openSUSE Announce First 11.4 Development Milestone With Improved Package Management Performance, New XOrg, KDE and GNOME

openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 1 is available today, Thursday, September 2 for developers, testers and community members to test and participate in the development of openSUSE 11.4. M1 starts off openSUSE 11.4 development at a cracking pace with performance improvements in the package management network layer and version updates to major components.

This milestone contains libzypp version 8.1, which has a new backend for http and ftp package downloads. MultiCurl replaces the old MediaAria backend, and brings support for zsync transfers and better Metalink download support. These will improve both repository refresh and package install and update performance. Metalink allows the multi-channel download of packages by downloading the individual blocks of a package in parallel from multiple servers. ZSync reduces the amount of data to download by only fetching the changed parts of a file instead of the whole file. This speeds up repository refreshes, since due to the way the repository data is structured, it is easy to locate the parts of the metadata that changed since the last update. The new Curl-based zypp backend also gives libzypp and therefore zypper and YaST better support for network proxies, by using the same proxy configuration as the rest of YaST instead of its own, and adds support for HTTP BASIC password-protected repositories. And as an added bonus, MultiCurl should eliminate slow and hanging package installations that occurred due to bugs in the old MediaAria backend.
Broken up chocolate bars symbolising partial download of repo metadata

Other major components that have received updates from upstream projects for Milestone 1 include XOrg 1.9, KDE 4.5 and GNOME 2.32.0 Beta 1. Automated testing and brave openSUSE Factory testers have been validating early builds to make sure that Milestone 1 is suitable for others to test, so please download Milestone 1 and report bugs – the earlier a bug is reported in the development cycle, the more likely it is that it will be fixed on release day, March 10, 2011.

The next milestone is scheduled for September 30.

Google Chrome turns version 6 on its second birthday

On the second anniversary of the release of the first beta version of Chrome, Google has released version 6 of its Chrome web browser into the stable and beta channels. The update includes a refreshed user interface, autofilling of forms, extension and autofill synchronisation and improvements to speed and stability.

The update, which moves the full version number up to 6.0.472.53, also includes a range of 17 security fixes to close a number of critical holes in the browsers security. The holes, rated as “high” bug Google include errors in handling integers in WebSockets, stale pointer issues with SVG filters, a use-after-free problem in Notifications and various memory corruption issues. Other lower priority fixes include fixing a popup blocker bypass and stopping homographic attacks on the URL bar.

Read more at H-online

Glibc finally free software

Fedora Engineering Manager Tom ‘spot’ Callaway has announced that glibc, the GNU C Library, is finally free software after working with Oracle to get Sun code from 1985 placed under an unrestricted licence. Glibc is typically included with most programs that are compiled with the GNU C compiler. The code at the heart of the issue derives from an RPC library which was written by Sun as part of implementing RFC 707. In 1985, it would be another year before there was even a formal definition of free software, but the code was still widely shared under what was a relatively permissive licence for the time.

Read more at H-online

Adopting Enterprise Open Source Software

Nagios sent me a reminder yesterday, which I finally got around to reading today, to update to the latest version of Nagios Core, 3.2.2. We were running 3.2.0, so we were a couple versions behind, so after browsing through the list of fixed bugs I thought it would be good to go ahead and upgrade. I had a meeting in fifteen minutes, and Nagios was actively monitoring servers in production. I considered for a moment waiting till after the meeting. After all, what if something went wrong during the upgrade, what if there was some unforeseen problem that caused disastrous results and caused me to miss the meeting? And then I remembered, this is Nagios. I did the upgrade, and made the meeting in time to get a cup of coffee on the way. This is how upgrades should work for everything.

Read more at OSTATIC

Samsung Announces Galaxy Tab

Samsung hinted at the device in a teaser video last week, but now the company has officially announced its Galaxy Tab, an Android 2.2-powered tablet/smartphone hybrid. The device made its official debut at IFA 2010.

