● 07.06.11

● Links 6/7/2011: AMD Gets More Linux Devs, AriOS 3.0 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 4:17 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Every year, near this day (July 4), I do a blog post on the independence Linux has brought me and the community at large. But this time around, I want to take a bit of a different approach. This approach was inspired by an outpouring, of late, by other media types, about how Ubuntu is slipping in the ranks at Distrowatch. Their assumptions are all centered around Unity and how Canonical has doomed the perennial user-friendly distribution in one fell swoop. Although not really related to this column today, I have also been watching the rank and file at Distrowatch, and Ubuntu still remains at the top. Possible premature speculation? Maybe — but, on a side note, I will say that the over all opinion about Unity is still very strongly against this desktop remaining as the default Ubuntu desktop. We’ll see if Ubuntu can’t gain some independence from that awkward, buggy desktop.

• What I want to bring up today is how the Linux operating system, and the community around it, is now enjoying an independence from its past. Thinking about the outpouring of speculation about Ubuntu’s ranking on Distrowatch, I wondered about the true relevancy of sites like it. Does a site that ranks the popularity (in downloads only) of a distribution really have any bearing on how much Linux is used today? To that I would answer, “Not in the slightest”.

Desktop

• Microsoft Windows lost a big chunk of the global browsing market, according to the first report from Google on web trends.

• The survey, based on data from “hundreds of thousands” of websites that use Google’s free Analytics (web tracking) service, shows Windows dropping by a whopping 5.1 percentage points in its share of browsing computers.

Kernel Space

• The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Toyota is its newest member.

• A major shift is underway in the automotive industry. Carmakers are using new technologies to deliver on consumer expectations for the same connectivity in their cars as they’ve come to expect in their homes and offices. From dashboard computing to In-Vehicle-Infotainment (IVI), automobiles are becoming the latest wireless devices – on wheels.

• I’ve knocked the sand out of my keyboard, applied aloe to my sunburned skin, and am trying to apply my refreshed and relaxed brain to the following conundrum:

• Is Android Linux?

• [...]

• Like most classifications of this nature, the decision on where to define the differences between Linux and Android really makes argument go one way or the other. If you point to the kernel, then yes, Linux and Android are very much related to each other. If you look at the application layer, then things get much harder to pin down.

• Torvalds thus chose to release Linux under the Gnu General Public License or GPL created by Richard Stallman, the visionary behind free software movement. The license gave end-users and developers four important freedoms:

• •The freedom to use the software for any purpose;

• •The freedom to change the software to suit their needs;

• •The freedom to share the software with friends and neighbors; and

• • The freedom to share the changes they make.

• The decision to go with GPL was crucial because it fueled Linux’s development and use worldwide, eventually transforming it from a hacker’s experiment to the foundation of a large, thriving, commercial eco-system.

• Joining John Bridgman and Alex Deucher in working on the open-source driver stack at AMD are two new, but familiar, names: Michel Dänzer and Christian König. These two Linux graphics driver developers are now officially AMD employees.

Graphics Stack

• First there was WebGL to bring OpenGL to the web-browser, and now there’s WebCL to do the same for bringing OpenCL to the web. The Khronos Group is getting ready WebCL, to bring OpenCL to modern web browsers with JavaScript support. Early WebCL support is already available for the WebKit rendering engine.

• WebCL is expected to work in a similar way to WebGL, but to instead harness the compute power of modern graphics processors. There are currently a few basic WebCL demos for those running Mac OS X with a modern NVIDIA GPU that supports the OpenCL 1.0+ specification. Samsung is largely behind the work on bringing WebCL to WebKit while Nokia has been working on a WebCL extension for Mozilla Firefox. Those interested in learning more about WebCL can visit the Khronos Group Wiki page.

Applications

• Burn CD, DVD and Blu-Ray in Ubuntu Linux using Silicon EmpireSilicon Empire is an application for GNU / Linux that lets you record and manage optical discs such as CD, DVD and Blu-Ray. It is written in Qt, a widely used multi-platform library for developing applications with graphical user interface as well as for developing non-GUI programs as tools for the command line and console server.

