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Category Archives: open source

The day our mind became open sourced

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Linewbie.com Posted in open source .

I will remember therefore clearly the precise day my personal mind became open sourced. It had been a sharp and sun-drenched November day time in 1973. Following class within middle college, I known as up my closest friend, Bruce The nike jordan, and requested, “Can We come to play right now? ” Bruce responded, “Sure. inch I leaped on my personal red, one-speed Schwinn bike and biked such as mad both miles to Bruce’s home. I showed up happily breathless.

Bruce had been fun in order to play along with because he or she was continuously inventing brand new games in order to play, each indoors as well as outdoors. There is never the dull second at Bruce’s home. So whenever we sat right down to play Scrabble which day, Bruce automatically suggested: “Let’s every take 10 letters instead of 7. Which will improve the overall game play a great deal. ” We protested, “But the guidelines on the actual box from the game say that you are supposed to consider 7 characters. ”
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2012 Opensource Software New Concepts

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Linewbie.com Posted in business & foss, open source .

From your investment analysis point of view, the word “open resource software” relates primarily into a pair of conditions and terms linked to the software’s permit. You can find lots of such permits but these designated Free Effort (OSI)-compliant meet up with a collection of 10 qualities outlined around the group’s website which capsulize the particular free beliefs.

The word “open source” came about from your proven fact that the particular software’s resource code is in least obtainable and truth ususally allocated with all the executable program code (the regular method of disseminating software). For each among the typical conditions and terms within an OSI-compliant permit, the application could be (1. ) “freely” improved and also (2. ) considerably openly redistributed (depending where free license is actually used).
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Open Source Living – a Directory of OSS Apps

Posted on January 1, 2008 by Linewbie.com Posted in applications/software, open source .

There maybe countless arguments for using open source applications, but one of the strongest is having a single interface to learn when working on Windows, Mac or Linux systems. Website directory Open Source Living helps you to find just those kind of programs. It’s not an extensive, all-in-one directory, but it seems to narrow its choices based on quality and widespread acceptance. Open Source Living is an archive of the best open source applications. Software is sorted by categories, such as Web, Graphics, Audio. And while not every application listed at Open Source Living is entirely cross-platform, a good deal of them are.

Check out also Mohawke’s Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection: Mac OS X and Windows software Collection and Open Source Apps on Mac. Ah, and this one.

Start your new year with open source software :-p

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Tags: directory, open source, oss .

The Economist Gives Three Technology Predictions for the year 2008

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Linewbie.com Posted in business & foss, open source .

The Economist makes three technology predictions for 2008, two of which concern web surfing and the third of which concerns everyone, whether they surf the web or not. The Economist’s third prediction is that the technology world will open up:

The embrace of “openness” by firms that have grown fat on closed, proprietary technology is something we’ll see more of in 2008….

Pundits agree: neither Microsoft nor Apple can compete at the new price points being plumbed by companies looking to cut costs. With open-source software maturing fast, Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox, MySQL, Evolution, Pidgin and some 23,000 other Linux applications available for free seem more than ready to fill that gap. By some reckonings, Linux fans will soon outnumber Macintosh addicts. Linus Torvalds should be rightly proud.

Well, I agree that Linux is making impact on OS industry, especially desktops, year by year and day by day. But the Economist says that it is Ubuntu that is driving this impact !!! I understand that now that Dell comes with Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is really a very big player and contributor, again in desktops segment, it is not only Ubuntu that is making this happen, as stated in the article. Other major players are out there, too, such as Red Hat and Novell SUSE, which are present in both desktop and server segments.

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Tags: predictions, the economist .

ATI Open-Source vs. Closed-Source Performance & AIGLX Performance

Posted on November 5, 2007 by Linewbie.com Posted in desktop & laptop pc, hardware, open source .

For those that may have missed it, the ATI/AMD fglrx 8.42 display driver that was released last month had introduced AIGLX support. The open-source “Radeon” driver for ATI graphics cards going up to the R400 generation has supported AIGLX for quite some time, but the ATI binary display driver hadn’t until last month. However, one of the complaints about the fglrx implementation of AIGLX is that in the 8.42.3 driver, some are encountering slow performance in Compiz / Compiz Fusion. We have taken an ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB PCI-E graphics card, which is supported by both the Radeon and fglrx drivers, and have compared their Compiz performance in a few different scenarios.

