Advanced Linux Distributions You Should Try

Some people will argue with me in that these GNU/Linux distributions are as advanced as you want them to be. Well, of course Linux is all about choice. I took the user base perspective though and what I have for you today is a few distros which do not hide the manual (or for people like me, beautiful) underlying configuration. Also, by using the distro itself, you will learn a lot about Linux and how an operating system works. It is a fun and useful experience, believe me and never be scared of the command line It is your friend.

Arch Linux

A distro I am currently playing with right now, Arch is focused on simplicity and elegance. A great Beginners Wiki Article guides you through the process of setting up your first Arch Linux system. There is a lot of manual editing in nano and other command line tools, but it is not very difficult and it is all explained in great detail and a very beginner-friendly manner. Arch’s pacman package manger system turned out to be a very lightweight and quality tool for managing the software installed on your system. If you cannot find something, just check the community repository. The resulting system is always pretty stable and fast. Plus, as it is a rolling-release distro, pacman takes care of your packages so you’re never behind on the newest in FOSS. Two thumbs up!

Slackware

While I am not very familiar with the original Slackware (I have used many derivatives, like SLAX and Vector Linux), Slackware also concentrates on a type of KISS principle, in part at the cost of user-friendliness. Many people run Slackware on servers, some even on laptops. What they like is the stability and the experience gained from using such a system. As for package management – Slackware’s can do the basic tasks, like remove, install and upgrade, however it cannot track dependencies, so it is up to you to solve them or you can use one of the many automatic dependency-resolving tools such as slapt-get.

“In this context, “simple” refers to the viewpoint of system design, rather than ease of use. Most software in Slackware uses the configuration mechanisms supplied by the software’s original authors; there are few distribution-specific mechanisms.”

Gentoo

By the way, I would like to hear a Gentoo user in the comments explain some more about what the benefits of Gentoo Linux are. Most of the newer Linux users connect Gentoo with compiling apps locally. I personally like to use other distros, because I mostly just use binaries (Gentoo has some binaries too) for some programs and in other cases compile my apps when I really want to, which I am already able to do in any other distro. So, why would you choose Gentoo? Well, first if you would like to learn how compiling works, Gentoo is an excellent choice. You will be able to get a distro specifically tailored for your system (brings in a slight increase in overall speed). The package management system is called Portage with the emerge tool (I think it is written in python), based on Ports in the BSDs (what is different is that Portage contains ebuilds). Compiling everything enables you to have softer dependencies, more bleeding-edge packages and you can install the system in three different “Stages”, depending on how much of the system you wish to compile yourself (only Stage 3 installs are officially supported!).

• Stage1: System must be bootstrapped and the base system must be compiled.
• Stage2: System has already been bootstrapped, but the base system must be compiled.
• Stage3: System has already been bootstrapped and the base system already compiled.

Well, I hope this short article made you at least a bit curious about how it is to use these distros. Why not give them a try? At least visit their homepages and take a look at some more information. Is there anything you’d want to add? I’d love to read some comments from users and people new to Linux!

Support Linux, Buy a T-Shirt

Most people who attend an open source conference typically walk away with t-shirts, stickers and other accessories branded with the logo of their favorite distro or open source project. If you don’t go to those events, you can still buy cool stuff to show your support or to give as gifts this holiday season.

Here are some Web sites to check out:

Canonical’s online store dates back to 2007 but, surprisingly, Ubuntu hasn’t had one — until now. The U.S. Ubuntu Shop launched quietly last month during the release of Ubuntu 8.10. Now you can grab a hat, mouse pad, and even Ubuntu Thinking Putty, all branded with the distro’s “Circle of Friends” logo.

If Fedora or JBoss is your thing, then head to the Red Hat Cool Stuff Store. Of course, you’ll find the requisite hats and shirts, but you can also pick up a credit card bottle opener, golf balls, or an umbrella.

The openSUSE Shop is all about clothes — there are no mouse pads or flash drives in sight. It does, however, offer baby items for you to dress up your littlest Geeko.

Show your Debian pride with something from The Debian Shop. From Buttons and magnets to calendars and coffee cups, there’s a little something for everyone in this store.

The Mandriva Store has the usual fare — cups, shirts, hats, and magnets — but also sports underwear and dog clothes.

It’s not just distros that have neat online stores. Do an online search of your favorite open source projects and you might be surprised what you’ll find. Miro, Audacity, OpenOffice, and of course, Mozilla all have online shops too.

Where do you shop for open source goodies? Let me know in the comments.

