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Links 24/3/2010: SystemTap 1.2, Strong Red Hat Results



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • Penguins converge on Austin Texas
      Let's see ... Softlayer, Zenoss, Canonical, Red Hat, Fedora, HP, IBM, Rackspace, Novell, and The Linux Fund are our commercial sponsors. Most of them had people submit session proposals, which was nice (and by that I mean they submitted talks independently of (usually before) being sponsors. We've also had several nonprofits lend us support in one way or another, like GNOME, Mozilla, the Linux Foundation. And the media sponsors have done a terrific job just helping us get the word out, which is vitally important when you're an event that no one has heard of before. That includes the Linux Journal (which is based out of Houston), LWN, Linux Magazine and Ubuntu User, LXer. They've not only allowed us to advertise, but have run our announcements and written blog entries to help spread the word.


    • ZaReason Teo
      The ZaReason Teo, that I just discovered on Amazon.com, looks like the successor of the Terra A20, which was the first netbook by ZaReason, who build laptops, desktops, and servers running Ubuntu Linux or derivatives.


    • ZaReason Teo: Pine Trail netbook with an Ubuntu Linux twist
      Linux system builder ZaReason appears to have launched a new Linux netbook. While there’s no information about the new Teo netbook on the ZaReason web site, you can already order one from Amazon for $460.

      The Teo bears a more than passing resemblance to the original MSI Wind U100 10 inch netbook, and I wouldn’t be surprised if ZaReason was working with MSI to supply the chassis and possibly some other components. Spec-wise, the netbook has a 10 inch. 1024 x 600 non-glare display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor and 160GB hard drive.Amazon says it should get 8 hours of battery life.








  • Kernel Space

    • SystemTap 1.2 released
      The systemtap team announces release 1.2.

      prototype perf event and hw-breakpoint probing, security fixes, error tolerance script language extensions, optimizations, tapsets, interesting new sample scripts, kernel versions 2.6.9 through 2.6.34-rc








  • Applications







  • Desktop Environments

    • Gnome And KDE Might Collaborate Into Creating A FLOSS Alternative To Dropbox
      There is an ongoing discussion on a Gnome mailing list which points out that Gnome and KDE might collaborate for a new project: a FLOSS alternative to Dropbox.

      One might think: well, we have Ubuntu One - but that's only for Ubuntu (even though work is done to port it to other Linux distributions too - or it was done at some point) and also it's KDE integration is still experimental (and not official as far as I know). And finally: many will agree that Ubuntu One is not the best implementation of this great idea so there is room for some competition. And also, the Ubuntu One server is not open source (only the client is) and it seems there are no plans to open-source it.




    • GNOME Desktop

      • Arista - Multimedia Transcoder for GNOME
        Arista is an easy-to-use multimedia transcoder for the GNOME desktop. It focuses on the goal of transcoding media, namely the devices you wish to play the media on. It is designed for use by people who are not familiar with audio and video encoding and want an easy way to get multimedia to their devices. It supports input from DVD and V4L devices as well as regular files.


      • Five Things To Fix In Gnome Shell












  • Distributions

    • Parted Magic 4.9: New Device Names
      Parted Magic, a Live Linux with programs for partitioning and data rescue, is available in version 4.9. Apart from bug fixes, it includes a few new features.




    • Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • A real distro-hopper-stopper
        Above is the screenshot of the new PCLinuxOS with LXDE as native desktop environment. This baby is still in beta stage but compared to its predecessor, this version is almost complete. Having Firefox 3.6 with built-in flash as browser - watching videos via youtube and the likes is a breeze out-of-the-box.








    • Red Hat Family

      • Recession? What Recession? Red Hat Continues to Grow
        For many in the IT world, the last twelve months are likely ones that they’d rather forget as companies laid off employees and struggled to deal with the ravages of the recession. But for Linux vendor Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the past year has been a pretty good one financially: Red Hat is set to report its fourth-quarter fiscal 2010 revenues after the market close today and the forecast is positive.


      • Building on a Linux brand
        Red Hat owns the brand and the quality assurance that goes with the Red Hat trademark, but does not "own" the software it sells. For this reason CentOS and Oracle are able to provide rebranded versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which provide "complete upstream compatibility" with Red Hat's product without fear of legal approbation.






    • Ubuntu

      • Lucid starts to get some updated icons
        I’ve held off from mentioning last nights arrival of some new (albeit WIP) icons for Lucid simply because I know how such‘minor’ posts irritate some of you.Sods law then that I wake up to an inbox full of people asking why I haven’t mentioned them already!


