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Operating Systems

Submission + - Leaving Vista for Ubuntu

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tanker Bob blogs over at MobileTechReview.com about his increasing frustrations with Windows, DRM and the like. So he details how he jumped ship to Linux (Ubuntu with KDE). It's got a blow-by-blow that's technical yet useful for newbies thinking of making the switch. The article is here: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/ubbthreads/showfla t.php?Cat=&Board=tankerbobblog&Number=26899&page=0 &view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
Announcements

Submission + - Linux on Dell Laptops? It could happen.

Submitted by MilwaukeeCharlie
MilwaukeeCharlie writes: CIO magazine is reporting that a Dell-hosted blog called Dell Idea Storm, unveiled Feb 16, has generated over six thousand requests for Linux to be pre-installed on Dell laptops, making it the most popular request on the blog.

Other popular requests were for Open Office and Firefox. Are advocates of open source software better organized in posting to Dell Idea Storm? With how many grains of salt should we take these requests, considering the unscientific nature of online polls? Finally, do you think it will ever happen?
Google

Submission + - Google screws over Owner of popular OSS project

Submitted by buhatkj
buhatkj writes: The guy who runs the popular OSS 3d engine project Irrlicht just got banned from Google AdSense, after an accusation of click fraud!
From the Blog Post:

"Maybe you've noticed, for the last few days some google ads appeared on this blog, but they have disappeared now again. That's because I just got banned from google adsense for life time (as it seems), although I didn't do anything wrong."

Not only that, but they are witholding monies already earned by his ads prior to the accusation.

"In that mail, they did not even tell me any information about their problem with my ads, only "invalid clicks or page impressions". No IP adresses, no channel ID, no website, no time or date, no amount of clicks, nothing. No way for me to find out what was wrong. There was the possibility to contradict, and I tried to explain some possible causes like the sudden increased amount of traffic, but they ignored me. The interesting thing: They now even won't pay out the money I already earned before the occurance of their 'invalid clicks' assert. "

Check out the full story HERE
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Chimp snack: bushbaby on a stick

Submitted by SpinyNorman
SpinyNorman writes: If you have an interest in animal tool use, you should already know about horses that scratch themselves with sticks, and crows using SUVs as nut crackers, but New Scientist is now reporting on a rather more sophisticated use — Chimps using sharpended sticks to skewer bushbabys hiding in holes in trees so that they can snack on them! This snacking behaviour seems mostly limited to the female of the species.
The Internet

Submission + - ICANN Symposium

Submitted by
mzamora25
mzamora25 writes: "From the Pacific/McGeorge School of Law site: On Friday, February 23 and Saturday, February 24, 2007, the Center for Global Business and Development's Institute for Development of Legal Infrastructure will sponsor a symposium, " I Think I Can, I Think ICANN: Regulating the Internet . . . or Not." It will examine the structure and supervision of the Internet. Topics include assessment of the work of ICANN; the results and impact of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that has raised radically different alternative approaches to regulating the Internet; possible East-West and North-South tensions over Internet access and governance; the significance of the Internet for human rights and for economic development; and, the future of Internet governance post-WSIS. More information and webcast available: http://www.mcgeorge.edu/international/global/confe rences/icann.htm"
Networking

Submission + - Open Source Router - Vyatta Version 2.0

Submitted by
Tom
Tom writes: "Vyatta today announced that Vyatta Community Edition 2 (VC2) is now available for download from the Vyatta web site. VC2 is the latest freely-available, community-supported release of Vyatta's open-source router/firewall product. In comparison to the previous release, VC2 delivers improved performance and hardware compatibility while enabling greater community innovation through its compatibility with Debian GNU/Linux. http://www.vyatta.com/about/pressreleases.php?id=2 8"
Games