Similar to the Dell Streak, the Galaxy tab splits the difference between tablet and smartphone by featuring 3G HSUPA connectivity, along with a robust web browser, email, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, and full access to the Android Marketplace.

Read more at Linux Magazine

Eight Linux Tech Tips for Beginners

If you are someone who is diving into Linux for the first time it can be a somewhat daunting task learning all the ins and outs of the operating system. We are all beginners at one point or another. The following is a list of tidbits and tips I have learned over my years working with Linux that will help you learn/maintain your Linux based operating system.

1.) If you can’t find what you are looking for – ask. Odds are the Linux distribution you are trying has a community forum where you can ask a question, if you are looking for something distro-neutral LinuxQuestions.org is one of my personal favorites, or if you are looking for something a bit more “real time” #Linux over on irc.freenode.net is typically very helpful. Regardless of where you ask, please remember to ask smart questions.

Read more at Thoughts on Technology

Microsoft Patents Operating System Shutdown

Microsoft just received confirmation of a patent that hands the company the intellectual property of shutting an operating system down.

I can’t quite recall how often Microsoft has talked about a faster way to shut down its operating system. It is part of the pitch of virtually every new operating system and it has remained an annoyance that it can take quite some time until the software in fact closes running applications and the operating system itself.

In August 2005, Microsoft filed for a patent to more efficiently shut down its Windows operating system as well as other operating systems, including Apple’s Mac OS X, and override running programs that may prevent Windows from closing.

Read more at http://www.conceivablytech.com/

FreeOrion v0.3.15 has been released.

FreeOrion v0.3.15 has been released.

Changes since the last release include:

  • Added scriptable species definitions in species.txt. Species have names, icons, focus settings, evironmental preferences, food consumption and effects associated with them. Many data-table based meter modifications have been moved into species effects, including population and health dependence on planet environment level for a species.
  • Removed secondary focus setting, and removed the balanced focus option. Planets now have only a single focus selection, all of which much be specific and (hopefully) more interesting to play with and easier to create content for.
  • Made focus settings moddable as part of Species defintions. Available foci on a planet can depend on arbitrary conditions, which may make for interesting gameplay changes with advancing tech or situational changes during a game. Each species can have a distinct set of available foci as well.
  • Fixed issue with custom ship designs that would frequently crash the game when they were built.
  • Modified behaviour of design screen when modifying a design: the incomplete design’s info is now shown in the encyclopedia panel whenever the design is modified or if the main panel is clicks. Clicking a part or hull once shows info about that part or hull, as before. The information about ship designs in the encyclopedia is also greatly expanded.
  • Added right-click popup menu command on the list of completed designs on the design screen: “Delete Design”. This lets players remove designs from the list that appears on the production screen, and from the completed designs list itself on the design screen.
  • Added species property to planets and to ships, which is used when colonizing to determine the species of the new colony. Built colony ships get the species of the planet where they were built.
  • Added an indication of ships’ species next to the design name of a ship on the fleets window, and planets’ species in their population tooltip.
  • Modified colonization UI to require a *single* colony ship to be selected before showing the colonize button for colonizable planets. The colonize button now shows the initial (determined by the colony ship capacity) and target planet population (determined by the species to be colonizing) on the colonize button.
  • Added some Python library files in a zip in the main FreeOrion directory in the Win32 installer. This should fix issues with nonfunctional AI when Python hasn’t been installed on a user’s system.
  • Removed the homeworld special, and modified species to track all the planets which are their homeworld, which are set during universe generation. Multiple planets can be a homeworld for a species, which is helpful as there are presently only two species available.
  • Fixed (hopefully) some issues with directories-finding code on Linux.
  • Modified apperance of meter bars on the sidepanel, to support showing current value, change in current value, and target / max value, even if the target is less than the current value.
  • Added a food consumption meter type, which is shown on the planet panels on the sidepanel, next to health and population.
  • Planet population icons use their species icon, rather than a generic population icon.
  • Added a droplist to pick species during single or multiplayer game setup.
  • Replaced contents of empire_names.txt with various generic empire names, rather than the species names that were there, since species are now a separate concept from empires.
  • Modified how empires and players information are stored in and retreived from save files, to make it easier to get this information when loading games without needing to load the whole save file
  • Made loading games much less likely to crash the client or server. Any errors that occur will abort the load and (hopefully) show an error message, and likely return the player to the intro screen, rather than crash.
  • Fixed issue with saving or attempting to write to an unwritable log file, which could previously crash the client or server.
  • Added some logging of the time it takes to execute various initialization tasks, to help future performance tuing.
  • Added an “inherent” meter cause type, for a few default/basic meter levels that are set automatically to make the game mechanics, particularly for stealth, work better.
  • Reworked Meter concept. Now meters have just a single value, instead of a current a max as before. Some meters have associated meters that are used like a max or target value, but not all, which is useful because various uses of meters don’t need a max or a target value.
  • Added new meter types for max and target meters, as these are now separate meters internally.
  • Modified the population growth mechanics to account for food allocation meter values and the possibility of larger population than target population.
  • Removed upper bounds on meter values. This may cause some UI problems if values are larger than can be shown in the available space, but we’ll deal with this when it becomes a problem.
  • Modified tooltips to handle new paired (or unpaired) meters.
  • Changed clickable links in sitrep entries and encyclopedia entries to be always distinctly coloured rather than underlined when moused over.
  • Modified effect parsing for new meter system, and accordingly updated content files.
  • Moved various data table-based meter modifications into effects.
  • Modified parts palette on the design screen to not show buttons for classes of parts for which none exist.
  • Changed resource output calculation to use meter values, rather than a more complicated multiplication and scaling between meter value and planet population. The resource output can still depend on population by making the effect that sets the resource meter value depend on population. This makes understanding output and where it comes from simpler.
  • Tweaked colour of industry meters.
  • Added Dump functions to various gamestate objects, which can be used for debugging or logging.
  • Added numerous content scripting object properies and modified existing ones, including adding a string property type, and properties such as object name, species, building type name, planet focus, ship design id, fleet id of a ship, planet id of a building, system id for any object, final and next and previous system id for ships, and the number of ships in a fleet.
  • Added a SetSpecies effect and a Species condition.
  • Changed Homeworld condition to use new system of species having one or more homeworld objects, rather than working with a special. Homeworld condition can match any homeworld, or can take a list of species names whose homeworlds should be matched.
  • Modified FocusType condition to take a list of focus type names to match. Planets with those foci will be matched.
  • Modified BuildingType condition to takte a list of building type names.
  • Fixed some issues with CMake build system.
  • Wrapped some code in try-catch blocks to prevent some crashes when parsing stringtable entries.
  • Fixed issue where empires would lose visibility of starved planets, and never actually observe them being stared, so would perpetually think they were in the state they were immediatly before starving.
  • Disabled the message box that popped up to inform players they had won, as this was annoying, particularly when playing a game with no AIs, in which case a player would always win on the first or second turn.
  • Replaced ship health meters with structure and max structure, as health meters were changed to health and target health, and it doesn’t make sense to have more structure (-al integrity) than the max, even though a planet could have (temporarily) more health than its long term stable health value.
  • Renamed some tooltip resource “production” strings to “output”, to avoid confusion with the separate “production” concept in game.
  • Consolidated some stringtable entries related to meter tooltips, which now use standard meter name stringtable entries.
  • Modified victory sitreps by adding a text parameter that can be filled in with an entry in the stringtable by the client.
  • Added VarText support (in stringtable entries) for building types, specials, ship hulls and parts.
  • Fixed some meter value discrepancies between server and client.
  • Changed conditions and effects evaluation to use the initial value of a meter on a given turn, so that meter values can be repeatedly recalculated and not accumulate as a result.
  • Removed several resource output object properties from content scripting, since these are now redundant with the resource meter values.
  • Added new hull design backgrounds.
  • Removed unused ship icons.
  • Fixed some app bundle isues on MacOSX
  • Removed “previous” value from meters… which contained the value of the meter on the previous turn, as this wasn’t being used anywhere.
  • Tweaked behaviour of code that sets default rendering settings dependent on graphics card GL version support, which is intended to reduce the number of crashes on older rendering hardware.
  • Tweaked behaviour of stealth threshold slider on galaxy map.
  • Fixed crash when clicking between FleetWnd and other windows and the map surface.
  • Added initial code to 3D combat system to support cached rendering of objects.
  • Improved simultaneous server/client combat timestep updating.
  • Fixed issue with server logging that was shutting down before all logging was complete. This should make server log files more useful after crashes.
  • Fixed a minor graphical glitch on the encyclpedia panel, where a border line wouldn’t be rendered.
  • Fixed issue with autogenerated condition / effect descriptions that treated a “Value” in a SetMeter effect as a property of the source object, rather than the target object that is should be.
  • Various stringtable changes / updates, etc.