• When it comes to screenwriting applications, there aren’t that many choices for Linuxiens as there are for Windows and Mac users. However, that doesn’t mean that you’ll have to ditch your beloved penguin to write your next big screenplay. There are a few Linux-based as well as web-based screenwriting tools you can try out that are almost as good as industry-standard softwares like Final Draft and Magic Screenwriter. So, without much ado, here are the best screenwriting tools available for this awesome platform.

• 1- LibreOffice: Some might point out that Oracle’s own Open Office is still very much an option, but the fact is that Linux distributions are or have already migrated to LibreOffice in its stead. Unlike the proprietary-friendly Microsoft Office, LibreOffice offers the end-user much of the same functionality without the added cost of proprietary licensing. However, the biggest downside to LibreOffice has to be the lack of proper formatting support when opening a Microsoft docx document. While the document may be supported, chances are fantastic that the previous formatting won’t hold.

Instructionals/Technical

Games

• There are many games for Windows that aren’t produced by the big well-known game companies. These smaller games, often called “indie games”, can be every bit as fun and exciting as a box game you spend $50 or $60 on in the store. Some are free, while others range in price from $5 to $40. In this post, I’ll look at some of the best of the free games for Windows. This won’t be a comprehensive discussion, just a quick peek into the possibilities of which well-known free indie games from the last 4 years will run well on Linux. All games mentioned below are definitely recommended!

• (I am using vanilla Wine in this discussion – while some games will also run with Crossover Games, or Play On Linux, I wanted to ensure that you could run any game using only the Wine version from the winehq repository).

• Jimmy Thomsen from Linos a company which specializes on customizing Ubuntu to suite costumers needs has released a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu for gamers called Game Drift Linux !

• First public Alpha of Linux game The Platform Shooter has been released. The game is based on Ogre3D engine and is developed by FRACTiLE Games.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

• I’d like to see if I could downgrade, but Sabayon has removed the older PIM from repositories. So, I guess I’m moving to a new distro tomorrow and risk losing everything else trying to use an older version. Yeah, I have a back-up from right before the upgrade, but that’s a week or two’s worth of mail – some of it important.

Distributions

• What the person is really saying is, they don’t like the distribution, or maybe just Ubuntu and its popularity, and want to be vocal about it. Know what I do when I don’t like something? I don’t use it. There’s a whole pile of stuff in our community that I don’t like, and I rarely, if ever, talk about it. I don’t believe in using Adobe’s Flash, I could go on and on about it when people bring it up, I don’t. I do my thing and move on. Not so with the type of person I mentioned, they’ll bring it up about each and every new derivative of almost every distribution.

• Here’s the funny part too, if they like some derivative of a specific distribution that they already like then it’s perfectly fine.

• Let’s speak about the other group, the smaller group that feels we really do have too many distributions and actually makes an attempt at explaining why they believe having fewer would be better. They will tell you a number of reasons, all fairly sound from the onset, until you start to discuss them.

Gentoo Family

• After the release of Sabayon Linux 6, Fabio Erculiani is proud to announced the immediate availability for download of four Core editions of the Sabayon Linux operating system.

• Sabayon Linux 6 Core editions are designed for Linux experts and advanced users that want to set up a home server or create their very own operating system, based on Sabayon.

• The four newly updated editions of Sabayon Linux 6 are: SpinBase, CoreCDX, ServerBase and OpenVZ. While the SpinBase and ServerBase editions allow users to make Sabayon spins or set up a home server, the CoreCDX edition allows users to easily obtain a minimal graphical environment of Sabayon.

Red Hat Family

• Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that George DeBono has been appointed as general manager for Red Hat in the Middle East and Africa region. DeBono, who previously held a senior global operations role within Red Hat, will now lead the company’s business in the region.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Modal dialogs in Ubuntu 11.10 made their first appearance last week for Unity 2D users. Today they make their appearance in Unity proper.

• The effect is provided by the ‘unity dialog handler’ plugin.

