Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The Dutch may become the first in Europe to use Skype and other web-based services on smartphones for no extra charge. On 22 June, the Dutch Parliament passed a law stopping mobile operators from blocking or charging extra for voice calling done via the net. The bill must now pass through the Dutch senate, but its passage is expected to be a formality. The move may prove crucial in Europe's on-going debate over net neutrality.

If the kernel is the heart of Linux, then key applications like LibreOffice and Firefox are its arms and legs. This week, all parts of the Linux Planet body of work were in motion as development pushed forward on Linux 3.0 and Firefox 5, and LibreOffice announced its advisory board.

Intel's current-generation "Sandy Bridge" processors continue to sell incredibly well and perform phenomenally relative to AMD's current offerings and Intel's previous-generation hardware. Under Linux, the Sandy Bridge support is now excellent if pulling in the latest components (namely the Linux kernel, xf86-video-intel, and Mesa) and only continues to be improved over time with advancements like their new driver acceleration architecture. By year's end, Intel is expected to launch their "Ivy Bridge" processors as the successor to Sandy Bridge. Intel is already preparing the Ivy Bridge Linux support code.

James Simmons has written a status update to the OpenChrome development list concerning his ongoing work towards enabling kernel mode-setting (KMS) support for VIA hardware with this community-maintained VIA Linux project.

Brian Behlendorf, the founder of the Apache Web Server project and a lead developer on Subversion, discusses how to get started on an OSS project — and what to expect.

Open...and Shut Open source has a tendency to cannibalize and commoditize – and not just surrounding proprietary projects. As described by researcher Dirk Riehle, open source involves a process of continuous innovation and commoditization as communities form to wring inefficiencies from software markets. Interestingly, this same phenomenon happens all the time in the wider software world, and it forecasts diminished importance of closed platforms like Apple's iOS in favor of more open platforms like Android.

Samsung announced a netbook with a built-in solar panel and 14.5-hour battery life. The NC215S also offers hybrid fast start technology, the ability to charge portable devices even when it's turned off, a choice of Atom processors, and a 250GB or 320GB hard disk drive.

Future versions of the Linux Kernel (such as 3.0) will include support for the Xen hypervisor. This means that Linux distributions will typically offer out of the box support for both hosting Xen and running as a guest operating system under Xen.

LXer Feature: 20-Jun-2011

In the Roundup this week we have both the killing of the Linux Desktop and the fall of OpenOffice.org, Jeff Hoogland talks about the first time Linux experience, 10 ways in which Ubuntu can improve Unity, Graham Morrison's top 10 Linux distros of 2011 and our own Hans Kwint asks why Gnome and Ubuntu don't understand 'usability'. Enjoy!

Nailing down the Linux kernel power regressions (see Linux Has Major Power Regression and Another Major Linux Power Regression Spotted) has made a big step forward this weekend. Not only to fix up these major kernel power regressions that are hitting many mobile Linux users, but to look further into the state of Linux power management is now possible and to closely analyze other areas of the Linux stack to find other areas for improvement.

Do you have DVDs that you want to back up or take portable? Of course you do. Well, ripping those DVDs doesn’t have to be a major chore. In fact, ripping DVDs can be quite easy. If you’re a Linux user, you have a number of excellent options. And you can turn to the command line or go GUI. Going GUI can be a bit easier, especially if you only rip DVD once in a blue moon. With a GUI application, you don’t have to worry about remembering (or forgetting) lengthy command strings. Presented for your consideration OGMRip. It’s an easy-to-use and efficient GUI application for ripping DVDs. Let’s take a look at how to use it.

In the spirit of the famous article by Edsger Dijkstra, Microsoft says, in a piece entitled "WebGL considered harmful", that the 3D technology is not secure enough for its products. The blog post lists three reasons for this conclusion: first, browser support for WebGL gives web applications direct access to hardware; second, there could be security flaws in third-party software (such as in graphics drivers); and finally, Microsoft says that operating systems do not currently offer any protection against denial-of-service attacks on graphics cards. "We believe that WebGL will likely become an ongoing source of hard-to-fix vulnerabilities. In its current form, WebGL is not a technology Microsoft can endorse from a security perspective." However, Microsoft itself plans to access graphics card hardware directly in the upcoming Silverlight 5. In other words, the criticism of WebGL may stem not only from security concerns, but also from marketing interests.

"The thing people used to care about, and the reason they chose Windows, was because there was a huge number of applications available for the platform, so they had the inertia of having lots of installed users and that led to lots of applications users could use," said Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. "What users care about now from the applications perspective is the Internet."

Microsoft has attacked the Khronos Group's WebGL, a cross-platform 3D graphics API for the web found in Firefox and Chrome, as being & harmful& and & not a technology ... (we) ... can endorse from a security perspective.& Hostile websites could use WebGL to steal the contents of a user's screen or freeze or reboot systems at will, the company charges.

To celebrate its 100th anniversary IBM threw itself a party and, oh, what a bash it was. It's IBM's culture that has kept it going, CEO Sam Palmisano told an audience of thousands.

Oracle is seeking "billions of dollars" in damages from Google with its sweeping copyright and patent infringement lawsuit over the use of Java on Android. According to an Oracle court filing released on Thursday, Google attempted to hide the scope of Oracle's damages claims and other related information from public view. But Larry Ellison and company want this out in the open. "Oracle’s damages claims in this case are in the billions of dollars,” the Oracle filing reads, and these claims, it says, are "based on both accepted methodology and a wealth of concrete evidence.”

Yesterday we delivered the news that PathScale was open-sourcing their high-performance EKOPath compiler suite, which in previous days was talked about on Phoronix under the Dirndl codename when showing how fast this compiler was in relation to GCC. The community indeed is excited for EKOPath now being open-source (GPLv3) and in the Phoronix Forums are currently 15+ pages of comments. In this news posting are some more EKOPath details from the forums and some of what Christopher Bergström, PathScale's CTO, has relayed in our community portal.

Has it really been twenty years? Yes, yes, it has been twenty years since Linus Torvalds announced that he was working on “a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.” Twenty years of Linux later, The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating Linux’s growth, has announced the program for this year’s LinuxCon North America taking place in Vancouver, B.C. August 17-19, 2011.

The Sourcefabric developers have released an update to their open source Airtime radio software that adds a number of improvements which make it easier to install and upgrade to new versions. Airtime is a server application which allows users, from any modern web browser, to upload audio, create playlists with drag and drop, incorporate track transitions, build complete shows and then schedule them for transmission.

Love it or hate it, the command line is here to stay. Sure, there are new options emerging like TermKit but it’s unlikely that the command line will ever really go away. Those who take the time to master it can run productivity circles around their peers, but with the astonishing assortment of CLI tools available, where do you even begin? We’ve compiled a few of the most useful tools and tricks into this guide to help new users gain some new knowledge, and old pros learn some new tricks.