LXer Weekly Roundup for 07-Feb-2010

LXer Feature: 07-Feb-2010

5 Linux Speed Tips: There are many ways to do the same tasks in Linux, which is a lovely thing because it means we can tailor our workflows to suit our own personal needs. Here are five of Carla Schroder's favorite speed and efficiency tips.

The Great Oracle Experiment: For the first time, we get to see what happens when a company that has built up an immense global business empire on the basis of its proprietary software takes over some of the most important open source projects around. Does it destroy them through mutual incomprehension? Or is it *changed* by them, moving towards their approaches? That's what we're going to find out over the next few years in the Great Oracle Experiment.

Asus 9 inch Netbook: A few weeks ago I was chatting with one of our Clients, he owns a company that does hooks up for prospective Employers with prospective Employees in the Fitness Industry, and in the process makes a few bob. He was complaining about his Asus netbook, which had Windows XP loaded on it, and how it has been getting progressively slower over time and knowing I use Linux, in fact I had recommended last year that he get someone, or do it himself and install Ubuntu UNR. He asked if I would install Linux on his machine.

Android code removed from Linux kernel : Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Novell developer who maintains the staging, USB and driver core for Linux, has announced that the driver code for Google's Android operating system has been removed from the 2.6.33 Linux code base. Kroah-Hartman says that "I love the Android phone platform" but that the code for supporting Android has not been cared for, and as is his policy, uncared-for code is removed from the source code control system. The change was committed to the Linux source tree on December 11th, last year.

HipHop for PHP: Move Fast: One of the key values at Facebook is to move fast. For the past six years, we have been able to accomplish a lot thanks to rapid pace of development that PHP offers. As a programming language, PHP is simple. Simple to learn, simple to write, simple to read, and simple to debug. We are able to get new engineers ramped up at Facebook a lot faster with PHP than with other languages, which allows us to innovate faster.

Microsoft’s Creative Destruction : An insiders view of the slow motion disaster that is Microsoft. Heart-warming stuff and proof that all bureaucracies private or public fail eventually without some kind of proper connection of their outcomes with the customers real needs.

Linus Torvalds named one of the 100 most influential inventors: The book "The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time", part of a series from the Encyclopaedia Britannica titled "The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People", lists the top one hundred most important and influential inventors since Cro-Magnon man. Linus Torvalds, creator and chief architect of the Linux kernel, is listed among the IT innovators for his contribution to open source software.

Hands-on: new single-window mode makes GIMP less gimpy: The venerable GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is undergoing a significant transformation. The next major release, version 2.8, will introduce an improved user interface with an optional single-window mode. Although this update is still under heavy development, users can get an early look by compiling the latest source code of the development version from the GIMP's version control repository.

Is Google forking the Linux kernel?: Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal opinion and is in no way related to the company I work for. LWN tells us what is happening with the android kernel patches in upstream. The short version: They are gone

LXer@FOSDEM 2010: Anyone else going? : Tonight FOSDEM 2010 starts with the beer event, and tomorrow the main conference starts. It's held again at the University 'ULB' in Brussels south-east (near the embassies) in Belgium. Just like last year, LXer will be there. I will try to go both days to cover some talks for you. The schedule promises some interesting talks like that of Greg Koah Hartman, another talk about the RepRap 'cheap' 3D printer that prints its own parts. There's also a Mozilla-room, a distro-room, an embedded room. a KDE and a Gnome room, the Drupal room, the 20-minute Lightning talks which could be about anything and many more.

A fresher Linux desktop: Gnome 3.0 promises to give Linux the desktop polish it needs. It's been a long time in the coming but this year Linux will get a makeover, thanks to the Gnome project. In September the Gnome team, makers of one of the most popular desktop interfaces for Linux, will release version 3.0 of their desktop environment and they are promising "big user-visible changes".