● 09.27.09

● Links 27/09/2009: Qt 4.6 Demo; Ubuntu Netbook Remix Karmic

Posted in News Roundup at 5:32 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• One of the biggest challenges with using Ubuntu on a MacBook is getting used to all the “fun features” offered by the Synaptics touchpad, especially if you have big, clumsy hands like I do.

• Having many labs, some of our manuals have 60 labs, are essential for learning in small segments. Labs should provide clear directions on how to accomplish precise goals. The labs need to lead the student on a road that they clearly understand leads to success. Having created labs to be used in a training situation over 11 years now, one thing I learned was that the labs need to be short, something that can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes. That length of time provides a challenge and offers reward based on one goal not multiple goals. One thing that I have seen with the 45 minute labs is that some students struggle early in the lab and bail out by not finishing the lab. Face it, learning Linux, especially from the command line is a real challenge for today’s graphically orientated users.

• At the Ohio LinuxFest yesterday, two Linux geeks were married — or had their projects merged into a single trunk, as the officiant, Lord Drachenblut, put it. The wedding of Randy Noseworthy (proprietor of the Juiced Penguin) and Janet Edmonson was announced last week and was live-tweeted by at least one attendee — here’s his photo of the happy couple.

• Thus I am now starting to wonder if at the end of this recession it will be Linux that will become a dominate operating system? I am thinking that Linux in conjunction with Google are going to be the next juggernaut. I know Nokia with its N900 has completely jumped on the bandwagon with Linux.

• Does this mean I will buy Redhat at these lofty levels? No. But it does mean I am kicking myself for not paying more attention to Redhat.

• These needs could be financial, philosophical, technological or even educational (lets just call them al :). For financial I don’t just mean struggling businesses or people. Countries and governments also have a financial need. This was one of the reasons behind the OLPC project. Poor and third world countries can greatly benefit from Linux to help give them a leg up into the modern world.

• Peter Hutterer, who has been working on the X.Org input code for some time and is the developer behind MPX, late into the X.Org 7.5 release cycle decided to step up to the plate and personally get this important X.Org update out the door. Peter is not stopping after X Server 1.7, but has already made a proposal regarding the release and development changes going forward for X Server 1.8 and into the future.

Applications

• Groupware software (or collaborative software) is designed to enable users to collaborate, regardless of location, via the internet or a corporate intranet and to work together in a virtual atmosphere.

• In an organisation, productivity rests on the intranet, and a groupware or collaboration server is what helps to make the intranet productive. This type of software provides critical services like email and address books, and establish communication via instant messaging.

• Linux is quickly gaining popularity, but there are still many users afraid to convert as they are not familiar with the applications.

• In fact you will always need one on your Linux box.

• Although it was already possible to enable Flash support in Chromium quite easily, the developers have now implemented the Flash player out of the box so you won’t have to configure anything after installing it.

• I meant to post this quite some time ago, but that’s moving for you: Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted a preview of Heroes of Newerth, the DoTA-inspired multiplayer strategy game from the Linux-friendly developers S2 Games.

Audiocast

• This week you’ll get both hosts of the show in one package. Philippe (southern France) and I (northern Germany) discuss the results of the Double Book Challenge in the “From Scratch” section. We use Skype and the connection is not as good as we were used to it between Chile and Germany. So expect some funny noises added to the accents.

• Here you will find links to the topics we cover as well as links to software, websites articles, and other resources mentioned in the episodes of Going Linux.

• I recorded it in Portland a couple of days ago but there was some trouble with my server and I had a lot of traveling to do, so the release has been delayed.

• Just recently, an advertisement has been running on Texas Radio stations for Linux! It explains what Linux is, why it’s awesome, and where to find more info!

K Desktop Environment

• Seven days after the release of the Tech Preview 1, we released the latest stable Windows build of Fotowall [1] that was based on Qt 4.6. Somebody could argue that this is a bit imprudent. We did that because the benefits of the 4.6 release are worth the risk of the move!

• Practical ideas on howto integrate KDE into your offline existence

• ———————————————— Short list (for people with short attention span, like me)

• 0. Talk to other kde people 1. Kde-understanding and/or patient surroundings 2. Do not work overtime 3. Kde thought-integration 4. Prioritize

Distributions

• I’ve always felt that PCLOS was receiving too much hype for what it was worth, but man was I mistaken. I love living on the bleeding-edge of software and PCLinuxOS 2009.2 certainly caters to that.

Ubuntu Family

• Canonical, the business arm of Ubuntu, has one of the most promising business models in the Linux world, and also the most misunderstood. First of all, Ubuntu is in a market termed by economists as a perfectly competitive market. This means that it cannot charge any price beyond that which is determined by the market. The only way to make profit, as has rightly been identified by Canonical is to create an ecosystem of products and services around Ubuntu, which would complement the functions of the OS.

• Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, sat for a video interview with Dell Cloud Computing Evangelist Barton George. In it, Shuttleworth takes a “service pack” shot at Windows 7 and covers numerous questions about Canonical’s business and cloud strategy. Here’s the video — plus some perspectives from WorksWithU.

• The new “Ubuntu Software Store” has been renamed to “Ubuntu Software Center” – caving in to users dissatisfaction over the choice of name.

• This month, you’ll get:

• * Command and Conquer * How-To: Program in Python – Part 3, LAMP Server – Part 2, Virtual Private Networking. * My Story – One Man’s Journey, and Walk With Ubuntu. * Review – Kompozer. * MOTU Interview – Iulian Udrea. * Top 5 – Physics Games. * Ubuntu Games, as well as all the usual goodness!