• Surprising revelation: for the last month or so, I’ve been using a Linux-powered laptop as my primary work machine.

• Linux, of course, is the free, open-source alternative to Windows and Mac operating systems. I’ve fiddled with it from time to time, but never considered it a viable replacement for either one.

• Mind you, I can’t abandon Windows altogether. Not only do I write about it for a living, I also rely heavily on certain features and programs not currently available in Linux.

• But this much I’ve learned: If you want to breathe new life into an old and/or slow PC, or you’re just tired of paying for operating systems, Linux rocks.

Flavours and Variants

• AriOS is a really interesting Ubuntu remaster that comes with a clean design and a large default application selection, especially useful for those with poor or no Internet connectivity.

• One of the strong points of Linux Mint Debian is the fact that it’s a rolling distribution. Users enjoy a continuous flow of updates coming from the repositories, which keeps their system up to date without the need to upgrade to newer releases or to go through the hassle of reinstalling the operating system. When the updates are significant and affect large or sensitive parts of the system, some experience is needed from the user. The new updates might ask you something you’re not familiar with, some post-configuration might be required for things to work as they did, and if you make a mistake and you don’t have the knowledge to fix things up, you might very well end up with a partly or completely broken system.

Devices/Embedded

• Eccentric indie game developer Robert Pelloni (“Bob’s Game”) announced he is developing a gaming handheld prototype based on Linux that will sell for $10-20 by year’s end. The 400MHz ARM-based “nD” device will offer a 2.4-inch, 320 x 240 display, and Wi-Fi, and will be supported soon with a Linux SDK, claims Pelloni, although many are skeptical the device will see the light of day.

Phones

Android

• With demand for HTC’s Android-based smartphones still growing steadily and HTC set to begin selling its naked-eye 3D model, the HTC EVO 3D, in Europe in July, the company is expected to garner revenues of NT$135-140 billion (US$4.7-4.88 billion) in the third quarter with its smartphone shipments reaching 12.5-13 million units, estimated the sources.

• Google’s share of the U.S. smartphone market just keeps going up — while Microsoft’s continues to decline, according to comScore. In May, Android had a 38.1 percent slice of the pie, while Windows Mobile and Windows Phone eked out just 5.8 percent, the research firm says.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

• “The netbook has been murdered,” read the article on ITworld that got tongues wagging. “The concept of an inexpensive computing device with high value for the third world has been sufficiently co-opted so as to make the category meaningless.

• “Some called netbooks a sub-category of ‘ultra-light’ or ‘sub-notebooks,’ but netbooks became legitimized by the announcement of the (US)$100 OLPC laptop,” the article went on.

• It wasn’t long before the news spread to Slashdot, where bloggers — as per their wont — expressed a healthy amount of skepticism.

Free Software/Open Source

• Intel’s research division Intel Labs recently released a pair of open source software packages, including a distributed scene graph package to increase the maximum number of participants in 3D Web applications, like virtual worlds, by more than 20 times, and an advanced offline ray tracing package to help speed up rendering of photorealistic images on Intel-based systems by 100 percent.

• All the same, such views seem deeply misguided. They present false dichotomies, often based on an unrealistic definition of quality. All they really do is support the existing state of affairs between manufacturers and end-users, and delay the innovations that free software and open source are in the process of delivering.

• Both have good reasons for their popularity. Apache is at the core of the LAMP technology stack upon which a lot of server architecture is based: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl. That’s not just the web server itself but other application servers that use LAMP as a foundation. Among them are popular content management systems (CMSs) as Drupal and blogging platforms such as WordPress. If you need more, many Apache modules enable you to easily incorporate additional functionality into the Web server.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• Firefox 5 was all about bug stomping and the stillborn channel switcher, Firefox 6 will see the addition of lots of HTML5 and CSS3 features and more privacy controls, and Firefox 7 — at long last — will focus on memory management and performance increases.

