02.15.11

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers
• Clip of the Day

GNU/Linux

• ROSE Blog Interviews: Barbara Irwin, Loads of Linux Links Maintainer

  RK: How did you first hear about Linux and why did you start using it at home?

  BI: I first heard about Linux in 1996 from my husband, Alan, who had years of UNIX experience, so it was a natural for him to use Linux on our home computer. I was working at the local public library at the time, primarily using a UNIX-based automated library system, but had to use a Microsoft word processor for my documents. Not a happy experience. So I was delighted that our home was — and still is — a Windows-free
  zone!

• LPI develops Academic Program in Malaysia

• Low-spec computer: Alt Linux vs Windows 7 Ultimate

  Purpose: learn process of installation and work of distributives of operating systems Alt Linux Desktop 5.0 KDE and Window 7 Ultimate in low-spec computer which you can find in school.

• Server

  • Ottawa to review TSX-London exchange merger

    Industry Minister Tony Clement says the federal government will review the proposed merger of the Toronto Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange.

    Clement said Monday that the proposed deal falls under the Investment Canada Act and will be approved if it is of net benefit to Canada.

• Applications

  • TextRoom Full Screen Text Editor Brings Google Docs Support

  • 5 of the Best Free Linux Robotics Software

    So, let’s explore the 5 robotics software at hand. For each application we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

  • OpenShot 1.3.0 Released – Bucketloads of New Features

    A new version for OpenShot, one of the most popular video editors for Linux has been released. The new version brings plenty of new features, better integration with Gnome, new themes, Youtube upload feature and many many more updates.

  • OpenShot Video Editor 1.3.0 Released With New Default Theme, Upload To YouTube Or Vimeo, New 3D Animations

    OpenShot, the application that you’ve voted as the best Linux video editor a while back reached version 1.3.0 today.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to Install Firefox 4 in Ubuntu 10.10, 10.04 and 9.10

    • Arduino programming guide – part 1

    • Help request: why is my Linux so damn slow?

    • Monitoring performance with time

    • Speed Up Your Mail Server

    • The Perfect Server – Debian Squeeze (Debian 6.0) [ISPConfig 2]

    • Installing Full-Featured Rsyslog 5.7.x On CentOS 5.x

  • Wine

    • CrossOver Impersonator simplifies running Windows software on Mac and Linux

  • Games

    • Temple of Tangram Puzzle Game Now Has a Linux Version!

      Almost a day ago, developer Jochen Heizmann from Intermediaware informed us about the Linux port of his popular puzzle game Temple Of Tangram. I had never heard of it before(I am not an avid gamer of sorts) and so I decided to give it a first hand try. And I got to tell you, I was impressed. It was like the top games for non-gamers in Linux we had featured here before, slick, simple and addictive, all at the same time.

• Desktop Environments

  • GNOME Desktop

    • Gnome Shell Gets Automatic Workspaces [Video]

      Remember the Gnome Shell automatic workspaces mockup we’ve talked about a while back? It has just been added to the main Gnome Shell branch today.

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • Tinycore3.5 comes with improved system boot time and user interface | A 10Mo LinuxOS

      Tinycore3.5 is released, this new release comes with many updates and some improvements, so boot times has been improved with optimization of startup code. Administration improved with deletes of uninstalled ondemand without reboot. Many user interface improvements and additional supported options in: appsaduit, wbar, services, tce-audit, and fluff, the integrated file manager. Key system programs updated to latest release: busybox and zsync.

  • Debian Family

    • What happened to Debian Live images for PowerPC?

      What happened? I praised Debian Live for taking care of PowerPC users in a way that most other distributions do not. These days you can’t even get an “official” Ubuntu ISO for PowerPC. Fedora dropped PowerPC, too. In my tests, Debian was always the best distribution for older PowerPC machines anyway, and the project still supports the architecture with installers.

    • All quiet on the Debian Squeeze front

      While there is certainly some truth to the open-source OS adage that bugs related to functionality (and not security) at release tend to stay unpatched, the emphasis in Debian on releasing when ready means there are theoretically (and practically) fewer broken pieces in the system and not as much need to push updates for non-security-related issues.

    • Living on the bleeding edge: Debian wheezy/sid

      I’ve decided to start this blog and share my experience with Debian sid/unstable, the development version of Debian GNU/Linux. It’s the leading edge, but sometimes also the bleeding edge of Debian development. The stuff that enters this fast developing repository spends anywhere from 6 months up to 2 years in it before average Linux user sees it in form of a polished stable release (Debian, Ubuntu or some other Debian Pure Blend).

