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News Alert


Linux and Open Source News for 20th December 2006

Debian Download

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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: PCLinuxOS Size: 186.17 MB Status: 3 seeders and no leecher Added: 2006-12-20 22:16:53


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Ubuntu Size: 695.00 MB Status: 18 seeders and 14 leechers Added: 2006-12-20 14:19:33


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Ubuntu Size: 3.62 GB Status: 10 seeders and 15 leechers Added: 2006-12-20 00:13:22


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Ubuntu Size: 2.43 GB Status: 12 seeders and 6 leechers Added: 2006-12-20 00:04:27


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Ubuntu Size: 4.09 GB Status: 9 seeders and 14 leechers Added: 2006-12-20 00:04:15


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Ubuntu Size: 4.09 GB Status: 12 seeders and 15 leechers Added: 2006-12-20 00:02:10


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Source: mint

A new stable version of Linux Mint has been released: "Linux Mint 2.1, code name "Bea", is out and available for download." Here is a brief list of some of the changes since version 2.0: "OpenOffice 2.1; mintDesktop, which adds a lot of desktop improvements; quick access to .



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Source: Linux Today

Being aware, as I am, of Microsoft's monopolisation endeavours, coupled with working in a Linux world inherently mistrustful of the software giant, it may seem strange that I believe the Microsoft/Novell agreement will be great for Linux. But I do


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Source: Linux Today

As a continuation of the previous post, here are 25 shortcomings found by CNN's Frank J. Ohlhorst when he reviewed the yet to be formally released Microsoft Vista OS


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Source: Linux Today

One of the big issues here in 2007 will continue to be the divide over profit as prime motivation


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Source: Linux Today

With more than 200,000 downloads in just over a year, the Zend Framework for writing Web applications in PHP has emerged as an enterprise challenger to Java and .NET


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Source: Linux Today

Andreas Barth and fellow Debian version 4 release manager Steve Langasek probably predicted a little bit of resentment from fellow contributors to the Linux project when they set up an 'experiment' help fund their efforts


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Source: Linux Today

What makes Freespire so unique is their very blatant decision to include open source and proprietary software under one hat


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Source: Linux Today

Mexican local office begins operations in order to offer Mandriva Linux solutions to organizations and people all over the country


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Source: Linux Today

Linux was shot into space Dec. 16, as part of a second-phase Air Force Research Laboratory program aimed at making space more 'operationally responsive '


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Source: Linux Today

Ever since computing became part of our lives, the core elements of the computer were the keys to riches. Originally, IBM dominated this space with proprietary mainframes


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Source: Linux Today

Trolltech, the company that makes software faster to build and easier to use, today announced the release of Qtopia 4.2.0


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Source: Linux Today

Slowly but surely, sector by sector, the young Penguin upshot is being chosen by the larger and more conventional companies. They're not choosing it because it's 'neato', but because it's a safer and more prudent investment


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Source: Linux Today

When a group of Red Hat Fedora developers, engineers, and mangers got together last month for a three-day summit in Westford, Mass., the goal was to establish short- and long-term plans for future Fedora projects


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Source: Linux Today

The move is welcomed as a goodwill gesture by OSI, but has already generated some hostility from SPI's constituency


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Source: Linux Today

The world of open source is moving ever further from its unpaid volunteer roots. The past year saw the $420 million acquisition of JBoss, as well as a Microsoft-Novell deal that tested the legal limits of commercial open source


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Source: Linux Today

Mozilla today updated Firefox 2.0 for the first time, but the upgrade lacks at least one fix for a well known and already disclosed flaw in the open source browsers


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Source: Linux Today

Hey, F7 needs a plan. So here's one. It's not in taskjuggler or MrProject. Nor does it have pretty gantt charts. Those can be added by those that care about such things


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Source: Linux Today

SUSE co-founder Hubert Mantel is back in the saddle at Novell


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Source: Linux Today

The deployment aims to support a Unix to Linux migration project for three mission-critical applications, including the newspaper's Oracle-based circulation database


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Source: Linux Today

Unfortunately, no such game currently exists in the free software world. Not yet, anyway


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Source: Linux Today

The idea behind the PortableApps Suite is to provide an entire portable environment as a single installable package comprising everything you need: applications and additional utilities that make portable computing more efficient


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Source: Linux Today

One key feature GNOME has lacked, in comparison to KDE, is a clipboard manager like KDE's Klipper. That's now about to change, thanks to the efforts of a project called 'Glipper '


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Source: Linux Today

Greasemonkey is a browser extension lets Firefox users write and install scripts that change Web page features on the client side


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Source: Linux Today

Today's security advisories: dbus (Fedora Core); proftpd and dbus (Mandriva Linux); tar, firefox, seamonkey, and thunderbird (Red Hat Linux); and koffice, squirrelmail, evince novell-lum, and gdm (SUSE Linux).


