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LXer Feature: 14-June-2010

In this week's LXWR we have Jono Bacon's Ubuntu: meritocracy not democracy, can virtual PCs save desktop Linux? Is Android fragmentation something to fear? The four different types of Linux users and our own Hans Kwint says "Tear down this stair!". Enjoy!

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah finally granted Novell's request for declaratory judgment and ruled against SCO's last frantic attempts to keep any of its claims going. Or, to quote Pamela Jones, editor of Groklaw and top expert on SCO's endless anti-Linux lawsuits: "The door has slammed shut on the SCO litigation machine."

Dell reckons Ubuntu offers more protection than Windows online as it convinces consumer PC shoppers they shouldn't be scared of Linux. In a statement flagged here by TheVarGuy.com, Dell picked on security as one of ten reasons why people should buy PCs running Canonical's Linux rather than Microsoft's operating system.

Maverick Meerkat will drop the Mono-based F-Spot image organiser in favour of Shotwell, reducing the number of Mono-based apps in a default Ubuntu install to just one. Change is afoot. Ubuntu developers have already said that Chromium will be the default browser in the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) 10.10 release and now news is in that Shotwell will be the default image organiser in Maverick Meerkat.

For most new android app developers (like me), it is a bit puzzling how to debug the android widgets or how to put a breakpoint in an android widget code. It seems a bit tricky because there is no activity to be launched, so eclipse just syncs your widget’s apk and installs it and that’s it. So, is it possible or not to debug widget code? and if yes, then is it very difficult? Fortunately, it is possible and very easy to do but just slightly less intuitive.

Virtual desktops help to save energy at schools and other organizations. Raydesk is an open-source based solution that helps to integrate diverse operating system environments on one desktop.

This is the Q7, a very nice mobile Internet device available running ubuntu or android. It has 1080p HD video playback and that could make it a top gadget. Sadly it's missing one important feature I really think is a no-go for a device like this.

AstroMenace is a modern 3D scrolling space shooter with ship upgrade possibilities. You can improve your ship configuration by installing new weapons, defensive systems, power stations and much more. To improve your ship, you must earn money by destroying throngs of enemies on every level.

Ubuntu has come a long way. Now developers need to focus on polishing up this rough gem

If I thought the last few days leading up to the 2009 event was hectic... Well, maybe not being able to see the future is in itself a gift. Preparation for an event this large and far-reaching is going to be a challenge...anyone going into it thinking otherwise is either delusional or.... Never mind...delusional will define it nicely.

Two and a half years after the KDE 4 series of releases began, many users are still using KDE 3. A preference for the familiar seems to motivate some; while others seem influenced by the rumors that began with the botched 4.0 release. Still others want a feature that the KDE 4 series has yet to implement -- or, sometimes, a feature they have been unable to find because of reorganization.

Something that is difficult to do in Ubuntu is installing packages on a system without an active internet connection. This is a brief HOWTO for easily installing packages on an offline Ubuntu system.

Having given a quick overview of the first beta of the latest KDE SC release last week, a couple of days later, beta 2 was released. So dutifully, I have updated to KDE SC 4.5 beta 2 to see what’s changed.

It seems the Linux version of the popular IRC server Unreal IRCd was contaminated with malware ever since November 2009, without anyone noticing it. The announcement was made on the Unreal IRCd forums:

I first ran into what turns out to be a recurring problem when I installed Pardus 2009 last fall. The installer would lock up... Since then I have run into an almost identical problem in openSUSE11.2, Slackware 13.1 and SalixOS 13.1... It appears that the wireless chipset as implemented in these netbooks conflicts with the ssb module, causing the system to freeze.

A new version of netreconn is available. The two wrapper scripts have been deleted. nstrobe is now scanlan. All of the sniffers/readers have been collapsed into a tool called wiretraf. Both utilities are still under or at 20K in size but rather powerful.

Swatch isn’t a cleverly designed watch from the 1980s but you’ll think it’s just as handy (and cleverly designed) as one. Like Logwatch, swatch is a perl script that watches your logs but swatch watches them for regular expressions that you configure. Swatch will notify you via mail or the console screen (stdout) when it matches the configured log file entries with your watchfor directives.

Ubuntu-based tablets could hit the market as early as the first quarter of 2011, says a Canonical exec. "The devices world is a really exciting space right now and we're really bullish on it," Canonical VP of alliances and OEM services told Network World.

Finally! The much discussed about F-Spot vs Shotwell battle is over. The new default image organizer app for Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 is going to be Shotwell. This is a much needed change and F-Spot was simply not enough. Most of the times when I tried F-Spot, it just keeps crashing on me. Shotwell on a other hand feels a lot more solid and is better integrated with GNOME desktop. Shotwell is also completely devoid of Mono.

Cherokee is a very fast, flexible and easy to configure Web Server. It supports the widespread technologies nowadays: FastCGI, SCGI, PHP, CGI, TLS and SSL encrypted connections, virtual hosts, authentication, on the fly encoding, load balancing, Apache compatible log files, and much more. This tutorial shows how you can install Cherokee on an Ubuntu 10.04 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.