handcuffed — and shoeless — to the capital to face justice, abruptly ending his two-year life on the lam.

  • Environment

    • The Food Bubble

      In 2008, the soaring cost of basic foods sparked riots and civil unrest across many of the poorest countries in the world. At first it was thought that food production wasn’t keeping pace with an exploding world population, or that the large scale production of bio-fuels was a factor, or the rising cost of oil which increased the cost of fertilisers. But an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation revealed that the year before, grain harvests were at record levels, and that there was more than enough food to feed everybody in the world. So could this happen again?

  • Finance

    • Seduced by Data in the Financial Industry

      In the last decades of the 20th Century, Wall Street developed what they thought were sophisticated statistical tools that allowed them to accurately estimate the riskiness of complex portfolios without firsthand knowledge of the underlying assets. For example, as banks got larger, they increasingly relied on numerical standards like income and credit scores, rather than more subjective personal factors, to decide which loans to approve. This made a certain amount of sense because as banks got larger, it became more important to have consistent standards across the organization.

    • Ludwig von Mises and the Magic of Financial Reports

      Financial results are also difficult to interpret because firms operate in a dynamic and unpredictable marketplace. Suppose a company’s widget division lost money last quarter. One plausible explanation is that the guy in charge of the widget division was incompetent and should be replaced. But there are other possibilities. Maybe the price of widgets collapsed, and the widget division would have lost even more money if not for the hard work of its management. Or maybe the division’s expenses are up because it’s spending money on developing an improved widget that will sell like hotcakes next quarter. There’s no way to distinguish among these cases (or many others) simply by examining the company’s books. You have to actually spend time understanding the business and its place in the larger marketplace.

  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • China’s plan to use internet for propaganda

      The Chinese Communist Party has detailed its ambitious but secretive strategy for transforming the internet into a force for keeping it in power and projecting ”soft power” abroad.

      An internal speech by China’s top internet official, apparently posted by accident on an official internet site before being promptly removed, outlines a vast array of institutions and methods to control opinion at home and also ”create an international public opinion environment that is objective, beneficial and friendly to us”.

    • China Green Dam web filter teams ‘face funding crisis’

      Reports from China say a controversial government-backed software project to filter internet content could be on the brink of collapse.

      State media said the developer behind the Green Dam Youth Escort software had closed its Beijing project team because of a lack of government funding.

    • New Massachusetts law extends censorship to IM, e-mail, Web

      It has long been illegal in Massachusetts to provide minors with “matter harmful to minors” under the state’s “Crimes against chastity, morality, decency, and good order” law. The law targets obscenity, but only its physical forms, which makes it easier to enforce. When little Johnny steps inside the adult video store, clerks can check his ID before selling him that DVD of industrial sexuality. And anyone trying show hardcore porn to a 13-year old knows exactly what they’re doing, and who they’re doing it to.

    • Italy: UN rights expert calls for scrapping of draft wiretapping law

      An Italian draft law on surveillance and eavesdropping for criminal investigations could jeopardize the work of journalists and threaten their freedom of expression, a United Nations independent human rights expert said today, calling for the abolition or revision of the bill.

      According to the current draft, anyone not accredited as a professional journalist can be imprisoned for up to four years for recording any communication or conversation without the consent of the person involved and for publicizing that information.

    • U.S. eavesdropping agency says Private Citizen is purely R&D

      A contract has been awarded for research to help counter computer-based threats to national-security networks, the chief U.S. code-cracking and eavesdropping agency said, amid mounting concern over cyber vulnerabilities.

    • Colombian journalist denied entry into US

      The Obama Administration has denied Colombian journalist Hollman Morris entry into the United States, citing violation of the “terrorist activities” section of the USA’s Patriot Act. Morris was attempting to obtain a visa to attend Harvard University’s Nieman Program, which is a fellowship for journalists.

    • Child protection campaigners claim hollow victory over Facebook

      Child safety campaigners are claiming victory over Facebook in their battle to publish a “panic button” on the dominant social network, but the agreed system falls short of their original demands in one crucial aspect.

    • Blizzard Changes ID Plans After Privacy Outcry

      Activision Blizzard abandons plans to take anonymity away from users of its online forums for computer games because of an outcry over user privacy.

    • Wikileaks Cash Flows In, Drips Out

      Fulda said Wikileaks can’t depend indefinitely on drastic measures, such as taking down the site, to raise funds. Nor can it depend on receiving a constant stream of high-profile submissions, like the Iraq video, to bring it attention and entice donations. Ultimately, it will need to find a new model for funding to sustain itself.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Who Owns the Korean Taco?

