06.29.09

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• The pros and “conns” of Intel’s ConnMan for Linux

  Intel has created a new network management and configuration system for Linux called ConnMan—but not everyone is pleased to see it challenge NetworkManager. Ars looks at the pros and “conns” of the decision to create the new software.

• Options abound for transferring film to DVD

  Q: The Windows XP system on my notebook computer is near collapse. I was about to scrub the memory clean and reinstall Windows, when someone suggested that now might be the time to switch to Linux. I use a lot of Windows programs including Photoshop. Am I setting myself up for a world of frustration by trying to break the ties to Windows?

  A: Perhaps. I’m a big Linux fan. It’s faster than Windows, and free distributions of it such as Ubuntu (ubuntu.com) and Fedora (fedoraproject.org) boast Windows-like interfaces that make them a breeze to use.

  Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream Windows programs, including Photoshop and Microsoft Office, are not available for Linux. Fortunately, there are decent substitutes, including Gimp (photo-editing software from gimp.org) and OpenOffice (an office application suite from openoffice.org). Both are free.

• A decade on and tech company is still growing strong

  The company works mostly with open-source technology. Open-source software is much like other software but its source code – the actual programming – is accessible to anybody and can be customized on the fly. Many of the basic programs are available free online. Online communities have emerged to build on, improve and debug more popular open-source programs such as the Internet browser Firefox, the OpenOffice suite of productivity software and the operating system Linux.

• Microsoft reminds us that Windows is f*cking expensive

  Here in Europe a full version of Windows home premium would cost €199 (about $280). You can actually purchase a cheap Linux netbook for the same price! Yes, a boxed Edition of Windows can actually cost as much as a full netbook, that’s how expensive it is. If you live in the US you will get some relief though, as your license will only cost $199.

• Newsletters

  • The H Week

    Partly due to the activity at LinuxTag there were two issues of the Kernel Log this week. The Tuesday issue covered the end of further IDE development and included coverage of some of the activities at LinuxTag, while the Thursday issue documented the end of the main development phase of version 2.6.31 of the kernel.

  • Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 51

    Summary:
    Editorial: Jolicloud, the new operating system for netbooks!
    First Look: Ultimate Edition 2.2
    Distributions announced last week:
    · Available Now: g:Mini 3.0
    · R.I.P. Linux 9.2 Has Linux Kernel 2.6.29.5
    · Elive 1.9.31 Offers Support for Acer Aspire One

• Server

  • Why Oracle will continue to win

    Oracle’s acquisition streak has given the company an enormous breadth of offerings (say what you will about quality of the software) and the attempt at offering it’s own Linux variant gives it an OS that’s passable if not meaningful. But, I don’t know that owning the operating system is important to the growth of sales in applications or databases.

• Kernel Space

  • Is There a Perfect Linux Filesystem?

    Most often, when someone talks about a filesystem or file system, they’re referring to disk filesystems such as NTFS, FAT, ext2, ext3, ext4, ISO 9660 and many others but can also refer to network file systems such as CIFS (Common Internet File System aka Samba) and NFS. A filesystem is a specially-designed database of files, their disk location, definition and attributes. Everything on a Unix or Linux filesystem is a file: Directories, processes, links, programs, and device references. All files.

  • EXT4, Btrfs, NILFS2 Performance Benchmarks

    The past few Linux kernel releases have brought a number of new file-systems to the Linux world, such as with EXT4 having been stabilized in the Linux 2.6.28 kernel, Btrfs being merged into Linux 2.6.29, and most recently the NILFS2 file-system premiering with the Linux 2.6.30 kernel. Other file-systems have been introduced too during the past few Linux kernel release cycles, but these three have been the most talked about and are often looked at as being the next-generation Linux file-systems. Being the benchmarking junkies that we are, we have set out to compare the file-system performance of EXT4, Btrfs, and NILFS2 under Ubuntu using the Linux 2.6.30 kernel. We also looked at how these file-systems compared to EXT3 and XFS.

• Applications

  • WINE 1.1.24 – Lastest build tested.

    The Wine project has been going for a long time. Users who want to upgrade their OS to Windows 7 and like the idea of XP mode, should note that firstly XP mode is available only in the more expensive versions (apparently) and it allegedly does not offer DirectX support. Wine on the other hand has great support for software (check the home page for your favorite title) it won’t cost you anything, and its worth considering to try if as an unhappy Vista customer you are looking for an upgrade to your OS.