Microsoft, Nvidia phone? Well, we know this much

Rumors of an iPhone-style Microsoft phone running on Nvidia silicon add heft, in part, to what Nvidia has been talking about since early this year.

Nvidia prototype phone using Tegra APX chip

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In the spring, Nvidia demonstrated its Tegra chip-based mobile phone prototype to me and pretty much anyone in the media who made a visit to its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters.

(See CNET Reviews video of the phone.)

Nvidia has made it clear that the chip platform was targeted at Windows Mobile–a point that an Nvidia representative reiterated Monday.

Though the prototype phone (actually a development platform) is quite a bit thicker than a real “thin” phone that a handset provider would bring out at some point, the prototype runs on top of Windows Mobile, as it would presumably in a commercial device.

And what does Nvidia bring to the table? The master of faster graphics processors wants to apply its chip know-how to juice up the mobile Internet device market and the Windows Mobile interface. After a decade of pumping up PC performance, Nvidia is betting a big part of its future on boosting graphics performance in fit-in-your-pocket mobile Internet devices, or MIDs.

iPhone-style devices with Nvdia’s Tegra APX (or Tegra 600) incorporate most of the functionality of a PC. And Nvidia is building all of the core electronics that will run a mobile Internet device, not just the graphics component. (This Nvidia Mobile Device page shows the Tegra 600 series and Tegra APX.)

Tegra is different from Intel’s Atom processor platform–which is offered as a processor and a separate chipset–because Nvidia integrates everything onto one piece of silicon. This makes it more akin to Texas Instruments’ OMAP processors or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. (See “Additional Comments” below with corrected statement on Moorestown.)

Images shown on Nvidia Mobile Devices Web page.

(Credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia’s goal is to pack as much processing punch as possible into a few-hundred-milliwatt power envelope. Notebook PC processors typically operate in power envelopes between 10 and 35 watts.

But to the user, the biggest difference will be Microsoft’s Mobile Windows interface and what can happen when there’s Nvidia GeForce graphics silicon pushing everything around.

The platform that Nvidia is demonstrating goes far beyond the staid, pin-striped Windows Mobile that is used today. Nvidia has been showing finger-flick-and-roll screens and accelerometer-based reorienting 720p video.

Devices–according to Nvidia’s thinking at least–will also be designed to run 720p HDTV video for 10 hours–one of the marquee features that Nvidia will be emphasizing. The company has demonstrated the prototype Tegra APX-based device plugged into a large screen TV–via a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector–playing high-definition movies with the same fluidity and resolution as you get from a big HDTV box or bigger computer.

Additional comments on two points: One, correction on Moorestown. As a reader pointed out, Intel’s upcoming Moorestown is not a single-chip device. It is still at 2-chip solution. Two, about Tegra: another reader commented that Tegra is based on the ARM11 (shipping in products now), which is “older” than the Cortex-A8 class OMAP products from Texas Instruments.

Worst-ever software security blooper?

T-Mobile has issued an over-the-air fix for a laughable Android security bug that caused anything typed into its G1 phone to be interpreted by a root shell process. Prior to the fix, hackers briefly enjoyed root shell access, leading to such fun as Debian installations on SD cards.

The Android bug has to rate as one of the great software bloopers of all time. Whether snuck into the code by a Google employee bent on mischief, or simply a vestige of Google’s debug process, the bug was apparently caused by these lines in the G1’s init.rc:

## Daemon processes to be run by init. ## service console /system/bin/sh console

T-Mobile quickly patched the gaping hole, but not before widespread shenanigans ensued. One report on Google’s Android Bug listing describes a user text messaging advice to his girlfriend comprised of the single word “reboot,” only to find his phone rebooting. Surprise!

Subsequently, the bug report was apparently marked as a security issue, in order to make it inaccessible to the public. However, Pandora had already left the building, possibly with Elvis in tow, thanks to a post to the XDA-Developers forum. This, in turn, led to at least one enterprising user posting a howto on gaining a root shell. Next, another G1 owner thoughtfully documented the process of installing Debian on a 16GB SD card, and booting the G1 into it.

Ah, but you can only have so much of a good thing. T-Mobile bottled up the fun with an “RC30″ OTA (over-the-air) firmware fix that closed down the laughable loophole.

Although the HTC G1 is open to Java development, using freely downloadable tools released under an Apache 2.0 license, G1 owners do not get root access permissions to their actual G1 devices.

At least, not anymore.

