● 12.10.09

● Links 10/12/2009: Nouveau in Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 8:25 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, especially if you happen to live within a few miles of Alek Komarnitsky’s house and the massive Christmas display he puts on every year in the name of charity. While most neighborhoods have a Christmas overachiever, Komarnitsky is in a special league of his own: His display can be remote-controlled and is powered by open source.

• You may have heard a lot of anti-Microsoft jokes before since you can read them everywhere. However, it’s pretty rare to find anti-UNIX/Linux jokes. So I would like to share with you some pretty old but still funny anti-UNIX one-liners. Enjoy!

• Is Linux just too quiet to attract mainstream users who are used to the siren songs of bells and whistles? Or do Linux bells and whistles run on a frequency Windows users can’t hear? “One person’s ‘bells and whistles’ are another person’s ‘this is too different for me’ impediment,” suggested Slashdot blogger Barbara Hudson. For example, “the desktop cube just blows [Windows users] away.”

Nouveau

• This morning the first DRM pull request went in for the Linux 2.6.33 kernel that brings many nice graphics changes for Intel, ATI/AMD, and VMware users. Anything for NVIDIA hardware through Novueau was not mentioned as there is no readied support, but as we stated in our article this morning, its unlikely to see Nouveau’s DRM in the mainline kernel before the Linux 2.6.34 kernel. This is even though Fedora has been shipping Nouveau support for a few releases now and even Canonical is pulling in Nouveau KMS support for Ubuntu 10.04.

• Following a feature-packed DRM pull request this morning for the Linux 2.6.33 kernel, Linus Torvalds became frustrated that the Nouveau driver for supporting NVIDIA hardware was still not to be found in this most recent pull request. Linus wants Nouveau in the mainline kernel especially as Red Hat has already been shipping this free software driver in Fedora for two releases.

Applications

• Unigine has the Linux version of Heaven completed (we have seen it and even benchmarked it, and it’s amazingly great), but they are waiting on AMD to publicly release a Catalyst Linux driver that can even handle this demo as right now the Linux drivers out there simply don’t work because this demo is absolutely gruesome on the driver stack and hardware.

• I have been using GNU/Linux for two years so far, and I’m using Ubuntu (GNOME). Over this period, I have tested a lot of download manager applications; unfortunately, I can’t find the one that suits best for me, because what I have in mind was a program which more or less is simple, lightweight and practical. I don’t want a download manager which is crowded with features nor a primitive one and certainly I don’t want one that works via a command line/terminal!

Instructionals

Desktop Environments

• Incremental releases for large projects are often grab bags of unrelated features. However, KDE SC 4.4 beta 1 (aka KDE 4.3.80) is a welcome exception to the rule.

• True, the release includes new applications and improvements to existing applications on the KDE desktop. But it also features improvements to general desktop functionality and the evolution of several technologies and directions introduced earlier in the KDE 4 series of releases. In other words, it is ambitious, with far more innovations than than the average incremental release.

Distributions

Red Hat Family

• Red Hat has long been the poster child of Linux and open source, the distribution that has been there since the beginning, grew up right, got all the luck, usually made the right decisions, and fetched up on top of the pile.

• Staying at the top of the pile may present a different set of problems. Free and open source software has made its presence felt, the operating system has become increasingly commoditised, free software is rising up the stack, cloud computing and virtualisation are transforming the market for operating systems, and open source (in some form or another) is being adopted or proclaimed by many different companies.

• So, as I promised yesterday, here’s a quick wrap-up of my FUDCon experience. This was my first FUDCon, and it was definitely a lot of fun. My photos of the event are up here.

Mandriva Family

• You have probably heard of Nepomuk, the semantic desktop technology we’ve been shipping for a while as part of the KDE Platform. However, so far, you may not have noticed it really doing very much useful for you. So what is this thing called Nepomuk, what can it do for us now and what will it bring us in the future? We asked two of the driving forces behind Nepomuk, Stéphane Laurière and Sebastian Trüg of Mandriva, to tell us about the real Nepomuk features that are already available in KDE software and those that have been introduced with Mandriva Linux 2010.

• This tutorial shows how to set up a Mandriva 2010.0 Free (x86_64) server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. In the end you should have a system that works reliably, and if you like you can install the free webhosting control panel ISPConfig 2 (i.e., ISPConfig runs on it out of the box). This tutorial is written for the 64-bit version of Mandriva 2010.0.

• The recommended download is called “One”, a 32bit only Live CD available in many languages with either the KDE or GNOME desktop environment. This edition includes closed source software such as proprietary kernel drivers and Adobe Flash.

• Taking this version one step further is the “PowerPack”, which is not available free of charge. This edition includes even more proprietary software, as well as providing commercial support. The website lists the following software:

• Flash Fluendo DVD Reader Fluendo Codecs Acrobat Reader Skype Opera Arkeia VMWare

Debian Family

• At the heart of every serious software development project is the use of some kind of version control code repository. For Ubuntu Linux, that version control system is its own Bazaar (bzr) system, which make it easier for the project to encourage and manage developer participation.

