12.22.09

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Give the Gift of Linux for the Holidays

  Why Linux?
  Unlike Windows and Mac OS X, which cost money and offer (with some minor exceptions) only one set of features and capabilities for all users, Linux is free and comes in many different flavors. Regardless of what the person on your list likes to do, you’ll almost certainly be able to find the perfect distro for him or her. And if you can’t, you can probably roll your own—try doing that with Windows.

  Do Steve Ballmer or Steve Jobs really need any more money? I think not. Rather than giving Microsoft or Apple any of your money during these frugal days, keep your cash and go with Linux instead.

• Ubuntu vs Windows Hardware Requirements

  I compared the hardware requirements of a popular Linux Desktop: Ubuntu 9.10 with Windows 7 both of which were released last month.
  Hardware Windows 7 Ubuntu 9.10
  RAM (MB) 1024 MB 256 MB
  Processor (MHz) 1000 MHz 300 MHz
  Disk Space (MB) 16 GB 4 GB

• Linux + Multitouch display = open source 10 fingered goodness

  In order to emulate these results, you’ll need the Linux kernel 2.6.31, a modified version of X.org 1.7, and supported hardware and drivers. So we’re not quite at the point where you can just pick up a netbook with a multitouch display, install Fedora or another Linux distro, and expect to tap your way to bliss with up to 10 fingers on the screen. But we’re getting closer.

• Ubuntu movie sighting

  I was watching the Millenium movie last night, and spotted an Ubuntu desktop being used by the “Plague” character…

• Great and Disappointing Operating Systems of the Decade

  GNU/Linux (especially 2.6.18+)
  Never has their been such an uproar in computing as a free kernel and free utilities– all done very well with rapid, mindful if darwinian skill. Linus Torvalds crafted Linux, and has been holding on for dear life ever since. Coupled with the GNU utilities and two main window manager branches (Gnome and KDE), Linux underpinnings now grace objects from tiny wristwatches and clever cell/mobile phones, to IBM mainframes and everything in between. The promise of Linux for civilians is slowly but surely being realized through distros like Ubuntu, Novell/SUSE, Mandrive, Knoppix, and others, but the enterprise server market belongs to Red Hat, Novell/SUSE, and communities formed around each of these. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t worth in the literally hundreds of distros out there.

• Twenty Ten

  • 10 Linux-based Technologies to Look for in 2010

    Everyone has posted their predictions for 2010 but here’s the real scoop on what’s going to happen in 2010 with Linux and Linux-oriented hardware and software products. Get ready to see the biggest increase in Linux adoption in history. You can say you saw it here first. These are in no particular ranking or order.

  • Kickstart 2010 with Linux

    If your new year’s resolution is to kick the Microsoft habit, here are some Linux versions you might want to look at.

    Switching to a new operating system is never easy. Particularly if you were brought up on a staple diet of Microsoft Windows. But it’s not as hard as it used to be to switch to Linux because there is a good selection of quality Linux versions that are easy to install and comfortable to use.

• Applications

  • Inkscape 0.47 Totally Solid with Lots of New Tools

    Inkscape 0.47 by Nathan Willis – Totally solid release with lots of new cool tools and functions

    The free open source vector graphics editor Inkscape has released an update packing several new features, new tools, effects, and improved SVG compliance. Version 0.47 is available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows, as well as source code. Ubuntu users can also add the Inkscape Testers package archive to automatically upgrade.

  • 12 Days of Xmas: Day Five – ViewNior

  • Review: qBittorrent

    It was a little rough getting there, but KDE 4 has reached a point where I’m using it on all my machines. The pain was worth it (barely) and KDE is by far the most satisfying desktop environment for my personal use.

    [...]

    If you are in the market for a new bittorrent client, especially once based in QT – I highly recommend giving qBittorrent a look. It’s a solid and reliable client with well implemented features and under active development so chances are good it will continue to improve!

  • Instructionals

    • How To Use Linux ~ 02 Distros

    • Best of Linux Cheat Sheets

    • How-To: Change GRUB Splash Image (For GRUB Legacy)

    • Debian/Ubuntu GNU/Linux device driver check

    • Using Bluetooth on Linux

      So, there you have it. A rather long description for what is really a rather easy process. As I said at the beginning, if you have Bluetooth and aren’t using it, you are missing out on some convenience and functionality that you would probably like. it’s not hard, especially if you start out like I did, and just get a Bluetooth mouse. You can have it connected in less than a minute, and the confirmation that your system has Bluetooth, and it works, is a good feeling. The experience you gain from doing that can be used for the next step, which might be connecting your mobile phone, and transferring pictures. Then you’re really on your way!

• Distributions

  • Pentoo 2009.0 final – out and ready for action

    So, we spoke about a list of top pentesting livecd’s here. We might have to update that list soon! Pentoo is a Live CD and Live USB designed for penetration testing and security assessment. Based on Gentoo Linux, Pentoo includes Nessus and Metasploit for penetration testing and security assessment. The user interface is the Enlightenment window manager. Pentoo is optimized for Pentium III architecture. Pentoo supports package modularity in the same fashion that Slax does.

  • Debian Family

    • Dell introduces best Ubuntu netbook ever?

      Microsoft has restricted Windows 7 Starter to make sure it’s no competition for the more full-featured versions of Windows 7. For example, “It’s got to have a super-small screen, which means it probably has a super-small keyboard, and it has to have a certain processor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” That ringing endorsement for Windows 7 Starter Edition was made by some guy named Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.

