● 06.30.10

● Links 30/6/2010: Cisco’s Linux Machines; Npad

Posted in News Roundup at 8:36 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Now imagine what it would do for Linux if Apple’s products worked perfectly with it. That’s never going to happen of course (not if Apple can help it, anyway), but another important shift is coming. Linux is becoming the king of the appliance world and that’s a really big thing. Android and MeeGo are changing the scene. The growth in Android’s market share has been impressive and is only set to rise. Nokia just announced that they will drop Symbian for MeeGo on their high-end smartphones phones. I mean does anyone even realise how amazing it is that one can go to any retailer and buy a Linux powered phone? What these products have done, is turn Linux into a truly wonderful, sexy, easy-to-use appliance and it’s only going to get better from here.

• It’s not just phones. Consumers can also buy (or will be able to soon) Linux based:

• * ARM netbooks * cars * eBook readers * GPS units * media hubs * mini computers * music players * network attached storage * projectors * media centers * personal internet viewers * routers * tablets * televisions * set-top boxes * “traditional” phones * watches

• Linux has captured the underground nerd world of coders and hackers (white-hat, of course) with it’s simplicity, lightness, and functionality. The mainstream, however, hasn’t been as quick to catch on – that is, until they meet the adorable Linux penguin mascot, Tux.

• What is Linux?

• Linux is an operating system like Microsoft Windows, MacOS or Unix. It was created as a hobby by Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. What many people do not know about Linux is that its source code is available to anyone. The source code for Linux is called the kernel and is the base operating system Linux. Since the source code, or kernel is free, has enabled hundreds of companies and individuals to release their own operating systems based on Linux system. These operating systems or formats are often referred to as Linux distributions.

Desktop

• One other person showed up, however, who not only used computers, but was an avid Linux fan. I had given him a copy of Linux a couple of years ago along with a “plush Tux” and he was now using Linux other than “for one or two programs to do editing on his videos.” I told him about some of the multi-media programs that are available for Linux and he now thinks he can be completely “Microsoft free”. He also has his wife and family using Linux. I must admit that his presence made my day a little brighter.

Books

• Research and Markets: Fedora Bible 2010 Edition: Featuring Fedora Linux 12 – The Perfect Companion for Mastering the Latest Version of Fedora

• Linux deployment continues to increase, and so does the demand for qualified and certified Linux system administrators. If you’re seeking a job-based certification from the Linux Professional Institute (LPI), this updated guide of LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell (O’Reilly Media, $49.99 USD) will help you prepare for the technically challenging LPIC Level 1 Exams 101 and 102.

Server

• For many enterprises, the server OS presents a quagmire: They don’t want to pay too much for the server OS on which they rely, but at the same time, they don’t want their server OS makers going out of business. The big question is whether there’s enough money in open source software to build strong and stable enterprise OS makers.

• If you run your business using Microsoft’s Windows server OSes, then you really don’t have to worry. The Redmond giant is rolling in cash thanks in no small part to the high prices it charges for its desktop and server OSes and the client access licenses it requires to connect one to the other.

• But open source companies are different. They don’t sell their open source software per se, and therefore they don’t make a lot of money. Peter Wayner over at InfoWorld wrote recently about two highly valued open source companies: MySQL, which Sun bought for $1 billion, and Red Hat, currently valued by the market at around $6 billion. This was what he had to say:

• The “Expert” also seemed to think it was harder to manage a Linux Server over a Windows Sever. This is strictly a matter of what you are used to. While there were times in my past where I did Administer Windows Servers. Going back now and trying to do things is difficult because of how much has changed. Learning and becoming an expert in any operating system takes time and requires work.

• Companies need to evaluate the Linux vs. Windows choice based on what they are trying to do. Everyone needs to not make this decision on a case by case basis. There are no hard fast rules and staffing and cost will always be the biggest things to determine it.

• IBM said that its iDataPlex supercomputer running Linux will be capable of performing approximately 10 trillion calculations per second (rpeak teraflops) and is expected to grow to 25 teraflops in near future. It harnesses the new Intel six-core processors and QDR InfiniBand in a design that improves energy efficiency and cooling requirements.

