● 07.03.10

● Links 3/7/2010: Cisco and Linux, Mozilla @ 2,000,000,000 Firefox Addons Downloads

Posted in News Roundup at 4:22 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

• Prior to this, I used Mac OS but I knew that both operating systems are proprietary and want to limit the end user. I got tired of being manipulated to use a particular application and having bloatware already pre-installed on my computer. After searching the Internet for alternatives to Mac OS and Windows I found this really cool concept that is called Linux. I didn’t know much about the OS but gave it a shot.

• When a consumer installs a Linux system, this has various consequences for him, which are sometimes hard to estimate at first. I’ve written a little summary touching the differences to Windows and Mac OS X in drivers, open source and support.

Google

• After reading a few articles about Google and their REMOVE_ASSET and INSTALL_ASSET ability and how they have invoked it already under a few circumstances. Its very fearful foreshadowing of our possible computing future, at which we may be at the point of no return already. Imagine you install it today and tomorrow Google says you don’t want that and removes it to replace it with their stuff.

• A few of us here at MTE have a bit of a crush on Chrome OS. It’s not just the system itself, it’s the fact that someone is finally taking the concept of an operating system in a new direction. We wrote a brief synopsis of Chrome OS shortly after the first announcement that showed how things stood at the very beginning, then more recently did a manual build guide. Building Chrome OS from source code can take several hours, and can be a somewhat challenging process even for an experienced Linux user. To help solve that problem, some developers have begun releasing custom Chrome OS builds with included installers and software tweaks. This guide will show you where to find the images and how to get the latest Hexxeh release, Flow, on to your netbook or VM from a Linux host.

Ballnux

• Samsung is taking the shotgun approach with its latest Android smartphone, the Galaxy S: It will be made available on five U.S. wireless providers, though each version will use a different name and have a slightly different feature set. “This will either be one of the biggest home runs in wireless history, or it will be a confusing mess,” said telecom and wireless analyst Jeff Kagan.

Kernel Space

Benchmarks

Graphics Stack

• Not a huge number of changes this week; a couple of bug fixes, some server log cleanups and some Xephyr changes.

Applications

• I love niche programs, especially in the area of multimedia. If you’re like me, you probably have a folder full of MP3s and Oggs collected from the last ten years that’s reached the point where you’ve forgotten half the files in there. This month, I stumbled upon the charming little command-line program, audiopreview.

Proprietary

Instructionals

GNOME Desktop

• The release announcement for Clutter 1.3.6 can be read on clutter-announce. Clutter 1.4.0, which will be the first stable release to incorporate all of these Clutter 1.3 changes, will be released in time for the GNOME 3.0 release in September. Clutter is used within the Mutter compositing window manager found in GNOME 3.0 and is also used by various GNOME Games and other projects.

• It should come as no surprise that there is now a new GNOME 3.0 test release seeing as in the past couple of days we have talked about new development releases of GNOME Shell and Mutter, GTK+ 3.0, and Clutter 1.3/1.4, along with a slew of other GNOME packages being checked-in.

Distributions

New Releases

• The Sabily team is proud to announce the release of new version of Sabily 10.04, codename Manarat.

Canonical/Ubuntu

• An update in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat today brings a changed look for the main Ubuntu Software Center pane.

• The Ubuntu development team have announced that the next Ubuntu Developer Week will take place from the July 12th to 16th. Several online workshops will take place during the week, run by a variety of Ubuntu contributors and community members.

Flavours and Variants

• Summary: The distro for the damned has risen again and walks among us. It’s chock-full of amazing satanic grace and charm. Highly recommended for Linux users who are tired of being goody two-shoes and who want to take a walk on the dark side of Ubuntu Linux.

• Rating: 4/5

• The KDE version of Linux Mint 9 (codename: Isadora), will instantly look and feel familiar to KDE users and comes packaged with new software such as Miro, which streams video from webistes in its own player, BleachBit, for hard drive cleaning, and Acetoniso, for converting video and images. Linux Mint 9 KDE features a new software manager that can handle more than 30,000 packages and remove and install applications asynchronously, making it possible to install separate applications at the same time and install applications in the background.

