Linuxdevices has posted a reference list of various small and embedded systems using Linux as the operating system.

Internetweek:
“Those little pizza-box servers are so passe. The days when one could get excited about a dual-processor server sitting inside a 1U (1.75-inch) rack-mounted housing seem so distant, so quaint. One server inside a 1U space is boring, but how about four?”

The patch is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/testing/.

pre4:
 - David Mosberger: IA64 update
 - Geert Uytterhoeven: cleanup, new atyfb
 - Marcelo Tosatti: zone aging fixes
 - me, others: limit IO requests sanely

pre3:
 - Ben Collins: 1394 updates
 - Matthew Dharm: USB storage update
 - Ion Badulescu: starfire driver update
 - VM aging cleanups

pre2:
 - Kai Germaschewski: ISDN updates
 - David Miller: sparc and network updates
 - Andrea Arcangeli, Maksim Krasnyanskiy: tasklet fixes
 - Stelian Pop: Motion Eye camera driver update
 - Jens Axboe: DAC960 update

pre1:
 - Anton Altaparmakov: NTFS error checking
 - Johannes Erdfelt: USB updates
 - OGAWA Hirofumi: FAT update
 - Alan Cox: driver + s390 update merge
 - Richard Henderson: fix alpha sigsuspend error return value
 - Marcelo Tosatti: per-zone VM shortage
 - Daniel Phillips: generic use-once optimization instead of drop-behind
 - Bjorn Wesen: Cris architecture update
 - Anton Altaparmakov: support for Windows Dynamic Disks
 - James Washer: LDT loading SMP bug fix

Alan Cox releases Linux kernel 2.4.7-ac6. Links and changelog below.

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/2.4/

		 Intermediate diffs are available from
			http://www.bzimage.org


2.4.7ac6
o	Switch JFFS to use completions			(me)
o	Fix wrong unlock in try_to_sync_unused_inodes	(Petr Vandrovec)
o	Update UML to compile again			(Jeff Dike)
o	Clean up all drivers with clashing names for	(me)
	complete, wait_for_completion
o	Some gcc 3.0 warning cleanups
o	Add SCO AFS awareness (read only) to sysv	(Christoph Hellwig)
o	Netfilter crash fixes				(Mark Boucher)
o	Second batch of superblock race/cleanup work	(Al Viro)

Slashdot: “The Economist posts this story this week about how old computer hardware can be worth money. At the Vintage Computer Festival East, a lot of old hardware was seen, swapped and admired. An industry is emerging, it seems: an Apple One apparently fetched $25,000 at auction.”

Slashdot: “SDL, the open source answer to DirectX, is a well-known cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide fast access to the graphics framebuffer and audio device. Sam Lantiga, the maintainer and SDL project leader, announced today on the SDL mailing list, that he ported the library to Playstation2 and it will allow to write and run SDL games (open source or commercial, as SDL is LGPL) on the Linux port for the PS2.”

Wired: “MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson did something he doesn’t normally like to do. He asked for help. The answer to his plea finally came when Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) introduced a new version of last year’s music owners rights bill called the Music Online Competition Act.”

In San Jose on Monday, August 6: Join other freedom lovers in protest
of the arrest of Russian software engineer Dmitry Sklyarov. Dmitry
was
arrested in Las Vegas on July 16 by the FBI after presenting a paper
on cryptography software he developed in Russia. The US Attorney for
the Northern District of California (i.e., the Dept. of Justice) has
filed criminal charges against Dmitry in Calif., under the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for providing software that decrypts
Adobe eBook files so that their content can be accessed in ways that
Adobe’s own software does not provide (e.g. text-to-speech
translation
for the blind). We believe that this prosecution is a reprehensible
assault on the free expression rights of programmers (and ultimately
of end users), under a law that will not withstand constitutional
scrutiny.

Dmitry has been held in custody from his arrest, until the present
time. He is finally being transferred to San Jose, and will have
another bail hearing at the San Jose Federal Building, San Jose, CA,
before Magistrate Judge Edward A. Infante, Mon., Aug. 6, at 11am PT.

At a bail hearing there are two issues: Is the person likely to
continue committing the alleged crime, and is the person a flight
risk
(unlikely to return to court). In this case the real issue is flight
risk, since Sklyarov is a citizen of another country and has no ties
(job, property, family) to the United States. He already had a bail
hearing in Las Vegas (in the district where he was arrested), but is
entitled to another one upon his arrival in San Jose (in the
district
where he will be tried). The judge in such a case will look at the
defendant’s circumstances and determine whether there are any
safeguards or combination of safeguards that will ensure that the
person will come back to court and not become a fugitive from trial.
What this means for Dmitry Sklyarov is that it will be very hard for
him to get out of jail pending trial unless he can come up with some
real ties to this district and/or some other means of ensuring he
remains in the U.S. for trial can satisfy the District Attorney and
the court (e.g., electronic location-tracking bracelet, house
arrest,
etc.)

