Linux News for Oct 31, 2008

• New Qt Creator IDE From Qt Software (Oct 31, 2008, 23:31)
  KDE.news: "News emerged recently that Qt Software (formerly Trolltech) were working on their first IDE for Qt, code named Project Greenhouse. Today saw the release of the first technical preview under the name Qt Creator."


• Editor's Note: Does Linux Deliver For Small Businesses? (Oct 31, 2008, 23:01)
  The answer is Yes, it does, though with some qualifications. The short answer: it's all in the implementation. The long answer starts with taking a look at Canonical's successes in opening new doors for Linux deployments.


• Drupal Revealed as 2008 Open Source CMS Award Winner (Oct 31, 2008, 22:31)
  Packt: "Packt's annual Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award reached its climax today with the announcement that Drupal has won the Overall category, collecting a first prize of $5,000. Three months after it was launched and a staggering 20,000 votes later, Drupal finished ahead of Joomla! and DotNetNuke to retain the Award it won in 2007."


• OpenSUSE Starts Steering its Own Course (Oct 31, 2008, 22:17)
  LinuxPlanet: "Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that it's not easy for a Linux company to let go the reins of control over its community Linux distribution. Just ask Red Hat, which started to let go of Fedora and then decided to keep managing it. But, now Novell is loosening its apron strings on its community Linux openSUSE."


• Review: Ubuntu 8.10 Is The Real Deal (Oct 31, 2008, 22:01)
  ChannelWeb: "Without much fanfare, developers of Ubuntu Linux have delivered the latest version of the open source operating system that scores higher than Windows Vista in performance testing, does a better job than Windows in making wireless connectivity easy and, overall, leaves fewer reasons to stick with Windows than any other previous release of Linux."


• 11 Simple Ways To Recover Your Screen on Linux and Unix (Oct 31, 2008, 21:31)
  The Linux and Unix Menagerie: "And, now, just to keep you on your toes, I'll include a hyperlink back to the original article on 9 simple ways to recover your screen in the same sentence that I let you know that this post is virtually the same material, only bigger, better and with extra sauce ;)"


• Bash Tips: Speedy Keyboard Shortcuts (Oct 31, 2008, 21:01)
  LinuxPlanet: "I've been using bash for years, and I still haven't come anywhere close to mastering the full range of available command line keyboard shortcuts. I've found the best way to get more under my fingers is to note a few on a Post-It stuck to the monitor, and then swap it for another one at intervals."


• Xubuntu 8.10 Released (Oct 31, 2008, 20:31)
  Xubuntu: "The Xubuntu team is happy to bring you the latest and greatest software the open source community has to offer. This is their latest result: Xubuntu 8.10, which brings a host of excellent improvements built on the rock solid Xfce 4.4.2 desktop environment."


• Linux Continues to Define the Future of Computing While Microsoft Follows (Oct 31, 2008, 20:01)
  Jim Zemlin's Blog: "It is hard for the executive director of the Linux Foundation to feel bad for Microsoft, but they are having a bad week while Linux continues to move forward in innovative ways into new markets for computing. Let's take a look at the difference between Microsoft and Linux this week:"


• Fedora 7 to 10 Benchmarks (Oct 31, 2008, 19:31)
  Phoronix: "Earlier this week we published benchmarks of all Ubuntu releases from 7.04 to the release candidate and had found the performance degraded with time, at least with the test system we used. As part of our testing to explore this issue, we had repeated many of the same tests on Fedora with all of their releases going back to Fedora 7. Has Fedora's desktop performance degraded too?"


• 15 Scariest Tux Icons for Halloween (Oct 31, 2008, 19:01)
  Tech Source From Bohol: "Since it's Halloween, let me give you a treat by sharing to you all some of the scariest tux icons in existence. Before going on, let me warn those with a weak heart that what you are about to see could be dangerous to your health."


• Why I Don't Like Canonical (Oct 31, 2008, 18:31)
  adamw's very own blog: "So, I've just been (implicitly) quoted bashing the Mark Shuttleworth / Canonical business model... I thought it was worth expanding my point from my own tiny pulpit."


• Laptop Lite With Windows XP (and Soon Linux) (Oct 31, 2008, 18:01)
  New York Times: "Hewlett-Packard is getting small. A gaggle of miniaturized notebooks, announced this week and collectively called the Mini 1000, will be available in various configurations that begin at $379."


• FSlint - Utility to clean up your File System in openSUSE (Oct 31, 2008, 17:31)
  SUSE & openSUSE: "FSlint is a simple yet very easy to use utility to find and clean various forms of lint on a filesystem. i.e., unwanted or problematic cruft in your files or file names. For example, one form of lint it finds is duplicate files. FSlint operates in both GUI and Command Line mode and the GUI is very straight forward to use especially there isn't much of hidden menu options."


• NVidia Fan Speed Revisited (Oct 31, 2008, 17:01)
  Linux Journal: "One of the comments to my last post about adjusting the fan speed on your NVidia graphics card was that what was needed was a script to adjust the speed based on the temperature. The script presented here does just that."


• The Bilski Decision Is In: Buh-Bye [Most] Business Methods Patents - As text & updated 3Xs (Oct 31, 2008, 16:31)
  Groklaw: "Pop some champagne! The Appeals Court decision [PDF] is in on Bilski: I'm still reading it, but on first quick reading, one thing is clear: it's a win! Eligible patent matter just got smaller."


• Fedora Moves the X Server (Oct 31, 2008, 16:01)
  LWN: "Testers of the Fedora 10 beta (or Rawhide) have recently noticed that the X server has been moved from its traditional home on virtual terminal 7 to VT1. This move, which has spawned a lengthy flame war (OK, two lengthy flame wars) is motivated by a desire to speed the boot process by avoiding the VT switch. It seems like a relatively small change, but our community has a strong sense of tradition, apparently."


