04.16.11

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Growth of Linux Visiting Wikipedia

  Linux

  * February 2011 – 2.47%
  * February 2010 – 1.65%

  Change = +.82% Rate of growth = +50%

• Google

  • How to make Google good again

    One of the key aspects of the latter has been its support for open source, which has been at the heart of Google’s infrastructure from the earliest days. Its adoption of free software played an important part in allowing the company to offer a range of free services – search, email, video content etc. – that could scale globally, Something that would have been much harder for a startup to achieve with traditional licensed software, where costs would have risen far more steeply.

• Applications

  • Dbmail? A great Open Source email system, especially for LAMP/MySql administrators

    A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about how I may build an advanced search utility for my own email archive. One way to make complex queries on the archive seemed to be to put it all into a relational database. Since the Dbmail system stores email in that way, I asked its developers and Harald Reindl (an email administrator at The Lounge who already uses Dbmail: I found him in the PostFix Mailing list archives) if Dbmail could be used in that way.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Minecraft Installer Script – install Minecraft in Ubuntu Completely with one click

    • HOWTO: Chainload Grub2 into Chameleon

    • Command-T for Vim on Fedora (missing ruby.h errors)

    • Simple file Encryption and Decryption using encryption key

    • Characters of Linux character drivers | Part 4

    • How To Install And Play Angry Birds On Ubuntu Linux

    • How To Manipulate PDFs with PDF Chain [Linux]

    • Book Review: Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook 162

    • Information, please

    • Managing source code with Mercurial

  • Wine

    • Wine 1.3.18 Adds Support For XI2 Raw Mouse Events

      Following last week’s release of the stable Wine 1.2.3, it’s now time for a new development snapshot of Wine 1.3. The Wine 1.3.18 is a particularly interesting release since it finally takes advantage of raw mouse events with X Input 2.

    • What’s Up With TransGaming’s GameTree Linux?

      At the beginning of January, TransGaming rolled out GameTree Linux. GameTree Linux is basically the successor to their Cedega Technology that in turn formerly was known as WineX and was based upon an early X11-licensed version of Wine. Cedega hasn’t been updated in a long time prior to this announcement and its support has fallen behind that of CodeWeaver’s CrossOver software and upstream Wine in many regards, but unfortunately, GameTree Linux hasn’t yet improved the situation at all.

  • Games

    • Frozenbyte Might Release Shadowgrounds Series Source Code

      The ability to talk with the Frozenbyte developers via the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle chat has granted me another mini interview and a few insights of things to come…
      Here is another mini interview I’ve made with Niina from Frozenbyte…

    • Looks Like Source-Engine Garry’s Mod On Linux

      It looks like Garry’s Mod, the sandbox physics game built atop the Source Engine that began as a Half-Life 2 mod, is working on Linux. Garry Newman himself explicitly mentions the Linux code is now compiling.

    • Humble Bundle Does it a Third Time, 5 Great Indie Games at ‘Pay What You Want’ Price!

      Humble Bundle is back with its collection of Indie games once again. The latest Humble Frozenbyte Bundle comes with 5 indie games with the usual pay what you want offer which means, you can purchase the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle for the price you decide. Not only that, you can even choose exactly how your purchase is divided: Between Frozenbyte, the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF), or the Child’s Play Charity.

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • Plasma Active: Vendor Interaction

      This is the final entry in a series of five posts covering the various tracks in the Plasma Active initiative. In this closing article, we look at the track that aims to help bring out work to actual hardware.

      On Monday, I will be writing a quick overview of some of the “big picture” goals and aspirations represented in Plasma Active, and on Friday of next week I will be sharing a preview of a new interaction feature that I’ve only referred to cryptically as “SLC” so far. Today, however, I hope you enjoy the outline of the fifth track in Plasma Active: Vendor Interaction.

    • Contour brings a context-sensitive interface to KDE Plasma Active

      As KDE developers continue to build the device-independent Plasma Active Linux environment, other pieces of the UI puzzle are falling into place as well. Pieces like Contour, which the team bills as a “context-sensitive user interface that adapts to…current activities and behavioral patterns of the user.”