    • Copyrights

      • UK Newspapers Point Out That Prince’s Anti-Internet Crusade Makes No Sense

        We’ve already discussed Prince’s bizarre anti-internet stance, and it seems that it’s left an awful lot of people scratching their heads. As his latest album was released only via the UK newspaper, The Mirror, this past Saturday, the UK press is pointing out how this plan will backfire. Now, some will immediately dismiss these articles as complaints from competing newspapers who were not the go to offering for the latest Prince album. But their arguments do make sense. The Telegraph points out that, this anti-internet crusade seems like a huge commercial blunder, as most people will end up getting the album in ways that don’t benefit Prince directly, even though he easily could have set things up to gain some of the benefit.

      • The ASCAP example: How news organizations could liberate content, skip negotiations, and still get paid
      • Geo-Blocking Sites a Business Rather Than Legal Issue

        The Internet was once viewed as a “borderless” world that had little regard for the physical location of users. That sentiment likely seems outdated today to many Canadian Internet users who have grown accustomed to clicking on links for audio or video services only to be advised that the content, site or service is not available in their area.

        My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that “geo-blocking” has become standard practice among broadcasters, sports leagues, and music services that use technologies to identify the likely location of an Internet user in real-time and block the content in some circumstances. From World Cup broadcasts to Hulu.com (a popular U.S. video site) to Spotify (a European music service), Canadians often find themselves unable to access content and unsure who is to blame.

      • Judge Says Damages In Tenenbaum Case Were ‘Unconstitutionally Excessive’

        As you probably recall, the judge in the Thomas case reduced the $1.92 million award to $54,000 (or $2,250 per song) and today comes the news that Judge Gertner in the Tenenbaum case has declared the original damages award to be “unconstitutionally excessive” and slashed the total by 90% down to $67,500.

      • Should the Music Industry Pay ISPs for Piracy?

        In the wake of its “success” in pushing through Digital Economy Act, the British music industry is hoping to move on to the next stage: using it as a lever to get more money out of the system (even though the music industry is currently thriving).

        The UK royalties collector PRS For Music has just published a rough blueprint [.pdf] for how this might be done, entitled: “Moving Digital Britain Forward, without leaving Creative Britain behind”. It’s a fascinating document, and merits close reading.

      • ASCAP’s Dust-Up With Creative Commons Borders On the Ridiculous

        The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has, for a long time now, failed to realize that music and other artistic works need new business models surrounding them, not lobbyists and lawsuits. That’s why it’s a shame to be seeing them targeting Creative Commons, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other organizations that ASCAP sees as defenders of the “copyleft” movement. The language found in a new letter supporting ASCAP’s Legislative Fund for the Arts (ALFA) tells the whole story.

      • RIAA: Lime Wire hid cash to avoid paying damages

        In court papers last week, the Recording Industry Association of America once again asked the court to freeze Lime Wire’s and Gorton’s assets. The trade group for the four largest record companies alleged in a copyright complaint filed in 2006 that Gorton had for five years placed his assets in a trust that he, his wife, and two children control in an attempt to put the money out of reach of any court.

      • Second salon hit with fine to play radio

        A second Preston hairdresser has been hit with a bill for having a radio on while giving customers a cut.

        Sarah Shaw, who lives on Birkdale Drive, Savick, received a bill for £341.34 from music royalties collector Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) for playing the radio in her salon on the estate and then, just three days later, got hit with a £170.68 fine for failing to pay.

      • Looking More Closely At Judge Gertner’s Constitutional Analysis Of Copyright Awards In Tenenbaum Case

        In it, she clearly explains why the Constitutional analysis was necessary (she could have just reduced the award using the remittitur process, but noted that the RIAA made it clear they would challenge such a ruling, and thus it would eventually come around to the Constitutional questions no matter what.

      • RIAA boss Bainwol paid $2 million in 2008

        No wonder RIAA boss Mitch ‘The Don’ Bainwol is smiling in the pic on the right.

        According to IRS figures, in 2007 he was paid $1,485,000 for his services. But by 2008, the amount had rocketed — to $2,032,072, to be exact.

      • Yet More Lawyers Jump on Turn Piracy Into Profit Bandwagon

        As the U.S. struggles with the prospect that thousands of file-sharers will receive threatening letters in the now-famous Hurt Locker lawsuit case, over the pond in the UK there is a continuing escalation of the ‘turn piracy into profit’ bandwagon. A new firm of lawyers has entered the market and while their business model appears identical, they are attempting to sugar-coat their actions.

