● 05.26.09

● Links 26/05/2009: Nokia N900, X Server 1.7 and X.Org 7.5 Coming

Posted in News Roundup at 11:19 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• According to the police, who couldn’t even identify Windows, much less Linux, calling it “not the regular B.C. operating system,” Calixte was suspected of — as are all citizens being smacked around with the CFAA — “obtaining computer services by fraud or misrepresentation” and obtaining “unauthorized access to a computer system,” because the emails — if they were from him — were sent anonymously.

• Peter De Wachter has created a Debian source code search engine for developers. It lets them find out quickly what files contain, for example, the usb_device structure required for accessing USB devices.

• Open source programs, which started to gain currency around the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, initially had difficulty attracting mainstream users because volunteer-maintained software was thought to be less reliable and less secure than products from blue chip technology providers like IBM and Microsoft. But over the past 10 years, as such open source programs as Apache, Linux, and MySql have been integrated into mainstream corporate technology settings, acceptance has steadily increased.

IBM

• LAST WEEK, IBM released research which showed that Linux desktops were easier to implement than IT staff expected

• That said, however, techies had to target the “right groups” of users, such as those who have moderate and predictable use of e-mail and office tools

• And where better than to make your dent in a newly developing economy than in its universities? IBM is doing just that by teaming up with the University of Technology in Ho Chi Minh City and the College of Technology in Hanoi, to tap young minds for free on subjects from cloud computing to service science research. The firm says university students can also help develop a local language version of IBM’s Developerworks technical resource site while they’re at it.

Kernel Space

• With the release of X Server 1.7 as part of X.Org 7.5 hopefully coming in July, X Input 2 will finally be entering the limelight after being long in development. This updated X Input Extension is critical in allowing Multi-Pointer X support in this next X Server release.

Applications

• BitTorrent is an open source peer-to-peer file protocol for sharing large software and media files. It is a well established protocol which accounts for a significant proportion of internet traffic.

• Linux data backup products are adding new capabilities and becoming even more mainstream. Today most major storage management vendors such as Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co. and Symantec Corp. have Linux versions of their storage management tools. In some Linux data backup software, vendors are offering the ability to back up to the cloud, handle virtualized systems and deduplicate data. Clearly there are more choices, and more sophisticated capabilities for users looking to back up their Linux systems.

• A clear win for GTK and Emesene here, because of its simplicity, speed and looks. KMess is a close second though, and even in beta looks like a better, easier chat client than the dinosaur Kopete.

• As cloud backups are becoming more popular, Linux backup vendors such as Zmanda are adding Linux cloud backup to their repertoires. In Zmanda’s case, its Zmanda Enterprise backup product allows backing up to Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) cloud from Linux devices.

Distributions

• These are tough but fair questions to ask. It’s great that we already have a national Linux distribution. It would be greater still if a thriving community of developers and end-users formed around that distribution. After all, that’s what the concept of bayanihan, the spirit of communal unity, is all about.

Devices/Embedded

• RoweBots Research, Inc., has launched two ultra-tiny embedded-Linux compatible RTOSes that for the first time enable Linux and POSIX compatible development of Renesas’ R8C, M16C and R32C/100 microcontroller (MCU) families.

• I enjoy using the Nokia N810 device from time to time to surf, use some old Palm apps with GarnetVM, and watch movies. I do find it to be a bit laggy at times though so it isn’t always with me. MobileCrunch posted some rumored news on the next Nokia Internet Tablet referred to as the N900, Rover, and Maemo Flagship. It is very similar to the Nokia N97, but with a higher resolution display and Maemo OS rather than S60.

• Nokia’s going to re-invigorate some life into its Internet Tablet market after a pretty successful stint with the N810. A successor is being planned to give the new Internet Tablet some new features, a more polished OS and it might actually become affordable.

• Ethernet has emerged over the last decade as the dominant fabric for networking communication, but it’s not the only one. Infiniband, a technology that offers the promise of lower latency for high speed computing applications is making inroads according to analyst reports and the Infiniband Trade Association (IBTA).

Phones

• In recent weeks, the Android operating system has seen tremendous, encouraging momentum. After the Mobile World Congress show took place earlier this year, with very little Android news of any kind there, some speculated that the open source operating system might be an outright failure. Now, though, there are signs of interest in Android from the number two personal computer manufacturer in the world, new forks of the operating system arriving, and lots of new Android smartphones on deck. GigaOm has a summary of the past week’s important Android headlines, including the possibility of a new Android tablet device, and we’ve been on the Android watch as well.

• An unnamed source has told The Guardian that the network operator fought off fierce competition from the likes of Vodafone and Orange, and that the Pré will arrive here in time for Christmas.

Sub-notebooks

• Once up, the desktop felt incredibly fast. If I didn’t know I was running it on 1.6GHz Aton equipped netbooks with 512MBs to 1 GB of RAM, I never would have guessed I was running it on such low-end hardware. Moblin is the anti-Vista. It runs great on minimal equipment instead of requiring the fastest possible hardware and still running at a snail’s pace.

Free Software/Open Source

• Launched on the eve of his birthday, the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) and the Advanced Information Technology Institute of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center for Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), have decided to join forces with the Sohne family to establish a Fellowship in memory and honour of the great work that Guido accomplished. So I was not worried to make the 15-hour road trip to get to Accra to be part of the event.

• I recently learned about the fact that the Berkman Center for Internet and Society is using Drupal.

Openness

• PWS: The way I think about it is this — just like software, warfare is going open source. That is, we’re starting to use more and more systems that are commercial, off-the-shelf — some of it is even DIY. You can build your own version of the Raven drone, which is a widely used military drone, for about $1,000 dollars. So we have a flattening of the landscape of war and technology that is just like what happened in software. A wide variety of actors can utilize these systems.

• Imagine that you are in a world where people are starving. Imagine you have some bread, and you were confronted with starving people: most would feel a compulsion to share that bread. But imagine now that you had RMS’s special kind of bread that could be eaten once or a million times: how much greater would the duty to share that bread with the hungry be? And how much more despicable would the person who refused to share that bread be?

• Translate this now to the realm of ideas. We are surrounded by people hungry for knowledge, and we do possess that magic bread – digital copies of knowledge that can be shared infinitely without diminishing it. Do we not have a similar moral duty to share that magic bread of digital knowledge with all those that hunger for it?

Programming

• Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz says the company will launch an application store for Java software. Sun hopes to cash in on its large Java install base by making the store accessible through the Java update system, but it needs to attract more popular software first.

• We are now in the process of landing a few refreshed icons for the Firefox 3.5 themes.

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