● 06.04.09

● Links 04/06/2009: UNIX Turns 40, New KDE4 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 6:42 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Many of you out there doubt the user-friendliness, the power, and the flexibility of the Linux desktop. But after 10-plus years of using the Linux desktop, I’m pretty confident I can put those concerns to rest. Not only is the Linux desktop user-friendly, powerful, and flexible, it also improves on the standard desktop metaphor — in many ways.

• Here are 10 of the best ways that the Linux desktop improves on the standard. By the time you’ve finished reading this, your interest should be piqued enough to at least want to try one of the Linux desktops.

• La Curacao is a Los Angeles-based chain of Hispanic-focused electronics stores. Its locations are decorated with symbols of ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations: the chain’s motto, “Un Poco De Su Pais,” translates to “a little bit of your country.”

• While La Curacao enjoys strong levels of customer loyalty, its previous operating system sometimes left both customers and sales associates frustrated. Transactions could take a long time to complete, which prompted some sales associates to abort the process and start over.

• I watched that cat go as my monitor gleamed and it glowed, my Linux desktop with Beryl endowed.

• He was gone in a flash and nowhere to be seen, but he left a wet spot on the floor, in front of my screen.

Desktop

• However, if you know what you are doing, Macs Stink! This is really true if you are into open source software, because it is almost impossible to compile someone else’s code on a Mac, even if they wrote it for Mac.

• Jason: “Yeah but it can it run Lotus 123 or WordStar? Can you go onto CompuServe or BBSes with it?”

• Andy: “Who cares? This thing is so cool!”

• Jason: “Enjoy. I’ll stick with my keyboard, character mode graphics and PC-XT.”

• Cousin Andy grew up to be a very nice, smart and successful guy and went into educational publishing. He got married and had a couple of kids, and is now a venture capitalist. But at that time, when I was 15 or 16, I just remember him as my know-it-all older first cousin. Andrew, I love you man, but you are responsible for creating the master template for my complete distaste for Mac Fanboyism and my eventual disassociation from anything Apple. Sorry.

• User: its good to be a #microsoft nerd because #apple is over rated and designed for asthetics and not functionability

• Goblin: Thats a joke right? Have you used a #MAC ? If you are into functionality and not aesthetics why not use Linux then? theres plenty of distro’s that will satisfy your “tech” thirst. Gentoo? you don’t have to use KDE or Gnome you know. I’d love to hear your comments on why Apple is overrated…I think you’ve bought into the “Laptop Hunter” ads. Oh dear.

• A couple of years ago I would probably easily dismiss the idea of trying out a new version of Windows on the basis of a Free Software ideology or the chorus of voices of Free Software or Open Source fans saying how it just sucks and I better not bother. But things have changed and while some may accuse me of betraying my own four freedoms or even worse the sin of promoting subjugation of computer users, my “evolution” (or de-evolution, perhaps, in some views), has exactly a lot to do with freedom. For what that’s worth to would be detractors, it’s freedom that I rediscovered, not that I betrayed.

• [...]

• I think it is becoming rather obvious why Ubuntu rears itself as a better choice here. Availability of production software is an issue that I face only a small minority of time. I mainly do web development or writing which I can easily do with tools readily available. Fun stuff like watching movies, listening to music, watching videos online, chatting etc. is all well supported. So the things that are missing are things which I need too sparsely to warrant switching to a new OS, let alone paying for it.

• [...]

• All in all, a good case is being built for popular, well supported Linux based OS’s like Ubuntu.

Server

• Verizon Business rolled out its Computing as a Service (CaaS) product today, which brings the big carrier directly into the cloud marketplace. While the cloud is a compute infrastructure, it still needs an operating system and for Verizon that means both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows.

Kernel Space

• The 2.6.30 kernel is chock full of next-gen file systems. One such example is NILFS, a new log-structured file system that dramatically improves write performance.

• Whether your a systems administrator managing hundreds or thousands of machines, or a freelance designer working on your trusty laptop, chances are that a mandatory system update has, at one time or another, interrupted your day with a mandatory reboot. When it’s just your laptop, it’s not so bad — get a refill on that coffee! — but when it’s hundreds or thousands of machines, it can be a logistical nightmare. Now a new company called KSplice is looking to make all our lives a little easier by applying system updates to a running computer without requiring a reboot!

Applications

• You’ve certainly have bumped into Gmail Notifier for Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, the awesome little python-install application that brings Growl-like, transparent Gmail notifications to your desktop, Mumbles goes a lot further than that.

