● 04.16.10

● Links 16/4/2010: SimplyMepis 8.5 Reviewed by LWN; Goldman Sachs Accused of Fraud by SEC

Posted in News Roundup at 3:01 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• EightVirtues.com Computers and ElementHTPC.com are proud to announce the EVTV! An innovative Home Theater PC designed to deliver a fully functional computing environment for your television alongside web media services like Hulu Desktop, Boxee TV, YouTube XL, and more.

• After posting the 15 Cool and Unique Linux Desktop Workspaces, I decided to officially launch today “The $100.00 (USD) Coolest Linux Workspace Contest”. This contest is open to everyone who can show and tell us something about his/her cool and unique Linux workstation setup.

• With the increasing adoption of Linux in wide variety of environments, supporting Linux has become vital for device vendors. Being able to support Linux opens a rapidly growing market to these device vendors. For developers,the skill set to develop and maintain Linux drivers presents a lucrative career option.

• The issue isn’t that users are losing the ability to install Linux on their machines, but whether a company can remove a feature after purchase. Owners must agree to what is called an “End User License Agreement” upon purchase, which explicitly states that revisions to the firmware are expected; if the agreement also says that Sony can engage in some nefarious bait-and-switch scheme, though, the agreement can be challenged in court.

• “In a few years, you may just find that what happened to Sun happens to Apple as open source and Linux and this huge collective of companies comes back with some pretty stunning stuff,” Zemlin said.

Server

• Cray has never made a big deal about the custom Linux operating system it packages with its XT supercomputing line. In general, companies don’t like to tout proprietary OS environments since they tend to lock custom codes in and third-party ISV applications out. But the third generation Cray Linux Environment (CLE3) that the company announced on Wednesday is designed to make elite supercomputing an ISV-friendly experience.

• Troan: Linux has always been an integral part of rPath’s focus as a company. We provide automation solutions to help deploy and manage large numbers of Linux systems, and we’re being used on deployments in the range of 15 or 20,000 Linux servers. The success Linux has had in scale-out infrastructures has created new management costs that we work to reduce.

• Launched at the Parallels Summit in February, the CloudLinux operating system is designed to increase server density by “improving stability and reliability using isolation technology to create Lightweight Virtual Environments,” says CloudLinux.

• Since Linux’s widespread adoption, enterprises have relied on open source software to some degree within the IT operations.

Google

• The product manager Anders Sandholm behind the scenes development of Chrome and Chrome 5 OS. Two programs pursuing the same goal: faster access to Web applications.

• With 40 million users, Chrome is now the third most used browser in the world. A software that Google has managed to impose only a year and a half, thanks to a marketing campaign unprecedented for a browser. This is just the beginning.

• Perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks of the anticipated Google Chrome OS has been the absence of computer peripherals compatibility. The drivers contained in printer software etc. simply haven’t been announced compatible with Google’s operating system, requiring printer owners to use Linux or Windows to print pages from the internet. Yesterday though, Google announced a significant step to repair this weakness in their operating system, with the introduction of: Google Chrome Cloud Printing.

Kernel Space

• According to the Foundation, the open source development veterans will also contribute to the MeeGo mobile Linux platform. Collabora Ltd. director and co-founder Philippe Kalaf said, “The Linux Foundation provides a home for important projects such as the MeeGo platform,” adding that, “We’re excited to join the Linux Foundation so that we can participate directly in upstream development of the MeeGo platform, attend online and face-to-face meetings and do what we can to invest in the project’s success.”

Google

• The Linux Kernel Archive hasn’t been too pleased with the direction Android has taken. Claiming Android’s developers offer little cooperation and are slow to patch and update their code, they parted ways last year.

• But all of that may change soon, as Google has extended the old proverbial olive branch at the Linux Collaboration Summit taking place today and tomorrow in San Francisco. Executive Director of the Linux Foundation Jim Zemlin and open source and public engineering manager for Google Chris DiBona both see hope for Android to rejoin the good graces of Linux.

• The guardians of the Linux Kernel Archive, repository for the source code for the Linux open source operating system, turned the code for Google’s Android phone out the door last year. The guardians felt they were getting too little cooperation from Google and too few patches from its engineers.

