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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Why open source developers can be more productive, and other tales from a Google open house
10 hours, 54 minutes ago
Yesterday Google celebrated the opening of a larger Cambridge, Massachusetts office, which takes up a substantial part of a building right next to the Kendall/MIT subway stop in the higher-than-high tech area of East Cambridge. I got a look at their new Friend Connect service (covered in a related Radar blog) and heard some fascinating comments that the staff kindly let me reproduce here. -
Frequent open source miles
12 hours, 54 minutes ago
Matt Asay’s piece on “open source free- riders” got my goat this morning because we’re on opposite sides of the market. -
Can the Feds enforce Net neutrality? Maybe not
14 hours, 54 minutes ago
Federal regulators may be probing Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent filesharing traffic, but can they actually take action, if they choose, against the company or any other broadband provider on Net neutrality grounds? -
Linux and the tax office: never the twain shall meet
16 hours, 54 minutes ago
Why would a government body offer trial software for small and other businesses which use the GNU/Linux operating system, take it offline when the interest in it grows and keep quiet about it thereafter? -
Microsoft, OLPC officially team up
18 hours, 54 minutes ago
So, I guess this makes it Two Operating Systems Per Child. The One Laptop Per Child project and Microsoft announced Thursday that indeed the XO laptop will be available in both Linux and Windows varieties. The companies plan to sell a Windows-powered XO in five or six countries starting next month, with a broader release in August or September. -
Google, IBM, Red Hat, Sun and the Digistan Connection
20 hours, 54 minutes ago
Another anti-Microsoft (MSFT) front group has emerged in favor of “free and open standards,” hyping what it calls the Hague Declaration and making some absurd connection to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The propagandists, partially funded by publicly traded companies, have a little trouble describing what that term “free and open standards” means (or even using it consistently), but the group has no trouble indicating its political stripes. Unbelievably it calls itself Digistan, apparently to identify with the fascist terrorists based in countries and regions using the Farsi-based suffix “stan.” -
End of Intel, AMD duopoly near? Via readies Isaiah chip
22 hours, 54 minutes ago
Is the end of the Intel-AMD duopoly nigh? Via Technologies is hoping this may be the case when it announces the "Isaiah" processor later this month. -
Strong passwords no panacea as SSH brute-force attacks rise
1 day ago
Thanks to the end-of-term for many colleges and some K12 schools, brute-force attacks against SSH servers surged sharply this past weekend, according to the SANS Internet Storm Center. The sudden jump in SSH attacks merits a re-examination of how such servers should be properly secured. Jim Owens and Jeanna Matthews of the Department of Computer Science at Clarkson University have published a paper on the methods that such attacks frequently employ and on the best ways to defeat them. -
OpenSolaris: Shows Promise, Needs Work
1 day, 2 hours ago
Last week, on my country's Liberation Day, Sun released OpenSolaris 2008.05, the much awaited first official fruit of Project Indiana. It delivers many of OpenSolaris' major features, such as DTrace, ZFS, containers, and more, in a Linux distribution-like package. The goal is to allow more people to experience Solaris. A few reviews have since hit the web. -
Trouble in paradise?
1 day, 3 hours ago
Maybe it’s a coincidence but this week has seen evidence of tension between commercial open source vendors and elements of the open source user community. Matt Asay stirred up something of a hornet’s nest with his post questioning how open source vendors can find ways of encouraging users to contribute either code of cash in return for free software. -
Novell Readies Silverlight Clone for Linux
1 day, 3 hours ago
A year after the introduction of Microsoft's Silverlight cross-platform, cross-browser media plug-in and streaming technology, Novell has released a Linux version for testing. -
Tiny boards gain Linux cross-tools support
1 day, 4 hours ago
Gumstix says its tiny ARM-Linux SBCs now support the OpenEmbedded (OE) build environment. In addition to pre-built Linux images, the company now offers a "gumstix-oe" collection of source files and bitbake recipes, for those wishing to use the open source cross-compilation environment. -
Atom-based ECX board runs Linux
1 day, 4 hours ago
Portwell has announced a single-board computer (SBC) using Intel's Centrino Atom chipset and ECX (embedded compact extended) form factor. Targeting applications such as kiosks and digital signage, the PEB-2736 supports dual displays, has a CompactFlash slot, and accepts an optional TPM (trusted platform module), says Portwell. -
Open source awards open for nominations
1 day, 5 hours ago
Nominations are open for the third annual Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards, with winners to be announced at OSCON 2008 in July. Nominations are accepted for all open source projects, not just SourceForge.net-based projects, and the categories include the intriguing "Most likely to get users sued." -
Linux-based remote access equipment adds monitoring
1 day, 5 hours ago
Opengear is integrating the popular Nagios open-source network and device monitoring software in its open-source, uClinux-based remote access equipment. Opengear's SDT ("secure desktop tunneling") for Nagios product combines its SDT Connector remote access client software with Nagios central management software. - More News
Linux.com : Features
It's time to retire "ready for the desktop"
Quite a few reviews of new Linux releases these days try to determine if a distribution is "ready for the desktop." I myself have probably been guilty of using that phrase, but I think it's time we officially retire this criterion.
