Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Open source won


What does winning look like? No enemy has been vanquished, but open source is now mainstream and a new norm.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Linux Foundation Briefing Book: July 30, 2012

This Week's Original Content From The Linux Foundation

My Top Five Sessions at the CloudOpen Conference
Amanda McPherson

CloudOpen will make its debut in a little over a month in beautiful San Diego alongside LinuxCon. It's the best deal in technology conferences. Why? Two amazing conferences for the price of one, three amazing free, as in beer, parties, skateboarding lessons, hacker lounges and so on. This event will sell out so if you want to join us, please register today.

CloudOpen Q&A: SUSE's Michael Miller on Why Linux is the Natural OS for the Cloud
Jennifer Cloer

In the latest of our LinuxCon and CloudOpen keynote Q&A series we talk to SUSE's Vice President of Global Alliances Michael Miller. Miller will be talking in his keynote at the events about how service-oriented clouds are bridging the divide between IT and lines of businesses. He also hinted twice during our conversation about a big announcement coming.

CIOs Increasingly Bullish on the Cloud, Survey Finds
Katherine Noyes

It's easy enough to find rosy predictions for the cloud from the vendors of related products and services, but when CIOs speak out in favor of the technology, it's hard not to sit up and take notice. Such, in fact, is just what came out of a recent survey of IT executives from Host Analytics and Dimensional Research. 

Openfiler Enterprise NOS: Capable but Tricky
Carla Schroder

Openfiler 2.99 aims to be your one-stop storage management shop, a sleek lean network storage operating system with a nice Web control panel. It is very capable, but in many ways it's an exercise in frustration.

Top Open Source Cloud Headlines Week of July 23
Libby Clark

Last week's top open source cloud news features VMware's acquisition of Nicira; a Q&A with Citrix's Mark Hinkle; the pros and cons of open source cloud platforms for IT managers; and insider news that Nebula has enticed some Rackspace developers away.

The Linux Talent Draft is On
Jennifer Cloer

Make no mistake: the Linux draft is on. While the NFL season prepares to get underway there is an ongoing, intensive draft for Linux talent taking place right now.

OpenStack Quantum Project Aims to Define Future of Networking
Libby Clark

The Quantum Project is working to design next-generation virtual networks with no model for comparison. In his OSCON session about the Quantum Project, Lew Tucker, Cisco VP and CTO of cloud computing said Quantum aims to break out networking from the rest of the OpenStack services to build a new layer of abstraction for two-way communication between an application and the underlying infrastructure.

5 Best New Features of the Linux 3.5 Kernel Release
Katherine Noyes

Following some initial concern earlier in the month about a large volume of small, last-minute pull requests that ultimately necessitated a seventh release candidate, Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Saturday published the final version 3.5 of the Linux kernel. Here are some of the best new features. 

GNOME Committed to Accessibility
Juanjo Marin

A commitment to accessibility and the efforts of many dedicated developers helped GNOME 2 become an award-winning, free and accessible desktop environment. But the project has lot of work ahead to make sure GNOME is a great desktop usable by all.

Citrix’s Hinkle Proposes Linux Model for an Open Source Cloud
Libby Clark 

As the Senior Director of Cloud Computing Community at Citrix, Mark Hinkle oversees Citrix efforts around the open source Apache CloudStack IaaS platform and Xen hypervisor projects. We talked recently about the company’s involvement in the open source cloud and how it might model Linux. 

30 Linux Kernel Developers in 30 Weeks: Paul Mundt
Jennifer Cloer

In this week's 30 Kernel Developers in 30 Weeks profile, we talk to Paul Mundt, who works on the SuperH architecture and core parts of the AMR-based SH/R-mobile platforms. He shares a variety of stories from his nearly 20 years of experience working on the kernel, including one that proves collaboration never sleeps, even during an inter-continental flight.

Featured Linux.com Video Content

Linux Training: Be Part of Something Big

Linux careers mean both financial reward and being part of something bigger than any one person or company. Contributing to Linux as a developer or user also means working on the most cutting-edge technologies emerging around the globe before anyone else. The Linux Foundation's Linux Training courses open up this world for many people in the community. Learn more at http://go.linuxfoundation.org/e/6342/2012-07-30/bxmp3/301865302.

Other News You Need To Know

Dell Offers New Laptops With Red Hat Enterprise Linux
PCWorld

Torvalds and Shuttleworth to speak at LinuxCon Europe
The H

Open source model disrupts the commercial drone business
VentureBeat

Recently Posted Job Opportunities

Linux Engineer
Team Bradley (Chicago, IL)

Server Engineering Manager/ Linux
Next Step Systems (New York, NY)

Linux Engineer
MATRIX Resources, Inc. (Atlanta, GA)

Upcoming Training Opportunities

Overview of Open Source Compliance End-to-End Process 
Aug. 28 - San Diego, CA 

Linux Performance Tuning
Sept. 1 - San Diego, CA  

Learn more about these Linux training opportunities taking place at LinuxCon/ CloudOpen in San Diego, Aug. 29-31. 