      • ACTA/Three Strikes

        • ACTA briefing by De Gucht in the European Parliament

          This week, the European Commission conducted two briefings for members of the European Parliament.

          On Monday, July 12, members of the European Parliament’s INTA Committee (Committee on International Trade) were briefed by EU ACTA negotiators Luc Devigne and Pedro Valesco in a private, closed meeting.

        • French legislators have second thoughts on three strikes law

          Are the French legislators who passed the country’s tough new “three strikes” Internet disconnection law having second thoughts? Le Figaro caught up last week with Jean-François Copé, a leading member of the ruling right-leaning UMP party that wrote and supported the “Création et Internet” law passed last year. Copé helped rally support for the bill after it failed its first vote in the National Assembly because most UMP deputies had actually left the chamber without voting.

        • New ACTA leak: 2010 07 13 consolidated text (Luzern round)

          Here is the full consolidated text of the ACTA agreement, dated July 1st 2010. This is the full text from the Luzern round of negotiations, including the name of the negotiating parties along with their positions. It apparently comes from the civil liberties committee (LIBE) of the European Parliament.

      • Digital Economy (UK)

        • Lords set sights on Digital Economy Act review

          The Digital Economy Act could be reviewed by the House of Lords next year, if peers are given the right to scrutinise legislation after it has been passed into law.

          On Monday, the leader of the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde, announced a review of the house’s working practices that includes a proposal to give peers powers of post-legislative scrutiny. Legislation in the United Kingdom generally gets examined by the Lords before it goes to the Commons, which in turn passes it into law.

Clip of the Day

CLUG Talk – 12 Feb 2008 – UPSs (apcupsd and nut) (2008)


Links 14/7/2010: GNU/Linux Market Surge

Posted in News Roundup at 4:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Russian state-OS based on Linux

    According to the publication “Kommersant”, the state enterprise “Russian Technologies” has almost completed the acquisition of shares LLC Alt Linux. This Russian company is developing software based on Linux. Interestingly, at the same time the Russian investment fund NGI acquired stake in Mandriva, the initiative is approved by the adviser to the Russian president Leonid Reiman. According to Kommersant, the result of both of these projects could be the creation of an operating system focused on the Russian public sector.

  • In Karjan, students already work on Linux

    Gujarat government is gearing up to use Linux operating system in schools in the state, but a city-based foundation has been teaching use of this system to students in Karjan for the last one year now. Schools in this block of Vadodara district were given computers with Linux by the state government, but they did not have teachers acquainted with it. That’s when Cosmo Foundation (CF) extended a helping hand by providing teachers as well as teaching materials to schools in Karjan block.

    Presently, the foundation is working with six schools in Karjan to help students gain expertise in using Linux. They plan to extend the help to other schools in the block.

    “We were working in the block for the last two years with the aim to strengthen education in government grant-in-aid schools. When state government donated computers and Linux system to schools in Karjan in September most of the schools could not make use of it as they did not have computer teachers,” said programme co-ordinator Mamta Baxi from CF.

  • Linux Market Share At A Record High

    The W3S stats for last month (June) show the Linux market share at 4.8%. Sure, it’s not 100% accurate but it’s nevertheless impressive. The stats only include internet-connected computers (desktops only – servers are not included in these stats) but since there is a fairly big number of computer using Linux which are not connected to the internet, the number may actually be pretty close to the actual Linux market share.

  • PulseAudio: Monitoring your Line-In Interface

    At home, my setup consists of three machines – a laptop, a PC, and an XBOX 360. The latter two share a set of speakers, but I hate having to climb under the desk to switch the cables around, and wanted a better way to switch them back and forth. My good friend Tyler B suggested that I run the line out from the XBOX into the line-in on my sound card, and just let my computer handle the audio in the same way that it handles music and movies. In theory, this works great. In practice, I had one hell of a time figuring out how to force the GNOME sound manager applet into doing my bidding.

  • Linux: 100% “Try before you buy” — for free

    Since you don’t really have to buy Linux, the heading can be misleading. But we’ve all heard of the statement that somebody might want to “try” something, before they “buy” it. This is where Linux excels over other operating systems like Windows. When have you ever been able to try out Windows, before you decide whether you want to upgrade or keep it?

