● 12.08.10

● Links 8/12/2010: Google Linux Announcement, Linux 2.6.37 RC5, PlayStation Phone to Use Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 8:13 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Heck, even installing it is just a few clicks of the mouse. Easier then Windows, in fact ( no serial keys! ).

• I’m calling this false, but I’d like to qualify that, saying that learning the terminal is objectively a great thing to do.

Server

• Here are six different web servers freely provided by the open source community for Linux, Windows, and other OSs…

Audiocasts/Shows

• Then I get a bit into setting up the toolbox in GIMP 2.7 and show how to manage the docks after the “landing zones” have become invisible. And of course there is the challenge!

Google

• You’ve read about it many times, you’ve seen lots of screenshots but it was just a product of the future. Well, this time I’m not going to tell you anything except: Chrome Web Store is now live, so check it out for yourself.

• Google held a conference today in which they’ve demoed Chrome OS which is said to be extremely speedy, have ultra-fast setup, built-in Verizon connectivity, multiple users support, easy security and application updates as well as Citrix Receiver applications (Citrix Receiver allows businesses to deploy desktop applications, such as Microsoft Excel).

• But that’s not all! Google also announced that Acer and Samsung will launch Chrome OS netbooks in mid 2011, with other manufacturers to closely follow. Further more, Google launched the Chrome OS Pilot Program in which a Chrome OS netbook (“CR-48″) will be used for testing. A limited number of these CR-48 netbooks are available right away – you can apply for one already by either submitting a video on YouTube or by filling out THIS form.

• When was the last time we stood back and just marveled at how far Linux has come in the server, desktop and embedded spaces? Might seem a bit cliché to some, yet no one can argue that Linux’s progress has been truly remarkable.

• Sparing you the “this is the year of the Linux desktop” type statement once again, I’d like to turn your attention to where I believe Linux is headed in 2011 and beyond. Considering some of the amazing milestones that have already been met, it’ll be interesting to see if Linux can maintain its forward momentum.

• Linux in 2010 held its own in the world of embedded systems, saw some successes in the server space in the enterprise world, and gained significant achievements in the desktop space as well.

• So what could 2011 and beyond possibly hold in store for Linux enthusiasts?

Kernel Space

• And even if it does turn out that I could do the release early, as you say, I don’t really think anybody wants the merge window over the holidays. So practically speaking I think we’ll end up with a quiet holiday, with the 2.6.37 release happening early January.

• Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced plans to provide minor patches and bug fixes only for the current Stable Series of the Linux kernel. Selected older kernel versions will, in future, be maintained as “Long-term” releases. The kernel developer said he hopes that this approach will help the community and developers focus on the current versions rather than waste their time with old kernel versions. The Long-term kernels are to follow the same rules as the Stable Series kernels.

• A new edition of a study by the Linux Foundation explains the Linux kernel development process and includes various statistics that demonstrate the kernel’s growth rate. It also analyses how much is contributed to the kernel’s development by which developers and companies.

Graphics Stack

• Assuming no regressions are to be found in this xorg-server 1.9.3 release candidate (tagged as v1.9.2.902), Jeremy intends to issue the official 1.9.3 point release in one week’s time.

• Rafał Miłecki, the Polish free software developer who previously spearheaded bringing power management to the ATI KMS Linux driver via a number of patches late last year and into this year, has been working on another project. No, it’s not with regard to the open-source Linux graphics stack (unfortunately), but it’s on the B43 Linux wireless driver. Rafał has brought support for Broadcom’s 802.11n hardware to the B43 driver.

• So I have a T410s with an LVDS panel and switchable graphics between intel and nvidia. I’ve gotten the basic switching support just like we have on the intel/amd combination.

• The code is a start towards generic nvidia/nvidia and intel/nvidia switching but its missing some bits. The MUX switch on some GPUs relies on passing a parameter to the WMI function that we aren’t passing, luckily the lenovo doesn’t need this parameter at the moment so it works fine. Other laptops in this range may require the parameter.

