● 04.13.12

● Links 13/4/2012: Android on the Wrist, $35 Android ICS Tablet

Posted in News Roundup at 1:14 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Given the vast numbers of Macs that are apparently infected with the Flashback Trojan malware, it’s not at all surprising to see that sales of Mac security software are now skyrocketing.

Desktop

• The Government of Malaysia has long used GNU/Linux internally. In their country, many consumers are unaware of GNU/Linux and replace FreeDOS on PCs with illegal copies of that other OS. A program is under way to persuade OEMs and retailers to use GNU/Linux on PCs instead.

• With an eye on an unseen, distant future the ‘pseudo-modern’ desktops are adopting the single windowed approach. Whether it be Microsoft’s Metro, Ubuntu’s Unity or Gnome’s new shell, they all think PC is nothing more than a smartphone with a touch screen.

• I am one of those who are not big fans of this approach. The ‘pseudo-modern’ desktop Uis are focused on smartphone/tablet like devices where you use one window (one app) at a time. What’s the point of buying expensive CPUs and GPUs (minimum system requirements for modern operating systems) and 27″ multiple monitors when all I can do is run one app at a time?

• You are not your car. You can be a hacker and ride a sedan, you can ride a muscle car being a writer and you can go to school in a BMW. For some, the car is important or even has philosophical signifant but for most, the goal is ‘what I’m going with my car’.

Server

• While HANA and its in-memory capabilities is a key platform for SAP’s database strategy, so too is the Sybase database. SAP acquired Sybase in 2010 for $5.8 billion. Sikka said that Sybase is now able to run the entire SAP business suite.

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

• The open-source ARM Mali graphics driver, known as the the Lima project, has achieved a major milestone.

• Since delivering the exclusive news of the Lima project as an open-source reverse-engineered ARM Mali graphics driver for Linux back in January, there hasn’t been too much else to report on about this driver that’s still early in its development life. This driver is called Lima since it doesn’t have the official blessing of ARM Holdings and right now has been only running simple demos with Limare. The code is available and is running on the KDE Plasma Active Tablet as was talked about and shown at FOSDEM 2012.

• Fortunately this morning I’ve heard some news from the Lima developers about hitting a major milestone. Joining Luc Verhaegen, the lead developer of the Lima project, have been Ben Brewer (another employee of Codethink) and Connor Abbot have been the latest developers joining the Belgian on this open-source driver project.

• A set of Direct Rendering Manager patches have appeared to ease the development of targeting DRM drivers for embedded systems. There’s also two new DRM drivers using this SDRM layer.

• These patches for DRM on embedded systems provide “helpers” to take care of the DRM device and introduce an “SDRM” layer. The helpers can setup the CRTCs, encoders, connectors, and other components as separate devices rather than having the current monolithic design to a DRM driver. This work is based upon some of the Exynos driver patches by Samsung but was written by Sascha Hauer of the German-based Pengutronix.

Applications

• Synfig Studio is intended to be professional 2D animation software and is available to download for free. It has been around for quite some time now and seems to have had a fairly checkered history in terms of development, as noted in TildeHash’s blog last year, Potential for Free Animation Software dead? Not overly surprising for free, open source software.

• In light of Adobe killing Flash for Linux, there’s a new release of the open-source Lightspark Flash Player. Lightspark 0.5.6 is the new release with a number of noteworthy improvements.

Proprietary

• When Linux enthusiasts think about software on the Linux desktop, they’re likely thinking about applications that are available under various open source software licenses. Yet what about the other side of the software world – proprietary software for the Linux platform?

• Despite the fact that proprietary applications do exist for the Linux desktop, I’ve found that most people tend to avoid them.

• In this article, I’ll explore some of the challenges proprietary software faces in gaining traction with Linux enthusiasts, in addition to providing some software titles that I think are worth looking into.

• When it comes to the number of quality paid applications available for download, Ubuntu has always lagged behind Windows and Mac. Despite some great choices in the Software Center, the Canonical-made distro has a long way to go in order to go head-to-head with other operating systems.

• That said, not everything is so sullen and gloomy in the Canonical world. Slowly and steadily, Ubuntu is catching up with its competitors by offering some great paid applications that many users have started appreciating. And though you won’t find Adobe Photoshop or MS Office here, you’ll find an assortment of some fantastic games and software that put Ubuntu way ahead of any other Linux-based distribution.

Instructionals/Technical

Games

Desktop Environments

• One of the most active Ubuntu developers Jo-Erlend Schinstad is also a pro-active defender of Ubuntu Unity and HUD. He tries his best to clarify doubts of users and educate them about the features of Ubuntu Unity. Muktware has published quite a lot of his articles on various topics related to Ubuntu. We recently interviewed him to understand his approach towards Ubuntu and its users. He has now posted a video to compare Ubuntu Unity with Gnome Panel, as people seem to keep saying that they are more efficient with Gnome Panel than with Ubuntu Unity.