• DockbarX is a taskbar with grouping and group manipulation with some “experimental” features compared to Docbark (it is not a fork of Dockbar, but a branch of DockBar holding new “experimental” features).

• Linux only: Desktop search utility Catfish searches through your Linux desktop using the search engines already at your disposal—instead of installing yet another processor-intensive indexing engine.

• Not only is mail handled, with POP3 and IMAP, but it is possible to use virtual domains for the mail and mail aliases are supported. If your business uses internal IM in addition to mail, the Jabber server is simple to set up.

• Proxmox VE 1.2 is running Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM-85) and OpenVZ on Debian 5.0. It is a 64-bit system and works with virtualization capable CPU. It equipped with a web-based control panel and allows you to create, delete and modify the virtual guests from it. You can also backup the virtual guests with cron job. It is a very good and easy way to implement the virtualization environment. However, Proxmox VE does not support fakeRAID and software RAID. A hardware RAID card is required.

• There are lots of games in the world of open source, which means lots of cheap fun. Well, sort of. Many of these games aren’t complete enough to be playable, others have been abandoned, and some just aren’t very fun. But there are many good open source games, and out of these a few are just amazing. So amazing, in fact, that you just might get addicted.

• There is a new IM app on the block, its called Synapse, it is a new alpha application which means its not nearly finished yet, but from the screenshot it looks amazing!

• Here is some of Synapse’s Key Features that already stand out from all the others:

• * Grid View – A Compact way to see/browse your friends! * Activity Feed – Unified View for friends activity ie; Twitter, IM Status, Music playing & More! * Photo Sharing – Flickr Integration, Drag & Drop images to chat window! * Web Preview – Get a glance of a webpage or video behind a link right in your chat window when you send/share a link! * Code Sharing – Syntax Highlighted code blocks for easiy collaboration * Highly Extensible – Plugins are added with extreme ease, and the architecture wont hold developers back in creating new plugins/addons

Desktop Environments

• While Enlightenment E17 is still undergoing development, the Enlightenment E16 window manager has finally reached version 1.0.0. As Kim Woelders points out in the 1.0.0 release announcement, there are not any fundamental changes since version 0.16.8.15, but it just felt like it was time this X window manager reached the 1.0 status.

KDE

• The desktop is very different to anything else experienced in the Linux world, although users familiar with previous revisions of KDE will feel some comfort. All installed applications are available from the K-button in the task bar and broken down by category. Unlike GNOME, KDE includes most configuration options under a central control centre and there are lots and lots of things users can tweak. This is one of the main issues which separates GNOME and KDE projects. GNOME tries to keep things simple while KDE offers a plethora of options and puts more power in the hands of the user. Although he currently uses GNOME (due to his disappointment with the KDE 4.0 release), Linus Torvalds said: “This ‘users are idiots, and are confused by functionality’ mentality of GNOME is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don’t use GNOME, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE.”

• There are several programs to get mail notifications in the notification tray in KDE 4 but up until now there have been no native KDE ones: cgmail, and gnubiff rely alot on Gnome. There is the emailnotify plasmoid which isn’t too shabby but I wanted my notifications in the notification area!

• The KDE Release Machine seems unstoppable these days! Today brings you KDE 4.2.4, the monthly update to the 4.2 series of KDE. KDE 4.2.4 is the recommended update for all those using KDE 4.2, or rather anything in the KDE 4 series. Those that stayed away from KDE 4 until now might give it a whirl as well to see if KDE 4 is up to their tasks.

• Since the release of 2.0 we have gotten a lot of feedback and have already integrated some of it in 2.0.1 and 2.0.2. This new release includes a new look, many improvements, new features and brings back old favorites.

• As we’ve mentioned at the beginning of the article, there’s also a huge list of bugfixes and many other small improvements. And, as the developers always promised, future versions of Amarok 2.1 will bring even more of your favorite features… so stay tuned!

• Gmusicbrowser has a lot more features that the ones in this post, I only wrote about the things I liked, but you will find an option for full-screen too, IDtag writer and many many others. Give Gmusicbrowser a try and let me know what you think!

Distributions

• To answer the original question of “what is a Linux distribution”, I’ll conclude by saying that it is just a version of the Linux kernel bundled with a graphic interface and some applications, the same way that there are home and professional versions of Windows. The biggest difference is that there are more Linux distributions than there are versions of Windows. In a later post I will present the most common Linux distribution and explain to which kind of usage they are best suited.

• For a non-technical user of computer and internet, sometimes the terms like Linux, GNU, Gnome and name of any distro of Linux causes a lot of confusion. I intend to provide some simple information about major distros of Linux in this post.

