LDN RSS Feed

Kernel Prepatch 2.6.28-rc6

LWN — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:48:41 -0800

Before he leaves on vacation, Linus has one more -rc release for us...

"It's been pretty quiet, and I'm hoping it will continue to be so, because I'm off for my yearly scuba-diving trip. And so, before I go away (no under-water email), here's a new -rc.

"It's really CIFS and mips updates, with some updates and code movement in drivers/net, and simply a fair number of small fixes here and there." [Read more]

GCC Hacks in the Linux Kernel

developerWorks — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:45:52 -0800

In-depth article on how to optimize GCC when hacking the kernel...

"GCC and Linux are a great pair. Although they are independent pieces of software, Linux is totally dependent on GCC to enable it on new architectures. Linux further exploits features in GCC, called extensions, for greater functionality and optimization. This article explores many of these important extensions and shows you how they're used within the Linux kernel.

Mandrake Linux Founder Back, Virtually

Community Manager — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:39:49 -0800

A look at Gael Duval's Ulteo startup...

"Whatever happened to the founder of Mandrake Linux? He's back on the scene with a new open source startup and looking to break some ground with its first offering called a Virtual Desktop solution.

Open Source is Not a Binary Decision at Adobe

OpenRoad — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:38:27 -0800

A further examination of Adobe's open source choices...

"Adobe actually does a lot of work around open source, though it generally gets (and takes) little credit for that work. But so does every big company, with few exceptions. No, the real question is in what Adobe chooses not to open source, and why.

The Diversity Level

Community Manager — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:31:03 -0800

Jono Bacon addresses a topic not usually covered in Linux communities: diversity...

"In the past I have talked quite a bit about diversity in this blog. Diversity is critical to the future development and growth of communities, and the strongest communities are ones with a strong sense of equality and diversity, and a governance infrastructure that supports and celebrates that diversity.

More Milestones in Linux Kernel Development History

bproffitt — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:39:51 -0800

The fact that the Linux kernel now has an estimated development value of $1.4 billion is an intriguing development—it certainly represents a significant milestone for the Linux kernel community. After we published the "Estimating the Total Development Cost of a Linux Distribution" whitepaper, out of curiosity I wondered where in the overall development history of the Linux kernel the $1 billion number was actually reached.

Alchemy Starts Opening Flash to C/C++ Code

Community Manager — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:53:27 -0800

Flash is opening up to C and C++ code...

"Welcome the preview release of codename 'Alchemy.' Alchemy is a research project that allows users to compile C and C++ code that is targeted to run on the open source ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2). The purpose of this preview is to assess the level of community interest in reusing existing C and C++ libraries in Web applications that run on Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR.

Linux Printing: A Curious Mix of Yuck and Excellence, Pts 1 & 2

LinuxToday — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:53:12 -0800

Carla Schroder gives her usual honest take on the state of Linux printing today...

Paddling Upstream

Community Manager — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:46:16 -0800

How the KDE developers approach upstream and downstream bugs...

Will Flash Ever Be a Standard?

bproffitt — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:35:18 -0800

Yesterday, I caught wind of some good news. It was the kind of good news that is immediately good for me and ultimately good for Linux. It was announced by MLB Advanced Media, major league baseball's online division, that video on MLB.com would no longer be delivered via Microsoft's Silverlight format but instead with Adobe Flash technology.

On Feedback

Community Manager — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:31:33 -0800

A very interesting piece on the value of feedback in an open source project...

Cray CX1 Taps Clustercorp's Rocks+ for Linux

Community Manager — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:26:40 -0800

A deskside supercomputer running Linux clustering software. The holidays come early!

"Cray Inc. and Clustercorp today announced the immediate availability of the Cray CX1 deskside supercomputer preloaded with Rocks+ 5, the commercial version of the Rocks Cluster Distribution for Linux users. The joint solution is fully certified as Intel Cluster Ready and ships with Intel Cluster Checker preloaded and pre-tuned.

