Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Five days with the Classmate PC and Mandriva (Linux.com)
Tina Gasperson reviews the Intel Classmate PC on Linux.com. "Some say the Classmate PC is Intel's answer to (or competition with) the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) effort. Intel is hawking the lilliputian laptop in "emerging markets" like Nigeria, India, and Mexico as a solution for worldwide education of primary and secondary students. It's to be officially released and shipped en masse to schools in Africa and South and Central America by the end of June. Recently my children and I borrowed a Classmate PC loaded with a custom version of Mandriva Linux. Most of us had fun."
Dell launches three Ubuntu Linux PC (Computerworld)
Computerworld covers Dell's launch of three PCs that will ship with Ubuntu Linux. "Dell Inc. will officially launch its first three consumer PCs running the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux OS on Thursday -- two desktops and an Inspiron E1505n notebook PC. The new models give buyers a third choice when shopping for a PC at Dell: a machine with Windows installed, a machine with no OS, on which they can install one of their choice, and now a machine with Ubuntu Linux already installed. Other PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Lenovo Group Ltd. also sell PCs that run Linux, but mainly on customized machines, because retail demand for the open-source OS is tiny compared to that for Windows."
Trade Shows and Conferences
Hugin developer launches photographic distortion correction database (Linux.com)
Linux.com covers Pablo d'Angelo's presentation at the Libre Graphics Meeting. "The lead developer of the Hugin panorama-stitching application, Pablo d'Angelo, has proposed a new open database for collecting camera lens information that could be used to correct systematic distortion in photographs. The database would be populated by user-submitted calibration data and some data donated from a competitor, but the exact format and licensing of the database are still under consideration. One developer's suggestion would make proprietary software that uses the database pay for the privilege."
64-Bit Linux Spotlighted at Gelato ICE (HPCwire)
HPCwire covers the Gelato ICE Itanium Conference & Expo. "Scientists, developers, and engineers from 56 companies and institutions convened from all around the globe for the April 2007 Gelato ICE: Itanium Conference & Expo held in San Jose, California. The event was organized by the Gelato Federation, an international technical community dedicated to advancing Linux on the Intel Itanium architecture. Conference sponsors included HP, Intel, and the Itanium Solutions Alliance, and media sponsors HPCwire and GRIDtoday."
Companies
MS Goes Open Source to Boost Identity Management (eWeek)
eWeek covers open source projects at Microsoft. "Microsoft is launching a slew of initiatives to help Web sites identify visitors. First, the company is kicking off four open-source projects to support the development of ID cards for online users. Microsoft is also releasing one of its identity management specs, Identity Selector Interoperability Profile, under its OSP (Open Specification Promise), meaning the specification is clear of licensing fees or patent worries."
Novell to detail Microsoft patent pact (ZDNet)
ZDNet reports that Novell will soon announce more information in its patent agreement with Microsoft. "Novell plans to reveal the details in conjunction with filing its upcoming annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, spokesman Bruce Lowry said Wednesday at the Open Source Business Conference here. The report had been held up by Novell's investigation into its stock option compensation practices. "We will be filing our SEC filing by the end of this month. We will be publishing the Microsoft agreements as attachments," Lowry said during a panel discussion. The agreements will have some details redacted, he said."
Linux at Work
Windows firewall squeezes into USB key (LinuxDevices)
LinuxDevices looks at the Yoggie Pico. "Yoggie Security Systems has squeezed a complete hardware firewall for Windows systems into a USB key sized form-factor. The "Yoggie Pico" runs Linux 2.6 along with 13 security applications on a 520MHz PXA270, a powerful Intel processor popular in smartphones and other high-end consumer devices."
Legal
Hey Microsoft, Sue Me First (Linux Journal)
Nicholas Petreley discusses the Sue me first Microsoft list in a Linux Journal posting. "I bought the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org at the suggestion of Marcel Gagné after posting a blog entry on the topic. The idea was to ask Linux users to join me in calling Microsoft's bluff. Let's get the patent infringement claims tried in court and get this over with. Several people talked me out of it. Fortunately, a lawyer named Christian Einfeldt had the same idea and followed through."
Eben Moglen: GPLv3 not about MS and Novell (Linux.com)
Linux.com has a series of videos of Eben Moglen talking about GPLv3 in Ogg format. "One of the highlights of my visit to San Diego for the Red Hat Summit was the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with Professor Eben Moglen. From that interview, we have selected six segments on various topics for your viewing pleasure, and will be publishing one each day this week. First up, an explanation of all the things that GPLv3 is about other than the MS/Novell deal." In the second segment, Eben explains why MS should remove patents from the Novell agreement.
Interviews
People Behind KDE: Jason Harris (KDE.News)
KDE.News introduces this People Behind KDE interview with Jason Harris. "In what ways do you make a contribution to KDE? I'm the lead developer of KStars, the desktop planetarium, and I wrote KPlotWidget, which is now part of kdelibs. I'm also one of the admins for the kde-edu mailing list, I was involved in Google Summer of Code 2006, and I initiated the KDE 4 Release Team."
Resources
Firefox extension lets you remove elements from Web pages (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at the RIP (Remove It Permanently) extension for Firefox. "Are you irritated by huge graphical ads smack in the middle of an article? Or maybe you don't want to waste bandwidth viewing the dozens of images in a review, or user icons in forum boards? You can remove them for good with a single click by using Firefox's RIP extension, which zaps anything out of a Web page, permanently."
New tool screens spam, digitizes books (ZDNet)
ZDNet looks at the ReCaptcha project. "A group of Carnegie Mellon University programmers has launched a service called ReCaptcha that can help cut down on spam while letting people digitize books. The project is a variation of the widely used "Captcha" technique to weed out computer abuse such as e-mailing spam or posting spam on blog comments. Captchas require users to pass little pattern recognition tests, commonly reading distorted or obscured words."
Tone-mapping HDR photos with Qtpfsgui (Linux.com)
Nathan Willis explores Qtpfsgui on Linux.com. "A lot of photos tagged with "HDR" turn up on Flickr and similar photo sharing sites these days. They're unnatural, surreal, sometimes crazy-looking images with the bright areas darkened, the dark areas brightened, and lots of saturation. You can get in on the craze under Linux using Qtpfsgui."
Reviews
Unveiling the Art of Illusion (Linux.com)
Linux.com reviews Art of Illusion. "Blender gets the lion's share of press among free 3-D modeling applications, but it is not the only player in the field. Art of Illusion (AOI) is a mature, GPL-licensed 3-D modeler with robust editing, animation, and rendering features, and it's a lot easier to use than Blender."
First-Person Shooters (OS Reviews)
OS Reviews compares three open source games. "Entering the arena are three different offsprings of id Software's various liberated engines. First, there is PrBoom, which is based on the Doom engine. Moving one step further in FPS history comes Nexuiz, being built on top of the DarkPlaces engine, which in turn is derived from Quake I. The Quake III Arena engine is the one most recently released under the GPL and serves as the basis for OpenArena."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Next page:
Announcements>>