Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Survey Says: Windows and Open Source Play Well Together


Open source adoption is growing rapidly, but adopters in U.S. are lagging behind European enthusiasm, according to software provider OpenLogic. OpenLogic announced Tuesday it has discovered more than 300,000 open source package and project installations in use around the world through its Open Source Census. OpenLogic initiated the global survey last December. The Open Source Census is a worldwide collaborative project. The goal is to collect and share quantitative data on the use of open source software.


Complete Story

Firefox rolls out 3.0.3

Late yesterday Mozilla did a whiplash-causing quick turnaround and pushed out Firefox 3.0.3. It seems this new version is solely to fix bug 454708 - storage-Legacy can throw when calling ConvertToUnicode, which is geek-speak for being unable to retrieve saved passwords or save new passwords, according to the release notes.



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Credible Searching

Hakia, a semantic search engine, has announced a call to librarians and information professionals. From the press release:


Complete Story

First Atom-based Linux MID ships for $700

Aigo has started shipping what appears to be the first mobile Internet device (MID) based on the Intel Atom. The Linux-based Aigo P8860D is based on a soon-to-ship "M528" MID from Gigabyte, and features an 800MHz Z500 Atom, 512MB RAM, and a 4.8-inch touchscreen.


Complete Story

Development Release: FreeNAS 0.69 Beta 4

The fourth beta release of FreeNAS 0.69, a FreeBSD-based operating system providing free Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services, is ready for testing. From the release notes: "Upgrade to FreeBSD 6.4; upgrade to rsync 3.0.4, PHPMailer 2.2.1, Transmission 1.34; add new attribute 'Temporary directory' to UPnP WebGUI to define a....



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Microsoft begins to reveal Visual Studio 2010

Yesterday Microsoft started introducing Visual Studio 2010 to Windows developers with a press release and a MSDN website. Introductions to the next Visual Studio also popped up on various technology news sites; InformationWeek, ChannelWeb, Microsoft Watch, BetaNews, and Ars Technica each have brief summary and explaination of the information Microsoft has released so far. Only NetworkWorld digs into the subject by asking various developers to give their impressions of the new Visual Studio features.


Complete Story

Open up your iPod with Rockbox

Open up your iPod with Rockbox
© nimbu



Rockbox, the open source jukebox firmware, just released its latest version, version 3.0. Rockbox adds WMA, Ogg and Flac support for your iPod (and other portable music players) and not to forget, DOOM! Yes, that classic 3D first person shooter game. For a complete list of features, check out this page.



So, if you are sick and tired of your iPod (insert your favorite portable music player here) and its closed nature, I suggest trying out Rockbox - it definitely makes your iPod rock!

See full article
.





Related Entries:


Microsoft Plans Wireless iPod Killer - 05 July 2006


iPod Tuning - 04 Dezember 2006


Music to iKey to iPod...Or Other USB Recording Device - 19 December 2006


You Go, I Go, IMainGo- iPODS Take Your Sound EVERYWHERE! - 22 May 2007











Contents of this feed are a property of Creative Weblogging Limited and are protected by copyright laws. Violations will be prosecuted. Please email us if you'd like to use this feed for non-commercial activities at feeds - at - creative-weblogging.com.





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x2x is a Software Alternative to a KVM Switch

Linux.com: "Simply put, x2x takes advantage of the X Window System's ability to run a display over a TCP/IP network. In this case, you are not running a display as much as you are taking charge of another display's mouse and keyboard."


Complete Story

Sun goes commercial with OpenSSO

Sun Tuesday released a commercial version of OpenSSO offering full support and indemnity as it works towards its promise to open source all its software.


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The first JBoss Cache 3.0.0 CR is now available

Manik is looking for feedback on the new features and performance characteristics, including: performance under load, performance in large clusters, and backward compatibility against code written for JBC 2.x.



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Nokia Launches Linux Based Qt Extended Mobile Platform

"Nokia announced today the launch of Qt Extended 4.4, a complete mobile and embedded development platform based on the open source Qt toolkit. It is designed with a modular architecture that provides building blocks for assembling a Linux-based software stack for various embedded devices ranging from phones to set-top boxes." ArsTechnica showcases the various features and enhancements of the platform. There are some impressive screenshots of the Qt widgets as well.


