07.31.08
Links 31/07/2008: Big Win for Ogg, Microsoft Vista Site Powered by GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux
- Lenovo to Enter Netbook [with GNU/Linux] Market by Late September
- The more things change
The latest Linux products, in contrast, are obviously better than their predecessors - it’s mostly with respect to installation procedures and oddball hardware support, but essentially every new distribution is genuinely preferable to what came before.
- Interview: Wind River’s John Bruggeman
- MS’s biggest blunder, uses Linux and Apache and PHP for its infrastructure to promote Windows Vista
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Title: The “Mojave Experiment” - KDE 4.1 - Wow!
So I downloaded it to work alongside KDE 3.5 and wow, is it awesome! It’s almost like an entirely different program, making my darling Ubuntu Gnome desktop look a little boring itself. I may even do a fresh install of Kubuntu in this partition with KDE 4, then upgrade to KDE 4.1. In any case, I’m sure I’ll report back with more to say!
- Picking a Penguin
- Linux User Here
- 8 Best E-mail Clients for Linux
Managing e-mail is made easy with the use of e-mail client, also known as e-mail reader. Some e-mail clients can also function as feed reader and can support plug-ins and themes.
When it comes to picking the right e-mail client, Linux users have tons of choices. I have here a list of 8 of the best free and open source e-mail clients that are available for Linux.
- Parsix GNU/Linux 1.5r1 has been released
An updated version of Parsix GNU/Linux 1.5 code name `Viola` is available now. Viola r1 is synchronized with Parsix and Debian testing repositories as of July 24, 2008. This version contains several bug fixes, updated kernel drivers, updated documentation and updated X.Org. Highlights: GNOME 2.22.3, GNU Iceweasel 3.0.1, Pidgin 2.4.3 and OpenOffice.org 2.4.1. Viola officially supports Compiz-Fusion, VirtualBox-OSE and GNU Flash Player.
- 5 Reasons to Choose Debian Linux Over Ubuntu Linux
For those rare people who don’t know, Canonical’s Ubuntu distribution is basically Debian Sid (the unstable version) plus a few GUI apps and modifications. Debian is one of the most successful community-based distributions.
- Linux Sea, an online book on Gentoo Linux
Kernel
- In-depth insights: Information from the Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) 2008 presentations
- Kernel Log: First release candidate concludes the hot development phase of 2.6.27
- HighPoint Technologies RocketRAID 3120 [now with GPL-licensed driver]
Telecom
- Linux Makes Phones Even Cheaper
- MontaVista Linux Enables Carrier/Telco Industry to Leverage High Performance of Cavium OCTEON Processors
SAMP and Sun Virtualisation
F/OSS
- Open source online Maori dictionary launched
- Signature Devices, Inc. Launches Open Source Video Game Development Engine
- Signature Devices, Inc. Launches Open Source Video Game Development Engine
- Visualizing Open Source Software Development
- Eight Ways VARs Can Profit From Linux And Open Source
- What Do Small Open Source Projects Do With Money? Not Much.
- Dr. Matthew King testifies about WorldVistA EHR
- Breaking News: Perot Systems Lands VistA Contract in Middle East
- Open Source vs. Proprietary Intranet Software, Part 1
- ApacheCon US and OFBiz Symposium bring together the Apache Community in New Orleans, November 3-7
- 10 Cool Open Source Easter Eggs
Ogg/Firefox Victory
- Firefox to Support Open Video Format in Next Release
- two cool things: ogg support in mozilla and canvas for IE
- Theora Video Backend for Firefox Landed
- Firefox market share exceeds 20%, Internet Explorer dips below 70%
- The Open Web: A New Old Meme
Linux (or Linux-based) Media Players
- Roku’s Netflix Player: a hands-on review
- Review: The Sandisk Sansa View
Thanks go out again to Sandisk for creating such a great PMP product, and for supporting the FOSS and Linux communities by powering their hardware with Linux.
- amaroK: Music App for Linux Reviewed
Apple
- Apple tries to shut down El Tunes - Viva La El Tunes!
- Why free software and Apple’s iPhone don’t mix
- Apple Denies Linux Access To Its Movie Trailers
Microsoft
Freedom and Rights
- Why Open Access for Textbooks is Inevitable
- How big is the free economy?
- Act Now on ACTA
- Sysadmins slam ACMA web filtering study
- IETF tackling P2P data traffic in Tokyo even though the same content is available on a server in London.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
David Gerard said,
July 31, 2008 at 6:22 pm
The Ogg Theora thing is a big win for FOSS. Particularly as Wikimedia has been desperately waiting for this - remember, we only allow Theora videos. The WMF installation of MediaWiki does allow the <video> tag if supported by the browser, but it’s presently the last option as browser support is still really crappy. But with people beating on the Firefox nightlies and generating bug reports and crash reports, it may be in better shape by 3.1-final than the current option, which is Cortado under Java!
(WMF does allow a little bit of Java into the system software. That’s because so far Sun have been making good on everything they promised with freeing Java, so we think it unlikely they’ll embarrass us at this stage.)
Roy Schestowitz said,
July 31, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I believe that Firefox (Mozilla) did this because it realised the threat of a proprietary Web. Opera too recently started Ajax/standards seminars because it sees it under threat by lazy developer that champion the binary SDKs and binary page content/viewer (which Google and Yahoo now encourage by indexing!).
aaaa bbbb said,
August 1, 2008 at 1:00 am
Wasn’t there a screenshot (ages ago) of a WinUpdate-server running on GNU/Linux?
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 1, 2008 at 1:13 am
IIRC. Microsoft.com had it Flash preloader running fedora. Hotmail might still run on FOSS.
David Gerard said,
August 1, 2008 at 5:41 am
“I believe that Firefox (Mozilla) did this because it realised the threat of a proprietary Web” - very likely. But it’s worth noting the <video> element was proposed by Apple for use in Safari! It’s just Firefox and Opera (in a labs experimental build, not in actual release-line stuff) have been the first to implement it with Ogg in place.
The main vector of attack for Apple would be to put up a metric buttload of H.264 or similar encumbered-format content themselves.