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Well you know sometimes when you use an OS for as long as I have... One can get bored with it. Maybe it is just my personality but I was just sitting around the old computer the other day and well... I decided to upgrade Ubuntu 7.10 to the new beta release 8.04.
Yes, I know, it is coming out in just over a week but the upgrade was an easy process to begin. Using the old Alt-F2 and typing in update-manager --devel-release I was away. The process took about 35 minutes to complete. A few packages were deleted and I was given the opportunity to reboot. At that moment, I always hestitate and ask myself "Did I do the right thing?" "I had a perfectly fine working OS" Well I clicked rebbot and once again my OS booted up without any issues. I have to say that Ubuntu 8.04 beta is a great running OS and worked fine from the first bootup. With an upgrade version of Firefox 3 which took about an hour to get used too, I find it working great and I even like the bit of new eye candy that it presents to a user. All in all the beta 8.04 works fine with the generic kernel on my Intel DG965OT mother board with 4 gigs of OCZ DDR2 - 800mhz PC6400 RAM. BTW I run 32 bit OS and only see 3.2 gig of RAM as I have not yet got around to compiling my kernel. I did however run the Ubuntu 8.04 Server kernel but my system had issues with this and load averages were running away. I was able to see 4 gigs with the Server Kernel but decided to move back to the generic one. I look forward to the final release of Ubuntu 8.04 next week. Original link: http://www.reviewlinux.com/?m=sh... Server heavyweight Sun Microsystems has made another foray into the world of open source software with the release of its StorageTek 5800 archiving software under a BSD Licence. Java.net uses the Sun StorageTek 5800 source code for its development efforts. Previously known as Project Honeycomb, the code for the 5800 has been donated to the OpenSolaris storage and Java.net communities, Sun said yesterday in a statement.
“The market for integrated digital archiving has always been challenged with a lack of applications,” says Manfred Gramlich, storage lead for Sun Microsystems South Africa. “Sun has tackled this problem head on by providing an open source API for the StorageTek 5800 which will drive application development for the solution.” Original link: http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=235... Next to drivers for graphics cards and (Atheros and Broadcom) wireless chipsets, the Creative Labs X-Fi series is one of the most complained about pieces of hardware for its Linux support or there the lack of. The Creative X-Fi sound card series is a few years old, but it wasn't until a few months ago that open and closed-source drivers started coming about for this hardware. However, this sound card has still been left in a sorry state, but this week Creative Labs has finally pushed out another Sound Blaster X-Fi Linux beta driver. But does this driver correct their wrong doings from the past?
Since the first half of 2006, Creative Labs has been stating their intention of providing an X-Fi driver that supports Linux with full capabilities for ALSA and OpenAL 1.1 with EAX (Environmental Audio Extensions). Their plans were to provide this closed-source driver in the second quarter of 2007, but then come Q2'07 they had duped Linux for Microsoft Vista. It had taken Creative Labs more resources to develop a Vista-capable driver than they had anticipated and as a result, their Linux driver development suffered with their release schedule being pushed back by several months. Finally in September we found out that an X-Fi Linux driver was coming soon but as a beta release. On September 24, 2007 that driver was finally delivered but it in a horrific state. This closed-source X-Fi beta driver had only supported x86_64 Linux (read: no support for all of the 32-bit Linux users) and hadn't even worked with GCC 4.x. In addition, the driver had its share of other bugs. Months went by after that release with no signs of another beta, but back in February of this year, 4Front Technologies had announced an update to the Open Sound System (OSS) with initial support for the X-Fi series. Unlike support for some of the other sound cards on the market, the X-Fi support in its (sbxfi) driver wasn't reverse-engineered but Creative Labs had provided some source-code and header files to 4Front Technologies (Open-Source Creative X-Fi Support). These code files though had confidential markings, but two days later it was found out that this was legal and Creative Labs is interacting with both the OSS and ALSA projects. They had finally joined the open-source bandwagon. After seeing this Open Sound System support and anticipating Sound Blaster X-Fi support for the forthcoming ALSA 1.0.17 release, we thought the Creative closed-source driver might just be dead. However, this week a second unsupported beta driver has finally been released. This driver supports the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic, XtremeGamer, Fatal1ty, Platinum, and Elite Pro models. It supports ALSA mixing, recording, and PCM playback, while the new features in this beta release is support for GCC version 4 and Linux 32-bit distributions. Major issues still not addressed are S/PDIF pass-through support and compatibility with external I/O modules. The Linux "XFiDrv" is at version 1.18 for this beta release. We