06.11.11

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• 10 principles the Linux community should revisit

  Anyone who has read my work over the last decade knows where I stand with Linux and open source. If you haven’t taken read my words, know that I am a huge advocate of Linux and open source software. I use it, I promote it, I mentor new users, I do everything I can to help the cause move forward.

  But no matter how much I believe in the cause, I know some of the ideals the Linux and open source community hold so tightly to need to be reevaluated. Why? The landscape of business and home computing has changed drastically since the beginnings of the GPL and the Linux operating system. Many of you might look at the following list and say, “Are you crazy?” But I would ask that it be examined merely as suggestions for where the foundations of open source software can improve and help the public at large fully embrace open source and Linux.

• My Top-Ten Rejected Slogans for a 20th anniversary Linux T-shirt:

• Cthulhu Lives in The Blog Cave

  Apropos Linux in Exile losing his Linux System to a Predatory Windows Install the other day (see Windows killed my laptop, again) I’ve been thinking about and beginning to do something about cleaning house.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • CAOS Theory Podcast 2011.06.10

• Applications

  • What Goes Around Comes Around

    One of the gripes that Linux-haters trumpet is that one needs to use typed commands and text files to do some things on the system. [...] After decades of telling people “GUI good, CLI bad“….

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Flash-Aid Add-on – Painless and Proper Flash Installation in Firefox

    • Getting a system monitor applet back in Gnome 3

    • Tutorials: GameTree Linux – Part 1 – Installation & Configuration

• Desktop Environments

  • Weekend Project: Find Hidden Treasures in XFCE 4.8

• Distributions

  • Introducing BackTrack 5 ‘Revolution’

    BackTrack 5 is a good specialized distribution, a great tool worth keeping around. I personally find it very interesting and want to keep using it to learn more about the whole security side of things, which I find fascinating, but I believe experts will certainly get a kick out of this latest BackTrack release.

  • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • First impressions of Mageia Linux

      Overall, our opinion is that this first release of Mageia does what the team set out to do. Namely to build a clean and attractive derivative of Mandriva. Now, if the developers will revisit their decision not to distribute proprietary video software drivers on the installation media for those users who need them, we’d say that Mageia seems to have bright future ahead of it.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Solving the Mystery of Red Hat

      So value Red Hat based on its execution, its products, and its ability to make its business model work.

    • Fedora

      • Other Features Coming Up For Fedora 16

        Yesterday we shared that Fedora 16 may use the Btrfs file-system by default on new installations. Beyond switching from EXT4 to Btrfs, there are also many other changes planned for this next release of the Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution.

        Development on Fedora 16 has only just begun with Fedora 15 having not been released for even a month yet. So far the officially accepted Fedora 16 features include:

        [...]

        …Linux 3.0/3.1 kernel, X.Org Server 1.11, Mesa 7.12-devel, GNOME 3.2, and KDE SC 4.7.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), Reviewed In Depth

          Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) has arrived, and we have the scoop on everything you need to know about Canonical’s latest Linux, along with the usual review and benchmarks. Is this the change we’ve been waiting for, or is the Natty Narwhal a fail whale?

          [...]

          Unity as a solution is really close, but not close enough. It needs a little bit more time in the oven. But what Canonical accomplished in a short development window is pretty astounding. At the very worst, Unity is worth taking the time to explore.

        • Spice-Gtk-0.6 on Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) after Libvirt & python-libvirt upgrade up to 0.9.1

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Why I love Bodhi Linux

            And unlike some Linux distros, Bodhi can easily be configured into anything you want it to be.

          • Kubuntu Natty Narwhal review – KDElicious!

            Version 11.04 Natty Narwhal is fast, smart, elegant, polished, with a very decent performance, blazing desktop effects, good stability, and only a tiny bunch of bugs and issues.

          • Linux Mint 11 review

            And Linux Mint 11 feels decided less stable than Linux Mint 10. If the trend holds, Linux Mint 12 will be a lot more stable than this release.

          • Peppermint OS Two

            Rating: 4.5/5

Free Software/Open Source

• Hypervisor Fight Is Good for Customers, Good for FOSS

  There have been many changes in the market and technology since Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) acquired XenSource and a major stewardship stake in the Xen open source hypervisor four years ago.

  Red Hat’s (NYSE: RHT) 2008 Qumranet acquisition and subsequent push behind the Linux-integrated Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor has added to the disruption. One thing, though, remains the same: the intense competition among these open source hypervisors in the enterprise market.

• Web Browsers

  • Chrome

    • Chrome 12, What’s new?

      1- Chrome will support hardware accelerated 3D CSS. What does that mean? That means you will be able to see some classic webpages that implement 3D effects. You will be able to have a better experience with web apps that implement 3D effects. This enhancement will also open a new era of browser-based gaming. Web developers will have libretti to create amazing 3D effects by placing images text and other content in 3D space.

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox 4 Passes 200 Million Downloads

      Firefox 4 recently passed 200 million downloads about 2 months after launch.

      The Firefox 4 download counter stood at about 208 million this morning. The first version of Firefox required about 1 year to hit 100 million downloads and 200 million in about 22 months (by that time, Mozilla had already released Firefox 1.5.)

    • Mozilla launches MemShrink effort to improve Firefox memory use

• SaaS

  • Talend Enables Unified Integration in the Cloud

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice Visio Import filter – first steps of a new baby

    For those that might be interested in such a detail as the source code of this endavour, the filter is developped as two elements, a shared library living here and an import filter based on this library living in the LibreOffice’s writerperfect module.

  • LibreOffice: New AND Improved

• Programming

  • Trends from the Eclipse Community Survey 2011

Leftovers

• Health/Nutrition

  • Blue Shield of California’s Fake Benevolence

    While I’m happy for the policyholders who might get a few bucks back from their insurer, the timing of the Blue Shield campaign is, to me at least, a tad suspicious. A few things have been going on in
    California in recent weeks that undoubtedly have been keeping Bodaken up at night, making me think that this announcement just might be more PR than substance.

• Security

  • Police nab 3 suspected leaders of hacker network in Spain

    Police said Friday they had arrested the top three suspected leaders in Spain of the international computer hacker network called Anonymous, which is suspected of numerous cyber-attacks on Sony’s PlayStation network and government and business websites.

• Privacy

  • EPIC, ACLU, EFF, and Others Urge Homeland Security to Stop Creation of National Identity System

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Study Debunks Chamber of Commerce Claims on Canadian Patent Law

    Yesterday I posted on how the Canadian IP Council, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s IP lobby arm, floated false claims about the scope of counterfeiting in Canada in an attempt to bolster claims for increased border measures. The Chamber placed Canadian countefeiting costs at $30 billion per year, a figure that has no basis in fact and that even RCMP no longer supports.

    The Chamber’s false claims on counterfeiting are not the only intellectual property issue where their arguments have been debunked as inaccurate. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on the proposed trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, which could have big implications for the costs of pharmaceutical drugs, on which Canadians spend $22 billion annually.

  • Copyrights

    • “A Gross Abuse of the Collective Administration of Copyright”

      Howard Knopf reports that the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) has filed an application to amend the Access Copyright interim tariff requiring it grant transactional or pay-per-use licences upon request. As I reported last month, Access Copyright has been denying requests by universities for transactional licences in an effort to pressure universities to force them to licence all digital materials for a far higher price. This results in a remarkable situation where universities attempt to pay to use works and Access Copyright says it won’t take their money (though it does offer pay-per-use for corporate customers).