● 09.01.09

● Links 01/09/2009: Many GNU/Linux Reviews, Smartbooks Are Coming

Posted in News Roundup at 1:47 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzWe apologise for the long downtime earlier today. Server issues.ContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Graphics

• You can see many pretty Linux desktops every where on the internet. but having a really cool desktop like shown in screenshot is not possible for everybody. Most of the time customizing the look and feel ends with a bulky desktop that you never thought of!

• Here I’m sharing some cool and beautiful, high quality, Linux wallpapers, that I have collected from the internet. So without any delay lets check them out.

Server

• You hear it all the time: Xen is not ready to take market share from VMware because it is not as mature a product. Many disagree, because all the core functionality exists in Xen, but it isn’t configurable via a unified GUI. In this article, we explain what maturity means and how you can decide which aspects are really important to your IT organization.

• However, while Robin thinks that storage was a major letdown in Snow Leopard, I think where Apple really blew it was in Virtualization, particularly with not shipping OS X Server or Desktop with a free hypervisor or making one available for download.

Kernel Space

Applications

• The QT programmed tool was created by the Italian Flavio Tordini. A binary for Linux, Mac OSX and as source code under the GPLv3 is available for download. A free BSD port also. QT in version 4.5 at least, is required. Playback on the KDE multimedia framework will call for the installation of the relative packages.

• VideoLAN (VLC), a player started as a student project and turned into one of the best, most popular media players worldwide, has recently had a birthday – turned 1.0. I thought this was an excellent opportunity to write about it and just show you how great it is.

• The last major version in the Pidgin line-up, namely 2.6, adds a whole new dimension to the instant messaging experience: voice and video support, albeit for a limited number of protocols and platforms at the moment, but that is bound to change with future development. Since most IM protocols have evolved to support multimedia communication, this feature was long overdue.

• Some time back we covered customizing gedit. Although it’s a very good editor, it requires a bit of customizing. However, if you are a developer you might be found wanting looking for a good programming editor. Let’s see one of the basic yet powerful editor called as Geany. With almost no dependencies, it’s an editor that has some good features.

Desktop Environments

• Thou shall fear me, I am fanatic (in a silly way) about my desktop systems. But now I share my notes about LXDE.

Distributions

• The new version jumps on the 64-bit bandwagon with native support for the 64-bit x86_64 architecture. It also adopts the 2.6.29.6 kernel, bringing journaling filesystems, SCSI and ATA RAID volume support, SATA support, Software RAID, LVM (Logical Volume Manager), GRUB, Ext4, and encrypted filesystems support to the distro. The new kernel also supports X DRI (Direct Rendering Interface) for hardware-based 3D graphics acceleration, says the Slackware project.

• So what’s my conclusion? It’s good. Supreme Super Gamer does a bangup job of providing a good quality gaming experience on Linux, and is definitely worth checking out. On a slight side note, SSG is one of two releases from the Super Gamer crew of late.

• Ubuntu Linux may get most of the attention but Mandriva and Fedora Linux are pushing the Linux desktop forward more than most

• Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux has a huge following among open source fans and it benefits from significant hype because of it. But Mandriva and Fedora Linux are quietly delivering the new features that Linux users are looking for.

• Zenwalk 6 is the latest release of Zenwalk Linux. The changes are major enough that most people will find it worth making the upgrade (note Xfce 4.6). Zenwalk has come a long way with Zenwalk 6, from its beginnings with creator Jean-Philippe Guillemin, also known as Hyperion.

• Product: Vine Linux 5.0 Web Site: Vine Linux (Via Google Translator) Price: Free Pros: Let you choose from a range of install options and lets you customize your software choices. Cons: Default language is Japanese so the initial install screen might throw people. Doesn’t come with any office suites or significant office apps available during the install. You’ll need to download them via Synaptic after you install Vine Linux. Suitable For: Particularly great if you need a Japanese Linux environment. Can also be used by pretty much any other group of Linux users. Just be mindful that you’ll need to change the default language to English during the install. Summary: Vine Linux provides Japanese (and English) users with a good desktop Linux experience. Installation is easy and can be customized. Vine Linux also provides a good range of Linux apps (with the exception of office apps). Rating: 3.5/5

Mandriva Family

• Coming soon, a bunch of interviews from contributers and employees who work together on your favorite distribution. Stay tuned!

• While writing my column I was testing SAM Linux to feature as one of the Linux distributions released last month. And in playing around with it, I realized what an untapped treasure it is. Light apps, tasteful eyecandy, handy tools, multimedia and hardware support add up to make this one of the best out-of-the-box desktops available.

Red Hat Family

• In fact, here are five key Red Hat trends our resident blogger expects to cover at Red Hat Summit and JBoss World.

• Layer 7 Technologies, the leader in SOA security and governance, today announced that it has certified its solution portfolio against Red Hat’s JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and is now part of the JBoss Certified ISV Program. Layer 7 is the first XML gateway to be added to JBoss’ partner ecosystem and will help customers enhance mission-critical security and operation aspects of the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform.

• You may be one of those users who complains that support for paid Linux only covers kernel issues that cause system failure. If you find that non-kernel issues are not covered by your paid Linux support and you are doing support yourself, you should consider switching to a non-paid Linux such as CentOS for some of your workloads.

Debian Family

• I am now running the latest version of Simply Mepis 8, one of many offshoots of Debian Linux and therefore a cousin of the venerable Ubuntu. I am taken back a couple of years to the simpler days of the KDE 3.5 interface. KDE 4, the current darling, is a work of art by the guys at TrollTech, borrowing elements from Apple’s Aqua interface, but this old tech favors reliability over flash, and as a law student I have little time to expore the wonders of KDE 4. Simply Mepis with KDE 3.5 is, in a word, familiar.