are in the process of testing out this driver and we will report back if there's anything interesting to hear. There is no report yet what other bugs this beta driver might have addressed. Now that there is GCC 4.x and 32-bit support, this may be a good temporary driver until the open-source X-Fi support matures. For X-Fi sound card owners, this driver can be downloaded from the Creative Open-Source Wiki. Original link: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php... Less than two weeks ago Phoronix Test Suite 0.2.0 was released, which featured a number of profile updates, improved Linux hardware detection, and incorporating other feedback voiced by the initial users of this Linux benchmarking suite. Last Saturday version 0.2.1 was then released with initial support for PTS External Dependencies, a GLMark profile, GtkPerf profile, FRAC Benchmark profile, and other fixes. Continuing in an expedited development process, Phoronix Test Suite 0.3.0 has been released this morning with a number of major changes, including new test profiles and architectural improvements. The two new test profiles added since Phoronix Test Suite 0.2.1 are for SPECViewPerf 9.0 and IOzone. SPECViewPerf is an OpenGL workstation benchmark that is quite reliable and is used in a number of Phoronix reviews while IOzone is a popular open-source hard-disk benchmarking program for measuring both read and write capabilities. In Phoronix Test Suite 0.3.0 are now 25 profiles and 9 test suites. Linux hardware and software detection has been stabilizing quite well with the Phoronix Test Suite and now in this latest release the total disk space (of a single or multiple drivers) is now reported under the hardware section with the PTS test results. On the software side of things, common processes that could affect the test results (such as Compiz or Firefox) are now reported in the software section if they are in use while the tests are being executed. The Phoronix Test Suite now attempts to shutdown the Linux screensaver while any tests are running. If this test suite is running on GNOME, the Phoronix Test Suite will attempt to shutdown the screensaver using GConf and then restore it upon test completion. For other desktop environments, right now xdg-screensaver reset will be called to (hopefully) interrupt any screensaver process prior to the test(s) commencing. PTS External Dependencies had premiered in version 0.2.1 and in this latest release are some major improvements for detecting installed packages in a distribution-neutral fashion, supporting more packages, and there is initial Fedora packaging support. Right now Fedora and Ubuntu are the only Linux distributions with this External Dependencies support, and so we look for additional contributors to submit information on their distributions. Running phoronix-test-suite install-dependencies pts will also attempt to install additional dependencies for Phoronix Test Suite itself (such as the PHP GD library for local graph rendering). The install-dependencies argument is now automatically called when using the Phoronix Test Suite benchmark argument. Another new feature in Phoronix Test Suite 0.3.0 is initial support for PTS Batch Mode. The batch mode will allow the Phoronix Test Suite to run with greater autonomy. Found in ~/.phoronix-test-suite/user-config.xml are batch mode options of whether to automatically save results, opening the web browser window with test results by default, and auto-uploading results by default. To run Phoronix Test Suite in a batch mode, instead of running say phoronix-test-suite benchmark universe, run phoronix-test-suite batch-benchmark universe. The batch-run argument is also supported. On the PTS Global side of the Phoronix Test Suite, there is now support for adding tags when uploading your results. When opting to upload your results to PTS Global, you'll be prompted to enter any tags you wish to associate with the test results. The tags could be say the type of benchmarks (i.e. Linux audio tests) or the type of hardware (i.e. dual-core SMP benchmarks) or any other descriptors to identify your results. These tags will be used for better sorting and organizing the results. If your free software project wishes to use the Phoronix Test Suite for regression testing, by having your users enter the same tag(s) you can construct an RSS feed of all those results (coming soon). In the near future, we will also be introducing other exciting PTS Global features. For those graphic artists out there, we are looking for help. This release does include a variety of other fixes and minor improvements. More information can be found on the Phoronix Test Suite website and can be downloaded here. We're still delivering the first stable release of Phoronix Test Suite "Trondheim" in early May so please test out this release and share your results in the PTS Forum as well as submitting any patches, test profiles, or other resources. Original link: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php... |
The Ubuntu development team today made available a release candidate version of the soon-to-be-released Ubuntu 8.04, codenamed Hardy Heron. The release candidate is the final testing release of Hardy ahead of next week’s final release. What we like: A better selection of default desktop applications, much-improved CD and DVD burning interface and much-needed audio improvements. What we don’t like: Boot speed is still a little slow.