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Source: Linux Today

Mozilla's open source e-mail client tweaks the interface and adds features but doesn't lose its simplicity and usefulness


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Source: Linux Today

Well, I was right all along, but in 2006, that progress slapped many Linux fans on the face


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Source: Linux Today

While some segments of the IT market might see the future as a wide-open plain, for the open source community, 2007 is shaping up to be a year for settling unfinished business



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Source: Slashdot: Linux

Torus Kas writes "Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 was supposed to be due by December 4 and development is currently frozen. Apparently the saga was triggered by disenchantment towards funding of $6,000 for each of the 2 release managers to work full-time in order to speed up the development. Many unpaid developers simply put off Debian work to work on something else."



previous    The O'Reilly Network ONLamp Articles and Weblogs    next


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Source: ONLamp.com

Have you wanted to start playing with Perl 6 but find yourself wondering what to write? I use Pugs, a Perl 6 implementation being written in Haskell and have been tremendously enjoying Perl 6. Like many, I’m impatient, but the work on Perl 6 has been progressing quite well and I’m quite keen to see the alpha. However, if you’re like me, you probably do better with a new language by actually writing something in it. Well, not only do I have something for you to write, you can actually help out the Perl 6 effort!

Recently I stumbled across 99 Problems in Lisp, which was in turn apparently borrowed from 99 Problems in Prolog. I’ve started 99 Problems in Perl 6.

I started out by writing a program which would take the text of the “99 Problems” and split them into separate test files for Perl 6. The first one looks like this:

use v6-alpha;
use Test;
plan 1;

# P01 (*) Find the last box of a list.
#
# Example:
# * (my-last '(a b c d))
# (D)

is .[-1], 'd', 'Find the last box of a list.';

Each test file contains the entire text of the problem, though some refer you to previous problems. At the current writing, only the first 24 have been “solved” and the rest contain “skip” tests. If you can solve a problem, feel free to send an email to one of the Pugs mailing lists. Commit bits are handed out very liberally. Then you can add the solution and work on other problems.

To give you an example of how some of the languages compare, here’s the “lotto” problem (Draw N different random numbers from the set 1..M) in Lisp:

(defun range (ini fim)
(if ( ini fim)
(if (eql ini fim)
(cons fim nil)
(cons ini (range (- ini 1) fim)))
(if (eql ini fim)
(cons fim nil)
(cons ini (range (+ ini 1) fim)))))

(defun remove-at (org-list pos &optional (ini 1))
(if (eql pos ini)
(cdr org-list)
(cons (car org-list) (remove-at (cdr org-list) pos (+ ini 1)))))

(defun rnd-select (org-list num &optional (selected 0))
(if (eql num selected)
nil
(let ((rand-pos (+ (random (length org-list)) 1)))
(cons (element-at org-list rand-pos) (rnd-select (remove-at org-list rand-pos) num (+ selected 1))))))

(defun lotto-select (num-elem max-elem)
(rnd-select (range 1 max-elem) num-elem))

Wow! That’s hideously verbose and I suspect there’s a better way. Here it is in Prolog:

range(I,I,[I]).
range(I,K,[I|L]) :- I 1,
K1 is K - 1, remove_at(X,Xs,K1,Ys).

rnd_select(_,0,[]).
rnd_select(Xs,N,[X|Zs]) :- N 0,
length(Xs,L),
I is random(L) + 1,
remove_at(X,Xs,I,Ys),
N1 is N - 1,
rnd_select(Ys,N1,Zs).

lotto(N,M,L) :- range(1,M,R), rnd_select(R,N,L).

That’s better, but not much. The Haskell solution isn’t much better:

import System.Random
diff_select :: Int - Int - IO [Int]
diff_select n to = diff_select' n [1..to]

diff_select' 0 _ = return []
diff_select' _ [] = error "too few elements to choose from"
diff_select' n xs = do r

Here it is in Perl 6:

subset Positive::Int of Int where { $_ 0 };

sub lotto (Positive::Int $count, Positive::Int $range) returns List {
return (1 .. $range).pick($count);
}

(The current implementation of Pugs does not yet support a ’subset’, so that’s not yet included in the test problem.)

Needless to say, that’s much easier to read. And look! A better type mechanism :) Part of the reason why that works so well is that Perl 6 is heavily focused on solving problems that programmers really face. Now, rather than testing whether your ‘Int’ is in the allowable range, you can carefully define a special ’subset’ which details what that allowable range is.

So go out there and do my homework! Things which will help:


You might want to check the README first.
Read the latest Perl 6 documentation,
Hang out on #perl6 on irc.freenode.net
For Firefox users, create a “perl6doc” keyword search using http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aperlcabal.org/%20%s


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Source: ONLamp.com

There are some really cool new features in 0.7.3 such as custom tab completers, better alias support, job control… Here is a list of new features. And downloads are here.
For anyone unfamiliar with IPython, check out the home page. The nutshell description of IPython (from the IPython site) is


An enhanced Python shell designed for efficient interactive work. It includes many enhancements over the default Python shell, including the ability for controlling interactively all major GUI toolkits in a non-blocking manner.


A library to build customized interactive environments using Python as the basic language (but with the possibility of having extended or alternate syntaxes).


A system for interactive distributed and parallel computing (this is part of IPython’s new development).



Updated: Thu Dec 21 23:55:00 2006


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