● 06.22.12

● Links 22/6/2012: Fedora 18 Plans, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3

Posted in News Roundup at 1:41 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• How many times one of your friend has called you to his home to complain about a problem with the PC? What to do there then? If he’s a friend we try to give him a hand. So we improvise as computer technicians. I can only give you a hand improvising, in turn, I’ll give you a list of things to have with you when you go to their home. I focused the article, as you can see from the title, mostly on the Live Distro. Why this choice? Simply because if the PC does not want to start after a corruption of the Operating System what remains to do is only one thing! Format all. So we must first find a way to recover the data from the PC that not start.

Desktop

• Applications are very key in all of this. Countless users of Windows, the Mac and Linux are used to using local applications, and many of them demand applications such as Photoshop that aren’t found in competitive, cloud-based versions. Countless businesses are tied to Microsoft platform technology such as Exchange for messaging infrastructure. They can’t just flip off the Exchange switch and migrate easily to new platforms.

Server

• Last week I shared results from the Phoronix 12-core ARM Linux mini cluster that was constructed out of six PandaBoard ES development boards. Over the weekend, a 96-core ARM cluster succeeded this build. While packing nearly 100 cores and running Ubuntu Linux, the power consumption was just a bit more than 200 Watts. This array of nearly 100 processor cores was even powered up by a solar panel.

Audiocasts/Shows

Kernel Space

• There’s some that think this was just about attacking Linux or that I’m somehow anti-open-source and pro-Apple pro-Microsoft for showing off the flaws of Linux. I’m just a realist and acknowledge that Linux isn’t perfect. Linux’s problems and other shortcomings can’t be addressed unless they are first acknowledged. It’s tough love. And example as pointed out in the original article, “if you were asked by a company what are the biggest problems facing Linux or where can a given company invest to fundamentally improve Linux and make it more attractive to the masses, what would your answer(s) be?…I was asked that question recently by a major company near Redmond that’s looking to heavily invest in Linux.”

• Some versions of the Linux kernel contain a bug which, under certain conditions, can destroy some metadata when a system is shutdown, including RAID information such as the level, chunk size and the number of devices in the array. Without this data, it is no longer possible to assemble a software RAID array; this means that payload data, while still present, is not accessible using standard methods.

• Last month, we reported that the Linux Foundation launched its annual t-shirt design contest by asking Tux fans around the world to submit ideas for new threads “inspired by freedom.”

• RIFS-ES V1 has been published as a new interactivity favor scheduler for the Linux kernel.

Graphics Stack

• In the discussion last night about AMD not having any plans to suspend their proprietary Linux driver, John Bridgman of AMD shared some interesting information about AMD planning to provide a full execution stack in open-source form.

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• I’d like to shed some light on my GSoC project. I’m working (with a help of Björn Balazs) on new cool user friendly dialog for copying/moving files. This is a continuation of my previous project to make errors handling asynchronous from files copying process. You can read about it in my previous posts: first, second.

GNOME Desktop

• Good news for Gnome users, Gamepad API support is headed for Gnome soon, according to a recent blog post by Zan Dobersek whow was selected for Google Summer of Code.

• Zan Dobersek posted in his blog – “Patch for adding Gamepad API support was updated and now requires only some minor details to be polished before it can be landed.”

Distributions

New Releases

• June 2012. v2.8 is available. Octave 3.6.2, dynare 4.3.0, new example code for estimation of nonlinear DSGE model (go to /home/user/Econometrics/MyOctaveFiles/Econometrics/IL/DSGE and execute ./runme), also the usual sync to Debian. You can dd the image onto USB storage to have bootable media, or you can boot the image with virtualization software.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

• Mageia 1 was, to a very large extent, a rebranded spin of Mandriva, let’s admit that. The team fixed many things I disliked in Mandriva, and changed the branding. But they did not have enough time to make serious changes from Mandriva. The comparative test of Mageia 1 made by one of my guest authors confirmed this.

• After almost a year after the first release, Mageia 2 saw the world at the end of May 2012.

• Most of us are still sitting in the meeting room, but I think it’s important to let everybody know about the results of this fruitful meeting day in Paris.

• We (see the list of participants below) have met in Paris for most of the day and we discussed the future of the Mandriva Linux distribution.

Gentoo Family

• If you have tried Gentoo in the past but its compile times have put you off using it, maybe try again with Sabayon 9 KDE, which couples Italian elegance with Gentoo’s raw power…

Red Hat Family

• A day after Red Hat announced great earnings, the billion-dollar Linux company announced the global availability of the next version of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system, RHEL 6.3.