      As you can see in the screenshot, part of what Contour does is recommend additional actions based upon what it thinks you’re doing at any given time. By taking a look at a number of different sources of data — like GPS coordinates, accelerometer data, time and date, ambient sound and light, recently accessed files, and recent user actions, Contour will attempt to adjust the device’s UI to automatically meet a user’s needs.

• Distributions

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat Expands Cloud Computing Partnership With NTT Communications

    • CentOS 5.6 Gnome Desktop Review

      This distribution is built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is an excellent choice for small server implementations or businesses.

    • Fedora

      • Fedora: virt-manager with SPICE support coming in Fedora 15

        I’ve been keeping up with the virtualization related developments in the upcoming Fedora 15… but even if I weren’t… Fedora offers a fedora-virt-preview repository that makes it easy to ckeck out the new stuff on Fedora 14.

        Adding SPICE support to virt-manager is one of the upcoming features in Fedora 15 and as of 2011-03-28 it appears to be 100% done. I decided to use the fedora-virt-preview repository to check it out on my Fedora 14 workstation.

  • Debian Family

    • SimplyMepis Shaping Up – 11.0 RC 2 Released

      SimplyMepis 11.0 RC 2 was released last week and the annoying thing about that project is that their release announcements say nothing about the release. So, if one wants to keep up they have to download each developmental release and test it. So, I did.

      The basic look and feel hasn’t changed since my last test. It’s possible it could receive an update before final. What I did notice soon after boot was that the graphic driver setup assistant is gone. It was inoperative my last test, but it’s completely gone now. Instructions in the Mepis Manual have the user going back to the old-fashioned manual procedure. This isn’t a big deal for most of us old goats, but for a distribution known for being “user-friendly,” this isn’t a plus. Will it be back before final?

      Fortunately, I didn’t have to play around with any settings or boot flags to get a graphical desktop. The boot to blank locked-up screen was somewhat fixed last test, but I did have to talk it into a graphical interface.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu: The Gateway Linux

        Yesterday I upgraded my personal laptop (well, one of them) from Ubuntu 10.10 to Ubuntu 11.4 beta 2. I have a knack for finding bugs, but this time the upgrade was smooth sailing. I was reminded of what my friend said when I first installed Ubuntu for her: This feels like a really expensive system.

      • An Ubuntu Adventure: The DELL Latitude 2120

      • The New Look of the Ubuntu 11.04 Server Installer!

        With Natty Beta2, the Ubuntu 11.04 Server Installer received a little bit of the same aubergine love that the Ubuntu Desktop has enjoyed now for the last few releases. Moving away from that 1980s MSDOS/PCDOS VGA blue look, the our Server installer now sports a distinctively Ubuntu color scheme!

      • An Ubuntu Adventure: The DELL Latitude 2120

        In a previous post I described the certification release of Ubuntu pre-install for the Dell Latitude 2120. This post seems to have drawn some interest on the process from both internally in Canonical and externally. I decided that I needed to experience myself what a user buying a Certified “Pre-Installed only” system would go through from buying the system to getting the bespoke image from the manufacturer and ultimately upgrading to the latest “stock” Ubuntu release. The Dell Latitude 2120 seemed like a good companion for this adventure.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • An Arch User Trying Out Kubuntu 11.04

          Hopefully the final release of Kubuntu 11.04 is as good as it is in its current beta. Since I used to be a huge fan of Kubuntu before its downward spiral that caused it to become bland, I’m actually quite happy to say that this release is shaping up to be the best in over two and a half years. Considering that all of my hardware is detected and works great, the developers must have tweaked something to make this happen. I would really like to know what it was they did, though my guess is they probably included the next generation of Intel drivers into the current kernel. Good job!

        • My Kubuntu Natty Opinions

          Like I said, overall I am really impressed with what I am seeing here.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Phones

    • Nokia/MeeGo/Maemo

      • MeeGo sees interest from others after Nokia shift

        Technology firms such as LG Electronics are moving toward adopting the Linux-based MeeGo operating system after Nokia abandoned it, one of the project’s leaders said.