• Overall, I loved PC/OS. At first I wasn’t sure what to think of it, and really was somewhat underwhelmed to say the least. But the more I got to playing with it, the more it grew on me. After a while I found that I was rather impressed with all it offered and did.

Mandriva

• 2010 specifications are on the way and will be stored in svn. pdf file will be provided in wiki as during next week. This new coming release was also a good opportunity to launch Mandriva IdeasAs. This new web tool is dedicated to Mandriva community. Any user can easily submit proposal. It’s all free, you just need to register and get a Mandriva account.

• Some days ago, Anne Nicolas announced on Cooker ML the availability of a dedicated site to allow the community to propose ideas and wanted features for the next Mandriva release : http://ideas.mandriva.com/. Proposals can be sorted by environment, release, and version.

Gentoo

• As the CIA.vc stats show, Gentoo is far from dead, whatever anyone else may claim. I’ll admit it wasn’t a typical day, but last month’s number of 10k commits speaks for itself.

• After getting past that… I downloaded the right CD image, but I to find a CD-R to burn it to. Finding a CD-R is not as easy as it once was, granted I could have used a DVD-R to burn the 80MB file, but that seemed like a waste. Anyways, once you have the right CD, here is a quick guide as to restore the MBR (all the steps were taken from the Gentoo Linux Handbook, pages 4, 6, 10).

Red Hat

• As part of its new JBoss Open Choice strategy, Red Hat has presented a uniform environment for utilising a range of different programming models. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform software is the open source specialist’s answer to the growing demands on the various Java enterprise programming and deployment models.

• Side-by-side Windows displays might be the last thing you would expect to see taking center stage at Red Hat’s booth at the recent Interop show in Las Vegas. But it makes sense when you consider they were part of a demo showcasing the company’s pursuit of what it sees as a huge opportunity: the emerging virtual desktop market.

• 6. You are well known as a long time and very involved Fedora contributor. What are some of the other projects you worked on for this release?

• I worked on the (oh-so-controversial) volume control, updated Bluetooth management tools, and wrote/updated a driver for Wacom Bluetooth tablets.

• But work has already started for Fedora 12. With Dan Williams, we already added Bluetooth PAN support to NetworkManager, and we’re working on the front-end bits now. I’d like to do some more work on my old flames, Totem and Rhythmbox.

• I also have a drawer full of Bluetooth devices that I need to work on. I’m half-way done adding Geolocation to Firefox, for Linux platforms, using GeoClue. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish that and work on some more devices.

• 7. What are you going to do to celebrate the release of Fedora 11?

• Probably raise my glass to it, and getting cracking on Fedora 12!

Devices/Embedded

• If all you’re looking for is access to your data while you’re on the road, you can’t do much better than the $100 Pogoplug. The small (4 x 2.5 x 2-inch), white Pogoplug box is actually a mini file server that uses Linux software to allow remote connections, dole out files and save material remotely. It plugs into your network router and works with a variety of USB storage devices, such as external hard drives or USB keys.

• Obviously, Intel has to tread carefully here, since it can’t trumpet that Linux side too much, but the reality is rather stronger than those neutral statements would suggest.

• When I interviewed Wind River’s Chief Marketing Officer last year, here’s what he said when I explored the Linux angle…

Phones

• Former Openmoko employees have already started redesigning the Freerunner hardware (gta02-core) using only Free Software tools. Werner Almesberger, working with many others, has made great progress. Recently, we have released more information to accelerate their efforts. In the coming weeks, all the design information will be handed over to the community along with all of openmoko.org (Wiki, GIT, Trac, Planet, …). Openmoko Inc. then will act as the sponsor of this effort. We will continue to fund all necessary server infrastructure and support, in areas where corporate help is needed, future open phone development. (Parts of this process will require legal work – so I request your patience.)

• Application stores and services will drive the smartphone market in the coming years, say reports from Ovum and In-Stat. According to Ovum, mobile apps will help make the Linux/Java-based Android the fastest growing smartphone OS by 2014, giving it an 18 percent share of a $406.7 million market.

• Google demonstrated an early version of Android 2.0, codenamed “Donut,” at the Google I/O developer conference, and handed out free unlocked Android Dev Phones (pictured), says eWEEK. Android 2.0 adds integrated local and web search, handwriting gesture UI, Google Translate, and text-to-speech features, says the story.

• Handheld devices running Moblin 2.0 will be able to access Google’s Android Market, potentially making the Intel operating system as appealing as Android for mobile carriers paid to host application downloads on their networks.