• While not a major release, RHEL 6.3 does include enhancements to take advantage of the most recent advancement from hardware originial equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This includes updated device drivers for a multitude of peripherals, and also various features like compiler optimization for the Intel Xeon E5 processor family.

• Even though Wall Street isn’t reacting well to stronger-than-expected earnings, Red Hat(RHT) CEO Jim Whitehurst has highlighted the software maker’s ability to capitalize on a tough economy.

• Red Hat Inc (RHT.N), the world’s largest distributor of Linux operating software, forecast second-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates after quarterly billings fell short of analysts’ expectations.

• Like many other recent Red Hat minor releases, the third update of RHEL 6 focuses mainly on virtualisation improvements.

• Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 6, an in-memory data grid solution. Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 6 provides several new features designed to help enterprises reduce the need for relational databases and scale application development for better big data management.

Fedora

• Three weeks after Fedora 17 arrived, the developers at the Fedora Project have released an ARM version of their Linux distribution. Fedora 17 ARM is available as prebuilt images for various platforms including the Trimslice, Beagleboard xM, Pandaboard, Kirkwood Plugs, Highbank and iMX-based systems. An image is also provided for the Versatile Express platform which can be emulated by QEMU.

• A proposal to integrate an “Offline Updates” feature in Fedora 18 was recently approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee. In certain cases, the upcoming Fedora 18 release will only install software updates when a system is rebooted, similar to how some updates are handled on Windows.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Unity Technologies announced Monday that the next version of Unity will support publishing to Ubuntu. This is fantastic news because it will enable developers to deliver their new and existing games to Ubuntu users very easily.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

• Samsung is going to have to do better in software if it wants to stay up near the top of the tech industry, its new CEO said today.

Android

• Hot on the heels of the Siri announcements coming out of 2012 WWDC, Android users get a little good news of their own. Software startup Magnifis released Robin, a voice-activated natural language mobile assistant for Android devices.

• Barnes & Noble had other financial details to share as well. The company said that its Nook digital business, which includes e-books, newsstand items, and apps, was up 119 percent year over year.

• For years, cloud gurus have claimed mobile devices will drive cloud computing, but they’ve had few cloud-specific mobile apps to point to. That is changing, however, as a growing number of mobile cloud projects break cover, with open source and Android leading the way.

• Open source clouds are red hot, with platforms like OpenStack, CloudStack, and Eucalyptus enjoying surging growth. Equally sizzling is the category of open source mobile software — Black Duck Software estimates the number of open source mobile projects almost doubled to 18,000 in 2011, with more than 70 percent created for Android.

• The Wayland port for Google’s Android platform is continuing to be hacked on by Collabora. Here’s some new details.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

• The June tablet cavalcade will continue with a Google Nexus device, say Asia-based reports.

• In the wake of Computex and today’s Microsoft Surface announcements, June is turning out to be a hot month for new tablets.

• And now it’s Google’s turn. The 7-inch Nexus tablet, jointly developed with Asus, will be unveiled at Google I/O, which starts on June 27, according to a report from Taipei-based Digitimes. An earlier rumor made a similar claim.

Free Software/Open Source

Events

• FOSS.IN, an annual Open-Source event from India, has finally announced dates for this year and is calling for participants.

• The event is going to be held in NIMHANS Convention Center in Bangalore from 29th November to December 1st. The event will mostly cover various talks and tutorials on the subject.

SaaS

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

Education

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

Project Releases

• Today, just 365 days since the first open source release of Opa, we announce the release of Opa 1.0.

• Opa 1.0 introduces the last major feature we wanted for Opa: The complete support for the JavaScript stack, including Node.js and MongoDB.

Public Services/Government

• The European Parliament’s Directorate General for Innovation and Technological Support is to produce report on the EP’s free and open source software programmes. MEP Bart Staes (Group of the Green and European Free Alliance) on 10 May added this as a requirement for the discharge of the EP’s 2010 budget committee.

Leftovers

Censorship

• After many years of campaigning, Parliament is finally debating a new Defamation Bill. Defamation (covering libel and slander) is about protecting a person’s reputation, and balancing that right against the general freedom of expression. Over the last few years English libel law has become infamous around the world for its chilling effect on free speech, ease of use to silence criticism (informal, political and academic) and its disproportionate costs.

• The new Bill attempts to tackle some of these issues. But while it is a step in the right direction, it mainly codifies the existing law rather than significantly improving it. There are still some major problems with the current text and while it is being debated in the House of Commons we have a chance to try to fix it before it becomes law. To do this, we need you to write to your MP, highlighting the major problems. If nothing else, please ask them to read through the memorandum the Party submitted to the Public Bill Committee, the key points of which are outlined below.

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