Ask Linux.com: detecting drives, scripting bash, and distributing documents
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This week in our semi-fortnightly stroll through the Linux.com forums: working with external hard drives, configuring all those extra mouse buttons, bash scripting help, and advice on finding software for the hearing impaired.
Kernel hacker and Red Hat driver maintainer Jon Masters (video)
Hey, it's dirty and unglamorous coding, but somebody's got to do it. Jon Masters is one of the people who do Good Things for GNU/Linux but get little recognition for their work outside of a small circle of friends. But if you take a look at his personal page you'll immediately realize that Jon, like many inner-circle Linux developers, has many interests besides programming. And despite his many serious accomplishments, as this casual video interview (shot at the recent Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit) clearly shows, he doesn't take himself too seriously.
Anonymous Web surfing with TorK
Everyone who surfs the Net is eminently trackable. Internet data packets include not only the actual data being sent, but also headers with routing information that is used to guide the packages to their destinations. Even if you use encryption for extra safety, the routing information -- which cannot be encrypted -- can reveal details about what you're doing, who you're talking to, what services you're connecting to, and what data you're accessing. Intermediaries (authorized or not) can also see that data and learn about you. If you want a higher level of anonymity, TorK can do the job. It uses The Onion Router (Tor) network to provide you with a safer way of browsing.
Keeping your SSH connections alive with autossh
With autossh, you can monitor your SSH connections and restart them if they stop sending traffic or SSH exits abnormally. This makes autossh perfect for keeping secure port forwarding available.
Querying a database using open source voice control software
Though the tools for voice control and dictation in the open source world lag far behind those in the commercial arena, I decided to see how far I could get in querying a database by voice and having the computer respond verbally. Using a number of open source tools, I'm happy to report success.
Adobe releases Adobe Flash Player 10 beta for Linux
Adobe Systems is reaching out for Linux desktop users with its announcement today that the first beta of Adobe Flash Player 10, a.k.a. Astro, is now available for Linux, as well as Windows and Mac OS X.
Building a glossier front end for MythTV
Josh Stewart loves MythTV -- so much so that he is building his own front-end app for it as a drop-in replacement for MythTV's default. The replacement is called Gloss, and although it isn't ready for prime time yet (no pun intended), its OpenGL effects and GStreamer bindings show plenty of promise.
Dreamy Dreamlinux
Dreamlinux is a Debian-based distribution that offers you a choice of GNOME or Xfce window managers as well as an extremely simple installation and scripts to install popular programs not found in the Debian repositories. With included programs for communication, graphics, and music, plus OpenOffice.org, it covers most general desktop needs, and installation and configuration are a breeze. Besides a few minor bugs that didn't cause any problems, my experience with Dreamlinux was entirely positive.
Security Alert: Debian OpenSSL flaw affects many systems
Well-known security researcher H. D. Moore, creator of the MetaSploit Project, has posted his findings on the recently discovered Debian-packaged OpenSSL bug. Moore documents the cause of the bug and explains how easily attackers can create every possible key the flawed OpenSSL implementation can generate.
How to add an internationalized keyboard to your Web site
JavaScript VirtualKeyboard provides a virtual keyboard entirely written in JavaScript with more than 130 supported keyboard layouts allowing you to enter text in a variety of languages. Two uses for JavaScript VirtualKeyboard suggest themselves immediately: integrate it into your Web site to allow clients to enter internationalized text, and run it directly using the online demo when you have to enter internationalized text yourself from an Internet café.
