Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

After years of being outside of the mainline, the AppArmor security system is now finally part of the main Linux kernel. Linux founder Linus Torvalds formally released the 2.6.36 kernel this week nearly three months after the release of the 2.6.35 kernel. AppArmor has been in use by Linux distributions since at least 2006 when Novell first open sourced the code as a rival option to SELinux which has been championed by Red Hat. Ubuntu picked up AppArmor in 2007 with the 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon release.

The new kernel version is notable because it hasn't grown in size – yet it contains hundreds of advancements which will be obvious to end users, who don't often notice changes in their Linux distribution's kernel.

The Apple iPad is without question a wildly successful product in a market space that's seen many false starts. It seems like the iPad was at the right place at the right time to scratch an itch we didn't know we had. Many wrote it off early on as just an expensive ebook reader with too many limitations to replace your netbook, much less a full-fledged business laptop.

Being developed since 2007 and integrated in Ubuntu since 2008 with their Ubuntu 8.04 LTS release has been Wubi, the Windows-based Ubuntu Installer. While most Linux users tend to install Ubuntu using the LiveCD or the alternate CD installer, by using Wubi you can setup a full desktop from within Microsoft Windows. Wubi places Ubuntu into a disk image still residing on the Windows partition, thereby making it easy to install and remove without risking any problems of messing up your drive's partitions. While Wubi may lower the barrier for entry to trying out an Ubuntu Linux desktop, it does not come without some performance penalties associated to using the loop-mounted device stored on the Microsoft file-system.

The Linux Foundation has announced that this year, Linux creator Linus Torvalds is one of three recipients of the prestigious C&C Prize. According to the NEC C&C Foundation which awarded the prize, Torvalds is being recognised for his "contributions to the advancement of the information technology industry, education, research, and the improvement of our lives".

For general use, it is sufficient to configure KDE using the options provided in System Settings and in individual application settings. Nevertheless, to unlock the full power of KDE, you should learn some of the system administration tools that it provides.

The developers behind ReactOS, the free software operating system working to re-implement the architecture of Microsoft Windows XP/2003 and attaining binary compatibility with existing Windows software, is now out with a new release. The ReactOS release came about one year ago, but out this afternoon is the brand new ReactOS 0.3.12.

On Friday we published an FSFE analysis on patents and standards, and shared it with the European Commission. This was in reaction to a letter [pdf] which the Business Software alliance (BSA) had written to the Commission in a last-ditch attempt to eradicate the last traces of Open Standards from the European Interoperability Framework. We replied to the BSA’s arguments, picking them apart one by one.

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has been in business for four years, so it seems about time for the organization to have a full-time employee. But is the organization ready to support a full-time employee? What started as a small offshoot of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is now home to more than 20 open source projects, with others waiting in the wings. It has a solid set of services for its organizations, but fundraising may be a challenge for now full-time Executive Director Bradley Kuhn.

Oracle's ongoing support for OpenOffice.org reinforces its commitment to developing software based on open standards, providing IT users with flexibility, lower short and long-term costs and freedom from vendor lock-in. By investing significant resources in developing, testing, optimizing, and supporting other open source technologies such as MySQL, GlassFish, Linux, PHP, Apache, Eclipse, Berkeley DB, NetBeans, VirtualBox, Xen, and InnoDB, Oracle is invested in their future development and contributing back to the communities that produce it.

Learn to mount your Linux® filesystems; configure and use removable USB, IEE 1394, or other devices; and properly access floppy disks, CDs, and DVDs. You can use the material in this article to study for the LPI 101 exam for Linux system administrator certification, or just to learn about accessing Linux filesystems.

Phoronix Test Suite 3.0 (codenamed "Iveland") has been under heavy development for more than a month and there is still at least three more months left of work before this major release will be christened. Today though it is time to publicly share the first details (aside from those that learned about it in the Augustiner tent at Oktoberfest) for one of the new components to be making up a critical piece of the Phoronix Test Suite 3.0 platform: OpenBenchmarking.org.

Ubuntu 10.10, aka “Maverick Meerkat” was released recently, and according to the Ubuntu home page, the perfect 10 is here. For those not familiar with Ubuntu’s release cycle, this one is a short-term support release which will be patched and modified up until it eventually morphs into the next long term release about six months from now.

Android 3.0 ("Gingerbread") will feature video chat support, SIP support for Google Voice on Android devices, and a major graphical redesign, says an industry report. Due this fall, Gingerbread will also provide support for Google TV and its "Youtube Leanback" feature, says the story.

HP has officially announced the launch of version 2.0 of its webOS mobile operating system, considered to be Palm's response to Apple's iOS 4 and Google's Android 2.2. The latest version of the proprietary-but-Linux-based mobile OS features built-in support for Adobe Flash 10.1 for viewing web content in the included browser and improved multi-tasking support, which the company calls "true multitasking". Users can easily switch between open applications without needing to close current apps by viewing running programs using a "card stacks" view that displays open apps in the order they were last used.

Mozilla has released a prototype for what it calls an "open web app ecosystem," a browser-agnostic answer to Google's upcoming Chrome Web App Store. The open source outfit proposes a store that works with any "modern" desktop or mobile browser, offering both free and for-pay apps based on standard web technologies. "The open Web is a great platform for rich applications," reads a blog post from Mozilla man Jay Sullivan. "It would be even better if it had additional capabilities to ease discovery, acquisition, installation, and use of apps, while also enabling monetisation for developers."

On the day before the Software Patent Debate Igor and I got some bad news. The lawyer who had said he would be able to present for the Pro Patent position would be unable to attend the debate. We needed to find someone credible, someone knowledgeable, someone who could put on a show. And we needed someone at almost the last minute. Despite impossible odds Igor thought of the perfect person; Brett Roberts, former Platform Manager, strategist and my long time and good natured protagonist. Thanks to the magic of modern communications in short order we had secured Brett as our debating opponent.

As a 19-year-old college student in 2003, Matt Mullenweg developed what has become the largest self-hosted blogging tool on the web. Two years later, he founded Automattic, which runs the content management system for WordPress and a handful of other web tools. WordPress — still free and open source — is currently used by more than 12% of the top million websites (this one included). In a recent e-mail exchange, Mullenweg discussed the open source movement, the shifting personal web publishing world, and the future of WordPress.

Two months after the first beta arrived, the OpenOffice.org developers have issued the first release candidate (RC1) of OpenOffice.org 3.3.0, the next release of the Oracle owned open source office suite. According to the OpenOffice.org Wiki, the RC1 development version will be followed by a second release candidate and a quality assurance (QA) build prior to the final product release. Dates for the RC2, QA and Final version have yet to be confirmed.

This week is the fourth annual Open Access Week, and starting yesterday Oct 18, the official kick-off date, the CC community has been participating in various open access events around the globe. “Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” Taking place the same week everywhere, Open Access Week brings together people from all ends of the academic and research communities at various worldwide conferences, workshops, and other events to “continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.” Below is a (not exhaustive) list of what CC jurisdiction leads, open culture and open education advocates, and the Creative Commons staff are doing to inspire open access.