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LXer Feature: 12-Dec-2010

The big stories this past week include a Linux Mint 10 review, Matt Asay leaves Canonical, more information on Novell's patents, a nail in Flash's coffin, Chrome OS notebooks will be Windows proof and my interview of Ulf Sandberg of SkySQL. Enjoy!

The kernel has historically been developed independently of anything that runs in user space. The well-defined kernel ABI, built around the POSIX standard, has allowed for a nearly absolute separation between the kernel and the rest of the system. Linux is nearly unique, however, in its division of kernel and user-space development. Proprietary operating systems have always been managed as a single project encompassing both user and kernel space; other free systems (the BSDs, for example) are run that way as well. Might Linux ever take a more integrated approach?

Earlier this year Google announced they would be switching to the EXT4 file-system on their Linux servers (previously they were still using the mature EXT2) and at the same time it was made available they had hired Ted Ts'o, the lead developer of this file-system currently in use by a majority of the new Linux desktop distributions. Google's continuing to love the EXT4 file-system and now with their new Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" operating system for smart-phones and other mobile devices, they are switching to EXT4 there too.

Ubuntu Brainstorm is a wiki-like interface that allows the Ubuntu community to input ideas that might make Ubuntu more usable, friendly, or fun. Almost 20,000 ideas have been entered and have received 2.5 million votes in the two years since its introduction. Entries can be sorted by all ideas, popular ideas, ideas in development, or implemented ideas. Matt Zimmerman, Debian developer and Canonical employee, thinks it might be a good idea to periodically collect and discuss the current status and future possibilities of the most popular ideas.

The holiday season is upon us, and you know what that means: relatives coming over wanting to use your WiFi. If you'd like to find a solution somewhere between "run an open, unsecured AP" and "hand out your WPA2 password to people who write things like that down on sticky notes" then setting up a captive portal is a convenient option.

Many mobile application developers are frustrated by the complexity involved in creating apps that work across all platforms. What works on an iPhone won’t necessarily cut it on a BlackBerry and apps that sing on an iPad need to be completely overhauled for an Android-based tablet. An open development ecosystem would go a long way toward getting apps to market faster, and potentially mean less wear-and-tear on developers trying to keep up with evolving technology. Kurt Daniel, COO of mobile application development platform Workllight, makes a great case for the necessity of open mobile app development and has some tips on what developers should consider before writing their first line of code.

/proc is a virtual filesystem generated at boot and updated regularly by the kernel. With /proc you can investigate exactly what hardware your Linux kernel sees, what processes it is running, boot options, and also manipulate kernel events.

Last month Oracle renominated Apache to the Java Executive Committee because we valued their active participation and perspective on Java. Earlier this week, by an overwhelming majority, the Java Executive Committee voted to move Java forward by formally initiating work on both Java SE 7 and SE 8 based on their technical merits. Apache voted against initiating technical committee work on both SE 7 and SE 8, effectively voting against moving Java forward. Now, despite supporting the technical direction, Apache have announced that they are quitting the Executive Committee. Oracle has a responsibility to move Java forward and to maintain the uniformity of the Java standard for the millions of Java developers and the majority of Executive Committee members agree. We encourage Apache to reconsider its position and remain a part of the process to move Java forward. ASF and many open source projects within it are an important part of the overall Java ecosystem.

At this point in time, if you are the kind of person who loves your visits to Facebook, then it is reasonable to conclude that you are the kind of person who also enjoys suffering and pain. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with liking suffering and pain. There are many people who do, and they typically pay beautiful and mean women or handsome and punishing men to dole out Facebook-style sessions. They charge by the hour, in fact.

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced today that it is resigning from the executive committee of the Java Community Process (JCP), the governance body responsible for managing standards related to the Java programming language. The move is a response to Oracle's ongoing failure to comply with the intellectual property policies established by the JCP.

So will Chrome OS notebooks also have the option to dual-boot another operating system like Windows? Google says no, as "certified" Chrome OS notebooks will only be able to run the single operating system. Part of that may be due to Chrome OS's use of protected flash memory, which is great for security, but isn't so great for custom installs and for spaciousness.

This is strictly a matter of taste, but I think that Linux Mint 10 may be the prettiest Linux I’ve seen. Now, I know that isn’t a great reason to pick a distribution — but out of the box, it helps. Especially for those of us who want to convince Windows XP refugees to switch to Linux instead of Windows 7 or Mac OS X. If you’re going to be staring at a system for a few hours — or all day, you want it to look good. Good is relative, and what looks spiffy to an expert user who spends much time at the command line is probably going to be slightly different than what looks good to novice Linux users. Suffice it to say, they’ve done good.

Most people think “graphical interfaces” when they think of surfing the Web. And, under X11, there are lots of great programs, like Firefox or Chrome. But, the console isn't the wasteland it might seem. Lots of utilities are available for surfing the Web and also for downloading or uploading content.

Earlier this year there was the "Humble Indie Bundle" where anyone could purchase a set of four Indie computer games (that are Linux compatible) for any price they wanted. The games included World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, and Penumbra Overture. This ended up being such a success with the game developers that they ended up open-sourcing the games after raising quite a bit of money off this bundled deal. Now it appears the developers are working on a second Humble Indie Bundle.

Recently I have caught myself deep into discussions on the extent of copyright applied to Free Software and how the copyleft effect plays a role in Software Freedom. On an Identi.ca message I said: Free Software is NOT about the freedom to choose the license under which software made by others can be redistributed. Let me expand a bit on copyleft compatibylity.

With the next kernel version, Ext4 will reach new levels of performance and use a trick to increase its storage media formatting speed. Other new features include a discard function that is interesting for slow-trimming SSDs, the "Rados Block Device" for cluster devices, bug fixes and optimisations to Btrfs.

KDE 4.6 will be slightly more ambitious than the last couple of releases. Judging from the recently-announced first beta, it will include the usual behind-the-scene enhancements, and additions of interest to developers. But it will also include some concrete improvements to the desktop, especially with the changes to the Dolphin file manager and the so-called re-introduction of Activities.

Thankfully, Google has started the release process for their latest and greatest Android version -- Gingerbread. I'm looking forward to installing CyanogenMod's spin of 2.3 as soon as it's available. The big frustration for me, however, is that Gingerbread turned out not to be the tablet killing OS we all hoped for. Oh sure, there are some Android tablets available, but until Google allows regular access to the Marketplace, tablets running Android are going to be a kludge.

The Linux Foundation (LF) announced that nine major Linux distros have been certified to Linux Standard Base 4.0 (LSB 4.0), said to confer application portability. While announcing LBS 4.0 registrations for Canonical, Kylin, Linpus, Mandriva, Neoshine, Novell, Oracle, Red Flag, and Red Hat, the LF The LF also released a beta of LSB 4.1.

Part of the big hype over the release of KDE 4 was its new and improved eye candy, mostly due to the Plasma workspace. Those who liked the changes, loved the new KDE from the beginning. Those who did not are still complaining about it. But like any good desktop environment, you are by no means stuck with the default look. In fact, KDE offers more easily customizable features than any other. What follows are 7 ways to get the desktop look you dreamed about when you were a child.