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Linux and Open Source News for 10th August 2007
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Distro Watch
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Source: LinuxTracker.org Category: Linux Kernels Size: 43.08 MB Status: 2 seeders and 1 leechers Added: 2007-08-10 11:02:34
Source: LinuxTracker.org Category: SUSE Size: 4.04 GB Status: 70 seeders and 147 leechers Added: 2007-08-10 09:25:40
Source: LinuxTracker.org Category: SUSE Size: 4.01 GB Status: 148 seeders and 238 leechers Added: 2007-08-10 09:20:02
Source: momonga Momonga Linux is a Japanese community distribution loosely derived from Fedora. The developers have just announced the first release candidate of the upcoming version 4; some of the changes since beta 2 include: bug-fix updates to the RPM package management software and the Anaconda installer; security fixes to .
Source: mepis The MEPIS project has announced the release of a testing live DVD featuring the recently announced KDE 4.0 Beta 1: "Warren Woodford of MEPIS has built KDE 4 Beta 1 live DVDs to verify the compatibility of KDE 4 with SimplyMEPIS 7.x. Both 32-bit and 64-bit editions are .
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Linux Today News Service
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Source: Linux Today ZDNet Australia: " 'Dell Answers Customer Calls For Linux In Europe.' Unless of course you live in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey "
Source: Linux Today CNET News: "Google and Microsoft are at it again. But this time Google is attacking Microsoft for threatening Linux users for patent violations "
Source: Linux Today Microsoft Watch: "The Vista experience is broken. It's long past time to fix it "
Source: Linux Today Groklaw: "[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights " Breaking news.
Source: Linux Today DeveloperSide.NET Blog: "An Exercise for the Reader: Take a look at any of the major Linux friendly sites around the net and see if you can spot a pattern "
Source: Linux Today BoycottNovell: "Outside the United States, which Microsoft virtually owns, OOXML has a hard time finding acceptance "
Source: Linux Today internetnews.com: "Not so at LinuxWorld San Francisco 2007. This is the year that Linux is so mature, so stable, so tried and true, that it's actually, dare I say it? Boring " [A Guest Editor's Note this week. -ed.]
Source: Linux Today mitchell's blog: "There are many reasons why Firefox is a public asset, built for public benefit rather than private wealth "
Source: Linux Today The Register: "Ron Hovsepian's keynote employed words that would have been considered heresy during the scandal-wearing glory days of LinuxWorld in San Jose, but today they raised barely a flicker, demonstrating two important things "
Source: Linux Today ConsortiumInfo: "That ballot has now closed on schedule, and there is a public link that shows the vote--which failed, with 8 in favor, 7 opposed, and one abstaining "
Source: Linux Today Linux-Watch: "According to multiple sources close to Linux distributor Linspire, former CEO Kevin Carmony was not the only executive to leave Linspire at the end of July "
Source: Linux Today Groklaw: "I'd say things look grim in Australia, but it's not too late to express yourself to Australia Standards "
Source: Linux Today vnunet.com: "Firms should set policies on how to deal with the use and distribution of and contributions to open source projects, Stormy Peters, director of community and partner programmes with OpenLogic, argued in a session at the Linuxworld conference "
Source: Linux Today internetnews.com: "Linux is a key part of the success mix for virtualization. That was the message of Mendel Rosenblum, chief scientist and cofounder of VMware "
Source: Linux Today SD Times: "When Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie unveiled Silverlight at MIX07, he vowed that it would be a cross-platform technology "
Source: Linux Today LWN: "This release has a lot of bugfixes and some security updates so all users of the 2.6.22 series should update to it "
Source: Linux Today Dark Reading: "Oh, antivirus products. They're a commodity item, right? They're all pretty much the same "
Source: Linux Today LinuxWorld: "In this interview, he talks about why he released the code, offers his views on Microsoft and says the future belongs to open source "
Source: Linux Today Linux.com: "Today MythTV users learned how much a replacement service offered by Schedules Direct (SD) will cost "
Source: Linux Today Maximum PC: "This article was originally titled 'Virtualize Windows on Linux? Microsoft Says No Way!'. I badly misunderstood the essential point of Sam Ramji's talk this week at LinuxWorld "
Source: Linux Today Blue GNU: "The second Free and Open Source Software Conference is being held this year on August 25th-26th, in St. Augustin, Germany "
Source: Linux Today ZDNet: "'Motorola is close to releasing its much anticipated, first Linux-based Razr2 V8 handset in the U.S,' said Christy M Wyatt, vice president of ecosystem and market development for Motorola "
Source: Linux Today LinuxDevCenter: "Over the past couple of weeks I've been able to borrow a friend's laptop: a Gateway w730-K8X (Athlon Mobile 4000+ processor, ATI X600 graphics, 1024 RAM). She has the 64-bit version of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn installed "
Source: Linux Today Red Hat Magazine: "One of the popular features of Fedora 7 is the ability to remix Fedora and build your own custom version. Now don't get me wrong--building a new distribution is nice. But what about those who wish to create their own Fedora-based project ?"
