...making Linux just a little more fun!

News Bytes

By Deividson Luiz Okopnik and Howard Dyckoff

News Bytes

Contents:
Selected and Edited by Deividson Okopnik

Please submit your News Bytes items in plain text; other formats may be rejected without reading. [You have been warned!] A one- or two-paragraph summary plus a URL has a much higher chance of being published than an entire press release. Submit items to bytes@linuxgazette.net. Deividson can also be reached via twitter.

News in General

lightning boltDebian 6.0 Squeeze to have Completely Free Linux Kernel

The Debian community is inching toward the full release of a major update of its Linux distro that will be a major milestone for the Linux Community. That release has been rescheduled to February 5th or 6th and should include a fully open source distro with earlier, optional non-free elements in a separate branch.

The Debian project has been working on removing non-free firmware from the Linux kernel shipped with Debian for its past two release cycles but it was not yet possible to ship Linux kernels without non-free firmware bits - until now.

(See the full text in the Distro Section, below)

lightning boltCLUG's Survey

The CLUG (Calgary Linux User Group) is aplying a survey to gather some data on Linux User Groups across North America, aiming to improve the user experience.

"We've made a survey for Linux User Group members across North America. We would like to get the pulse of different groups and see what's working so that all LUG's can improve the experience. This data will be published on https://clug.ca (the Calgary Linux User Group website) in August, 2011. The survey is only 12 questions, and shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to complete" said Dafydd Crosby.

So, if you have a few minutes to spare, take part in the survey, which can be found here: https://www.lonesomecosmonaut.com/limesurvey/index.php?sid=94921&newtest=Y&lang=en.

lightning boltLinuxCon goes Embedded and to Europe in 2011

The Linux Foundation has announced the expansion of its leading Linux technical conference, LinuxCon, to Europe. LinuxCon Europe will take place October 26-28, 2011, in Prague, Czech Republic, and will be co-located with the Linux Kernel Summit, the GStreamer Conference, and Embedded Linux Conference Europe.

In addition, both LinuxCon US and LinuxCon Europe will be enriched by the addition of the Embedded Linux Conference (ELC) and ELC Europe as a result of last year's merger between The Linux Foundation and the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum.

The Embedded Linux Conference, now in its sixth year, is dedicated exclusively to embedded Linux and embedded Linux developers.

A Call for Papers (CFP) is now open for the Collaboration Summit, the Embedded Linux Conference, and all other LinuxCon 2011 events. Anyone in the Linux community can submit presentation materials to https://events.linuxfoundation.org.

