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● 05.26.09

● Links 26/05/2009: KDE4 Bits, Ubuntu and Shops

Posted in News Roundup at 5:37 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Government Users Start Looking Under Linux Hood

• If you are a local government IT official in the U.S. today, it’s likely easier for you to pick up a phone and get easy, quick answers from proprietary software vendors to find technology products to fill your needs, rather than having to manually sort through the sometimes fragmented world of open source projects to find a good fit.

=> ↺ Invisible Linux: The Details

• Invisible Linux would essentially do for Linux what Apple did with NeXTStep / BSD: take the open source core and wrap it in a layer that may not be open source but which is polished to a degree that makes it irresistible to end users. Such a package would consist of three things: a stable and dependable ABI/API layer for programmers; a professionally designed and use-tested interface for end users; and an organized deployment of all these things for the sake of administrators and commercial software creators.

=> ↺ Vistec rolls e-beam for 8-nm devices

• The system includes Linux-based operational software. Users can choose the preferred data preparation scheme.

=> ↺ Giving New Life to Old Macs With Linux

• If you’ve run older PowerPC-based Macs in your businesses you may be wondering what to do with them now that Apple has made the transition to Intel, and the G3, G4 and G5 processors are beginning to show their age.

• One possibility is to scrap OS X, and turn the machines into servers (or workstations) running Linux. Several distros run on PowerPC Macs, including familiar names like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE, as well as one that is probably less familiar: Yellow Dog Linux (YDL).

• YDL is a distro based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS core.

=> ↺ Why Your Boss Wants You to Use Linux

• As you “already know” – boss knows the best. If bosses were given to choose an operating system which would be right for their employees, that will be Linux. Here is the reasons:

• 1. Since Linux is free, you have no reason to ask him for part of its budget every time you install, upgrade, and get new software applications. Now instead of buying you a Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, He now has extra money to spare for a spa.

• 2. Because “he loves you and your job” so much, he wants you and your computer to be free from virus always. In addition, most bosses want the working place to be always clean and just hearing the words like virus, bacteria, or etc make them angry because they know that in the near future someone can absentee from the job.

• [...]

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Unified Kernel 0.2.4

• On May 22nd, 2009, Linux Unified Kernel project development team officially issued Unified Kernel 0.2.4. This version ports the file managment functions into kernel with one interface, and fixes bugs of registry managment in the previous one. With the improvement, applications will perform better on Linux Unified Kernel than on Wine. And the .rpm and .deb installation files are provided in the new release to save the installing time and storage space.

=> ↺ New Open-Linux Firmware for ICY BOX IB-NAS4220-B and IB-NAS4210

• With immediate effect there is an improved open Linux firmware available for the ICY BOX IB-NAS4220-B and IB-NAS4210-B (version no. 2.6.3.2 and no. 2.6.3.1). It is the first update since the last official release in November 2008.

Applications

=> ↺ NetFlix Where Art Thou ?

• OK…I think we can put the old wive’s tale to bed that Linux Users just don’t spend money.

• 2DBoy will be the first to punch a pin in that bubble.

• I could have linked the same data with a personal quote from Kyle from 2DBoy in my blog but that wouldn’t have proven much. The fact that Linux Users absolutely destroyed all previous first-day sales of World Of Goo by 40% is a powerful indicator.

K Desktop Environment

=> ↺ KDE 4.3 Beta 1: A Short Preview

• There are a ton of features in KDE 4.3, more than I could possibly mention in one article. It seems that there are improvements all over the place.

=> ↺ 15 Beautiful KDM Themes

• KDM (KDE Display Manager) is the default graphical login interface of the K Desktop Environment. Anyone who uses KDE should know that KDM is highly customizable and can be easily configured.

Distributions

=> ↺ Sooner (Linux Mint 7), Later (Fedora 11) and Now (ooVoo 2.1)

• It looks like Linux Mint will be making their next release, 7 or “Gloria”, in the next few days, according to the Linux Mint Blog. This is good news, because the new release is based on Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope”, which means you will get OpenOffice 3, and quite a few other nice updates. Of course, there are lots of Mint-specific updates as well, many of which look very nice. I’ve been running the Release Candidate for a couple of weeks now, and it is very good.

=> ↺ Fedora 11: Virtual(ization) Reality

• 8. Working on virtualization must be awfully time consuming and involved. Do you enjoy it? What do you do to get away from the pressures of hacking?

