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All Articles for Slashdot Feed: Linux
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An anonymous reader notes that the Gentoo 2008.0 final release is available. From the announcement: "Code-named 'It's got what plants crave,' this release contains numerous new features including an updated installer, improved hardware support, a complete rework of profiles, and a move to Xfce instead of GNOME on the LiveCD. LiveDVDs are not available for x86 or amd64, although they may become available in the future. The 2008.0 release also includes updated versions of many packages already available in your ebuild tree."
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Matt Lincoln Russell writes "Installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix on the OLPC XO is not for the faint of heart, but Drew Beckett has got the process down. This setup is pretty slow on the XO, but the good news is that Netbook Remix is a work in progress, and can be expected to get better."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
4WebChimps writes "As featured previously on Slashdot, the KOffice project is working towards a cross-platform, open source office suite for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. The most recent release, KOffice 2.0 Alpha 8, achieved that goal by being the first release for all three operating systems simultaneously. Want to try KOffice on Windows? TechWorld has a review (with screenshots) of KOffice on Windows, including the installation process which is as simple as clicking a few buttons (the online installer does the rest). Hopefully it won't be long before KOffice sits alongside OpenOffice.org as a usable cross-platform open source productivity suite."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ruphus13 writes "July 4 will be day when OpenMoko's Neo FreeRunner will be available to US consumers. Being Open Source, it is modifiable down to the core. From the article: 'The FreeRunner is based on a GNU/Linux, and it will initially ship with basic software to make calls, send and receive SMS, and manage contacts. But the company is encouraging users to write and install their own applications. Software updates will add features to the phone over time, and the company said an August update will enable location-based services.'"
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2muchcoffeeman writes "Former Linspire president and CEO Kevin Carmony — whose relationship with his former employer has turned acrimonious, to say the least — reported on his blog that Xandros and Linspire signed an agreement in principle to buy Linspire June 19. Carmony includes a scan of the memo to Linspire shareholders announcing the deal, which requires the former Linspire company to change its name. According to the memo, the stockholders voted to change the company's name to Digital Cornerstone, Inc. Despite the wording of the Linspire memo to stockholders, this deal apparently came as a surprise to Carmony and other stockholders. Some here may remember that both Xandros and Linspire signed patent protection deals with Microsoft in 2007."
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[vmlinuz] writes "After four years, 100+ shows and over 2 million downloads, the guys behind LugRadio, the irreverent Open Source podcast from England have decided to call it a day, with the desire to 'go out on a high.' The last ever show will be recorded at LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th and 20th July in Wolverhampton, England. There are also blog entries from the two long-standing members of LugRadio, Jono Bacon and Stuart 'Aq' Langridge." I hope the back catalog will remain available — LugRadio has since its start been one of the best online audio offerings out there.
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HiroDeckard writes "Multiple sites reported a while ago that Comcast was using Sandvine to do tcp packet resets to throttle BitTorrent connections of their users. This practice may be a thing of the past as it's been found a simple rule in the Linux firewall, iptables, can simply just block their reset packets, returning your BitTorrent back to normal speeds and allowing you to once again connect to all your seeds and peer. If blocking the tcp packet resets becomes a common practice, on and off of Linux, it'll be interesting to see the next move in the cat-and-mouse game between customers and service providers, and who controls that bandwidth."
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ruphus13 writes "Now that Gates has 'retired' from Microsoft, ZDNet is speculating that Microsoft will become much more Open Source friendly. From the article, 'We already see quite a different approach to dealing with OSS and OSS companies from Sam Ramji's group [which is] doing a great job in establishing dialog,' said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange and a former marketing exec at SUSE Linux. 'With Gates' departure, the only mammoth remaining is Ballmer. With him away in a near future, Microsoft will definitely open up. They have to.'" Microsoft could become the world's largest open source company; they've certainly made some concessions to it lately.
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Constantine writes "The Linux kernel is one of most complex open source projects. Even though there are a lot of books on the Linux kernel, it is still a difficult subject to comprehend. The interactive Linux kernel map gives you a top-down view of the kernel. You can see the most important layers, functionalities, modules, functions, and calls. Each function on the map is a link to its source code. The map is interactive. You can zoom in and drag around to see details."
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rsmiller510 writes "Last week Adobe surprised a few people with the announcement that it was including Alfresco content management services as part of its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite Update 1 package. The surprise was two-fold, that Adobe felt it was necessary to add content management services at all, and that it chose open source vendor Alfresco as its content management partner. I spoke to Alfresco CEO John Powell to get his perspective on the pact and how it can help push open source into the enterprise mainstream. Powell is understandably excited by this arrangement, and one of the main reasons, he says, is because the Adobe partnership gives his company credibility with companies that might otherwise not even sniff at an open source vendor."
