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Skip-free audio and video playback is a fundamental expectation for many - if not most - Linux users. Given the importance of this feature and the increase in hardware performance over the years, one would think that the audio latency problem would have been solved some time ago. The recent posting of (and mixed reception for) the "RealtimeKit" mechanism shows that this issue remains open, though, and that we are still short of a consensus on how it should be solved. Click below (subscribers only) for LWN's report.

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Back in May, the proposed "no long file names" patch got a hostile reception on the linux-kernel mailing list. This patch, presumably aimed at working around Microsoft's VFAT patents, made the kernel unable to create long file names on VFAT filesystems. It was seen by many as a reduction in functionality without any sort of well-explained justification, and it was not merged. Now there is a new patch which takes a different approach on both the technical and political fronts. Its fate remains to be seen, but it demonstrates a method for dealing with patents which is worthy of wider consideration. A look at the new patch and patent avoidance strategies in general, can be found below (subscribers only).

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The slow loris is an exotic animal of southeast Asia that is best known for its slow, deliberate movements. This characterizes the technique used by a new Denial of Service tool that has been named after the animal. Slowloris was released to the public by security researcher "RSnake" on June 17. Guest author Christian Folini takes a look at slowloris on this week's Security page (subscribers only).

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Guest author Neil Brown wraps up his series on kernel design patterns with a look at "midlayers". These layers sit between a layer that implements a wide range of services (such as POSIX system calls), and a layer that is specific to a piece of hardware or filesystem. While it is tempting to implement midlayers as an actual layer that requires all requests to pass through them, that is the essence of the "midlayer mistake" pattern. Subscribers can read more about this pattern in the article from this week's Kernel page.

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Guest author Valerie Aurora is frequently asked about chunkfs, which is a prototype file system implementing "repair-driven" file system features. Her answer: "Chunkfs works, the overhead is reasonable, and it is only practical if it is part of the file system design from the beginning, not tacked on after the fact. I just need to write up the paper summarizing all the data." That paper is now available, subscribers only, from this week's Kernel page.

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FreedomHEC (Freedom Hardware Engineer's Conference) Taipei was held June 10 and 11 in, unsurprisingly, Taipei, Taiwan. The event, sponsored by the governmental Institute for Information Industry, followed the huge Computex conference in the hope of attracting hardware developers who are interested in supporting Linux. LWN Executive Editor Jonathan Corbet spoke at FreedomHEC; the following report (subscribers only) gives a look at the conference and what it accomplished.

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In part two of this three-part series, guest author Neil Brown looks at the patterns embodied in kernel data structures. In particular, he examines lists, red-black trees, and radix trees to find common patterns in the kernel implementations. Because performance is such an overriding concern for kernel hackers, the data structure implementations are rather different than the "Abstract Data Types" that are normally considered—at least academically—the proper way to handle such things. Click below, subscribers only, for the second installment from next week's Kernel page.

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The idea of "design patterns" came from the field of Architecture, but have been used for software development, particularly object-oriented programming, for many years as well. When the visibility of these patterns is raised, so that more developers know and understand them, better quality code can result. In the first part of a three-part series, guest author Neil Brown looks at design patterns in the Linux kernel and how they can lead to improved quality of kernel code.

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Your editor once thought that the Xen Dom0 patches might be merged for 2.6.30. So much for editorial infallibility. The Xen Dom0 discussion has restarted; based on that, your editor will be making no such predictions for 2.6.31. Click below for the full report from this week's Kernel Page.

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One of the biggest advantages of free software is that it is usually written with the needs of its users in mind. Proprietary software, instead, has more of a tendency to reflect the interests of its owners. Thus, free applications do not normally implement "features" which allow their users to do less. One might think that the consensus against "antifeatures" in free software is nearly universal, but, as the case of the okular PDF reader in Debian shows, there are still exceptions.

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Current news

Dave Philips reviews the Linux version of Pianoteq (commercial software) on Linux Journal. "On the 15th of May 2009 the Modartt company announced the release of version 3.0.3 of their award-winning Pianoteq, a professional-quality digital keyboard instrument created by an audio synthesis method known as physical modeling. The program is vastly praised by its users, but in order to feel the love you've had to run a Windows machine or a Mac box. Until now, that is. The latest release introduces various new attractions, and the one that interests me the most is support for a native Linux version."

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The Free Software Foundation Europe presents an interview with Smári McCarthy. "Stian Rødven Eide: One of the most profiled projects you have been involved with is the Fab Lab, having headed the Icelandic branch for over a year now. While best known for its use of 3D printers, the Fab Lab is actually a much broader concept that goes far beyond technical innovation. Can you tell us a bit about your work there, and what you hope to achieve? Smári McCarthy: There are two sides to the Fab Lab story. On the one hand, there’s the research side, which is all about developing the universal constructors, figuring out the hard science of digital fabrication. In that realm I think our work is done when we can download chicken sandwiches off the Internet."

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The July, 2009 edition of the GNOME Journal has been published. Contents include: "a review of Project Hamster by Les Harris, an interview on working with upstream with Laszlo Peter by Stormy Peters, using git for GNOME translators by Og Maciel, an introduction to GNOME Zeitgeist by Natan Yellin, a look at some of GNOME Do's advanced features by Jorge Castro, and lastly, the Behind the Scenes feature continues with Owen Taylor by Paul Cutler."

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CentOS has updated seamonkey (arbitrary code execution).

Fedora 9 has updated xorg-x11-xfs (race condition).

Fedora 10 has updated xorg-x11-xfs (race condition).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has updated pidgin (denial of service) and openswan (input validation flaws).

Ubuntu has updated kernel (multiple vulnerabilities).

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iTWire reports on a new Linux installation by a Glendale, California hospital. "Adventist Medical Center (GAMC) has installed thin clients running Linux virtual desktops in 65 patient rooms in its new West Tower. "Just as easily as the hospital provides patients with TVs in rooms, now we provide personal computing," said Roger Pruyne, senior programmer/analyst and project manager for the GAMC Patient Computing project. The system combines NoMachine's NX remote access and virtualisation software, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and an IBM System x3650 server. GAMC estimates that this approach saves 98 percent of the cost that would have been involved if conventional PCs had been selected."

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Mandriva has updated pidgin (multiple remote vulnerabilities).

SUSE has updated acroread (lots of vulnerabilities).

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The long-awaited PostgreSQL 8.4 release is available. "This release contains an abundance of enhancements to make administering, querying, and programming of PostgreSQL databases easier than ever before. With 293 new or improved features in version 8.4, there are even more reasons to choose PostgreSQL for your next project." See the announcement (click below) for a list of the most interesting new features.

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Version 1.0 of the Open Database License is now official. This is the license that the OpenStreetMap project proposes to move to; the current plan envisions a vote being held almost right away, followed by a 2-3 month transition.

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The first KDE 4.3.0 release candidate is out. "KDE 4.3 focuses on polishing and completing the user experience by providing a modern and beautiful Free working environment. Compared to the Beta releases, this release candidate now contains the new Air theme, which will be the default for KDE 4.3.0. Air is a theme lighter than Oxygen, which is still available as an option through the 'Desktop Settings' dialog." See the full announcement for a summary of features in KDE 4.3.

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Mozilla has announced the release of Firefox 3.5. "Firefox 3.5 has been under development for the past year, contains many new exciting features for users and web developers, and is our fastest Firefox release ever."

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