• The Release Candidate of the upcoming Linux Mint Debian Edition 201204 operating system has been announced by Clement Lefebvre on April 11th, 2012.

• Linux Mint Debian Edition 201204 RC comes in two editions: the first one features the MATE 1.2 and Cinnamon 1.4 desktop environments, and the second one features the Xfce 4.8 desktop environment.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• After a long developmental period, Calligra 2.4.0, the first stable version of Calligra, has been released. Calligra is a Qt-based graphic and office suite forked from KOffice in 2010. Note: In some quarters, Calligra is said to be a continuation of KOffice, rather than a fork.

• Being discussed following the Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops Impact Performance, Power Consumption was the impact that KDE’s KWin compositing window manager (and others that don’t redirect fullscreen windows by default) has on the OpenGL gaming performance.

• Depending upon the driver it can potentially cause a hit as shown in Wednesday’s comparison of Unity, Unity 2D, GNOME Shell, KDE, Xfce, LXDE, and Openbox. All of the desktop environments were tested in their “out of the box” / stock configurations on Ubuntu 12.04. The KDE aspect is being discussed in this forum thread where the usual items are brought up.

Distributions

• A student has discovered a critical vulnerability in BackTrack, a flavour of Linux that’s a favourite among security pros.

• The previously undiscovered (hence zero-day) privilege escalation bug in the network penetration-testing distro was discovered during an ethical hacking class organised by the InfoSec Institute.

• Jack Koziol, security programme manager at the institute, explained that the bug in Backtrack 5 R2 (the latest version) allowed the student to overwrite settings to gain a root shell. The flaw was found in wicd (the Wireless Interface Connection Daemon), which has not been tested for “potential remote exploitation vectors” according to Koziol.

New Releases

• Clement Lefebvre announced last evening, April 11th, the immediate availability for download of the Release Candidate version of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201204.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

• Last fall Mageia put out the call for artists to participate in their Mageia 2 artwork contest. It’s been eight long months, but the choices have now been made. The new Mageia 2 default and alternative backgrounds have been chosen.

• Submitted by Luiz Fernando, the winning image is a lovely deep blue base with wisps of royal blue cutting across the primary focal lines.

Red Hat Family

• After roughly two years of development, the Arquillian team has released version 1.0 of the open source platform for testing middleware applications. Arquillian gives Java developers the ability to write unit tests that work at run-time within Red Hat’s JBoss application server.

• Red Hat has announced the availability of a beta version of Red Hat Storage 2.0, the second version of the company’s integrated storage appliance, version 1.0 of which was launched in December. Red Hat Storage is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and GlusterFS, which the company acquired last year.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• A recent job listing has revealed that an Ubuntu Phone OS is currently under development. Canonical, the major developer behind the Ubuntu OS, is seeking a Business Development Manager for its Ubuntu Phone OS project that will be responsible for establishing relationships with phone vendors and telecommunications companies to promote the platform.

• Support for ubuntu 10.10 maverick meerkat end on April 10, 2012. This date was established when Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat was released in october of 2010.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

Android

• Sony’s new SmartWatch puts various functions of the user’s Android smartphone on his or her wrist, connecting with the handset — which can be left in a pocket or bag — via BlueTooth. Its various functions include access to email, events, SMS, music player controls, and the camera’s shutter. It’s compatible with Sony and Sony Ericsson phones as well as a variety of phones from other makers.

• An image of what is purported to be Samsung’s unannounced Galaxy S III smartphone — the vendor’s flagship mobile device for 2012 — has been published by a Polish blog. Claiming to have received the photograph from an anonymous source who said he was testing the device, oPDA.pl on Thursday posted the image to its site, stating that it received no details about the handset or its specifications. While the authenticity of the image is anything but certain, a few things can be gleaned from the image if the device is in fact real.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

• With the availability of Android 4.0 platform, white-box makers have rolled out tablets in 7-, 8-, 9.7- and 10.1-inch sizes with specifications catered to customer’s demand, said the sources, adding that the models target markets in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

• Google’s total investment in Android/Linux is just pocket-change (cash = $49.3billion) for them and they are making the market for its search and app business grow by shipping more smart thingies and encouraging other suppliers to do the same. Even if users of smart thingies are not replacing their PC with a smart thing, they are increasing the hours of the day they can access Google’s services by mobility. There is no downside for Google. There would be a serious downside if they stuck with the stagnant Wintel platform. Google would not have 24% growth staying with Wintel only.

Free Software/Open Source

• Hotfile is determined to outlast Hollywood’s ongoing crusade against file locker services. The company is defending itself against an aggressive litigation campaign that movie studios first brought against it over a year ago. Hotfile’s case may be bolstered by a recent report which shows that the two most widely-downloaded files distributed through the popular file locker service are open source software applications.

• Charges against Hotfile that alleged direct copyright infringement were thrown out last year by a federal court judge. The remaining charges allege that the company is liable for inducing its users to infringe copyright. The answer to that question will hinge on whether the courts find that Hotfile has substantial non-infringing uses.

