Episode 032 – Happy Birthday RHEL

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Total Running Time: 1:08:40

Intro:

Mat Enders, Tony Bemus, and Mary Tomich
Intro Sound bite by Mike Tanner

Summary

Kernel News: Mat
Time: 5:19
Distro Talk: Tony
Time:7:00
Mary Distro Review
Time:21:08
Tech News:
Time: 35:05
Is it Alive? – Mary
Time:1:06:00
Listener Feedback
Time:
Mat’s Soapbox
Time:1:13:26
Outtro Music
Time:1:19:26

Kernel News: Mat

Time: 5:19
Due to Mothers Day we recorded on Saturday morning instead of Sunday last week so that is why some of this kernel news may seem out dated.

Release Candidate:
On Sat, 12 May 2012 19:04:08 PDT Linus Torvalds released kernel 3.4-rc7
This is what Linus had to say about this release:

“This is almost certainly the last -rc in this series – things really have calmed down, and I even considered just cutting 3.4 this weekend, but felt that another week wouldn’t hurt.
…
So go forth and test. And don’t send me any pull requests unless they contain *only* regressions or fixes for really nasty bugs. No more of these silly compiler warning fixes etc any more.”

Mainline:
3.4-rc7

Stable Updates:
On Sat, 12 May 2012 10:20:52 Greg Kroah-Hartman released 3.3.6
There were 52 files changed, 461 files inserted, and 239 files deleted

Kernel Developer Quote:

“Here, take this patch that bloats everyone’s kernel by 5k just because we can’t figure out how to fix our internal testing tools to use the already-existing feature the kernel has today.”
*plonk*

–Greg Kroah-Hartman

Distro Talk: Tony

Time: 7:00

Distrowatch.com

• 5-13 – SystemRescueCd 2.7.0 – Gentoo-based live CD with a collection of data rescue, disk management and networking utilities
• 5-13 – IPFire 2.11 Core 58 – specialist distribution for firewalls
• 5-13 – ROSA 2012 – forked from Mandriva with the goal of delivering a functional and easy-to-use business desktop using KDE 4.8.2
• 5-14 – Chakra GNU/Linux 2012.05 – rolling-release “Archimedes” series featuring KDE 4.8.3
• 5-15 – Ophcrack LiveCD 3.4.0 –
• 5-16 – Parted Magic 2012_05_14 – ive CD with a collection of software for hard disk management and data rescue tasks
• 5-16 – Hybryde Linux 1 – desktop Linux distribution with one unique feature – the ability to switch rapidly and fluidly between a number of desktop environments and window managers without logging out and without having to close open applications first.
• 5-19 – ExTiX 10 – Ubuntu-based Linux distribution for 64-bit computers featuring the GNOME 3 and Razor-qt desktops
• 5-19 – Dream Studio 12.04 – Ubuntu-based distribution with a goal of helping users to create graphics, videos, music and websites

Distro of the Week: Tony

5. Fedora – 1550
4. Debian – 1660
3. Ubuntu – 1906
2. Mageia – 1911
1. Mint – 1447

Mary Distro Review

Time: 21:08
Hybryde Linux Review

Hybryde Linux – so many desktops so little time… or as I like to think of it…a distro made for Mat. Those of you who’ve been listeners for a while have recently watched Mat go from Linux Mint (Ubuntu)….to Solus… to Mat’s Hybrid whatchamacallit…to Linux Mint (Debian)….to who knows… Of course I am kidding my good friend, Mat!

However, I have to admit when I saw this distro that allows you to seamlessly shift from one desktop, I thought of Mat. But enough of Mat—and on to the distro.

Hybryde is an Ubuntu-based live boot DVD which, according to the Google-translated project home page (French), “is a tool to discover and use a multitude of desktop environments and without disconnection.” I had to check this out.

The boot process boots you into the Hy-menu system dashboard. A small dock gives you a terminal, home folder, and the Hybryde menu that expands when clicked. From here you can select one of eight different desktop environments:

• Kde
• Gnome2
• Gnome3
• Unity
• Enlightenment
• OpenBox
• FVWM*
• XFCE

…as well as a full menu of Linux applications. You also can continue to work in the Hybryde dashboard environment.

The Hy-menu also has four options for window managers:

• Metacity (default Gnome)
• Mutter (default for Gnome3)
• Compiz (compositing window manager for X) and the default for Hybryde.
• Kwin (window manager for X and integral part of kde)

The choices seemed endless. But enough about choices, let’s make a decision.

