Linux Today Sticky Page On this page we'll maintain links to important articles and documents that pertain to Free Software, Linux, and the tech industry. Please submit your suggestions to editors@linuxtoday.com. Thank you! (Jun 15, 2009)
Small Features
Bizarre Bugs: 9 of the Strangest Software Glitches Ever IT World: "I began my research intending to cover the whole PC era, but I quickly discovered that most of the strangest bugs have appeared in recent years. As a matter of fact, the three wackiest ones in my list--involving Google's Android OS, Microsoft's Zune, and Google itself--all cropped up in just the past few months." Jun 21, 2009
Mozilla's Crowdsourcing Mystique (Jul 2, 2009, 22:04 UTC) (931 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Business Week: "So Ken Saunders, a 41-year-old, legally blind volunteer for Mozilla, took it upon himself to create a tool that makes the player easier to use for people with vision problems."
Available Now: GNOME 2.26.3 (Jul 2, 2009, 19:34 UTC) (1565 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) Softpedia: "The GNOME developers, through Lucas Rocha, have announced early this morning in a press release that the last maintenance release of the popular GNOME 2.26 desktop environment is now available for download."
Mono: Shielding the facts (Jul 2, 2009, 15:34 UTC) (2313 reads)
(19 talkbacks)
(feedback) IT Wire: "Until the anti-Mono crowd actually make a contribution to Free Software, they will continue to be treated as cranks - and their questions left unanswered."
The Kernel Newbie Corner: Your First Loadable Kernel Module, Part Deux (Jul 2, 2009, 13:32 UTC) (950 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux.com: "...you can't compile a loadable kernel module without at least a partial kernel source tree -- the part that contains the general build infrastructure and the essential header files. But since it's handy to have a full source tree hanging around for the sake of perusing its contents every so often, you might as well go get one:"
What ever happened to chunkfs? (Jul 2, 2009, 12:02 UTC) (1044 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) LWN.net: ""What ever happened to chunkfs?" This is a question I hear every few months, and I always answer the same way, "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." Thanks to your benevolent LWN editor, you are now reading that paper."
Linux based Solar-powered networking anywhere (Jul 2, 2009, 10:02 UTC) (1506 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) IBM Developerwork: "SolarNetOne is a turnkey Internet hotspot—power, computers, and satellite uplink—you can install virtually anywhere, for less than the cost of a subcompact car."
PostgreSQL 8.4 (Jul 2, 2009, 04:02 UTC) (1800 reads)
(3 talkbacks)
(feedback) PostgreSQL press release: "The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released version 8.4, continuing the rapid development of the world's most advanced open source database. "
Considerations on Patents that Read on Language Infrastructure (Jul 1, 2009, 14:32 UTC) (891 reads)
(5 talkbacks)
(feedback) Software Freedom Law Center: "...the software freedom community should minimize its use of programming language infrastructure that comes primarily from anti-software-freedom companies, notwithstanding FaiF (Free as in Freedom) implementations. I've been thinking about an extension of that argument: that language infrastructure created in a community process is likely more resilient against attacks from proprietary software companies."
Intro to Python Introspection and Dynamic Programming (Jul 1, 2009, 03:02 UTC) (1670 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) WDVL: "odern programming languages, including Python, have tools which facillitate introspection. In the case of a programming language, introspection is the ability of a program to examine itself, or even the parent interpreter or compiler."
Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions (Jul 1, 2009, 00:16 UTC) (2011 reads)
(7 talkbacks)
(feedback) LWN.net: "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."
Apple Will Never Replace Darwin With Linux (Jun 30, 2009, 21:32 UTC) (3363 reads)
(11 talkbacks)
(feedback) Kuro5hin: "In fact, Apple's use of BSD code is so minute that it amounts to being a charity project that allows Apple a way of keeping FreeBSD solvent."
The New MySQL Server Release Model (Jun 30, 2009, 20:32 UTC) (1294 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) MySQL: "When I joined MySQL back in June of 2005, one of the first “MySQL Truths” I learned and repeated often when discussing MySQL with others was “release early, release often.”"
Data Filtering with PHP
(Jun 30, 2009, 17:32 UTC) (966 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Webreference: "One of the reasons why data validation is not mentioned in these tutorials and books is because validating user input is too 'complicated' for beginners and won't comply with the notion that PHP is supposed to be 'easy' to program with. In reality, it only takes a few simple steps to validate user input."
KDE's Seigo gives sneak peek at version 4.3 (Jun 30, 2009, 14:32 UTC) (2767 reads)
(19 talkbacks)
(feedback) TechWorld: "Core KDE developer Aaron Seigo posted a much-anticipated screencast of the upcoming 4.3 release.
This snapshot is approaching the final release (due in a month) and comes after more than 2300 bugs (including duplicates) were closed."
Linux kernel design patterns - part 2 (Jun 30, 2009, 13:32 UTC) (1292 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) LWN.net: "This week we will look at a very different aspect of coding and see why the kernel has special needs, and how those needs have been addressed by successful approaches. The topic under the microscope today is complex data structures."
tridge offers a new patch to Linux's VFAT filesystem (Jun 30, 2009, 12:32 UTC) (1690 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Groklaw: "tridge has done it again, offering a patch to Linux's VFAT filesystem that retains support for long names, while carefully avoiding ever having both a long and a short name for the same file."
