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A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS

There is a lot of change happening in the "desktop" computing area currently, and various groups are trying to figure out how to best support users in the future. One entity with a big stake in the outcome is Google, which has responded with a couple of operating systems of its own: Android for small platforms, and ChromeOS for netbook-like devices. ChromeOS is not meant to be generally available until sometime around the end of 2010, but a preview version was released in late November.

Having been through the challenge of rebuilding Android, your editor was not in a great hurry to try to make a working version of ChromeOS. Happily, that proved not to be necessary: the folks at Dell put together a ChromeOS build for the 10v, one of which your editor recently acquired to play with Moblin. It was just a small matter of downloading the 7.5GB USB image - a task requiring only a few days with your editor's less-than-impressive DSL connectivity. Of course, during that time, the install image was replaced with another which weighs in at a mere 320MB. Progress is always a wonderful thing to behold.

Booting the image is straightforward enough; after about 15 seconds, ChromeOS comes up with a blue login screen. This being a Google product, it should not be surprising that login names are Gmail account names; the system will nicely add the @gmail.com should the user forget about it. Of course, ChromeOS does not come up with a functioning network on the 10v, leading one to wonder just how the login credentials can be validated. ChromeOS can remember login information, but only after a successful login. Your editor was forced to resort to actually reading the instructions, wherein he learned to use the default dell@gmail.com account that comes wired into the downloaded system.

As has been reported elsewhere, ChromeOS presents itself primarily as a web browser. The instructions on the Dell site suggest that it should be possible to get a terminal window, but your editor never succeeded in that goal. It was all Chromium, all the time. As a web browser, it works well enough, but your editor does not spend all of his time messing around on the web, occasional appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

A small icon in the upper left corner leads to the screen shown on the right. This screen would seem to nicely characterize the ChromeOS experience, at least in this stage of its development. It's all logos for services - generally commercial services - available out on the net somewhere. ChromeOS, it seems, is the ultimate consumer's system. It seems like the logical evolution of the television set. Indeed, one could argue that, like a television, the main reason for the existence of ChromeOS seems to be to show advertisements.

Now, one should use great care in coming to conclusions about an operating system that is nearly a year away from a real release. Things will certainly evolve considerably over the coming months, and ChromeOS can only acquire useful features which are not available in this preview. But the emphasis of this system seems clear: ChromeOS is designed to be a thin front-end, with the real computing happening elsewhere, preferably at Google.

Your editor's review of Moblin-based distributions on the same device had a mixed conclusion. But it must be said: the Moblin approach looks quite a bit more interesting (to your editor) than the ChromeOS approach on these small devices. Moblin, too, has a strong focus on ensuring that the user can distribute wisdom on Twitter and Facebook with as few obstacles as possible. But Moblin is also a Linux system which is more than happy to let the user under the hood and to install and run applications locally. A Moblin system is still a Linux computer; a ChromeOS system - at least, in this stage of its development - seems much more like a closed appliance.

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New Releases

Nexenta Core Platform 3.0 Alpha2 Released

The Nexenta project has announced the availability of the Nexenta Core Platform 3.0 alpha2. This is the second release in NCP3. "The main changes over the Alpha1 release include: * move from Opensolaris b124 to b124 b129. This brings the long awaited ZFS deduplication support to the distribution. * Many additional network drivers. * nexenta-on-source changes."

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openSUSE: Linux for Education Updated

The openSUSE Education team has announced the availability of the updated Li-f-e hybrid ISO. "Unlike the official openSUSE release, the Edu project's Li-f-e flavor will get updated almost on a monthly basis. These minor releases will contain all the official openSUSE 11.2 updates, some important package version updates and may be addition of new features too. With these gradual improvements we are hoping to make one of the best Education OS even better."

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Red Hat Bugzilla 3.4 RC

The Red Hat Bugzilla team has announced the release candidate of the next version of Red Hat Bugzilla based on the upstream 3.4 code base. "Over the years Red Hat has made substantial customizations to Bugzilla to fit into the Engineering tool chain. Over time the upstream has incorporated some of these customizations or solved them in different ways. Upgrading reduces our customization footprint (and thus maintenance) while bringing many bug fixes & enhancements."

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Distribution News

Fedora

Fedora 10 End of Life

As of December 17, Fedora 10 has stopped receiving support; there will be no more security updates for this distribution. In fact, the final updates went out on the 11th; among other things, that means that the latest Firefox vulnerabilities will not be fixed. Fedora 10 users should probably be thinking about moving to a more recent release.