• Firefox 6, which moves to the Beta release channel today, introduced a significantly improved about:memory page with buttons that can manually trigger garbage collection (GC) and cycle collection (CC). Garbage collection frees up memory by clearing old and unused JavaScript objects; cycle collection does the same for DOM objects, including web pages. By hitting these buttons repeatedly — or by hitting “Minimize memory usage”, which triggers both processes three times in a row — you can reduce Firefox 6′s memory footprint significantly.

SaaS

• RackSpace and Eucalyptus are definitely taking two very different paths: RackSpace is spending time and effort to set a new standard, yet involving as many actors as they can (read standardization efforts, community building, creating alliances, etc).

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

Project Releases

Public Services/Government

• Computer hardware and peripherals used by all new e-governance projects must work with Linux and other open source operating systems, says a draft policy. The rules for device drivers – software that make devices such as printers and servers talk to computers – have been put in the public domain by the department of information technology, which will take into account views of hardware makers and other stakeholders before finalising the policy. The proposed policy is expected to save government money as open source systems come cheap.

• Many states are keen to adopt cheaper systems but shy away due to their non-compatibility with latest hardware. The draft effectively rules out use of closed systems such as Apple Macs and iPads. It is also silent on smartphones that run on proprietary software.

• For instance, India’s showcase project, Nandan Nilekani-led Adhaar, makes extensive use of Blackberrys. In general, India has always supported use of open source operating systems but it is the first time a policy is being framed on the use of operating systems and device drivers in government projects. The policy is expected to open a Pandora’s box, as most companies, including makers of PCs, servers, chips, and operating systems, have arrangements to make their products talk to each other.

• Yeah, they’re locked-in seriously and now they want to swallow the sinker.

Openness/Sharing

• Besides a V6 as your engine, your car is very likely to soon be running Linux under the hood. The Linux Foundation will be announcing today that Toyota is joining the Foundation.

• Some of you may be wondering, “What the heck is a car company doing joining the Linux Foundation?” The answer is easy. As the Foundation puts it, “A major shift is underway in the automotive industry. Car-makers are using new technologies to deliver on consumer expectations for the same connectivity in their cars as they’ve come to expect in their homes and offices. From dashboard computing to In-Vehicle-Infotainment (IVI), automobiles are becoming the latest wireless devices – on wheels.”

Programming

• Last week on Phoronix I wrote about Gccpy, which is an effort as part of Google’s Summer of Code to develop a Python front-end to GCC that would allow compiling Python into native system binaries using the GNU Compiler Collection. This was of interest to many readers and the developer behind Gccpy, had commented in more detail in the forums. Following that news article I received an email regarding another Python compiler effort.

Leftovers

Finance

• Among my many other accomplishments: Helping a large number of financial institutions avoid the consequences of their actions. As many of the very large number of our mutual friends (hint, hint) will tell you, the quid pro quo on this — cutting executive salaries and perks while limiting dividends and corporate acquisitions — was strictly window dressing. Remember the bonuses AIG paid to executives in its Financial Services division after receiving $170 billion in bailout?

• Prior to my current position I served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was in that job, when I got Bear Stearns a $30 billion bailout, that I discovered my true vocation: Giving large amounts of other people’s money to down-on-their-luck wealthy institutions. This was very important to help the economy, no matter what Paul Krugman says. I mean really, what’s he ever done?

• In closing I would just like to say how much I respect and admire your CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, whom everyone agrees is very spry for a man of his age.

• Goldman Sachs Group (GS) and $3.65 trillion asset manager BlackRock Inc. (BK) announced Thursday they have completed an index credit derivative trade along the lines of what was envisaged in the 2010 Dodd- Frank financial overhaul law.

• It is Goldman’s first swap trade with a client to be electronically executed and centrally cleared in the spirit of that law. The firm has conducted several trades in a manner largely consistent with the aims of the act with other dealer banks for some time.

• The trade, referencing the CDX North America Investment-Grade Index administered by Markit, was executed on a trading platform run by Tradeweb, and was cleared through Chicago’sCME Group. Other firms in the derivatives market, including Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan and Barclays Capital, have made similar announcements in recent months.