Audiocasts

• Linux Basement Talk

• * Props to Dave “Sexy” Yates of LottaLinuxLinks Oggcast for mentioning LB in LLL-125. We should return the favor. * Claudio did an off-the-cuff guest spot on Linux in the Ham Shack on June 1 and did his best to promote Linux, FLOSS, and LB of course. o http://lhspodcast.info/2010/06/episode-039-deep-thoughts/ * Frostbitemedia http://www.frostbitemedia.org * DoortoDoorGeek’s Podcast http://www.linuxbasix.com/

Ballnux

• For several years now, Sprint has been in next-to-last place among U.S. wireless network providers. But that might eventually change if Sprint continues to offer smartphones like the HTC EVO 4G ($200 with a new contract), a well-reviewed Android 2.1 handset boasting several firsts and currently a Sprint exclusive in the U.S.

• The new Samsung Galaxy S is a nice phone.Samsung Galaxy S will compete with Iphone 4 and I think that Samsung Galaxy S is better than Iphone.Just as success rate for the iPhone 4 a few days ago, also for its direct competitor, the Samsung S Galaxy, we have learned – through the channel twitter 3 Italy – its impending entry to list. Samsung Galaxy S is a good phone.

Graphics Stack

• Committed to a branch of the Mesa repository over the weekend is an initial Gallium3D state tracker for providing VDPAU support. Yes, VDPAU as in NVIDIA’s Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix that has become quite popular with Linux users and is supported by many media applications.

• Besides a VDPAU state tracker for Gallium3D having emerged in the past couple of days, a new Gallium3D driver called “Galahad” has been committed to the Mesa mainline repository and has been worked on over the past week.

Applications

• I don’t usually mention graphical tools any more, but it seems worthwhile to point out this one: fsv.

• With more and more countries implementing varying degrees of restrictions on content access, internet censorship has become a hotly debated topic.

Proprietary

• Yes, Flash sucks. But many of us need it for one site or another. And lots of us are running 64-bit Linux these days, where Adobe has famously refused (so far) to update the plugin for the recent serious vulnerabilities in Flash, leaving us between a rock and a hard place.

• The wide use of 64 – bit editions of Linux, Mac, OS X and Windows has hit a spot for Adobe. But with this pressure, why did Adobe withdraw its 64 – bit Adobe Flash Player version?

• Brosix 3, the newest version of the award-winning instant messenger software, is available for Mac and Linux systems. This is great for the growing number of individual and business owners who currently have or are purchasing computers that have these operating systems.

• BeyondTrust, the global leader in privilege delegation and access control for physical, virtual and cloud computing environments, today announced PowerBroker Servers – Linux Edition.

Instructionals

• In creating Ubuntu Linux, Canonical has focused on ease of use, and this extends to the install procedure. To this end, Ubuntu eschewed many of the detailed questions that had discouraged potential Linux users of an earlier era. However, despite relative improvements in that area, the installation is still peppered with questions. This means that an admin tasked with the deployment of more than three or four computers is doomed to spend an entire morning dashing around, typing in responses to the same questions over and over again.

Games

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

• The KDE Project developers have issued the first release candidate (RC) for version 4.5 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC), a development preview of the next major release for the popular Linux and Unix desktop. The final version of KDE 4.5 is scheduled to be released in August, 2010.

• So in short, we should try and keep us free and independent by doing the following:

• * Be Nice

• * Reach out

• * Share and talk

• Moreover, we should think about how we’ve organized some things. Maybe we can improve the way e.V. works? We are already working on getting community support through the Supporting Membership program; we might want to do more to diversify where our money comes from and give the e.V. more power in talking to companies.

• KatchTV is very similar to Democracy TV, but focuses on KDE integration, using KHTMLPart and embedded players such as kaffeine. It’s much faster, and lighter on resources if you run a KDE desktop without GTK apps.

