● 09.10.10

● Links 10/9/2010: Linux 2.6.36, Google Caffeine Moves System Further Onto BigTable

Posted in News Roundup at 11:11 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Below is a still image from the film’s official trailer, in it you can see what appears to be an old version of the KDE Desktop Environment. This particular still image is from a scene in the movie taking place in 2003, so KDE 3 would be an accurate version for the year.

• Oh-My-God! Not just an OMG, this needed spelling out. The OS was free, and installable (and uninstallable) directly from Windows. It gave the previously snail-speed netbook a new spark, and came with a catalogue of software that you could click and download. Google applications, OpenOffice, Gimp, and what I guess was around 100 open-source applications with which most professionals and private persons could do whatever they want.

Server

• TurnKey Linux Wednesday released a smart, fully automated open source-based backup and restore facility powered by the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud.

• TurnKey Linux Backup and Migration (TKLBAM) is based on Ubuntu 8.04.3, was designed to add flexibility to cloud computing, and requires no configuration, according to the Tel Aviv-based developer. The solution delivers speed, intelligence, and automation to migration in the cloud, as well as backup and restore functions, said Liraz Siri, company co-founder.

Google

• We all know that Google is in the operating system business these days. What hasn’t been clear is exactly what Google has planned for its Chrome operating system. We all know that Android is Google’s Android Linux smartphone and tablet answer. But where does Chrome, a Linux and Web browser-based operating system fit in?

• It hasn’t been an easy question to answer. After all, you can use Android as a desktop operating system and you can use Chrome as a tablet operating system. So, what’s what here? Now, we’re beginning to get come clear answers.

• In a TechRadar interview with Google Chrome senior product manager Anders Sandholm, Sandholm said, “What we are focusing on [in Chrome] is netbooks in terms of form-factor and providing a really good experience for that.”

• Google has stated that it currently isn’t using Android on any tablets, hinting that it will have a tablet-centric OS soon.

• Although Gingerbread and Honeycomb have been strongly tipped to be tablet-friendly versions of Android, this is the first time Google has confirmed Froyo isn’t a platform for iPad rivals.

ARM

• The next generation of smartphones are set to get dual-core processors with improved graphics. We take a look at just what makes a smartphone processor

• This is an example of the problem ARM has which turns out to be a solution too. The ARM cores are going to be so small it is hard to connect them to the real world. They can connect with other ARM cores properly, however. That makes multiple-core ARM CPUs scale much better than x86. x86 cores are huge. Even Moore’s Law cannot make 16 fit in a tiny cool package. The vast majority of desktop PCs will have everything they need in such a chip and nothing they don’t: fans, PSU, case size and mass. It will be a better way to do IT and it runs GNU/Linux.

• ARM has pulled the wraps off a new mobile processor called the Coretex-A15. This processor can be had with four cores and is aimed at mobile devices and high-end digital home gear.

Kernel Space

• Kernel hacker Matthew Garrett has been looking into GPL compliance on various consumer devices, and has evidently gotten fed up with responses from the Joojoo tablet maker. In the comments on the blog posting, someone purportedly from Fusion Garage asked Garrett to contact them, so maybe it will all get resolved soon.

Graphics Stack

• The Kernel Log thus can now already offer a comprehensive overview of the major changes in the new kernel version scheduled for release in late October. To keep the material palatable, Kernel Log will, as ever, divide this information up into a series of articles which will look at different areas of the kernel. The ‘Coming in 2.6.36′ series kicks off below with a description of changes in the area of graphics hardware support. Articles on network support, storage hardware, file systems, architecture code, drivers and other areas will be published over the next few weeks.

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

Distributions

• Julian Lavergne announced a few days ago, the immediate availability for download of the first Beta release of the upcoming Lubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system.

• · Announced Distro: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 1 · Announced Distro: Ubuntu 10.10 Beta

• [...]