Complete Story

Fedora 10 Boot Without Plymouth

KMS but without Plymouth Screen on Fedora 10

Video tour: Bluefish editor

Bluefish is a GUI-based text and code editor that runs on "most (maybe all?) POSIX compatible operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD, Ma cOS X, OpenBSD, and Solaris." It has an impressive feature list, and is both lightweight and speedy. It is not currently under heavy development primarily because it is a mature program that already does exactly what it is supposed to do with no fuss or complaint.



Complete Story

Survey Says: Windows and Open Source Play Well Together

LinuxInsider: "Through its Open Source Census initiative, OpenLogic hopes to gain a clearer picture of the OSS landscape. Now in its ninth month, the census has found a sizable presence of OSS among Windows users, European governments and the financial industry."


Complete Story

Development Release: Fedora 10 Beta

Jesse Keating has announced the availability of the beta release of Fedora 10: "Fedora 10 Beta: Cambridge's foundations are laid. Just on the heels of the Fedora project's fifth anniversary, the beta of Fedora Linux version 10 (code-named Cambridge) is now available. Among the new, fun, and interesting....



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Reducing Boot Time On a General Linux Distro

Linzer writes "In this blog entry, Fred Crozat (head of Mandriva's engineering team in France) explains in great detail how his team has been detecting and getting rid of bottlenecks in the boot process, from the early stages to loading the desktop environment, thus decreasing overall boot time. An informative tour of the nuts and bolts of the boot process and how they can be tinkered with: initrd, initscripts, udev, modprobe calls. The basic tool they use for performance analysis is bootchart, which produces a map of process information and resource utilization during boot. The final trick: preloading desktop environment files while waiting for the user to type her password."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.




Complete Story

Zen and the Art of the Six-Figure Linux Job

An expert in the Linux job market talks about earning a lucrative payday. Plus: the effect of H-1B visas on Linux salaries.


Complete Story

Ubuntu vs Windows: 2 - 1

Some bloggers have wondered whether the netbook hype that’s currently going on will popularize Linux among (former) Windows users. For me personally, I can aswer that question with a firm ‘yes’. Not only did I opt to install Ubuntu on my netbook, I’ve also set it up on my ‘TV-PC’.


Digg Story Here

Invitation to The National Public Meeting on Software Patents

Software patents in India occupy a contentious and indeterminate legal space. While recent amendments to the Patent Act have sought to bring our law in conformity with WTO-mandated standards, these amendments have shied from pronouncing conclusively on the patentability of software.



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Toshiba samples 256GB notebook SSD

Toshiba upped the ante for 2.5-inch solid state drives (SSDs), sampling a device packing 256GB of MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash storage. The "THNS256GE8BC" has a 3.0 Gb/sec. SATA interface, and is joined by 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB SSD modules aimed at lower-cost devices, says Toshiba.


Complete Story

Mozilla patches Firefox faster than expected

Mozilla beat its own schedule by patching Firefox late Friday to fix a password bug it had inadvertently introduced earlier in the week.


Read More

Open Source to Go


The age of mobile computing is upon us. Small form-factor laptops, even smaller netbooks and smartphones keep us continuously connected with colleagues, family, friends and our bosses around the clock. These mobile gadgets make it possible to take all of our data with us wherever we go. Mobile technology also lets us bring our favorite entertainment outlets with us. We carry music to hear on our iPods, videos to view on our smartphones and full-length movies to play on our portable computers.


Complete Story

Flash CS4 First Impressions

Adobe Flash CS4 is out! Read the first impressions and comments for this excellent piece of software, that has changed, it still changes it will change the web as we know it.



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Setting up your own certificate authority with gnoMint

gnoMint is a desktop application that lets you easily manage your own certificate authority (CA). Many secure communications technologies use digital certificates to ensure that the party or service they are connecting with is not an impostor. For many people, the main exposure to digital certificates comes when they visit an HTTPS Web site and see a certificate to validate that they have contacted the right Web server.



