● 08.26.09

● Links 26/08/2009: GNU/Linux Boots Faster Than Vista 7

Posted in News Roundup at 6:33 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• I know, I know, there’s a miliard videos comparing boot time out there, and this one is no different. In the following video you can see two computers with the exact same specifications booting Windows 7 Release Candidate and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Alpha 4.

• When the absolutely tireless and selfless Lynn Bender (you will see that name here soon) single-handedly organized Linux Against Poverty, it became obvious we were going to need top-tier techs to pull it off. Hundreds of computers were going to be showing up. Computers that needed fixing, diagnosing or repairing of some sort…we had no idea of the condition of any of them that would be arriving. We needed top of the line guys. Guess who showed up and took on the leadership role to organize the whole thing.

• Andy Krell.

• And Andy didn’t just troop the line and bark orders…he unloaded trucks, he got his hands cut to ribbons on sharp edges and jutting screws, and he carried machines back and forth to their assigned places. His jouneyman skills were responsible for breathing life into dozens of machines I would have gutted for parts and through on the scrap heap.

• So Linux Luminary…Ya Think? I think so.

• Free POS software Imonggo is now fully available for the Linux operating system, as announced today by Imonggo Inc., the first software-as-a-service (SaaS) company to offer a hosted free web-based Point-Of-Sale solution for small retailers.

Server

• I started by researching multi-boot openSolaris/Linux systems. As I have mentioned previously, openSolaris uses a modified GRUB bootloader, and I’ve had trouble setting it up to multi-boot before. I found one good, simple piece of advice in the openSolaris documention – it is possible to boot a Linux partition from the openSolaris GRUB, but it is not possible to boot openSolaris from a standard Linux GRUB. Ok, that makes sense and corresponds with my experience, so I will have to make sure to set my system up to use the openSolaris GRUB, and add whatever Linux systems I install.

• Red Hat has released paravirtualised network and storage drivers for running Windows guest systems under the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machines) virtualisation solution for Linux.

Kernel Space

• New performance counters allow developers to take a detailed look at the runtime behaviour of program code to target specific areas for optimisation. The recently introduced tracing infrastructure has been further modified and improved. Other changes affect the architecture, the memory subsystem, and various virtualisation solutions.

• X.Org 7.5 that will bear X Server 1.7 has already been delayed multiple times. The latest release schedule promised it a week ago, but there hasn’t even been a single pre-release or development snapshot to date. Originally X.Org 7.5 was supposed to be out in April, but it looks like we are still at least a few months from seeing this important update that introduces Multi-Pointer X and other new features and changes.

Applications

• If you want to edit your own videos & you are running Linux on your desktop, you must have a look at OpenShot – a non-linear video editor. A Developer Preview is available now, version 0.9.22.

• Lugaru, the classic ninja rabbit fighting game known for its brutal melee combat, has just been updated by expert programmer Ryan Gordon, aka Icculus.

Distributions

• What works for me may not work for you. That’s the great thing about Linux. We have choice. There are well over 300 distributions and many different possible desktops to multiply the choice several fold.

• Fortunately for Red Hat the two major acquisitions that it has made in recent years (JBoss and Qumranet) both provide the company with opportunities to drive organic growth.

Devices/Embedded

• [L]ong-awaited Linux based media player device with Blu-ray support and much more

• The Popcorn Hour C-200, the latest ‘Networked Media Tank’ device from Syabas (the makers of the popular A-100 and A-110) is finally ready. Online orders directly from www.popcornhour.com can be placed starting from tomorrow (27th August 2009 12:00AM PST) and shipping is supposed to start on September 3rd.

• MontaVista(R) Software, Inc., the leader in embedded Linux(R) commercialization, ranks in the top 15 contributors to the Linux kernel, alongside more than 5,000 other community supporters including Red Hat, IBM and Novell, as reported by the Linux Foundation in its recent report, Linux Kernel Development. The report indicates that MontaVista, the world’s largest independent commercial embedded Linux vendor, made more than 1,500 changes to the kernel. MontaVista, now in its tenth year, is the only commercial embedded Linux vendor to rank this high in the report.

• The all-ready BSPs give you a kick-start into the application software development, compared with a “start from scratch” approach, the Hiteg ready-to-go SBCs offer a far more speedy and cost effective solution.