• Following the hiatus last week with the X.Org Server 1.10 merge window being kept open to allow time for finishing up RandR 1.4 with per-CRTC pixmaps and then NVIDIA pushing for fence sync support in this release, the work has now settled and the merge window has closed. Keith Packard has also announced the first development snapshot of X.Org Server 1.10.

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

Games

• Few days ago PlayOnLinux team announced that Call of Duty Black Ops is now available on playOnLinux , this mean that you can install the game by just a few clicks using PlayOnLinux.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

• since this is my first post on the Planet, I’ll shortly introduce myself and my activities in KDE. My name is Matteo and I am the maintainer of the Qalculate plasmoid and runner since SC 4.5. I am also the founder and maintainer of Cirkuit, a KDE app to produce publication-ready graphics using different backends (TikZ, Circuit Macros, Gnuplot).

GNOME Desktop

• Yesterday the GNOME Project has announced the interns for the GNOME Outreach Program for Women and I’m one of them.

Xfce

• We are pleased to announce the second preview release of Xfce 4.8. This release marks the beginning of the string freeze. From today on until the final release, strings may no longer be changed in the master branch of Xfce core components. This will help translators to prepare their translations for the final release scheduled on January 16th, 2011.

Distributions

• Every Linux enthusiast has their own take on choosing the right Linux distribution (or Linux “flavor”). Discussions regarding the distributions can be as heated as the classic Linux-Mac-Windows argument. However, everyone has their own right to put forward their opinions whether it’s the new guy who still believes Windows 7 rules or a Linux veteran of unsurpassed Terminal command skills.

• This past week, I had a frustrating reminder of a lesson I learned long ago…but let slip away out of either arrogance or stubbornness. That lesson is that choosing the right distribution is the first (and most important) key to success when deploying the Linux operating system.

• Yes, we all have our favorite distribution, but sometimes that favorite distribution simply will not do the trick and a different flavor must be used.

New Releases

Debian Family

Canonical/Ubuntu

• With much teasing or coaxing from Ax, I’ve installed Ubuntu Linux on my Toshiba P20, replacing the installation of Gentoo Linux on it. Have I stopped being a Gentoo User? No. I’m just on hold for the moment.

• There’s no need to panic though. The launcher already supports an auto-hide function (although one would also love to see an intellihide option too) and users will be free, of course, to use Docky, AWN, aDesk Bar or an other form of dock alongisde the Unity launcher.

Flavours and Variants

• Ultimate Edition 2.8 Gamers is a nice way of slicing UE up into a gaming-friendly version. The developers have done a pretty good job putting the emphasis on gaming while not really short-changing the user too much on non-gaming applications. I found it quite possible to use UE 2.8 Gamers as a regular distro when not playing games.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

Android

• Google says that the number of Chrome users has climbed to 120 million, growing significantly over the past year. Chrome’s emphasis on speed was cited as one of the most significant factors driving its popularity. Performance will continue to be one of the defining priorities of Chrome development as Google works to make the browser a compelling application platform.

• Android 2.3, codenamed Gingerbread, was revealed by Google this morning. It will ship first on the upcoming Nexus S smartphone, which was built by Google in collaboration with Samsung. According to an Android developer, we will likely see it rolled out as an update for Nexus One handsets in the next few weeks. We look forward to doing a full review when it arrives on devices, but we decided to get an early look via the SDK.

• The new video shows a device that looks much like the one from the previous images: a Sony Ericsson phone with a sliding keyboard much like the PSPGo and a touchscreen interface. Based on the phone’s display, the video was taken on Thursday, December 2 and the model has been codenamed “zeus.” It also features the Android OS, as rumored, running the upcoming “Gingerbread” version of the software. And while the video doesn’t show any actual games playing, the device does has a PlayStation icon, which leads to a very XMB-style interface.

