6535623
submission
nerdyH writes:
The Chinese government's "Go Rural" program offers subsidies up to 13 percent for rural residents who purchase approved nettops or netbooks. The systems come with a version of Red Flag Linux built on the Moblin stack. Along with Internet access, the software is said to provide apps for crop and livestock management, farm production marketing, remote office access/automation, and even online tour and hotel booking systems. Of course, Windows dominates the China market, and if traditional patterns hold, about 30 percent of these subsidized systems could ultimately wind up re-installed with Windows.
6286903
submission
nerdyH writes:
Adobe yesterday chummed the waters around Flash and AIR as cross-platform app dev environments for mobile devices. It promised runtimes for several popular mobile OSes, including WinMo, Symbian, Palm webOS, and Android, with future RIM/Blackberry support hinted as well. Moreover, it reiterated its commitment to the Open Screen Project, an Adobe-led industry group that, if you deconstruct its name and look at its membership roster, appears tactically focused on enabling hardware acceleration of Flash/AIR on devices, as part of a larger strategy of making the runtimes ubiquitous as UI development frameworks for essentially every computer-like device with a user interface. Is Adobe positioning itself to monopolize the future's main means of media production and delivery, much as its control over Postscript licensing enabled it to dominate desktop publishing so successfully?
5943407
submission
nerdyH writes:
The first netbook preinstalled with Moblin v2 for Netbooks will launch next week, possibly at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, or else the Linux Foundation's LinuxCon in Portland. Then, within the next couple of weeks, the Moblin Project will release the first stable release of the Moblin v2 Linux distribution, which began beta testing in May. Will Linux prove a viable alternative to Windows 7 on the low-powered, low-cost computing devices released for this holiday season?
5149347
submission
nerdyH writes:
An architect of the Moblin Project has announced that Moblin 2.0 for netbooks and nettops is the first Linux distribution to run the X server as the logged-in user, rather than SUID'd to root. The fix to this decades-old security liability comes thanks to "NRX" (No-root X) technology reportedly developed by Intel, Red Hat, and others in the X community, and the Moblin-sponsored "Secure X" project. Besides making Linux netbooks a lot more snoop-proof, it seems like this could lead to an xhosting renaissance of sorts, since you wouldn't be risking the whole system just to open up a specific user's account to remote X servers.
3715977
submission
nerdyH writes:
After nearly two years, the PCLinuxOS project has achieved a major new release, PCLinuxOS 2009. The project is notable for maintaining a Linux hardware compatibility database, publishing a freely downloadable monthly Linux magazine, and selling hardware preinstalled with Linux. It boasts a pretty vibrant community, too, and is used by 3.2 percent of DesktopLinux readers, according to an ongoing reader survey there.
3540391
submission
nerdyH writes:
A $100 Linux wall wart could do to servers what netbooks did to notebooks. With the Marvell ShevaPlug, you get a completely open (hardware and software) Linux server resembling a typical wall-wart power adapter, but running Linux on a 1.2GHz CPU, with 512MB of RAM, and 512MB of Flash. I/O includes USB 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, while expansion is provided via an SDIO slot. The power draw is a nighlight-like 5 Watts. Marvell says it plans to give Linux developers everything they need to deliver "disruptive" services on the device. Thus the grid becomes the 'Net.
3279661
submission
nerdyH writes:
Asus is taking pre-orders for a netbook based on Intel's second-generation platform, the secret-shrouded N280/GN40 chipset. Early product specs confirm that the second wave of netbooks are likely to offer faster graphics and lower power use, along with room for much, much larger batteries. The N280 apparently integrates the northbridge and CPU, meaning that the GPU moves to 45nm process technology, the FSB gets replaced by an on-chip interconnect, and overall board real-estate drops to a third of what it was previously (hence the ability to stuff an 8,700mAh battery into a 3-lbs. device). The right shift key is slightly bigger, too, though still no trackpoint pointer (guess I'll keep waiting).