Distributions

Reviews

• The Standard Edition distribution installed with no problems on my HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez, which has an AMD cpu, ATI graphics and Atheros WiFi, and everything works just fine. I have not loaded it on my HP 2133 yet, but I just checked and it does include the openchrome driver in the base distribution (hooray!), so I am hopeful it will load on that system easily as well. I will try to get that done, as well as my “plain vanilla” Lifebook Intel-based system, over the weekend and post an update about it next week.

• If you read my short post about Slackware 13.1 yesterday, and perhaps were a bit put off by the “minimalist” installation booting to a text login prompt and such (or if you are just lazy like me), then Zenwalk is an excellent way to get started with a complete ready-to-run Slackware-based distribution.

New Releases

• · Announced Distro: Superb Mini Server 1.5.2 · Announced Distro: CrunchBang Linux 10 Alpha 2 · Announced Distro: Debian 5.0.5 · Announced Distro: Sabily 10.04

• The KDE favor of the popular Linux Mint 9 is almost ready for a larger audience as the first release candidate has been made available. Linux Mint 9 KDE RC still has some known issues, but is overall usable and stable enough for most people. Linux Mint 9 KDE is based on the latest Kubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx” and comes with KDE SC 4.4.4.

Red Hat Family

• Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager of Red Hat’s cloud business unit is trying hard to convince customers that the company can provide safe and managed cloud computing services. He asserts this on the back of the company’s track record in making Linux a safe place to run mission-critical applications with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

• Red Hat got its start as Linux magazine publisher that tucked a Linux CD in the back, and then evolved into the largest commercial Linux distributor in the world. The company added middleware from JBoss and created other middleware, such as its Enterprise MRG messaging, grid and realtime Linux variant, and virtualization software for desktops and servers. And now it has to position itself as an alternative to Microsoft as the platform upon which customers can build x64-based clouds.

• Red Hat and Cisco Systems have readied for a joint alliance which shall expand their virtualization network offerings.

• Red Hat is known as a leading provider for open source solutions. It seeks to integrate its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) software with the virtual network link or the VN-Link technology offered by Cisco.

Fedora

Canonical/Ubuntu

• People have been doing their best to get certain form of Linux working on the HD2. Well while they have been working on Android on the HD2, they have made some leaps on getting Ubuntu working on the Device. In a recent tweet from the guys that work on porting the perfect level of Linux to HTC device… They include a great image of the device running a seemingly stable version of the Linux OS.

• Canonical Any company that challenges the lucrative status quo is worth watching and with its Ubuntu Linux distribution, Canonical is challenging one of the great franchises in software history: Microsoft Windows. Ubuntu has become established as the simplest-to-use desktop Linux for many organisations (and hardware vendors) where Windows might appear pricey and overkill. Of course, PC makers are also looking at Google Android and other systems but if Ubuntu can make itself the free PC OS of choice for even a base set of configurations, tasks and workloads, it stands to become a new power broker.

Flavours and Variants

• Sugar desktop environment was originally conceptualized to become the default desktop for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. Sugar desktop is designed with the goal of being used by children for learning. The original Sugar desktop environment was repackaged for Ubuntu and it was called Ubuntu Sugar Remix.

Google

• Just in time for the weekend break, the Google Chrome developers at Google announced last evening (June 24th) the stable release and availability for download of the Google Chrome 5.0.375.86 web browser for Linux, Windows and Macintosh platforms. This new version comes right after the beta release announced two days ago, which enabled by default the integrated flash player. Google Chrome 5.0.375.86 is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures with binary packages for Ubuntu Linux.

• Chrome OS is an open source (the source code is open for all to see and can even be changed and added to) operating system built on a Linux kernel that in comparison to its Windows and Mac OS counterparts is more lightweight which lowers the demands of the specs of the computer running it and giving it a faster boot time making it very use-able on netbooks.