  • Boxee vs. Zinc vs. Hulu

    As far as the BoxeeBox is concerned, I can’t wait to revert to being back using a Linux platform for all my media streaming-media needs.

  • KDE’s Kontact vs. GNOME’s Evolution: Best Personal Info Manager?

    Personal information managers (PIM) are the major influence on most people’s opinion of a desktop. When you launch an application, the desktop is simply something to move past as quickly as possibly.

    Similarly, a desktop’s system administration tools are used only occasionally — and many of us still prefer to use the command line. By contrast, a desktop’s PIM tools are used daily, and switching to new tools can be disconcerting.

    This basic fact was rammed home for me when I recently switched from GNOME to KDE on my main computer. I had little trouble learning my way around KDE, and I continued to use many of the same programs, such as Firefox and OpenOffice.org.

• Distributions

  • Mandriva Linux 2010 Alpha 1

    Mandriva Linux, one of the most known distributions, it’s preparing the new version and already has an alpha (previous stage for a beta): Mandriva Linux 2010 Alpha 1.

  • Tiny Core Linux 2.1 Is Out

    Robert Shingledecker, founder of the Tiny Core Linux project, announced yesterday, June 28th, the release of Tiny Core Linux 2.1, a very small Linux distribution that is only 11 MB in size. This version comes with many updates as well as important features: the new modutils will further improve space efficiency and two added modules, hwmon and rfkill, bring better support for laptops.

  • Red Hat revenue surges 11%

    Software company Red Hat continued its recession-defying performance by posting an 11 percent increase in quarterly revenue that outpaced analysts’ expectations.

• Devices/Embedded

  • MosChip and IdealBT Partnership to Offer Complete Network Attached Storage (NAS) Network Appliance Processor and System Software Solution

    MosChip Semiconductor Technology Ltd., a leading provider of high performance connectivity solutions for consumer, industrial and computing applications, today announced it has entered into a technology partnership with IdealBT Technology Corporation to bring to market a complete system solution for network attached storage (NAS) applications. MosChip’s System-on-a-Chip (SoC) devices cover a myriad of NAS design requirements while IdealBT’s embedded Linux-based software has been designed into numerous functional, versatile, high-performance, and reliable NAS solutions.

  • Google move paves way for Firefox on Android

    Google’s move to let software run natively on Android devices opens the door for a version of Firefox that can run on the operating system.

    At present, Android applications are written in Java and run on Google’s Dalvik Java virtual machine. Last week, though, Google announced the Android Native Development Kit version 1.0 that lets software run natively on the Linux layer below, though the company sees it as a way not to run full-fledged applications as much as to run components of ordinary Android applications.

    “Android applications run in the Dalvik virtual machine. The NDK allows developers to implement parts of these applications using native-code languages such as C and C++,” said Google’s David Turner in a Native Developer Kit blog post.

  • Sub-notebooks

    • Netbook For Developing Countries

      Varadarajan Narayanan has a vision, a x86-based SoC netbook that is affortable, efficient and easy to repair. This innovative netbook is aimed for the develping countries. Though it is still in a very early phase of development it already shows much promise.

    • Impacts of the New Nokia-Intel Partnership Could Be Significant

      Under the new agreement, Nokia and Intel will coordinate open source efforts by aligning some of the underlying APIs across these platforms. They will also continue to work on several smaller projects such as oFono, ConnMan, Mozilla, X.Org, BlueZ, D-BUS, Tracker, GStreamer, and PulseAudio to provide more commonly-used open source standards across these platforms.

    • Sugar on a stick – Linux that kids can taste

      Linux distros that run on pen-drives are nothing new but this one’s specially designed for the little ones.

      Sugar Labs has now released version 1 of Sugar on a Stick, a bootable Fedora 11-based OS plus a set of applications that are stored on a USB memory stick. Although pen-drive distros of Linux are not new, this one is targeted for kids, with hundreds of fun-filled activities that can be downloaded form the SugarLabs Activity webpage.

Free Software/Open Source

• FreeDOS turns 15

  The project has been running ever since Microsoft said it would abandon the operating system when it moved to Windows 95. That was the Vole’s claim at the time, anyway. However, it didn’t really abandon DOS in Windows 95, but just hid it under the covers.