No Steam for Linux – Right Now

Despite some early teasing, it now seems Steam is not coming to Linux after all – at least for now.

News broke August 21 that Valve’s marketing VP Doug Lombardi said in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz that “There’s no Linux version that we’re working on right now.” This is despite early discoveries that Linux was indeed on the menu and apparent confirmations.

There are two trains of thought on the statement by Lombardi. Most seem to interpret it to mean that Steam is not coming to Linux – period. Then another camp is saying don’t overlook the obvious qualifier: “right now”.
That means currently no, but it doesn’t mean not next month, or not next year, or not ever.

Read more at LinuxJournal

Meet Jon Sackett

Jon Sackett joined the Launchpad Registry team a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a quick run-down of who he is.

Matthew: What do you do on the Launchpad team?

Jon: I’m part of the Registry team; we maintain the people, teams and projects bits and pieces used by all the other parts of Launchpad.

Right now I’m mostly helping pay down technical debt, but I’m also helping with features that help those core objects be smarter about the way they use other applications.

Matthew: Can we see something that you’ve worked on?

Jon: Almost everything I’ve done has been internal without a real UI component.

Matthew: Where do you work?

Jon: I work in my home office in an apartment in downtown Durham, NC. Sometimes I change it up and work from my porch.

Read more at The Fridge

Elegant Gnome Theme Pack 0.7 Released With Automatic Firefox Theme Installation, Lots More

Elegant Gnome Theme Pack, one of the best dark themes was updated today and it now automatically installs a Firefox theme to match Elegant Gnome. But that’s not all, there are a lot of changes in the latest Elegant Gnome Pack 0.7:

* New GTK+ theme version
* A Google Chrome Theme and Google Chrome scrollbar extension to match the GTK+ theme
* New icons for the experimental version of the Dropbox – you no longer have to overwrite the Dropbox icons, but now the theme can specify the Dropbox icons like for any native app (it requires the latest Dropbox experimental)
* The AwOken icon theme has been updated to version 1.1.
Read more at WebUpd8

2 New Themes Released In The Equinox PPA: Equinox Evolution And Equinox Evolution Light

Equinox is a new GTK2 engine already used by themes such as Elementary. The relatively new GTK2 engine has been recently added to the Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat official repositories and has it’s own Ubuntu PPA which, besides the Equinox GTK engine also holds a few great themes (click for screenshots).

Yesterday, a new version of the Equinox GTK2 engine has been released – 1.30, and with it, 2 new themes called “Equinox Evolution” and “Equinox Evolution Light” (they are complete with GTK and Metacity themes) are available in the PPA:

Read more at WebUpd8

Sony’s Shocking ‘Other OS’ Win and Suspect Distro Popularity Trends

You can’t win them all, as the saying goes, and that apparently includes Linux fans. To wit: Despite the best hopes of many of us in the community, the man suing Sony over the removal of the “other OS” feature from its PS3 has apparently lost his case. The bad news is that the man won’t get the money he had requested to compensate for an upgrade to his newly crippled PS3; the good news is that he reportedly wasn’t forced to pay Sony’s legal bill to boot. Linux bloggers were none too pleased with the news.