    Most Linux distributions today have a “Live CD”, which is a complete running version of the distribution that can run from a CD. This means, you can take a PC currently running Windows, stick in a Live CD of any Linux distribution (Fedora, Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu), boot to the CD and see how it runs on your system. This also gives you the opportunity to open up some of the applications bundled with the distribution, and should even give you access to your Windows partitions (since Linux can open partitions of many different types). It’s a great way to test drive everything, if you are considering installing Linux on your PC.

  • Computer Paranoia

    And, once you get hit, well, that’s the end of the show. Recovery can be painful and you have a lot to lose. Your valuable information gets compromised because, if they stumble, technicians (at least in my country) will always end up formatting your HD… Thus, you pay them for destroying your data! I’m pretty sure that some of them know that Linux can solve your problems but, obviously, they won’t tell you.

    [...]

    Do you want a real solution for those problems? Then go to this page and read carefully. Yes, Portable Linux IS the answer.

  • Server

    • SMBs fuel Linux adoption in India

      Windows is still the server platform of choice in India but enterprises, especially small and midsize businesses (SMBs), are increasingly favoring the Linux operating system, according to a new report Monday by Springboard Research.

    • Linux supercomputer, worth £2m, sought by University of Warwick

      The University of Warwick is tendering for a new Linux-based High Performance Computing facility for its research Centre for Scientific Computing (CSC).

      A “significant” share of the new facility will be used for research in the field of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD – the study of the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids such as plasma and metal liquids), to support the computational requirements of the UK MHD research community. The facility will also be used to support research from other disciplines at the university.

      The centre is looking for a facility that is a Linux cluster comprised of multi-core nodes interconnected at high-bandwidth and low-latency. It will also have an attached high-performance storage and parallel file system.

    • Linux spreading, but Windows Server still rules in India

      The use of Linux as a server operating system in India is growing, with SMEs leading the way. But Windows – specifically Windows Server 2003 – still holds the lion’s share of the market.

  • Audiocasts

  • Ballnux

    • Change in openSUSE Membership handling

      Anyone can become openSUSE member after showing continued and substantial contribution to the project of any kind (bugs, support in forums, wiki edits, code contribution etc.). For those who don’t know what openSUSE Membership is or how to become a member I suggest to read this wiki article or older blogpost by Andreas.

  • Graphics Stack

    • xorg 1.8

      Upgrading to xorg-server with USE=-hal appeared to make things run a tad faster.
      However, some really strange behavior with keypress events started to occur. I tried several different variants for keyboard layout, setting special keys etc but I still got stuff like “right ctrl is return” or “arrow down inserts a space and line down”.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

      • KDE e.V. Quarterly Reports Relaunched

        KDE e.V. is the legal body which holds our finances and represents the project in a range of issues. Our Quarterly Reports have restarted with a special bumper issue covering 2009 Q2 to 2010 Q1. It covers the many sprints which e.V. organises for our contributors to get together in person with their KDE teams. It also covers events e.V. has helped KDE to attend and the working groups it oversees.

      • Last Days at Akademy 2010

        On Thursday, we enjoyed another of those great Akademy traditions – the day trip. For those who don’t know, each year Akademy visitors are taken by the local team on a trip for some relaxation and a taste of local culture. This year two buses took us 15 kilometers outside of Tampere – to a place in the woods. After a little walk, we ended up at a beautiful lake where we found a chalet with a few volunteers cooking food for us. A second chalet housed a traditional wood-fired sauna. There was also a camp fire so we could prepare our own food.

      • Akademy 2010 in the News

        Popular Linux and BSD distribution tracking website DistroWatch has a report on Nokia’s keynote presentation at this year’s Akademy conference. The report covers the views of Valtteri Halla (Nokia’s Director of MeeGo Software) on how MeeGo will succeed by working with communities such as KDE. It also reports on how KDE’s Plasma framework shares many goals with MeeGo, particularly the use of a single codeset across many applications and has news of early ports of KDE software to mobile devices.

      • Classy Stickers for digiKam Lovers Giveaway

        Using open source software? Then we have something for you. In collaboration with the open source community, we’ve designed some classy stickers you can use to spice up your notebook or netbook and show the world your support for open source software. The stickers are based on some original designs, so you won’t find them anywhere else.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • New Releases Of GTK+, Mutter, GNOME Shell

        In preparation for the latest GNOME 3.0 development snapshot due to arrive on Wednesday (tagged as GNOME 2.31.5), a wealth of GNOME packages are being checked-in for this unstable milestone. Among the packages to have been checked-in for this milestone are new releases of GTK+ 3.0, GNOME Shell, and Mutter.