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News for nerds, stuff that matters
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Source: Slashdot: Linux An anonymous reader writes "The one summary judgement that puts a stick into SCO's spokes has just come down. The judge in the epic SCO case has ruled that SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights. With that one decision, a whole bunch of other decisions will fall like dominoes. As PJ says, 'That's Aaaaall, Folks! All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end. But we must say thank you to Novell and especially to its legal team for the incredible work they have done. I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, but they won what matters most, and it's been a plum pleasin' pleasure watching you work. The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work and thanks go to Novell for being willing to see this through."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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News, reviews and commentary on all aspects of Linux and open-source software, including application servers, communications and database servers.
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Source: eWEEK Linux Analysis: Critics say vendors such as Sun are not doing enough regarding interoperability to make the standard a viable competitor to Microsoft.
Source: eWEEK Linux The Open Source Initiative will review the two Microsoft licenses to see if they qualify as open-source licenses.
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The O'Reilly Network ONLamp Articles and Weblogs
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Source: ONLamp.com Are you one of the multitudes of people that want to know once and for all who is the king of web application frameworks in the Python/Ruby arena? You might want to attend a yet to be announced Ruby vs. Python Webframework Charity Deathmatch here in muggy Atlanta, GA. These are some ideas of how we might organize it, if you have some advice or ideas, please let me know as we are just now brainstorming how the event would shake down.
I don’t think we would limit attendance to just Atlanta, GA programmers either. I believe anyone that wanted to attend and enter the competition would be allowed.
Mission: Sort out once and for all who is the king of all web frameworks…for Charity.
Rules:
1. We find a needy charity, and they give a judge the design spec.
2. Teams of Ruby and Python programmers are given the spec on Friday and have until Saturday morning to come up with a prototype. Saturday morning each Ruby and Python teams internally vote on the best design.
3. One group from Ruby and one group from Python code then code until Sunday morning when judging starts.
4. Winner gets to be the design for the Charity, and the loser..well maybe they get VC startup money?
The initial interest has been strong so far, and there will be both technical and business people who will attend
Lets face it Ruby and Python are both great languages and fun to code in. I think the more of these type of events we have the better. It might be cool to have a future event where groups have to design an application in both Ruby and Python and you get judged on both efforts collectively.
Comments or Suggestions?
Source: ONLamp.com This is part 4 of an N part series on rewriting my podgrabber application. Here are links to part one, part two, and part three. In part 3, I outlined my strategy for synchronizing between mediaStores. This post will update that strategy slightly to show how I’m now handling threading.
For the curious, the code lives in a Bazaar repository at http://bzr.podgrabber.org/trunk/
The SyncManager now takes a taskManager in its constructor.
class SyncManager(object):
"""This is a concrete implementation of a syncronization manager which is
intended to be subclassed if necessary.
A SyncManager connects two mediaStores with filters and processing steps.
It should be able to copy files from the fromStore to the toStore, exclude
any files which were filtered out, and execute any processingSteps along
the way.