ATI Open vs. Closed-Source AIGLX Performance

The system once again was running Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” with the Linux 2.6.22 kernel and X server 1.3, but with these benchmarks, the Compiz effects were disabled during testing. The hardware included a PCI Express ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB graphics card, Intel Pentium D 820 (2.80GHz dual-core), 2GB of DDR3-1333 memory, and an ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38) motherboard. We had used Enemy Territory and GtkPerf as our vehicle for benchmarking the two drivers, since both benchmarks are compatible with the current Radeon driver. The ATI driver used was fglrx 8.42.3.

ATI Open vs. Closed-Source Performance 

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Tags: ATI, ati driver, ati performance, graphics card, graphics driver, linux, linux ati, linux driver, linux graphics .

Will GNOME’s betrayal lead to Microsoft Victory?

Posted on November 3, 2007 by Linewbie.com Posted in desktop environments, gnome, news, open source, quotes & thoughts .

Microsoft’s efforts to overturn a vote earlier this year denying its Open XML “fast track” standards certification seem to be getting a boost from the GNOME Foundation.GNOME Foundation founder Miguel deIcaza is a Novell employee, and his actions have been closely scrutinized since Microsoft signed its controversial “patent licensing” deal with the company a year ago.

OpenXML, also called OOXML, was denied “fast track” International Standards Organization (ISO) approval in September, but a final vote on making it a standard will take place in February, and Microsoft is anxious to get the earlier decision reversed.

To that end Microsoft is working with the ECMA TC 45 group to answer detailed questions which accompanied the negative ballots in September, in hopes of changing hearts and minds by February. GNOME’s participation in that group is upsetting Open Document Format (ODF) advocates.

ODF is the format used by Open Office.

Opponents of making the Microsoft Word format an ISO document standard, like OpenDocument Fellowship member Russell Ossendryver, compare GNOME’s actions to Democrats offering counters to President Bush’s 2005 plan on privatizing Social Security — any counter-proposal makes it more likely something bad will happen.

Dave Neary, a member of the GNOME Foundation and community manager for OpenWengo, says it’s all safe as milk. Quoting Jody Goldberg, who calls supporting ODF “significantly more difficult” than supporting OOXML, he suggests ODF will never be the “one true format” without destroying its utility.

In arguing for Open XML on his blog yesterday, Jason Matusow of Microsoft insists no one’s hands are clean, that any decision gives proprietary advantage to someone, and the place to fight all this out is the marketplace, not a standards-setting process.

The issue is vital for this reason. Microsoft Office has a dominant market share. Microsoft Office is proprietary. Microsoft’s XML formatting was changed just before Office 2007’s final release, destroying interoperabiity with ODF until fixes could be found.

Once a proprietary standard is approved by the ISO, and made a standard, its eventual replacement by a truly open standard like ODF becomes impossible. At best the two stand side-by-side, and Microsoft’s market dominance is baked into the market.

That’s why, despite the fact OOXML or OpenXML may be a better format today, groups like NOOOXML are fighting so hard against ISO approval. (The cartoon is from the NOOOXML site.)

Once a proprietary format becomes a standard, the era of truly open standards is over, and the way becomes clear to making anything proprietary.

– by ZDNET

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Tags: Document Format, gnome, Gnome betrayal, ISO, Microsoft, MS Office, NOOOXML, oasis, odf, OOXML, Standard Battle .

OpenOffice.org 2.3: New features, extensions and the much anticipated charting tool

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Linewbie.com Posted in applications/software, office suites, open source, review/preview/tests .

Unlike previous 2.x releases, OpenOffice.org 2.3 is a new and enhanced feature release rather than a bug fix. There are several smart changes, a whole new approach to adding new features and of course the much anticipated new charting tool. This is definitely a release to get to know.

I’ll plunge right into what’s new:

  • A bunch of new and enhanced features like restoring the user-defined movement path in Impress and applying better default print settings in Calc. Check the release notes for complete information from OpenOffice.org.
  • A significantly different chart tool.
  • New extensions provided by Sun and other vendors. You will need to run 2.3 for the extensions to work. Read more about the new extensions on the OpenOffice.org web site.