Devices/Embedded

• Wind River announced a multi-year collaboration with LSI to co-market “tightly integrated” Linux-ready hardware and software for LSI’s PowerPC-based, multicore Axxia Communication Processors (ACP). Targeting telecommunications and networking infrastructure, the partners’ solutions will include Axxia-optimized board support packages (BSPs) for Wind River Linux, VxWorks, Wind River Workbench, and Workbench On-Chip Debugging, says the company.

• Merimobiles has begun selling a seven-inch tablet for $200 that dual boots Android 2.1 and Windows CE 6.0. The Witstech A81-E is based on an unnamed ARM Cortex-A8-based processor clocked to 600MHz, and is equipped with 256MB RAM, 2GB flash, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an optional GPS receiver, says the online retailer.

Palm

• No more fees and new promotions both hope to stimulate the Linux-based webOS ecosystem.

• [...]

• In July, Palm has plans for a new PDK Hot Apps promotion, which will distribute another US$ 1 million to developers, with an emphasis on C/C++ apps that were ineligible for the previous Hot Apps promotion.

• Hewlett-Packard has completed the Palm acquisition. And if you read between the lines it sounds like HP will leverage Palm’s technology for more than smart phones and tablet computers. Indeed, HP seems poised to deploy webOS on netbooks.

Nokia/MeeGo

• Red Flag Software has demonstrated a 10.1-inch tablet running its new MeeGo Linux version of Midinux 3.0 on an Intel Moorestown Z6xx processor, says Tech.qq. Equipped with Wi-Fi and 3G, the NPad tablet will go on sale in the third quarter, says the report.

• The MeeGo Project released the baseline source code for the handset version of the Linux-based mobile OS to the development community. This code is being developed as MeeGo 1.1, which is slated for an October release.

Android

• The latest numbers from mobile app store monitor Distimo show major differences in apps’ prices in Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store. While the majority of apps on the Android Market are free, only about a quarter on the App Store are. Advantage Android or advantage App Store? Debatable. Consumers might prefer free apps, but developers want a marketplace where it’s commonplace to charge.

• Some possible explanations for the discrepancy, according to Distimo: Currently, only developers in a fraction of the countries where Android is available can distribute paid apps on the platform. Only users from select countries can buy them. And users have to sign up for a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Checkout account to buy an Android app.

• According to recent reports the Android operating system has an impressive 19.9% share of the US mobile web market. That’s still some way behind Apple iOS on 58.8% but the iPhone has been around for a lot longer. It should come as no surprise, then, that Yahoo! wants to get a piece of that Android action. Which is why it has now announced the continuing expansion of its reach with the immediate availability of Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger apps plus a Yahoo! Search Widget for Android.

• Google has begun dishing out Froyo, the latest version of the Android mobile operating system. The company has chosen to make its own Nexus One smartphone the first to receive the update, despite that handset’s relatively modest sales figures. Other advanced Android phones will likely get their own updates soon, once the new OS can be rejiggered to work with the customized interfaces various manufacturers have added.

• Amazon released its Kindle app for Android, while announcing a multimedia version for the iPhone and dropping the price of the Kindle, says eWEEK. Meanwhile, Android 2.2 rolled out to Nexus One users, but Sprint suspended its own rollout to the Evo 4G, says eWEEK, and Samsung announced plans for a Froyo update to its Galaxy S.

• Android 3.0 “Gingerbread” will be a high-end format supporting 1280 × 760 resolution and requiring a 1GHz processor, essentially splitting the operating system into two platforms, says UnwiredView. Meanwhile, HTC and Sprint are readying an Android smartphone with a 2GHz processor and 1080p video recording, says OzcarGuide, while TmoNews says HTC is prepping an Android phone for T-Mobile with dual 800MHz processors.

• Rumors are circulating about Google’s next version of Android, the open source, Linux-based mobile operating system. Version 3.0 (Codename: Gingerbread) will supposedly require a 1GHz CPU and at least 512MB of RAM onboard, making it a shoe-in for high-end smartphones. Gingerbread will also support a screen resolution as high as 1280×760.

Tablets

• Expansys UK has begun selling a seven-inch WVGA Android 2.1 tablet from Huawei, making it one of the first available Android tablets. Priced at 300 Pounds (about $451) without a memory card or 370 Pounds ($557) with 32GB, the Huawei S7 offers a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 802.11n wireless networking, Bluetooth 2.1, and a two-megapixel camera.