I decided to transition to Gnome 3. The change was smooth and presented me with a serviceable Desktop. A small back-arrow icon located on the right edge of the screen returned me to the Hybryde menu when clicked. I moved between various desktops with ease. It was a very comfortable experience.

The other function of interest to me was the ability to—as Distrowatch described it—“All open applications are carried to any of the available desktops.” Another mini review, this time from Linux User & Developer described the same capability: “The system smartly and fluidly transfers open windows and applications to the new Desktop.”

I decided to test this feature by opening several applications: Firefox, Rhythmbox, and LibreOffice Writer. Then I clicked the back arrow icon, selected another desktop. I was forced to recover my LibreOffice document when I returned to Gnome3.

During my desktop switching testing, Hybryde froze then appeared to go into screen-saver mode. I was unable to roust it from its slumber, but the system suddenly rebooted with no interaction from me, i.e. I didn’t click a reboot or shutdown button—at least none that I could see.

After going to KDE, then attempting to transition back to the Hy-menu, I got a “Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation” error on a black screen. I clicked OK and was able to go back to the Hybryde menu screen.

Shutdown is fast…in approximately five seconds my system was off.

Hybryde is a novelty concept. Switching between desktops quickly and with minimal fuss. I had fun trying different desktops—I hadn’t tried FVWM or OpenBox before installing Hybryde and had a chance to do just that. However, after a short period of time I was done playing around and checking out new desktops. . I see how Hybryde could be helpful by giving a new Linux user the opportunity to preview several fully functional desktops. But don’t see this becoming my main Linux distribution.

*Regarding FVWM, ‘Fill_in_the_blank_with_whatever_f_word_you_like_at_the_time Virtual Window Manager’. The original Author of fvwm, Rob Nation,doesn’t really remember what the F stood for originally.

Tech News:

Time: 35:05

First Inductees To The Internet Hall Of Fame

        Over twenty years ago Vint Cerf founded the Internet Society. The mission of the Internet Society is to ensure that the Internet remain free and open. The Internet Society is also home to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an organization made up of engineers who produce Internet standards, related to TCP/IP. As an example, the IETF developed IPv6 that is going to replace IPv4 addresses, that are going to run out of address space in the near future. The 33 inductees are broken out into three different categories: Pioneers, for the early designers and developers of the Internet; Global Connectors, for individuals around the world who made significant contributions to the global growth of the Internet; and Innovators, for people who made outstanding technological, commercial or policy advances to the Internet. These first Internet Hall of Famers were inducted at the Internet Society’s Global INET 2012 conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society, had this to say:

“This historic assembly of Internet visionaries, innovators and leaders represents an extraordinary breadth of vision and work. While the inductees have extremely diverse backgrounds and represent many different countries, each individual has an incredible passion for their work. The 2012 Internet Hall of Fame celebrates the accomplishments and advancements of 33 talented people who have made significant contributions to the design, development and expansion of the Internet.”

Here’s how the stats break out for the 33 inductees :

• 9 Countries Represented
• 11 PhDs
• 11 Published authors
• 1 Academy Award Winner
• 1 Emmy Award Winner
• 1 Law Degree
• 1 Nobel Prize Winner
• 1 Knighted by Queen Elizabeth

I am not going to read all of the inductees here, just a select few, the entire list can be found here (http://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees).

Pioneers:
Paul Baran
A pioneer, who invented packet switching techniques that played a key role in the development of the Internet.

Vint Cerf
Commonly known as a “Father of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols that are the architecture of the Internet.

Robert Kahn
Known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols and responsible for originating DARPA’s Internet program.

Global Connectors:
Kilnam Chon
He developed the first Internet in Asia, called SDN in 1982.

Nancy Hafkin
She played a central role to enable email connectivity in more than 10 countries during the early 1990s before full Internet connectivity became a reality in most of Africa.

Al Gore
Invented the Internet, no seriously, he was a key proponent of sponsoring legislation that funded the expansion of and greater public access to the Internet.

Innovators:
Tim Berners-Lee
In 1989, he really did invented the World Wide Web. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990.

Paul Mockapetris
He expanded the Internet beyond its academic origins by inventing the Domain Name System (DNS) in 1983.

Linus Torvalds
Created the Linux kernel at age 21 from his mother’s apartment in Helsinki. As Wired magazine wrote in 2003:

“He posted it on the Internet and invited other programmers to improve it. Since then, tens of thousands of them have, making Linux perhaps the single largest collaborative project in the planet’s history.”