Features of this release include: Desktop features Improved application selection: the GNOME desktop sports a number of improvements to the default applications, including more feature-full clients for BitTorrent and VNC, as well as an advanced UI for mastering CDs and DVDs. File browsing: an enhanced filesystem layer brings greater performance and flexibility to Nautilus, the GNOME file browser. Pluggable audio and video output: the PulseAudio sound server is integrated in the GNOME desktop for more flexible sound output, and a new Screen Resolution utility allows easier configuration of multiple video displays. Wubi installer: a new Windows-based installer option makes it easier than ever to try out Ubuntu, letting users install a full desktop on Windows systems without needing to partition their hard drive. Server features AppArmor profiles: a greater number of server applications are now protected by default with AppArmor, a kernel technology that limits the resources an application is allowed to access, providing added protection against undiscovered security vulnerabilities. Memory protection: additional protection now prevents direct access to system memory through /dev/mem and /dev/kmem, and the lower 64K of system memory is no longer addressable by default, changes which help to defend against malicious code. The kernel now also loads Position Independent Executables at randomized addresses, making it harder for application security vulnerabilities to be exploited. Virtualization and iSCSI: KVM is now an officially maintained option, which combined with libvirt (CLI) and virt-manager (GUI) management tools allows for a simple and efficient virtualization option on hardware that supports virtualization extensions (AMD-V or Intel-VT). Mounting iSCSI targets is now supported (including in the installer), allowing Ubuntu to interoperate with this class of cost-efficient Storage Area Network solutions. Ubuntu Education Edition Add-on configuration: Edubuntu is now provided as an add-on to Ubuntu rather than a separate stand-alone flavor, permitting even greater reuse of Ubuntu technologies. Kubuntu features Kubuntu comes with the rock solid KDE 3 for those who want a commercially supported desktop. For those who want something more exciting, a KDE 4 Remix is available bringing this cutting edge new version to you first. Please see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/HardyHeron/RC/Kubuntu for details. Xubuntu features Xubuntu comes with the light-weight Xfce 4.4.2 desktop environment for those who want to a desktop that is easy to use, but places particular emphasis on conserving system resources. New additions to the family Two new variants join us for this Ubuntu release. UbuntuStudio and Mythbuntu have done releases separately in the past, and with Hardy Heron we’re happy to be able to welcome these fine community projects into the main Ubuntu release process. For a more in-depth tour of the features new in 8.04 LTS, see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/804rc Original link: http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=235... Long story short, even though OpenBSD 4.3 isn't scheduled to be released until May, it is available in the mirrors under snapshots.
Since version 4.3 is supposed to have ACPI enabled by default, I figured I'd burn a CD and try it on the $0 Laptop, on which I'd love to control my noisy CPU fan. I've written recently on how FreeBSD seems to do a fine job in this regard, but only for a day before reverting to the previous noisiness. Now, I've never actually seen any concrete tips on exactly how to control a CPU fan in OpenBSD, but just maybe ... maybe it would work automatically. No such luck. The CPU fan blew. I'll give it a bit of time, and I might even try FreeBSD again. Am I the only person with this problem? Seems like it. Anyway, this is my third or fourth OpenBSD install, and the process is quite quick. I figured out how to boot the OpenBSD partition with GRUB (a first for me). Here's the /boot/grub/menu.lst entry for OpenBSD, which I installed on hda2: title OpenBSD on hda2 rootnoverify (hd0,1) chainloader +1 Yep, I used the ol' chainloader. Just for variety's sake, here's the menu.lst for FreeBSD 7: title FreeBSD on hda2 root (hd0,1,a) kernel /boot/loader Next time I multiboot Slackware, I'm using the chainloader, since I've never been able to figure out how to get Slackware 12 to boot from GRUB. Or ... the best way is to install Slackware with LILO, then add the GRUB package (on disc 3 ... or the Slackware FTP), which should write GRUB to the master boot record and create a /boot/grub/menu.lst in Slackware that has the proper entry. That's the theory anyway. Summing up, I didn't really expect OpenBSD to magically control the Gateway's CPU fan, and I wasn't too disappointed. OK, so I was. I'll file it under "projects," and see how things go in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, despite all my complaining, Debian is running great on all my boxes, and I expect the new Ubuntu, due in 9 days at this point, to be a somewhat solid system, which I might multi-boot on this laptop just to see if it holds together for me. Original link: http://www.insidesocal.com/click... At times one really wonders why established Linux distributions such as Red Hat ever take the trouble to pursue the consumer desktop market.