Cisco

• Cius signals the latest “anything but Microsoft” development in the emerging tablet market. Among the recent vendor moves:

• * Cisco embracing Google Android for the Cius. * Dell promoting Android on the Dell Streak tablet. * Hewlett-Packard apparently scrapping work on a Windows-centric tablet and acquiring Palm and WebOS.

• The Cisco Cius looks an awful lot like an Android version of Apple’s iPad, but the two are really very different animals, according to In-Stat’s Jim McGregor. “Cisco is not trying to compete with Apple,” he said. “The two companies are targeting completely different segments and usage models. And like Apple in the consumer segment, Cisco offers complete solutions for businesses.”

• Cisco announced an Intel Atom-based, tabletop Home Energy Controller (HEC) device based on OpenPeak’s Home Energy Manager (HEM) design. Running Ubuntu Linux on a 1.1GHz Intel Atom, the HEC offers a seven-inch screen, networks via cellular, 802.11n, ZigBee, and ERT wireless, and works with back-end services enabling consumers to monitor and control energy use.

• According to Cisco, the Cius will also have access to the Android Market.

Free Software/Open Source

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• The answer to that question and more has been addressed in a new Mozilla Firefox Main Window Usage Study. The study data was collected on an opt-in basis from nearly 10,000 users of the Mozilla Test Pilot addon which surveys Firefox usage.

• Although Firefox is falling behind the alternatives in some key areas like performance, the open source browser still delivers peerless flexibility with a rich add-on system and unrivaled support for extensibility. Mozilla’s curated extension archive has over 60,000 add-ons that have been contributed by third-party developers.

SaaS

• Fortunately this type of flexible software does exist. It is called Free and Open Source Softare (FOSS) and it is becoming ubiquitous. In fact, whether you know it or not, you are using FOSS software: Apache, the FOSS web server, runs this web site and indeed the majority of all web sites. WordPress, the blogging software we use here is also “everywhere” and you can purchase it from “cloud” utility providers or install, run, and modify it yourself. The list of important FOSS software goes on and on and this blog is dedicated to helping elucidate its importance as well as the issues involved in managing it.

Oracle

• OpenOffice is released under version 3 of the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPLv3). The latest stable release of the OpenOffice open source office suite is version 3.2.1 from early June.

Openness/Sharing

• I believe that, by sharing this information with you, it might better illustrate (or, perhaps illuminate) why I’m building another network security tool and what fundamentally motivated me to do so.

Leftovers

• You really would think, at this point, that any lawyer worth his or her hourly rate would strongly recommend to clients that they don’t go ballistic in filing lawsuits any time someone says something bad about you. Hell, there have been multiple stories recently about just how badly a similar lawsuit from a towing company has backfired on the company. But, yet again, we have a story of a business suing over a negative review. This time, it’s a woman in Chicago who wrote a negative review of a local cement company on the site Angie’s List because it refused to even give her an estimate, saying it didn’t work in her area. She was upset because the company was only based 5 miles away, and on Angie’s List, said it did work where she lived. So she wrote about her experience and rated the company an “F.”

• Recently an acquaintance at the next table in a Palo Alto, California, restaurant introduced me to his companions: three young venture capitalists from China. They explained, with visible excitement, that they were touring promising companies in Silicon Valley. I’ve lived in the Valley a long time, and usually when I see how the region has become such a draw for global investments, I feel a little proud.

Environment

• Hear that choking sound? That’s the dying gasps of Climategate. The Pennsylvania State University’s investigation into allegations of misconduct by climate scientist Michael Mann found him innocent, specifically saying:

• Mann, as you may recall, was a key figure in the so-called Climategate fiasco, where leaked emails were purported to show scientists fixing data to make global warming evidence appear stronger. Since Day 1 of this I have been calling it a non-event, a manufactured controversy by global warming denialists trying to make enough noise to drown out any real talk on this topic. And time and time again I have been shown to be correct.

Finance

• By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You’re wrong. There’s more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here’s the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world.

• It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn’t afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made actions.”

• A critical question in the U.S. government’s 2008 rescue of AIG is whether the deal amounted to a “back-door” bailout of Goldman Sachs (GS). Increasingly, the answer appears to be a resounding “yes.”

• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives repeated their position that disputes with American International Group Inc. over securities prices and collateral in 2007 and 2008 reflected the firm’s typical risk-management efforts.