Conferences and Events

Cisco Live, London
January 31 - February 3, 2011
https://www.ciscolive.com/europe/
O'Reilly Strata Conference
Feb 1-3, 2011, Santa Clara, CA
https://strataconf.com/strata2011
30% off with code str11usrg
Scrum Gathering Lisbon 2011
Feb 10-11, Hotel Olissippo Oriente, Lisbon
https://www.scrumalliance.org/events/269-portugal
1st Mobile Security Symposium
Feb 14, 2011, W Hotel, San Francisco, CA
https://www.mobilesecuritysymposium.com/index.php
20th RSA Conference - 2011
Feb 14-18, Moscone Center, San Francisco
Save $400, register by January 14, 2011
https://www.rsaconference.com/2011/usa/index.htm
FAST '11 USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies
Sponsored by USENIX in cooperation with ACM SIGOPS
Feb 15-18, 2011, San Jose, CA
https://www.usenix.org/events/fast11/
SCALE 9x - 2011 Southern California Linux Expo
Feb 25-27, Airport Hilton, Los Angeles, CA
https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale9x/
Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon)
Feb 28-Mar 3, 2011, Orlando, FL
https://www.enterpriseconnect.com/orlando/?_mc=CNZMVR07
Linux Foundation End User Summit
March 1-2, 2011, Hyatt Jersey City/Jersey City, NJ
https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/end-user-summit
AnDevCon: Android Developer Conference
March 7-9, San Francisco, CA
https://andevcon.com/
Save $300 if you register by Jan 14th, $100 more for NPOs and Government organizations
Cisco Live, Melbourne
March 29 - April 1, 2011
https://www.cisco.com/web/ANZ/cisco-live/index.html
NSDI '11 USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation
Sponsored by USENIX with ACM SIGCOMM and SIGOPS
March 30-April 1, 2011, Boston, MA
https://www.usenix.org/events/nsdi11/
Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2011
April 6-8, Hotel Kabuki, San Francisco, CA
https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit
Embedded Linux Conference 2011
April 11-13, Hotel Kabuki, San Francisco, CA
https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/embedded-linux-conference
MySQL Conference & Expo
April 11-14, Santa Clara, CA
https://en.oreilly.com/mysql2011/
Ethernet Europe 2011
April 12-13, London, UK
https://www.lightreading.com/live/event_information.asp?event_id=29395
O'Reilly Where 20 Conference
April 19-21, 2011, Santa Clara, CA
https://where2conf.com/where2011
Lean Software and Systems Conference 2011
May 3-6, 2011, Long Beach, CA
https://lssc11.leanssc.org/
Red Hat Summit and JBoss World
May 3-6, 2011, Boston, MA
https://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2010/
USENIX/IEEE HotOS XIII - Hot Topics in Operating Systems
May 8-10, Napa, CA
https://www.usenix.org/events/hotos11/
Google I/O 2011
May 10-11, Moscone West, San Francisco, CA
Search for conference registration in March or April
OSBC 2011 - Open Source Business Conference
May 16-17, Hilton Union Square, San Francisco, CA
https://www.osbc.com
Scrum Gathering Seattle 2011
May 16-18, Grand Hyatt, Seattle, WA
https://www.scrumalliance.org/events/285-seattle
RailsConf 2011
May 16-19, Baltimore, MD
https://en.oreilly.com/rails2011

Distro News

lightning boltDebian 6.0 Squeeze to have Completely Free Linux Kernel

Debian is inching toward the full release of a major update of its Linux distro that will be a major milestone for the Linux Community. That release has been rescheduled to February 5th or 6th and should include a fully open source distro with earlier, optional non-free elements in a separate branch.

The Debian project has been working on removing non-free firmware from the Linux kernel shipped with Debian for its past two release cycles but it was not yet possible to ship Linux kernels without non-free firmware bits - until now.

In December, they announced that all issues were fundamentally solved and they will be able to deliver a Linux kernel which is completely 'Free', according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), with Debian "Squeeze" or version 6.0.

Recognizing that some users may require the use of works that do not conform to the DFSG and might include non-free firmware bits, for the time being, there will be a non-free area in the archives for alternative installation images and additional packages for Debian Squeeze that include non-free firmware bits needed for specific pieces of hardware. These elements cannot and will not be supported to the same extent as the Free firmware.

This is the first Debian release that supports the Haskell Platform, in version 2010.1, including the ghc compiler in version 6.12.1, and ships more than 200 additional Haskell libraries. This version of Debian Linux will also sport a graphical installer.

As of mid-January, there were 4 blocker bugs for the release of Squeeze, but all of them are fixed in the unstable/sid release.

lightning boltNew Release of OpenIndiana, an Open Source Solaris

December saw a new release of OpenIndiana, version oi_148. This version may shortly form the basis for the project's first stable, production-ready release.

OpenIndiana continues the OpenSolaris legacy and aims to be binary and package compatible with Oracle Solaris 11 and Solaris 11 Express.

Version oi_148 fixes Java SSL crypto problems, adds PostgreSQL packages back in, and has admin improvements. Since several users of this version and oi_147 are applying it to production servers, the project community is considering applying several package fixes and security updates to oi_148.