Chrome For Linux Slowly Wriggles From Primordial Ooze

If you’re a Linux user waiting to try out the
Chrome browser, CNet offers some bad news, tempered by a tiny ray of good news.

It seems the Google developed browser, released approximately two months ago, is showing the first signs of growing Linux legs, and is making its way towards the operating system. It takes time, a few dead ends, and maybe even requires losing a link or two before it really works — Google suggests it might be quite some time.

Okay, fine, it’s the cynic in me. Google not offering a version of Chrome for Linux right away (and more recently, overlooking the porting of Gmail voice and video chat to the platform) just isn’t surprising — and really, I almost can’t get worked up about it.

Linux users waited a long time for Picasa for Linux, and it still doesn’t run natively (it uses WINE). The Google Desktop application also took a long while before a Linux version was offered (and oddly, I discovered most of the similar desktop environment integrated tools worked as well, and were less intrusive when trying to get things done that really didn’t require its services).

No doubt, it’s understandable to feel a bit slighted (especially when Google feels like it ought to be one of the most forthcoming non-open source companies out there when it comes to actively supporting open source projects), but it isn’t unprecedented. Do I want to see, and will I try out, the first native Linux Chrome release? Without question. But I have a perfectly serviceable browser in the meantime, and I’m finding it difficult to be overly anxious about the wait.

Terra Soft Solutions Acquired by Fixstars

Today Fixstars Corporation announced it has acquired Terra Soft Solutions, the company behind Yellow Dog Linux. Fixstars has created a new subsidiary to manage the Terra Soft employees, products, and offices.

Fixstars provides application development and optimization tools for Cell Broadband Engine multi-core processors. This makes the acquisition of Terra Soft fitting from the historical standpoint, and promising for Yellow Dog’s future.

Terra Soft’s Yellow Dog Linux was the only viable option not so many years ago for anyone interested in running Linux on a Mac with a PPC architecture. Terra Soft became a Value Added Reseller, officially licensed to install their alternative operating system on Apple computers.

It’s been several years since I last used Yellow Dog to pry a little more life out of an old iMac that couldn’t deliver the needed up-to-date applications with System 9. Even back in the “dark ages” of Linux — and prior to Apple’s move from the Power architecture to Intel chips — Yellow Dog was powerful, lightweight and (most important for my situation) stable.

When Apple made the switch to Intel processors, it didn’t make the “former” Yellow Dog releases useless, of course. There were (and are) still many PPC Macs (and other devices) out there that can have their lives extended (and enhanced) by the older Yellow Dog releases (and a number of distributions have since offered PPC support for releases). But it was obvious that Terra Soft would need to branch in other directions.

They have done so, and it seems that both companies — and the industries they serve — will ultimately benefit.

Linux barcode scanner uses OLED display

An Estonian embedded design house has developed a data-collection barcode scanner and PDA with an OLED display. Billed as the first OLED-equipped mobile terminal device, Artec’s Triskan TS8 Professional Mobile Terminal runs embedded Linux on an ARM processor, and includes Bluetooth and GSM/GPRS, with optional WiFi.

(Click for larger view of the Triskan TS8)

Developed by Estonia-based The Artec Group, the Triskan is being distributed and marketed by Finland-based ProComponent for the Scandinavian market. The device is aimed at data collection applications in retail, warehousing, transportation, manufacturing, and healthcare environments, says the vendor.

The Triskan is built around an undisclosed ARM processor and is equipped with 32MB of SDRAM, upgradable to 64MB, with 16MB of flash, and an SD card slot supporting up to 2GB, says Artec. The 2.8-inch QVGA display offers 320 x 240 resolution, and a claimed 10,000:1 contrast ratio. OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays use organic dyes to provide a softer light with better contrast, and they typically draw less power. OLED is appearing more and more in the smaller external displays of handsets, such as the Motorola U9, and has also made appearances in other small-format screens, such as Dreamax’s head-mounted Indicube i-800 PMP.

Different views of the Triskan
(Click to enlarge)

The Triskan offers 1D or or optional 2D barcode scanning, and also offers options for HF (high frequency) RFID, as well as smart-card data input, says Artec. The device is said to provide both Bluetooth and a GSM/GPRS modem as standard features, and offers WiFi and CDMA connectivity as options. A mini-USB slot is offered for software updates, says the vendor.

The Triskan’s sealed, 23-button keypad is backlit, and said to be designed to resist spills. The removable Li-Ion battery can be charged when attached to the Triskan or charged separately. Artec did not provide details on the Linux implementation, but says that a Linux based development environment will be made available to certified software development partners.