• Goldman served as the clearing agent, routing the trade through to the CME clearinghouse for processing on its client’s behalf. It also served as the executing dealer on the trade.

• Clearing is when a central counterparty stands between trading parties, guaranteeing their contractual obligations in case a member of the clearinghouse defaults.

• Facing the wrath of the public and the government after the global financial crisis that hit three years ago, Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has opened a new front for its aggressive business tactics — the nation’s capital.

• Increased federal oversight and the threat to its lucrative investment bank business from investigations and pending regulations have led Goldman to bolster its Washington presence significantly, turning a low-key lobbying operation into a sophisticated, high-powered enterprise.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• THE US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) wants to take down web sites that use the .com and .net top level domains (TLD) regardless of whether their servers are based in the US.

• Erik Barnett, assistant deputy director of ICE said told the Guardian that the agency will actively target web sites that are breaking US copyright laws even if their servers are not based in the US. According to Barnett, all web sites that use the .com and .net TLDs are fair game and that, since the Domain Name Service (DNS) indexes for those web sites are routed through the US-based registry Versign, ICE believes it has enough to “seek a US prosecution”.

• According to the Guardian, ICE is not focusing its efforts just on web sites that stream dodgy content but those that link to them, something the newspaper claims has “considerable doubt as to whether this is even illegal in Britain”. It points out that the only such case to have been heard by a judge in the UK was dismissed.

Reader’s Picks

Health/Nutrition

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• The appeals court agreed that there was a preponderance of evidence that the oil-production wastewater is dangerous and that LDEQ failed to protect the public interest. It ordered the agency to take immediate action.

• when you control for own-vehicle weight, “being hit by a vehicle that is 1,000 pounds heavier results in a 47 percent increase” in the probability of dying and that it gets even worse with SUVs and pickups. … at a lower car size equilibrium, drivers would be both safer on average and less of a deadly threat to cyclists and pedestrians. It would also be easier for innovators to put tolerably safe electric cars (or autonomous robot cars) together if they didn’t need to share the road with as many giant vehicles.

Finance

• Less than three years after receiving $10 billion in bailout money from American taxpayers, Goldman Sachs informed its employees recently that it will fire 1,000 workers in the United States and elsewhere, shifting their jobs to the cheaper Singaporean labor market [in an attempt to inoculate itself from the impending blowback]. … Goldman joins the ranks of top U.S. corporations like GE, Chevron, Intel, and others who have collectively outsourced over 2.4 million American jobs in the past decade.

Anti-Trust

• Amazon claims that its opposition to collecting sales tax is not driven by a desire to gain a price advantage over its competitors. Instead, the company insists that collecting sales tax in every state would be excessively burdensome. … Amazon has put ownership of its physical facilities in the hands of subsidiaries and then claimed there was no basis for the parent company to collect taxes. When that has not worked, the company has sought special exemptions by what amounts to bribing the state with promises of job creation.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

Censorship

• [Alaska] plaintiffs pointed out that Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia have all enacted similar online indecency laws—and every one of them has been struck down as unconstitutional by the courts. Indecency legislation in Utah is currently on hold while the courts decides whether to strike it down, too.

Civil Rights

• Michael Hethmon of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which has been helping state lawmakers draft Arizona-like laws around the country, said Alabama legislators were hoping for a legal challenge when they passed their law, … “[they] looked at Judge Bolton’s reasoning and said, ‘We’re not on the left coast here, we’re in the 11th Circuit, and we think we’re going to get a different interpretation by a different judge,’” Hethmon said.

• After signing the state’s repressive, Arizona-style anti-immigration law and quickly finding himself confronted by disgruntled farmers bemoaning the loss of labor in their fields, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, vowed to send thousands of convicted criminals into the fields to pick beans, berries, and peaches.

Intellectual Monopolies

• High unemployment creates a downward pressure on wages, allowing employers to work the remaining employees harder and thus to increase profits. This dynamic, combined with the above commodity speculation, has been the entire basis for the corporate recovery, while working people have literally seen nothing beneficial. … Since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy, policies like these ensure that another crisis is inevitable.

Copyrights

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