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LinucksGirl writes "In this article Terra Soft show you how to configure and encrypt, step-by-step, the built-in Wi-Fi network that comes with the Cell Broadband Engine-based Sony PlayStation 3. And, as a little bonus, get 16 quick steps that explain how to switch from a wireless network back to a wired network on the PS3."
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Barence writes "A version of Ubuntu targeted specifically towards mobile internet devices (MIDs) has been released by Canonical, although there is presently only one product on the market which can use it. According to the company, the pithily titled Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition 8.04 has been optimised for use with handheld internet platforms, and designed to run smoothly on Intel's Atom chips as well as with small touchscreen displays. This follows Canonical's announcement earlier this month that it would be creating a version of Ubuntu for netbook devices such as the Asus Eee PC and the Acer Aspire One called Netbook Remix."
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hweimer writes "Most problems when opening Word documents under GNU/Linux are due to missing fonts. Therefore, Red Hat published a set of fonts metric-compatible with the Windows core fonts last year. However, there were some concerns regarding the licensing that prevented many other distros to ship them. We finally managed to settle these problems, leading to better document interoperability for all GNU/Linux users."
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nerdyH writes "Openmoko has begun shipping its Linux-based, open source Neo Freerunner phone to five newly announced distributors, in Germany, France, and India, says the company. The Neo Freerunner features an open hardware design, and a Linux-based operating system that users are free to modify. The project originally hoped to produce a mass-market offering last October. The $400 Freerunner will remain available direct, online, too. A 2.5G GPRS/GSM phone like the original iPhone, it boasts a 500MHz processor, WiFi, 3D accelerometers, a 4.3-inch VGA touchscreen, Bluetooth, and built-in GPS."
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libredr writes "Phoronix reports that Linux Game Publishing have developed an Internet-based copy protection which will be used in their upcoming commercial game port, such as Sacred: Gold. Any user will be able to install the game, but to launch it he will need to provide a valid key and a password, which are validated against LGP's servers. The key/password combination will allow a user to install the software on different computers. However, an Internet connection will be required even for a single-player game, which might be a hassle for some users. This scheme has enraged some of the beta testers and LGP CEO, Michael Simms, responded he regrets he has to introduce a copy protection scheme, but has to do this since a lot more people download their titles instead of buying them, to the point they even received support requests for pirated version. But will every pirated copy magically transforms into a sale, or will this scheme just annoy legitimate users and be cracked anyway? One really wonders."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
snydeq writes "The Linux kernel development community has released a statement emphasizing the need for open source drivers. The statement, signed by 135 developers, is aimed at preventing future vendors from following the closed source path. One holdout cited is Nvidia. The Linux Foundation has also released a statement in support: 'The Linux Foundation recommends that hardware manufacturers provide open source kernel modules. The open source nature of Linux is intrinsic to its success. We encourage manufacturers to work with the kernel community to provide open source kernel modules in order to enable their users and themselves to take advantage of the considerable benefits that Linux makes possible.'"
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Joe Barr writes "Bruce Byfield reports at Linux.com that a Swedish developer, Goran Fransson, has 'given a deposition in the Barracuda-Trend Micro case that appears to seriously undermine Trend Micro's patent on gateway virus scanning.' Gransson has resurrected a product (still in its shrinkwrap) sold by Ten Four, the company he worked for at the time, to prove that it provided gateway virus scanning in January 1995. Trend Micro's patent application was filed in September of that year. If you were — or worked for — a Ten Four customer during 1995, you might be able to help Barracuda prove that Trend Micro's patent omits prior art." We discussed this important patent case when it was filed in January. (Slashdot and Linux.com share a corporate overlord.)
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melios writes "In a move that could help boost the scalability of Linux for grids and other advanced 64-bit multiprocessor applications, HP has released its Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) source code to the open source community. Source code, design documentation, and test suites for AdvFS are available on SourceForge."
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Piranhaa writes "I currently use an IPTV box that runs software by Minerva Networks. When you ssh into the box, you are greeted with a BusyBox v1.00 (ash) shell. It's clearly running a flavor of Linux (uname -apm outputs: Linux minerva_10_0_3_99 2.4.30-tango2-2.7.144.0 #29 Wed Mar 16 16:16:16 CET 2005 mips unknown). However, when you look at their Web site there is no publicly available source code. Since the GPL in both BusyBox and the Linux kernel require that anyone using and distributing the binaries of this software make source available to everyone, what would one do in order to enforce this? I've personally emailed Minerva and left voicemails with no reply."
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Joe Barr writes "Mayank Sharma has two recent stories on Linux.com; one evaluating the performance of Firefox 3, and the second comparing it to Opera 9.5. Which is better? For most people, it's probably more a matter of familiarity or personal preference, but these stories provide hard performance data to consider as well. Sharma notes, 'In terms of rendering JavaScript, Firefox 3 had the edge over Opera 9.5 in the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, which has an error range between +/-0.8% to +/-11.3% depending on the type of test. In the JavScript Engine speed test, Opera 9.5 scores over its peers when it comes to error handling, DOM, and AJAX.'" Slashdot shares a corporate overlord with Linux.com.