• Lucid may not be getting a new GTK theme but it will still be getting an entirely new look.

• Ubuntu’s Ayatana team (most famed for creating those awesome ‘new’ notification balloons that came in Jaunty) are currently testing a super-duper enhanced version of GTK+ that adds RGBA support (think Windows Aero) and client side window decoration.

Devices/Embedded

• Acer plans to launch as many as six new smartphones with Google’s Android mobile operating system in the first half of next year, a company executive said Thursday.

• Set aside the particulars of the Crunchpad drama for a moment and talk to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. Software is already free. Chipmakers such as Intel have teams of hundreds of engineers building sophisticated software for consumer electronics around the Linux operating system, Zemlin says. Hardware, meanwhile, is only getting cheaper. The materials bill for a decent laptop is now as little as $150, he explains.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open-source code is more prone to severe flaws than commercial software, but bugs get fixed more quickly, according to revealing new research from application security firm Veracode.

• Now I have read that this company is trying to change its Open Source image (sigh) again. They are doing it by copying the image from another large company. This fruity company directly gained its current, dare I say it, popular software offering from Open Source software. I intend to take so much salt with this latest venture that I can feel my arteries harden just thinking about it.

• As indicated in the previous posts, we have started to redesign a few really basic interactions in OpenOffice.org Impress in order to reduce the overall complexity of the UI. Currently, we focus on navigation through slides in various contexts, the visual appearance of different slide selection states and the handling of slide layouts. Today, I want to share some thoughts about a different way how to assign slide layouts.

Programming

• I begin this tutorial a few weeks ago with Part I and received some very nice comments correcting my (fortunately) minor errors. This isn’t a tutorial about how to program in a specific language or even really about how to program. I wanted to show the common structure of interpreted programming languages in the hopes of revealing some common threads, rather than focusing on the ins and outs of one language. I’ve heard it said that if you learn one langauge, it makes learning the next one easier. My problem is I get lost in the nuances of the language in question and lose track of the basic structure of programming. I’ve created this tutorial series to try and correct that. This tutorial is for my education as much as anyone else’s so I welcome comments but, as I said before, be polite. This is about learning.

• Web-based applications are at the core of Google’s strategy. As a result, it’s not surprising that Google has been embarking on a strategy to help both itself and the wider developer community build better Web applications.

• Key to Google’s Web application development effort is its Google Web Tools (GWT) applications, which became open source in 2006. This week, Google debuted GWT 2.0, which provides new developer workflow improvements as well performance enhancements.

• Sun appears to have timed the release of three updated versions of its Java enterprise software products to coincide with a closed-door hearing in Europe about Oracle’s planned takeover. Could be the company wants to send regulators a message that it’s still viable and still innovating. It’s also quite likely that Sun is seeking to reassure customers, who are no doubt becoming restless.

• Is it possible to cram a whole Linux server into something the size of a plug? Apparently it is – Marvell has combined gigabit Ethernet, flash storage and an ARM CPU with a full install of Ubuntu to produce the tiniest Linux server we’ve seen for some time. Can you resist the power of your geek hardware lust? If not, don’t read on…

Standards/Consortia

• For a technology that’s all about being fast, 802.11n Wi-Fi sure took its sweet time to become a standard.

• In fact, until September 2009, it wasn’t, officially, even a standard. But that didn’t stop vendors from implementing it for several years beforehand, causing confusion and upset when networking gear that used draft standards from different suppliers wouldn’t always work at the fastest possible speed when connected.

Leftovers

• How Right Wing Extremists Try to Paralyze Government Through Ideological Smears and Baseless Attacks

• What is TFUE? TFUE or TFEU stands for the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, so the new Lisbon regime. UE is French for European Union.

Environment

• The only clue I find to where the world’s leading climate sceptics are meeting in Copenhagen is a large round sticker on a pavement outside a house down a side street. It depicts a happy-looking Eskimo standing on a clearly melting ice flow with a cheerful sun beaming down on him and his ice-cream under the words “Hurra global warming”.

• Out of the Frying Pan, Dec. 10, 2009. We rolled our van out of the ferry boat at 8am and rumbled into the center of Copenhagen. Giant banners and billboards are everywhere trumpeting various points about global warming, such as “It’s Too Late to Limit CO2 – We Need Other Solutions.” Picking up a newspaper, I could see there is buzz about the “alternate” conference going on called “Klimaforum09.” Naomi Klein had just given a speech there– the first person I spoke to randomly on the street surprised me by volunteering that she was disappointed she had missed Naomi’s speech. (Here is a link to her blog from The Nation on President Obama and COP15 and on how more money is being spent on war than fighting climate change.)

• The most vocal organizations around the University of East Anglia hacked email story (aka. “climategate”) have been involved in a decade-plus campaign to delay action on climate change.

