LXer Weekly Roundup for 26-Sept-2010

LXer Feature: 26-Sept-2010 In the Roundup this week we have Mandriva saying "We're not dead" and news of their assets being sold to a Russian firm, Linux From Scratch 6.7 gets released, Dave Newman leaves .net, living through the wild west of FOSS history, the future of KDE, Carla Schroder gets a shiny new laptop and what is the best way to move 60 million files from one Windows server to another? Linux of course. Enjoy!

Controlling Interest in Mandriva Sold To Russian Firm; Former Developers Fork Distribution: Last Friday the newspaper Vedomosti reported that a Russian firm, NGI, has purchased a controlling interest in Mandriva. The Quintura blog published a short English language summary of the article today. NGI had previously purchased a 5% stake in Mandriva in July for an undisclosed sum as part of the €3 million financial rescue of the company according to the Vedomosti article. NGI and Ceychas Fund are investing an additional €2 million to acquire controlling interest, including purchasing shares currently held by two other investors.

5 Tips for Aspiring Web App Developers: So, you’re not content with just using the social web; you want to be part of building it, too. As a budding or beginning web app developer, you’ve got a difficult but rewarding path ahead of you. You have to master (or at least attempt to master) the intricacies of OOP and scripting languages, learn to build web apps the hard way (practice, practice, practice), and network your way into a few job opportunities. You must also decide whether you’d like to work as a solo/consultant/freelancer, a startup employee or founder, or a rank-and-file developer at an established company.

Linux From Scratch 6.7 is released!: Linux From Scratch 6.7 is released, A free book that teaches how to build a base Linux OS from scratch, from an existing Linux installation or from a live CD. This release includes numerous changes to LFS 6.6 and security fixes. It also includes editorial work on the explanatory material throughout the book, improving both the clarity and accuracy of the text." Other major changes include update to GRUB 1.98, make 3.82, Perl 5.12.1, udev 161 and various small patches to fix compilation errors.

Living Through the Wild West of FOSS History: Could things be more exciting in the the world of FOSS right now? Yes it could, but let's not be too hasty. Oracle buys Sun and proceeds to use its patent portfolio to sue Google for infringement. Openoffice.org is going to have to split off or separate itself from Oracle somehow or change its licensing to remain free. Paul Allen unloads a patent Gatling Gun on every big name is the Tech industry. Is it going to be Red Hat or VMware that will take over the ailing Novell? Mandriva has broken into pieces. I'll keep going if you let me..

A Windows App That Works Better in Wine Than Windows: As Microsoft slowly breaks old compatibility, and Wine continues to improve Windows compatibility. it seems only a matter of time before some Windows programs run better in Wine than in Windows. Last week, I found my own example.

A crash landing for Linux?: Nine years after the Canton of Solothurn decided to migrate its computers to Linux, the Swiss authority has made a radical U-turn: All its desktops will run Windows 7. Has Linux failed? The Linux migration project in the Swiss Canton of Solothurn was ill-fated from the start, those who followed the reports concerning the project over the past few years couldn't avoid the impression that it was nothing but a series of failures, faults and unfortunate events. Particularly, Swiss media like the Solothurner Zeitung and the Berner Zeitung re-ignited discussions with crotchety headlines such as "Auf Irrflug weg vom Fenster" (Erratic flight to avoid windows) and "Wieder Ärger mit dem Pinguin" (More trouble with the Penguin).

Configuring a Gameport Joystick in Linux: I picked up a PC Power Pad Pro at a garage sale, for something like US$0.50. A steal, for 2% of its original retail, right? Except I couldn't get it to work with my sound card. I did all kinds of Google searches, trying to figure out why my controller wasn't... controlling.

Mandriva: We're not dead: In a reaction to the founding of the Mageia project and to a question posed on the Cooker mailing list, the French Linux distributor Mandriva has commented on its current situation and future plans. The company says the Mandriva distribution is far from dead and will continue to be consistently maintained. The next release of the Mandriva Community Edition is reportedly planned for the beginning of 2011.

Linux Desktop PC on Steroids From ZaReason: Little dinky underpowered mobile phones, netbooks, and laptops are getting all the attention these days. Well what about us folks who still need good capable desktop PCs? So I asked for a hotrodded version of ZaReason's Limbo to review, even though the $799 base model has plenty of goodies for the demanding user

Leaving .net: The endless rebuilding of data mappers, logging code, object resolution mechanisms, messaging systems and web frameworks adds up to a massive waste of time, effort and potential. I’m not talking about public collaborative efforts, I’m talking about in house “Not invented here” syndrome. This is what happens when you have a community cut off from the world. A community that doesn’t talk to each other and work together. This is what the .net community is.

What's the best way to move 60 million files from one Windows server to another? - Linux: Recently I copied 60 million files from one Windows file server to another. Tools used to move files from system to another are integrated into every operating system, and there are third party options too. The tasks they perform are so common that we tend to ignore their limits. Many systems administrators are guilty of not knowing exactly where the limits of their file management tools lie - at least until they run up against them.

The future of KDE: MeeGo is less than a year old. KDE, by contrast, has 14 years of experience in building the Linux desktop. Even with the backing of the world's largest mobile phone and processor vendors, it takes a bold man to turn up at Akademy, KDE's annual global conference, and announce that MeeGo is "redefining the Linux desktop landscape". Valtteri Halla, Nokia's director of MeeGo software, is such a man. He not only set out his vision for how MeeGo will take over the world, but invited KDE along for the ride.