Episode 035 – Hoedown
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Total Running Time: 1:30:50
Summary
Kernel News: Mat
Time: 7:04
Distro Talk: Tony
Time:9:35
Mary Distro Review
Time:17:51
Vector Linux 7 – SOHO Edition
Tech News:
Time:26:23
Auto Industry Might Get It’s First Tier 1 Supplier Using Android
Oracle V Lodsys
Tim Burke of Red Hat Has A New Job As A Microsoft Apologist
Netflix Rolls Out Their Own Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Canonical Announces Partnership With Satan Ooops I Mean Microsoft
Mate versus Cinnamon
Windows Update compromised
Top 5 Countries With Debian Developers
KDE SC 4.8.4
KDE Announces 4.9 Beta1 and Testing Initiative
Kubuntu on Google +
Wavemon
Is it Alive? – Mary
Time:56:44
Listener Feedback
Time:1:00:57
Mat’s Soapbox
Time:1:07:27
Special Interview
Time:1:14:11
Kartik Subbarao – Collabograte
Outtro Music
Time:1:25:25
Fire Wind by John Sotter ~ Acoustic Warrior
Intro:
Tony Bemus, Mat Enders, and Mary Tomich
Intro Sound bite by Mike Tanner
Kernel News: Mat
Time: 7:04
Release Candidate:
On Fri, 8 Jun 2012 19:03:19 PDT Linus Torvalds released kernel 3.5-rc2
This is what he had to say about it:
“We have the usual assortment of fixes: drivers (gpu, i2c, acpi, clocksource), architectures (mostly x86 perf, but some trivial powerpc and parsic stuff), filesystems (fuse, cifs, ext4, ubifs) along with VM updates and some documentation updates. And timer, irq and scheduler fixes.
Go forth and test,”
–Linus Torvalds
Mainline:
3.5-rc2
Stable Updates:
Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:49:42 PDT Greg Kroah-Hartman released kernel 3.0.33
There were 65 files changed, 384 files inserted, 192 files deleted
On Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:51:04 PDT Greg Kroah-Hartman released kernel 3.3.8
There were 105 files changed, 1565 files inserted, 1030 files deleted
On Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:51:59 PDT Greg Kroah-Hartman released kernel 3.4.1
There were 91 files changed, 620 files inserted, 263 files deleted
Kernel Developer Quote:
“Heh. +Alan Cox was complaining about Android taking a long time to download and compile. “hours” and “going out to lunch”.
I must have ADHD, because I’m profiling the kernel build process where “make -j32″ from a clean tree on my config takes 19 seconds, and I want to shave it down a bit more.”
–Linus Torvalds
Distro Talk: Tony
Time: 9:35
- 6-03 – ZevenOS 2.5 “Neptune” – a Debian-based distribution with a choice of KDE, LXDE and Enlightenment desktops and a number of wireless network diagnostic tools
- 6-04 – Snowlinux 2 “Cinnamon” – Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution
- 6-05 – 2X OS 7.1 – a specialist Linux-based operating system for thin clients
Distro of the Week: Tony
- openSUSE – 1564
- Ubuntu – 2003
- Fedora – 2109
- Mageia – 2569
- Mint – 3387
Compiling the Crux Kernel
The Crux iso can be downloaded from the project’s web-site. The site also contains the instructions for compiling the kernel and the name of the files that must be edited .
http://crux.nu/Main/Handbook2-7#ntoc9
After attempting—unsuccessfullly– to boot my compiled kernel, I conducted additional reserch and found this blog entry:
Via the instructions from this site, I successfully built and booted the Crux kernel to a command prompt.
Next stop: Getting networking up and running and install a desktop.
Mary Distro Review
Time: 17:51
Vector Linux 7 – SOHO Edition
Everything and the Kitchen Sink
Last week’s distro list included Vector Linux 7.0 SOHO Edition…SOHO as in Small Office/Home Office. If you’re a B.O. (big office), you’re S.O.L…just kidding
Vector Linux SOHO v7 is based on Slackware Linux and uses the 3.2.6 kernel
Unlike the 7.0 standard edition, Vector Linux SOHO edition does not have a live CD version but dry your eyes…its install includes two CDs—the core install plus the extras. I downloaded both CDs and decided to install Vector in VirtualBox rather than throwing directly on a partition. Sda6 has been getting a lot of work lately and I thought I would give it a rest.