New Final Releases

• Super OS 10.04 has been released. The Ubuntu derivative sticks pretty close to the original, but aims to make it a bit more user friendly, mostly by including more multimedia codecs and more default packages.

• Here’s an update to our LXDE edition! The main selection of software has stayed the same as in the previous LXDE release: Midori is used as the default web browser, claws-mail is the default email client, abiword, gnumeric and epdfview are there for your office needs and exaile, brasero and whaaw! media player are included in the multimedia application section, all running in the same lightweight LXDE desktop. Following the changes in the standard XFCE release, several things have been updated though.

• Earlier today, September 7th, Alan Baghumian proudly announced the immediate availability for download of the Parsix GNU/Linux 3.6 operating system. Dubbed “Vinnie,” the new version brings lots of updated applications, new artwork, new features and many bugs fixed.

Red Hat Family

• New York, September 9th (TradersHuddle.com) – Shares of Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) booked a new 52 week high today by trading above $37.53, traders are definitely monitoring Red Hat’s price action to see if this move attracts further buying into the stock.

Debian Family

• I had my first day of classes for this school year. The grade nine class made my day. There were a lot of students and I introduced the course with a bit of the history of the PC, nomenclature, care and feeding, and installing an OS. We started installing Debian GNU/Linux over XP at 13:50 and were mostly done by 14:08. It was a network installation and some files were not in the cache so things dragged a bit. The only thing left after class was agreeing to installation of the bootloader.

• The update for TYPO3 in DSA 2098 introduced a regression which could make the backend functionality unusable. This update corrects the problem. For reference the original advisory below.

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Ubuntu 10.10 has only entered the Beta. However, it looks like it is doing extremely well in cutting down the boot time.

• James Ward posted a video showing Ubuntu 10.10 in a mere 8.6 seconds. That is the total time it takes from GRUB to get to a usable desktop. According to Ward, he did not do anything special, like disable the drivers etc., to reduce the boot time. But of course, he uses a SSD.

• Ever since its release back in October of 2004, Ubuntu has quickly become one of the most used Linux distributions available. Focusing on user-friendliness and usability, Ubuntu is highly stable and easy to install for those those just want a great operating system without being chained down by Microsoft.

• Some of you may remember the now-infamous Carpet Cleaner Computer that’s Personal (CCCP), an old Bissell carpet washer that I converted to a PC because, well, just because. The fun continues with another entertaining waste of time and money, converting a Commodore 64 to a genuine contemporary PC. Yes, it can be done, again with a little custom engineering and an unusual circuit board.

Free Software/Open Source

• Phetogo Tshepo Mahasha writes us he made “this music video “ for a prominent indie musician “Muhsinah” with Blender, GIMP and Photoshop.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• Mozilla has published the first Firefox build that integrates a new JavaScript engine that aims to match the performance in IE9 and reduces the gap to Safari, Opera and Chrome.

Databases

• A new mobile version of the CouchDB database system, called CouchOne Mobile, is available for Google’s Android operating system. The mobile version is still at a relatively early stage of development, but it will allow developers to take advantage of CouchDB’s sophisticated replication functionality to synchronize data between desktop and mobile applications.

• CouchDB is a schema-less document-based database that uses JSON as a storage format and JavaScript as a query language. It is popular in the so-called NoSQL community and is increasingly seeing deployment in high-profile business and scientific computing environments.

Oracle

• Virtualization is a big word that means, more or less, running one computer system inside another system. You could, for example, have a complete virtual Linux system running in a window inside your Windows 7 computer, or you might have a complete Windows XP system running in a window inside a Linux or OS X or Windows 7 system.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman will be visiting Melbourne next week and is scheduled to give two talks at educational institutions.

Standards/Consortia

• What happens in open standards? All technology/software used for e-governance becomes inter-operable. In other words, any technology platform or software should be able to read government documents, maps, images and datasheets.

• Who gains?