• Since my switch from Windows to Linux I have settled on 1 distribution, OpenGEU 8.10. I’m not much of a distro hopper even though I do have Ubuntu Studio 9.04 installed on a different partition, it doesn’t get much play. It’s there because recently I wanted to see if I was missing out on anything. And so far I don’t feel like I am.

• [...]

• All that said, OpenGEU 8.10 is not only fast and beautiful, but despite the use of E17 is very stable as well. My goal was to be as detailed as possible in reviewing it as to expose as many hidden surprises as possible as there often is when using code still in development. All in an effort to facilitate those that have been putting off trying E17 again due to growing pains early on, make the decision weather or not is worth trying again.

• If you’re not impressed with the Ubuntu Software Store, I don’t blame you. It’s really not much more than a new interface that does the same thing Add/Remove does. The exciting parts of the Software Store don’t really come until Ubuntu 9.10, when it will replace Add/Remove, Synaptic, Software Sources, and, possibly, Update Manager. Later you will be able to buy commercial applications in addition to the free ones already available. Over the next several releases, the Ubuntu Software Store could provide one of the first realistic ways for shareware developers to sell software for Linux and, at the same time, make it much easier for new users to understand the software installation process. For now, though, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Devices/Embedded

• In a recent interview, Anshul Jain of Tejas Networks discusses the capabilities of Linux-based test systems for manufacturing.

• French networking middleware firm 6Wind has ported its Linux-based networking stack to RMI’s MIPS64-based XLR and XLS multi-core, multi-threaded processors. Optimized for multi-core, 6WindGate offers “ready-to-use layer 2-4″ routing, QoS, IPv4-6, and XML-based UTM security management middleware, says the company.

• Acrosser has introduced a pair of console servers that run Linux and offer eight serial ports.

• Iomega has announced a four-drive, 2-8TB StorCenter ix4-200d network-attached storage (NAS) device that runs Linux, according to eWEEK. Meanwhile, NetGear announced that its ReadyNAS storage appliances now support the Remote Agent for Linux and UNIX Servers (RALUS) for Symantec Backup Exec, enabling faster backups.

Sub-notebooks

• Mini-laptops based on Arm chips are set to make their way to users, which could heat up the battle in a space dominated by netbooks with Intel’s Atom chips.

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• Smartbooks are designed to have similar characteristics to netbooks, including compact keyboards and screens. The devices are designed as alternatives to netbooks, most of which are based on Intel’s Atom chips and come with Microsoft’s Windows OS. The first smartbooks will come with Linux, as Arm-based chips do not support Windows XP.

• According to a new report, the market for netbook computers grew 40 percent from the first to the second quarter of 2009, almost twice the rate of standard notebooks. Netbook shipments actually outstripped notebooks in Latin America and Greater China.

Free Software/Open Source

• Apache Wink is a new framework for developing “RESTful web services”. The project currently resides in the Apache Incubator, where newly introduced projects within the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) are matured and evaluated for promotion to full Apache projects, having entered the incubator in May. The code base for Wink was contributed by HP and IBM, who also intend to oversee the project in the future.

• invited keynote speakers including Brazil President Lula da Silva, Nicholas Negroponte, and Linus Torvalds.

• Mozilla recently updated its product roadmap through 2010. According to the first draft, the current browser will see a minor update in Q4 2009 as well as Q2 2010. Version 4.0 is headed for an October or November 2010 release and will bring a new user interface and browser sync integration.

• The tiny operating system I’m talking about is called Kolibri. It’s a fork of the MenuetOS project and is currently licensed under the GNU GPL.

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• In conclusion, I am blown away by how much functionality is packed into such a tiny package. The Kolibri ISO is less than 5MB and it has, for the size, a huge collection of software. While much of the operating system feels like a demo of what it can (or could) do, Kolibri shows an immense amount of potential.

• The new license was rolled out today, to accompany the handy new function to export all blog content for use with (for example) WordPress. From now on, every Sun blogger has (if they choose to accept the new license) a clear, documented set of rights to their blogging content. Huge thanks to the team of people that made it happen, especially my favourite lawyer, Tiki Dare, who completely “gets” this stuff and without whose quiet and largely unsung help the open source community would be much the poorer.

Leftovers

• Google has signed a deal with Sony to incorporate its Chrome internet browser into the Japanese technology giant’s personal computers.

• Skype is expected to be sold to a group of private investors, including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and private equity firms.

Intellectual Monopolies

• You do realize that a UK-based music organization (PRS) recently released a report noting that the music industry in the UK is actually growing? Right? These are the sort of facts the Secretary of Business knows, right? And if the industry is growing, despite complaining about file sharing, isn’t it possible that the real issue is just focusing on business model improvement, rather than the hand of gov’t stepping in and slapping people around?

• More troubling, however, is that when questioned about the new statement by Ars Technica, the BSA said it was necessary because “last year our industry lost over $50 billion (USD) worldwide.” Hmm. It’s really quite troubling that the BSA still stands by these numbers when they’ve been debunked so thoroughly over and over again. They count the “retail value” of every piece of software as being “lost,” which is clearly a lie. Five years ago, the research company that runs these studies for the BSA, IDG, flat out said that the BSA was wrong in claiming that “the retail value” of the software is the same as “losses.” So why does the BSA continue to get away with claiming it?

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