In the case of Red Hat, you tend to be even more puzzled that it considers doing so. When you have a successful business based around the sales of server software plus services with the occasional business desktop deal thrown in, why bother getting up the nose of those folk in Redmond more than needed? After all, Microsoft's minions are already up in arms against you for taking away market share in the server space. Thus it is not surprising that the Red Hat Global Desktop - meant to be a consumer desktop which would compete with Windows XP and Vista - has been put on hold indefinitely. Take it from me, it will be stillborn. If a product is put out at this stage, then it needs to have all those rough edges (media codecs are top of the list) ironed out and able to do most things which Windows can - and out of the box too. Getting licences from Microsoft to use Windows-only codecs would only be possible if Red Hat went the way of Novell and signed a patent deal. That is well known, it is no big secret. In effect, Red Hat would have to join the group which sold out the entire FOSS community. That's the last thing the company would want to do. It has reached the heights it has only because it is identified as a company whose primary business is open source. You can't lose good karma which has been accumulated over nearly 15 years. To quote from the Red Hat release itself: "There have, however, been a number of business issues that have conspired to delay the product (global desktop) for almost a year. These include hardware and market changes, startup delays with resellers, getting the design and delivery of appropriate services nailed down and, unsurprisingly, some multimedia codec licensing knotholes." There are secondary factors as well that have led Red Hat to this decision. Competing with the Ubuntu distribution which has gone the longest way towards satisfying the consumer who wants a Linux for everyday use would be difficult - unless Red Hat's product were markedly superior. That superiority would largely be measured on the multimedia front. One must not forget that between the time when Red Hat made the announcement about the global desktop - last May - and its decision to give up on the consumer desktop, we've seen some pretty nifty devices - the eeePC leads the way - running Linux and catching the imagination. So-called rich desktops are not the talk of the town, the trimmed down devices are the ones which are selling. Red Hat's announcement had an oblique reference to this: "Technical developments that have become available over the past year or two are accelerating the spread of the Linux Desktop." Putting a traditional desktop distribution on the market at this stage would not exactly set the Thames on fire. Red Hat has been enthusiastic about the consumer desktop in fits and starts - only for top executives to later make it clear that the server space is the company's main interest. That space brings in revenue, enables it to hire key developers, and keep the ecosystem healthy. Why change? Original link: http://www.itwire.com/content/vi... The Dutch NLnet foundation aims to financially support organisations and people that contribute to an open information society. Some time ago they decided to help KOffice in two exciting ways: to sponsor the design of a new logo for KOffice, with matching logo designs for all KOffice applications, and to sponsor Girish Ramakrishnan to improve the ODF support in KWord 2.0. The KOffice team is deeply grateful to NLnet for this support!
Girish Ramakrishnan, a former Trolltech employee, has already started on implementing a thorough test suite for ODF text loading. Helping him are Thomas Zander and Thorsten Zachmann, two old-time members of the KOffice team. In his own words: "I am working on getting ODF support up to speed in KWord, my work being sponsored by NLNet. As the first step, I have spent my time now automating the ODF testsuite at the OpenDocument Fellowship.... "So far, I have found some basic tests are failing - loading of lists, possibly superfluous spaces/blocks. I have patches coming up." KOffice has done without a real logo forever: we used to use the application icon of KOShell, a rainbow, but that was hardly a real logo, and besides, everybody, including the primary school your correspondent attended, uses a rainbow. But coming up with a good logo is hard, and we postponed and postponed the task. But then NLnet proposed to retain the services of designer Michiel van Kleef of 30 Media. Michiel was faced with a very hard brief: to design a logo, not an icon, for KOffice which combines business and creativity in one, integrated package. After consultation with the KOffice team we arrived at the following logo: (Review) - I’ve been testing the latest release of Firefox since my last article, which discussed the areas Mozilla needed to work on. Overall, it looks and feels like the last release.