• * Government: Will not have to spend crores on a proprietary standard. Various offices would be able to access data without having same technology/software. * Consumers: Will not have to buy proprietary software to access government documents

• Who loses? Big proprietary software companies and licensed technology platforms

• E-governance market in India

• * Size: $10 billion * Proprietary tech/software 95% * Open Source 5%

Leftovers

• A judge on Thursday reinstated eBay Inc’s 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist, but allowed the classifieds site to keep eBay off its board.

• Today we are introducing our Nerd Blog, a place to talk about what programmer-journalists at ProPublica are working on, announce newly-launched news applications, and to hear from technically-minded readers, as well as our fellow nerdy journalists. We’re going to be writing about each of our projects as we release them, and flagging open source tools we’ve found useful.

• Google Caffeine — the remodeled search infrastructure rolled out across Google’s worldwide data center network earlier this year — is not based on MapReduce, the distributed number-crunching platform that famously underpins the company’s previous indexing system. As the likes of Yahoo!, Facebook, and Microsoft work to duplicate MapReduce through the open source Hadoop project, Google is moving on.

• According to Eisar Lipkovitz, a senior director of engineering at Google, Caffeine moves Google’s back-end indexing system away from MapReduce and onto BigTable, the company’s distributed database platform.

Security/Aggression

• Enjoy standing safely outside a fence taking innocuous photos of airplanes in plain sight? According to this new TSA poster, you are a filthy terrorist.

• In a recent investigation, it was discovered that cybercriminals are creating 57,000 new “fake” websites each week looking to imitate and exploit approximately 375 high-profile brands. eBay and Western Union were the most targeted brands, making up 44 percent of exploited brands discovered. Visa, Amazon, Bank of America and PayPal also heavily targeted by cybercriminals.

• Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants.

• As many as 40,000 front-line police jobs will be at risk across England and Wales if expected 25% budget cuts go ahead, the Police Federation has said.

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

• Leaders of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the US Chamber of Commerce gathered at a press conference yesterday to whinge about the impending horrors of Internet regulation.

• The business groups wanted to hear from FCC chairman Julius Genachowski about how proposed net neutrality regulation won’t choke off innovation. Their concern is that they are uncertain about what net neutrality regulations will bring. The TIA and NAM also argued that it could also impede the roll out of broadband in rural areas, a seemingly not so veiled threat to stall and obstruct that unless they get their way and are able to block or subvert net neutrality through lobbying.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• The Swiss supreme court has ordered a company to stop snooping on suspected illegal file sharers, saying the practice breaches their right to privacy.

• The Lausanne-based Federal Tribunal says Logistep AG collected personal information on users of file-sharing networks and sold it to film and music companies seeking to protect their intellectual property.

• The police claim that the law lets them ignore copyright in solving crimes, but an intellectual property professor quoted in the article notes that such an exemption only applies in the direct police investigation of a specific crime — not for the sake of building up a general database. The professor suggests that this appears to be a clear violation of Swedish copyright laws.

• Technically, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra ARE coming to America, but it’s not exactly like you think. To celebrate the 21 years or so of Tokyo Ska, TSPO have set up a little fan event thing in Hawaii for the week of October 1st. Fans will get to tour Hawaii with TSPO, meet and speak with the band members, and enjoy a special acoustic session on an evening cruise on the beautiful island of O’ahu, Hawaii! All for 194,000¥ (roughly $2,200).

• On September 3, 2010, we received a letter dated August 30, 2010, with a very incomplete response to that FOIA request. The most interesting document included in the preliminary response was an email with 3 pages of attachments sent by Stan McCoy, the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation, on February 10, 2010. (McCoy joined USTR under the Bush Administration).

• “The truth is digital technology has driven a panzer division through copyright law,” Smith said, with perhaps not the most sensitive choice of metaphor given the location. “If 70% of the population are ignoring a law, it’s no longer a law – we have to figure out a new way of working with copyright.”

ACTA

• In looking at the scope issues, it might be helpful to examine the 19 places where the ACTA text uses the term, “at least.”

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