• The goal of this campaign, which began around the time of the first Kyoto Protocol negotiations, was to assemble a group of like-minded “free-market” think tanks and pseudo-experts that would bring into question the scientific realities of climate change, create doubt with the public and politicians and effectively delay the introduction of clean energy policy in the United States.

• It’s no coincidence that the groups pushing this story the hardest have a long history of taking money from oil and coal companies to attack the conclusions made by climate scientists.

Finance

• Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan had called upon Congress to take a different course. “Don’t preempt state Attorneys General, there needs to be state level enforcement of state and federal consumer laws, particularly when the Feds fail to act,” said Madigan in a news conference.

• Last week, Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve, came before the Senate Banking Committee for a confirmation hearing. Bernanke was nominated by President Bush for a four year term beginning in 2006. President Obama chose to continue with Bernanke and re-nominated him this year for another four year term.

• While a contrite Bernanke admitted to the committee that the Fed “should have done more” to prevent the 2009 financial meltdown and protect consumers, for some Senators, this was too little too late.

• Following their $700 billion bailout, Wall Street is now enjoying a resurgence in profits and bonuses, but they are refusing to lend to small businesses. I am with Larry Summers, and 200 other economists. It’s time to put a damper on the casino and put Wall Street to work for Main Street.

• Federal records show that a contract worth $5.97 million, part of the $787 billion stimulus Congress passed this year, helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.

AstroTurf

• Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama’s health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money — called “virtual currency” — to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.

• Here’s how it’s happening:

• Facebook users play a social game, like “FarmVille” or “Friends For Sale.” They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy “virtual goods” such as a machine gun for “Mafia Wars.” But these gamers don’t buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.

• David Koch, an oil and gas billionaire who is the ninth-richest person in the United States, according to Forbes magazine, was simultaneously responsible for a $100 million refurbished opera house and a protest that featured signs comparing health reform to the Holocaust. The two sides to Koch’s activism aren’t unique – they harken to a long tradition of conservative tycoons who were great philanthropists with one hand and ruthless powerbrokers with the other. But Koch’s hidden presence in the health care debate illustrates the extent to which the Old Right is creating – and then hiding behind – the grassroots fervor of middle-class opponents of health reform.

• Since President Bill Clinton’s health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.

• The health care debate has so many moving parts that it’s hard for anybody to keep them straight. So we decided to put together an overview of where we’re at—both good and bad—and what we’re all going to need to keep fighting for.

• Neither of these bills is close to perfect. But we’re entering the home stretch where we risk losing a lot of what’s good in these bills and where we have a huge opportunity to strengthen the parts that need work. Here’s where we are….

Internet/Censorship/Web Abuse/Rights

• The Pirate Party’s Christian Engstrom is already making waves in the European Parliament. After his hard work on the Telecoms Package amendment he’s now working to set up an Internet Bill of Rights, attempting to codify some of the core beliefs of the Pirate Party. To achieve this he wants your help.

Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights

• Music industry website debut turns into a mosh pit

• More important, perhaps, Gertner wrote that Tenenbaum’s team didn’t provide evidence or precedents to back up its position. In other words, it was all show, no dough. Hence her decision to grant the labels’ motion to throw out Tenenbaum’s defense before the case reached the jury.

• There are those fans who were really excited about “New Moon,” buying Robert Pattinson-emblazoned pillows and making elaborate scrapbooks for the stars, and then there are those fans who may have gone overboard in their excitement. Samantha Tumpach was busted in a Chicago movie theater for allegedly taping three minutes of the “Twilight” saga sequel inside a theater in late November and could face up to a three-year prison term for her actions; Tumpach has said she was essentially filming a home movie had no intention of distributing the footage.

• Now Chris Weitz, the director of “New Moon,” has come to Tumpach’s defense, saying that the prospect of such a harsh sentence is unjust.

• “Needless to say, the case seems to me terribly unfair and I would like to do what I can to address this,” Weitz wrote in an e-mail to the Chicago Sun-Times.

• About a year ago, we wrote about the massive success of musician Corey Smith, creating not just a sustainable living as an independent musician, but a multi-million dollar operation — built on a combination of closely connecting with his fans, using free music, touring relentlessly, working hard to gain new fans (including reserving some cheap tickets to shows) and (the important part) really great music. What caught everyone’s attention was that this totally independent musician, with no record label, no radio play, no massive publicity campaign had grossed about $4 million in 2008. Now, of course, tour grosses (which made up the lion’s share of that amount) are a bit misleading, as the venues take a cut of that, and there are certainly other expenses to be paid, but as a starting number it’s still really impressive. Luckily, Corey is now sharing some more details about his path to success.

• Just copying something doesn’t give anyone a reason to buy from you — and depending on the product, copying them will take time, combined with the additional time to even let people know you’ve got a product in the market. By that time, the real innovator may be much further ahead.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the DayStormy Peters, HP open source strategist 05 (2004)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

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