Are Game Industry Pros Failing To Fight for Freedom? 57

Posted by Zonk from the they'll-never-take-our-braveheart dept.
Gamasutra's most recent Question of the Week feature deals with the extremely quotable final speech given by Doug Lowenstein at D.I.C.E.. The article queries individuals within the games industry for their opinions on the 'freedom' that the industry allows itself, and its convictions on fighting for that freedom. The article prompted numerous, polarized comments. Many of them followed the gist of this Anonymous submission: "With regards to censorship the biggest worry for me is developers and publishers self-censoring and avoiding any kind of contentious issue or subject matter in case they offend anyone. Video games for me are a powerful medium capable of equaling the emotive and informative weight of cinema if used correctly, but they rarely are. If we refuse to tackle issues and remain purely a thing of fluff and fizz then interactive entertainment will never have the gravitas of its cousins."
Lord of the Rings

Submission + - The Lord of the Rings Online Stress Test Event

Submitted by
Meghan Rodberg
Meghan Rodberg writes: "Gamers who want to try out The Lord of the Rings Online(tm): Shadows of Angmar(tm) for free for the weekend should sign up at Gamespot to receive their Stress Test Event keys.

After registering their keys, participants can log in and play as much as they like any time between 12:00PM EST on Friday, February 23rd and 9:00AM EST Monday, February 26th. Turbine will be running several live events during the weekend, so gamers should be sure to play during those times for their chance to win prizes. Playing for at least 2 hours each day during the Stress Test also makes them eligible to win an NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX.

The Stress Test is open to residents of North America, Australia, and New Zealand. For more information about the Stress Test Event, including instructions for downloading the game client, please visit http://www.lotro.com/stresstest"
Role Playing (Games)

Ask CCP About EVE Online 306

Posted by Zonk from the in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-pod dept.
The week after next, the annual Game Developer's Conference is happening in San Francisco. I'll be there providing coverage on the keynotes, and some of the talks that I think will appeal to the Slashdot sensibility. I've also been digging to see if there's any folks willing to speak with the Slashdot community 'in person'. The fine folks at CCP, makers of the Massively Multiplayer game EVE Online, have kindly agreed to take some time out of their busy conference schedule to answer your questions. So, what do you want to know about the present and future of this fascinating MMOG? One question per comment, please. I'll present your questions to CCP, and pass their answer back once I'm home from the event. Update: 02/22 19:51 GMT by Z : I asked Sharon Howell, the PR rep for CCP, who I might be speaking with at GDC. Unfortunately, they're still nailing down schedules. We'll be talking with one of the following: Hilmar Veigar Petursson, Chief Executive Officer, Magnus Bergsson, Chief Marketing Officer, Nathan Richardsson, Senior Producer, Halldór Fannar Guðjónsson, Chief Technology Officer. One of these members of the top brass will be available to answer your questions.
Printer

Submission + - New Details on Xerox Inkless Printer

Submitted by
Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth writes: "Xerox is developing a new printing technology which does not require ink of any kind. The new technology includes reusable paper which can be printed and erased dozens of times and has the potential to revolutionize printing. New details on this upcoming technology, which was first reported on September 2006, are now revealed."
Media

Submission + - Video Games are not to blame.

Submitted by AydenK
AydenK writes: I feel that it's important to repost this penny-arcade post as much as possible. If we can get it circulated as much as possible, maybe it can have at least a small impact on public opinion. Ah, the beauty of the internet.

From penny-arcade.com -
"Yesterday I made a post about the teenagers that murdered the homeless guy and then blamed it on violent games. These kids have given the media their angle and just like all the other cases where games are mentioned no one will ever look any further. No one will ask what their family life was like, what their parents were like, what the kid was like before all this happened. Games did it and that's the end of the story.

In my post I took the absolute extreme opposite approach. I laid blame completely on the parents and that was intentional. Penny Arcade is a satire site and people come here to laugh or get angry and that's what we try to provide. I will admit that deep down as the father of a two year old I also want to believe that I as a parent can shape my kid into a decent human being. If I don't believe that then...well I just have to believe that right now.

With that said I'm perfectly aware that the reality of the situation was somewhere between the two extremes. I know full well that violent games did not create this killer and I also know that his parents did not make him a murderer. Nothing outside of a comic strip and a goofy blog is ever that simple.

The sad truth is that the reality we're talking about here would probably never actually see the light of day. The media will tell the story they want to tell regardless and that story will be about violent games. The parents of these kids will be lucky to get two lines in an article about the crime. If they tell a reporter that their son hardly played games or that he was fucked up long before they bought a Playstation do you really think that will make it into the final article? You'd never see that side of the story, not in a million years.

