LXer Weekly Roundup for 05-Feb-2012

LXer Feature: 05-Feb-2012 Is it February already? This week we have a new Linux powered Spark tablet and btrfs goes production ready. Take the road less traveled in installing Ubuntu, the death of file sharing, Venn diagrams and a whole lot more. Enjoy!

Spark tablet introduced with Pre-Installed Linux: The Spark is the first tablet computer that comes with Plasma Active (based on kde/qt) pre-installed. It sports an open Linux stack on unlocked hardware and comes with an open content and services market.

Btrfs To Go Production-Ready In Oracle Linux: During his talk last week at the SCALE 10x LA event, Chris Mason of Oracle mentioned that an error-fixing Btrfs fsck tool will be ready by next month. He mentioned a hard deadline of 14 February for this btrfs.fsck tool capable of fixing file-system errors because it must be ready for the next releases of Oracle Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Chris confirmed that Oracle will be supporting Btrfs in their Linux distribution, which is derived from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux code-base.

How to install Ubuntu the way you've never done it before: Have you ever installed any GNU/Linux distribution? Have you ever installed Windows? Have you noticed the difference? I think you know what I am talking about...

SCaLE 10x: Onward and Upward: As I walked into the Hilton on Saturday morning I knew something was up. I saw lots pf people wearing lanyards with a silhouette of a Penguin, it seemed SCaLE 10x was upon me already in full swing. I walked right onto the exhibitor floor and 'did a loop' through the Expo as it were..

First open tablet released by KDE developer: The first open tablet, running free and open source software, has been announced by senior KDE developer Aaron Seigo.

How Many Lumia Sales? As Nokia (and Microsoft) ashamed to reveal number, lets count..: Nokia CEO is a coward to not give the exact count of Lumia sales in his Q4 results, the launch quarter for Lumia. So lets do some math based on the available info, to count exactly how many it was. When Microsoft launched Windows Phone a year ago, Microsoft proudly told the world that they shipped 2 million Windows Phone smartphones by HTC, Samsung and others. They soon were spooked, however, when the sales dwindled and dried up and stopped giving the sales breakdown. By the Spring, Microsoft insisted all Windows Mobile smartphones be counted together with Windows Phone - even as these two platforms are incompatible. And still the sales of 'the third ecosystem' kept falling, down to about 500,000 units by Q3..

RIM Could Do Worse Than Microsoft: Even as Microsoft and RIM form deeper partnerships, what would make better sense would be to bring the two companies together to offer a secure mobile enterprise alternative.

Google Chrome, I love ya but...: It’s true that I love Google’s open source Chrome browser but I’m not in love with it–at least not anymore. I use Chrome exclusively except when I have to use Firefox or Internet Explorer for something that Chrome just won’t do, which isn’t often. Chrome has an impressive list of features going for it including Incognito mode, in-browser language translation, speed, plugins, cross-platform support and bookmark synchronization to name a few but, for all of Chrome’s awesomeness, it has its problems.

The Death of File Sharing: The problem is this: Megaupload was accused of violating copyright through its file-sharing technology. This permits users to upload their own content and permit other users into their space. If anything that one person uploads is of uncertain copyright status — it could be anything, really — sharing it would then seem to amount to a crime. —— Which raises the question: Is every site that makes file sharing possible in danger?

How Much Gnome 3.4 Will Be There In Ubuntu 12.04?: Ubuntu 12.04 is an LTS version so the team has to be very careful about what they pick or drop as this is the version which is used by enterprise customers or by those who want a stable system well supported for a longer period of time. They have to be careful about the individual applications as well, so they are picking different versions of applications from the Gnome stack.

Venn diagrams: the intersection of morons and judges: In the US we have SOPA, PIPA and ACTA and in the Netherlands we have judges like mr. P.H. Blok, mr. R. Kalden and mr. M.P.M. Loos. They decided not only that IP addresses 194.71.107.15, 194.71.107.18 and 194.71.107.19 had be blocked by ISP's, but also gave BREIN (the Dutch equivalent of the MPAA) the authority to add any IP address they want to that list, which means that in principle they can take out any website at will without ever having to go to court again.