Complete Story

Motorola Building Up 350-Person Android Team. Nokia Also Sniffing Around.

TechCrunch: "The iPhone may be the only game in town for serious mobile Web developers right now, but that won't last long. Next year, the iPhone will see some serious competition from Google's Android platform."


Complete Story

Delta Airlines Runs Linux in Planes w/ In-Seat Entertainment

I was flying Delta the other day and caught this (blurry) photo with my iPhone. The pre-flight video caused the system to crash and when they rebooted, the lil' Linux Penguin was on screen clear as day. This is the system that runs their games, flight information, and television on touchscreens.


Digg Story Here

Distribution Release: Ultima Linux 8.4

Martin Ultima has announced the release of Ultima Linux 8.4, a Slackware-compatible desktop and server distribution built around the KDE desktop: "The Ultima Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Ultima Linux 8.4. This release includes over 850 packages, including the Linux kernel 2.6.24.7, X.Org....



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Change Your Forgotten Windows Password with the Linux System Rescue CD

So far in our series we've covered how to reset your Windows password with the Ultimate Boot CD, but if you are a little more technical you might want to simply use the excellent System Rescue CD, which is based on Linux.


Note that if you are using standard Windows encryption for your files, resetting the password will permanently disable access to those files. In that case you should crack the password, which is something we'll cover in an upcoming article.


image


If you are an Ubuntu user and forgot your password, we've covered how to do that as well, either the easy way with the grub menu or alternately with the live cd.


Creating the System Rescue CD


Before you can do anything else, you'll need to download a copy of the System Rescue CD and burn the ISO image to disc. For this task, I prefer the simple ImgBurn utility, but you are free to use whatever burning application you prefer instead.


If you are using ImgBurn, click the Write image file to disc button…


image


Click the File button near Source and then pick the ISO file, then click the Burn button near the bottom. That's about all there is to it.


image 


Download the System Rescue CD from sysresccd.org


Resetting Your Password


Now that you have your boot CD, you'll want to boot from it, which will take you to this very informative prompt, with some basic instructions on how to use the CD.


image


The first thing we'll want to do is mount the hard drive, using this command. (Note that you might not need to use the –o force argument, it's only really for when the system didn't shut down correctly)


ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows –o force



You can use the df –m command to verify that the drive has been mounted and that it's the right drive. Note that it's mounted on /mnt/windows at this point.


image


Now you'll want to change directory into the Windows/System32/config directory inside of your windows installation. For mine, the full path was something like this, but it might be different on yours:


cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config



Once you are in that directory, you should see that there is a SAM file, which is where we'll want to change the passwords.


image


To change the password we'll use the chntpw command, and it's most useful to use the –l argument first to list out all the usernames in the file.


chntpw –l SAM



image


Now you can add the –u argument with your username, which will end up being something like this command, except you'll want to replace geek with your username:


chntpw –u geek SAM



This will present you with a wizard type screen:


image


I'm going to assume that you want to set a new password, so just type "2″ at the prompt, add in your password, and remember to use the "y" key when prompted to save.


image


At this point your password has been changed, so you can issue the reboot command to restart the computer (should take the disc out of the drive)


image


And now you should be able to login with the new password:





image





Note that I tested this technique on both XP and Vista with good results.



Copyright © HowToGeek.com. All Rights Reserved.


Related Posts:

  • Find a Forgotten Password Saved in Firefox
  • Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CD
  • Reset Your Forgotten Password the Easy Way Using the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows
  • Reset Your Forgotten Ubuntu Password in 2 Minutes or Less
  • Using Password Phrases For Better Security



  • Change Your Forgotten Windows Password with the Linux System Rescue CD
    - The How-To Geek







    Read More

    Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

    "Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner [...] «It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign,» he told The Guardian..."