• Goldman’s push to recover all it was owed on credit default swaps cost taxpayers billions, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission members say. Executives say Goldman would have received what was due in any case.

• A former top executive of American International Group acknowledged yesterday that his division more than tripled the amount of risky investments it insured in the three years leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown.

• Steven Bensinger, AIG’s former chief financial officer, and Elias Habayeb, former CFO of the division including the derivatives unit, told the panel they didn’t know of the provision until the third quarter of 2007, according to an FCIC document released yesterday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. demanded $1.8 billion on July 27, 2007, saying the market value of the securities underlying credit-default swaps had declined.

• Mr. Benmosche, steward of an insurer brought to its knees two years ago after making too many risky, outsize financial bets and paying billions of dollars in claims to Goldman and other banks, said he would continue evaluating his legal options. But, in reality, A.I.G. has precious few.

• But financial experts said the Commission made a mistake in giving AIG officials a pass, in contrast to the tough questions lobbed at Goldman executives.

• “AIG as a victim? This is a world of consenting adults,” said Lawrence White, a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business.

• Goldman was among the most aggressive players on Wall Street in marking down the value of mortgage bonds as the financial crisis brewed, and ultimately benefited in protecting itself from the housing downfall. A.I.G., on the other hand, had a large positive bet on housing through the billions of dollars of mortgage securities that it insured for Goldman and other banks.

• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. refused a request from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to reveal how much it makes trading derivatives, saying the bank doesn’t separate the figure from other businesses.

• The finance chief of Goldman Sachs said Thursday the firm made mistakes in the leadup to the financial crisis and was burned by losses on high-risk loans and mortgages.

• We’ve known for a while that the proposed new restrictions on hedge fund and private equity investing known as the “Volcker Rule,” would be tougher on Goldman Sachs(GS) than any other large bank, but have we really considered the extent to which this is true?

• The financial reform bill will change the way banks do business in everything from credit cards to credit default swaps. What it won’t do is fundamentally reshape Wall Street, and it doesn’t seem likely to prevent bad bets by bankers from causing another crisis. The legislation is “largely a fig leaf,” says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research in Washington. “Given where we were when this got started, I’d have to imagine the Wall Street firms are pretty happy.”

• The U.S. panel investigating the financial crisis is seeking funds beyond the $8 million Congress appropriated for its work.

• Is America supposed to believe that the economic crisis emanating on Wall Street and costing our economy trillions of dollars was all on the up and up and was merely a ‘perfect storm’? Although many on Wall Street and in Washington would have us believe just that, a true measure of ’sense on cents’ dictates that we not be so naive.

Copyrights

• Starting this month, colleges and universities that don’t do enough to combat the illegal swapping of “Avatar” or Lady Gaga over their computer networks put themselves at risk of losing federal funding.

• Before Disney and Sonny Bono, copyright law was reasonable. Rights holders were granted a limited monopoly of 7 years, plus 7 more if they chose to renew, and then their works passed into the public domain. This had many advantages: Creators had a chance at making a living from their works. It gave an escape hatch to creators who signed bad contracts. It prevented orphaned works. It enriched the common culture. Now we have this crazy complex retroactive system of virtually-forever copyrights, perpetrated by corporate interests to protect what they ripped off in the first place.

• I don’t see anything wrong with liberal personal use, like making multiple copies for different personal devices and in different formats, or making mashups for fun, or other non-commercial adaptations. One of the big problems with the current copyright enforcement insanity is it tramples personal use and invades our homes.

• Just like back in the days of sharing mix tapes, modern file-sharing can be an effective form of promotion. I think that any kind of sharing that leads to more income for artists is somewhat justifiable, though this is an over-used excuse for copying and never paying. You and I both know freeloaders who have gigabytes of music, movies, and books they never paid a cent for.

• [...]

• We’ve been spoiled by decades of advertiser-subsidized entertainment. We’re not really getting TV and radio for free, we pay every day in torrents of shlock crowding out works of genuine artistry, creativity, and value. The advertiser-supported model is by its nature corrupting, and it taints whatever it touches. Isn’t it crystal-clear by now that this is the path to destruction? We get what they want to serve, which is only tools to sell crud, and boy howdy what crud it is. 95% of it could vanish tomorrow, with two immediate consequences: fewer yard sales, and garages with enough room to park cars in.

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