Sub-notebooks

• There is another alternative to the Windows OS and that is Linux. It is simpler to use and it offers more freedom to its users. This system also has an added advantage as its installation is free and it can also operate from any computer. Besides Android there is another operating system that ensures good performance and that is Moblin and it is currently the platform that is widely being used for Intel’s Linux.

Devices/Embedded

EnQii

• The CentrePoint is a Linux-based server that has acts as an ultra-reliable File Transfer Proxy and Synchronization Master. It is reliable, resistant to “real-world” usage in a retail environment, and needs no local technical expertise to operate.

• Consistently, EnQii has defined industry best practices in order to deliver a solution that is both web and Linux-based that offers easy to use functionality for content management, scheduling and network management.

Phones

• In a bid to beef up plans to extend its presence in Gujarat, Geodesic is launching GeoAmida, a Linux-based integrated mobile-micro computer in the state.

Nokia/MeeGo

• The video shows FroYo running smoothly on the N900 with only the icons from the status bar curtain missing.

• As director of Nokia’s MeeGo effort, Valtteri Halla has been tasked with developing the platform that Nokia will use to challenge Android and Apple. And since Nokia is today the world’s largest handset and smartphone vendor in terms of global market share, it’s a challenge not to be taken lightly.

• Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, said Charles Davies, an early leader of the Symbian operating system project, will leave the company for navigation device maker TomTom NV.

• Nokia is adopting the Linux-powered MeeGo platform for its N-series smartphone lineup in an effort to more effectively compete against Google Android and Apple iOS 4.

• The open-source ‘made for mobile’ Linux OS gets demo’d on Intel’s Atom-powered ‘Redvale’ slate, and we think you’ll be impressed…

• The Meego OS will likely vie for market share with a number of Linux-based tablet OSes such as Google’s Android. Canonical in the past has said it would come out with a version of the Ubuntu OS that will work on tablets.

Android

• An intrepid crew of tinkerers, working with the Android OS, are all but ready to spring that OS on the Windows 6.5 hobbled HTC HD2.

• With the newest version of Google’s Linux based Android operating system supporting Adobe’s Flash player, the scene was set for web based video streaming services such as Iplayer to emerge on smartphones.

• The iPhone is as proprietary as Apple can possibly make it. If you like what Apple wants to give you in the iPhone, you’ll never notice.

• But, if you want more than what Apple wants to offer you, you’re out of luck. Take Adobe Flash, for example. Adobe would love to let you view Flash videos and play Flash games on an iPhone, but Apple will have nothing to do with Flash. Short of the Department of Justice ordering Apple to let Flash on iPhones or Adobe suing Apple into submission, the only way Flash will show up on iPhones, or iPads for that matter, will be through technical kludges.

• Android is far more open. If there’s an Android application out there, even if it’s not in Google’s official Android Market, you can download, install, and run it.

• Google has officially rolled out the latest version of the Android mobile operating system for the owners of the Nexus One smartphone.

• The new version, Android OS 2.2, codenamed Froyo, claims to have brought a number of improvements over the old 2.1 version. Google claims that Android OS 2.2 would increase performance speed by up to fivefold.

• James said that porting Android for the x86 platform is turning out to be fairly easy because of Intel’s experience with Linux. All of the source code for the x86 Android port is to be made available, without restrictions, to the Android developer community when the work has been completed.

• MontaVista Linux and Robert Bosch Car Multimedia have signed an agreement that will enable Bosch Multimedia to use MontaVista software as their Linux based solution to the high cost of running proprietary software on their infotainment systems. Yet another example of how Linux based technology is and will continue to see massive success but in the background where many people will not even realize they are using Linux.

• In terms of processing power, the device features an ARM9 RISC 32 bit processor running at 468MHz. The device runs a LInux-based OS and features 802.11 b/g WiFi. You can see pictures of the AR Drone’s motherboard below.

• Like others at CES, we were quite intrigued by the AR Drone. The device’s Linux-based OS will likely offer developers a number of customization options. However, the device’s 15 minute battery life is a bit disappointing, and WiFi will limit the range of the AR Drone.