My general impression of Vector’s install process was favorable. Many install managers present you with a single install option per screen. Vector’s Localization Settings are presented dashboard style on a single screen. I appreciate the fact they gave me credit for being able to do more than one thing at a time. The only glitch I encountered was on the partition customization page. Since I was using a new virtual machine, I had to create the partition Gparted fired up and I made my selections. But closing it to continue with the installation wasn’t as intuitive as it should be. I recall a somewhat similar situation when I installed Chakra Linux, except its partition manager opened into a separate window; Vector’s opened in a frame within the dashboard.
Other installation notables include the ability to set user rights when creating the non-root user. This option might confuse newbies, but seasoned geeks can make use of it. I left the defaults in place: scanner, audio, games, plugdev, disk, CD. NOT checked were adm, sys. The final install screen shows various system services that you can choose to start when booting Vector Linux: mysqld, fuse, samba, cups, ssh, firewall, inetd, etc etc. An options I am not accustomed to seeing during install. Another surprising option I had was a choice of boot loader—I could install either LILO or GRUB2. (I didn’t say kitchen sink for nothing)
A system-generated reboot continues configuring the system…e.g graphics. As the system was booting, a series of single line notifications flashed at the bottom of the screen. The Vector people took specific lines from the boot-up log and flashed them on-screen, below the Vector logo. Definitely more informative than spinning or pulsing icons one typically sees.
After supplying the login credentials, I ran into a problem—probably due to my graphics card and the choice I made for graphics configuration. Per the error message:“Your session only only lasted less than 10 seconds. Try logging in with the failsafe method blah blah…” So I did. Then I got “Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation.” I knew I should have selected vesa drivers!
I wiped the partition and reinstalled, this time selecting a different video option and changed the desktop- from KDE to XFCE which is not as taxing on the video.. It worked! Fluxbox worked, too.
On Vector Linux SOHO, XFCE uses the Mac-like Cairo Dock at the bottom and an XFCE panel at the top of the display. Personally, I am not a fan of this type of set up. I prefer all of my desktop icons to be located in one spot instead of scattered around. It’s a personal preference but it just seems more efficient.
Well, on to the apps menu… All I can say is this distro is loaded!
- Graphics packages include: GIMP (although only 2.6), Inkscape, Scribus, Xsane, plus the kinds of tools for a well-stocked graphics workstation.
- Internet: Opera, Firefox, Konqueror
- Multimedia (audio): Juk, Amarok, VLC, Dragon Player, Gnome Mplayer, Kplayer, UMPlayer (based on SMPlayer),
- Office: LibreOffice 3.5, plus a host of KDE applications (Korganizer, kTimeTracker, etc.)
- Development: kDevelop4, QT4 designer, Quanta Plus (web development), Geany (programming IDE), Cmake, etc.
- Games galore (hmmm….isn’t this for office work??) But all work and no play makes Mat…crabby.
Since it’s based on Slackware, Vector Linux uses the package manager, Gslapt, which opens into a synaptics-like, dual-pane window. The package listing is above. Below are five tabs which provide additional information about the package: Description, Dependencies, Changelog, Files, etc.
Installing packages is really no different than using Synaptic for Debian-based distors. Dependencies are met and the package is installed. When I first looked at the list of programs, the status box for all of them was blue indicating that the visible programs were installed. Thought I was in view installed but looked to be in View all. And given the myriad of available programs in the menu, it’s quite possible that everything had been installed. Performed an update to the system and encountered no problems at all. Very similar to the synaptic approach.
The command line version is slapt-get. If you have used Debian’s apt-get, you’ll have a fairly good idea how to use slapt-get.
The SOHO edition of Vector might be overkill for some but make no mistake about it, if you need a tool to get your work done, Vector likely has it.
3.5 cups out of five.
Tech News:
Time: 26:23
Auto Industry Might Get It’s First Tier 1 Supplier Using Android
For many years Parrot has supplied microchips to component companies like Delphi, Siemens VDO and Visteon. An indirect supplier to automotive giants like Toyota, Renault, BMW and Volkswagen Parrot could find itself in a position to become a tier 1 supplier. They are best known for creating hands free phone devices. They have spent three years and many millions of Euros creating the first car stereo system using Android. The after market radio named “Asteroid” has already sold somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 thousand units retailing for about $290. The current version has only a few apps however the company has released an SDK online inviting developers to create new apps for the platform. According to Roger Lanctot, associate director for the global automotive practice at Strategy Analytics, this is a potential “game changer” for Parrot. He went on to say:
“Because they embraced it early, they certainly have some advantages in terms of their experience in working with Android and apps-based platforms in a system in a car. The Android proposition is something new and different because most of the Tier 1 suppliers have not really embraced Android. So this very much sets Parrot apart. Their focus on Android does put them in a position to be a Tier 1 candidate,”
Parrot is going to release three new models in September. They have also received agreements from two carmakers, who have yet to be named, to use their products in several new car models.