    Read and Vote

    New Approach To Malware Modifies Linux Kernel

    Hugh Pickens writes "Professor Avishai Wool has unveiled a program to watch for malware on servers with a modification to the Linux kernel. 'We modified the kernel in the system's operating system so that it monitors and tracks the behavior of the programs installed on it,' says Wool. Essentially, Wool says, his software team has built a model that predicts how software running on a server should work (pdf). If the kernel senses abnormal activity, it stops the program from working before malicious actions occur. 'When we see a deviation, we know for sure there's something bad going on,' Wool explains. Wool cites problems with costly anti-virus protection. 'Our methods are much more efficient and don't chew up the computer's resources.'"

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.




    Complete Story

    José Fonseca: Fast SSE2 pow: tables or polynomials?

    We found that for many applications a substantial part of the time spent in software vertex processing was being spend in the powf function. So quite a few of us in Tungsten Graphics have been looking into a faster powf.



    Introduction



    The basic way to compute powf(x, y) efficiently is by computing the equivalent exp2(log2(x)*y)) expression, and then fiddle with IEEE 754 floating point exponent to quickly estimate the log2/exp2. This by itself only gives a very coarse approximation. To improve this approximation one has to also look into the mantissa, and then take one of two alternatives: use a lookup table or fit a function like a polynomial.



    Lookup table



    See also:




    exp2



    union f4 {
    int32_t i[4];
    uint32_t u[4];
    float f[4];
    __m128 m;
    __m128i mi;
    };

    #define EXP2_TABLE_SIZE_LOG2 9
    #define EXP2_TABLE_SIZE (1 << EXP2_TABLE_SIZE_LOG2)
    #define EXP2_TABLE_OFFSET (EXP2_TABLE_SIZE/2)
    #define EXP2_TABLE_SCALE ((float) ((EXP2_TABLE_SIZE/2)-1))

    /* 2 ^ x, for x in [-1.0, 1.0[ */
    static float exp2_table[2*EXP2_TABLE_SIZE];

    void exp2_init(void)
    {
    int i;
    for (i = 0; i < EXP2_TABLE_SIZE; i++)
    exp2_table[i] = (float) pow(2.0, (i - EXP2_TABLE_OFFSET) / EXP2_TABLE_SCALE);
    }

    /**
    * Fast approximation to exp2(x).
    * Let ipart = int(x)
    * Let fpart = x - ipart;
    * So, exp2(x) = exp2(ipart) * exp2(fpart)
    * Compute exp2(ipart) with i << ipart
    * Compute exp2(fpart) with lookup table.
    */
    __m128
    exp2f4(__m128 x)
    {
    __m128i ipart;
    __m128 fpart, expipart;
    union f4 index, expfpart;

    x = _mm_min_ps(x, _mm_set1_ps( 129.00000f));
    x = _mm_max_ps(x, _mm_set1_ps(-126.99999f));

    /* ipart = int(x) */
    ipart = _mm_cvtps_epi32(x);

    /* fpart = x - ipart */
    fpart = _mm_sub_ps(x, _mm_cvtepi32_ps(ipart));

    /* expipart = (float) (1 << ipart) */
    expipart = _mm_castsi128_ps(_mm_slli_epi32(_mm_add_epi32(ipart, _mm_set1_epi32(127)), 23));

    /* index = EXP2_TABLE_OFFSET + (int)(fpart * EXP2_TABLE_SCALE) */
    index.mi = _mm_add_epi32(_mm_cvtps_epi32(_mm_mul_ps(fpart, _mm_set1_ps(EXP2_TABLE_SCALE))), _mm_set1_epi32(EXP2_TABLE_OFFSET));

    expfpart.f[0] = exp2_table[index.u[0]];
    expfpart.f[1] = exp2_table[index.u[1]];
    expfpart.f[2] = exp2_table[index.u[2]];
    expfpart.f[3] = exp2_table[index.u[3]];

    return _mm_mul_ps(expipart, expfpart.m);
    }


    log2



    #define LOG2_TABLE_SIZE_LOG2 8
    #define LOG2_TABLE_SIZE (1 << LOG2_TABLE_SIZE_LOG2)
    #define LOG2_TABLE_SCALE ((float) ((LOG2_TABLE_SIZE)-1))