• For recording your own video, the Litl has a Webcam in the usual spot above the screen, but I couldn’t find a use for it. Gmail’s video chat isn’t configured for Linux yet, and since there’s no hard drive, you can’t download programs like Skype.

Tablets

• Looks like the Android-toting Cius wasn’t the only tablet out of Cisco this week — the company’s also announced a countertop unit for home energy management with a 7-inch, 800 x 480 capacitive touch screen. Running Ubuntu Linux for MID on a 1.1GHz Intel Atom chip, the Home Energy Controller connects to smart thermostats and appliances over 802.11n WiFi or gigabit ethernet using protocols including ZigBee.

• Most of the touchscreen tablets displayed at Computex were prototypes, but Archos Inc. (London) showed its already-available Android-based tablets in several sizes and at a range of price points. All of the Archos models fit into docking stations that provide HD outputs for bigger screens. Likewise, Sharp’s year-old Netwalker was shown sans its original keyboard (and still using a stylus) and running the Linux derivative Ubuntu on a Freescale i.MX processor.

Npad

• While we in the US still have a while to wait for our first MeeGo tablet, one has surfaced in China that may give us a hint as to what we can expect.

Free Software/Open Source

• Fortunately, though, the world of open source also offers some applications worth knowing about if you want to customize and optimize your Wi-Fi setup. Two of the best apps to know about are Tomato and dd-wrt.

• On paper, the OSCA sounds like a good idea. And several OSCA members tell The VAR Guy that they’re upbeat about long-term open source channel opportunities. But the Synnex-led OSCA effort ran into at least one problem: The Synnex reseller base doesn’t do much work in areas like traditional ERP, CRM and other enterprise applications. As a result, those same resellers have been slow to embrace open source alternatives to traditional enterprise apps, according to those familiar with the OSCA’s strategy.

Mozilla

• Last week, Peter Eckersley and I met with the Mozilla team in Mountain view to discuss web fingerprinting, privacy and Torbutton. I gave an updated version of my Torbutton Design talk, and Peter discussed Panopticlick. Mozilla was primarily interested in hearing about these projects in the context of their Private Browsing Mode, which they unveiled in Firefox 3.5.

• Mozilla has released Firefox 3.6.6, an incremental update which tweaks the way the browser handles misbehaving plug-ins, giving Flash and other plug-ins 45 seconds to respond, or else get shut down

Oracle

• Twitter intends to open source an additional piece of the Hadoop-happy infrastructure it uses for internal data analysis. Known as Crane, this is a tool for moving data from MySQL into Hadoop, the open source data-crunching platform based on Google’s proprietary infrastructure.

• Oracle Monday expanded its line of x86 Sun servers with new rackmount, blade and network fabric clustering servers designed for massive server clusters with a smaller footprint than prior generations of Sun hardware.

Openness/Sharing

• At the beginning of this year we announced a revised approach to our education plans, focusing our activities to support of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. In order to do so we have worked hard to increase the amount of information available on our own site – in addition to a new Education landing page and our OER portal explaining Creative Commons’ role as legal and technical infrastructure supporting OER, we have been conducting a series of interviews to help clarify some of the challenges and opportunities of OER in today’s education landscape.

Open Data

• Schools minister Lord Hill of Oareford has confirmed that the government accepts academy schools should be public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act. In response to an amendment proposed by Lord Lucas during the committee stage of the Academies Bill, to add academy proprietors to Schedule 1 of the FOI Act, the minister said he supported the amendment in principle and promised to come back to the issue at report stage.

Open Access/Content

• The Springer publishing company today announced that it is setting up a new open-access journal program. Called SpringerOpen, the program will initially include 12 new online-only, peer-reviewed journals in science, technical, and medical fields.

• The Chronicle sat down with Eric Merkel-Sobotta, Springer’s executive vice president for corporate communications, and Bettina Goerner, the company’s manager of open access, to talk about the program. (They were in town for the annual meeting of the American Library Association.) They emphasized that all SpringerOpen journals will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows reuse of articles as long as the authors are given credit. So if you’re an instructor who wants to use a SpringerOpen article in a course you’re teaching, “you can include it in course packages without e-mailing Springer’s rights department,” Mr. Merkel-Sobotta said.