• Timesys(R) Corporation (http://www.timesys.com), provider of LinuxLink, the first commercial software development framework for building custom embedded Linux(R) based products, today announced LinuxLink availability for the new AT91SAM9G45 processor from Atmel(R).

Phones

• MOTOROLA HAS CONFIRMED that it will be flogging mobile phones running Google’s Android OS.

• Nokia Oyj will try again to tackle Apple Inc’s iPhone in the top-end of the handset market with a bet on Linux software, several industry sources told Reuters.

• Top handset maker Nokia will show its first high-end phone running on Maemo, a version of Linux, next week at the annual Nokia World event in Stuttgart, Germany, the sources said.

Free Software/Open Source

• The news started to emerge in various Twitter feeds and personal blog posts Monday: David Recordon, a Six Apart developer and prominent open standards advocate, has left the blog software company to take a job at Facebook.

• Contracting, by its nature, offers many opportunities for corruption of all kinds. A do it yourself approach may be corruptible, but at the end of the day you own what you have made, and whatever you think of the software the development of the VA’s VistA software has not been a school for scandal.

• With the rise of open source this make-or-buy decision is faced by all levels of government. It’s separate from any questions regarding health reform. Should government agencies be building their own software platforms using open source tools or contracting that work out to proprietary vendors?

• Here are just a few examples of well supported open source software packages:

• * Drupal (web site content management) * Open Office ( word processing, spreadsheets, database and presentation alternative to Microsoft Office and iWorks) * Fedora (operating system alternative to Windows and Macintosh) * SugarCRM (customer resource management software)

• GIMP (GNU image manipulation program) is a powerful and near-professional-level photo editing open-source program. Immensely popular and constantly updated for several years now, the application is very stable and function-rich. It can handle masks, layers, filters, effects, and much more. It has an impressive line-up of preference settings that you can tweak. Among other features, it boasts lighting effects, an extensive paintbrush tool set, pen tool path selection, as well as layer masks. The controls are very responsive even on underpowered machines. And because it is the preferred editor in the open-source space, GIMP has built a vast repository of plug-ins and optional extensions.

• Sorry, old chap, but “open source” and “security” are orthogonal, independent axes.

Events

• The Arizona Business and Liberty Experience Conference (ABLEconf) is soliciting presentations for its second annual conference. ABLEconf will take place on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona.

• Open World Forum, the leading global forum for free, libre and open source software (FLOSS) worldwide, announces a competition open to entrepreneurs looking for increased visibility in the investor community and the open source ecosystem.

• This year on October 28 and 29 an Open Source monitoring conference organized by the company NetWays takes place in Nürnberg, Germany. Rihards Olups, System analyst of Zabbix SIA, will deliver a speech about Zabbix Open Source Distributed Monitoring Solution titled “Introducing Zabbix”.

• I’ve been holding onto this announcement for too long. Its already out on some Linux-friendly calendars, but I want to make sure all the masses know about it! I’m super excited for Libre Graphics Meeting 2010 in Brussels for a renewed focus on content, content, content! This year, I plan to work more on the creative collaborative projects which will be a key part of the conference — think Blender Open Movie project, but between all the creative free and open source graphics application communities. While that surely won’t be executed on the scale of my Blender friends’ project, it will be a good start!

• Are you a Free, Libre and Open Source entrepreneur? Present your projects during a series of 7-minute slots to Venture Capitalists and major systems integrators. Get a chance to be nominated and compete for the “Open Innovation Awards” that will be awarded by an international jury of experts to the most promising businesses innovating in the Open Source sector, and presented during the Open World Forum closing keynote address. Benefit from maximum visibility and media coverage.

United Kingdom

• On Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 6:30 p.m. at the Belfast Free Library, Andrew Watkins will offer an introductory presentation explaining the uses of Linux and Open Source computer operating systems. This program is free and open to all.

• Meetup up at the Riverside Terrace Cafe at the South Bank Centre at 6pm where the evening commences with a bracing coffee whilst admiring the view and discussing where we relocate to after 7pm.