The Linux ‘Weakbook’ Bites Back

451group — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:26:20 -0800

Smartphones vs. netbooks. Let's get ready to rumble? Erm...no...

kerneloops.org Records its 100,000th Oops

LWN — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:16:05 -0800

The effort to gather and categorize kernel crash reports has been very successful...

"Today, just a few days short of the first anniversary of the project, the kerneloops.org database of oopses and warnings has passed the 100.000 stored oopses/warnings.

"Number one hundred thousand is..." [Read more]

The Microsoft-Novell Linux Deal: Two Years Later

Community Manager — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:09:21 -0800

Has it been two years already? Huh. And they said it wouldn't last...

"Two years ago this month, Microsoft forged its controversial partnership with Novell that, among other things, had the two companies agreeing not to sue each other over intellectual property issues, in part to protect Suse Linux users over any patent litigation from Microsoft.

From Windows Capable to the Linux laptop

ZDNet — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:08:50 -0800

Windows is coming on strong in the netbook market... but is Microsoft too late?

"Windows advocates will argue that the netbook form factor was inevitable. They will point to growing support for the form factor within Microsoft itself. They will call Linux alternatives el-cheapos, even spin all this as a threat to Linux.

"What’s great is we don’t have to argue about it. No politics, not even corporate politics, will determine the outcome. (Oh, goody.)

A Potential Competitor for GCC: pcc

LWN — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:06:05 -0800

As pcc works towards 1.0, here's a review of the potential alternative for gcc in Linux programming...

Red Hat's Matthew Szulik Named 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year

OpenRoad — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:02:42 -0800

Patriot fan or no, good work, Mr. Szulik!

"Ernst & Young has named Matthew Szulik, chairman of Red Hat, as its 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year in the Technology category. It's a fitting honor for the man that helped to put open source on the enterprise map, and helped Red Hat claim 80 percent of the enterprise Linux market in the process..." [Read more]

Shouldn’t Obama use Linux, and not a Mac?

Amanda McPherson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:35:35 -0800

For those of you who haven’t heard, Barack Obama will be the first president to have a laptop on his desk at the oval office. (He does however have to give up his trusted Blackberry.)

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a conversation with Arianna Huffington on MSNBC, today said that he hopes Obama uses a Mac and not a PC. Excuse me Eric (and Arianna) isn’t there another option you may be missing?

Gartner's FUD

Community Manager — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:24:41 -0800

Hey! 85 percent of companies are using open source software now! Great news, right...?

"But wait, trust Gartner to find a cloud in every silver lining for open source:

Hot Topic: Moblin

Community Manager — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:19:25 -0800

LinuxDevices spotlights the Moblin project for netbooks and mobile Internet devices...

Adobe Answers Cries for 64-bit Flash on Linux

Community Manager — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:16:55 -0800

A big hurdle for 64-bit Linux desktop users just got jumped...

"Starting to answer the clamorous demand from open-source fans, Adobe Systems plans to release an alpha version of its Flash Player technology on Monday for those using 64-bit Linux software.

Bug Labs Creates Open Source Lego for Software Engineers

linux.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:16:15 -0800

An innovative approach to device engineering that should have some positive effects on Linux...

Linux Foundation November Newsletter

Community Manager — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:10:13 -0800

In this month’s Linux Foundation newsletter:

* Linux Foundation publishes guide to participating in Linux community
* Linux valued at $10b by new Linux Foundation white paper
* Linux Foundation holds successful first End User Summit
* The flagship LSB portability tool Linux Application Checker is released
* The Linux Foundation launches Linux Developer Network beta
* CME Group, Nokia, and Canonical among many making membership moves
* Linux Fast Boot Developments

Jon Corbet, Shadow Warrior?

Amanda McPherson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:53:32 -0800

Next week, our Linux Foundation Japan office hosts the Linux Foundation Japan Symposium, an event that was started to bring leading Linux luminaries to present and interact with local senior software developers, with the goal of increasing open source participation by talented Japanese developers. The result of these events is the widening of a global Linux community, which benefits everyone.