• The video of Andy Rubin’s talk at the Dive Into Mobile event is up, and you can watch the juicy bit above, where he takes out the prototype Motorola tablet and toys with it for all to see, demonstrating the new Google Maps and “accidentally” teasing video chat capability and some other things.

• The pad looks bigger than 7″, the size we heard about, but I can’t swear to it. If I had to take a guess at the screen resolution, I’d go with 8-9″ at 1024×600. It looks thin and rather unadorned right now, but this likely isn’t the final industrial design, so let’s just not worry too much about that. He seemed proud that it had no buttons on it, though, so I’m guessing that’s final.

Sub-notebooks

• They are presented here in alphabetical order.

• KDE’s Plasma netbook packs the power of KDE applications. The interface is sleek, simple and attractive. There’s a wealth of KDE add-ons available and ‘live’ applications can be pinned to ‘Page One’. Personally, I may not use any of the add-ons, but I am likely to use the KDE netbook interface as the default. I find that the full-screen mode for applications minimises distractions, especially when reading or viewing media. I have always liked the full-screen interface of Sugar (OLPC).

• Switching between application windows was the hardest with KDE. It would be nice if it was as easy as on Sugar—at the press of a function key.

• Currently, I expect to keep each of the three installed, and keep them updated. Maybe, after a year, one will become my definite favourite.

Free Software/Open Source

• The Document Foundation on Sunday announced the availability of the first release candidate of LibreOffice, marking the approach of the first stable version of the brand-new open source productivity suite.

Oracle

• It was more than six months ago that Oracle released Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2, formerly known as Sun’s VirtualBox, as their most recent major update. Oracle now, however, is readying a very major VM VirtualBox 4.0 update. Today they have released the first public beta of Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0 and it brings many new features along with some changes that may prove to be another disappointing step by Oracle in alienating the open-source community.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• The European Commission will spend EUR 189 million on proprietary software over the next six years, in direct contradiction to its own decisions and guidelines. The Commission last week announced a six-year framework contract to acquire a wide range of mostly proprietary software and related services1.

• “This is a rough deal for Europe”, says Karsten Gerloff, President of Free Software Foundation Europe. “Instead of coming up with a strategy to take advantage of Free Software and become independent from vendors, the Commission is digging itself deeper into the vendor lock-in hole.”

Project Releases

• In addition to the usual fixes, this release also includes support for the new “add.ignoreErrors” name given to the existing “add.ignore-errors” configuration variable.

Licensing

• Copleft is a property of some licenses that uses the right to authorize derivative works as a tool to control the license(s) under which such a derivative must be relicensed. For instance, the GNU GPL only permits larger works to be redistributed under the GNU GPL. No exceptions. One can argue how far this limitation can legally go and what is the border between “derivative work” and “collection of independent works”. While this distinction is clear for literary works, in software there are a lot of variants — one of which is “dynamic linking” — that make things far more complex and less cleancut. Because of this, I prefer to leave the matter unresolved and proceed under the assumption that “derivative” here is really a derivative, whatever that means.

Openness/Sharing

Open Data

• This post was cowritten by Friedrich Lindenberg, CKAN developer, and Stefano Costa, lead of OKF Italia.

Open Hardware

Leftovers

• China on Tuesday reiterated the importance and urgency of resuming the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, urging the parties to support China’s proposal for emergency consultations among chief negotiators.

• “The development of the situation on the Korean Peninsula has proven the importance and urgency of resuming the six-party talks,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu at a regular press briefing.

• Google Inc has won a share of a federal government contract that the company hopes will give it a boost over Microsoft Corp as they race to convert government agencies to cloud computing.

• The US General Services Administration awarded a five-year, $6.7 million contract last week to Unisys Corp, with Google as a subcontractor — a relatively small dollar amount but an important initial foothold.

• HIS HOLINESS Pope Benedictus XVI, Pontifex Maximus and Dominus Apostolicus can now at the words “P2P Pirate” to his list of official titles.

