● 10.14.09

● Links 14/10/2009: Linux Predicted to Inherit 60 Percent of the Smartphone Market

Posted in News Roundup at 8:46 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• The NEW PCLinuxOS Magazine staff is pleased to announce the release of the October 2009 issue of the PCLinuxOS Magazine.

• In the October 2009 issue:

• Phoenix: PCLinuxOS XFCE 2009.4 Released A User’s KDE 4.3 Experience in PCLinuxOS The Gutsy Geeks Speak Linux Scanner Saga

• In Ubuntu’s case one of its assets is the work done to support netbook PCs. Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix interface is a very slick alternative for the smaller screen space common on netbooks.

• I feel that Mac OS X or Ubuntu are both better systems.

• Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Karmic Koala’s desktop should be familiar to Windows users. Right-click menu shortcuts and personalizing the desktop features are similar to Windows 7. The desktop still isn’t as “glitzy” as Windows 7, but users can get the eye candy of Windows 7 with a fast graphics card and can choose the “Extra” settings in Ubuntu 9.10′s “Appearance Preferences.”

Desktop

• My wife recently finished her MA (analysis of audio data, thesis writing, etc) using an eight-year old Toshiba Portege running Crunchbang Linux. It starts faster than any of her colleagues’ modern laptops (about a third of the time, with no virus check to make the first 30 minutes virtually useless), connects better to the wireless network at the university …

• When I earlier called Linux a better maintained swimming pool, I was referring to the fact that the Linux self-update application updates all the installed software, something that Apple and Microsoft don’t do.

Server

• Now, KnowARC has brought Globus and VOMS (The Virtual Organization Membership Service) to the Debian and Fedora Linux distributions. These packages are also available in Ubuntu, as they take packages from Debian automatically. Furthermore, they are also in EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux), an add-on repository for RedHat Enterprise Linux and derivatives such as CentOS and Scientific Linux that are maintained by Fedora.

• Linux has all kinds of great networking abilities built-in; here are some tips and tricks for navigating multiple computers at home or in an office.

Kernel Space

• While at the same time as churning out the R600/700 3D code and beginning to work on the R800 2D/mode-setting code, AMD’s open-source developers have released an updated R500 3D programming guide.

• Back during the X Developers’ Conference last month, one of the sessions was on GL shaders for Shader Model 3/4.

Desktop Environments

• After 36 hours of developer ‘show-submersion’ I think I have a pretty good idea of how the Nokia X-factor is playing out in the Qt cross-platform world. There are very few blue Nokia logos around and everyone is wearing Qt green. The company’s staff are even still calling themselves ‘trolls’ in reverence to their former incarnation under the Trolltech brand.

Distributions

Red Hat Family

• Shares closed at $28.02 Tuesday, close to the 52-week high of $28.68 and nearly four times the 52-week low of $7.50 reached in last fall’s global financial swan dive.

• There has not been a new development release of Fedora 12 since the Constantine Alpha release back in August. However, the second and last development release, Fedora 12 Beta, is set to be released next week. It has been delayed a few times already, but Fedora 12 Beta packs all of the features that are to be found in Fedora 12 with the final development freeze already in effect. Here is an early look at where the Fedora 12 Beta is at in regards to its artwork and feature set.

Debian Family

• On Oct. 29, Ubuntu Server Edition 9.10 will be made available. It features Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, an open source cloud computing environment based on the same application programming interfaces as Amazon EC2. Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition will be available on the Amazon EC2 environment as an Amazon Machine Image.

• Nova Media’s Ubuntu UTMS application in action Vergrößern Source: Nova Media Until now, the launch2net dial-up UMTS software has only been available for Mac OS X – among its licensees are T-Mobile, Vodafone and Sony Ericsson. Now, vendor Nova Media has made a beta of version 2.0 for Ubuntu available to download.

• On Tuesday afternoon I spoke with Ivanka Majic, leader of Canonical’s design team for Ubuntu Desktop and Netbook Remix. She’s spearheading the effort to make Ubuntu that much more appealing and useful — to make it more of its “Linux for human beings” namesake.

Devices/Embedded

• Timesys® Corporation (http://www.timesys.com), provider of LinuxLink, the first commercial software development framework for building custom embedded Linux®-based products, today announced the first commercial Linux support for the LPC313x series of microcontrollers from NXP Semiconductors. The LPC313x series will be supported by LinuxLink, with additional support for the family anticipated in future releases.

• Is it Linux powered? You bet your bottom dollar it is. That’s the part that shocked me. When I first picked it up, I figured that I had ended up with something that had a self contained IOS that was likely limited and proprietary. Boy was I surprised to find out that it wasn’t. And I stumbled onto that fact while loading it with test movies.

• OpenMoko has launched a new product called WikiReader, a mobile touchscreen device for browsing Wikipedia. Designed for offline use, it includes a 4GB SD card with 3 million Wikipedia articles.

Phones

• Acer has mixed a dash of Android Donut together with a splash of Qualcomm Snapdragon to create what it hopes will be a market-leading smartphone.

