Showing headlines posted by bob

Congatec has refreshed its Conga-IGX line of Mini-ITX boards with dual- and quad-core G-Series “Steppe Eagle” SoCs, featuring configurable TDPs from 5-15W. Congatec announced its Linux-friendly Conga-IGX Mini-ITX boards in 2013, providing a choice of two dual-core and one quad-core models from the original AMD G-Series SoC family. Now, the company has expanded the product […]

There's a slow effort underway to allow virtually any part of the kernel to be extracted into its own shared library, thus enabling users to use any alternative subsystem they please. There's a long history of this, going back to the debate between micro-kernels and monolithic kernels.

MontaVista debuted an IoT version of its Yocto-based Carrier Grade Linux OS, featuring annual major updates, modular structure, and QEMU and Docker support. MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade eXpress (CGX) builds upon and subtracts from its commercial-grade MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) for networking and server applications. The CGX spinoff supports Internet of Things devices, […]

Carrying out common daily tasks such as burning a DVD through the comfort of a user-friendly graphical interface is, of course, a good thing, but unfortunately things don't always work as expected. When this is the case, Linux users can revert to the good old terminal to get things done no matter what. On this quick tutorial, we will see how Linux users can utilize the terminal to burn audio CDs, data DVDs or ISO images on a disk.

While recently demonstrating a prototype to a family member I was asked, "Are you going to patent that?" While happy to see such enthusiasm, I tactfully declared that I couldn’t seek a patent, as it was built using open source components. This perplexed my family member who, being from a generation or two (or three) before me, thought that is how "inventing things works." So, I did my best to explain the seemingly "hippie-ish" concepts of open source, copyleft, and Creative Commons licenses to someone from America’s Greatest Generation with little success. In the end, we simply agreed to disagree on the issues of patents and capitalist pursuit. read more

Gumstix launched a Linux-ready Overo COM with an 800MHz TI DM3730 SoC, 1GB of RAM, a microSD slot, a camera input, and support for -40 to 85°C temperatures. The latest Gumstix Overo Storm computer-on-module is a ruggedized version of the Overo WaterStorm, with a -40 to 85°C industrial temperature range — versus the WaterStorm’s 0 […]

The Free Software Foundation still isn't thrilled with Canonical.

Ceph is a fully open source distributed object store, network block device, and file system designed for reliability, performance, and scalability from terabytes to exabytes. Ceph utilizes a novel placement algorithm (CRUSH), active storage nodes, and peer-to-peer gossip protocols to avoid the scalability and reliability problems associated with centralized controllers and lookup tables.

To bring it into line with copyright infringement of physical goods, Ministers have launched a discussion on increasing the penalty up to 10 years. Tougher sentences would act as a "significant deterrent" said the government.

Two researchers with the University of Leuven have developed a new, more practical attack technique that exposes weaknesses in the RC4 encryption algorithm.

Google-in-a-box orchestration tool hits general availability. The open source Kubernetes application container orchestration system has reached general availability, and a whole host of its contributors and supporters have stepped forward to sing its praises.…

Google's open source container deployment and management tool is ready for general use in production environments.

Although the Linux kernel forms the beating heart of the Android operating system, it's still a very different platform from most distros. In fact, beyond the kernel, most of the libraries, services and applications are completely different. While there are hundreds of different Linux distros out there, they all share components from the GNU project.

Renesas unveiled a tiny, Yocto supported “ADAS Starter Kit” built around its octa-core R-Car H2 SoC featuring PCIe, HDMI, and support for multiple cameras. Japanese semiconductor firm Renesas Electronics has long supported its system-on-chips with Linux, including its ARM-based R-Car SoCs for the automotive market. The company has now launched what it calls “the smallest […]

Google is turning over its container management program, Kubernetes, to this new open-source foundation.

HHVM (Hip Hop Virtual Machine) is a just-in-time compiler developed by Facebook to run applications that are written in PHP and Hack language. HHVM is faster than the traditional PHP engine from ZEND and is used by Facebook to serve billions of web requests per day. This tutorial describes the steps to install WordPress with Nginx, MariaDB and HHVM on Ubuntu 15.04 Server.

"Open is a means to an end—and that end is trust." So writes Steve Song, a social entrepreneur, Shuttleworth alum, and blogger who writes extensively about openness and access to affordable communication infrastructure in Africa. Steve's posts exploring the paradoxes, moral philosophy, and future of open are a fascinating read. I recently caught up with him to learn more. This is an edited transcript of our conversation. read more

Welcome folks, to my latest Six Degrees column! Now, I wanted to mix it up a little bit for this one. In previous columns, I have written pieces about trends and patterns in communities and open source. This one is instead designed to provide some practical recommendations of tools you can use today as you build strong and empowered communities. read more

The Graphics and Visualization (GVIS) lab at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio specializes in creating scientific visualizations and virtual reality programs for scientists at Glenn and beyond. I am thrilled to be a member of the small army of interns in the GVIS lab. So are Carolyn Holthouse, Joe Porter, and Jason Boccuti, interns from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Wright Brothers Institute's Discovery Lab who are working remotely at NASA Glenn. Their project involves robots, open source software, and virtual reality. I caught up with Carolyn, Jason, and Joe to talk about their project. read more

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine introduced me to OpenTTD, an open source (GPLv2) transportation planning simulator game. Available for Android, I briefly opened the game on my phone and found the interface to be a little too difficult to use for me on a five inch screen. My friend suggested that it worked better on a tablet, and I thought I'd try again later when I had some time to kill and a larger Android device in hand. read more