What YOU Can Do:

Attend the 10am-to-noon+ protest rally at the San Jose Federal
Building (or one of the protests in other areas).

Attend the bail hearing and help pack to courtroom to show the
judge that this is an important issue that real people care
about.

Contact your legislators about this issue. Let them know that
the
questionably constitutional DMCA is being abused to threaten and
now even arrest and charge innocent academics and programmers.
For
information on how to contact your legislators and other
government officials, see EFF’s “Contacting Congress and Other
Policymakers” guide at:
http://www.eff.org/congress.html.

Join EFF! For membership information see:
http://www.eff.org/support/.

Attend the Monday, Aug. 6, protest

We will be meeting at 9:30-9:50am PT in
downtown
San Jose at the snake sculpture, “Quetzalcoatl”, which is at the
south
end of Cesar de Chavez Park, at the corner of South Market St. and
West San Carlos St. Cesar de Chavez Park is across San Carlos from
the
Hyatt St. Claire Hotel, and about a block from the First Street
location of the Federal Building.

We will then march to the front steps of the Federal Building
(courthouse) at 280 South First Street and begin our protest at
10:00am sharp, and continue through until at least noon. (The
hearing
itself will begin at 11:00am and continue at the judge’s discretion.
Some may move from the protest to the court room, but we need enough
people to turn up to keep a large and visible protest going
throughout
the hearing.)

Additional protests will probably be organized all over the United
States (several are already in the works), and in other countries.
If
you can make it to one of them, please show up to show your support
for online freedom of expression and for Dmitry Sklyarov! These
sites
will have the latest information about the additional protests:
http://www.freesklyarov.org/ and
http://www.freedmitry.org/.

Transit to protest

VTA light rail: Take the Santa Teresa/Baypointe line to the
Convention
Center stop. Trains run approximately every 10 minutes. The
convention
center is on the south side of the street; walk 1/2 block east on W.
San Carlos St. to the snake. VTA light rail schedules:
http://www.vta.org/schedules/SC_901.html.

Caltrain: Transfer from Caltrain to the Santa Teresa/Baypointe light
rail line at the Tamien station. CalTrain schedules:
http://www.transitinfo.org/cgi-bin/map_sched/CT.

Driving: Downtown San Jose is easily accessible from US 101, Interstate 280,
and California 87. See the URL below for maps and recommended
routes: http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?addr=S+Market+St+and+W+San+Carlos+St&csz=Sa
n+Jose%2C+CA.

Map to get to courthouse directly: http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/courtinfo.nsf/6f311f8841e7da24882564050068
27f0/f3b46c67b334132e88256682007f6ba9?OpenDocument.

Parking: Parking is available on Second Street right across from the
courthouse
(Valley Parking), not too far from Original Joe’s restaurant. Also,
an
inexpensive pay parking lot is available at the San Jose Convention
Center, across San Carlos from the snake sculpture. The entrance is
from Almaden Blvd., one block west.

Event contacts:
Dan Martinez
dfm@area.com
+1 408-768-3649 (cell)

Alternate:
Jo Hastings
jo@havenco.com
+1 510-798-5040 (cell)
+1 415-282-6964 (land line)

There are also actions planned for Monday, August 6, in Boston, St.
Louis and Pittsburgh. Details at:
http://freesklyarov.org/calendar/.
See this site also for updates about the details of the San Jose
protest.

What to bring

Please bring a sign, and/or or a U.S. or Russian flag, and a cell
phone if you have one. Keep signs simple (4 words is ideal) so that
they are easy to read for people passing by.

“Drop the charges” and “Free Dmitry” are examples.

For graphics to add to signs, see:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/Graphics/

Help pack the courtroom

You can help impress upon the judge just how important and
closely-watched this case is, by appearing in-person for the
hearing.
We want to the completely pack the courtroom.

The hearing is at 11:00am PT, Mon., Aug. 6, at the San Jose Federal
Building (courthouse), 280 South First Street, San Jose, CA, in the
courtroom of Magistrate Judge Edward A. Infante, Courtroom 7, 4th
floor. Arrive early – You will not be admitted after the hearing
begins if you arrive late.

Important: Consider this a “dress-up day” – suits, or
business-casual
at worst. NO T-SHIRTs. We must show as much respect to and for the
court as possible. No picket signs in the courtroom, no outbursts.

See protest info above for maps, transit and parking information.

Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression and Blue Ribbon Campaign for Online Free Speech

This drive to free Dmitry Sklyarov is part of larger campaigns to
empower the creative community in the digital age by protecting the
public’s access to and use of audiovisual technologies (CAFE), and
to
protect online freedom of speech and press (Blue Ribbon).

Check the EFF CAFE & Blue Ribbon campaign websites regularly for
additional alerts and news:
http://www.eff.org/cafe/ and
http://www.eff.org/br/.

Background

For more information about the US v. Sklyarov Case see:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/.

For yet more information on the DMCA see:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/.

Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers) About the US v. Sklyarov
Case:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html.

About EFF:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties
organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded
in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and
government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the
information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and
maintains one of the most linked-to Web sites in the world:
http://www.eff.org.

ZDNet reports that Transmeta has lost a key customer to Intel’s low-power line of chips. Amphus is no longer planning to use Transmeta’s crusoe line of processors for its Virgo line of high-density servers, opting instead for Intel processors.

– By Grant Gross –

This week, IBM has been touting a new initiative called “Grid Computing,” kind of supercomputing meets the Internet or a massive distributive computing network. The team at the Globus Project, the 5-year-old Open Source computational grid project on which the IBM initiative is based, are happy to have the additional help and publicity.

IBM announced this week that it was selected to provide the technology for a node of a proposed National Grid in the United Kingdom. Dave Turek, v.p. of Linux and emerging technologies for IBM, says IBM will provide technical expertise and technology to the Globus project as the company looks to speed development and provide services for other companies building business plans around Grids.

“We believe the pursuit of this opportunity through Open Source is precisely the right way to go about this,” Turek says. “We value the benefits the community can bring to the table here. Our approach here is not to try to brand Grids as an IBM thing, but to work with this community to really provide the infrastructure that will maximize choice for our ultimate customers.”

Ian Foster, co-lead of the Globus Project with Carl Kesselman, says the support of industries such as IBM is important to make the once groundbreaking project forward. “We have now considerable mindshare in the science and engineering research community,” Foster says. “Now, for our message and technology of open
architecture, standard protocols to move further, we have to engage and get the
support of industry. Hence IBM’s announcement that they will engage in the
process is of great significance.”

According to Foster, the Globus Project started in 1996 “following early work on software infrastructure for a big 1995 distributed computing experiment called i-way.” The project has grown to include about 30 developers, many at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute. The group of coders who build tools to sit on top of core Globus services probably number another 50 people.

The Globus FAQ explains the project and the idea of Grids. From the FAQ: “The Grid refers to an infrastructure that enables the integrated, collaborative use of high-end computers,
networks, databases, and scientific instruments owned and managed by multiple organizations. Grid applications often involve large amounts of data and/or computing and often require secure resource sharing across organizational boundaries, and are thus not easily handled by today’s Internet and Web infrastructures.”

The FAQ gives five examples of new applications enabled by Grids, which can be large or small groups of networked computers dedicated to a task :

• Smart instruments: Advanced scientific instruments, such as electron microscopes, particle accelerators, and wind tunnels, coupled with remote supercomputers.

• Teraflop desktops: Chemical modeling, symbolic algebra, and other packages that allow “computationally intensive operations” remotely.

• Collaborative engineering: “High-bandwidth access to shared virtual spaces,” allowing collaborative design of complex systems.

• Distributed supercomputing: “Ultra-large virtual supercomputers constructed to solve problems too large to fit on any single computer.”

• Parameter studies: “Rapid, large-scale parametric studies, in which a single program is run many times in order to explore a multidimensional parameter space.”

Turek, of IBM, describes the Grid as “the next evolutionary step forward on the Internet.”

He adds:” This next step forward, through Grid, is to really take the Internet technology and use it to expand the notion of computing capability.”

Turek explains the Grid by using an electrical utility metaphor, where people or businesses can use and pay for the Grid’s computing power only when they need it, kind of like flipping the light switch in your living room. The e-utility Grid could provide one-time computational power to individual users, and it would recognize what kind of service you’re looking for and how to accomplish the task.

While universities have long pooled their resources in Grids to “create giant virtual supercomputers,” interest in the Grid concept in Europe has focused on creating virtual organizations that tie together several businesses working together on a short-term project, Turek says.

While the Grid concept has been around for ages, at least on Internet time, Turek says the time is right for the concept to take off. The availability of high bandwidth and wide-spread Internet access help make Grids more doable, he says.

“All breakthroughs in our industry have really started as small things,” he adds. “As time as progressed, and they’ve been given the opportunity to grow and flourish, they’ve demonstrated a capability that more and more people start to recognize is important. The fact that people have been working on Globus for five years is now getting it to a point that people are now saying, ‘Yes, this is possible.’ ”