• If Only Oprah Had a CMS Club

  Recently, open source CMS solutions have gained traction with publishers and have taken market share from the enterprise players. In fact, this post on The Huffington Post points to Drupal, an open source CMS, as “the platform for building scalable, community-driven Web sites.” It even recommends another open source tool, WordPress, for blogging applications.

• Open Source ESB Webcast

  Topics to be covered include installing the binaries or building the source code, introduction to the FUSE shell, setting up the development environment, working with Eclipse and Maven. Cranton and Britton will also explore how you can write and deploy your own OSGi bundles for FUSE Mediation Router routes (based on Apache Camel), and FUSE Services Framework services (based on Apache CXF).

• TelcoBridges and Halo Kwadrat Join Hands for Open Source Applications in Central Europe and Russia

  TelcoBridges recently announced its decision to pool resources and join hands with Halo Kwadrat to tap into the high-capacity open source applications, specifically in central Europe and Russia. TelcoBridges is renowned globally as a hardware and software vendor for telecom system integrators, application developers, and service providers. Halo Kwadrat is a prominent European dealer focused in providing open source telephony products.

• ERP Should Pay for Itself in a Year: Q&A With xTuple CEO Ned Lilly

  When can a company that’s still “close to being a startup” compete on a level playing field against the giants in its field? During a recession, that’s when, says Ned Lilly, CEO of open source ERP provider xTuple. Cash-strapped companies that once were drawn to SAP and Oracle are now giving xTuple second looks, he told CRM Buyer.

• Ingres benefits from Oracle ‘arrogance’

  Instead, Save Mart went with the open-source Ingres database, which competes with the likes of EnterpriseDB and Sun’s MySQL.

• Government

  • Open Government and Open Source at the Department of Defense – Part 2

    Web 2.0 is about mass collaboration and open source is about collaboration also. There absolutely are some synergies there in both directions. The collaborative techniques of web 2.0 and mass collaboration are the same things that have driven open source to be successful. The most successful open source projects are the ones that provide value to people which then encourages those people to become developers, and then they add enhancements and so that same virtual cycle that powers things like wikipedia also powering open source software.

  • Open Source Software, Cloud Computing Can Save Government Money

    When it comes to IT, there is a multitude of low-cost, creative ways to make resources available. Which ones are worth considering? Is there a more efficient development approach? How can you effectively combine resources with other government districts? The clear need is to evaluate low-cost resources that save money in the short term and provide proven solutions that are advanced and secure enough to avoid long-term pain. This article delves into practical examples you can start using today to save money, speed development and deliver higher-quality solutions.

• Openness

  • Texas Encourages Electronic Textbooks0

    Geoffrey H. Fletcher at T.H.E. Journal is reporting on recent legislation in Texas encouraging school districts to move to electronic textbooks.

  • Open Source inspires Open Music

    Yesterday I had a chance to meet the lead singer of O Teatro Magico and then see their show. It was amazing! This creative group of musicians were about to “live the dream” by signing with a record company a number of years ago, but after they recorded the songs for their first album, the recording company said “sorry, but you need to change everything so that it sounds more like pop.”

  • The TLA nobody likes : DRM

    The creation of licenses for information on the web has been hugely simplified by the great people at Creative Commons, who have developed their CC licenses which are simple and offer the type of control over how information is used that meets most peoples needs online.

• IDE

  • NetBeans IDE enhanced for teams, scripting

    [N]etBeans, the open source IDE championed by Sun Microsystems, is being fitted with additional capabilities this week for development teams and scripting languages.

  • KDevelop 4 Beta 4 Released

    On behalf of the KDevelop team I am happy to announce the Beta 4 release of KDevelop 4. This release includes some major new features, such as working sets (only available when building with KDE 4.3), integration of the quickopen functionality into the toolbar and a new perspective switcher (see the upper right corner of the mainwindow). We have of course also fixed again a lot of bugs, for example non-text files such as images will not crash KDevelop anymore when closing them, Valgrind execution is working again, the debugger’s variable view has been fixed and a lot of crash fixes related to parsing and code-completion popups. Altogether we have managed to fix 30 bugs in just 30 days.

  • 9 of the Best Free Linux Debuggers

    Debugging is the process of finding and reducing the number of bugs in computer software and electronic hardware. When a program crashes, the debugger shows the position in the original code. A good debugger plays an essential role in software development.

    Debugging can be more difficult when various subsystems are tightly coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to appear in another.