• Linux has been an emerging operating system for quite some time now, but its use has been limited mostly to back office servers, embedded devices, and geeks. More recently, Ubuntu linux has taken the lead in the desktop Linux area. Many enthusiasts hope that Ubuntu will revolutionize the way we use our computers. Unfortunately, with all the hype there are a lot of misconceptions about Ubuntu and Linux in general and I thought I’d take some time to expose them.

• Lucid In Summary: -

• * Stick using Gnome 2.0 * “Sleek and stylish” new theme. * Harnessing the power of Upstart * Few new “features” * Stable * Bigger better Software Centre replacing, well, everything. * User Interface Improvements * Implement features that weren’t able to make it into Karmic (Wine Integration, Gwibber, etc)

Devices/Embedded

• Emlix, a company specializing in providing free and open software, embedded, has prepared a package of BSP (Board Support Package), designed for devices equipped with x86 processors.

Phones

• Openmoko is a geek’s delight. Its not yet targeted at general users and is currently recommended to advanced users only (read developers and techies!).

• Its got everything a geek could dream of (well almost everything)

Sub-notebooks

• Our final write-up regarding Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix and the Moblin Netbook Remix will come in October. Beta releases of all the distributions in the Ubuntu family are planned for the first of October followed by the final releases on the 29th of October.

• UNR Karmic contains both the excellent Messaging and Session Indicators. The message indicator allows you to quickly see how many unread emails/IM messages/Twitter replies you have. The session indicator allows you to easily set your IM presence and also lets you switch users (if you hardware supports it) and log out easily.

• There may well be something I’m not getting here, but I honestly can’t see what the big deal is about this new Jolicloud distro.

• I should point out that my experience was with an installation of Jolicloud within Easy Peasy, another netbook Linux with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. But I did try out Jolicloud proper on a previous occasion, and it didn’t seem any different…

Free Software/Open Source

• To get the perfect Web site with all the functionality that you require for your particular application may take additional time and effort, but with the Joomla! Community support that is available and the many Third Party Developers actively creating and releasing new Extensions for the 1.5 platform on an almost daily basis, there is likely to be something out there to meet your needs. Or you could develop your own Extensions and make these available to the rest of the community.

• ILUG Cochin September 2009 Meeting to be held at Jay’s Internet Club, Broadway on 27 Sep 2009. The meetup being an all day event, will begin by 9.00 AM in the morning and will continue till 5.30 PM in the evening.

• OWC will also host the European Open Source Think Tank 2009 and the Open Innovation Summit, along with a FLOSS Communities Summit, an Open CIO Summit and a FLOSS Competence Centers Summit.

• If we read this right it means there is real local government preference for Open Source. Now right now they’re going into because of costs instead of control, but I think a taste of freedom tends to stick around once you’ve deployed a FOSS solution and it’ll be more difficult for Microsoft or even IBM, Novell etc to get back in without offering serious concessions.

• I also like that they are informing people that students can take advantage of OpenOffice, because it’s free too and supports all the same formats. That’s very good news as it’s an aspect of Free Software in schools which is often overlooked (that what is taught can be taken home without pressuring poor students to buy expensive software).

• Developer Snapshot build OOo-Dev DEV300_m60 which installs as OOo-DEV 3.x has been uploaded to the mirror network.

• My final solution to “software piracy”? Leave the PCSS behind and do a complete switch to FOSS. Ernie Ball Incorporated did and as far as I can tell from all reports I can find they are better off after doing so.

Programming

• LWN last talked to Leslie Hawthorn, Google’s Open Source Program Coordinator, in September, 2007 about the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). GSoC is a project where Google pays students to work with a mentor to write open-source code. The 2009 Google Summer of Code recently concluded, marking the end of the project’s fifth year.

• Google Summer of Code has again been a huge success for KDE this year. 37 out of 38 projects were finished successfully. Much of the work done during these projects is already merged into trunk and will be available for the users with the KDE 4.4 release in January 2010. Thanks to all students and mentors for their great work! Below you will find a short interview with each of the students, asking them about the cool things they have been working on for the past few months.

Leftovers

• Just a month after Pfizer came under fire for allegedly using strong-arm tactics against a potential key witness in the multidistrict litigation over its Neurontin anti-seizure medication, the pharmaceutical giant lodged a similar complaint against a plaintiffs expert.

Censorship/Web Abuse

• And TI’s DMCA claim fails for another reason, as well: running software of your choice on your calculator has no “nexus” with copyright infringement. The courts have made it clear (1, 2) that you need a nexus with infringement if you want your DMCA claim to stick. This is not about decrypting copyrighted code so that you can distribute it to the four corners of the Internet. This is about running your own software on your own calculator. So where’s the copyright infringement in that?

• Surprisingly, AT&T has reversed its position, and is now passionately supportive of net neutrality. What, you may ask, caused this dramatic shift? Why, Google, of course. AT&T filed a letter with the FCC today complaining that Google Voice blocks calls to certain rural locations. According to AT&T, blocking phone calls is a violation of net neutrality — dictionary, anyone? — and thus Google is in violation of the rules that aren’t rules which AT&T vehemently despised but now passionately adores.

• “We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of Net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America: wireless services,” he said.

• He argues that wireless networks differ from wireline broadband networks because bandwidth is more limited on a wireless network. And he said that imposing new rules on how carriers operate their wireless networks would stifle investment.

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