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[Development] Posted Jul 3, 2009 18:57 UTC (Fri) by jake

Michael Tiemann reports on his recent trip to Brazil for FISL 10. He notes that free software adoption is growing rapidly within the Brazilian government. He also describes an effort by the Malaysian government to reward use of free software, rather than the development of it, because that can lead to multiple, competing solutions that don't necessarily solve the users' problems. In addition, he also noted a barrier to free software adoption: "On the alarm front, I heard specific confirmation of a storyline I've been following, which is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is basically telling governments: if you want contributions/investments from us, then you'll give Microsoft cabinet-level access to inform policy, and you'll use Microsoft products. For example, donations to educational initiatives require installing and teaching Microsoft products."

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[Press] Posted Jul 3, 2009 17:53 UTC (Fri) by ris

Linux Journal takes a look at a hospital with Linux thin clients for patients. "The happy healers at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, in conjunction with Linux luminaries IBM and Novell, as well as the networkers at NoMachine, have found a way to insert Linux into the lives of its patients. Rather than blank walls and bad TV to stare at, patients in the new West Tower at Glendale Adventist have access to the outside world, via Linux-based thin clients available right in the patient's room. The setup utilizes servers from IBM, the networking and compression expertise of NoMachine, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop to provide patients with access to the internet, where they can do everything from learning about their condition and treatment to keeping family and friends abreast of their progress via the standard cast of internet characters: Twitter, Facebook, and the omnipresent blogs."

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[Security] Posted Jul 3, 2009 17:51 UTC (Fri) by ris

CentOS has updated openswan (input validation flaws), pidgin (denial of service), ruby (denial of service).

Debian has updated nagios (arbitrary program execution).

Gentoo has updated libwmf (pointer use-after-free flaw), modsecurity (denial of service).

Red Hat has updated ruby (denial of service).

SUSE has updated java (multiple vulnerabilities), optipng, cups, quagga, pango, strongswan, perl-DBD-Pg, irssi, openssl/libopenssl-devel, net-snmp, ImageMagick/GraphicsMagick, perl, ipsec-tools/novell-ipsec-tools, poppler/libpoppler3/libpoppler4, yast2-ldap-server, tomcat6, gstreamer-plugins/gstreamer010-plugins-bad, apache2-mod_php5 (various issues).

Ubuntu has updated perl (buffer overflow), nagios (arbitrary program execution).

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[Development] Posted Jul 3, 2009 13:16 UTC (Fri) by corbet

IBM has announced the release of Milepost GCC, an extension to the GCC compiler which uses machine learning techniques to improve application performance on embedded processors. "'Our technology automatically learns how to get the best performance from the hardware -- whether mobile phones, desktops, or entire systems -- the software will run faster and use less energy,' noted Dr. Bilha Mendelson, Manager of Code Optimization Technologies at IBM Research - Haifa. 'We opened the compiler environment so it can access artificial intelligence and machine learning guidance to automatically determine exactly what specific optimizations should be used and when to apply them to ramp-up performance.'" The code can be downloaded from the Milepost site.

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[Kernel] Posted Jul 3, 2009 3:12 UTC (Fri) by jake

Stable kernels 2.6.30.1, 2.6.29.6, and 2.6.27.26 have been released by the stable team. Each contains quite a number of patches (111, 35, and 32 respectively) all over the tree, some with security implications. The 2.6.29.6 release comes with an important note: "This is the last release of the 2.6.29 kernel series. All users are strongly suggested to move to the 2.6.30 release series at this time."

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[Press] Posted Jul 2, 2009 21:20 UTC (Thu) by cook

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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[Press] Posted Jul 2, 2009 18:10 UTC (Thu) by cook

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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[Development] Posted Jul 2, 2009 17:59 UTC (Thu) by cook

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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[Security] Posted Jul 2, 2009 17:54 UTC (Thu) by cook

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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[Press] Posted Jul 2, 2009 15:43 UTC (Thu) by cook

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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Posted Jul 2, 2009 0:57 UTC (Thu)

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for July 2, 2009 is available.

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition

• Front: C# and Mono; RealtimeKit and the audio problem; VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds.
• Security: Mozilla's Content Security Policy; New vulnerabilities in git, kdelibs, moodle, pam_krb5, ...
• Kernel: Soft updates, hard problems; Perfcounters; The fanotify API.
• Distributions: Ubuntu archive reorganization; openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 3 and YDL v6.2 released
• Development: VA API slowly -- but surely -- making progress, gcc-in-cxx phase 1, new versions of MySQL, PostgreSQL, Nagare, SuperCollider, Firefox, PHP, Python, Pycairo, bzr.
• Press: NetworkManager and ConnMan, How Linux News gets buried, talk by Jim Zemlin, Nvidia chooses Windows CE, Berlin art colleges choose Linux, reviews of Ksplice, KTechLab, Shuttle XS29f, Sugar on a Stick, AndroidFox speculation.
• Announcements: GNOME election results, Open Database License, LCA cfp, PostgreSQL conf cfp, LinuxCon program, Ohio Linux Fest, pyArkansas, SciPy student sponsorships.

Read more

[Security] Posted Jul 1, 2009 18:34 UTC (Wed) by corbet

Mandriva has updated pidgin (multiple remote vulnerabilities).

SUSE has updated acroread (lots of vulnerabilities).

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[Front] Posted Jul 1, 2009 17:46 UTC (Wed) by corbet

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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[Development] Posted Jul 1, 2009 15:14 UTC (Wed) by corbet

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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[Announcements] Posted Jul 1, 2009 13:47 UTC (Wed) by corbet

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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[Development] Posted Jul 1, 2009 12:27 UTC (Wed) by corbet

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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[Development] Posted Jun 30, 2009 17:56 UTC (Tue) by ris

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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[Press] Posted Jun 30, 2009 17:49 UTC (Tue) by ris

NetworkWorld covers a talk by Jim Zemlin. "The move by carriers to sell netbooks at a discount and seek revenue from later application downloads is an opportunity for Linux, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said at a Beijing forum. He urged Chinese and global companies to consider offering devices and download stores based on Linux."

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[Security] Posted Jun 30, 2009 17:41 UTC (Tue) by ris

Gentoo has updated wireshark (multiple vulnerabilities), tomcat (information disclosure), phpmyadmin (multiple vulnerabilities).

Red Hat has updated kernel (multiple vulnerabilities), seamonkey (arbitrary code execution).

Slackware has updated ghostscript (multiple vulnerabilities).

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[Press] Posted Jun 30, 2009 16:21 UTC (Tue) by ris

Linux Journal speculates that future Android devices may run Mozilla's mobile Firefox, Fennec. "Android or not, Fennec development is moving forward. Two new builds were released on Friday: a second beta for the Maemo platform, and a second alpha for Windows Mobile. Developers report that the browser's user interface has been heavily improved, and gains have been made in both performance and responsiveness. Changes to the add-on system and download manager have also been incorporated. Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop builds are also available."

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