Undoubtedly, there have been marked improvements made in the security and stability of the application. But to be honest, I was right about one prediction - a total lack of offering anything compelling over the previous release. Firefox Does Vista. Those of us using Linux or OS X are not too likely to become excited over the latest release. Finally, Vista users now have parental control tie-in for their OS and Firefox. Right, and most people care because of why? If someone is so into Microsoft that they are using Vista, then let them use IE7. This does nothing to tie into open source alternatives like Dansguardian (Web content filtering). One Last Disappointment... Or A Few. The last and frankly the biggest disappointment had to be the total lack of doing anything worthwhile with the browser's RSS abilities. True to Mozilla's Google loyalty, the default reader remains the Google Reader. Other Firefox-based browsers, such as Flock, are way ahead of Firefox original with fantastic RSS management and a clear explanation of feed discovery. Bundle that with integrated blogging and a Web clipboard and it’s hardly shocking to see why so many people are tired of the Mozilla team’s efforts going stale. Cool New Features in This Beta Worth Talking About. One thing that I noticed right away was how Firefox 3 was now using a 'star' to make bookmarking even easier. It’s a very cool way to catch up with competing browsers, guys. Not everything is as noticeable on the surface, however. The improvements in the phishing filter are substantial, thus a round of applause for an effort well done. And despite this already being a backup feature in previous releases, this time when you close your browser, it will prompt you to save your 'place' should you wish to do so. Handy. And finally, the noted improvement to the zooming feature. Now, instead of just allowing one to zoom in on the text on a Web page, you can now zoom the images as well. Browsers like Opera have done this for sometime, but even still, better late than never I suppose. Memory Hog Issue. To be honest, I have not seen a noticeable issue since installing the latest version, as I would have expected based on previous versions. I can only assume that the 'feature,' previously designed to make backwards caching a reality, has finally been enhanced into something less resource dependent. At the end of the day, I can’t find myself compelled into switching off Flock to use Firefox 3. Just for kicks, I may try it yet again once it goes live, but the RSS feeds management is just really disappointing to me personally. Original link: http://www.osweekly.com/index.ph... Existence of multiple initiatives could stunt industry progress
Wireless Alert By Joanie Wexler , Network World , 04/16/2008 At least three industry consortia are attempting to ease development efforts for mobile application builders with Linux-based, open mobile operating system development initiatives. These efforts carry noble and productive intentions. But if there are multiple ones, leaving one "open" platform to differ from the next, will we be back to where we started? Three organizations with at least a few overlapping members are out to help build an open mobile OS with associated middleware and starter applications that would drive application innovation across multiple handset platforms. What’s not clear is how having several such efforts will really help achieve the platform-independent goals that would free developers from underlying hardware constraints. Here’s a snapshot of the various groups: * LiMo Foundation. Founded in January 2007, LiMo announced availability of its initial Linux-based mobile OS SDK last month. Companies that use LiMo are required to return fixes and optimizations to a central code repository to assure continued OS harmonization. A sampling of members: Access, LG, Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Wind River; no North American mobile operators yet. * Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum. Founded in November 2005, LiPS released its SDK V.1 in December 2007. A sampling of its members: Access, Montavista Software, Texas Instruments, several international mobile operators; no North American operators yet. * Open Handset Alliance. Led by Google, this crowd recently developed the Android mobile OS. Formed in November 2007, it released its SDK the same month and says it is committed to deploying Android handsets and services in the second half of this year. Its SDK is currently based on an Apache 2.0 license, which allows licensees to make changes to code without having to share them with other members of the community. A sampling of its members: Broadcom, LG, Marvel, Motorola, PacketVideo, Qualcomm, Sprint Nextel, Texas Instruments, Wind River, several international mobile operators. Now, throw the recently announced Apple iPhone developer program and SDK into the mix. This initiative could be considered open from the perspective that nearly anyone can access the specs almost for free. Still, there’s just one platform (the iPhone) and, at this juncture, one mobile network (AT&T’s). Voila: We have several open initiatives that still make developers choose. My dad was a gambler. He used to go to the racetrack and place a bet on every horse. That way, he was guaranteed to win. But win big he didn’t, for reasons obvious to the most meager statistician. Similarly, the mobile industry is in a situation where several companies are betting on every open mobile OS horse. And the wins here are likely to be a wash, too. Original link: http://www.networkworld.com/news... |
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