  • Distributions

    • Kongoni Linux- Another slackware based linux distribution

      Kongoni GNU/Linux is a Slackware-based, desktop-oriented GNU/Linux distribution and live CD. Its main features include a graphical installer, a Kongoni Integrated Setup System (KISS), and an easy-to-use Ports Installation GUI (PIG). The distribution’s package management borrows its main concepts from BSD ports, with an intuitive graphical package installer that compiles and installs programs from source code on the user’s system. Kongoni, which means gnu (also known as wildebeest) in Shona, includes only software that complies with Free Software Foundation’s definition of software freedom.

    • Zenwalk Internet Cafe Edition 2.2 Released

      The Zencafe Community proudly announced last evening, July 12th, the immediate availability for download of the new and improved Zencafe 2.2 operating system designed to be used in Internet Cafes. Being based on the newly released Zenwalk 6.4 Linux distribution, Zencafe is powered by Linux kernel 2.6.33.4 and includes some popular bleeding-edge applications, such as Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6 or Pidgin 2.7.1. For Yahoo! fans, Zencafe also includes the GYachE Improved instant messenger, which offers webcam support for the Yahoo Messenger protocol. The minimum requirements for Zencafe are a Pentium III class processor, 128 MB of system RAM and at least 4 GB hard drive free space.

    • Testing Sabayon, Get Involved

      A quick little guide on helping and getting involved with the future releases of Sabayon. I know and see people asking what they can do to be more involved in Sabayon. If you have some experience, time and capabilities, you can help test the weekly iso images or add the entropy limbo repository and test packages. I wouldn’t recommend this for or on your production system. You can and will run into broken stuff, but that is the fun in testing! I like to use rsync as it saves on bandwidth of having to re-download the entire ISO. With rsync you only download the changes. So how does one do this you may ask. It’s pretty easy, find a mirror on our download page that supports rsync.

    • Reviews

    • New Releases

      • Minimalist Linux distro rev’d to version 3.0

        Team Tiny Core announced the first release candidate for version 3.0 of its small-footprint, in-memory Linux desktop distribution. Tiny Core Linux 3.0 RC1 advances to Linux 2.6.33.3, and offers improved compressed swap in RAM, a 64-bit version, enhanced virtualization, and the Ext4 file-system, says the project.

      • Unity Linux 2010 Final Released!

        The Unity Linux project is pleased to announce the final 2010 release. Check the Downloads page to get the 32 bit and 64 bit LiveCDs.

      • NuTyX 10072010
      • Parted Magic 5.0
      • Release Zencafe 2.2

        This Zencafe version utilizes the latest Zenwalk distro and kernel 2.6.33.4. Mainly design to use for Internet Cafe desktop, Zencafe polished in many ways and easy enough to operated, even for no technical background user. Included autorecovery and internet cafe management software, Zencafe is the best and the first Linux solution that suitable for your internet cafe.

      • ULTILEX – The Ultimate Linux Experience version 10.7 is released!
      • Security expert releases Ubuntu Linux distro for malware analysis

        A security consultant has released a Ubuntu-based Linux distribution specifically designed to help analyze and re-engineer malware. Lenny Zeltser on Thursday released REMnux on Sourceforge and it has already been downloaded nearly 2,000 times.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • PCLinuxOS 2010.07 KDE Screenshots

        PCLinuxOS 2010.07 has been released in several different flavors. KDE, GNOME, LXDE, and XFCE flavors are now available for download or purchase. I have reviewed and taken screenshots of each new PCLinuxOS 2010.07 flavor and will be releasing them here over the next four days. Today is the default KDE flavor but first, here are some standout features that all flavors have in common. PCLinuxOS 2010.07 Standout Features: The Linux Kernel 2.6.33.5, Nvidia and ATI fglrx driver support, multimedia support, Addlocale providing support for over 60 languages, easy OpenOffice installation and MyLiveCD which lets you take a snapshot and burn to CD. For a complete list of features visit the official release announcement.

      • Review – Mandriva 2010 Spring KDE – With Screenshots

        Mandriva 2010 Spring KDE4 – Very good.

    • Red Hat Family

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Speed up your Ubuntu machine boot time

        Are you desperately searching for ways to finally reach that elusive 10 second boot time? You certainly heard that Ubuntu 10.04 has the capability of doing just that right? It can…but you have to help it along. One of the ways you can help your boot time is removing unnecessary services and drivers that are loaded at boot time. Fortunately, this isn’t something you have to manually do. How is this? There is a tool that can help the Grub boot loader learn what it is you need at start up. This tool is called profile.

      • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Linux-ready COM Express module uses QorIQ SoCs

      Emerson Network Power is shipping what it claims are the first COM Express modules based on Freescale Semiconductor’s multicore, PowerPC-based QorIQ processors. The COMX-P2020 and COMX-P4080 employ dual-core QorIQ P2020 and eight-core QorIQ P4080 system-on-chips, respectively, offering both a wide variety of interfaces and Linux BSPs, says the company.

    • GUI development platform supports embedded Linux targets

      Blue Water Embedded announced a royalty-free graphical user interface (GUI) development framework for embedded devices, including those running Linux. The Prism Runtime Framework is a cross-platform GUI toolkit that incorporates Prism Micro, a GUI toolkit for constrained color-depth targets, and Prism Insight, a Linux-compatible desktop GUI design and resource editing tool, says the company.

    • Cortex-A8 module gets camera upgrade

      E-con Systems has announced a five-megapixel camera add-on designed to work with Linux and the Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP35x evaluation module (EVM). The e-CAM50_OMAP35x snaps onto the EVM board and connects to the OMAP35x’s high-speed CMOS sensor interface, providing 720p video capture as well as stills, the company says.

    • NAS devices stream content to TiVo DVRs

      At the time of writing, NetGear had yet to respond to our request for information on the embedded operating system running on its new ReadyNAS Ultra systems. However, previous ReadyNAS devices, such as the ReadyNAS Pro, have run on embedded Linux.

      Netgear acquired the ReadyNAS line in 2007 when it bought Infrant for $60 million. ReadyNAS devices have previously run an Infrant-developed Linux distribution called RAIDiator.

    • Wind River

      • Wind River preps secure, EAL4+-compliant Linux distro

        A specialized, hardened version of Wind River Linux, Wind River Linux Secure is expected to be available in the first half of 2011, pending certification completion, says the Intel subsidiary. Once certified for EAL4+, Wind River Linux Secure would conform to NIAP’s General Purpose Operating System Protection Profile, says the company. Atsec Information Security has been chosen by Wind River as its Common Criteria Test Lab to conduct the independent evaluation of Wind River Linux Secure, says the company.

      • Wind River ships testing framework for Android

        Wind River FAST provides thousands of Wind River-authored automated tests designed to evaluate an open-source-based device, says Wind River. The framework appears to be based in part on the Linux-ready Wind River Test Management (WRTM) software.

    • Tablets

      • Tablets: The Next Big Open Source Opportunity?

        All of a sudden, tablet computers are all the rage, with Apple’s iPad stoking the fire. But Apple is hardly going to compete unchallenged in the tablet space. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claims that his company is “hardcore” about tablets, and is working with Asus, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony before the end of the year. Ballmer demonstrated an HP slate at the Consumer Electronics Show in January as well. One has to wonder if the real opportunity in tablets lies on the open source front, though.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source growing quickly

    A recent study conducted by market research firm Accenture found open sourcetechnology has become the preferred method of website development and software for most companies. In fact, 40 percent of organizations surveyed plan to increase their use of open source technology by moving away from traditional software in the next 12 months.

  • Web Browser Grand Prix 2: The Top 5 Tested And Ranked
  • OSCON: Will Health Care Partners Embrace Open Source?

    The health care sector is set for a technology-driven transformation as the federal government pushes adoption of electronic health records and pursues national health information exchange. Hardly surprising, the Open Source Convention (OSCON) has a health care track that will focus on open EHR/EMR software and the government’s standards-based Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) among other topics. What’s in it for VARs? Here are some clues.

  • VC funding for OSS-related vendors up 11.5% in Q2

    Venture capital funding for open source software-related vendors increased 11.5% in the second quarter, the third consecutive quarter of positive growth following a 6% rise in 4Q09 and a 38% increase in 1Q10.

  • How Would OSG Work?

    In my last post, I discussed reasons why an open source government would be a good thing. Now I will tell you my plan for how an OSG would operate (using the USA in the model). It is essential to understand that this is not a left vs right issue. The idea here is simply to empower the people of any given country, and allow those people to rule their own lives. Using the same methodology we use in open source software development (slightly modified), we can achieve that one simple goal.

Clip of the Day

CLUG Talk – 26 Feb 2008 – Makefiles and pkgsrc (2008)


IRC Proceedings: July 13th, 2010

Posted in IRC Logs at 2:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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IRC Proceedings: July 12th, 2010

Posted in IRC Logs at 2:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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