3229511
submission
nerdyH writes:
A lot of notebooks and even netbooks these days run Windows, but also offer a minimalist Linux environment that boots in seconds. But two OSes on a PC is like a car with two steering wheels-- awkward. So, boot time is clearly something Linux and Windows will compete on in netbooks and computerized systems of all kinds. Well, with the Intel-sponsored Moblin project's release this week of Moblin 2, it definitely looks like "Advantage, Linux." The tools and test images are easy to download and try out for yourself, too. I mean, if booting your older laptop in a couple of seconds is of any interest...
3157125
submission
nerdyH writes:
As early as last quarter, Microsoft admitted that Linux and netbooks were eating into its fat profits. Today, it came home, with the software giant announcing its first-ever layoffs. LinuxDevices interviewed Linux Foundation Director Jim Zemlin on Linux's role in Microsoft's misfortunes. Zemlin sums it up pretty well: "Companies can offer their own branded software platform based on Linux. If Microsoft is getting 75 percent margins, you would like some of that high-margin business, too."
2825547
submission
nerdyH writes:
Novell's recent openSUSE 11.1 release includes a new end-user license agreement modeled after Fedora's EULA, says Community Manager Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier in this detailed interview. Zonker says distributions should apply the "open source principle" and standardize trademark agreements and EULA, similar to how the OSI sought to reduce open source license proliferation a few years back. But with Fedora and openSUSE being so different, can one size really fit all? And, will open source licenses ever finally get translated into languages besides English?
1730589
submission
nerdyH writes:
It appears that Debian 5.0 (aka "Lenny") will soon take its big binocular eyes out into the wider world. Only two months later than expected, the Debian project has completed the first release-candidate of Lenny's installer. Featuring much faster installation from "live" CDs, and expanded support for ARM-based devices such as NAS servers, Lenny has gestated for 19 months, compared to 21 months for the previous "Etch" release. Lookout, world, Debian releases are picking up speed! The download is here.
1729877
submission
nerdyH writes:
Canonical will port Ubuntu Desktop Linux to the ARMv7 architecture. The announcement sets the stage for Intel to lose the traditional "software advantage" that has enabled x86 to shrug off attacks from other architectures for the last 30 years. How long can it be before Microsoft responds with a Windows 7 port? I mean, x86 just can't do "idle power" like ARM... Nokia's N810 tablets can standby for several weeks, just like a cell phone, keeping you "present" on IM, behind IPv4 NAT the whole time. The first Atom MIDs are standing by for 6-7 hours.
1343941
submission
nerdyH writes:
Motorola will ditch its MotoMAGX Linux stack and UIQ Symbian stack, in favor of Google's Android Linux/Java stack and Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, it announced today. The news comes after five years selling millions of Linux phones in Asia, and after a year during which many of Motorola's top U.S. phones used the homegrown Linux stack. Motorola's current Linux phones in the U.S. include the RAZR2 v8, E8, EM30, U9, ZN4, and ZN5.
1303959
submission
nerdyH writes:
As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated "98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops," it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future.
1227501
submission
nerdyH writes:
Dell is preparing to ship two enterprise-oriented Windows Vista notebooks with an interesting feature — a built-in TI OMAP (smartphone) processor that can power instantly into Linux. The "Latitude ON" feature is said to offer "multi-day" battery life, while letting users access email, the web, contacts, calendar, and so on, using the notebook's full-size screen and keyboard. I wonder if someday we'll just be able to plug our phones into our laptops, switching to the phone's processor when we need to save battery life? Or, maybe x86 will just get a lot more power-efficient. Speaking at MontaVista's Vision event today, OLPC spokesperson and longtime kernel hacker Deepak Saxena said the project is aiming for 10-20 hours of battery life during active use, on existing hardware (AMD Geode LX800 clocked at 500MHz, with 1GB of Flash and 256MB of RAM). Interesting times.