Events

12th Annual Linux Kernel Summit
Aug. 26 - 28 - Sheraton San Diego - San Diego, CA

4th Annual LinuxCon North AmericaCloudOpen
Aug. 29 - 31 - Sheraton San Diego - San Diego, CA

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Sunday, July 29, 2012

Adding Medibuntu Package Repository


Medibuntu repository provides all the playback and encoding capabilities that most Windows and Mac systems contain, but which Ubuntu’s creators decline to include by default in their systems, due to licensing restrictions and a lack of open-source code for those features. If you just want to get AAC playback, copyright DVDs playing, and newer versions of all the audio, video, and font files, load Medibuntu into your system. (Required)
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get --quiet update
sudo apt-get -y update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo apt-get install app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu
If you are running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu, copy and paste in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install w32codecs libdvdcss2
sudo apt-get install libdvdnav4
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/./install-css.sh
If you are running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu, copy and paste in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install w64codecs libdvdcss2
sudo apt-get install libdvdnav4
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/./install-css.sh

Chasing Science as a Service


Texas Advanced Computing Center
(07/18/12) Aaron Dubrow

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) has developed the A Grid and Virtualized Environment (AGAVE) advanced programming interface (API), which aims to extend the U.S.'s advanced computing resources to a much larger audience. "When services have been built to that level, research starts moving really fast," says TACC's Rion Dooley. "You can start leveraging manpower and focus exclusively on the science rather than the computation and technology needed to accomplish that science." Dooley says AGAVE is a flexible, Web-friendly platform that enables researchers with little programming experience to add functionality to their scientific computing software. "If we can give thousands of researchers a few percent of their time back, that's a win," he says. AGAVE also gives developers access to some of the U.S.'s most powerful supercomputers to facilitate their research. For example, AGAVE is being used as part of the iPlant project, leveraging supercomputing resources at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the San Diego Supercomputing Center, and TACC. The second major release of the AGAVE API will include support for new types of systems, such as public and private clouds, that will give users faster turnaround times on their experiments.

View Full Article
http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/feature-stories/2012/agave-api

OSLM, Open Source Lebanese Movement

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Windows 8 Catastrophe Pushed Valve To Linux - Muktware

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Tech Policy Download: Cybersecurity Bill Improvements Clear Way for Vote




July 25 - Boston, MA - Deven McGraw will participate on a panel on "Best Practices in Medical Device Security and Privacy."
July 27 - Las Vegas, NV - Kevin Bankston will participate in a panel entitled "Should the Wall of Sheep Be Illegal? A Debate Over Whether and How Open WiFi Sniffing Should Be Regulated" at Defcon"


Cybersecurity legislation inched forward last week with the introduction in the Senate of a new bill with language on information sharing that is significantly more favorable to privacy than other pending bills. While major concerns still remain, the Majority Leader may push for a cloture vote this week. On the international front, the International Telecommunication Union promised greater transparency, but not nearly enough to justify the intervention of that UN body into Internet policy making. Meanwhile, CDT re-issued an important set of privacy guidelines for developers of mobile apps, just as the Commerce Department launched its mulit-stakeholder consultation on mobile privacy.

Privacy Amendments Strengthen Cybersecurity Bill

Cybersecurity legislation in the Senate took a welcome turn with the introduction of a new bill containing several key privacy amendments. Lawmakers have struggled to draft legislation that would allow companies and the government to share information about cyberattacks and threats without eroding privacy. The new amendments, included in a revised bill sponsored by Senators Lieberman, Collins, Feinstein and Carper, narrow the definition of what can be shared with the government, focusing more concretely on indicators of cybersecurity threats. In a second important change, companies will be encouraged to share cybersecurity information with civilian agencies, not with military entities such as the National Security Agency. Further, the amendments specify that information shared with the government would be used only for cybersecurity and to protect against serious threats to children or imminent threats of death or serious bodily injury, and not for other purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.
Concerns still remain, however, not only with the information sharing language and with provisions on countermeasures and monitoring, but also with Title I of the bill, which seeks to promote improvements in the cybersecurity practices of critical infrastructure operators. A vote testing support for the bill, on a motion to invoke cloture (that is, to limit debate), could come later this week.

ITU Gives a Nod Towards Transparency; Still a Long Road to Full Civil Society Participation

The International Telecommunication Union, in advance of a December meeting that will consider how much authority the UN body should have over Internet governance, announced that it would make public one document summarizing only some proposals under consideration and launch a platform for public comment on the document. Notably, a prior version of this document was already leaked weeks ago on WCITleaks and the document does not attribute proposals to specific governments. This limited action does not translate into meaningful transparency or participation by civil society. The vast majority of documents related to the ITU process, including specific positions governments are taking on revisions to a key ITU treaty, remain locked behind a password wall and are only available to other Member States and Sector Members. CDT and other civil society groups around the world are urging each Member State of the ITU to publicly release preparatory documents for the treaty revision process, including the Member State's own proposals for revising the treaty, and to convene open, public consultations to solicit input from all stakeholders to inform the Member State's positions in advance of the December meeting.