      • Ubuntu shops prefer the bleeding edge
        In preparation for the rollout of Ubuntu Server 10.04 Long Term Support next month, Canonical, the commercial sponsor of the Linux variant, and the Ubuntu community polled Ubuntu users to see how they use the operating system.

        Canonical is also keen on finding out what Ubuntu shops think of the focus on cloud computing and how relevant it is to them today as well as in the future. In the wake of the delivering of the Ubuntu 9.10 release late last year, the company solicited responses to an online survey of Ubuntu users through the Ubuntu forums and a variety of Web sites and other channels; a total of 2,650 finished the survey, although as you can see from the report, quite a number of people did not respond to important questions that Canonical asked.


      • Ubuntu One Music Store – first pics!!!
        I immediately went to purchase it, by clicking the checkout and signed in to my Ubuntu One account. Although it threw a wobbly when I refused to add my Lucid beta 1 desktop to my One account, I re-ran the purchasing process and it took me straight to billing. Thanks to Rhythmbox and Ubuntu, iTunes – and very probably my Windows dual boot – won’t be darkening my desktop again.


      • 75 Top Open Source Security Apps
        This year, we've once again updated our list of top open source security apps. While the list isn't exhaustive by any means, we tried to include many of the best tools in a variety of categories. We dropped a few projects from last year's list that have gone inactive or closed source, and we've added a few newcomers that are worth your consideration.




      • Variants

        • Mint 9: An overview of the new features
          It’s too soon to talk about what’s going on upstream but you can expect faster boot, the release will be an LTS release, there’s going to be many little improvements in Gnome itself and of course we’re getting a new kernel. I saw the controversy about the position of the window buttons in Ubuntu 10.04. There’s no plan to change anything in Linux Mint, we’re happy with the buttons staying on the right-hand side and away from the File, Edit, View menus.












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Cool Linux powered robot boat
      The Roboat is an autonomous robotic sailboat powered by Linux.


    • Fast-boot tech claims to load Android or Linux in one second
      Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Corp. announced the availability of an ARM-focused technology claimed to load Android or Linux in one second. QuickBoot Release 1.0 preferentially restores memory areas necessary for booting from nonvolatile storage to RAM, says the company.




    • Phones

      • Educating the carriers on being open.
        Many thanks to Smart Mobs for bringing this to my attention…

        If somebody writes a book with “open” and “mobile” in the title I pretty much have to read it. Though you can buy a paper copy of Open | Mobile on Amazon you can also download a free PDF from the authors’ site — which is what I did.


      • Those Pesky Migration Issues
        Based on those requirements, it would seem I am leaning towards an Android-based unit. Not because I can hack it if I feel like it (I do not have that much free time) but because it meets my requirements. Would I like to have a Pré? Of course.












Free Software/Open Source

  • Episode 136: Shrinking a Bass Player
    I got the planned episode 136 nearly ready – a photography trip to Hamburg. But then came an urgent job from Chicago and overturned the schedule. (No, John, it wasn’t urgent, it was convenient to have a bit more time to edit the Hamburg show).


  • credativ pre-paid Open Source Support Card leads the market
    credativ UK joins its German counterpart in offering the Open Source Support Card for Linux distributions.

    Today, credativ is launching its unique pre-paid Open Source Support Card. Businesses using Linux distributions such as Debian and CentOS stand to benefit from expert support without being tied into a contract, in contrast to other commercial Linux support vendors.


  • AbiWord: Like MS Word but Without the Junk
    Choices for word processing applications abound for Linux users, but many of them are little more than glorified rich-text editors. AbiWord has the look and feel of a polished application like Microsoft Word but without the unneeded complexities that can bog some writers down.


  • Open Source DNS Enters Next Gen with BIND 10 Y1
    The first public release of the BIND 10 open source DNS server is now out. But don't rush to update your servers just yet -- it's still years away from being ready for production use.

    The ISC (Internet Systems Consortium) has been talking about BIND 10 since at least 2007 when the BIND 9.4 release came out. Last year, the ISC told me that work had actually started on development of BIND 10 and now here we are a year later and the first public milestone.




  • Mozilla





  • SaaS

    • Suddenly the native app is cool again
      Running applications in the cloud is an ambitious dream, but one that keeps stumbling against the reality of dedicated, native applications, particularly those running on mobile devices.