    /* log2(x), for x in [1.0, 2.0[ */
    static float log2_table[2*LOG2_TABLE_SIZE];

    void log2_init(void)
    {
    unsigned i;
    for (i = 0; i < LOG2_TABLE_SIZE; i++)
    log2_table[i] = (float) log2(1.0 + i * (1.0 / (LOG2_TABLE_SIZE-1)));
    }

    __m128
    log2f4(__m128 x)
    {
    union f4 index, p;

    __m128i exp = _mm_set1_epi32(0x7F800000);
    __m128i mant = _mm_set1_epi32(0x007FFFFF);

    __m128i i = _mm_castps_si128(x);

    __m128 e = _mm_cvtepi32_ps(_mm_sub_epi32(_mm_srli_epi32(_mm_and_si128(i, exp), 23), _mm_set1_epi32(127)));

    index.mi = _mm_srli_epi32(_mm_and_si128(i, mant), 23 - LOG2_TABLE_SIZE_LOG2);

    p.f[0] = log2_table[index.u[0]];
    p.f[1] = log2_table[index.u[1]];
    p.f[2] = log2_table[index.u[2]];
    p.f[3] = log2_table[index.u[3]];

    return _mm_add_ps(p.m, e);
    }



    pow



    static inline __m128
    powf4(__m128 x, __m128 y)
    {
    return exp2f4(_mm_mul_ps(log2f4(x), y));
    }


    Polynomial



    For more details see:




    exp2



    #define EXP_POLY_DEGREE 3

    #define POLY0(x, c0) _mm_set1_ps(c0)
    #define POLY1(x, c0, c1) _mm_add_ps(_mm_mul_ps(POLY0(x, c1), x), _mm_set1_ps(c0))
    #define POLY2(x, c0, c1, c2) _mm_add_ps(_mm_mul_ps(POLY1(x, c1, c2), x), _mm_set1_ps(c0))
    #define POLY3(x, c0, c1, c2, c3) _mm_add_ps(_mm_mul_ps(POLY2(x, c1, c2, c3), x), _mm_set1_ps(c0))
    #define POLY4(x, c0, c1, c2, c3, c4) _mm_add_ps(_mm_mul_ps(POLY3(x, c1, c2, c3, c4), x), _mm_set1_ps(c0))
    #define POLY5(x, c0, c1, c2, c3, c4, c5) _mm_add_ps(_mm_mul_ps(POLY4(x, c1, c2, c3, c4, c5), x), _mm_set1_ps(c0))

    __m128 exp2f4(__m128 x)
    {
    __m128i ipart;
    __m128 fpart, expipart, expfpart;

    x = _mm_min_ps(x, _mm_set1_ps( 129.00000f));
    x = _mm_max_ps(x, _mm_set1_ps(-126.99999f));

    /* ipart = int(x - 0.5) */
    ipart = _mm_cvtps_epi32(_mm_sub_ps(x, _mm_set1_ps(0.5f)));

    /* fpart = x - ipart */
    fpart = _mm_sub_ps(x, _mm_cvtepi32_ps(ipart));

    /* expipart = (float) (1 << ipart) */
    expipart = _mm_castsi128_ps(_mm_slli_epi32(_mm_add_epi32(ipart, _mm_set1_epi32(127)), 23));

    /* minimax polynomial fit of 2**x, in range [-0.5, 0.5[ */
    #if EXP_POLY_DEGREE == 5
    expfpart = POLY5(fpart, 9.9999994e-1f, 6.9315308e-1f, 2.4015361e-1f, 5.5826318e-2f, 8.9893397e-3f, 1.8775767e-3f);
    #elif EXP_POLY_DEGREE == 4
    expfpart = POLY4(fpart, 1.0000026f, 6.9300383e-1f, 2.4144275e-1f, 5.2011464e-2f, 1.3534167e-2f);
    #elif EXP_POLY_DEGREE == 3
    expfpart = POLY3(fpart, 9.9992520e-1f, 6.9583356e-1f, 2.2606716e-1f, 7.8024521e-2f);
    #elif EXP_POLY_DEGREE == 2
    expfpart = POLY2(fpart, 1.0017247f, 6.5763628e-1f, 3.3718944e-1f);
    #else
    #error
    #endif

    return _mm_mul_ps(expipart, expfpart);
    }


    log2



    #define LOG_POLY_DEGREE 5

    __m128 log2f4(__m128 x)
    {
    __m128i exp = _mm_set1_epi32(0x7F800000);
    __m128i mant = _mm_set1_epi32(0x007FFFFF);

