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Apple Macs, iPhones, and other mobile devices are being pulled into the open-source tools universe of Eclipse, a group whose genesis was enterprise Java and C/C++. The project today released Eclipse 3.5, codenamed Galileo, which wraps 33 projects in an integrated release. For the first time, the bundle can be downloaded for development of Cocoa Mac applications destined for deployment on 32-bit and 64-bit Apple systems.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about a digital and analog circuit simulator called ksimus. One of my readers asked what the difference was between ksimus and ktechlab so I thought I'd take a look at ktechlab.

Last week we discussed the value of enunciating kernel design patterns and looked at the design patterns surrounding reference counts. This week we will look at a very different aspect of coding and see why the kernel has special needs, and how those needs have been addressed by successful approaches. The topic under the microscope today is complex data structures.

After yesterday’s post on how I think Fedora is screwing up royally, I thought I’d follow that up with taking a look at the experiences of someone else. brunocb-sherlock-holmes-tux-5975 Specifically I want to talk about a blog post by a developer on Flumotion and GStreamer, and a Fedora user. In other words: Someone who really knows what they are doing and how to fix problems. He outlined his initial experiences with Fedora 11, and here is a few highlights that caught my eye.

So the great moment has arrived. But how do I make the switch? I have horrible memories of struggling with new partitions, running into special bits of Microsoft code designed precisely to make it tough to switch to another operating system … Maybe there is a better way? Of course, you are supposed to be able to get EeePCs preloaded with Linux, indeed they are supposed to be cheaper that way, but the review machine is firmly preloaded with Windows XP.

This post details setting up your own private mirror of Fedora’s repos. There are many ways to do this, but this method is by far the best for heavy usage. By using MirrorManager, clients in your IP range need no custom configuration. Roaming laptop users automagically hit your mirror while on the premises, yet use the public infrastructure elsewhere. Setup isn’t exactly hard, but it isn’t well documented so I’ll write about my experience here.

I have set up Motion in a way that it Emails me when it detects movement, and it automaticly saves the pictures to my FTP server. I do not autostart motion in deamon mode, because it only needs to run while I'm away.

The problem lies in the simple fact evident in a logical following of the idea that "software cannot be owned". If software cannot be owned then copyright is invalid as a tool of attaining freedom, period, especially if you actually use it to your advantage. At best your actions contradict your beliefs (in which case you act hypocritically). At worst, you aren't even aware of the gross contradiction you are peddling while genuinely believing that you have it right and that the people whom you condemn as immoral should be punished for what they're doing (as Richard Stallman said "Proprietary software should be illegal").

I finally made the switch from Adobe Photoshop to GIMP, and it was a success. Here are some begginers how-tos and tutorials that I found useful and can help you start photo-editing with GIMP.

The ScummVM developers have agreed a settlement with Atari over GPL violations in three Nintendo Wii games developed by an Atari subcontractor. An official press release from the ScummVM developers "cyx" and "fingolfin" stated that a case over three games, "Freddie Fish: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds", "Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside" and "Spy Fox: Dry Cereal" which used the ScummVM engine to run classic point and click adventure games, had been settled in May, with Misitic Software paying all legal fees and making a donation to the Free Software Foundation.

This tutorial shows how you can set up journaled quota on a Debian Lenny system. With journaled quota, you don't need to run quotacheck after an unclean shutdown. Journaled quota works on ext3 and ext4 file systems.

GNU/Linux is slowly invading everybody’s everyday life. I won’t say “The year of the GNU/Linux desktop is here”. Been there, done that. But, GNU/Linux is definitely imposing its presence — think about Android, or the number of people who are currently using GNU/Linux as their main desktop. And yet, software installation in GNU/Linux is broken. No, not broken… it’s terribly broken. Why is that, and what can be done to fix it? Read the full story at Free Software Magazine.

"So the problem is that with the amount of physical RAM growing people see less reason for huge swap-space, as it usually isn't needed. But then you are at risk that in situations where all your memory actually is in use you will not be able to suspend to disk."

Intel and Nokia have announced a long-term relationship that will see the development of Intel-powered, Linux-based handheld mobile computing devices. The partnership between the chipmaker and handset manufacturer was announced on Tuesday. Under the deal, the companies will collaborate on several open source mobile Linux software projects, and Intel will license HSPA/3G modem intellectual property from Nokia.

Last weekend my housemate went to Atlanta for an event she wanted to attend. She stayed at what is generally considered a moderately priced hotel chain which caters mainly to business travelers. After a nearly nine hour drive she wanted to unwind on Friday night and, being very much the geek, chose to go online. The hotel, like most major chains, offers free WiFi service. Perhaps more relevant to my point, they advertise free WiFi service.

Well, she could connect to their wireless network but couldn't get to the internet or connect to any websites. The hotel staff was neither helpful nor knowledgable when she reported the problem.

The Eclipse Foundation's annual release train, this year dubbed Galileo, has now been released. According to Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director at the Eclipse Foundation, the Eclipse release train brings together a large number of Eclipse projects and synchronises them into a single release with the aim of making "commercial adoption simple and straightforward". The idea is that rather than a commercial adopter trying picking up what could be dozens of separate projects, by using the release train, they can plan for one major annual update.

MilaX 0.4 is released. MilaX is a Solaris based Operating System & is a small size Live CD distribution which runs completely off a CD or a USB pendrive.

A survey by Actuate which looks at open source attitudes and adoption has included China for the first time. Surprisingly, according to the survey, 80.3 per cent of Chinese respondents were already using open source with the main benefit being perceived as the lack of licence costs. More surprisingly was the 72.6 per cent of those respondent s who cited access to the source code as a benefit. This is a far higher figure than in North America (39.9 per cent), the UK (35.2 per cent), Germany (41.1 per cent) or France(36 per cent).

Medical, the Universal Health information system, is finalist on Sourceforge 2009 Community Awards. With over 47,000 nominations, the community has chosen 85 finalists in 12 categories. Medical is among the best 10 projects this year for government.

Police data systems should be based on open source software, according to a data expert working with law enforcement. Ian Readhead, director of information for the U.K. Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), said Tuesday at a Unisys security event that emergency service data transferal systems should be open source, to help ensure interoperability between them.