Leftovers

• Censorship/Web Abuse

  • Cogeco Metered Billing Goes Live, Confuses Customers

    Back in April, Canadian cable operator Cogeco hoisted metered billing on the back of their customers, applying caps as low as 10GB per month and overages as high as $2.50 a month on top of existing tiers. When customers complained, Cogeco insulted customer intelligence by insisting the move wasn’t about making money. Cogeco then decided to raise monthly rates as well, just for good measure.

  • Rogers Again Injects Web Pages With Its Own Content

    Canadian Internet watchers may recall a controversy in late 2007 when Rogers began experimenting with adding its own content to webpages that its subscribers visit. The company used the technology to alert customers about their data usage. Google was one of the targets of the experiments and the company reacted angrily…

  • Internet scareware scammers settle with FTC for $100,000

    Two defendants in a scareware scam case have settled with the FTC after showing that they had no means to pay the organization’s previous $1.9 million order. The scammers now only have to fork over their illegally obtained earnings—unless they somehow manage to find that extra money later, that is.

• Copyrights

  • Copyfraud [2006]

    Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare’s plays, Beethoven’s piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet’s Water Lilies, and even the U.S. Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner’s permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use.

  • Pirate Bay’s YouTube Competitor is “Coming Soon”

    The Pirate Bay team has continued developing its video streaming site – which will open up to the public within 5 years. On The Video Bay users can share video clips without having to worry about getting them taken offline due to copyright violations, true Pirate Bay-style.

  • Brazilian President Shows Warmth To Pirate Bay Spokesman

    Since 2005, a Brazilian senator has been championing new cybercrime legislation which would include tough measures against file-sharing. Yesterday, at the International Free Software Forum, the Brazilian President openly criticized the bill, and then posed for pictures with The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde.

  • Lula vai a fórum de software livre

  • Unravelling the Canadian Copyright Policy Laundering Strategy

    The Conference Board of Canada plagiarism and undue influence story – which with the Board’s report and overdue apology to Curtis Cook will now go on hiatus until new reports are issued in the fall – has obviously attracted considerable interest. Looking back, while plagiarism is rare, it is the public airing of the copyright lobby policy laundering effort that is the far more important development.

  • British music boss: we should have embraced Napster

    The head of UK music trade group BPI says that the major labels made a mistake by not doing a deal with Napster a decade ago. Such a deal was never going to happen, but what kind of world might we be living in now if it had?

  • Play it again: Tenenbaum team tries to toss MediaSentry evidence

    The year’s second major P2P trial kicks off in one month, and Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson wants to mount some of the same attacks that failed in the first case. Nesson argues that all of the RIAA’s MediaSentry investigative evidence must be banned from trial, as the company violated wiretap law and private detective licensing law.

  • Sirius XM must raise prices to pay music royalties

    Sirius and XM promised the Federal Communications Commission they would not raise rates as a condition of the companies’ merger, but the FCC did allow them to issue rate hikes to account for any increase in royalty costs.

  • Ramblings from the Marginalized

    The small Connecticut town of New Milford has gotten the attention of ASCAP. They are being told to pay for a license but the town says no…

    Several months ago, the town of New Milford decided not to sign a licensing agreement with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

  • MPAA says Real’s patent attempt saps RealDVD argument

    The MPAA has taken Real to court to try to stop the company from selling RealDVD, a software that enables users to copy DVDs to a hard drive, as well as Facet, a DVD player that can also create digital copies of DVDs and store them as well. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel is due soon to decide whether to continue banning sales of RealDVD until a full trial decides whether the technology violates copyright law.

  • Meet the former Time Warner exec the US govt has put in charge of writing a secret, restrictive copyright treaty

  • Meet the chief US ACTA negotiator: Kira Alvarez, the Deputy Assistant USTR for IP Enforcement

    Kira Alvarez is the Deputy Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property Enforcement, and the chief US negotiator for ACTA. According to her Linkedin bio, as late as October 2008, right before the election, she was the Time Warner Vice President for Global Public Policy, and before that, she was a lobbyist for Ely Lilly, the pharmaceutical company. Alvarez also worked for both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, before her stints for Lilly and Time Warner. Note that she took her current job in December 2008, after the election but before the inauguration. Now she is the lead Obama representative for ACTA, reporting to Stan McCoy and Ambassador Kirk at USTR.