But you're about to.

I am about to share with you an email I received from a Penny Arcade reader. She also happens to be involved in this case but obviously she'd like to remain anonymous. She has agreed to let me share her email with all of you and I can't thank her enough for that. Like I said before, I know why most people come to Penny Arcade. You come every other day looking for a joke and a laugh. What you're about to read isn't a joke. It's an extremely personal email sent by a very brave woman and I'm honored to share it with you.

Gabe,

Your news post about the kids and the homeless man yesterday made me sick to my stomach, before I even read the CNN article. I knew what it was going to be about before even reading the article. It was not the article itself, or even your post that made me sick, it was the fact that I know this boy. Or, rather that I could be considered one of the "parents" of this boy.

The boy's father and I have been together for almost seven years, and I had what I guess could be called a "stepmother" relationship with the kid. To say that living with this kid was hell would be a complete understatement.

I don't think I have ever actively hated anyone in my entire life, but this kid just makes my blood boil.

As I write this, my teeth are clenched, my hands are shaking, and my whole body is seething with the hatred I feel for this kid and what he has done. Seeing the article brings back all the horrible memories from when he lived with us.

He was constantly in trouble in school, with the cops, with us, with his mother, and with anyone else who was an authority figure. Not a week went by that the school or the cops wouldn't call us for something. His attitude was basically "fuck you, I don't have to listen to you" said with a shrug.

We tried absolutely everything we could think of to get him to behave like a normal human being... we tried groundings, negative reinforcement / punishment, positive reinforcement, counseling, and anything and everything the counselors suggested. We tried to get him interested and involved in extracurricular activities, like hockey, drama, music, art, anything, but he got himself kicked out of every group he was in with his "make me" attitude. When we would ground him, we took away everything. No TV, no computer, no phone, no leaving the house, no snacks or junk food.... Everything. When he was grounded, he was only allowed to sit in his room and read or draw. He was actually a pretty good artist, and we tried to encourage him to spend his time working with his talent. He would just sit there and take it... the groundings had absolutely no affect on him at all. Most of the time, he didn't even remember why he was being grounded. At the end of it, we would ask him if it was worth it to have everything taken away in exchange for what he did... he usually just shrugged. He could be grounded for weeks, or a month at a time, and then the very next day would do something to get back in trouble again. Most kids get grounded or punished a couple of times, and then they want to avoid having to go through it again... not this kid, nothing seemed to phase him.

And we're not talking the usual teenager stuff, like coming home late, or refusing to do the dishes. We're talking stealing cars, setting fires, drinking, getting picked up for drugs, beating up handicapped kids at school (yes, really) stealing things out of our house... all with this "I'll do whatever the fuck I want" attitude.

We had absolutely no idea what else we could do. We already had him in counseling, and we did everything the counselors suggested. We tried rewarding his good behavior (what little there was) to try to get him to see that when he behaves like a normal human being, things are good and people enjoy being around him. Nothing phased him at all.

Then, things took an even worse turn when he decided that whenever he didn't get his way, or we did something he didn't like, he told his counselors and teachers that we were abusing him. (Never happened.) And for some inexplicable reason, everybody believed him. I understand that child abuse is a very serious situation, and that they have to take every possible case seriously, but this was clearly a case of him manipulating people to get what he wanted. We had people from the school, cops, and social services over at our house or calling us on a weekly basis stating some new abuse that he had made up. At 14, the boy was already 6'3" and over 200 pounds. Of course, there was never a mark on him, because no such abuse ever took place.

One particular night (cops involved, as always) he decided that he didn't have to listen to anything we said, and that he wasn't coming home. He went to live with his mother, where things got worse by the day. He stole everything out of her home and sold it. He invited gang-bangers and drug dealers to her home, and she feared for her safety constantly. She called the cops numerous times because she feared for her safety, but again, the boy said that she abused him, and the cops always took his side. (For reference, the mother is about 5'3" and barely clocks in at 115.) He planted a loaded gun in her room, called the cops and told them that it belonged to the mother's boyfriend. The boyfriend actually ended up serving time because of this fucking bastard kid. She had two other young children in the house, and the gun and the abuse charges were an intentional plot to get the other two kids taken away from her. She tried restraining orders against the kid, but since he was a minor, they wouldn't allow it. Every time he got picked up, she pleaded with the cops to take him to jail, maybe that would finally get though to him, but they just kept bringing him home to her. I don't understand why everyone who was involved with this kid just blindly took this juvenile delinquent's word over all else!