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deadearth writes "At their annual summit, Red Hat announced they are open-sourcing the Red Hat Network Satellite product, calling it Spacewalk. This will be the new upstream for the Satellite system management solution. Here is the Wiki."
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Michael writes "Back in September AMD had announced a new ATI Linux driver as well as opening up their GPU specifications, and today they have taken an additional step to better support the Linux OS. With the just-announced Radeon HD 4850 RV770 they have provided same-day Linux support, and the Linux driver is now shipping alongside the Windows driver on their product CDs. In addition, they are encouraging their AIB partners to showcase Tux on the product packaging as a sign of Linux support. Last but certainly not least, AMD is committed from top-to-bottom product support on Linux and they will be introducing high-end features in their Linux driver such as MultiGPU CrossFire technology. Phoronix has a run-down on AMD's evolutionary leap in Linux support along with information on the open-source support for the RV770 GPU."
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Anonymous Coward Maximus writes with some interesting (and disheartening) bits found in recent EULAs from SUSE: "Apparently the Beta came/comes with an interesting EULA discussed in this Planète Béranger article that just makes me think where is this whole Novell/Microsoft ridiculousness going to end? One quote from the EULA to whet your appetite: 'The Software may contain an automatic disabling mechanism that prevents its use after a certain period of time, so You should back up Your system and take other measures to prevent any loss of files or data.' Hmmm... Here is the full Beta 3 EULA for you to dissect. Note that the final release has a different EULA that doesn't look that scary, but still mentions things like 'You acquire only a license to use the Software' and such." Personally, I find the "Benchmark Testing" section (under GENERAL TERMS in the final release's EULA) to be pretty irksome.
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emyar writes "At JavaOne in May, 2006, Sun Microsystems announced they were going to release Java as free software under the terms of the GPL. The size of the task (6.5 million lines of code) was only eclipsed by the size of the opportunity for Java as a free and open technology. [...] This week the IcedTea Project reached an important milestone — The latest OpenJDK binary included in Fedora 9 (x86 and x86_64) passes the rigorous Java Test Compatibility Kit (TCK). This means that it provides all the required Java APIs and behaves like any other Java SE 6 implementation — in keeping with the portability goal of the Java platform."
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Nate D writes "It's here: a new major release of Novell's community-supported distro is now available, and can be downloaded from the mirrors. Linux Format has a hands-on look at the new installer, SLAB menu and Compiz Fusion, and weighs up whether the distro can fight competition from Ubuntu and Fedora. Is this the start of a new era for SUSE?"
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pshuke writes "After 15 years of development, Wine version 1.0 has been released. Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix. While perfect windows compatibility has not yet been achieved, full support for Photoshop CS2, Excel Viewer 2003, Word Viewer 2003 and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 have been among the goals prior to the release. For further information about supported applications, head over to the appdb. Get it (source) while it's hot."
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LinuxLinks writes "It is true to say that the number of commercial games released for Linux each year remains small compared to other platforms. Nevertheless, we faced lots of difficult choices compiling a list of 42 of the best commercial Linux games. The selection we have finally chosen covers a wide range of different game genres, so hopefully there will be something here that will interest all."
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Bruce Perens writes "Ari Jaaski of Nokia is concerned that the Linux developers need to learn to live with DRM, SIM-locking, and 'IPR'. But they won't. Fortunately, Nokia can do all that it wants with Linux, while being GPL2 and even GPL3-compatible. The key is knowing how to draw bright lines between different parts of the system. That's a legal term, and in this case it means a line between the Free Software and the rest of the system, that is 'bright' in that the two pieces are very well separated, and there is no dispute that one could be a derivative work of the other, or infringes on the other in any way. All of the Free Software goes on one side of that line, and all of the lock-down stuff on the other side." A very interesting read, and a good how-to for any company that is looking to use GPLed code as part of their products, or even just make their products to be hacker-friendly.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
alphadogg recommends an article about the rise of Linux on Wall Street. We discussed the beginnings of this trend last year. From NetworkWorld: "Wall Street firms increasingly are buying into Linux, but some still need convincing that open source licensing and support models won't make using the technology more trouble than its worth. Linux providers, speaking this week at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference in New York City, stated their cases that Wall Street firms have nothing to fear about diving into open source. Red Hat and Novell argued that's especially true now that specialized Real Time Linux has been developed that meets strict low-latency and messaging requirements of brokerages and trading firms."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
superglaze writes in to note that according to Nokia's software chief, its plans for open source include getting developers to accept things like DRM, commercial IP rights, and SIM locks. "Jaaksi admitted that concepts like these 'go against the open-source philosophy,' but said they were necessary components of the current mobile industry. 'Why do we need closed vehicles? We do,' he said. 'Some of these things harm the industry but they're here [as things stand]. These are touchy, emotional issues, but this dialogue is very much needed. As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
LinucksGirl writes "Journaling file systems used to be an oddity primarily for research purposes, but today it's the default in Linux. Discover the ideas behind journaling file systems, and learn how they provide better integrity in the face of a power failure or system crash. Learn about the various journaling file systems in use today, and peek into the next generation of journaling file systems."