The release would be planned for February or March with a limited set of server-oriented packages and may be called "Open Indiana 2011.02". It would be based on oi_148 with only the Text Installer and Automated Installer ISOs. To make the release easier to manage, versions of Apache, PHP, MySQL, Tomcat, etc, would match the same versions shipped in RHEL 6/CentOS 6.

From the September 2010 announcement on the forming of the OpenIndiana project:

"OpenIndiana is a brand new distribution of OpenSolaris, constructed by the community, for the community. Our primary goal is to be a binary and package compatible drop in replacement for the official OpenSolaris and forthcoming Solaris 11 and Solaris 11 Express releases."

"This project was created to address the longstanding issue that the OpenSolaris distribution has constructed entirely by Sun/Oracle, not by the community. Depending on a single commercial entity has led to several issues, notably that bug fixes and security updates are only available via a paid for support subscription, that community participation has been limited in steering the direction of the operating system, and that commercial decisions have led to stricter licensing terms."

The full text is here: https://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Press+Release.

Software and Product News

lightning boltZend Studio 8.0 PHP IDE Released

Zend Studio 8.0 Streamlines PHP Application Development in VMware Virtualized Environments and Features Enhanced Support for Building Ajax and PHP Applications.

In November, Zend Technologies announced the general availability of Zend Studio 8.0, its leading Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for professional PHP developers. The new release helps PHP developers streamline development and testing processes through integration with VMware Workstation and revamped support for servers running on-premise or in the cloud. Zend Studio 8.0 also delivers extensive support for the development of rich Internet applications that use JavaScript front-ends and PHP back-ends.

Zend provides ready-to-use virtual images for Zend Server to further optimize the debugging experience. A new pricing model was also announced for Zend Studio 8.0, making it accessible to more developers.

"VMware is committed to increasing the productivity of software development organizations and evolving application and data delivery environments into a user-centric model," said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances at VMware. "Our partnership with Zend brings the full benefits of virtualization to PHP developers, enabling them to accelerate software development times and reduce hardware costs."

Developing PHP code on a remote server running on-premise or in the cloud is significantly easier in Zend Studio 8.0, with its simplified workflow and improved performance. SSH or FTP connections can be used to import projects into Zend Studio, and then export them back to the remote server to be run or debugged.

Zend Studio 8.0 enables faster coding of PHP and JavaScript applications through the built-in Content Assist support for many JavaScript-based libraries including jQuery, Dojo, Ext JS and Prototype. A new set of integrated Ajax tools simplifies debugging of PHP and JavaScript applications by supporting debugging of the JavaScript front-end and the PHP back-end in one combined session.

For more information about the new features and functionality in Zend Studio 8, please visit https://www.zend.com/products/studio.


Share

Talkback: Discuss this article with The Answer Gang

Deividson Luiz Okopnik

[BIO]

Deividson was born in União da Vitória, PR, Brazil, on 14/04/1984. He became interested in computing when he was still a kid, and started to code when he was 12 years old. He is a graduate in Information Systems and is finishing his specialization in Networks and Web Development. He codes in several languages, including C/C++/C#, PHP, Visual Basic, Object Pascal and others.

Deividson works in Porto União's Town Hall as a Computer Technician, and specializes in Web and Desktop system development, and Database/Network Maintenance.


Howard Dyckoff

Bio picture

Howard Dyckoff is a long term IT professional with primary experience at Fortune 100 and 200 firms. Before his IT career, he worked for Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine and before that used to edit SkyCom, a newsletter for astronomers and rocketeers. He hails from the Republic of Brooklyn [and Polytechnic Institute] and now, after several trips to Himalayan mountain tops, resides in the SF Bay Area with a large book collection and several pet rocks.

Howard maintains the Technology-Events blog at blogspot.com from which he contributes the Events listing for Linux Gazette. Visit the blog to preview some of the next month's NewsBytes Events.


Copyright © 2011, Deividson Luiz Okopnik and Howard Dyckoff. Released under the Open Publication License unless otherwise noted in the body of the article.

Published in Issue 183 of Linux Gazette, February 2011

Tux