Specifications listed for Artec’s Triskan TS8 ProfessionalMobile Terminal include:

• Processor — ARM processor
• Memory — 32MB SDRAM (factory-upgradable to 64MB)
• Flash — 16MB; supports SD cards up to 2GB
• Display — 2.8-inch OLED QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) 65k colors; landscape; 10,000:1 contrast
• Communications — Quad-band GSM/GPRS; optional WiFi, CDMA
• USB — 1 x mini-USB service connector
• Bluetooth — standard Bluetooth 2.0 baseband controller
• Keypad — 23 bubble button sealed keypad
• Scanner — 1D Laser; optional 2D laser, RFID, or smart-card “Chip-Card”
• Barcode support — all common 1D barcodes including EAN, Code-39, Code-128
• Battery — replaceable, rechargeable Lithium Ion Polymer 2000mAh; charges at 5V @ 1A
• Dimensions — 7.6 x 3.1 x 1.3 inches (194 x 78 x 32mm)
• Weight — 8.8 oz (250 gr)
• Operating temperature — 23 to 131 deg. F (-5 to 55 deg. C)
• Operating system — embedded Linux

Artec’s other products include a Linux- and Windows-ready LPC Dongle with a USB programming/debug interface, as well as a “BioDSP” board equipped with a Xilinx Spartan3 FPGA (field-programmable gate array). Software offerings include its “ORLL” (Option-ROM Linux Loader), which is said to load a Linux 2.2 or 2.4 kernel from flash to RAM for execution. It also offers a “Linux Device NAS” (network-attached storage) software package. Artec does not detail the Linux implementations used in these products.

Availability

Artec’s Triskan TS8 ProfessionalMobile Terminal appears to be available now, at an undisclosed price, from ProComponent, here. The Artec Group site may be found here, but at present there appears to be no information on the Triskan TS8 on the site.

Motorola’s last in-house Linux phone?

MontaVista has confirmed that its Linux stack is in new music phone from Motorola. Leaked details on the EM35 reveal a slider version of the EM30 music phone, making it perhaps the last of Motorola’s in-house Linux phones, with Android and possibly LiMo phones to follow.

(Click for a larger view of the EM35 on Softpedia)

Motorola earlier this month announced plans to abandon its aging in-house MotoMAGX Linux/Java stack in favor of the Android Linux/Java stack. Compared to MotoMAGX, Android offers more powerful “smartphone” capabilities, such as multi-tasking, touchscreen support, and Web browsing. Thus, the EM35 may well represent the final hurrah for the MotoMAGX stack.

Motorola has also participated in the LiMo foundation, a group building a phone stack around native Linux apps. As that stack matures, Motorola could in theory deliver phones built from the interoperable OS stacks delivered by other LiMo members, though it has not yet announced any plans to do so. It has said it will continue to use Windows Mobile for smartphones (such as the recently announced Q11. Its proprietary P2K stack will continue to serve in its lowest-cost voice phones.

According to a MontaVista representative, the EM35 runs a version of MontaVista Mobilinux, as have previous Motorola Linux phones based on the MotoMAGX stack. Whether Motorola will continue using MontaVista kernels and middleware in its Android phones remains to be seen, however.

As is typical with many of its recent launches, Motorola seems to be pre-announcing the EM35 in drips and drabs. First some images appeared on Asian technology sites such as HKEPC, and now Motorola or one of its channel partners has leaked more detailed specs to several mobile handset sites, including SoftPedia.

Motorola’s EM30 and earlier Rokr E8
(Click either for details)

Early reports from mobile handset sites around the web mention music-phone features similar to those of the EM30 (pictured at right), including MP3 playback, Bluetooth, USB, special music keys, FM radio with RDS technology, and a 3.5mm AV jack. The big difference is that it appears to offer the same haptic navigation scroll wheel found on the EM30’s music-oriented predescesor, the Rokr E8 (pictured below). The EM30 used more conventional controls.

Music interface aside, the key improvements over the EM30 appear to be the inclusion of a 3-megapixel camera, up from 2 megapixels on the EM30, as well as the slider function, which reveals a numeric keypad.

Specs for the EM35 are said to include a tri-band GPRS/EDGE phone, 110MB of memory, a micro-SD card slot, and a 2.22-inch, 320 x 240 TFT display with 256K colors. The EM35 measures 4.2 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches (107 x 49.5 x 16mm), and weighs in at a little over four ounces (117 grams), say the reports.