The night that he and his friends murdered that poor homeless man, the mother said that he was acting particularly cocky. Then he threatened to kill her. We had absolutely no idea of what he had done until they found the man's body. He was immediately waived into adult court (at 15) and sentenced to 15 years. We were all absolutely sick with grief for this man.

We were also sick with guilt... "What could we have done differently?" was a constant question in all of our heads. After the kid was sentenced, all the cops, counselors, social workers, and people at the school that had been dealing with him contacted us and his mother and apologized for not taking us seriously. They are all trained to take all accusations of child abuse seriously, and as a part of that they blindly took the kid's side for everything, and dismissed us as "the lying abusers". Many of them told us that they wished they would have taken our pleas for help seriously. Everyone thought we were exaggerating about how fucked up this kid was.

I completely agree with your statement of "These kids were twelve kinds of nuts and that's a fact." But the reason I am writing this to you is that, after reading your news post yesterday, I felt that I needed to defend the boy's parents. His mother and father and I did absolutely everything we could think of to try to keep this kid in line. Even the kinds of things that normal teenagers get in trouble for would have been a blessing compared to what we've been through with him.

What I gave you today is a very small sampling of the kinds of things we were dealing with every single fucking day with this kid. When people hear about what he's done, I can always sense the "I'm sure there was something you could have done" comment coming up. What would you have done? How do you deal with a kid like this? Like I said, we did everything the counselors suggested, and nothing seemed to matter.

If you want to add another element to the "nature vs. nurture" idea, this boy has a brother. Both boys were raised in the same house, with the same values. The brother has developed into a kind, considerate, responsible, and independent young man. He is currently working his butt off right now to save up money to go to school for architecture. The only thing I regret is that we spent so much time and energy dealing with the bad kid that this boy missed out on having a normal family life with a normal sibling relationship.

I am sorry this got so long. I have been reading PA since the very beginning, and I feel that both of you are very much like me. I think we are the same age (29) and I have been a lifelong gamer like the two of you. I can't stand hearing about the so-called correlation between games and real-life violence. Video games DID NOT make this kid who he was, and it's unfortunate that the correlation is there.

The thing that really gets me with this whole thing is that the kid knows full well that by equating what he's done to a video game, that he will generate controversy and media coverage. It makes me sick that the media is jumping all over this, because that is exactly the result that he wants.

The only good thing (if there is such a thing) that has come out of this whole ordeal is that the kid is behind bars. That is exactly where he needs to be.

Again, I'm sorry about the length of this. Thanks for allowing me to "tell my side" of the story.

So there you go. There's the real story. This kid was broken. He's decided to use video games as a scapegoat because as crazy as he is, he's not stupid. He knows exactly what he's doing. The sad thing is that it will probably work.

  -Gabe out"
Linux Business

Submission + - when will Linux surpass windows' popularity?

Submitted by
thebytegrill
thebytegrill writes: "Linux's popularity has got nothing to do with Linux, the technology is already there to provide a canned and working system.

The crux of the matter lies in Microsoft's marketing policies. They use their monopoly to strong arm the industry into sidetracking the issue. Microsoft threatens OEM vendors with higher tariffs on licences and support, not to mention locked file formats and they got a cash reserve nobody can challenge at the moment. They make deals with governments, this is a completely different ball game, its not about the technology. What that means is that they will continue to hold the ball until such time legislation curbs unethical business practises, which is highly unlikely in a capitalistic market, people have no standards here and they make the rules. Sure the enterprise security applications industry favours Linux as its base operating system, but really look who these systems are protecting, they're vulnerable windows systems, so even that market exists as a support to make windows a viable solution for enterprise, it sounds crazy but its a fact.