      Ubuntu 9.10, however, is an excellent desktop Linux distribution. While I’ll be the first to admit that Ubuntu 9.10 has its rough-edges when you install it yourself on some systems, Dell has always done an excellent job of fitting Ubuntu on its systems.

    • Hands On with Linux Mint 8 (Helena)

      The recent release of a major new version of Ubuntu means it’s time for new versions of various remastered distros. This time around it’s Linux Mint 8. Linux Mint, as you may already know from previous releases, takes Ubuntu to another level by slicking it up with tools, multimedia codecs and more. Linux Mint 8 makes it easy to get started with Linux even if you haven’t run it before. Pretty much everything you need for your daily computing tasks is included in Linux Mint 8 or available in the Linux Mint software repository.

• Devices/Embedded

  • SheevaPlug – a Debian home server in a wall-wart

    This write-up was intended as a very high-level review of my experience setting up this unusual system, and is by no means a step-by-step walkthrough. There is plenty of detailed information available online on websites such as plugcomputer.org and computingplugs.com that can prove invaluable to get things working on the SheevaPlug. As remarked before, the system is sold as a developer’s kit and setting it up is definitely not for the faint of heart or for those who avoid the terminal like the plague. In the end, I had a lot of fun getting this to work and the system is working beautifully. I learned a lot in the process and am amazed yet again at how flexible Debian is as an operating system for just about any computer, even embedded systems like this one.

Free Software/Open Source

• Wanted: More Open Source Research

  Look up open source. You’ll get 203,000,000 results. How come? While credit goes to many, including Bruce Perens, who chose the term, I see widespread usage largely as the direct result of a “call to the community” by Eric S. Raymond on 8 February 1998. Plus the runaway successes of Linux, Apache and thousands of other open source code bases, and the Internet they all run on. (And the Net is essentially a pile of open and free protocols.)

• Open Source Downloads: the Monster List

  As demonstrated by the nearly 500 open source downloads on this list, open source software has benefited from an explosion of creativity in the last several years. Indeed, the first decade of the 21st century could be called “the Decade of Open Source.”

  Since 2006, Datamation has put together at least 15 different lists of open source software, for file sharing, enterprises, small businesses, windows users, netbooks, security professionals, and others. (And check out the hot new open source list from late 2009). For this list of open source downloads, we revisited all those applications that we’ve featured before, culled out the projects that are no longer active (or no longer open source), made updates, and organized them alphabetically in categories.

• New: OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 Release Candidate 1 (build OOO320_m8) available

  The next step in the OpenOffice.org 3 series is coming closer: OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 Release Candidate 1 is now available on the download website.

• Openoffice3.2 RC1 is Released !

• CMS

  • King of Belgium goes Drupal

    Following hot on the heels of US President Barack Obama, Albert II, King of the Belgians, just relaunched his website on Drupal. Check it out at http://www.monarchie.be. The site was built by Connexion.

• Programming

  • Qt applications in your browser

    A Qt application, running inside the Native Client sandbox, inside the Firefox browser Vergrößern
    Source: Qt Labs A first shot at creating a port of the Qt toolkit to Google’s Native Client (NaCL) environment allows Qt applications to run as applets within a browser. The port is not yet complete, but it already offers mouse and keyboard support, rudimentary support for the QtGUI and QtCore libraries and several more complex widgets. The biggest problem with the current port though is that the event handling in NaCL is polling based which makes applications spin using 100% of the CPU; the developers descibe this as “not quite our preferred style”.

Leftovers

• Finance

  • It’s Goldman Vs. London As Bank Threatens To Move Employees To Troubled Spain

    Talk about a slap in the face. Goldman Sachs (GS), in a bid to keep employees away from the UK’s new onerous bonus tax, is threatening to shift a chunk of its London bankers over to highly troubled spain.

  • Goldman Sachs looks to Spain on bonus tax

    Goldman Sachs could move up to one fifth of its 5,000 London-based staff to Spain, the Independent has reported.

  • Goldman Warns London Over Taxes

    They’re not going to take it sitting down. Goldman Sachs told the British Treasury that it would move up to 20 percent of its London staff to Spain if the government does not relent on plans for a windfall tax on bonuses, The Independent writes.

  • Taxpayers Help Goldman Reach Height of Profit in New Skyscraper

    In the first six months of 2010, about 6,000 employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will take a break from their spreadsheets and move across the southern tip of Manhattan to a new 43-story, steel-and-glass skyscraper.

  • U.S. taxpayers helping Goldman Sachs move in to gleaming tower, too

    The $2.3 billion steel-and-glass skyscraper was given a Liberty Bond tax break that allowed it to sell tax-free bonds to support the tower’s construction.

  • Goldman Sachs PAC spreads the wealth

    The Goldman PAC raised $205,000 in the past month, so these are just initial numbers, but the early filings show that Goldman is hitting up the left, the right and the center, but the company is also being opportunistic. Waters is the third ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and Lincoln is chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee — which could have a role in regulation of derivatives.

  • Protestors sang Christmas Carols to Goldman Sachs employees and want their money back!

    Working people, seniors and oraganizers from Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, Americans for Financial Reform, NY Jobs for justice, NYPIRDG posed as carol singers today outside the New York downtown offices of Goldman Sachs on West Street protesting the banks plan to hand out $150 billion compensation and bonuses today.

  • University Presidents Who Waste Time Sitting on Corporate Boards…

    It’s quite the scam. You make tons of money by sitting in a chair.

    Sitting – with stock options and all – can net you far more than your university salary.

    And what’s in it for the university? Well, Brown gets to be associated with Goldman Sachs — one of the country’s most disgusting greed-machines.