CDT Issues Updated Privacy Guidelines for Mobile Apps

On July 12, the Commerce Department held the first in a series of forums aimed at developing "an open, transparent, consensus-driven process to develop a code of conduct regarding mobile app transparency," according the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), the agency hosting the meetings.
To help jumpstart the process, and to guide industry in the meantime, CDT and the Future of Privacy Forum released an updated version of their "best practices" guide for mobile app developers. The guide is intended to help developers as they build privacy into their products.
The 20-page guide, developed through a consultative process chaired by CDT and FPF is intended to be a road map for mobile app developers to build privacy into your apps, better inform and empower end-users, and foster trust and confidence in the mobile app ecosystem.

As ACTA Tanks in Europe, USTR Announces Potentially Important Shift for TPP Talks

A loose coalition of Internet companies, advocacy groups and individuals that helped defeat SOPA/PIPA have launched the Internet Defense League, which is intended to fight for an open and innovative Internet by enlisting millions of people around a shared set of values.

Victory for Internet Freedom: Data Retention Mandate Absent from Bill

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) recently introduced the Child Protection Act of 2012 (HR 6063), and unlike a similar bill he introduced last year, HR 6063 does not contain a data retention mandate. CDT has long spoken out against the troubling - and unnecessary - threats data retention mandates pose to Internet users' privacy.

Monday, July 23, 2012

The cloud made easy and open

Linux Copy One Hard Disk to Another Using dd Command

Q. How can I copy one hard disk to another using dd command?
A. dd command can copy disk in raw format. It will copy partition table and bootloader and all partitions within this disk. For example, you can copy /dev/sdai to /dev/sdbj (same size) using the following dd command. dd should complete with no errors, but output the number of records read and written.

Login as the root user (use sudo or su command)

Open terminal or shell prompt and type the following dd command:
# dd if=/dev/sdai of=/dev/sdbj

Friday, July 20, 2012

GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

In this tutorial, you will learn how to work with GRUB 2, add and remove menu entries, customize titles and boot options, dual-boot and triple-boot operating systems, combine legacy GRUB and GRUB 2, and we will even see how Windows fits into this scheme. After that, we will learn how to recover from errors and mistakes.
GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Facebook actions, shares

@zdnetfr: Nouveau bouillon de l'action Facebook. En cause la baisse du nbre d'utilisateurs.
http:/:http://zdnet.fr/39774287

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Mapping Research With WikiMaps

AlphaGalileo (07/02/12) 

The evolution of a page, topic, or collection of connections on Wikipedia can be mapped using a dynamic tool from an international research team. The new tool, WikiMaps, makes use of the underlying information in the metadata of each article about the page's authors, contributions, edits, updates, and changes. The metadata "opens new opportunities to investigate the processes that lie behind the creation of the content as well as the relations between knowledge domains," say researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Collective Intelligence. They note WikiMaps combines different metrics and metadata from Wikipedia to fill in the gap of providing a fine-grained semantic network of relevant articles. "Cultural influences are deeply engrained in each of us, influencing how we act and respond to external influences," the researchers say. "WikiMaps could offer a fascinating real-time window into current history and culture, spotting trends as they are unfolding right under our noses." The tool also could be extended laterally to incorporate versions of Wikipedia in other languages.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Open data

Open Data, Government and Transparency  http://ow.ly/c4sgl

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Firefox and OS phones

@ostatic: Mozilla Is Moving Quickly Ahead with #Firefox OS Phones http://bit.ly/N9hXWT

Google Says New 'Jelly Bean' Version of Android Coming in July


IDG News Service (06/27/12) James Niccolai

Google's next version of its Android operating system, Jelly Bean, features improvements to search, voice typing, and notifications.  Google says a significant new feature in Android 4.1 is Google Now, which uses a person's location, search history, and calendar entries to offer more pertinent search results.  For example, Google Now learns a user's normal commute to work and can check traffic reports to recommend a faster route when there is one available.  Allowing Google Now to access a user's location, search, and calendar entries is likely to make some concerned about privacy, but Google executives emphasize that this feature is optional.  Jelly Bean also features built-in speech recognition software so that users will be able to type using their voice when they are offline.  In addition, Jelly Bean's Android Beam function is improved to enable the exchange of photos and videos, and users will be able to connect their smartphone to an external device such as a speaker by tapping the phone against it.  Google also says that Jelly Bean's new notification system means that users will not have to open separate applications to act on those notifications.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9228570/Google_says_new_Jelly_Bean_version_of_Android_coming_in_July