"""
def __init__(self, fromStore, toStore, copyFilters, deleteFilters, preProcessingSteps, postProcessingSteps, taskManager):
self.fromStore = fromStore
self.toStore = toStore
self.copyFilters = copyFilters
self.deleteFilters = deleteFilters
self.preProcessingSteps = preProcessingSteps
self.postProcessingSteps = postProcessingSteps
self.taskManager = taskManager
self._init()
And on copying a file, the SyncManager pushes the request to the task manager:
def syncCopy(self):
for mediaFile in self.getCopyList():
print "ADDING MEDIA FILE", mediaFile
logger.info("Copying file %s" % mediaFile)
self.taskManager.addCopyFile(mediaFile, self.toStore, self.preProcessingSteps, self.postProcessingSteps)
Here is the task manager code in its entirity:
from Queue import Queue
import thread
import threading
import time
import logging
logger = logging.getLogger("podgrabber.syncTaskManager")
class Shutdown(object):
pass
class CopyWorker(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, q, fileDict):
self.q = q
self.fileDict = fileDict
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
def run(self):
#print "Running copy thread", self.getName()
logger.info("Running")
while 1:
logger.debug("Blocking while pulling items from queue")
mediaFile, mediaStore, preProc, postProc = self.q.get()
if type(mediaFile) == Shutdown:
#print "Break"
logger.info("Shutting down")
break
logger.debug("Retrieved items from queue")
for preProcessingStep in preProc:
mediaFile = preProcessingStep.process(mediaFile)
logger.debug("Retrieving file %s" % mediaFile)
mediaStore.addFile(mediaFile)
logger.debug("Done etrieving file %s" % mediaFile)
for postProcessingStep in postProc:
mediaFile = postProcessingStep.process(mediaFile)
self.fileDict[mediaFile][1] = time.time()
class TaskManager(object):
def __init__(self, numCopyThreads=5, numDeleteThreads=2):
self.copyQueue = Queue()
self.deleteQueue = Queue()
self.numCopyThreads = numCopyThreads
self.numDeleteThreads = numDeleteThreads
self.threadList = []
self.fileDict = {}
for i in range(numCopyThreads):
#thread.start_new_thread(self._copyFile, ())
copyWorker = CopyWorker(self.copyQueue, self.fileDict)
copyWorker.setDaemon(True)
copyWorker.start()
self.threadList.append(copyWorker)
for i in range(numDeleteThreads):
pass
def addCopyFile(self, mediaFile, mediaStore, preProc, postProc):
self.fileDict[mediaFile] = [time.time(), None]
self.copyQueue.put((mediaFile, mediaStore, preProc, postProc))
def addDeleteFile(self, mediaFile, mediaStore, preProc, postProc):
self.deleteQueue.put((mediaFile, mediaStore, preProc, postProc))
def _copyFile(self):
while 1:
mediaFile, mediaStore, preProc, postProc = self.copyQueue.get()
if type(mediaFile) == Shutdown:
break
for preProcessingStep in preProc:
mediaFile = preProcessingStep.process(mediaFile)
mediaStore.addFile(mediaFile)
for postProcessingStep in postProc:
mediaFile = postProcessingStep.process(mediaFile)
def _deleteFile(self):
pass
def shutdown(self):
for i in range(self.numCopyThreads):
self.copyQueue.put((Shutdown(), None, None, None))
for i in range(self.numDeleteThreads):
self.deleteQueue.put((Shutdown(), None, None, None))
for t in self.threadList:
t.join()
Basically, the task manager creates a queue for copies and one for deletes and a number of threads for each operation. When the sync manager passes the request to copy files to the task manager, it is a non-blocking call. The downloading/processing of each file happens N files at a time, depending on how many threads you’ve allowed to be active. The defaults are 5 for copying and 2 for deleting.
So far, this seems to be working pretty well. The only thing that I see that could use some immediate improvement is to either thread the downloading of the RSS feed(s), or to use Doug’s feedcache, or both. I’m going to try to work on trying to get that supported over the weekend.
The next area of functionality addition is that of creating a GUI. From the feedback I received in a post today, I’m going to have to check out wxPython.
Source: ONLamp.com As reported first on Groklaw, it appears that Judge Kimball has ruled in summary judgment on the major point of the SCO vs Novell case, that of who actually owns Unix. Not surprisingly, the answer to that question is not SCO.
While IANAL, a brief reading of the juicy parts seems to essentially say: A) Novell owns Unix; B) Since SCO doesn’t own Unix, they can’t sue for slander of title; C) Since Novell DOES own Unix and SCO’s been claiming they have (and collecting license fees for it…), Novell should feel free to continue their own slander of title claims.
Anyone like to take bets on the current half-life of SCOX? Now on to FUD round 2: Steve Ballmer and the Goblet of Patents.
Source: ONLamp.com Does anyone have any tips on GUI building on Mac using Python? It looks like PyGTK for Mac isn’t totally there yet. PyQT for Mac looks really out of date. Is building a Cocoa app using PyObjC my best bet? The more native, the better. The fewer dependencies, the better.
Source: ONLamp.com A couple of disparate threads have bounced around in my head lately, which makes me think that there’s some fundamental notion at work in the world.
Mitchell Baker and Matt Asay have had a brief back and forth over the nature of a public good (such as the Firefox web browser in specific, or free software in general). Mitchell’s position is:
A people-centered Internet needs some way for people to interact with the Internet that isn’t all about making money for some company and its shareholders.
— Mitchell Baker, Firefox is a Public Asset
Matt Asay wonders if corporate backing is necessarily, in itself, inimical to the creation and community-based maintenance of such a public good:
This isn’t about a small group of people trying to get rich. It’s about putting into place the most efficient overarching structure to achieve our common goals of choice and innovation on the internet.