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat to Drop Itanium Support in Enterprise Linux 6 (PC World)

Red Hat is dropping support for the Itanium processor in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6 according to a PC World article. "Dropping support for Itanium makes economic sense for Red Hat, according to Chris Ingle, research director for IDC's European Systems Group. The number of Itanium-based servers sold is likely not high enough for Red Hat to justify spending its resources on supporting a version of Enterprise Linux for this processor."

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Ubuntu family

Ubuntu 10.04 will bring panel overhaul, social network menu (ars technica)

Ars technica looks forward to some desktop changes planned for Ubuntu 10.04. "The second part of Canonical's grand plan for panel perfection is a concept that the company calls the Me Menu. Based partly on Ubuntu's current presence applet, the new Me Menu will serve as a one-stop shop for configuring messaging status and social networks. Designed by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth himself, the Me Menu is expected to be one of the highlights of Ubuntu 10.04."

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Minutes from the Ubuntu Technical Board meeting, 2009-12-15

Click below for the minutes of the December 15, 2009 meeting of the Ubuntu Technical Board. Topics include UnitsPolicy, Status of ARM port, Archive reorganization, Execute Permission Policy, and a Check up on community bugs.

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Distribution Newsletters

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 334

The DistroWatch Weekly for December 21, 2009 is out. "It is fascinating to see how Linux is used in real-world situations, where it often proves to be an outstanding solution at very little cost. This week's feature article presents SheevaPlug, a $99 mini-computer not much larger than an electric plug. Inside it, there is an ARM-based processor, some RAM, and a Flash storage device - just enough for a creative geek to set it up as a low-cost MythTV server with Debian GNU/Linux. Read on to find out more about this unusual system. In the news section, Mark Shuttleworth announces that he will step down as the CEO of Canonical early next year, Mandriva announces a new edition of its Linux operating system that boots in less than 10 seconds, Omega releases a Fedora remix that includes multimedia codecs and other conveniences not shipped in Fedora itself, and Linux Mint has good news for those who prefer the project's fast and lightweight edition with Fluxbox. Also not to be missed, a link to an interview with openSUSE community manager Joe Brockmeier and a look at the current state of Linux Standard Base. As always, happy reading and see you all in 2010!"

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Fedora Weekly News 207

The Fedora Weekly News for December 20, 2009 is out. "Welcome to the final Fedora Weekly News of 2009! We will be taking a break after this issue and return with issue 208 on January 11, 2010. Have a wonderful holiday season how ever you celebrate it! In this issue, we kick off with announcements including a reminder of Fedora 10 end of life, FESCo election results, and notification of Fedora mailing lists migration. In news from the Fedora Planet, several posts covering FUDCon Toronto, a continuation of the Plymouth Theming Guide, and details on the source control move from cvs to git, as well as several posts around virtualization. In Quality Assurance news, a recap of the weekly QA team meetings, increasing grub timeout, and X.org server testing. Our issue finishes with Security Advisories for Fedora 11 and 12. We hope you enjoy FWN 207!"

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OpenSUSE Weekly News/102

This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers Joe Brockmeier: openSUSE Build Service Integrates with openDesktop.org to reach 150,000 contributors, Michal Seben: cronie daemon is openSUSE, MakeUseOf.com/Varun Kashyap: 6 Different Ways To End Unresponsive Programs In Linux, Joe Brockmeier: Web Winners and Losers in 2009, h-online.com/Thorsten Leemhuis: Kernel Log: Linux 2.6.33 to include Nvidia graphics driver nouveau, and more.

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Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #173

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for December 19, 2009 is out. "In this issue we cover: Mark Shuttleworth: My new focus at Canonical, Lucid Community Team Plans, Michal Zajac (quintasan) Interview, Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Notification, New update for the Ubuntu Israeli website, Ubuntu Catalan: What a LoCo November, James Westby: Ubuntu Distributed Development Overview, Ubuntu Forums: In a month, Ubuntu's Jono Bacon: Managing an Open Source Community, Cloud-oriented netbook distro arrives in beta, and much, much more!"

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Distribution reviews

Two other great Linux distributions: MEPIS & Mint (ComputerWorld)

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols takes a look at MEPIS and Mint. "MEPIS is easily the most obscure of my favorite distributions. Unlike most Linux distributions, it has neither a company nor a community behind it. MEPIS is almost entirely the product of one developer, Warren Woodford."

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