• The second version of the Linux software for mobile phones includes enhanced support for location-based services, advanced security, and multimedia playback improvements.

Sub-notebooks

• The first Alpha release of the Joilicloud OS is available. Jolicloud is an Internet operating system. It combines the 2 driving forces of the modern computing industry: the open source & the open web.

• Intel continues to push the adoption of the open-source Moblin Version 2 mobile operating system, today using the Computex show in Taipei, Taiwan as its bully pulpit.

• GNUstep is addictive, so one has to have it always handy… laptops, virtual machines, Windows port are means, but netbooks? The current trend?

• 3) The ARM processors seem to be lagging behind the Intel Atom family. That said, Asus, Compal, Foxconn, HTC (High Tech Computer), Inventec, Toshiba, and Wistron all showed off Snapdragon-powered devices at the show. What I see as the ARM/Snapdragon problem is that it’s largely waiting on Android.

• Once Google Android arrives, I see this end of the netbook market exploding. The sub-$200, 6-hour+ battery life netbook with Google’s name on it is sure to sell like hot-dogs at a baseball game

• This is it, the revolutionary LCD screen by Pixel Qi that turns your netbook into a Kindle by the flip of a switch. As you can see in this video, thanks to Pixel Qi technology, your next LCD screens can now be very usable outdoors as well under the sunlight, in a very high resolution black and white mode and also keep a full color and bright back light indoors mode.

• Amazon’s Linux-based Kindle and a growing cadre of primarily Linux-based e-books use an electrophorescent monochrome display sourced from E Ink Corporation. It’s claimed such displays offer a bright, high-contrast, thin, lightweight display technology that remains legible under “any lighting condition” — much like newsprint. Once an image has been “printed,” no power is needed to hold it, reducing energy requirements by 99 percent compared to LCDs, E Ink adds.

• If ARM and other alternative architectures prove popular among PC vendors over the long term, Windows and OS X will be locked out of a substantial portion of the market, especially on netbooks and other portable devices. In the absence of proprietary platforms, the dominance of Ubuntu and other Linux distributions is all but assured.

Crunchpad

• This is the latest visualization of the CrunchPad, and it’s hot. The touch-tablet is the attempt of internet hype-master Michael Arrington and his TechCrunch team to make a cheap Linux cloud-computer. The machine boots straight into a Webkit browser and is navigated much like you’d navigate the iPhone.

UNIX

• Forty years ago this summer, a programmer sat down and knocked out in one month what would become one of the most important pieces of software ever created.

• Computerworld’s 2009 survey on Unix use shows that the OS will be alive and kicking for some time to come.

• Programmers Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are most often credited with the invention of Unix at Bell Labs in 1969 and the early 1970s. That’s entirely fair, but as with most important technologies, it’s the people who follow the pioneers who often make the difference between a fabulous lab prototype and a technology that really transforms the landscape.

• Here’s a brief look at three people, among thousands, who have made a difference in the Unix world.

• For the most part there are not many performance changes to be spotted in the 26 tests we ran using the Phoronix Test Suite. In some tests like GraphicsMagick, the newer GCC 4.3.2 compiler that is available via the Image Packaging System was a big help, while in other tests the newer GCC 4.x compiler actually led to a performance regression. Besides that there is not too much to illustrate with today’s tests. Shortly we will have a new round of Ubuntu Linux vs. OpenSolaris testing.

Free Software/Open Source

• The Project Renaissance goal is “to know and to understand our users as they are, and to help them accomplish what they want to, by providing efficient access to valuable functionality through a desirable user interface.”

• [...]

• After five weeks of design work and review, we can also provide other impressive numbers. All in all, 17 proposals were submitted and reviewed by our brilliant and creative community members. Please note that “creative” refers to information architecture— graphics design is outside our current focus. They contain a total of 145 user interface design mockups. (Wow!)

• Jacksonville, the largest city in Florida, is using Drupal (and Mollom) at http://jacksonville.com. The Florida Times-Union is the major daily newspaper in Jacksonville and Jacksonville.com is its official website. Cool!

Firefox

• Firefox 3.5 will be fast. Twice as fast as Firefox 3 to be precise. The question is, are you in the same league? Not rendering pages or running web applications (now, that would be seriously cool), but in any other skill. That’s what Fastest Firefox is all about.

• Fortunately, the browser is highly customizeable and works with virtually all plugins and extentions designed for Firefox.

• There’s a lot to like about this new version of Flock. If you’re into social networking, then this is one broswer you’ll defintely want to take for a out for a test drive.