— Matt Asay, More on Mozilla and Capitalism
The other thread synchronous in time comes from a comment Tim O’Reilly made a week ago:
I will predict that virtually every open source company (including Red Hat) will eventually be acquired by a big proprietary software company.
— Tim O’Reilly at [08.02.07 11:47 AM] in Microsoft to Submit Shared Source Licenses to OSI
Sometimes I wonder if the fateful 1998 meeting which gave birth to the term “Open Source” led the world of software freedom down a dark path. If the only way to get business to adopt the idea of embracing the power of communities to build software and ecosystems larger, more powerful, and more efficient than individuals could build on their own was to focus on economic principles, rather than the notion of the public good, is it any wonder that so many businesses seem to be indifferent at best to the health of those public goods?
To switch rhetorical metaphors, do you find it more likely that any given business would invest N% of its budget in energy-saving measures because it considers the investment ethically right on its own merits, or because it saves money and provides the basis for a nice, friendly press release?
Perhaps it’s inevitable that community-driven development, maintenance, and support will reduce markets for proprietary software up and down all of the stacks. Perhaps the most successful projects will have the strong support of businesses.
Do you want to rely on their goodwill to allow you to use, study, and redistribute software as you see fit? Are you willing to take the risk that they will encourage a healthy commons which allows you to use your data as you see fit?
I’m not sure.
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The O'Reilly Network's Linux DevCenter Articles and Weblogs
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Source: Linux DevCenter Articles about Linux and mainstream Linux news tends to be dominated by the big Linux distributions, those with large corporate backing and/or large development teams. I’m primarily talking about Red Hat Enterprise Linux and it’s free clone CentOS, Novell/SuSe, and Ubuntu on enterprise servers and Ubuntu, Fedora, Linspire, and Mandriva on the desktop. Throw in two venerable and widely respected distributions, Debian and Slackware, and you’ve got about 90% of the industry chatter covered, maybe more.
These distributions also have something else in common: with the exception of Linspire/Freespire, which I haven’t tried, they have all frustrated me on one level or another. I’ve found recent Fedora, SuSe, Mandriva, and Ubuntu releases all to have more bugs than I would expect, often very annoying and obvious ones. All of the above mentioned distors except Slackware are unimpressive in terms of performance. Most tend to be bloated and full of all sorts of cruft that I don’t need that gets installed by default. The notable exceptions are Ubuntu and Mandriva One which both come on a single CD and install a stripped down, clean OS which you can then build on. However, in the case of both Ubuntu and Mandriva One they seem to get a whole lot less useful stuff on that single CD than some other distributions seem to manage.
In the past year a number of medium sized and small distros have lept past the big players among Linux distributions, offering single CDs with lots of apps, excellent hardware support, speedy performance, and relatively few bugs. Some are also far more user friendly than distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva, often touted as the best place for a newcomer to Linux to start. When I say medium or small I’m referring to both the developer community and user community around each distro. In some cases the developer community is just one or two people.
Todd Robinson, writing in the introduction to his review of Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 earlier this week, put it this way:
Some smaller distribution will surprise everyone and not conform to this normal pattern. They will either go “cutting edge” and beat the big guys to the punch, or address a need that is not addressed, or not addressed well, within the larger distributions. Last year it was Sabayon and Linux Mint who heaped on extra functionality, and GoblinX with it’s amazing artwork. So far this year it’s Wolvix.
My personal favorites at the moment are Vector Linux, which I write about frequently, and Wolvix. In the few weeks I’ve run Wolvix I, like Mr. Robinson, have been tremendously impressed.
Vector Linux qualifies as medium sized. Their first release candidate of the forthcoming version 5.8.6 SOHO has fewer bugs than the final release of many of the big distributions and yet it’s still considered a work in progress. Wolvix is the quintessential small distro with only two developers. For an English-speaking user it may be about the most user friendly Linux distro I’ve seen, easy to try as a Live CD, easy to install, and things just work right out of the virtual box. I’ll post a full review of Wolvix 1.1.0 in coming days. Tood Robinson also mentioned GoblinX, a small distro from Brazil that I also like quite well. Interestingly all three of these distros are Slackware derivatives and all three have conquered the areas Slackware is normally criticized for by offering friendly, easy to use distributions and sane package management.
2007 may well be the year of the small distro. Back in January I wrote an article called So Many Distros, So Little Time, complaining about the number and proliferation of half-baked little projects. My objections to new little distros disappear when someone genuinely comes up with something new and innovative. In upcoming reviews of Wolvix, GoblinX, and even AliXe I’ll focus on just what makes some of these up and coming flavors of Linux stand out from the pack.
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