Oracle V Lodsys
Poop Says Vomit Has A Bad Odor
On June 1st 2012 in a sixteen page document Oracle filed Case 2:12-cv-00550-CNC against LODSYS, LLC, and LODSYS GROUP, LLC here after referred to as Lodsys. Oracle is bringing suit against Lodsys claiming that not only are they not infringing the four patents they are using against Oracle customers, but that the patents themselves are invalid.
Lodsys has been sending letters to Oracle customers since early 2011. Some of these customers are Epicor an enterprise software company, Walgreens the largest drug retailer in the US, and REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) a large retailer of outdoor sporting equipment. Lodsys brought suit against these companies in May after they refused to pay Lodsys for a license.
Lodsys and Apple had a similar problem about a year ago. Apple filed suit against Lodsys for suing people who were developing apps for the Apple App Store. Apple said that these developers where covered by a license agreement that Apple already had with Lodsys covering in-app purchases. Lodsys said that this agreement does not cover developers on the iOS platform.
When Lodsys tried the same thing with Android app authors Google did not mess around trying to defend them. Google just went right for the jugular and filed a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to get their patents invalidated.
Just as an aside I do not understand why the Oracle suit was filed in Wisconsin when Oracle is based in California and Lodsys is based in Texas. If anybody out there has a clue please let me know.
Tim Burke of Red Hat Has A New Job As A Microsoft Apologist
I was going to write a follow up to my article last week about Fedora/Redhat and UEFI. However Carla Schroder over at LXer did a much better job than I would have so here is a link to her article. Also if you read the comments note the obvious Red Hat appologist going by the name of caitlyn.
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/168183/
Netflix Rolls Out Their Own Content Delivery Network (CDN)
In the past Netflix used commercial CDNs to deliver their streaming video into their customers hands. With Netflix accounting for approximately 30% of all peak ISP traffic in the US they needed a better solution. They took the step of developing their own CDN called Netflix Open Connect. They developed the system completely from the ground up designing the boxes, that mostly utilize commodity off the shelf hardware, and the stack on which it runs. They are going to deploy these CDNs to ISPs who want them. The number an ISP will get depends on Netflix own determination of need. After the boxes are installed into the ISPs data center the ISP will have no management or break fix responsibility, Netflix will handle all of that. Neflix first started to deploy these boxes at the end of 2011. For the software stack they went with FreeBSD 9.0 and Nginx. For Netflix announcement about this see here . For the specifications on the hardware see here. For the software stack see here.
With all this use of open source when are we going to see a Linux client come on Netflix.
Canonical Announces Partnership With Satan Ooops I Mean Microsoft
Canonical announced on 6/7/2012 a new partnership with Microsoft that will allow Ubuntu Linux to run on Windows Azure. Windows Azure is Microsoft’s Platform as a Service (PaaS). Let’s look at all of the Linux distributions MS is making available.
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, No surprise here this is the anounce ment this article is about
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2, Again no surprise, this goes back to the Novell MS deal
openSUSE 12.1, No surprise either see above reason
CentOS 6.2, This is also no surprise as MS understands they need Red Hat or a Red Hat derivitive to really be attractive to the serious Linux server market, and since Red Hat has their own cloud offering it stand to reason the MS would use the most popular Red Hat derivitive.
This partnership, between MS and Canonicle will allow:
- The ability to completely manage individual virtual machine instances
- To fully customize and control the infrastructure behind Cloud instances
This partnership allowed MS and Canonical engineers to work together to test and ensure that Ubuntu will be enterprise ready from the start. Hhhmmm Canonical needs MS engineers to make sure that Ubuntu is enterprise ready shocker.
If you care to you can take Free Trial HERE .
Mate versus Cinnamon
MATE and Cinnamon are two recent additions to the list of desktop environments and window managers available for Linux and BSD distributions. You see, in the free software/open source community, there is nothing like too many options. The more, it appears, the better.