Business

• The folks at Zenoss have been busy. The open source network and systems monitoring vendor just released Zenoss Core 2.4 last month and announced today that its Enterprise edition has a new version out as well. Zenoss Enterprise 2.4 sports several new features and improvements, and also a little added incentive that many IT managers will have a hard time not giving a second look.

• So, what is the BSA doing? Yes, that’s right, it’s pumping up its software audit program, sending 1,000 audit letters to companies in London, officially demanding they detail their software usage — while unofficially acting as a tremendous advertisement for open source software, where providers don’t treat their customers as if they were criminals.

• Back at a conference, someone said, “There are no free lunches.” I agree. But how about paying a small amount and you get to have the lunch and dessert as an assortment? Above that, you’re entertained as a privileged guest.

• [...]

• The most interesting thing that Open Source has to give the community of startups, bloggers, hackers, coders etc. is the ability to work from an environment which is driven by a society of like minded people and is free to use, share and extend. What sustains over a period of time is the bottom-up approach in which Open Source compels the amateur user to make what he wants; and if that’s good enough it survives and succeeds.

FSF/GNU

• After a fair amount1 of research I found a Free Software Song that doesn’t make me puck. Instead, I find it actually nice.

Programming

• Sun Microsystems has presented version 6 of its subscription-based “Java Enterprise System” software package at its JavaOne conference. Java ES 6 includes more suites and products than the previous version, for example the Sun Identity Management Suite and the Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS), which have been tested and integrated with the existing package components.

• At the JavaOne Conference Sun Microsystems has announced the release of version 1.2 of its rich internet application framework and language – JavaFX. Numerous features have been added, including skinnable UI controls, better layout, local data storage, RSS/Atom feed support, chart support, improved dialogues and remodelled event processing.

Standards/Consortia

• Dailymotion is excited to launch a new R&D platform dedicated to open video formats and web standards: openvideo.dailymotion.com. You don’t need the Adobe Flash plugin to watch videos on this platform – the only requirement is the latest version of Firefox, 3.5 beta, available here.

• Microsoft might be hesitating on Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) in Internet Explorer 8, but Google’s pressing on.

• The search giant’s engineers are building a JavaScript library to render static and dynamic SVG in Microsoft’s browser. Google promised that the library, a Javascript shim, will simply drop into IE.

Leftovers

• A bunch of states have been pushing forward with plans to add taxes on digital downloads. The state of Washington apparently passed just such a law, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 26th. Nate sent in a note, pointing out that under a strict reading of the details of the bill you could see how the state could go after unauthorized downloaders as “tax evaders.”

Copyrights

• Several prominent film and TV anti-piracy groups and other industry bodies have teamed up to create yet another group, this time with the aim, among other things, to teach Australia’s children that copyright infringement is wrong.

• The Australian film and television industry will take its fight against piracy into schools courtesy of a newly-formed body, the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF).

• His latest suggestion, as sent in by robert, is that Hulu should start making shows available by paid subscription only. In other words, take all the good that Hulu did to get people to watch TV online with ads, rather than downloading unauthorized versions… and put it behind a paywall, to drive people right back to unauthorized downloads where there is no ad revenue.

• Cher has sued Universal Music Group, claiming that the label’s creative accounting has shortchanged her and the heirs of her late ex-husband Sonny Bono to the tune of $5 million.

• The following was posted late yesterday by Curtis Cook, one of the listed authors on the plagiarized Conference Board of Canada reports. Cook’s experience sheds new light on the Conference Board plagiarism story, including interference from copyright lobby funders, the exclusion of deBeer’s research from the report, and the decision to lay blame on Cook, who had left the organization almost a full year before publication of the reports. Cook’s response has been reposted as a full blog post with his permission:

• RIAA victim Jammie Thomas’ new lawyer, Kiwi K.A.D. Camara, has taken the bull by the horns, demanding all MediaSentry evidence be suppressed.

• The head of Spain’s Popular Party says he will take legal action if the government implements Internet disconnection for alleged file-sharers. Leader of the opposition Mariano Rajoy says that if the Prime Minister of Spain mimics Sarkozy and brings in a “3 strikes” regime, he will take the whole issue to court.

• The Greens want, “an open Intellectual Property (IP) policy,” says the party in the intro. And that would include, “Access to internet content and knowledge”.

• IT LOOKS like the big music cartel’s claim that ISPs were working with them to shut down Internet filesharing was premature and overstated.

• At the end of last year the RIAA admitted it’s practice of threatening to drag old ladies and children into court unless they paid it shedloads of money on somewhat dubious evidence wasn’t working out. Instead it said it would be working with ISPs that would shut the ‘pirates’ down.

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