If Microsoft finds a way to put its shell on Linux and sell it as Windows they will do it, they don't care, as long as they find a way to make money anything goes.

In the long term Linux may tip that balance as a parasite, when push come to shove its Linux that's the choice no doubt, vmware's ESX server uses Linux, zillions of embedded Linux devices, most enterprise security applications prefer Linux, all kinds of servers will move to Linux, database/file/web/etc., but all these are back end choices. Linux getting into the desktop space will have to overcome all the odds of capitalism (one who holds the most money is most likely to continue to hold that position, hardware innovations are more transparent for obvious reasons) by improving beyond a point people cant ignore any more, that means Linux has to get way better then ITSELF, technologically nobody can hold
a candle to it. Incompetent, ignorant or indifferent people (read masses with a capital A) need to sit up and notice it at some point, this is hard to to with people who wouldn't know a good thing even if it jumped out of a bush and bit them in the ass. People in power protect a boys club of collective incompetence so as to guard their memberships, values are cheap and are bought everyday. This is the world we live in, lets not lose focus on the real issues, the innovator has always been seen as a threat, any business manual will tell you that, its a dog eat dog world out their and you can never tell who's in bed with whom, its just politics in the end, no different.

You want games and other application that are missing from the current Linux world, don't expect to get stuff from closed source company's barring a few like idsoftware, they are short lived products and do not fit the model, in the long run these things will take on a life just as any other currently successful OSS project and have a life of their own. Like most current OSS projects they will become part of the infrastructure that the closed source will eventually not be able to compete against. We haven't seen nothing yet. OSS is running on a different time line, were in our infancy as far as consumer requirements go. Priorities will shift once the developers are sufficiently satisfied with the existing infrastructure, Linux is its own competition. That point when the masses take notice is irrelevant as far as the technology goes.

This sounds exceedingly like a communist treaties but what were talking about is purely information, may be this is the only place where people can compete for prestige with real innovation, prestige will buy you funds/merits. The danger here is that every successful idea is subject to the laws of economies (increasing/constant/diminishing). Say Linux were to achieve all this and came full circle, all we've done is replaced the current model with the OSS model. The same evils will exist but maybe at a more controlled rate, what are we left with then, the same system only here the sources are open, improvement but not quite what we hoped for, or is that another argument all together?

Linux can go from a simple kiosk mode to a spaceship controller and everything in between. Windows is a locked down system, frozen, with a package manager of rigid rules, dictatorship as its main theme. The point is Linux can be made to be a commodity in a shrink-wrapped box, frozen on a feature set, and not provide any evolutionary updates other than for security and bug fixes. Feature updates should only be provided once a year. Such is the windows user mindset, the solace and comfort of knowing things are going to remain as they are for some time is imperative to them. They are not your typical Linux user chasing rainbows.

Linux can and must provide such a system for your typical windows user. Sell stability and security. Don't confuse them with philosophies they know nothing about. If they notice an improvement, let their own curiosity bring them into the fold.

The rest of us can have our cake and eat it too, ride the wave of innovation and satisfy our egos ever which way.

The main hurdle that people don't get and is hard to explain is the business model surrounding OSS. People don't always understand how the GPL can be valid in the current technology market. People think of software as a commodity and not a service. Herein lies the conflict. Eric S Raymond made this quite clear to us () but can the people with the buying power accept this, they crave accountability, responsibility, dependability and their corporate lawyers want somebody to point a finger at when the shit hits the fan. Microsoft is so big that they make the industry submissive to its rules, lawyers love to keep things in bondage, S&M is their style of modus operandi. And I kid you not that its the lawyers who need to give us their stamp of approval. Business schools need to have it in their curriculum. People need to be educated on the new economy. The current software industry needs to be replaced by individual projects. This is a hard sell. To tell a corporation to shove off is quite impossible, they can only be made redundant. Can any one project be competent enough to own the whole stack? No, the laws of economies don't permit this. Its is a slow process that started with the birth of GNU and Linux.

The people who use and buy software are willing to put the cash forward, give them the right reasons. Don't expect them to jump onto the open source bandwagon immediately, let that transition be gradual and padded. Shock treatment only lengthens this transition.

