Canadian software firm Libranet says that sluggish CD sales of its Linux distribution has forced it to reduce the staff and resources dedicated to its Debian Hurd-based Linux distribution. The company says it has no plans to drop its distribution, and and promises a new release will be forthcoming. From the announcement, posted at LinuxToday: “The release of the 2.4 kernel, KDE 2 and XFree86 4 was expected
to help bring about a substantial exodus from Microsoft, but this
has yet to happen. We think the number of GNU/Linux users will
continue to increase, although slowly. We hope that the world
will realize that there is a better alternative to Microsoft.”

Demand is still outpacing the available supply of Pentium 4 processors and DVD drives, say computer makers. While the lower-speed Pentium 4 chips are attainable, Intel simply doesn’t have the resources to manufacture sufficient quantities of faster versions of that processor. The lack of faster chips is having a domino effect on the rest of the hardware industry; sales are down because PC makers can’t build the systems their customers want, and that is forcing builders to reduce their orders for motherboards, graphics cards, and hard drives. Full story at The Register. We’re not sure what the deal is with the DVD drive shortage, but the lack of available drives is fast becoming an annual holiday tradition. Last year’s DVD shortage threw a monkey wrench into Sony’s PlayStation 2 launch.

– By Dan Berkes –
This past Tuesday, RealNetworks core developer Greg Wright announced a new version of RealPlayer for Linux. Instead of RealPlayer 9, the latest streaming multimedia player from the Seattle software company is now known as RealOne. Users can expect an improved interface and better video playback options. Installation can be problematic, but that’s to be expected at this stage of RealOne’s life.This version of RealOne for Linux is an alpha/preview release, and it would be
extremely unfair of me to write a review of a work in
progress. So before I get started, I’d like to make something perfectly clear:
This is not a review of RealOne, but a collection of first impressions of
a long-awaited update to RealNetworks’ Linux offering. When and if RealNetworks offers
up a final or stable release of RealOne for Linux, I’ll be back in this space
with an in-depth and critical review.

Acquisition

Finding the free stuff on the RealNetworks Web site has always been something of
a challenge. Going to the main page at Community Supported RealPlayer Download Page. Fill in and select information for the various options as you see fit, but for the “Select OS” drop-down menu, be sure to select “Linux 2.x (libc6 i386)” and then click on “Download Community Supported Player” to continue.

The results page will display the usual selection of links to download the latest RealPlayer — ignore them. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you will see the download link (a button, actually) to download the RealOne Player for Linux, which will then finally deliver you to the download links for RealOne. File size is approximately 6MB.

Installation
I installed the RealOne preview on a home-built computer using version 7.1 of Red Hat’s Linux distribution.

The RealOne download page provided brief installation suggestions:

Once you’ve successfully completed the download, you will be ready to install the RealOne Player. To do this, you must make the installer executable and then run it:
Example:
chmod u+x r1p1_linux22_libc6_i386_a1.bin
./r1p1_linux22_libc6_i386_a1.bin

I typed the magic words, crossed my fingers, and waved Chester, the plush toy snail mascot that lives on the top of my monitor, over the system, and pressed Enter. A few seconds later, the RealNetworks installer appeared on my KDE 2.1 desktop. The installer offers two choices — typical install, which assumes certain things about where files should be placed, your desktop settings, and file type associations, and custom install, for users who want or need to make specific configuration choices.

For the sake of time and knowing that there’s nothing out of the ordinary about my current Linux installation, I choice the typical install option. The next steps are minor: Click through the license agreement, select Internet connection speed, and the installer starts copying files.

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Damn! So close, too. Lather, rinse, repeat above steps:

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Something’s wrong. I go to to the Community Supported Player Forum to see if anyone else is having this problem; other than the announcement and a few replies, there’s not much discussion about the RealOne alpha preview happening yet. I re-check the list of basic requirements against the contents of my system, and everything appears to be in order. I try installation again, with no luck.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I took the very Microsoftian step of rebooting the system. What can I say? Old habits die hard. Tried the installation again, and much to my surprise, everything went smoothly. I’m not sure why this time was the charm, but I’m sure my (lack of) system administration skills was the culprit. Or, as my friend Tom would say, “PEBKAC” — Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

First run
The RealOne for Linux interface has been redesigned a bit, and is almost identical in look and feel to its Mac and Windows cousins. That’s a nice improvement, but I was more interested in checking out the technical enhancements touted for this release.