• On Wednesday, Acer showed off some of its latest PCs, netbooks and smartphones at a London hotel.

• So what’s the catch? You have to sign up to receive The Register’s White Paper updates, a weekly email newsletter that delivers the latest research and resources from our library direct to your inbox.

• Acer announced its first Android smartphone, which will also be the first Android phone based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. The Acer Liquid offers a WVGA touchscreen, HSPA 3G support, plus Android 1.6, and reportedly also provides WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and a five megapixel camera.

• The G60 sports a larger screen of 3.5 inches and runs on the Linux OS.

• ­Linux is poised to emerge as the dominant mobile platform, capturing well over 60 percent of the smartphone market over the next seven years, says Telecom Trends International. Operating systems embracing the Linux platform include Android, Symbian, WebOS, and LiMo, the report said.

• At the Maemo Summit in Amsterdam, Nokia’s Ari Jaaksi explained how the new N900 phone fits into the company’s Linux strategy and five-step plan to bring Maemo to a mainstream audience.

• From this week, Palm’s Pre smartphone is being made available in the UK and Germany. Telefonica subsidiary O2 is selling the device both on and off contract. The Pre runs Linux and, as well as a version of the 2.6 kernel spruced up by Palm with a raft of patches, includes all the usual suspects, such as BusyBox and the Gstreamer framework for playing audio and video with an ALSA back end.

Sub-notebooks

• The arrival of products like the Archos 5 media tablet and now the dual-booting Acer Aspire One D520 are likely the beginning of more and more Android-based machines arriving on our shelves. The mobile version of the OS hasn’t quite got going just yet and doesn’t do the whole advertising job on behalf of Google computers at this stage but, just because the jury’s still out for the main body of the public, it doesn’t necessarily mean that an Android-running laptop isn’t the way to go. So, is it worth chancing fame, fortune and street cred as an early adopter or Android PCs a fad worth giving a miss?

• Acer and Amazon announced pre-sales for the first Android-powered netbook running on an Intel Atom. Acer’s Aspire One AOD250-1613 netbook offers a 10.1-inch display, gesture-enabled touchpad, and a dual-boot system in which Android handles 18-second boot-ups, enabling users to seamlessly switch between Android and Windows, says the company.

Free Software/Open Source

• Compiere, a small open source ERP software provider, is on track to grow its business 50 percent this year, driving 80 percent of company revenues through the channel. Next up, Compiere is striving to attract roughly 40 new VARs and integrators into the company’s channel partner program — which includes SaaS and on-premise approaches. Here’s the scoop.

• Hot on the heels of Engine Yard’s recent news of $19 million in third-round venture capital funding comes another announcement. The company, which hosts Ruby on Rails apps in a cloud-based environment, has released the source code that runs its Rails Development Directory.

• My point is that there are some zeroes missing in this enterprise open source niche. Previous booms sprouted many more, much faster. This business has already seen a $1 billion deal (mySQL) and a $350 million one (JBOSS). But how many more are out there?

• The back office for any company requires many different layers of software. Essentials like e-mail and a basic Web site are relatively simple commodities to run.

• The hardest job is delivering the kind of software that acts as the spinal cord for the business – that cares for all of the most essential details, big and small, that keep the customers paying the invoices and ensure the bank accounts hold enough money to make the payroll.

• Faced with the opportunities to increase brand equity, student acquisition & alumni collaboration through the Web, The Doon School, rated amongst the ten best schools in the world, determined that they should build a new best-of-breed website capable of providing vital school information and showcasing their branding on the Web.

• Alfresco Software, the leader in open source enterprise content management (ECM), today announced the immediate availability of the Alfresco Records Management Module, which also recently became the first open source software to pass the rigorous U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.02 standard certification. This module and certification enables Alfresco to extend its cost-effective open source records management and retention tools to support the governance, retention and compliance strategies of federal agencies, government bodies and commercial organizations.

• Ingres Corporation, the leading open source database management company and pioneer of the New Economics of IT, announced today that Banca IFIS (ISIN IT0003188064, Bloomberg ticker IF MI, Reuters ticker IF MI) has adopted Ingres Database, the leading open source database that helps organizations develop and manage business critical applications at an affordable cost. Ingres Database allows Banca IFIS to effectively manage the sensitive financial information resulting from the large number of financial transactions its customers make on a daily basis.

• Extentech, Inc, a spreadsheet solutions company, and Alfresco Software, Inc., the leader in Open Source enterprise content management (ECM), today announced Sheetster + Alfresco — an integrated Open Source web spreadsheet solution. Online editing of spreadsheet documents loaded directly from Alfresco ECM enables collaboration across the organization, publishing and reuse of charts, formula logic, and other spreadsheet assets, and lowers errors due to file version problems caused by emailing spreadsheets.

• VoiceNation , a provider of outsourced voicemail, virtual PBX (News – Alert), answering services and disaster recovery services for businesses, has announced it deployed Open Source Asterisk PBX for a telephone switching platform in their newly commenced next-generation call center.