• The Pope was one of 774,651 people caught by the insecurity outfit Avast’s sweep of illegal use of its software.

• The rise of China as an economic and political juggernaut has become a familiar refrain, but now there’s another area in which the Chinese are suddenly emerging as a world power: education.

• In the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) comparative survey of the academic performance of 15-year-olds around the world — an authoritative study released every three years — Chinese teenagers from Shanghai far outscored their international peers in all three subject matters that were tested last year: reading, math and science.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• On November 11, the relentlessly upbeat Transportation Security Administration (TSA) blog discussed the newly “enhanced” airport security pat-downs that would soon be coming to a groin near you. “It just makes good security sense,” said TSA’s “Blogger Bob.” His commenters did not concur.

• “The next time I fly, I’m wearing my trusty kilt,” said one—and we’re assuming that he’s a true Scotsman.

• This was an idea too good not to receive wider exposure (no pun intended), and it was naturally soon paired with the idea of a “National Opt-Out Day” to take place this week on November 24, the day before Thanksgiving. The idea is for a mass opt-out of the new AIT body scanners that can see through clothes, with participants choosing instead to have the more invasive pat-down.

Cablegate

• A leading US senator suggested tonight that the New York Times and other news organisations publishing the US embassy cables being released by WikiLeaks could be investigated for breaking American espionage laws.

• Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate homeland security committee, told Fox News: “To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department.”

• It was like watching a vast army advance. As I read the WikiLeaks cables, the strategy became clear. The US decides what is in its interests, then sets its massed ranks of diplomats around the globe to work.

• Demarchés, statements of what the US wants, are delivered in person and pledges of support gathered. Only the strongest resist: a major developing power like Brazil or a rich and secure nation like Norway might bridle, but I saw dozens of cables from tiny nations immediately acceding to US demands.

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange defends the publication of secret U.S. documents in an editorial published online early Wednesday by The Australian newspaper.

• WikiLeaks is serving a vital purpose, Assange wrote, “fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.”

• There was a rumor going around that perhaps Twitter was censoring “wikileaks” as a trending topic. In response, Twitter has denied this, saying that it’s simply untrue — but at the same time the company has refused to comment on whether or not it will allow Wikileaks to keep its Twitter account.

• Ah, is this reason enough to cancel my Maestro card subscription? And start living life with cash only? Or should I just get another debit/credit card? Hm, I wonder what VISA’s opinion is regarding Wikileaks.

• A spontaneous movement to boycott Amazon.com, the online retailer, has taken off in response to the company’s decision to kick WikiLeaks off its servers. We at Antiwar.com unequivocally endorse this effort. In spite of attempts by some to claim the company was subjected to a threat “at gunpoint,” in reality, no one put a gun to Amazon’s head. They were more than happy to join the attack on WikiLeaks, as their statement made all too clear:

• “There have been reports that a government inquiry prompted us not to serve WikiLeaks any longer. That is inaccurate.

• “There have also been reports that it was prompted by massive DDOS attacks. That too is inaccurate. There were indeed large-scale DDOS attacks, but they were successfully defended against.

• “Amazon Web Services (AWS) rents computer infrastructure on a self-service basis. AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not following them. There were several parts they were violating. … It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments.”

• “We’ve been running AWS for over four years and have hundreds of thousands of customers storing all kinds of data on AWS. Some of this data is controversial, and that’s perfectly fine. But, when companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn’t rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won’t injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere.”

• Julian Assange and WikiLeaks may soon learn what it feels like to have their secrets put on public display. In January of 2011, German former WikiLeaks staffer Daniel Domscheit-Berg plans to publish a book detailing multiple years inside the controversial whistle-blower organization.

• In an interview with The Times the German defector gave a blistering insider’s insight into the workings of WikiLeaks, which appears to operate as secretly as the institutions that it infiltrates.

• Supporters of the website Wikileaks will mobilise on Friday (10/12/10) to protest against the backlash it has faced for its release of more than 250,000 US government cables.