According to a post at the RealNetworks discussion forum for Unix-based players, Wright, the company’s core director, mentioned that some of the new features include new support for xvideo, better video rendering, and a full screen playback mode. I clicked on the link to play the preview for the latest Survivor series from CBS, and nothing happened. Clicked again, and got the same result. Guess I’ll have to reconfigure Netscape to play nice with Real content. I had to copy and paste the URL into the RealOne interface in order to play each clip.

The improvements to the video display quality are immediately apparent to my untrained eye. The graphics aren’t as choppy as they were in my previous version of RealPlayer. Where the previous version would sometimes stutter or pause to buffer on clips my DSL connection has always been capable of handling with ease, RealOne doesn’t take any breaks. About the only problem I had with playback was using the full-screen mode, which managed to bring my KDE session to a rather abrupt conclusion.

First impressions
RealOne for Linux promises to be a major improvement over previous versions of the streaming media player. I like the new interface, and I definitely appreciate the improvements in video quality. I plan to become an active and vocal participant in the feedback process to improve RealOne for Linux, and that’s something I would encourage every person who downloads the alpha preview and future releases to do as well. The developers of RealOne for Linux are very active in their user forums, and seem to genuinely appreciate all the suggestions, bug reports, and feedback the community cares to provide.

ZDNet reports that Sun Microsystems has initiated beta testing for the next version of its Unix operating system, Solaris 9. The new version runs on Sun’s UltraSparc or Intel’s 32-bit processors, and includes new features to streamline software upgrades and manage system resources. The final version of Solaris 9 should be available to Sun customers some time in 2002.

Commentary from ZDNet’s David Berlind: “Microsoft appears to have become quite comfortable
throwing down the gauntlet, believing perhaps that it has achieved enough critical mass to make
its own technologies defacto standards. Customer response might eventually validate this
business decision, or prove it to be a costly miscalculation.”

searchWin2000 chats with Jim Graham, the head technical guy at CodeWeavers, the firm behind Codeweavers Wine and CrossOver Plugin, programs that allow Windows applications and Web browser plugins to work via Linux. Graham, speaking on the need for Windows-on-Linux products: “We might see a
larger utilization of Linux in the workplace, but I don’t believe we’re going to get
all of the applications over there immediately. There’s going to be a demand to
provide both until there’s more application software in the Linux market. Tools like
this are going to provide that bridge.”

Reported at The Financial Express, India: “US-based Caldera Systems, which recently started its business operations in
India after acquiring the server software divison of Santa Cruz Operations (SCO),
will soon be rolling out its Linux and Unix software education and certification
programs across the country.” The company is going for a franchise approach in India, considering four regional educators and a number of smaller, local training specialists, to offer its certification programs.

Jesper Skov posts the latest edition of AbiWord Weekly News. Read all about Perl scripting support on Windows, FriBiDi support, new RTF filter feature, new developers, the 0.9.4 release freeze, and a request for QA assistantce.

Kelly McNeill writes “In 1968, Brian Kernigan and Dennis Ritchie managed to cobble together a simple little operating system, which they hoped would give them some of the best features of Multics. The two started with a PDP-8 (because it was cheap), and within a few years had evolved it into a utilitarian operating system. Unfortunately, AT&T was a tightly regulated monopoly and was not allowed to sell UNIX for fear that it might gain a monopoly of both telecommunications technology and computer technology. How ironic that Microsoft now threatens to control both.”

From a press release at LinuxPR: “LinuxCertified, Inc., a leading provider of Linux training, has announced the
availability of training programs for Linux+ certification.

Linux+ is the latest certification program being offered by CompTIA, a global
association of computing and communication companies. Linux+ certification fills
the need for a certification for entry level Linux professionals and is aimed at
personnel with six months of experience with Linux.”