Linux now serves as the primary foundation of Internet developers and companies today.

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Skype For Linux Not Dead Yet

        It’s alive! A small bug fix update has been issued for the static package of the Skype Linux client. This hotfix corrects a serious vulnerability in the libpng library. None of the other versions of Skype 2.2 for Linux are affected by this bug i.e. the ones in the Ubuntu software center, Mint repositories, and Debian testing repositories. People use the static package when they want a standalone client that does not dynamically link to local libraries.

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Ballmer Called Worst CEO In The US

        Forbes contributor Adam Hartung wrote an article entitled “Oops! Five CEOs Who Should Have Already Been Fired (Cisco, GE, WalMart, Sears, Microsoft)” And you’ll never guess who he says was the most egregious, Steve Ballmer. Lets look at Stevie’s track record since taking over as leader of the evil empire. He has consistently navigated the behemoth away from the fastest growing and lucrative markets for technology e.g. portable music, tablets, and handsets. Shares of Microsoft peaked at $60 back in 2000 just as Ballmer took over. Within two years the price tanked down to the low $20s. Since then it has rarely made it back into the low $30s where it is now. Plagued by disastrous product launches like Windows Vista, launch delayed for years and over 200 man-years in production left users desperately trying not to upgrade to it. Windows 7 and Office 2010 where such blasé launches that their releases where barely blips on the tech radar. What is his latest caper? Betting the entire farm on Windows 8, and from what I have heard that is most likely to turn into a steaming pile of fecal matter.

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SolusOS Gets Corporate Sponsor

        SolusOS announced on 05/16/2012 that the commercial IT company Soluworks has formed a partnership with SolusOS. Immediately they are going to help increase SolusOS’s Internet presence, and in the near future will also add financial support to the project. This partnership will bring SolusOS the support they need to ensure the projects longevity.

        SoluWorks was founded in 2006 and is a UK registered company. They are a world wide company with offices in Kampala, Uganda. They perform system integration, Internet hosting, and custom applications. They claim their one goal for SoluWorks is to deliver stress-free solutions to our clients.

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RHEL Turns 10

        Everyone knows that Red hat has been around a lot longer than 10 years. the first distribution of Red Hat was made available in October of 1994 hence the codename Halloween. In 1997 Red Hat Linux was available online and sold as boxed sets in stores, it quickly became the choice for both hobbyists and scientists in the US.

        They however did not have the product that today is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Back in 2002 they introduced a product called Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1. This was the first product in the RHEL line. Red Hat has released a timeline to show the evolution and growth of their product line here (http://www.redhat.com/10yearsofrhel/).

        In a webcast to commemorate the occasion of RHEL turning ten Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s President of Products and Technologies, lays out why making the change to the RHEL subscription model was the right move. He then also goes on to talk about some of their mistakes like with the virtualization technologies in RHEL5. Also in the webcast Jim Totton, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Red Hat’s Platform Business Unit, talked about RHEL release cycle with major releases every three years and minor point releases every six months. This is the schedule that they have roughly kept to recently.

        Cormier when asked about how OpenStack components would be integrated into RHEL moving forward had this to say:

“Red Hat is already contributing a lot of code to the cloud platform and will increase its efforts in the future; however, the decision as to which products will include OpenStack components has not yet been made.”

        The webcast which gives a run down of the milestones for RHEL can be seen here (https://vts.inxpo.com/Launch/QReg.htm?ShowKey=9402) after completing a registration form.

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Win $2000 To Attend Linuxcon

        Consider yourself a designer? Want a trip to LinuxCon in either San Diego or Barcelona? Well do we have a contest for you.

        This year the Linux Foundation is having another t-shirt contest. The theme for this years contest is “Inspired by Linux”. The winner will receive $2000 reimbursement to attend either LinuxCon North America or LinuxCon Europe. The first runner up will receive $1000 reimbursement to attend either LinuxCon North America or LinuxCon Europe.

• Here are the basics for the contest:
• File size of less than 1MB
• Image size 640×480
• Format needs to be .jpg, .png, or .gif
• The winner has to provide it vectorized in .svg, .eps, or .pdf

You will also need to provide a description. Here is what they want in it:

“In your description, please tell us how Linux inspires you and explain the inspiration behind the design. The design can depict literally or figuratively the events or ideas that get you pumped up for Linux. Let Linux be your muse.”