Discouraging FOSS (Jun 30, 2009, 10:32 UTC) (2170 reads)
(9 talkbacks)
(feedback) An Alien's Viewpoint: "In other words, the only hope for Microsoft to contain Linux is to remove the desire for people to continue contributing to it. If you were Microsoft how would you attempt to accomplish that?"
Fedora: A Hat with a History (Jun 30, 2009, 09:02 UTC) (1375 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Raiden's Realm: "To start with the very deepest roots, we need to look to the kernel that makes Fedora what it is: The Linux Kernel. That was first introduced in 1991 by a then college student named Linus Torvalds."
15 years of FreeDOS (Jun 30, 2009, 04:32 UTC) (1961 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) The H Open: "Originally released on the 28th of June 1994, FreeDOS is now 15 years old. FreeDOS is a free open source DOS (Disk Operating System) clone that was developed by Jim Hall, a former physics student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls."
openSUSE, Now with More Open (Jun 29, 2009, 20:04 UTC) (860 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux Magazine: "Novell has announced plans to make openSUSE more community driven by opening up their Online Build System which controls Factory to contributors outside their staffing ranks. What does it mean for the project and community at large?"
Sun Releases New NetBeans 6.7 IDE for Java and PHP (Jun 29, 2009, 19:34 UTC) (1266 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) InternetNews: "Yet an IDE itself is just a development tool, and developers still require a place to host their source code. It's a gap that Sun is hoping to bridge with the release of its new NetBeans 6.7 IDE, which includes integrated support for Sun's Project Kenai."
9 of the Best Free Linux Debuggers (Jun 29, 2009, 18:04 UTC) (1785 reads)
(1 talkbacks)
(feedback) LinuxLinks: "To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 9 advanced Linux debugging tools. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wants to fix, and help fix, bugs. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews."
GNOME 3.0 may have more Mono apps (Jun 29, 2009, 16:04 UTC) (2941 reads)
(19 talkbacks)
(feedback) IT Wire: "The next major version of the GNOME desktop environment, version 3.0, may contain more than the one Mono-dependent application than it currently does, according to GNOME Foundation member Dave Neary."
A Beginner's Guide to Free Software Programming Languages (Jun 27, 2009, 10:36 UTC) (5015 reads)
(18 talkbacks)
(feedback) LinuxPlanet: "Curious about programming, but having trouble getting started because you're confused about all those languages? This article will give you an overview of the most common desktop languages you'll see in free software today."
PHP 5.3 Coming June 30th (Jun 26, 2009, 07:32 UTC) (1826 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) InternetNews Blog: "PHP 5.3 could be out as soon as Tuesday June 30th. The new release is a big deal for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that by my count this is the first major update to PHP since 2006 and the PHP 5.2 "
Leveraging Industrial-strength Python Testing (Jun 26, 2009, 01:37 UTC) (1627 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) developerWorks: "The recent emergence of industrial-strength Python testing frameworks means that Python tests are being written more succinctly, more uniformly, and with better reporting of results than ever before."
openSUSE, Now with More Open (Jun 25, 2009, 18:04 UTC) (2336 reads)
(2 talkbacks)
(feedback) Linux Magazine: "Novell has announced plans to make openSUSE more community driven by opening up their Online Build System which controls Factory to contributors outside their staffing ranks. What does it mean for the project and community at large?"
Ubuntu May Increase Mono-dependent Apps (Jun 25, 2009, 17:19 UTC) (3389 reads)
(21 talkbacks)
(feedback) iTWire: "Responding to an inquiry about the Canonical policy on Mono, Gerry Carr said: 'That's an interesting question. Really, it is Ubuntu's board of governance, not Canonical whose policy you want as they decide what goes in the distro.'"
Microsoft and FOSS: Uneasy Bedfellows (Jun 25, 2009, 13:04 UTC) (2291 reads)
(18 talkbacks)
(feedback) iTWire: "Maybe it's the cynic within that makes me think this way - but at the end of an event titled 'Microsoft'.'Open Source' == 'unhandled exceptions.' I was left wondering: Is this all an elaborate set-up?"
Working with XML and Java on Android (Jun 25, 2009, 06:02 UTC) (1615 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) developerWorks: "Android is a modern, open source operating system and SDK for mobile devices. With it you can create powerful mobile applications. In this article, you learn to build Android applications that can work with XML from the Internet."
Eclipse Galileo Releases 33 Open Source Projects (Jun 25, 2009, 00:06 UTC) (2375 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) InternetNews: "The Eclipse Foundation is today making its biggest release of the year, highlighting open source projects created using the Eclipse development platform. Its new Galileo release includes 33 open source projects that were built with contributions from 44 different organizations."
Beyond the iPhone: What open source means for mobile (Jun 23, 2009, 15:01 UTC) (1547 reads)
(0 talkbacks)
(feedback) cnet: "But for all the noise that Apple is making in mobile, open source--not Apple--may well be doing the most to define the future of mobile communications, as two leading open-source projects suggest."