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Win A Dell Mini Netbook: Cult of Ubuntu Writing Contest

        Celebrating the Alpha 2 release of Ubuntu 11.04, Cult of Ubuntu has announced a contest for bloggers and writers. The winning prize is a Dell Mini 1012 Netbook with Ubuntu 11.04 pre-installed.

      • Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Alpha 2 live CD — Video works, it’s all downhill from there

        Readers of this blog are no doubt very familiar with my video drama/issues over the ATI Mobility Radeon 4200 HD chip in my Lenovo G555 laptop.

        Things have been blurry and wavy, sometimes fixable with the fglrx/Catalyst proprietary driver (Ubuntu 10.04), sometimes not (Fedora 14).

        In Debian Squeeze, I can run the open-source ati/radeon driver with no problems. And that’s what I’ve been doing.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Qualcomm wows with quad-core 2.5GHz Snapdragon

    Mere days after announcing a new dual-core Snapdragon chip, Qualcomm has wowed the crowds at this year’s Mobile World Congress event with a quad-core design for next-generation tablets that scales to an impressive 2.5GHz.

    Fresh from its announcement of the Snapdragon APQ8060, which can be found powering HP’s upcoming TouchPad webOS tablet, mobile chip specialist Qualcomm has confirmed precisely what we predicted: a quad-core design which it hopes will compete with Nvidia’s upcoming Tegra 3 system-on-chip.

  • Linux-based Wi-Fi device server offers dual-band support

    Lantronix announced a Linux-based wireless device server with IPv6 and extended temperature support. The PremierWave EN is built on a 400MHz Lantronix ARM9 processor, offers 64MB of RAM and 64MB of flash, provides dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n with extensive wireless security features, and includes USB, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, and serial connectivity.

  • Phones

    • Nokia/MeeGo/Maemo

      • MeeGo: stalling or stopping?

        Meanwhile, the Handset UX version of MeeGo appears to have lost its only proposed device, the Nokia N9. Reuters reported that development of Nokia’s MeeGo-based smartphone had been stopped, though Nokia’s spokesman declined to comment on the report. Earlier reports had noted the temporary closure of the MeeGo themed branch of Qt. If development on the Notebook and Handset UX’s has been halted, it would leave only the IVI (in-vehicle infotainment) and Connected TV UX in active development.

      • Nokia: The Destruction of a Great Company. Step One

      • Microsoft-Nokia deal is like two fading marathon runners deciding to hold hands

        My cynical side would compare the newly-announced Microsoft-Nokia mobile partnership to an Olympic track race in which two of the tired runners that are fading from the front decided to hold hands until they get across the finish line.

      • An open letter to Nokia shareholders and institutional investors

        If you elect us to a majority in the Nokia Board of Directors we will take the following concrete actions:

        * Immediate discharge of Stephen Elop from his duties as President and CEO of the company. Appointment of a new CEO with an international mobile industry background. The new CEO will be committed to carry on the rest of the actions listed below.
        * Restructure alliance with Microsoft as a tactical exercise focused primarily at the North American market. Release one or two Windows Phone devices under a Nokia sub-brand. Only if carrier acceptance, sales volumes and profit margins are satisfactory, consider releasing more WP devices and make them available in Europe. Windows Phone will not be the primary development platform for Nokia. The Nokia phones with Windows Phone operating system will simply take advantage of the existing developer tools and application ecosystem already put in place by Microsoft.
        * MeeGo will be Nokia’s primary smartphone platform. This is where the bulk of the innovation will happen. If MeeGo does not bring great devices to market on an accelerated pace, this strategy will not work. MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products. To reduce time to market, all MeeGo R&D will be done in-house and in a single geographical location. If necessary, suspend cooperation with Intel and concentrate resources on innovation and releasing new Nokia MeeGo devices to market faster.

    • Android

      • Android Market Gets a Facelift

        For a couple of years now the Android app purchasing experience has been largely on-device as the web based “market” page was little more than a page with a handful of top-selling applications.

        Want to search for an app? Go to the on-device app client.

        Want to purchase one of the top sellers or top downloads? Same answer, go to the on-device app client to make your purchase.

Free Software/Open Source

• Events

  • SCALE 9x: OSSIE Schedule set and rooms at Hilton going fast

    With a little over two weeks left before the first-of-the-year Linux expo, the ninth annual Southern California Linux Expo is shaping up to set the tone for an outstanding Linux year in 2011.

  • Press release: Record-Breaking Submissions to PyCon 2011

    PyCon 2011 has broken all existing PyCon records for content submitted by the Python community.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • [Charles-H. Schulz.] Back from FOSDEM, time for links!