• Working on open source virtualization technology is a great experience because it is a really interesting and challenging field, having plenty of talented developers to work with and learn from. There is plenty of work still to be done at all levels of the stack from kernel/hypervisor right through to end user applications and not nearly enough time to do it all. I’m fortunate to be able to spread my work between upstream projects, the Fedora community and RHEL releases and maintenance.

Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu AppCenter

• The following is only an idea, but it could become reality in one of the next releases of the popular Ubuntu operating system. Back in August 2005, Matthew Paul Thomas submitted, on the Ubuntu wiki page, an idea and design of a piece of software that would unify all the existing package managers in the Ubuntu distribution. At the moment, the software is called AppCenter, and it was recently brought into spotlight. If you look at the mockup below, it pretty much looks like the Add/Remove application that is already an important part of the Ubuntu OS, but… if you look closer, you can notice that it also includes the ability to retrieve security and software updates.

=> ↺ Canonical developers aim to make Android apps run on Ubuntu

• As Android’s platform gains a stronger following and attracts commercial software vendors, the ability to use Android software on a conventional Linux distro could be a significant asset for users and hardware vendors. It would also boost the inherent portability of Android applications, potentially making Android a more palatable target for some third-party application developers.

=> ↺ Android Full Screen on Ubuntu

• Hacking pays off. I can now run the Android stack on Ubuntu with applications and the launcher running full-screen.

=> ↺ Ubuntu to get Appstore

• It seems every man plus dog is trying to build an AppStore to mirror Apple’s success. The latest comes from Open Source outfit Canonical which makes the user-friendly Linux OS Ubuntu. Of course the Linux fanbois claim that they had the idea first as Apple’s AppStore is very similar to their idea of Linux repositories. However there is no doubt that the AppStore does things a lot better with an awful lot of software.

=> ↺ Dell Studio XPS 13 with Ubuntu Linux

• Dell have certainly been showing Ubuntu some much needed attention over the last few months, and now they have decided to offer a Linux-based operating system on their new Dell Studio XPS 13 notebook, this is one of their hottest items at the moment.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Router platform runs OpenWRT Linux

• Ubicom is shipping a OpenWRT Linux-based router platform and reference design using the company’s new Ubicom IP7100 Router Gateway Evaluation board. The Ubicom board incorporates its StreamEngine IP7100 series network RISC processor, and includes a gigabit WAN port and four gigabit LAN ports, says the company.

Phones

=> ↺ HTC plans Android-based ‘OPhone’ for China

• For a holiday, it’s been an eventful day in the world of HTC-Android-phone news. First came those leaked internal AT&T documents that showed, among other things, a new HTC Android device called the Lancaster that’s supposedly targeted for an August U.S. launch. Now comes word of HTC’s plans, starting next month, to sell an Android-powered smartphone in China, the world’s largest wireless market.

=> ↺ New Open Source Mobile Phone Targets Business Users: Report

• Also consider this: For a few months, now, analysts have been calling for flexible open source platforms to fuel sales of smartphones, which some say will double their share of the entire cell phone market by 2013.

• [...]

• Officials at the international firm, whose U.S. headquarters are in Boston, say support from developers, vendors and operators is driving adoption of the open source devices.

=> ↺ Hacking Android on Ubuntu

• Great now I can run Android, right? Not yet. I came to find out that there are many things in the Android code that rely on specific hardware features. For example, is the device powered on? Of course it is on — we are a computer

Sub-notebooks

=> ↺ Feature-packed UMPC survives four-foot drops

• Data Ltd announced a ruggedized UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) claimed to survive multiple four-foot drops onto concrete. The Linux-compatible “DLI 8400″ uses a 1.6GHz Atom processor, has hard disk or SSD (solid state disk) storage, and operates for nine hours via two hot-swappable batteries, the company says.

=> ↺ At last! Moblin has made Linux look cool!

• Moblin, though, is different. It’s not a boiler. It’s sleek, it’s slick, it’s almost sexy.

• So naturally, somebody’s going to bugger it up. Of course they will. It’s Linux!

• Instead of a single version of Moblin, there’s going to be loads, and netbook firms are going to muck around with it, and we’re going to end up with the same old confusion that stops Linux from breaking through and becoming the OS your mum, dad and grandparents use.

