Showing headlines posted by Sander_Marechal

If you're using Sudo, you've probably already discovered that the increased privileges apply only to the first command typed and don't extend to any input or output redirection. For example: "sudo iptables -L > /etc/iptables" will give you a 'Permission denied' error because the shell interprets the first command (with sudo), then pipes it into the second command (without sudo). One solution to this is to jump straight into the root user shell with su. However, this ignores all the many very good reasons to use sudo in the first place (including logging, ticketing and a lower risk of accidentally doing something foolish because you've left a root shell lying around). Here's a better solution.

Greenplum, which uses the open source PostgreSQL database as a base for its data warehousing and business intelligence software, has been acquired by storage company EMC. The move will allow EMC to compete directly with Oracle and its Exadata software. No details were given on the value of the transaction, but the companies expect the deal to be completed by the end of the third quarter 2010.

We've kept a fairly low profile and have not commented much on the Oracle / NetApp lawsuit. Today, however, Coraid announced that they have received a letter from NetApp threatening them; Coraid has decided therefore to stop reselling their ZFS based storage appliance. As the leading vendor of ZFS based storage appliances and a long time supporter of AoE and a technical partner of Coraid, we're inevitably mentioned in discussions about this lawsuit. Rather than rehash the entire case I'll just make a few points that have been missing from the commentary I have seen today so far:... If you are one of the 78% percent of enterprises that support OpenSource (see my related blog on a recent Accenture survey), now is the time to stop buying solutions from legacy vendors that resort to lawsuits.

The Mozilla Foundation has released an early beta of the upcoming version 4 of Firefox, its flagship cross-platform browser for Windows, OS X, and Linux. HTML 5 and CSS 3, the standards that are slated to power next-generation Websites, are clearly at the forefront of Mozilla's development efforts. Firefox 4 includes extended support for many of the new features that those two technologies introduce, including the Websocket API, which enables Web-based applications to access servers using arbitrary protocols like, for example, the one used by e-mail clients. Most interestingly, Mozilla has chosen to support HTML 5 video playback by implementing Google's WebM video codec, which, like Firefox, is open-source and (at least in theory) unencumbered by patents.

One of the great things about Linux is how easy it is to customize. Now unfortunately if you don't know what you're doing and sometimes even if you do know what you're doing, you can get into trouble. I found this method to be very useful in times of stress. As you all may know everything in Linux is a file, all of the settings are files. Inside your Home folder is where all of the settings and user specific files are located. Remove these folders to reset Ubuntu/Gnome back to its default.

Once upon a time the successor to OpenSolaris 2009.06 was supposed to be OpenSolaris 2010.02 and then it became OpenSolaris 2010.03 with a release date in March and then who knows what happened. There hasn't been an update to the OpenSolaris operating system now in a year nor has there been any communication at all to developers or end-users by Oracle about their plans after taking over Sun Microsystems. All indications were that Oracle would at least deliver an OpenSolaris update in 2010'1H, but it looks like that won't happen...

Google has confirmed that Adobe Flash will continue to "play a critical role" on YouTube, saying the fledgling HTML5 video tag doesn't meet the site's needs. "It's important to understand what a site like YouTube needs from the browser in order to provide a good experience for viewers as well as content creators," reads a Tuesday blog post from YouTube software engineer John Harding. "We need to do more than just point the browser at a video file like the image tag does — there’s a lot more to it than just retrieving and displaying a video."

On June 1st, 2010, KDE Blog, one of the foremost KDE-focused blogs in Spanish, celebrated the publication of its 1500th post. The occasion seemed to be the perfect excuse to chat with its author, Baltasar Ortega, and to ask him a few questions about himself, blogging, and how KDE is going to take over the world. Read on for his insightful and passionate answers.

Debian and Ubuntu are distributions that lend themselves naturally to comparison. Not only is Ubuntu a continuing fork of Debian, but many of its developers also work on Debian. Even more important, you sometimes hear the suggestion that Ubuntu is a beginner's distribution, and that users might consider migrating to Debian when they gain experience. So what are the differences between these Siamese twins? Looking at installation, the desktop, package management, and community in the two distributions what emerges is not so much major differences as differences of emphasis, and ultimately, of philosophy.

Here's the US Supreme Court's opinion [PDF] in Bilski v. Kappos, at last. The lower court's decision is affirmed, and so no patent for Bilski. However, business methods are not found totally ineligible for patents, just this one. But the door is not swung wide open. From the Syllabus: "Finally, while §273 appears to leave open the possibility of some business method patents, it does not suggest broad patentability of such claimed inventions."