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Bruce Perens writes "Red Hat has settled patent suits with Firestar Software, Inc., Amphion, and Datatern on a patent covering the Object-Relational Database Model, which those companies asserted was used in the jBoss Hibernate package — not in Red Hat Linux. The settlement is said to protect upstream developers and derivative works of the upstream software, thus protecting the overall Open Source community. Full terms of the settlement and patent licenses are not available at this time."
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An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has up an article looking at the release of X Server 1.4.1. This maintenance release for X.Org, which the open-source operating systems depend upon for living in a graphically rich world, comes more than 200 days late and it doesn't even clear the BugZilla release blocker bug. A further indication of problems is that the next major release of X.Org was scheduled to be released in February... then May... and now it's missing with no sign of when a release will occur. There are still more than three dozen outstanding bugs. Also, the forthcoming release (X.Org 7.4) will ship with a slimmer set of features than what was initially planned."
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bjcarne writes in to commend Jon Ramvi and his team, who have delivered their first stable release of Ubuntu Eee, an Ubuntu version customized for the Asus Eee PC. "In December Ubuntu Eee started as a one man project, but [over] the last months several people have joined in on the development. We're trying to achieve something which [hasn't] been successful for any other Linux distribution yet: a OS targeting a single computer which includes the best applications available. This means people can buy this really cheap computer and easily get a great OS on it for free. Ubuntu Eee is just for the Asus Eee. Ubuntu Eee is smaller, faster and we're bringing people the cutting edge of technology (while being stable and free of course)."
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Anon writes "Mark Shuttleworth provides much more detail today about development of the Ubuntu netbook platform, and says OEMs are calling Canonical when they want to start building netbooks. Channelweb notes: 'It's actually a big deal. For example, Dell CEO Michael Dell has been carrying around an early version of a Dell mini-notebook, and referring to it as the device for the next billion Internet users [...] Asus has become an industry rock star by using GNU Linux to power its Eee PC. HP's niche Mini note runs SLED 10 Linux. The iPhone, of course, doesn't run Microsoft software. Is anyone paying attention in Redmond?'"
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prunedude writes "The NY times is reporting that an American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L. To put the performance of the machine in perspective, Thomas P. D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day."
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An anonymous reader writes "In April, the Lonestar supercomputer, a Dell Linux Cluster with 5,840 processors at the Texas Advanced Computing Center in Austin, performed laser surgery on a dog in Houston without the intervention of a surgeon. The article describes the process: 'The treatment itself is broken into four stages: 1) Lonestar instructs the laser to heat the domain with a non-damaging calibration pulse; 2) the thermal MRI acquires baseline images of the heating and cooling of the patient's tissue for model calibration; 3) Lonestar inputs this patient-specific information and recomputes the optimal power profile for the rest of the treatments; and 4) surgery begins, with remote visualizations and evolving predictions continuing throughout the procedure.'"
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pbd points out a story discussing the challenges faced by NASA engineers in designing the code sent to operate the Phoenix Mars Lander. Quoting Computerworld: "On Wednesday, engineers sent up the code to run an actual analysis, but a satellite orbiting Mars, which transfers the data down to the Lander, was offline. Robinson explained that the satellite had been hit with radiation, knocking it into safe mode. 'Space is a harsh environment, and sometimes they just go into safe mode,' he noted. 'It's a minor problem. [The satellite] aborts whatever it was doing and waits for future commanding.' Engineers successfully resent the code on Thursday."
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MahariBalzitch writes "Popular Mechanics shows step by step guide on how to install Ubuntu Linux on a PlayStation 3 and still keep the PS3 gaming functionality. Now I just need to get my hands on a PS3." Not bad specs for the price, either, since Blu-Ray players still aren't cheap. And though the article calls the procedure "somewhat complicated," it's a lot simpler than was installing Linux from floppies not so many years ago.
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KernelPie writes "The Linux hardware site Phoronix.com has announced the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0, a Linux-based testing platform designed for benchmarking software and hardware. This suite ships with 57 tests and 23 test suites, which contain everything from open-source games to file encryption to encoding software. In addition, they have a global database where users can submit benchmark results and more — with over 1,000 submissions already. This testing software is licensed under the GPLv3 and can be downloaded here."
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