  • Tablets

    • Tablets are changing the way consumers engage with content

      In order to better understand how people are using tablets we ran a survey of over 1,400 tablet users and found that:

      * 68% of tablet users spend at least 1 hour a day on their tablet
      * 77% of respondents report that their desktop/laptop usage decreased after they started using a tablet
      * 82% of respondents said they primarily use their tablet at home

Free Software/Open Source

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox needs heavy hitter Linux power

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Improved CSV file compatibility in OOo 3.4 Beta

    CSV (plain text) files are a popular way of exchanging data with a broad range different programs. But whereever different programs are involved, there’s some disagreement about the details. One such detail is the presence of quotes (text delimiter character) around fields. The usual consensus (spelled out, for example, in RFC 4180) is that fields “may or may not” be enclosed in quotes.

    As long as the field delimiter doesn’t occur in numbers (for example as decimal separator), it can be useful to quote all text content, so the distinction between text and numbers is preserved. See issue 37856 for an example. This is what Calc CSV export has always done, and with the new import options in 3.3, we can optionally make use of that distinction when importing.

• Programming

  • if…then…else

Leftovers

• 56% of Peoples’ 1st Wikipedia Edits Are Good

  If you thought Wikipedia had seen its heyday, you’d have thought wrong. A small study performed by Wikipedia staff and published today found that new Editors are signing up and making edits to the site at a far greater rate than they were years ago. A slight majority of their first edits are acceptable or better.

• Finance

  • The Real Housewives of Wall Street

    America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we’re broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year’s retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.

  • Cohan: ‘The Goldman Way’ involves the importance of making money at nearly all costs

  • Large Financial Institutions: Panel at INET’s Bretton Woods Conference (6 of 7)

  • Goldman Sachs misled Congress after duping clients, Senate panel chairman says

    Goldman Sachs misled clients and Congress about the firm’s bets on securities tied to the housing market, the chairman of the U.S. Senate panel that investigated the causes of the financial crisis said.

  • Banks Falling Early as Mortgage Shenanigans Laid Bare — Goldman, DB Hit Hard

    The big banks look to be setting up for another weak day, after a Senate panel divulged salty emails from employees at Goldman Sachs (GS) and other top financial institutions detailing their efforts to dump doomed mortgage securities in the laps of investors.

  • Criminal Charges Loom For Goldman Sachs After Scathing Senate Report

    A Senate panel released a damning report accusing the likes of Goldman Sachs of engaging in massive conflicts of interest, contaminating the U.S. financial system with toxic mortgages and undermining public trust in U.S. markets in the months leading up to the financial crisis.

  • Goldman Sachs Misled Congress, Duped Clients, Levin Says

    Goldman Sachs Group Inc. misled clients and Congress about the firm’s bets on securities tied to the housing market, the chairman of the U.S. Senate panel that investigated the causes of the financial crisis said.

  • Senator Levin Says He’ll Refer Goldman Testimony From Last Year’s Congressional Hearing To The DOJ For Possible Perjury Charges

    We can’t say we’re surprised that a Senate report released yesterday, that details what caused the financial crisis, focuses on Goldman Sachs. A lot.

    The findings of a two-year analysis “trains much of its ire on Goldman Sachs, which Sen. Levin said deceived some clients by betting against home loans in 2006 and 2007, while simultaneously selling mortgage securities,” the WSJ reported.

  • Senator Levin Claims Goldman Execs Perjured Themselves Before Congress on Mortgage Testimony

  • Taibbi and Spitzer on Goldman Sachs

• Privacy

  • Well-Meaning “Privacy Bill of Rights” Wouldn’t Stop Online Tracking

    On Tuesday, Senators John McCain and John Kerry introduced the long-awaited Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights, a sweeping bill that covers online and offline data collection, retention, use, and dissemination practices. Unfortunately, the bill may fall short of what’s needed to protect our privacy.