Graphics Stack

• OpenGL was released just a month days ago. Now, Nvidia has released its latest OpenGL Linux driver with full support for OpenGl 4.0 on GeForce GTX 480/470. In addition to this, Nvidia has also release four new OpenGL extensions which provides additional capabilities to developers.

Applications

Adding Linux Support

• Well, I can now cross yet another application off my list of apps I’d miss if I switched to Linux. TeamViewer, my remote support application of choice, has arrived — bringing its zero-config screen sharing goodness to Linux.

• In addition, the 3ware cards now include embedded Linux driver support for Linux kernel 2.6.33 and higher, allowing support for many Linux distributions.

Instructionals

• 3. Open the Kitchen in your Ubuntu Virtual Machine we created in the Kitchen Setup procedure by typing ./menu in the Terminal window in Ubuntu. Leave it open.

• 4. All of this is done INSIDE THE UBUNTU VIRTUAL MACHINE (that includes when I say “save to your computer” anywhere in here, means save to you Ubuntu Virtual Machine)!

Distributions

Debian Family

• In conclusion, while technically this was a minor version update, SimplyMepis 8.5 represents a big change for developers and users. As the last official KDE 3 holdout moves on, it signals the true beginnings of a new era. I still get emails every once in a while from users complaining about being forced to migrate to KDE 4 and for that body of users, SimplyMepis 8.5 is a wonderful transitional release. It presents KDE 4 in an environment that remains very similar in appearance to its previous KDE 3 desktop. For SimplyMepis users, it still very much like home. For new users, it could be a gentle introduction to KDE 4.

Ubuntu

• This morning I woke up to write an article for Ghacks. I was searching around for inspiration while I was updating my Ubuntu 10.4 beta install. Near the end of the update I thought “Let’s just check to see the status of the Ubuntu One Music Store”. So I fired up Rhythmbox and, to my surprise, there it was…all ready for me to start shopping!

• So…with that said, in this article I am going to introduce you to the Ubuntu One Music Store and how it works. It’s time for the real fun to begin.

Devices/Embedded

• 6WINDGate, set up by tier one networking and telecom OEMs around the globe, is the commercial multicore packet processing software’s gold standard. The product enables OEMS to create multicore-based produced that attain the industry’s best integration, energy efficiency and cost-performance by offering a complete Linux networking software solution that brings a 7-10px packet processing performance improvement weighed against the standard Linux networking stacks.

• According to company president Tsutomu Sawada, eSOL for Android consists of eSOL Adaptor for Android(TM), which enables Android to run on non-Linux OSes, and eSOL Professional Services for Android(TM), which offers technical services for Android-based software development. As a result, he said, eSOL for Android is expected to bring Android to a much wider market beyond mobile phones.

• eT-Kernel Adaptor for Android, the first in a series of eSOL Adaptor for Android products, permits replacement of a Linux kernel with the eSOL eT-Kernel OS, a high-performance, highly reliable POSIX- and TRON-conformant OS.

Phones

• Linux is taking on the big boys of mobile technology, with most of the leading vendors using its systems.

• US software firm Adobe and three other firms joined the wireless Linux group LiMo, underlining the growing role of the Linux computer operating system in cellphones.

Nokia/Intel

• Nokia and Intel have demoed their upcoming MeeGo platform co-venture at the Intel Developer Forum 2010 in Beijing, showing not only how the platform is being developed for netbooks, TVs and smartphones, but how the system will be able to cooperate from device to device. In the demo video (below) an Intel spokesperson plays a video streaming to a netbook on a TV and a smartphone at the same time.

• MeeGo is a joint venture with Nokia and is built on their Moblin and Maemo mobile OSes. Unlike rival operating systems, MeeGo is intended to “support multiple hardware architectures across the broadest range of device segments, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.”

• The open-source offspring of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo gets its first public outing running an an Atom netbook, as well as a smartphone and a TV set…

• MeeGo is a Linux-based operating system for portable devices. It’s the product of a partnership between Nokia and Intel which brings together Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin environment. This operating system could power your smart phone and your netbook as well as other devices you might not consider like a vehicle or an embedded system.

• The news that Intel has got the Android mobile software stack from Google running on Atom-based smartphone designs as well as being important in its own right, could also be a sign of a break in the log-jam over Big Windows and ARM processors.