=> ↺ First look: Intel’s Moblin 2.0 Linux desktop for netbooks

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Code alteration isn’t what open source is about

• Many vendors are jumping on the open source bandwagon and trying to make a ‘quick buck’ out of an emerging trend. Skewed versions of the definition of open source can largely be attributed to these vendors and it is recommended that companies seek out only certified and reputable open source vendors.

• Open source technology is by nature practical and pristine. Reputable vendors will not boast that their software and hardware have new and sexy features; they will not use alterable code as a selling point or claim to be absolutely “free”.

• Open source can only be considered to be so if it has a strong open source community backing. Anything less is something else entirely.

=> ↺ Innovation’s Catalyst

• Enthusiasts have had a central role developing the Web and open-source software, often doing what they loved doing without wondering whether they would make money at it. At O’Reilly, we’ve been following enthusiasts to learn more about the technologies they’re playing with. Tim O’Reilly calls them “alpha geeks.” (See “Where Real Innovation Happens.”)

• [...]

• Most importantly, he saw that users benefit from their own innovations. This insight speaks to the motivation of enthusiasts: They are doing it for themselves. Innovation results from making something you want to use yourself. It’s the same idea that Eric S. Raymond described when he remarked that open-source projects were started by developers who were “scratching their own itch.”

Browsers

=> ↺ Five Questions With Dion Almaer – Co-Creator Of Mozilla Bespin

• Dion Almaer is a name you will find 80,700 results for when searching on Google, so it is clear that people know how Dion Almaer is however, let’s kick this interview of with, like the shower scene in a slasher movie, the obligatory first question, who is Dion Almaer?

• Haha, yeah, I guess people could find a lot about me if they wanted huh? I am a Brit who moved to the US many moons ago and now live in the bay area, California. Some may know my work at Ajaxian.com, which is a blog discussing Ajax technology. I founded that blog with my partner in crime, Ben Galbraith, and we recently had a chance to join forces at Mozilla to startup a new Developer Tools Lab together. Bespin is the first experiment out from that lab.

=> ↺ Flock 2.5 Delivers the Promise of Social Media on the Web

• It’s been a long time in coming, but with the 2.5 release, the Flock folks have pulled all of the pieces together to deliver a cohesive “Social Web Browser.” The 2.5 release of Flock, coupled with the increasing mainstream interest in social media, might just be enough to make Flock more than a niche browser for Web 2.0 junkies.

Business

=> ↺ OpenX Gets $10.4 Million in Funding, Squares Off With Google

• OpenX Technologies, an open source advertising community that helps online publishers make money, has just announced a $10.4 million third round of venture funding, bringing total investment in the company to nearly $31 million since mid-2007.

=> ↺ OpenX Raises $10 Million to Serve Ads

• Now, it has raised $10 million in its third round of funding, which brings the total investment in OpenX to $31 million. DAG Ventures led the new investment round and was joined by existing investors Accel, Index Ventures, Mangrove Capital, First Round Capital and Jonathan Miller, chairman of OpenX and the new digital head of News Corp.

Programming

=> ↺ Adobe acts against Flash video stream recorder

• SourceForge, the open-source project host, has removed the pages of the rtmpdump stream-recording software from its network in response to a cease-and-desist notice from Adobe. The program uses the Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) to record not only streamed Flash media but also encrypted streams. Adobe added encryption to its proprietary protocol on introducing Flash Media Server 3 in order to prevent the recording of Flash content, and defined RTMPE (RMTP encrypted) for the purpose. Adobe takes the view that its copy protection can be circumvented by the RTMPE support incorporated in rtmpdump and, in its cease-and-desist notice, invokes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent the distribution of the software.

Applications

=> ↺ click2try(TM) Adds XOOPS CMS to Content Management System Offerings

• click2try(TM) (http://www.click2try.com) today announced that it has added XOOPS Dynamic Web CMS version 2.3.3 (http://www.xoops.org) to its online catalog of virtualized Open Source applications. A Community site, click2try enables users to try applications for free and use by subscription.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Are Free Bandwidth And Distribution Bad? Ask Susan Boyle

• But, you have folks at the NY Times who seem to think that it’s a bad thing, because the producers of the TV show aren’t making any advertising revenue from the clip being on YouTube. No, but they’ve created a huge singing sensation that is getting attention from millions of people. If they can’t figure out how to make money off of that in the long run, they don’t deserve to be in business.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the DayKendall Dawson, Linspire Community Liaison 04 (2005) [Embedment notice: your Web browser does not supportthe tag. Firefox 3.5 supports it.]Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

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