    This bill fails to address many of the issues surrounding pervasive online tracking that have been raised by privacy advocates, explored in the Wall Street Journal’s What They Know series, and highlighted by the FTC’s recent Privacy Report. The bill’s most glaring defect is its emphasis on regulation of information use and sharing, rather than on the collection of data in the first place. For example, the bill would allow a user to opt out of third-party ad targeting based on tracking – but not third-party tracking. The consumer choice provisions in Section 202 apply only to data use—not collection—unless that data is both “sensitive” and “personally identifiable.” Moreover, Part III of the bill, which imposes lax limits on collection, cannot be enforced by state Attorneys General. This is backwards: the privacy risk is not in consumers seeing targeted advertisements, but in the unchecked accumulation and storage of data about consumers’ online activities. Collecting and retaining data on consumers can create a rich repository of information – which leaves consumer data vulnerable to a data breach as well as creating an unnecessary enticement for government investigators, civil litigants and even malicious hackers.

• Civil Rights

  • When fund-raising is a crime

    IN THE odd way these things work in China, word has trickled out that on April 7th an appeal court in Zhejiang, a famously entrepreneurial coastal province, conducted a five-hour hearing on a death sentence handed down to Wu Ying, a prominent 29-year-old businesswoman, on fraud charges. Before her arrest Ms Wu had seemed to personify the miraculous business success that could be achieved by people from even the most humble background in modern China.

• Internet/Net Neutrality/UBB

  • Osama bin Laden Getting Faster Internet Than You Have: Pakistan’s 50Mbps Future

    While America’s heartland is being wired for 3Mbps DSL service, residents in Pakistan are getting ready for speeds up to 50Mbps thanks to a major broadband expansion in the country.

    Pakistan’s PTCL, the country’s state-controlled phone company, is working on a major upgrade to bonded VDSL2, the next generation of DSL, which can deliver more than five times the top speed of the country’s highest level of service, at a construction cost of just $200-300 per home passed.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Facebook Sues FriendFinder, Peeved Over FacebookOfSex.com Website

    Facebook has filed a few different trademark lawsuits against sites it doesn’t approve of, like Teachbook and humor site Lamebook. Some of those cases might be considered close calls legally, and both of those sites are still up. But now a much bigger company is messing with Facebook’s name: adult social networking company FriendFinder Networks, which has launched a (very NSFW) website called FacebookOfSex.com.

  • Copyrights

    • EU copyright extention

      Remember the Cliff Richard directive proposal for a copyright extention of sound recordings also known as 2008/0157(COD)? The extention was fiercely debated in the European Parliament and by consumer groups. Our MEPs adopted a plenary report and then… Then our EU-Council with all the member states at the table went into wait-and-see mode. They noticed that the Commission proposition was quite a bit over the top. Meanwhile we have a new parliament, the Lisbon Treaty regime, a new Council. Now it’s back on the agenda, just before the children born when the Commission started to draft its proposal enter school, rumours say Hungary suddenly changed its mind in the Council, we learn from an alarmist Boingboing call to action, that we, the people are asked by science fiction writer Cory Doctorow to

      1. Phone our MEP

      2. MEP does for us ???

      3. Win!

    • YouTube to require ‘tutorials’ for copyright offenders

      Google Inc.’s online video behemoth YouTube toughened its enforcement of copyright laws, requiring violators to attend “copyright school” and pass a test before they can resume uploading videos to the site.

      The changes come amid calls — both in Hollywood and in Congress — that YouTube do more to combat piracy. Google General Counsel Kent Walker recently defended the search giant’s commitment to content protection in testimony this month before the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on intellectual property.

    • Spotify: Not so free as it was

      It seems that the original licensing deals which enabled Spotify to get off the ground a couple of years ago are coming to an end – and some of the labels in some European countries are getting restless about how much of their content is being given away for free, with minimal fees in return. Yes, 15% of Spotify’s users are now paying customers, but as the service grows, millions of tracks are being played for nothing.

    • Scottish election: Pirate Party UK profile

      With no known founder, the Pirate Party UK is rather more unconventional than traditional electoral offerings.

      The UK group is part of an international movement of Pirate Parties, which lobbies against copyright and software patent laws.

      The very first party was founded in Sweden in 2006.