    __m128 one = _mm_set1_ps( 1.0f);

    __m128i i = _mm_castps_si128(x);

    __m128 e = _mm_cvtepi32_ps(_mm_sub_epi32(_mm_srli_epi32(_mm_and_si128(i, exp), 23), _mm_set1_epi32(127)));

    __m128 m = _mm_or_ps(_mm_castsi128_ps(_mm_and_si128(i, mant)), one);

    __m128 p;

    /* Minimax polynomial fit of log2(x)/(x - 1), for x in range [1, 2[ */
    #if LOG_POLY_DEGREE == 6
    p = POLY5( m, 3.1157899f, -3.3241990f, 2.5988452f, -1.2315303f, 3.1821337e-1f, -3.4436006e-2f);
    #elif LOG_POLY_DEGREE == 5
    p = POLY4(m, 2.8882704548164776201f, -2.52074962577807006663f, 1.48116647521213171641f, -0.465725644288844778798f, 0.0596515482674574969533f);
    #elif LOG_POLY_DEGREE == 4
    p = POLY3(m, 2.61761038894603480148f, -1.75647175389045657003f, 0.688243882994381274313f, -0.107254423828329604454f);
    #elif LOG_POLY_DEGREE == 3
    p = POLY2(m, 2.28330284476918490682f, -1.04913055217340124191f, 0.204446009836232697516f);
    #else
    #error
    #endif

    /* This effectively increases the polynomial degree by one, but ensures that log2(1) == 0*/
    p = _mm_mul_ps(p, _mm_sub_ps(m, one));

    return _mm_add_ps(p, e);
    }


    Results



    The accuracy vs speed for several table sizes and
    polynomial degrees can be seen in the chart below.





    The difference is not much, but the polynomial approach outperforms
    the table approach for any desired precision. This was for 32bit
    generated code in a Core 2. If generating 64bit code, the difference
    between the two is bigger. The performance of the table approach will
    also tend to degrade when other computation is going on at the same
    time, as the likelihood the lookup tables get trashed out of the cache
    is higher. So by all accounts, the polynomial approach seems a safer
    bet.



    Complete Story

    Monday, September 29, 2008

    Omega 10 Desktop Linux

    The Red Hat community engineer behind the Fedora Games and Fedora Xfce media spins, Rahul Sundaram, announced the release of Omega 10 Beta, a remix of Fedora this past weekend. Omega is a desktop/mobile Linux distribution that is based upon Fedora but includes packages from the Livna RPM repository. The Omega 10 Beta release is roughly equivalent to the Fedora 10 Beta to be released tomorrow, but integrates multimedia support not found in Fedora.


    Complete Story

    Scrum and Supporting Your Existing Products

    Bugs! How do you handle fixing bugs and enhancement requests on an existing release of your product while your team(s) are working on the next release? Typically as you start work on a new version of your product there will be bugs or enhancement requests coming in from users of the previous versions. Successful software teams are able to address both the needs of their customers using the current release and implement features for the next release to address future customer scenarios.



    Read and Vote

    Install open-vm-tools on Debian 4.0 (Etch)

    Debian Admin: "VMware Inc. released an OpenSource version of their VMware-Tools, called open-vm-tools. While they’re quite easy to install on Gentoo (emerge open-vm-tools), it’s not that easy having them installed on a Debian Etch (4.0) if you want to go the proper way."


    Complete Story

    Kernel prepatch 2.6.27-rc8

    Linus has released 2.6.27-rc8. "This
    one should be the last one: we're certainly not running out of regressions,
    but at the same time, at some point I just have to pick some point, and on
    the whole the regressions don't look _too_ scary.
    " It is worth
    noting that the e1000e corruption problem remains unsolved; one assumes
    that the final 2.6.27 release will not happen before that gets fixed.