• Research on BBC Content for GNU/Linux (Oct 31, 2008, 15:31)
  BBC Internet Blog: "This week, we're really happy to be sharing some work we've commissioned to deliver BBC content (mainly radio shows from the BBC Audio & Music team) on demand for users of GNU/Linux."


• Using Your Linux Computer As A Media Center (Part 1) (Oct 31, 2008, 15:01)
  Makeuseof: "If you are like me who is a Linux user and owns a huge collection of music, videos and pictures, the world is not over for you yet. There are many open-source applications that you can use to turn your Linux machine into a lean, mean media center."


• Linux Kernel Regression in Ubuntu 8.10. Upgrade Now! (Oct 31, 2008, 14:31)
  Softpedia: "A regression was discovered last night, right after the launch of Ubuntu 8.10 (codename Intrepid Ibex), in the Linux kernel packages. Do not be alarmed, as this is not a security flaw! It's actually a bug in 2.6.27 Linux kernel packages."


• How to Make Money With Free Software... (Oct 31, 2008, 14:01)
  SPE IDE - Stani's Python Editor: "The goal of the competition was not to design a building, but the new 5 euro commemorative coin with the theme 'Netherlands and Architecture'. The winner will be rewarded with a nice price, but most of all with the honor: his design will be realized and will be a legal coin within the Netherlands."


• Ubuntu Open Week for Jaunty. Rock On. (Oct 31, 2008, 13:31)
  jonobacon@home: "Folks, we are really pleased to announce...Ubuntu Open Week! Ubuntu Open Week is a week of IRC tuition and Q+A sessions all about getting involved in the rock-and-roll world that is the Ubuntu community."


• Wal-Mart's G1 Phone Discount Irks Early Android Adopters (Oct 31, 2008, 13:01)
  OStatic: "This caterwauling and gnashing of teeth is reminiscent of the mudslinging that went on after Apple reduced the cost of the iPhone by $200 only months after it came out. Here's what people are saying, and why the G1 ought to arrive at even lower price points."


• The Windows 7 GUI From a Linux User's Perspective (Oct 31, 2008, 12:31)
  TGDaily: "Today, hard core Linux users were able to view for the first time some of nifty GUI features in Microsoft's next generation desktop operation system - Windows 7."


• Desktop Linux Tidal Wave Alert (Oct 31, 2008, 12:01)
  Cyber Cynic: "In 2009, more Linux-powered desktops will sell then will Windows-powered ones. Sounds crazy doesn't it? Think again."


• Ubuntu's Enterprising Ibex Springs Into Release (Oct 31, 2008, 11:01)
  Enterprise Networking Planet: "Canonical is stepping up its Linux assault on the enterprise with the launch of Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition. Code-named Intrepid Ibex, the latest version of the Ubuntu server operating system was made available for free download on Wednesday by the distribution’s London, UK-based sponsor."


• Graphical Remote Control Desktops for Linux (Oct 31, 2008, 10:01)
  LinuxPlanet: "A. Lizard takes us on a tour of secure remote graphical Linux administration over the Internet; through firewalls, routers, dynamic home IP addresses, Wake-on-LAN, and other perils. We will learn how to securely administer both Linux and Windows remotely. The journey begins with today's part 1 of three parts."


• Update Twitter and FriendFeed From the Linux Command Line (Oct 31, 2008, 09:01)
  IBM Developerworks: "Learn how to use GNU Wget and cURL to send status updates to Twitter and FriendFeed without the use of a Twitter desktop application, and follow feeds from both Twitter and FriendFeed right from the Linux® command line."


• Pulling Info From IMDB Part One: Goofy Movie Titles (Oct 31, 2008, 07:31)
  The Linux and Unix Menagerie: "We're going off the range here today (while we leave another script on the oven to simmer for 24 hours ;) and moving along to finding the best way to strip "random-yet-connected" data from any online source."


• Automatic And Up-To-Date Fedora 9 Installations With Kickstart And Novi (Oct 31, 2008, 06:01)
  HowtoForge: "The problem with Kickstart is that it usually uses the distribution's packages from the time the distribution was released, i.e., it does not consider updates which means you would have to update each system manually after the Kickstart installation. This guide explains how you can do up-to-date Kickstart installations with the help of a tool called novi."


• Python Data Persistence Using MySQL (Oct 31, 2008, 04:31)
  Packt: "This article by Yuli Vasiliev will walk you through the process of building a simple Python application that interacts with a MySQL database. In a nutshell, the application picks up some live data from a web site and then persists it to an underlying MySQL database."


• 10 Reasons to Not Upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 (Oct 31, 2008, 03:01)
  Intranet Journal: "Before it is even released (at the time of this writing), I have already found a number of reasons why I will not be upgrading my various computers to Ubuntu 8.10."


• Parallel SSH Execution and a Single Shell to Control Them All (Oct 31, 2008, 01:31)
  Linux.com: "If you want to increase your productivity with SSH, you can try a tool that lets you run commands on more than one remote machine at the same time. Parallel ssh, Cluster SSH, and ClusterIt let you specify commands in a single terminal window and send them to a collection of remote machines where they can be executed."


• Keep Tab On Home Security With A Webcam And Twitter (Oct 31, 2008, 00:01)
  Shantanu's Technophilic Musings: "Worried about someone breaking into your house in your absence? Or just need to keep a tab on who enters your room while you are away? Well, all you need is a webcam, a linux PC/laptop and a twitter account."