Read more at LinuxInsider

Ubuntu 10.10 Beta (Maverick Meerkat) Released

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 10.10
beta.

Codenamed “Maverick Meerkat”, 10.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition
of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a
high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop Edition and Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition continue
the trend of ever-faster boot speeds, with improved startup times and a
smoother, streamlined boot experience.

Ubuntu 10.10 Server Edition provides even better integration of the
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, with its install-time cloud setup.

Ubuntu 10.10 Server for UEC and EC2 brings the power and stability of
the Ubuntu Server Edition to cloud computing, whether you’re using
Amazon EC2 or your own Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.

The Ubuntu 10.10 family of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio,
and Mythbuntu, also reach beta status today.

Ubuntu Desktop features
—————-

The GNOME base platform has been updated to the current 2.31 versions.
This includes the new dconf and gsettings API.

Evolution was updated to the 2.30.2 version, which operates much faster
than the version in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Shotwell has replaced F-Spot as the default photo manager.

Gwibber has been updated to support the recent change in Twitter’s
authentication system, as well as changing the back end storage to
improve performance.

The Sound Indicator has been enhanced to include music player controls.

The Ubuntu Software Center has an updated look and feel, including the
new “Featured” and “What’s New” views for showcasing applications, and
an improved package description view. You can now easily access your
package installation history too.

New Design: The boot process is cleaner and faster. New themes, new
icons, and new wallpaper bring a dramatically updated look and feel to
Ubuntu.

Ubuntu One: Polished desktop integration with new sign up and sign in
process. Tighter integration with Ubuntu SSO. Nautilus enhancements for
managing folder sync preferences. Faster file sync speed. Share links to
music within the Ubuntu One Music Store.

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/maverick/beta for details.

Ubuntu Server features
—————

Cloud computing: The configurable initialization process for Ubuntu
Server cloud images (cloud-init) has gained new features in Maverick
Beta, including pluggable hooks, ebsmount, ext4 support, and new stanzas
in the cloud-config format. Cloud image instances can now manage their
own kernel and upgrade kernels with apt. This is done by using pv-grub,
provided by Amazon.

Ubuntu Netbook features
———————–

The new Unity interface is now the default in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. It
includes the global menu bar. The date/time indicator now has a real
calendar widget.

The standard photo management application has been switched to
Shotwell.

Kubuntu features
—————-

For Maverick, Kubuntu have merged the Desktop and Netbook images into
one. Ubiquity, Kubuntu’s installer, will detect the screen size before
the install and use either the Plasma Desktop workplace or the Plasma
Netbook workplace as needed. Users will be able to switch between the
two in System Settings.

Plasma Netbook now sports the Global Menu by default.

The standard web browser is now Rekonq, a KDE browser based on Qt
Webkit.

Bluedevil has become the default bluetooth stack.

Pulseaudio is the default sound server.

KPackageKit updates bring a faster backend and an updated UI that
provides a new Categories page, and new features such as a
backup/restore tool for the list of installed packages.

Kubuntu’s installer (Ubiquity) now has updated look and layout.
Qapt-batch now replaces install-package as the update/batch-installer
utility

KDE Platform, Workspaces, and Applications were updated to 4.5.0 (the
recently released 4.5.1 update could not be integrated before beta
release and will arrive shortly).

Qt was updated to the current 4.7 beta release.

See https://wiki.kubuntu.org/MaverickMeerkat/Beta/Kubuntu for more
details.

Xubuntu features
—————-

Xfce4 was updated to the current 4.6.2 release.

New default applications include: Parole (Xfce4 Media Player), replacing
Totem Movie Player; Xfburn (Xfce4 CD/DVD burning tool), replacing
Brasero; and xfce4-taskmanager (Xfce4 process manager), replacing
Gnome-Task-Manager.

Edubuntu features
—————–

Edubuntu now includes Gnome Nanny, which provides parental controls in
Edubuntu. There is new wallpaper included (periodic table breakout). In
addition, an OEM Install mode is now available.