• After the release of “1.0″ in 2006, I became completely hands-off. I no longer submitted patches to programs, I no longer wrote code for my own programs. FreeDOS had grown to the point where I no longer needed to be the expert. Others were pushing FreeDOS to do more things than I had ever dreamed possible in 1994, and I was glad to see it happen.

• Each maintainer must similarly find his or her own motivation, and recognize that reasons for staying in a project may change. And that’s okay.

Government

• The Danish Ministry of Science recommends that open source should be used where it adds value. That is the case in Lyngby-Taarbaek Municipality which switches all student computers to an open source based office suite.

• Open Source for America (OSFA) was announced as a coalition to encourage U.S. federal government support of and participation in open source projects and technologies. If that sounds like a broad-reaching goal, it is. Nearly three months after the group’s debut, I was interested to learn what progress OSFA has made toward this goal.

Openness

• OpenStreetMap, or OSM, is behind the effort to produce a map more accurate than anything else on the market.

Programming

• Yahoo took its developer story to Broadway by hosting its Open Hack Day at the Hudson Theatre in New York City’s historic theater district in Times Square. At the event, Yahoo pitched developers on the value of its broad consumer platform as a vehicle for developers to distribute and promote applications and build an audience.

Leftovers

• An airline passenger advocate has accused Delta Airlines of hacking her e-mail accounts and computer in order to sabotage her organization’s lobbying efforts to pass federal legislation to help stranded fliers, according to a lawsuit filed in Texas Tuesday.

• Kate Hanni, the executive director and founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights , also known as FlyersRights.org, recently learned from America Online that her organization’s AOL e-mail — which included spreadsheets, lists of donors and other data — was being redirected to an unspecified location. Hanni alleges in her complaint (.pdf) that the e-mail hacking began in 2008. She’s suing Delta and Metron

• [...]

• Aviation, Inc. to discover how they obtained her correspondence. She also alleges that other files on her personal computer were “hacked, copied and then corrupted,” rendering all the data on her laptop useless.

• Rightly or wrongly, a business occasionally is picked out by the fates to serve as the “unacceptable face of capitalism”—a term coined by the late British Prime Minister Edward Heath. Goldman Sachs, for a lot of people, is today’s UFC.

• [...]

• If lenders believe government stands behind a firm, that firm can borrow more cheaply than its rivals. It can grab market share and grow beyond what an otherwise disciplined market would permit, potentially becoming the next Fannie or Freddie.

• The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford. Another top aide, Lee Sachs, reported more than $3 million in salary and partnership income from Mariner Investment Group, a New York hedge fund.

Censorship/Web Abuse

• Table 1: USTR says these people signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to see the U.S. proposed Internet text for ACTA Name Firm Date Emery Simon Business Software Alliance (BSA) 08/11/09` Jesse Feder Business Software Alliance (BSA) 08/11/09 Bill Patry Google 08/11/09 Daphne Keller Google 08/11/09 Johanna Shelton Google 08/11/09 Lisa Pearlman Wilmer Hale 08/11/09 Robert Novick Wilmer Hale 08/11/09 Bob Kruger Consultant to eBay

• [...]

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Tuesday rebutted legal assertions by Texas Instruments that enthusiasts who figured how to install their own operating systems on TI calculators violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

• Jenzabar, a company that makes software systems for colleges and universities, has joined the trademark abusers’ hall of shame by relentlessly pursuing trademark claims against the makers of a documentary film about the student protests at Tiananmen Square. Jenzabar objects to the fact that, on the handful of pages on a web site about the film that discusses Jenzabar, the name “Jenzabar” appears in the keyword meta tags.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Here’s the next contestant in the never ending stream of music services, each of which, inevitably, slide into financial disaster at some point. Music service MOG says they’ll launch MOG All Access by Thanksgiving this year. It’s an on demand music streaming and Internet radio service that will cost $5 per month. The four major labels – Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Music are on board, plus thousands of indie labels via IODA and Beggars Group.

• Sounds great, except users can listen to streaming on demand music for free today at MySpace Music and Spotify, which is preparing to launch in the U.S. Will MOG’s user experience be so compelling that users will pay $60/year for something they can get free elsewhere?

• So, here we go again. With plenty of people waiting for Spotify to enter the US market, the NY Times reports on two other new entrants; one from Mog — who seems to have blasted press releases to everyone, with the general reaction being a big yawn and one from the founders of Kazaa and Skype, called Rdio. Neither sounds particularly compelling.

• Apparently, Pandora has once again ramped up this effort to have the government tax its competitors. A whole bunch of you have been forwarding these ridiculous emails from Pandora that urge people to contact their elected officials in support of the RIAA Bailout bill. Most of those submitting those emails to us have said that you’ll be doing the exact opposite, and are offended that Pandora is pushing you to support such a thing.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the DayInternet Video Celebrity Caitlin Hill 19 (2007)Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

----------

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.