Bdale Garbee: A fascinating 'open source celebrity' (video)
Let's get the first Bdale question out of the way right now: no, he didn't sell half the vowels in his name. His birth name was Barksdale, later shortened to B'dale, then to Bdale. The next thing you notice (in person) about Bdale Garbee is his size. He's a very large person. But all that aside, look at his personal home page and Wikipedia entry and you'll realize that this man is one of the most prolific contributors to Linux and open source in the world. Besides all that, he's nice (and often funny), too.
Linux rides pillion on Mumbai city buses
In the swarming Indian metropolis Mumbai, it can be a gymnastic exercise just to fish in your pocket on the packed city buses and stretch out your paying hand to the conductor. Many commuters have opted instead for a 'smart' and cashless way to pay, provided, in part, by Linux. Named Go Mumbai, it is a prepaid smart card for BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport) bus journeys.
Terminator runs multiple GNOME terminals in the same window
In a sense, the desktop is the best thing that ever happened to the command line. Because a virtual terminal runs in a graphical environment, it boasts all sorts of enhancements that the unadorned shell lacks -- everything from multiple tabs to easy selection of display fonts and background and foreground colors. Perhaps the resulting power and convenience explains why, even at a time when the emphasis is on giving every application a graphical interface -- no matter how inappropriately -- people still write useful utilities for virtual terminals. A good example is Terminator, a program designed to perform one simple function: displaying multiple instances of the GNOME terminal within the same window.
Predictive text input with Soothsayer
Soothsayer is a predictive text input system. Many folks reading that sentence will think of the word completion offered by mobile phones. Soothsayer is different from such mobile phone systems in that it tries to use context and other statistical information to offer predictions instead of just presenting a list of words that might match the first few letters you type.
Laura Thomson on coding, the workplace, and FOSS
Ever since Laura Thomson wrote her first program in the fourth grade, coding has been a major part of her life. Over the years, she has been a lecturer in computer science at RMIT University in Australia, a principal at OmnTI, a consulting company that designs Internet systems, a trainer of other programmers, the co-writer of PHP and MySQL Web Development and MySQL Tutorial, and a frequent speaker at free and open source conferences. She is currently a senior software engineer at the Mozilla Corporation, where her recent work includes the API for the Add-ons Manager on Firefox 3. With this background, Thomson has strong views on coding, its future, and its place in business, especially where free and open source software (FOSS) is concerned, which she shared with Linux.com at the recent Open Web Vancouver conference.
New Fedora 9 makes waves by emphasizing contributors
The Fedora distribution has a reputation for innovation, and the new Fedora 9, released today, is no exception. With features that range from easy filesystem encryption to support for the ext4 format, it includes a wide range of features that are likely to become standard in other distributions in the next six months. But for Paul W. Frields, who became Fedora project leader in February, what distinguishes the release is less the technology than the community that supports it, and how the technology contributes to the larger free software world.
Linspire tightens CNR ties with Mint, Ubuntu
Linspire, the San Diego, Calif.-based Linux distributor, is continuing to build up its CNR (Click-N-Run) software installation system with partnerships with Ubuntu parent Canonical and the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint distribution. Linspire recently announced that its beta CNR service now supports the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron release and Linux Mint versions 4.0 and 5.
aTunes tries to be the best of two worlds
Are you looking for a free and open source music player that you can use no matter which operating system you boot or switch to during the day? Meet aTunes, a small competitor to both Amarok and Apple's iTunes. Its name sounds like a hybrid of the two, and it tries to have a unique combination of the best of both user experiences.
Brad Neuberg, Google Gears, and the future of the Web
"I like to make browsers do things that they weren't supposed to do," Brad Neuberg likes to say. As a developer advocate for Google Gears, Neuberg has a wide scope for pursuing this interest, not only as an active developer, but also as a frequent speaker at conferences. His message is that Gears is not a means of working offline with Internet content -- which, so far has been its main function in applications like Google Reader and Google Calendar -- but also a potential universal update mechanism for browsers that could help to keep the Web free.