• Overall as I developer, I find the ability to instantly push out updates highly desirable. As a consumer I appreciate the fact that submissions are tested and verified to at least technically work and not crash. Is there a perfect system? Not that I know of. What is the perfect system? I don’t know. If there was a way for developers to be able to reach their users quickly with bugfixes and even new features that allow for consumers to not have to wade through extremely low quality and exact duplicate apps, then I would be one happy developer.

• The thought of ‘open source’ need not always conjure up images of socially removed geeks slamming away at their keyboards.

• There have been instances of the open source ideology saving and improving lives, and this article explores a couple of examples on that aspect.

• We are happy to announce the release of PhoneGap 1.6! The PhoneGap/Apache Cordova Community has worked hard to fix many bugs (including the nasty local storage bug caused by the iOS 5.1 update) and added some new features.

Events

• The Linux Foundation has opened up reservations for the Enterprise End User Summit. The conference, now in its fourth year, is being held at the New York Stock Exchange on the 30th April and the 1st May, and will include keynotes by Scott Crenshaw of Red Hat, and Antony Liguori of IBM.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

SaaS

• Nineteen companies have formed the OpenStack Foundation, vowing to invest millions of dollars into an open source cloud initiative. It sounds like the OpenStack Foundation will seek to raise at least $4 million annually for OpenStack’s development as a public cloud and private cloud solution.

Databases

• Offering a glimpse of the new features some database administrators will be working with before too long, Oracle has posted a preview version of the next MySQL relational database management system.

• The Development Milestone Release (DMR) for MySQL 5.6 comes with a number of new and still experimental features for the open source database system, including improved replication and the ability to bypass the SQL framework for faster data access.

• 10gen, the company behind MongoDB, has announced the general availability of a connector for its open source NoSQL database and Apache Hadoop, the MapReduce framework and distributed computing platform. According to its developers, version 1.0 of the connector is the “culmination of over a year of work to bring our users a solid integration layer between their MongoDB deployments and Hadoop clusters for data processing”.

• Version 5.5.23 of MariaDB, a drop-in replacement for MySQL, has been published by the developers at Monty Program. The first stable release in the 5.5 series of the open source database includes performance improvements and “a few added features” over MySQL 5.5.23, which it is based upon.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• When reviewers look at LibreOffice and its ancestor OpenOffice.org, they inevitably assume that it’s inferior to Microsoft Office. At the very most, they may grudgingly find it acceptable for undemanding users.

• However, when you examine LibreOffice and MS Office without assumptions, the comparison changes dramatically. That’s especially true when looking at the word processors, LibreOffice’s Writer and MS Office’s Word.

• For one thing, features frequently have different names in Writer and Word. Although LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org have a history of conforming to MS Office’s name-choices — for example, in the spreadsheets, data pilots were recently renamed pivot tables to match Excel’s usage — holdouts remain. For example, the equivalent of Word’s AutoSummary in Writer remains AutoAbstract.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Well it’s been a disconcerting kind of week here in the Linux blogosphere, not least because of all the darn construction going on down at the Google+ Grill.

• First it was the hammering giving Linux Girl a headache. Then, on Wednesday, she walked in after lunch and could barely recognize the place. What is this interface sorcery, she wants to know?

• Then, of course, there was the retirement of Linux Girl’s old friend, Maverick Meerkat, in the past few days as well. Alas, dear distro — we hardly knew ye!

Openness/Sharing

• Charles Mangin, a web developer and consultant based in Raleigh, NC, hoped to recreate the drawing-tablet experience (such as that with a Wacom device) on what we today think of as tablets (like iPads and Android tablets)–and to do it as open hardware. The result is now on Kickstarter: the PressurePen.

• Tablets are the perfect form-factor for on-the-go digital art. But very, very few of them come with a stylus, and the earliest third-party styluses made for them couldn’t adjust performance to pressure.

Open Access/Content

• World Bank stakes leadership position by announcing open access policy and launching open knowledge repository under Creative Commons.

Programming

Leftovers

Security

• Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will end support for the Windows XP operating system in two years signals the end of an era for the company, and potentially the beginning of a nightmare for everyone else.

• When Microsoft cuts the chord on XP in two years it will effectively leave millions of existing Windows-based computers vulnerable to continued and undeterred cyberattacks, many of which hold the potential to find their way into consumer, enterprise and even industrial systems running the latest software.

Finance

• In a process internally referred to as a “denial sweep,” Litton’s computers would automatically generate denial letters for every homeowner who, according to Litton’s records, hadn’t sent their documents. But untold numbers of those documents had been lost on another continent. Wyatt complained about the practice in multiple meetings with senior management, he says, but managers were chiefly worried about reducing the overwhelming backlog.

Copyrights

• Under US law, violation of copyright is not a crime unless commercial use is made of the copy or the value is more than $1K. Even when it is a crime, illegal copying is limited to 1, 5 or 10 years for different levels of severity and this guy was likely in the 1 year category.

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