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Tags: openoffice, openoffice 2.3, openoffice.org, opensource, oss .

Control multimedia applications with ReMoot

Posted on October 9, 2007 by Linewbie.com Posted in applications/software, multimedia, open source .

You can manage most of today’s multimedia applications easily with ReMoot, a universal remote control program. ReMoot even provides an esoteric way of controlling your PC remotely from your cell phone or PDA, earning it top geek points.

Start by going to the ReMoot site and clicking on Source Download to get the latest version, 0.4. The software consists of Perl and Ruby scripts. After the quick download completes, open a console, go to the directory where you downloaded everything, and type these commands as root:

tar zxf remoot-0.4.tar.gz
cd remoot-0.4
chmod +x re*
cp remoot* /usr/bin
cp rewww00t* /usr/bin

ReMoot comprises three scripts: the basic remoot script itself, which you use to command the different multimedia applications; remoot-remote, which shows onscreen graphical controls; and rewww00t, which lets you govern your PC via a Web interface. You need Perl to use remoot, and you need Ruby to use rewww00t. If you don’t already have these available, use your favorite package manager to get perl, perl-Tk, and ruby. You’ll also need Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), but most distributions already include it, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Begin by checking that ReMoot is actually working. Open your favorite music program, such as Amarok, and start playing something. From a console, try some commands, such as remoot volup and remoot voldown to turn the volume up or down, or remoot next to advance through the tracks.

Remoot commands Description
remoot voldown Turn the volume down.
remoot play Start playing.
remoot stop Stop playing.
remoot prev Go back to the previous track.

ReMoot supports several different programs, all with the same commands. For example, whether you’re listening to music with Amarok or watching a video with xine or Kaffeine, the remoot stop command will produce the same effect in the player program. As long as you’re running a program known by ReMoot, you’ll get consistent results. This lets you configure the multimedia keys on your keyboard in a single way that will work no matter which program you happen to be using at the time.

Programs known by ReMoot
Amarok Kaffeine Quod Libet
Audacious KsCD Totem
Exaile MPlayer xine

However, some of these programs require tweaks to work properly. Check the ReMoot wiki site if something doesn’t work as expected.

ReMoot can control several programs at the same time. If you pause Amarok, for instance, and then want to start it again, the remoot playpause command won’t start any other programs that might be running but instead will continue with Amarok. If you want to continue with other programs, you have to reactivate them manually before ReMoot will work with them.

If you are more graphically oriented, the remoot-remote program shows a bare-bones window with all available commands. No matter which program is running, you can click on one of these buttons to command the currently playing program. The company promises that a new version will feature icons instead of text.

If you really want to earn a “geek award,” start the rewww00t program (check the name carefully; it usually includes a version number) and navigate to yourOwnURL:14300. You’ll see clickable links that operate on your multimedia. With rewww00t, you could use your cell phone or PDA to connect to your server (though you’d have to open firewall ports and do some other things in order to get this to work) and turn the volume up from anywhere in the world. That may be of little use, but it’s interesting!

Program the multimedia keysWith the scripts installed and working, you can get Linux to perform certain commands whenever you press a multimedia key. Following the instructions in the article “Customize your laptop keyboard with X and KDE,” you should:

  • Open the Control Center.
  • Click on the Regional & Accessibility tab.
  • Pick the Input Actions option.
  • Add a group with the New Group command (give it a name such as Multimedia).

Then, for each key you want to program:

  • Add a new action to the group.
  • Go to the General tab.
  • Fill in the Action Name field.
  • Set the Action Type to Keyboard Shortcut -> Command/URL (Simple).
  • Go to the Keyboard Shortcut tab.
  • Click on the button and then press the Multimedia key (remember, you can use modifiers such as Shift, Alt, and Control).
  • Go to the Command/URL Settings tab.
  • Type in the appropriate command (for example, use remoot volup for the Volume Up key).

That’s all there is to it. ReMoot makes handling multimedia keys both simpler and more powerful.

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Tags: linux, oss, remoot, remote control, remote software .

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  • Zynga announces Bitcoin acceptance in game
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