    Read More

    Tools for editing vector graphics in GNU/Linux

    Over the last decade, vector graphics have gone from being a revolutionary format to a standard method of rendering computer images -- so much so that they are standard in the KDE 4 desktops. This popularity is based on the fact that, because they represent images as mathematical equations -- usually in SVG format -- vector graphics open faster, render better on screen, and can be resized more readily than raster graphics, in which an image is created pixel by pixel. Free software includes a number of options for working with vector graphics, including several simple ones: OpenOffice.org's Draw, KOffice's Karbon14, and Inkscape, which is currently the premier vector graphic editor in free software.



    Complete Story

    The Netherlands Patent Office changes to open source software

    The Netherlands Patent Office is the first government authority to implement the ‘Nederland Open in Connection' action plan and to switch a large number of its ICT systems to what is known as open source software.



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    gOS 3: Is it better than Ubuntu?

    Combining the best parts of Mac OS X and Ubuntu, gOS is truly a worthy competitor in the OS wars. It has simplicity, a well designed interface, a rock solid linux core and web apps. But is it good enough? Is it ‘a Linux for the rest of us!’ ? Let’s jump in and take a peek at the latest gOS, version 3.


    Digg Story Here

    Could Android Grease Motorola's Wheels?


    Nearly a week after T-Mobile, HTC and Google unveiled the G1, the first handset running the open source Android mobile platform, another handset maker is reportedly preparing a large push to incorporate the nascent mobile software system into its upcoming devices. A report Sunday stated that Motorola is boosting the size of its Android development team from 50 to 350. The information was attributed to an unnamed developer who was approached by a headhunter for one of the positions.


    Complete Story

    Flash CS4 First Impressions

    Adobe Flash CS4 is out! Read the first impressions and comments for this excellent piece of software, that has changed, it still changes it will change the web as we know it.



    Read and Vote

    Four Expert Tips on Installing New Linux Apps

    IT Business: "Under Linux, installing new applications isn't a particularly hard task, but installations do come in several different varieties, so it's worth understanding the differences and what you'll need to know to make them work."


    Complete Story

    100+ Beautiful Free Fonts for Ubuntu

    If you are a graphic and web designer, the default fonts that came with Ubuntu will surely be not enough for your needs. However, if you know where to look, you can find plenty of additional fonts that can help get the job done.



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    How to make Ubuntu extremely fast

    Old hardware? Want a faster boot up? Need to free some system resources? Want snappier applications? This is for you.


    Digg Story Here

    Iyonix Range Taken Off the Market

    A huge blow to the already small RISC OS market and community: Castle Technology has announced that the Iyonix range of ARM-based RISC OS computers will be taken off the market after 30th September. Support will continue through the Iyonix website, the dealer network, and by email. This leaves Advantage6 as the only manufacturer of RISC OS hardware with its A9Home computer.


    Complete Story

    Mozilla rushes to fix Firefox password bug

    Just a day after it released Firefox 3.0.2 to fix 11 vulnerabilities, Mozilla said that an overlooked password bug requires a fast-track update it hopes to launch this week.


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    Simplify email with Smail

    A mail transport agent (MTA) provides the "plumbing" for your email system by taking mail from a client application such as Evolution or Mozilla Thunderbird and routing it to the correct location on the right machine. There are plenty of good MTAs, such as Postfix, Sendmail, and qmail, but these popular mail servers require a large amount of configuration, and may be overkill for users who merely want to set up an MTA to test a Web development project or need to move mail around locally. Smail is a better alternative for these scenarios because it generally requires no configuration, and its memory footprint is less than the more fully featured MTAs.



    Complete Story

    Event Report: Atlanta Linux Fest

    I attended the Atlanta Linux Fest on Saturday. The event was organized mainly by Ubuntu’s Georgia LoCo, but had assistance from several of the other LUGs in the area. Dave Yates, podcaster extraordinaire, claims attendance at 144. For a first year event that’s a great turn out. I was invited to talk about what’s coming in Fedora 10 and also talked about some interesting things like Cobbler, FreeIPA, and OLPC. I have had a number of people come up and tell me that they’ve never heard of FreeIPA and an equal number that want to get involved with OLPC. It’s nice to meet some new faces and put some faces with old names. Jas Eckard had his OLPC XO and that of course drew lots of attention. This event has completely wiped me out with regards to swag.