• What: OggCamp When: Sunday 25th October 2009 Where: Wolverhampton, UK

FSF/GNU

• Mr. Stallman said he is generally a fan of the online, collaborative encyclopedia, but it is on the narrow grounds that befit a single-issue activist who has spent more than two decades preaching the cause that software wants to be free –- “free as in freedom, not free as in beer.” Translation: It’s not necessary that software be cheap, but once someone owns it, she should be free to do with it what she pleases.

• This principle is true for Wikipedia, in that anyone is free to reuse its contents in any way he likes, as long as he follows the same ethic with a new product and credits Wikipedia. That applies to a blogger as well as to companies that have created businesses around Wikipedia content, including one publishing house that has republished German Wikipedia content in book form while agreeing to those terms.

Government

• It’s really striking how the idea of open government has gone from nowhere a few months ago to hot meme of the moment. Here’s the latest convert – Sweden…

Openness

• The Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation responsible for the operation of the Wikipedia free online encyclopaedia, has received a $2 million grant from the Omidyar Network

• Yovia and SourceFuse announce strategic merger to harness explosive growth of social media and open source markets

• Looking to boost its users’ Web browsing experience, Research in Motion Tuesday officially acquired Torch Mobile, a company that develops applications using the WebKit open source browser engine.

• The iCub may have been designed to look and act like a child, but that’s where the comparison to Vicki the Robot, from the ’80s television show “Small Wonder,” ends. It’s not a schoolgirl who sleeps in the bedroom cabinet. It’s the size of a 3-1/2-year-old, with the ability to crawl, sit up and play drums, thanks to dexterous hands. It has visual, vestibular, auditory and haptic sensory capabilities.

• The Carbon Project announces the availability of an open source dashboard for Geodata.gov, the federal government’s information service for maps and data. The free application enables “at-a-glance” visualization of geospatial assets and monitoring of Geospatial One-Stop search functions from desktop PCs.

• Last week the Open Access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) launched a new initiative called PLoS Currents (Beta).

• [...]

• In response to the recent worldwide H1N1 influenza outbreak, Varmus added, the first PLoS Currents research theme is influenza. This will encompass all aspects of influenza, influenza virology, genetics, immunity, structural biology, genomics, epidemiology, modelling, evolution, policy and control.

• Wikipedia, one of the 10 most popular sites on the Web, was founded about eight years ago as a long-shot experiment to create a free encyclopedia from the contributions of volunteers, all with the power to edit, and presumably improve, the content.

Leftovers

• But unlike Apple, and unlike Amazon, SONY’s readers are both premium in build quality and embrace open standards. Rather than choosing to continue on with their own proprietary BBeB file format that they have used in the past with their PRS-505 and PRS-700BC, of which these new readers are the evolutionary successors and use nearly identical software to the previous generation, the company has decided to move its e-bookstore to the EPUB standard.

Intellectual Monopolies

• But, now there’s a bit of a twist. A bunch of folks have sent in the news that one of the guys who pushed the city council the hardest has now suddenly set up his own free shuttle offering in place of the competition that was run out of town.

• NEW YORK Gannett has directed its daily newspapers that cover the Southeastern Conference not to sign on to a controversial new credential policy, while the Associated Press has also declared it will not agree to the new rules that have sparked opposition for limits on Web video and audio use, photo displays, and blogging.

• They’re refusing to do anything because they think that the new market is too small — not realizing that the existing market is going to zero anyway. So even if you believe that the new market isn’t going to be as big (on which point you’re almost certainly wrong), you’re making a mistake in thinking you can just do nothing. What’s happening is you’re comparing the new market to the old market — which no longer exists.

• With its dissolve, the UK government has issued a timely proposal that if enforced, will see ISP’s be made responsible for monitoring their own customers internet usage, and cutting them off if they spot any suspicious activity.

• News that the UK government was doing a U-turn over the use of a “three strikes and you’re out” approach has finally turned the growing tragedy of the Digital Britain process into a total farce.

• Then we get onto the question of measuring illicit filesharing and defining what is and isn’t acceptable. The original plan was for a detailed study of this, on the basis that policy should be based on evidence. Actually, I take my earlier words back – here there is a blatant handbrake turn.

• “Evidence – although we have no doubt Ofcom would have carried out their research under the original proposals in their usual thorough manner, measuring unlawful P2P activity across a range of networks and different content is extremely difficult.”

• This is what a former colleague of mine called ‘filing in the TOO DIFFICULT’ tray.’

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