Big Blue backs Linaro Does the Linux operating system need yet another distro? Apparently so, because a bunch of people interested in the ARM RISC processors used in mobile computers and netbooks — and hopefully someday soon inside of servers just to scare the hell out of Intel — are ganging up to create a distro called Linaro.…

Red Hat's CEO Jim Whitehurst declined to dismiss the possibility of buying out his company's Linux rival Novell in a meeting with reporters in London today. Whitehurst said the open source software vendor was eyeing up possible virtualisation and cloud acquisitions but added nothing was on the horizon yet. On the subject of Novell, which is currently seeking a suitor among up to 20 different prospective buyers, Red Hat's boss said: "Given we’re Novell’s competitor I could make some snide comments about it… but then I’ll feel bad and will have to call Ron [Hovsepian] and apologise," he said.

Cathy Malmrose, the CEO of ZaReason, wishes customers would call sooner when they have problems, instead of waiting until they're completely frustrated. Why don't they?

This article—the first in a series on Hadoop—explores the Hadoop framework, including its fundamental elements, such as the Hadoop file system (HDFS), and node types that are commonly used. Learn how to install and configure a single-node Hadoop cluster, and delve into the MapReduce application. Finally, discover ways to monitor and manage Hadoop using its core Web interfaces.

Chipmaker ARM and a group of allies have joined forces to back a non-profit Linux company to develop tools for cellphones, tablet PC and similar small devices. The alliance with Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments was announced yesterday at Computex 2010 and significantly ups the stakes in the battle for future mobile dominance.

Document Freedom Day is a global day for document liberation. It will be a day of grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of Open Document Formats and Open Standards in general. Every year on the last wednesday in March, we celebrate his day. This year in The Netherlands in conferencecentre "Het Brandpunt" in Baarn, the former residence of the Dutch queen, we will have five speakers who will talk about the importance of open documents and open standards for the Dutch government.

[Disclosure: I am one of the speakers there. - Sander]

Industry standards and innovation took center stage at MIX10, as Microsoft Corp. made a series of announcements that underscore the company's commitment to interoperability and performance on the Web. [...] As part of Microsoft's broad engagement with open source communities, Corporate Vice President Scott Guthrie today announced that Microsoft is investing resources to contribute to the development of the jQuery JavaScript Library to help improve the development process of standards-based Web applications. Microsoft will also work to provide better interoperability between ASP.NET and the jQuery JavaScript Library by enhancing ASP.NET so .NET developers can better incorporate jQuery capabilities.

[I gather they want to be on the iPhone and iPad. And their definition of "interoperability" is you can use their stuff easier, which matches the goal Steve Ballmer set for "Open Source", that it all run on Windows instead of the Linux kernel. - Pamela Jones, Groklaw]

The KDE and GNOME communities are looking for a host for the Desktop Summit 2011, the combined annual conference featuring KDE's Akademy and GNOME's GUADEC events. Following up on the successful Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, the second edition of the combined event in 2011 will be the premier place to learn about, discuss, and work on free software on the desktop. The goal of the desktop summit will be to present and discuss the state of the art of free software for end users, do community building, enable cross-community collaboration, and enable partners from industry and other communities as well as individuals to get informed and involved.

Software patents have long been the source of a great deal of concern in the free software community; patents are by far the biggest restraint on our ability to program our own computers. Those who worry about these things have expected that attacks might come from patent trolls, or from software companies with fading prospects. Apple's lawsuit against HTC shows that the real threat may come from a different direction. HTC is not normally thought of as a Linux company; it is a Taiwanese manufacturer which provides cellular phone handsets to a number of other companies.

Some Linux users insist that anything you can do on Windows, you can do better on Linux. While there's some truth to that, many of us have Windows applications that make completely leaving Windows close to impossible. That's where CodeWeavers' latest version of CrossOver Linux comes in. CrossOver Linux 9 (code-named Snow Mallard) and its Mac brother, CrossOver Mac 9, let you run many popular Windows applications on Linux or Mac OS X. Supported Windows applications include Microsoft Office (from Office 97 to Office 2007), Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Outlook 2002 to 2007, all current versions of Quicken up to 2010 and QuickBooks up to 2004, and some versions of Photoshop and Photoshop CS.