• I have never previously submitted a paper to JMIR or other open access journals, because the university I work for has no way of paying the submission and publication charges (although they spend a fortune on subscriptions to journals – some of which I and my colleagues have published in). This changed a few weeks ago when I persuaded my doctoral supervisors that the high impact factor and relatively fast review process of JMIR meant this was the right journal to submit my latest paper to. I had to make a special case (largely based on completing my doctorate before the next assesment under the Research Excellence Framework) and it was agreed that the university would pay the fees – but that this wouldn’t set a precedent for the future.

Standards/Consortia

• Apple’s effort to leave the past behind, as CEO Steve Jobs has characterized his company’s rejection of Adobe’s Flash technology, may take longer than expected.

• Kuan Yong, platforms product manager for Google’s YouTube, says that despite his company’s efforts to make YouTube videos run in an HTML5 player, Flash isn’t going anywhere.

Leftovers

• I Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes “Donald Knuth is planning to make an ‘earthshaking announcement’ on Wednesday, at TeX’s 32nd Anniversary Celebration, on the final day of the TUG 2010 Conference. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what it is. So far speculation ranges from proving P!=NP, to a new volume of The Art of Computer Programming, to his retirement. Maybe Duke Nukem Forever has been ported to MMIX?” Let the speculation begin.

• No one questions the stability, reliability, and durability of Unix. But there are lots of questions about its future, particularly on systems that occupy the market between commodity x86 boxes and mainframes. The midrange Unix market hasn’t grown in years, and the operating system faces competition from its cousin Linux, which can run on a variety of hardware platforms, from x86 to the more powerful and reliable systems that were originally built for Unix.

Security/Aggression

• Welcome to the surveillance society.

• That’s what the American Civil Liberties Union concluded Tuesday with a report chronicling government spying and the detention of groups and individuals “for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.”

• I don’t have any difficulty in believing that the FBI really have discovered a colony of Russian sleeper spies in the United States.

• Spying is an industry. Most of its activity is pointless, counter-productive and misdirected. Those employed in it have the strongest urge to strengthen and perpetuate their own industry. They are, worldwide, shielded from public scrutiny of their efficiency, and it is easy to persuade politicians to dole out more and more funds. Politicians are flattered to see papers marked “Top Secret” and their vanity is stoked by knowing about things happening that the public is not allowed to know about. It gives them a feeling of power.

• Police forces in charge of security at the G20 summit in Toronto have been granted special powers for the duration of the summit.

• “Police, at their discretion, can deny access to the area and “use whatever force is necessary” to keep people out.

• Anyone who refuses to identify themselves or refuses to provide a reason for their visit can be fined up to $500.

• The new rules also give police the power to search anyone who approaches the fence.

• The regulation also says that if someone has a dispute with an officer and it goes to court “the police officer’s statement under oath is considered conclusive evidence under the Act.”

• Draconican, excessive, unaccountable. When governments treat their citizens like this, democracy is deeply threatened.

Environment/Energy

• Some time ago we reached the “China Zone” for the BP story. The China Zone is where you are ready to believe any story you hear happened in the country, because no matter how unbelievable it is, you just think to yourself, “Ha, that’s China!”

• It’s a familiar story: every year the UK’s primary energy production declines significantly. Today, primary energy production is almost half what it was at the peak just a decade ago. Has any other country, let alone major economy experienced such a speed and magnitude shift in its energy system outside wartime?

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• Rebecca MacKinnon’s blog post about Google’s recent moves with their homepage for their mainland Chinese users is informative but what’s more interesting to me is her testimony at the June 30th hearing on “China’s Information Control Practices and the Implications for the United States” for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The entire testimony is powerful but the last part, where she reminds everyone that Baidu is listed on the NASDAQ and uses money from investors in the US and elsewhere to censor the Internet in China, is worth reading.

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