• Maybe Intel has wrong-footed Microsoft with the move, or maybe Intel is responding to a Microsoft move that has not yet gone public. But what does Intel and Google Android have to do with Microsoft’s full Windows operating system and ARM, I hear you ask?

• Well some observers have assumed that there was tacit understanding between Intel and Microsoft to the effect that Intel wouldn’t support the Microsoft-threatening Android software as long as Microsoft wouldn’t expand its support of the Intel-threatening ARM.

• The Nokia N900 is a powerful smartphone running the Linux based Maemo OS. Featuring a vivid 3.5 inch WVGA touchscreen display, the N900 also features a slide out QWERTY keyboard which aids messaging and web browsing.

• Opportunities for the open source Linux operating system in the mobile device market was a prominent theme of the keynote presentations at the Linux Collaboration Summit on Wednesday.

Android

• I’ve read it’s down to something to do with android being Linux based, with application piracy also to blame. This aint the case for the HTC devices running windows mobile as they can save to external memory cards.

Free Software/Open Source

• Managers are quickly realizing the benefit that community-based development can have on their businesses. The real-time communication and transparency their developers are discovering in open source communities are exactly what internal development teams need in order to create in a more agile way and meet the increasing business demand for delivering higher-quality software with reduced development cycles.

• The open source movement has changed the course of modern software development. Certainly, Linux has been the most prominent example so far, but there is far more to come. Open source continues to infiltrate mainstream development at an ever faster pace. As that happens, the rules change too.

• Open source Eclipse tools overturned the IDE business. Open source frameworks helped drive Ajax. Open source unit testers are now par for the course. In the form of Hibernate and Spring, open source has challenged the conventional application server stack. Open source has penetrated the mysterious world of BPM in the form of BPEL and various rules engines. Open source software is on the evaluation list for more and more messaging and enterprise service bus projects.

• It also is a tool now available to anyone, thanks to the new free, open source release of the software package — called HUBzero — underlying nanoHUB.org. The open source package became available Wednesday (April 14, 2010) on the HUBzero web site at http://hubzero.org/getstarted.

• Developed at Purdue, HUBzero is the YouTube of simulation tools — sort of a Swiss Army Knife for deploying and accessing computational research codes, and visualizing and analyzing results, all through a familiar Web browser interface. Built-in social networking features akin to Facebook create communities of researchers and educators in science, engineering, medicine, almost any field or subject matter and facilitate online collaboration, distribution of research results, training and education.

• The Open Biometrics Initiative (OBI) is an open source project and forum managed by ImageWare Systems, but available for inclusion by anyone participating in the open source community.

International

• Another new development is arriving by way of Brazil’s “Telecentro” program. Telecentros are public computer labs that use open source software and provide free Internet access.

• [...]

• Open source software is playing a key role in the Telecentros. Ryan Bagueros, the owner and founder of NorthxSouth, a software development company that describes itself as a “network of open source developers from all over the Americas,” said Brazil and other Latin American governments are unenthusiastic about the high cost and security leaks of U.S.-made proprietary software. (Bagueros joined me on a panel at the annual meeting of Roots of Hope.) He noted that these Latin American countries are investing heavily in developing open source alternatives, and expanded via email about the value of open source software:

• Free Open Source Software (Foss) has reached appropriate levels of maturity in terms of quality and reach; Foss is also being adopted as a mainstream solution and also an alternative to proprietary solutions. The Malta Information Technology Agency (Mita) seeks to adopt cost-effective and non-disruptive OSS within government and is therefore seeking open participation, collaboration and transparency through the creation of a Government of Malta Open Source End User Group to become a major driving force behind the evolution of Open Source initiatives.

Events

• Some of the nation’s leading software developers and entrepreneurs will be in Columbia today through Saturday for the Open Source Software Conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

SaaS

• A startup called Datameer is offering a simpler way for business analysts to use Hadoop, the open-source framework for large-scale data processing on clusters of commodity hardware.

Databases

• Gear6, a provider of enhanced Memcached solutions, has announced enhancements to the Memcached distributed memory caching system to scale both SQL and NoSQL applications.