Week 46: Rock the Linux Vote!

bproffitt — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:32:48 -0800

The US elections are (blessedly) over, and like any political junkie, I am suffering from withdraw symptoms. After months of polls, blogs, and cable news, I find myself craving the process of democratically electing something, anything.

So you can imagine how excited I was to see that some LDN users were starting taking advantage of our Brainstorming tool. I wanted to take this opportunity to explain what this section of the LDN is all about and encourage everyone to participate!

Set Mantis to Track Your Bugs

linux.com — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:56:13 -0800

A review of the Mantis debugging tool finds it more than sufficient for the average developer...

"Mantis is that rare bug-tracking program for small projects that is neither too bloated nor too featureless. It's an excellent choice for developers who need a bug tracker that the average computer user can use. Its clean interface and numerous features make bug tracking fast and easy.

ARM and Canonical Bring Ubuntu Experience to ARM Devices

Community Manager — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:39:30 -0800

More forays into the Land O' Netbooks...

Splashtop Moves Into Netbooks

linux.com — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:39:18 -0800

Here comes the deluge of Linux-loaded machines...

"The Splashtop instant-on Linux environment is included in the new Lenovo IdeaPad S10e netbook, marking the product's first appearance in that form factor. That news should come as no surprise, since netbooks' ultra-portability is a natural match for Splashtop's instant-on.

Motorola's Last In-House Linux phone?

Community Manager — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:33:04 -0800

The key word here is "in-house;" they're moving to Android...

Whither Java and the LSB

pferrill — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:47:55 -0800

Upon examination the Linux Standard Base, in the currently released form, is missing one large camp of developers and applications—namely Java. That’s not to say you can’t run Java applications on essentially every Linux distribution. What it does say is there is no “LSB certified” offering for developers to target, giving them 100% confidence that their application will run as they intend it to.

Interview: Amanda McPherson on the $25 Billion Linux Ecosystem

Community Manager — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:00:26 -0800

Our kernel value paper is still getting attention. Here's an interview with one of the co-authors...

"OStatic: What do the results of this study mean for someone who uses Linux as their primary operating system, but isn't a developer or engineer?

Kernel prepatch 2.6.28-rc4

LWN — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:44:56 -0800

Small fixes highlight this -rc release...

"Nothing hugely exciting here. Various small fixes all over. There's a delayed FAT update which includes some movement of files around, and there's two fixes for some really long-standing problems (not really regressions, but nasty bugs) in Unix domain file descriptor passing.

"I also merged the new cpumask interfaces, even if nothing actually uses them..." [Read more]

LLVM 2.4 Release

LWN — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:37:05 -0800

The latest version Low Level Virtual Machine has been announced...

"LLVM 2.4 is now officially released! You can download it from http://llvm.org/releases/ or view the release notes here: http://llvm.org/releases/2.4/docs/ReleaseNotes.html

Running Java ME Applications on Android

Community Manager — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:34:04 -0800

Porting Java ME apps to Android just got easier...

The Ioke JVM Language: The Power of Lisp and Ruby with an Intuitive Syntax

Community Manager — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:30:54 -0800

Hey! You got your Lisp in my Ruby!

"Ola Bini, a core JRuby developer and author of the book Practical JRuby on Rails Projects, has been developing a new language for the JVM called Ioke. This strongly typed, extremely dynamic, prototype based object oriented language aims to give developers the same kind of power they get with Lisp and Ruby, combined with a nice, small, regular syntax.

Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth Opens Up on Mobility and Design

Community Manager — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:24:51 -0800

Sounds like a little Moblin action's going on...

"Shuttleworth also discussed Canonical's partnership with Intel that is focusing on mobile platform development. He sees enormous opportunity for Linux in the mobile device market but believes that the lack of a cohesive ecosystem is going to impede progress on that front.

Week 45: Open Source as a Linux Feature

bproffitt — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:10:10 -0800

For the record, I like the Twitter. But darned if I can figure out how someone would make money from it.