        The deadline for submissions is June 8, 2012 at 11:55 PM Pacific Time All of you interested can find the complete rules here (https://www.linux.com/community/contests-and-polls/contests/tshirt-design-contest-2012).

To help you out here is the “Inspired by Linux” video:

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Toy Story 2 Almost Lost Due To An Errant Linux Command

Oren Jacob, then Pixar CTO, explains how when making a movie like Toy Story 2 they use a bunch of Linux machines to render and store they movie files. Then he explains the Linux command rm *. A side note I believe the command actually run was rm -rf so that it also worked recursively. Gaylyn Susman, supervising technical director for Toy Story 2, Goes on to describe rm * as being equivalent to dropping something into a toilet as it flushes. Oren then describes how things were vanishing right before their eyes. Gaylyn tells how it would take a team of twenty to thirty people working for a solid year to reproduce what was lost in about 20 seconds. So then they are like no problem we have backups lets just restore from backup. Well they then discover that for the last month their back ups have been failing. At this point Gaylyn says that she might have a copy of the movie at home because since she had a newborn she had been doing alot of work at home. So they then drive over to Gaylyn’s house pack up her computer and take it back to the studio. When they get back to the studio they carefully take into the data center and hook it up and fire it up. To everyones relief they discover a complete copy of the movie all is saved. What do we learn from this kiddies? One do not give baboons shell access on production systems. Two not only make back ups but ensure that they are working. You can see a copy of the animated short about this incident below.

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IBM Returns OpenOffice Fork To The Fold

Since Apache has finally released OpenOffice 3.4 IBM announces that they will be reintegrating their five year old fork back into OO.

Program Director for Open Standards/Open Source at IBM, Donald Harbinson, made this announcement on the ooo-devel mailing list:

“A few minutes ago, I submitted the IBM Software Grant Agreement and Corporate Contributor License Agreement for IBM Lotus Symphony contribution. This action means infra can begin to prepare to receive the ‘Contribution’ into svn when they’re ready,”

This was an expected move since last January IBM announced that Symphony 3.0.1 would be the last release of Lotus Symphony. Since OO is now an Apache Software Foundation Incubator project, IBM along with any OO contributor can now use OO as a base for a proprietary offering as the Apache Software License (ASL) v2 is a non-copyleft license. IBM however is not going to pursue that option at this time. They are instead realigning their development team with the OO community.

Could this be the death knell for LibreOffice? This remerge of could will bring 30+ new features to OO. The latest releaase of OO had 87% of downloads for Windows machines while the Linux downloads totaled a mere 2%. What story does this tell about LibreOffice? It certainly has captured the minds of open source developers and the community but without Windows users is the user base large enough to sustain it? Only time will tell.

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Kdenlive

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Is it Alive?

Time: 1:06:00

Is it Alive/Ubuntu?

During this segment of the show, I challenge Mat and Tony to identify whether a Linux distro is alive or dead? But this week I decided to mix it up for my friends, Mat and Tony. I will name five distros. Mat and Tony will identify whether the named distro is an Ubuntu derivative. The distros for the May 19 show:

***************
Madbox Linux – An Ubuntu-based distro with OpenBox as the desktop

Mat: Ubuntu
Tony: Not Ubuntu
Verdict: Ubuntu

***************
ImagineOS – an operating system based on the excellent Slackware Linux.

Mat: Not Ubuntu
Tony: Ubuntu
Verdict: Not Ubuntu

*****************
Meego – a Linux-based open source mobile operating system project, primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in the consumer electronics market.

Mat: Not Ubuntu
Tony: Not Ubuntu
Verdict: Not Ubuntu (Fedora)

*************
Fuduntu – a Fedora-based Linux distribution designed to fit in somewhere between Fedora and Ubuntu, and, while optimized for netbooks and other portable computers,

Mat: Not Ubuntu
Tony: Not Ubuntu
Verdict: Not Ubuntu (Fedora)

***********
Comfusion – a desktop Linux distribution that combines an Ubuntu base system with the latest 3D desktop technologies on a live DVD.

Mat: Ubuntu
Tony: Ubuntu
Verdict: Ubuntu

********************
FINAL SCORE:
Mat: 5
Tony: 3

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Listener Feedback

Time: 1:10:43

Mickey Hoover – Spelling out words
Pagal – Sticher Listing
fiftyonefifty – HPR 1000th episode

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Mat’s Soapbox

Time: 1:13:26

Outtro Music

Time: 1:19:26

Evil Things by Tenpenny Joke

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