    # Louis Suarez-Potts, community manager of the OpenOffice.org project, employee of Sun Microsystems and Oracle, resigns from Oracle. The formal resignation from its position of community manager of the OpenOffice.org project is not known yet, but I am expecting news either of his resignation, or else of the election of a new community manager (Louis should run for these). If that’s not the case then two comments are to be made in the light of the situation inside the OpenOffice.org project: This project is now either deprived of any governance or structure whatsoever, and/or the community manager has no real standing as no charter, text, agreement, structure mandates its existence outside a detailed charter (which has by now probably exploded after the announcement of the Document Foundation). But enough with that for the moment: I have been working with Louis for 10 years and I sincerely wish him good luck for the future.

• Programming

  • Eclipse Orion heads to the web

    Everything is moving to the Web, including the tools being used to build applications.

    Ask any serious software developer which programming tools they use and the chances are that you will hear the name ‘Eclipse’ more than a few times. Eclipse is one of the most popular programming IDEs, or integrated development environments.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Google open video codec faces second challenger

    The MPEG standards body – not to be confused with the MPEG LA patent-pool organization – has announced plans for its own royalty-free codec. At its annual meeting in March, the organization will begin accepting proposals for a new video-compression technology designed to provide better performance than MPEG-2 under a royalty-free ISO/IEC Type-1 license.

Leftovers

• Obama Crushes Jeb Bush in 2012 Presidential Poll

  Apparently unsatisfied with the current crop of GOP presidential hopefuls, some big names on the right have been pushing Jeb Bush, former Florida governor and younger brother to George W., to launch a 2012 bid for the White House. But according to a new Fox News poll (PDF), Bush would get crushed by President Barack Obama in a 2012 presidential match-up.

  Fox’s bipartisan pollsters found that Obama would defeat Jeb Bush by a whopping 20-point margin, 54 percent to 34 percent. That’s a healthy gain for Obama since last September, when the same pollsters put Obama ahead 45 percent to 37 percent. The Fox poll results, then, throw some cold water on all the Jeb hype of late, suggesting that Jeb might be smarter to look to 2016 rather than 2012.

• Guilting parents out of child care

  NDP MP Olivia Chow did too: “Finley insulted all teachers, all early childhood educators, child-care workers, organizers of parents’ resource centres and even babysitters. She is trying to inflict guilt on all working parents — a truly shameful, divisive behaviour.”

  Child care expert Martha Friendly spoke for working parents when she noted Finley’s remarks are out of sync with modern day reality.

• Security

  • SQL Injection Using Havij

  • The looming threat of tablet security

    It isn’t just the iPad of course, and that’s one of the problems. Rather than standardised OSes, these tablets are launching with all-new proprietary operating systems which the security industry knows nothing about.

• Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Shed owners warned wire on windows could hurt burglars

    A spate of thefts in several towns and villages in Kent and Surrey over the past few months led to many householders taking action to protect their property.

    Some have been warned by police that using wire mesh to reinforce shed windows was ”dangerous’’ and could lead to criminals claiming compensation if they ”hurt themselves’’.

  • Egypt’s New Military Leaders To Ban Unions, Strikes

• Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Louisiana Official: Up to 4 million gallons of dispersants have been used in Gulf as of Feb. 1

• Censorship

  • French LOPPSI Bill Adopted: The Internet under Control?

    Over time, such an extra-judiciary set-up will enable a generalized censorship of all Internet content. Consistent with Nicolas Sarkozy projects for a “Civilized Internet”, administrative censorship of the Internet opens the door to dangerous abuse while leaving pedophiles and pedo-pornography to prosper.

• Civil Rights

  • TSA refusal to release body scanner safety reports has many crying foul

    Two months after lawmakers ordered the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to release safety reports about the levels of radiation being emitted by baggage X-ray machines, naked body scanners, and other airport security equipment, the agency has yet to make this information public. The reports, which remain in the hands of TSA officials, are allegedly being retained to protect “sensitive security or privacy-protected information.”

  • In Court Today In South Carolina – Holding Officials Accountable For Torture

    We’re in federal court in Charleston to argue that a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other government officials for their role in the unlawful detention and torture of a U.S. citizen go forward. The defendants filed a motion in 2008 to have it thrown out. The ACLU has recently joined the lawsuit on Padilla’s behalf.

    Jose Padilla was seized from a U.S. jail in 2002, declared an “enemy combatant” and secretly transported to a military brig in South Carolina. He was imprisoned for nearly four years, during which he was subjected to extreme abuse and unable to communicate with his lawyers or family for two years. Lawyers for Padilla filed a lawsuit in February 2007 in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina against Rumsfeld and others for their role in Padilla’s unlawful detention and abuse.