Availability

At press-time, Motorola had yet to formally announce the EM35, nor does it appear to be for sale yet anywhere on the web. The phone is “coming soon” according to industry reports.

World Wide Web ensnaring the living room

The number of digital TVs, gaming consoles, and set-top boxes equipped with embedded web browsers will grow from 60 million in 2008 to 214 million by 2013, forecasts ABI. The research firm lists the open source Webkit rendering engine and CEA-2014 UI standard among key emerging technologies shaping the market.

ABI says web browsers are already “common” in Japanese TVs, with uptake happening now in North America. Some vendors, such as Sony, are integrating browsers in order to expand Web service offerings, it says. Like Pioneer, Sanyo, and JVC-Victor, Sony uses Linux in myriad TV models shipping since 2003.

Today, many embedded browser platforms are available, ranging from commercial products like Access Netfront and Opera to implementations built on the open source Gecko and Webkit rendering engines. ABI calls out Webkit, in particular, predicting that “many” initial implementations of an important and relatively new “CE-2014″ standard will use “a variation” of Webkit. ABI also notes that search engine giant Yahoo! has lined up its Widgets! technology behind CE-2014.

ABI is likely referring to CEA-2014, not CE-2014. Though little detail has been shared publicly (the standard costs about $200 to download for non-CEA members), the spec appears aimed at providing a standardized way for browsers on TVs, phones, and other devices to host the user interface for applications running on remote systems (i.e., Internet services). Proceedings from a September CEA meeting published in the CEA “Monthly Update” suggest that the group’s ATSC Mobile/Handheld SIG (special interest group) is working to develop a CEA-2014-A compliance test, which will include:

• Setup: discovery and connection of remote UI
• Devices (both client and server)
• Capability exchange
• HTTP headers
• XHTML profile (CE-HTML)
• NotifSocket scripting object
• 3rd party notifications
• AV control
• Save-restore
• Cookie support
• Robustness guidelines (server-side only)

Michael Wolf, ABI research director, stated, “Most forward-thinking consumer electronics vendors today are integrating IP ports in their mainline consumer electronics devices.”

The finding is from ABI’s recent study, “Web-Based Living Room User Interface Overview.” Besides tracking the adoption of browsers for “consumer living room Web surfing,” it aims to track standards and vendor efforts to integrate web-based technologies into various user interfaces, ABI said.

Delivering web services to devices has become something of an obsession across the embedded market in recent years. For example, Nokia purchased Trolltech in part because its Webkit integration simplifies delivering web services with C++ applications. Another interesting new technology, released just this week, is Movial’s D-Bus Bridge, which extends the Javascript APIs in Gecko and Webkit to let “privileged” Javascript applications communicate with local applications and OSes that support D-Bus IPC (interprocess communication).

IPv6 will also likely play a huge role in extending IP and Web services to the living room and greater device world beyond.

Crisis financial institution. Popolo hostage of the system

An aspect of this crisis has not been emphasized with adapted “violence”. Not draft of imprecare against someone or something, how much rather than to come down more in depth. When companies, also important, often because of lead fraudulent, they choked the workers with the loop of the failure, they said to us that the State had however to remain some outside, since Europe imposes of the intransgressible limits. “The free market does not allow intrusions, the competition does not go altered”, was asserted with risolutezza. Today that same Europe is mobilized in order to save the fondoschiena to the banking system, than for years it has lived speculating in the attics, without for a moment not to lower itself to throw a glance of under, where million black dots move confusedly without deep reasons. Now it can be derogare, must be elastic. This is the moment in which more ligi the assertors of the nature benefactress of the market, private of “laces and lacciuoli”, rules protest to great voice. They are every day in television with the contrita face and the hands shaking on the writing desk, while on the background batteries of books they act as from arguments for impunity. They speak always. Only they. The cursed ones, than as piovre they sink the tentacles anywhere have sense to make it: in the heart of the European institutions, to you concern us of the States, on the mass media, newspapers, the parties, the minds of people. Yes, because their system I found myself on the confidence that the persons are disposed to grant; well it in this moment is going more and more in crisis. Thus they are prodigano in continuation in order to tranquilize all, asking not to sell tito them or to maintain the investments. And they blackmail. The trouble, in fact, is that they have constructed a system like a orologeria A-bomb in a space without escape; there are all within. They are of the kamikaze disposed to the occurrence is blown up; they use of we, hostages of the system, ready to pay I redeem in order not to die. The temptation of the extreme sacrifice, in order to cancel their criminal arrogance and to make to share the world from zero, is indeed much fort.