For those interested in learning more, there’s a new web site as well.
Check out http://www.edubuntu.org.

Ubuntu Studio features
———————-

In this release, Ubuntu Studio has better integration between Pulse
Audio and JACK. JACK and Pulse Audio can now be used side-by-side if
they are using different audio interfaces. If they are trying to use the
same audio interface, JACK will take precedent. The network connections
can now be configured with gnome-network-admin.

Mythbuntu features
——————

In this release, Mythbuntu has updated to MythTV 0.23.1.

There is also a new backup and restore tool.

Other
—–

* On the Desktop: GNOME 2.31, KDE 4.5.0b, Xfce 4.6.2, OpenOffice.org
3.2.1, X.org server 7.5

* On the Server: Apache 2.2.16, PostgreSQL 8.4.4, PHP 5.3.3, LTSP 5.2.4

* “Under the hood”: Linux 2.6.35.3, GCC 4.4.4 (default) / 4.5.1
(optional), eglibc 2.12.1, Python 2.6.6 (default) / 3.1.2 (optional)

The full release notes can be found at
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/maverick/beta

About Ubuntu
————

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, and
servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A
tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and
an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.

Professional technical support is available from Canonical Limited and
hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information
about support, visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support

To Get Ubuntu 10.10 Beta
————————

To upgrade to Ubuntu 10.10 Beta from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS,
follow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MaverickUpgrades

Or, download Ubuntu 10.10 Beta; The following link will direct you to a
download location near you:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/download

Or, choose the mirror closest to you:

Africa:

* http://ubuntu.mirror.ac.za/ubuntu-release/10.10 (South Africa)
* http://ubuntu.saix.net/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (South Africa)

Asia:

* http://mirrors.sohu.com/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (China)
* http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/ubuntu-iso/CDs/10.10 (Japan)
* http://ubuntutym2.u-toyama.ac.jp/ubuntu/10.10 (Japan)
* http://ftp.kaist.ac.kr/ubuntu-cd/10.10 (Korea, Republic of)
* http://ubuntu.qualitynet.net/releases/10.10 (Kuwait)
* http://mirror.yandex.ru/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Russian Federation)
* http://tw.releases.ubuntu.com/10.10 (Taiwan)
* http://ftp.linux.org.tr/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Turkey)

Europe:

* http://ubuntu.lagis.at/releases/10.10 (Austria)
* http://ftp.mgts.by/pub/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Belarus)
* http://ubuntu.ipacct.com/releases/10.10 (Bulgaria)
* http://hr.releases.ubuntu.com/10.10 (Croatia)
* http://releases.ubuntu.cz/releases/10.10 (Czech Republic)
* http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/ubuntu-cd/10.10 (Denmark)
* http://ftp.estpak.ee/pub/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Estonia)
* http://ubuntu.trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/releases/10.10 (Finland)
* http://ubuntu.mirrors.proxad.net/10.10 (France)
* http://ubuntu.mirror.tudos.de/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Germany)
* http://gb.releases.ubuntu.com/10.10 (Great Britain)
* http://mirror.greennet.gl/releases/10.10 (Greenland)
* http://speglar.simnet.is/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Iceland)
* http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Ireland)
* http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Italy)
* http://ubuntu.mirror.root.lu/ubuntu-releases/10.04 (Luxembourg)
* http://nl.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/10.10 (Netherlands)
* http://no.releases.ubuntu.com/10.10 (Norway)
* http://ubuntu.task.gda.pl/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Poland)
* http://cesium.di.uminho.pt/pub/ubuntu/10.10 (Portugal)
* http://ftp.astral.ro/mirrors/ubuntu.com/releases/10.10 (Romania)
* http://rs.releases.ubuntu.com/10.10 (Serbia)
* http://ubuntu.cica.es/releases/10.10 (Spain)
* http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/10.10 (Sweden)
* http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/ubuntu-cdimage/10.00
(Switzerland)

North America:

* http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Canada)
* http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/10.10 (United States)
* http://mirrors.us.kernel.org/ubuntu-releases/10.00 (United States)
* http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/releases/10.10 (United States)

Oceania/Australia:

* http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/10.10 (Australia)
* http://mirror.linux.org.au/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (Australia)
* http://releases.ubuntu.nautile.nc/10.10 (New Caledonia)
* http://ftp.citylink.co.nz/ubuntu-releases/10.10 (New Zealand)

South America:

* http://mirror.pop-sc.rnp.br/mirror/ubuntu/10.10 (Brazil)
* http://ubuntu.c3sl.ufpr.br/releases/10.10 (Brazil)

Please download using Bittorrent if possible.

The final version of Ubuntu 10.10 is expected to be released in October
2010.

Feedback and Participation
————————–

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways
you
can participate at

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help turn this
Beta into the best release of Ubuntu ever. Please note that, where
possible, we prefer that bugs be reported using the tools provided,
rather
than by visiting Launchpad directly. Instructions can be found at

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but are
not
sure, first try asking on the #ubuntu IRC channel on freenode, on the
Ubuntu
Users mailing list, or on the Ubuntu forums:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

More Information
—————-

You can find out more about Ubuntu and about this preview release on our
website, IRC channel and wiki. If you are new to Ubuntu, please visit:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu’s
very low volume announcement list at:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce


Robbie Williamson robbie@ubuntu.com
Ubuntu robbiew[irc.freenode.net]

“You can’t be lucky all the time, but you can be smart everyday”
-Mos Def

“Arrogance is thinking you are better than everyone else, while
Confidence is knowing no one else is better than you.” -Me ;)

Fedora Weekly News 241

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 241[1] for the week ending September
1, 2010. What follows are some highlights from this issue.

Our issue begins with some announcements from the Fedora Project,
including details on Fedora trademark defense and how you can help,
development updates to Fedora 14 and upcoming Fedora events. News from
the Fedora Planet is next, including announcement of the recent free
software status change for glibc, libguestfs for SUSE and Ubuntu, an
update on the Fedora Summer Coding project, and coverage of last week’s
IRC Fedora Board meeting. In Ambassador news, new Ambassadors joining
the team and a summary of the traffic from the Ambassador and FAmScO
list from this past week. In news from the Quality Assurance team,
results from last week’s Test Day on OpenSCAP, details on this week’s
Test Day on preupgrade and next week’s on systemd, as well as coverage
of Fedora 14 blocker review. In Translation news, details on upcoming
Fedora 14 task for the team, discussion of problems related to
statistics display on t.fp.o, and new members and sponsors for the
Fedora Localization Project. In Design Team updates, word on the
supplemental wallpaper voting results and discussion of a slogan for the
website. Our issue finishes off with security advisories for Fedora 12,
13 and 14 from this past week. Enjoy!

The audio version of FWN – FAWN – is back! You can listen to existing
issues[2] on the Internet Archive. If anyone is interested in helping
spread the load of FAWN production, please contact us!

If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see
our ‘join’ page[3]. We welcome reader feedback: news@lists.fedoraproject.org

FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Adam Williamson

1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue241
2. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22FWN%22
3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join

MeetBSD California 2010

It is time again for MeetBSD California!

What: MeetBSD California
http://www.meetbsd.com/

When: November 5th-6th, 2010

Where: Mountain View, California, USA

Overview

Join other members of the BSD community November 5th and 6th (Fri. &
Sat.) for an amazing opportunity to learn and share BSD wisdom. Come
enjoy and engage your contemporaries in the BSD world at MeetBSD
California’s unconference of targeted discussions.

MeetBSD CA 2010 features a community-driven discussion format that gives
great minds from the BSD and open source communities the opportunity to
share ideas. Discussions in the form of breakout sessions will provide a
forum for a variety of open source development topics. Lightning talks
will allow attendees to share the status of their BSD projects quickly
with other community members, while stimulating conversation. A handful
of selected speakers will also take part in the event, delivering
information on a number of BSD platforms.