The concept of micro-blogging is straightforward: in 140 characters, you tell the world at large what you're doing, how you're feeling, or why your life is so good/bad. I know quite a few people who use it, and like it, but I know quite a few more who think the whole exercise is just silly.

Is Smolt the Key to Counting Linux Users?

Community Manager — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:12:27 -0800

Stand up and be counted, but what's being phoned home?

"Linux users are not an easy bunch to profile or to count. Many Linux users download the operating system for free and never perform any kind of systems registration to enumerate their hardware.

Why Microsoft Fears Linux

Community Manager — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:04:38 -0800

Windows 7 will be a threat to Linux, but Linux still has some cards to play...

"I've been writing a series of blogs explaining that Linux has reason to fear Windows 7, because it may kill Linux's market share. But there's also plenty of reason for Microsoft to fear Linux, which is why Microsoft is looking to Windows 7 as a Linux-killer.

Will Linux Ever be a Mainstream Desktop Play?

Community Manager — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:59:13 -0800

Gordon Haff: It's not the differences between operating systems that makes Linux attractive...

"Ubuntu has been making gains on the server side of things. And that's likely where Canonical, the commercial entity behind Ubuntu, will earn its profits--as it hopes to do someday.

Will We See Another Operating System?

Amanda McPherson — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:46:17 -0800

Two weeks ago we published a research paper estimating the development cost of a community Linux distribution. It was a fantastic project for the three of us who worked on it. The findings were surprising, even to me. It would take over $10 billion for a company to develop the software represented in Fedora 9.

Millions of Linux Users, They Can’t All be Experts

Community Manager — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:42:26 -0800

More Linux deployment means more new users. How do we handle the growing pains?

Bash: Preserving Whitespace Using set and eval

LinuxJournal — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:40:57 -0800

How to handle whitespace with bash...

"If you don't care much about whitespace bash is great: it normally turns multiple whitespace characters into one and it breaks things into words based on white space. If on the other hand you'd like to preserve whitespace bash can be a bit difficult at times. A trick which often helps is using a combination of bash's eval and set commands.

The New openSUSE Community-Elected Board Speaks

linux.com — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:37:44 -0800

It's pretty cool that Novell is letting loose of the reins on openSUSE...

"The openSUSE project has a new board, and the new board has big plans.

Driver Shift

Community Manager — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:30:46 -0800

A look at userspace drivers in the Linux kernel...

"New versions of the Linux kernel will support a special userspace driver model, but some technical pitfalls might limit the use of this interesting new feature.

Static Compilation in Mono

Community Manager — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:16:08 -0800

Mono's got static compilation, a better way to work on the iPhone...

"Another nice piece of technology that we showed at the PDC was static compilation, the feature behind allowing Mono to run on the iPhone in a fully legit way (no jail-breaking)...

Linux: The Joe Sixpack Strategy

Community Manager — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:48:37 -0800

The metaphor that would not die, but still an interesting approach...

"On the surface, it would appear that a slowing economy might pave the way for increased Linux and Open Source software adoption by the unwashed masses, those who may want newer software than what their current XP system provides but don’t want to pay the high premium of upgrading to Windows Vista/Windows 7 and all new software to go with it.

What's Up with the GNOME Linux Desktop?

Community Manager — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:35:45 -0800

New leadership at the GNOME Foundation and a roadmap for GNOME 3.0...

"It takes money and it takes new ideas to build a better desktop, both of which are being raised by the open source GNOME Foundation. GNOME is one of the most popular Linux desktop GUIs and is included in nearly every Linux distribution.

5 Things Every Good Linux Administrator Knows

Community Manager — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:32:47 -0800

Ken Hess highlights the basic truisms of being a Linux admin...

"Users are a Necessary Evil - Do you ever wonder why System Administrators seem so annoyed by you and your questions? It's because you are, in fact, an annoyance to them. Don't be insulted by this--it's just fact. You are generally the reason they exist but life would be easier for them if you didn't exist or ever need anything from them.