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LXer Feature: 02-Aug-2010

A roundup of the big stories hitting our newswire from the previous week.

Linus Torvalds released the Linux 2.6.35 kernel, adding improvements to multicore support, network scalability, memory management, power management, and Btrfs file-system I/O. Meanwhile, we take a peek at Linux 2.6.36, and note Linux Journal's history of the Linux kernel, Slackware, Debian, and some 450 other distros.

As you may know, the Linux and open source community provides a wealth of free operating systems (OSs), called distributions, and software applications. Some are desktop distributions for general-use in the office. However, there are many distributions designed for particular uses. Today, we'll review 4 different desktop distributions specifically designed for educational and academic use.

A census of open source developers has provided a sharp reminder of the necessity of commercially viable open source companies, and also how important it is that commercially viable open source companies employ good people to write open source. This probably isn't news to Reg readers, for whom it might be bleeding obvious - perhaps even tautological. But out in the worlds of academia and policy wonkery, the myth that F/OSS development is some kind of happy, Kumbaya potlatch still persists.

Checkinstall is a utility that builds a .deb, .rpm or Slackware package from a third party source code tarball. This allows you to introduce such third party software using the standard package management features of your distribution. In contrast, the conventional instructions for installing such software packages puts your package manager out of sync with the actual collection of software installed on your Linux box.

One of the free software projects we have been talking to as of late about better enhancing their benchmarking capabilities for likely integration into the Phoronix Test Suite is Rigs of Rods. While the graphics within this driving simulator may not be the best (at least when compared to Unigine, or within the open-source world, Nexuiz) it's not the graphics that the developers pride themselves on but rather the physics capabilities. Rigs of Rods began as a truck driving simulator game, but since then has turned into a rather interesting physics sandbox of goodies. A new release of their code-base was just made.

James Morris has outlined a preview of the security subsystem changes he is currently carrying in his security-testing-next branch of the Linux kernel that he plans to have Linus Torvalds pull into the next kernel development cycle for Linux 2.6.36. The big change in the kernel security world is that AppArmor is being planned for integration into the Linux 2.6.36 kernel.

There are still a few weeks left before the deadline that demands Oracle appoint a community liaison for their OpenSolaris operating system that is capable of communicating their future intentions to the OpenSolaris community (like where the hell is OpenSolaris 2010.1H) or else the OpenSolaris Governing Board will return control of the community back to Oracle. However, some OpenSolaris community developers have already had enough: they've begun work on a new project.

The Linux scheduler, in both the mainline and realtime versions, provides a couple of scheduling classes for realtime tasks. These classes implement the classic POSIX priority-based semantics, wherein the highest-priority runnable task is guaranteed to have access to the CPU. While this scheduler works as advertised, priority-based scheduling has a number of problems and has not been the focus of realtime research for some time. Cool schedulers in this century are based on deadlines instead. Linux does not yet have a deadline scheduler, though there is one in the works. A recent discussion on implementing the full deadline model has shown, once again, just how complex it can be to get deadline scheduling right in the real world.

Japanese mobile Linux software firm Access announced a major push toward Android, joining the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), and releasing a free "Graffiti" handwriting recognition app for Android, among other developments. Meanwhile, Access' IP Infusion subsidiary has added MPLS-Transport Profile support to its ZebOS Network Platform software, says the company.

We have recently covered how to use your Android phone to access the internet on your computer. This process is known as tethering. By connecting your phone, via a USB cable, to your computer you are able to use the phone’s data connection to browse the web on your computer. In places where there aren’t any wireless hotspots, tethering is incredibly useful.

Nearly Consulting, which specialises in community relations and free software strategy, has published the results of its GNOME Census. According to Nearly Consulting founder Dave Neary, the census report analyses how developers participate in the GNOME project and looks for patterns within the project itself.

The old "Ubuntu doesn't contribute back" argument cropped up again when Dave Neary released a report of the talk he gave at GUADEC on the contributions made to the GNOME desktop environment. He found that Red Hat and Novell contributed the most and that Ubuntu and Mandriva (primarily a KDE distribution) was among the lowest. A firestorm of debate ensued and Shuttleworth was accused of name calling and guilt to try to win the argument.

Back in March an announcement came out of NVIDIA as they were getting ready to launch the GeForce GTX 400 "Fermi" graphics cards that they would be dropping support for the xf86-video-nv driver. The xf86-video-nv driver really didn't provide much of a feature set and was far behind the Nouveau KMS and Gallium3D drivers even though these were reverse-engineered by the open-source, so NVIDIA announced they would be discontinuing this open-source DDX driver and advised its customers to just use the VESA driver until they are able to download and install NVIDIA's proprietary Linux graphics driver. However, today they have decided to release an updated driver.

This is the second installment of a two-part series on setting up the OpenVPN server on DD-WRT router firmware. This is a great way to set up secure connections to your network for road-warriors or to remotely connect offices. This a cost-effective solution can support a dozen or two VPN users. In Part 1, we uploaded the DD-WRT firmware to the router, changed the router's IP and subnet for compatibly reasons, and created the SSL certificates for the OpenVPN server and clients.

GNOME and KDE are teaming up again to host the 2011 Desktop Summit in Berlin, Germany. Due to the success of the 2009 Desktop Summit the projects will co-locate GUADEC and Akademy once again in August, 2011 for the largest free software desktop event ever. The 2009 Desktop Summit was a fantastic opportunity for the leaders of the free software desktop community to share talks, address common issues, and build relationships between the communities with combined social events.

When the mouthpiece of American capitalism calls a company a dog, it's time to re-evaluate that company's chances. In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, columnist Holman Jenkins, Jr asks if "Steve Ballmer is a failed CEO?" then forecasts Microsoft's feeble future even as it banks record profits. Microsoft is a company stuck in the glory years of the 1980s and 1990s - truly glorious years for a company that built not one but two massive cash cows: Windows and Office. To remain relevant in the future, however, Microsoft must build a third.

Looking through my home for Linux systems I just realized that it is everywhere. First of all, I find it on my computers - from servers to laptop. That is the obvious place though. I wonder, where else can I find Linux running?

The Justice Department said on Thursday it sued Oracle Corp, alleging it defrauded the federal government on a software contract in effect from 1998 to 2006 that involved hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

Oracle today announced Dell and HP will certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms. Customers will have full access to Oracle's Premier Support for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM running on Dell and HP servers. This will enable fast and accurate issue resolution and reduced risk in a company's operating environment.