    We came away with a number of ideas - including the thought of creating a Southeast Open Source blog aggregator - ie Open Source Southeast Planet. We are trying this out with our Local LUG right now - Planet UCLUG lives, though it needs a ton of work from someone who can make things pretty. Hopefully will have something Southeast wide shortly.


    I had a number of people come up to me at the event after I mentioned FreeIPA as another cool thing being worked on in Fedora. They were absolutely awestruck - and virtually no one had heard of the project. Another Fedora Project that made waves was First Aid Kit which I mentioned almost right after someone talked about what to do if grub became hosed in Ubuntu.



    Complete Story

    WebKit browser engine aces Acid3 test, stakes claim to No. 1

    Developers working on WebKit announced late last week that the newest build of the browser engine, which powers both Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome, has aced all of the requirements of an important Web standards test.


    Linux World News

    New Approach To Malware Modifies Linux Kernel

    Hugh Pickens writes "Professor Avishai Wool has unveiled a program to watch for malware on servers with a modification to the Linux kernel. 'We modified the kernel in the system's operating system so that it monitors and tracks the behavior of the programs installed on it,' says Wool. Essentially, Wool says, his software team has built a model that predicts how software running on a server should work (pdf). If the kernel senses abnormal activity, it stops the program from working before malicious actions occur. 'When we see a deviation, we know for sure there's something bad going on,' Wool explains. Wool cites problems with costly anti-virus protection. 'Our methods are much more efficient and don't chew up the computer's resources.'"

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.




    Complete Story

    Linux Distro to Newbies: Adapt or Leave!

    Major Linux distros ask new users to deal with non-supported hardware, use install methods that work only with certain distros, and handle snaufus with their peripherals.


    Complete Story

    Linux for Older PCs : From Ubuntu to Vector Linux

    I tried Vector Linux, a slackware based distro, known to be fast and stable, ideal for older machines like mine and yet never compromising on the features...Once all the initial quirks are resolved (especially the xorg issue), VL is a really solid distro. It is fast as expected from Xfce.


    Digg Story Here

    Hockenberry: App Store Policies 'Killing Our Enthusiasm'

    The saga surrounding Apple's policies concerning the App Store hasn't reached its climax just yet. After several seemingly arbitrary application rejections, high profile developers quitting iPhone development, and Apple adding a non-disclosure clause to its App Store rejection emails, we now have another high-profile Mac developer contemplating giving up iPhone development. Craig Hockenberry, of The Iconfactory, has written a public letter to Steve Jobs, detailing his worries that Apple's restrictive App Store policies are detrimental to the young platform.


    Complete Story

    Improving boot time on a general Linux distribution

    Mandriva has done quite a lot of work on optimizing boot speed for its latest release, Mandriva Linux 2009. Frederic Crozat (head of the French engineering team) has written a blog post summarizing Mandriva's past work on this front, and the tweaks and improvements made for 2009.


    read more



    Read and Vote

    Why I Choose Copyleft For My Projects

    Free Software Magazine: "Terry Hancock seemed to raise a few hackles when he presented case recently that “copyleft has no impact on project activity?!)”. I'm not certain why, because it seemed he was just asking a question really..."


    Complete Story

    Save a Web page for later with Read It Later extension

    At first sight, the Read It Later (RIL) extension looks redundant -- after all, you can use Firefox's own bookmarking functionality to save Web pages for later reading. But dig deeper, and you'll discover that it offers enough nifty features to make it a must-have tool for most users.



    Complete Story

    DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 272

    This week in DistroWatch Weekly: Feature: Linux package management cheatsheet, part 2 News: Warnings over e1000e network module, supported languages in Debian "Lenny", Fedora delays, Gentoo tools - Paludis and Metro, OpenSolaris 2008.11 desktop features, Linux Mint for 64-bit hardware, MEPIS Community Released last week: gOS 3.0 "Gadgets",....



    See More Distrowatch

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