• Wikileaks has been dumped by Amazon and mirrored across the globe as it attempts to spread its whistleblowing message to the masses. But would any web-hosting company in Australia consent to play host to Wikileaks? The answer, so far, appears to be “probably not”.

• Several large Australian web-hosting companies said today they would be unlikely to host the Wikileaks repository if asked to by a customer, for a number of reasons.

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange wrote this Op-Ed for The Australian today:

• Key lines:

• * WikiLeaks is fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

• * The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

• * (My idea is) to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

• * People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars.

• * The Gillard government (Australia) is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn’t want the truth revealed.

• In Russia, the findings of a young whistleblower lawyer concerning the rampant corruption of major state-affiliated companies have made much bigger waves than the recent tsunami of Wikileaks revelations.

• 34-year-old Moscow lawyer Alexey Navalny could be nicknamed the “one-man Wikileaks”. His website is dedicated to uncovering and publishing incidents of high-level corporate corruption, with revelations concerning Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, leading Russian oil company Rosneft and Russian bank VTP, among others.

• Assange appeared in court in blue suit with a white shirt. Asked to give an address he replied: “PO Box 4080.” When the question was asked again, he said: “Do you want it for correspondence or for some other reason?” Later, the WikiLeaks founder, who was accompanied by officials from the Australian high commission, gave an address in his native Australia.

Finance

• President Barack Obama still has work to do to sell the tax package he negotiated with Republicans to Democrats in Congress.

• House Democratic leaders say the package is tilted too much in favor of the wealthy, putting Obama on the defensive for striking a deal that is picking up support among GOP lawmakers and business groups.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• —André Marin, Ontario’s Ombudsman, speaking at a press conference today about the G20—specifically, the provincial government’s introduction and mishandling of Regulation 233/10 under the Public Works Protection Act, and what it led to. In his report [PDF], Caught in the Act, Marin writes that the regulation and Act gave “extravagant police authority….to arbitrarily arrest and detain people and to engage in unreasonable searches and seizures.”

• The biggest social-networking site in the world broke with many of its online brethren today when it issued a statement saying that it will not ban content from a “fan page” associated with WikiLeaks, the controversial repository of leaked confidential documents whose founder, Julian Assange, is currently on the run.

• Just as the stories are starting to get interesting, the Tunisian authorities block Wikileaks and every other form of leaks that mention Tunisia based on cables from the whistleblower site.

• Soon after the cables surfaced activists around the world started creating websites to tackle specific topics and countries drawing from the plethora of information the cables provide. Tunisian activists didn’t waste time, Tunileaks was born.

• Tunileaks was created by Nawaat to offer a central place for Tunisians and everyone one else interested in discussing and unraveling information related to the Tunisian government found in the US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM (or Vuvuzelas)

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• The US Copyright Group (USCG) campaign to turn piracy into profit is starting to fall apart. Today, the anti-piracy lawyers dropped 97% of the alleged BitTorrent file-sharers from the Far Cry case because of a lack of jurisdiction. This setback seriously limits the profitability of the law firm’s business model, and is a clear victory for thousands of people who were pressured to pay expensive settlements.

• Remember how excited Cablevision was about putting up that paywall for Newsday, the newspaper that it owned? While the company claimed that the purpose of the paywall was really all about keeping Cablevision customers from deserting in favor of Verizon, it was still rather stunning to find out after three months, the company had secured a grand total of 35 paywall subscribers who weren’t just grandfathered in as Cablevision TV subscribers.

• Sweden’s highest court has rejected an application by an anti-piracy group which would force an ISP to hand over the identity of a file-sharing site operator. Antipiratbyrån wants TeliaSonera to reveal who is behind the SweTorrents BitTorrent tracker but the ISP has refused and taken its case all the way to the Supreme Court. That Court has now decided that the final decision lies with the European Court.

• Piracy is so difficult to battle because file-sharers are motivated by altruism and not financial gain, according to one academic.

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