• Built on mostly open source software and commodity hardware, Digg is currently dropping its open source MySQL database in favor of Cassandra, a non-relational, “NoSQL” database that was developed by Facebook and handed over to the Apache Software Foundation. John Quinn, Digg VP of engineering, said the company is moving to Cassandra with a service layer on top built mostly in Python. The company also uses PHP and RabbitMQ.

Oracle

• When it comes to Sun Microsystems’ technology, Oracle’s top partner priority is to promote Sun servers and storage. But if you listen closely to Oracle Channel Chief Judson Althoff, you’ll discover that he’s already contemplating channel partner strategies for Sun’s MySQL, Java and OpenOffice offerings.

• Although my feelings haven’t changed, based on the information currently available, questions regarding OpenSolaris are starting to generate notable discussion.

• [...]

• Said differently, “The source is available, so be warned, Oracle.”

• OpenSolaris community member Ben Rockwood wrote a measured response:

Business

• SunGard Higher Education and its customers have launched a Community Source Initiative — a vendor-supported community source forum dedicated to higher education Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Government

• “As part of the review, we will seek to identify additional savings which can be used to pay down the deficit further, including better government IT procurement, investigating the potential of different approaches, such as cloud computing and open-source software,” Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrats leader, wrote in the manifesto.

• Large ICT projects would be opened to smaller suppliers by breaking them up into smaller components. All government tender documents worth more than £10,000 would appear on the Supply2Gov website, a far lower level than that currently used by the Official Journal of the European Union, and a “level playing field” would be created for open source ICT in government procurement.

• Digital Britain minister Stephen Timms has said in an interview with V3.co.uk that smaller firms should be given more opportunities to compete for public sector contracts, but he was vague when discussing the government’s open-source commitments.

• We asked Timms how Labour’s strategy compares with statements made in the Tory manifesto, which promises to open up the £200bn government procurement market to small and open-source companies, partly by breaking up large ICT projects into smaller components.

Applications

• Open Source Video Conferencing software are pretty new. Except the grand father Ekiga (former GnomeMeeting), the most promising Open Source Video Conferencing solutions have less than 2 years on the market.DimDim and Vmukti are the gorilla of the field, with aggressive features list.Open Source Video Conferencing software are pretty new. Except the grand father Openmeetings (former GnomeMeeting), the most promising Open Source Video Conferencing solutions have less than 2 years on the market.DimDim and Vmukti are the gorilla of the field, with aggressive features list.

• The developers of VLC are already working on the next iteration of the video player which could be beneficial in future comparisons as the developers plan to add gpu acceleration to the media player.

Leftovers

• For some people, the Internet is the killer app — literally. From newspapers and the yellow pages to personal privacy and personal contact, the Net has been accused of murdering, eviscerating, ruining, and obliterating more things than the Amazing Hulk. Some claims are more true than others, but the Net certainly has claimed its share of scalps.

Finance

• Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against — the ones he believed were most likely to lose value — and packaged those bonds into Abacus 2007-AC1, according to the S.E.C. complaint. Goldman then sold the Abacus deal to investors like foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other hedge funds.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged investment banking titan Goldman Sachs with civil fraud over a pre-packaged mortgage instrument they say was designed to fail.

• Goldman Sachs created the derivative — called Abacus 2007-AC1 — in response to a request from a hedge fund manager who predicted that the housing market would collapse and wanted to bet against it. The trader, John Paulson, later earned $3.7 billion for his wager. Goldman’s practices cost investors $1 billion, according to the filing.

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

• Downloading has become an election issue. Elsewhere in Europe ever stricter measures are being taken to protect copyright and security on the internet. Which way will digital freedom go in the Netherlands after the parliamentary elections on 9 June? “Prepare yourselves in The Hague! The Pirates are about to enter.” This is the Twitter warning with which the Dutch Pirates Party presented itself. ‘Captain’ Salim Allioui hopes to win 14 seats in June. The phenomenon began in Sweden four years ago, where the Pirate Party has the third largest membership in the country.

• In January we filed a Freedom of Information Request with the Department of Justice asking for all documents dealing with internet blocking by ISPs. Last month the response came back – refusing access to almost every internal document!

• Sometimes, however, it can be informative to know what is being concealed. When answering FOI requests, departments prepare a schedule of records listing each document they hold by data and title.

Clip of the DaySourceCode Season 1: Episode 6 (2004) 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.