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/06/02/mate-vs-cinnamon/
Windows Update compromised
The developers of the Flame superspy managed something that had previously only been imagined by experienced security experts in their sketches of catastrophe scenarios: using the integrated Windows Update to infect Windows systems. Symantec’s virus researchers have now figured out that Flame managed this feat by using a function in Internet Explorer that automatically detects proxy servers in a local network.
http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Windows-Update-compromised-1612246.html
Top 5 Countries With Debian Developers
They arrive at this by number of devs per million of population. So even though the US and Germany by far have more devs than any other country they come in on the list in 24th and 9th place respectivly.
Country Population Active Developers Total Developers June 2012 Finland 5,259,250 21 33 1 Ireland 4,670,976 12 15 2 Switzerland 7,870,134 20 26 3 Martinique 396,404 1 1 4 Sweden 9,088,728 22 37 5
You can find the complete list here
KDE SC 4.8.4
On June 8, KDE released KDE Software Compilation 4.8.4. This update has many bugfixes and includes important improvements for the Kontact suite, as well as bugfixes for the Dolphin file manager, and performance improvements and corrections to other core components.
KDE Announces 4.9 Beta1 and Testing Initiative
June 4, 2012. Today KDE released the first beta for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team’s focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality.
http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.9-beta1.php
August 1: KDE – 4.9
October 2: 4.9.1
November 6: 4.9.2
December 4: 4.9.3
January 15: 4.9.4
Kubuntu on Google +
Kubuntu is on Google+. A Kubuntu fan has set up a Kubuntu Google+ page with news and comments.
https://plus.google.com/107577785796696065138/posts
Find Out Wireless Network Speed, Signal Strength and Other Information
Wavemon – wavemon is a ncurses-based monitoring application for wireless network devices. It is available in the Ubuntu repositories (also Debian). After install, typw wavemon to start the program. You do not have to be root to run wavemon.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-find-out-wireless-network-speed-signal-strength.html
Is it Alive?
Time: 56:44
Is It Alive ?
During this segment of the show, Mary challenges Mat and Tony to identify whether a Linux Distro is alive or dead? We’ve twisted the concept for last few shows including last week when Mary challenged Mat and Tony to decide if the named entity was a Linux distribution or a bar drink. However, this week IIA returns to its roots with five Linux distros. So, Mat and Tony, are these distros dead or alive? The distros for the June 9 show:
====================================
Inquisitor
Inquisitor is an open-source hardware testing and certification system, suitable for both enterprise and home use, customizable, modular and available in both serverless Live CD/DVD format and server-controlled network boot production system.
http://www.inquisitor.ru/about/
MAT: Alive
TONY: Dead
VERDICT: ALIVE
====================================
Blue Onyx
BlueOnyx is a Linux distribution (based on CentOS 5.8, CentOS 6.2 and/or Scientific Linux 6.2) which aims at delivering a turnkey server appliance for web-hosting.
MAT: Dead
TONY: Dead
VERDICT: ALIVE
===================================
Virtual Linux
Virtual Linux 1.1 (Tiger Edition) is the Mandrake Linux operating system, modified to run directly from your cd rom drive.
MAT: Dead
TONY: Alive
VERDICT: Dead
===================================
ZeroShell Linux
Zeroshell is a Linux distribution for servers and embedded devices which aims at providing the main network services a LAN requires.
.
http://goo.gl/PP7qs
MAT: Alive
TONY: Alive
VERDICT: ALIVE
===================================
Ark Linux
Ark Linux is a Linux distribution designed especially for desktop use, primarily for people without prior Linux experience. Its main goal is ease of use, and the inclusion of many tools end users will need
MAT: Dead
TONY: Dead
VERDICT: DEAD
===================================
Mat: 4
Tony: 2
Listener Feedback
Time: 1:00:57
the_remora – BSA Eagle
chatter – omega tau podcast
Chris – EULAs and Class Action Suits
Juan – Programming Music
Brad Alexander – curmudgeon certificates
Mat’s Soapbox
Time: 1:07:27
Special Interview
Time: 1:14:11
Github page:
https://github.com/kartiksubbarao/collabograte
Slideshare presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/kartiksubbarao/collabograte
The github README has links to the mailing list, but I’ll include it
here as well:
http://groups.google.com/group/collabograte
collabograte@googlegroups.com
Outtro Music
Time:1:25:25
Fire Wind by John Sotter ~ Acoustic Warrior
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