MeetBSD CA ’10 will feature an afterparty on Saturday night to give
attendees a more relaxed environment to discuss and recount the topics
of the unconference. The afterparty will feature drinks, food,
and good company to keep the conversations going strong into the night.
Both MeetBSD CA 2010 and the afterparty will be held at Hacker Dojo in
the San Francisco Bay Area.

Register now for your spot at MeetBSD California 2010 for two
informative, engaging, and fun-filled days at
https://www.meetbsd.com/register.

For more information about Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, California
visit http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/.

The official hotel of MeetBSD California 2010 is Hotel Avante, located
less than two miles from the event with direct shuttle service to and
from Hacker Dojo. Reserve a room at Hotel Avante at:
https://reservations.ihotelier.com/crs/g_reservation.cfm?groupID=471344&hotelID=5604.

Sponsorship Opportunities

If you or your company would be interested in sponsoring this year’s
MeetBSD California event, please visit https://www.meetbsd.com/sponsors
for a listing of sponsorship packages. You may also e-mail any inquiries
about sponsoring MeetBSD to info@meetbsd.com.

Thank you to our current sponsors: Marvell, iXsystems, FreeBSD
Foundation, BSD Fund, and Intuix.

Hope to see you in November!


The MeetBSD California 2010 Team

Apple’s Relationship to Open Source

Despite being one of the most tightly controlled technology companies on the market, Apple has a surprisingly complicated relationship with open source. Both of Apple’s flagship operating systems, OS X and iOS are based on Darwin, which is in turn based on FreeBSD. Apple has also contributed a large amount of code back to the open source community, most notably WebKit, which is used as the browsing engine in nearly every mobile platform. Considering the recent popularity of Apple’s systems, and since there was a big Apple event happening today, their involvement in open source is worth a look.

Read more at OSTATIC

7 Providers of Pre Installed Linux Laptops/PC’s

Not many mainstream PC manufacturers have a Linux preinstalled version of their products. But some do have and the there are many other not-so-mainstream providers of Linux preinstalled laptops, netbooks and PC’s. Here are a few of them you should know.

Dell
Dell is obviously the most famous among Laptops/PC manufacturers in Linux circles primarily because of its preinstalled Ubuntu offerings. Dell was in a lot of controversies recently when somebody reported that Dell has stopped selling preinstalled Ubuntu laptops, which was later proved wrong.

Read more at Tech Drive-in

Is your company afraid of Linux? (3 of 3)

Continued from : Is your company afraid of Linux? (Part 2 of 3)

Fear #4 (Support!): This is where Linux shines. Because of the open nature of the Linux community it is considered to be the most widely supported platform and the most inexpensive.

To get professional support for your Microsoft server platform, you have to either pay for a professional support plan from a Microsoft Partner or from Microsoft themselves. I’ve never run into an SMB that had purchased a professional support plan from Microsoft. To obtain one-time support for your Windows server operating system you would pay a per incident fee anywhere from $99 (next business day) to $260 (4 to 6 hour response). No support is included with the purchase of the Microsoft operating system itself. So these fees are on top of the licensing fees you pay for the right to install and use the Windows OS. Licensing for Windows Server 2008 ranges anywhere from $500 to $4000 which doesn’t include the client access licenses (CALs) which run around $40 per desktop or per user on your network.

Read more at Linuxaria

More GPL enforcement work again.. and a very surreal but important case

In recent days and weeks, I’m doing a bit more work on the gpl-violations.org project than during the last months and years. I wouldn’t say that I’m happy about that, but well, somebody has to do it :/

Right now I’m facing what I’d consider the most outrageous case that I’ve been involved so far: A manufacturer of Linux-based embedded devices (no, I will not name the company) really has the guts to go in front of court and sue another company for modifying the firmware on those devices. More specifically, the only modifications to program code are on the GPL licensed parts of the software. None of the proprietary userspace programs are touched! None of the proprietary programs are ever distributed either.

Read more at Harald Welte’s blog