Its imperative that the F/OSS world accept the middle ground of public infrastructure (service) while respecting private property (commodity). Lets not be fanatical on the subject. Products in the category of entertainment, business applications (those that give a business an edge over their competitors) and other such niche areas need their privacy. We are not advocating a communist style of operation. But infrastructure what of which is commonly required needs to be done well and without duplication, a fork is a fork for technological reasons, not economic.

These positional differences will be determined by the interactions within the technology market, if a product in the private realm gets increasingly popular there will be no reason to imagine such a project wont be duplicated and competed with by an open source project and vice versa, again let the best man win, either way, and this is the key to the transition already at play.

The world is changing, lets be reasonable and try to enjoy the best of both worlds for now.

There is a lot of confusion over funding and marketability in the F/OSS world. Let me say this first, Linux would not have evolved at the rate is has if money wasn't being exchanged, however indirectly. The first thing required to be understood is the difference between a service and a commodity. A service is rendered for a price whereas a commodity is bought and owned privately. Secondly, in the OSS community the technology is decoupled from the funding agencies.

Lets take it from the top, a developer or group of developers start a home brewed open source application project. Opens a project page up to provide the sources, information and a point of collaboration for other developers to join or for users to download and by that participate in its progress. Before it gets noticed, the project needs to have created a user base of a seizable volume enough to imply a potentially commercial project has been born. Until such point its entirely self funded by its members, in terms of time, effort, equipment and any other resources consumed. The project is useful either by either being a potential alternative to an existing commercial product or opening up a new category all by itself. Either an existing complementary project or an interested business can then consider adopting the project by various ways providing funding, infrastructure, man power, know how, etc. Needless to say such a party, commercial or not is only interested when they see a potential to better reach their own goals. A point to keep in mind is that the project usually remains under its own identity unless adopted by another open source project or by any of its enabling parties. The code these projects generate then make their way into commercial services by way of value addition, they complement or take the lead position of the core technology used in providing a commercially sold service. This is where the decoupling takes place, the front end is a sales/services company that leans on various projects. Some if not most of that money finds its way back into the projects' foundation. A commercially sold service could be anything from a customized solution or service. The generic products get bundled up into distributions for the free users, again which may or may not have a commercial market. The open source angle of it allows the code to be used by anybody willing to configure it for them selves as its freely available. The developers are left to their own devices without middle the men ruling them, people who work in Open source are there because they want to be, as a contrast most IT Corporations are run as body shops. However there is a sizeable number (I cannot comment on the ratio) of developers working without any monetary gains whatsoever for their efforts, take the case of the developers bending backwards reverse engineering drivers primarily for the free users, at the same time this massive and potentially well informed user base provides an uncompromising quality assessment (Q&A) service back to the developers.

Every body wins.

The projects get real world testing, peer code reviews, massive code re-usablitity, think Lego, less duplication of efforts, specialization and no more reinventing the wheel unless its absolutely necessary for the right reasons. This translates directly into better software for the commercial users. They are going to pay for a particular piece of software anyway. Those instances where they actually need that code to be private is only a small percentage of what they actually pay for and peculiar only to them.

The grey areas are when you combine closed and open source projects. Its up to the GPL to make or break that deal!"
Linux Business

Submission + - Quebec dumps Unix for Linux

Submitted by
BDPrime
BDPrime writes: "The province of Quebec is taking hundreds of Oracle databases off Unix machines and moving them onto a virtualized mainframe running SuSE Linux on z/VM. They saved $800,000 in Oracle licensing costs during the first phase of the project last year."
The Internet

Submission + - The Pirate Bay to stay in Sweden

Submitted by paulraps
paulraps writes: The Pirate Bay has ditched plans to buy its own nation so as to avoid international copyright laws. One of the founders says that the operation is now less vulnerable to police raids in Sweden now that it has spread its servers around different locations. Amusingly, they may still buy an island, but for more modest reasons: "We have 20,000 to 25,000 dollars to spend. Really we just want somewhere we can name The Pirate Bay, so we can look on Google Maps and find ourselves there," said Tobias Andersson, who, despite running the most poopular site in Scandinavia, still works as an electrician.

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