  • Oracle







  • CMS







  • Business

    • Thoughts from OSBC: What's driving open source acceptance?
      Recently I was in the audience for the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) keynote panel on the future of open source, and part of the discussion was about the rapidly increasing use of open source in both the public and private sector. No one seemed surprised by this fact, but there was some disagreement on the cause. The one thing all the panelists agreed on was this: IT departments are suddenly much more accepting of open source. One of the panelists asked the question, "What is driving IT's acceptance of open source?"


    • Top 10 Quotes from OSBC 2010 and What It Means for Open Source Developers
      “Open source isn’t about saving money, it’s about doing more stuff, and getting incremental innovation with the finite budget you have.” – Jim Whitehurst, CEO, Red Hat
      In his keynote remarks on Wed., Jim emphasized what many other speakers at OSBC re-iterated. Business units are demanding more innovation through technology, and they need to get it done without getting more budget. With the low acquisition costs of open source software, and easy access to information from open source communities, it’s enabling IT departments to innovate faster and be a hero in their businesses.








  • BSD/UNIX

    • Dru Lavigne made me do it: I killed Debian, installed an unbootable Ubuntu, now I'm running FreeBSD 8.0 with GNOME
      Did I mention speed? This GNOME 2.26 desktop just flies. It's a pleasure to use, and if I can manage to install FreeBSD 7.2-release and get the same speed with working Java and Totem, I'll be very, very happy. Working Flash, should I manage it, will be an added bonus.

      And thanks, Dru, for the inspiration to do my first serious FreeBSD test.


    • Evi Nemeth (an Ada Lovelace day tribute)
      These days, Evi lists her office as being "my sailboat, Wonderland, somewhere in the Caribbean." She has a relatively low profile in the Linux community, despite being one of the authors of (and the inspiration behind) the Linux Administration Handbook, but the USENIX crowd knows her well. Her time at CU launched a whole generation of hackers who are in the field for the joy of it, and every one of them thinks back fondly to one of the people who got them started. Well done, Evi; you helped make all this happen.








  • Openness







  • Standards/Consortia

    • Groups in eleven EU member states participate in Document Freedom Day
      In at least eleven EU member states, groups promoting the use of open standards and open source software, are preparing for Document Freedom Day, 31 March. With workshops, presentations and demonstrations, they aim to make computer users aware of open formats for electronic documents. Many groups will focus on public administrations and governments.


    • Introduction to Document Freedom Day
      This year on March 31, along with more than 200 groups in 60 countries, we will observe the third Document Freedom Day. This grassroots effort aims to educate the public about the importance of open formats and open standards.








Leftovers

  • Robber Barons




  • Security

    • Ferocious hot chili pepper to make nasty weapons
      According to the SIFY news site: When deployed, the grenade showers the targets with a dust so spicy that in trials subjects were blinded for hours and left with breathing problems.


    • Wikileaks Receiving Gestapo Treatment?
      "Wikileaks announced on Mar 21 (via its twitter account) its intentions 'to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am.' It appears that during the last 24 hours someone from the State Department/CIA decided to visit them, by 'following/photographing/filming/detaining' an editor for 22 hours. Apparently, the offending leak is a video footage of a US airstrike."


    • The battle for Internet freedom
      In Italy, the government of neo-Fascist Silvio Berlusconi, the media magnate who detests the very idea of having anyone else in control of any news media, has drafted legislation to impose government examination of all videos before they can be uploaded to the Web. In a related case, an Italian judge convicted Google executives of violating a child's privacy rights because someone posted an abusive video on Google Video and Google staff didn't remove it fast enough to suit the judge.

      In contrast, in Iceland, the Wikileaks organization, devoted to open publication of information about government malfeasance, is receiving support from legislators.








  • Environment

    • Open Biodiesel
      During my time with OpenNMS I was migrating toward biodiesel. Biodiesel is a cleaner-burning renewable fuel that is made from fats, oils, and greases. I was making the stuff in my backyard and signed up for the fledgling Bio Fuels program at Central Carolina Community College.


    • Designing Open Source Washing Machines for Underdeveloped Nations
      Aside from being eco-friendly, this smart little machine could change the way people in under-developed nations tackle the challenge of having clean clothes to wear. The Open Source Washing Machine Project got underway in the spring of 2008 during a workshop examining ways to implement open source hardware to improve the quality of life in impoverished nations.










Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Ricardo Mireles, Free Open Source Software advocate in Los Angeles 03 (2004)

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Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

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