Geekness - closer to the world » Linux

@HTC removes Desire Kernel Sources?

CoCaman — Sun, 23 May 2010 10:31:20 +0000

Hey @htc, where did the Desire kernel sources go? Just 9 days after releasing, you removed them? Why? Afraid of people simply creating a 2.2 ROM out of the Nexus One Vanilla Rom and your sources? I am pretty confident, Sense UI needs little change for Android 2.2 aka Froyo.

In case anybody wants the sources, I have a backup.

HTC Releases Desire Kernel Source Code

CoCaman — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:19:43 +0000

Breaking! This is big! HTC just released the source code of the HTC Desire kernel.

Get it from the HTC Developer Center.

Perfect Online Backup Strategy

CoCaman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:30:31 +0000

For over 15 months I am using BackBlaze as an online backup system. Once installed and configured, it automatically backs up all my data in the background. No matter how many files or how large your backup is, everything is safe. BackBlaze currently backs up 38 GB of data in 634’244 files for me.

Now you might wonder how much BackBlaze costs. All with unlimited space and file storage. It is just $5/month. This price is insanely low.

The system works for Windows and Mac OS X computers. It is very easy to set up and use. Why not give it a quick try? It’s free and if you like it, you already have started your backup strategy!

A feature list:

Online Backup
Web Download Restore
Unlimited Storage
DVD or USB Drive Restore
Backup External Drives
FSCAN Performance
Automatically Finds Files
Versioning
Finer Control Options
Activity Reports
Military-Grade Encryption
11 Language Interface
Idle-Time Backup
Custom Network Throttle
Scheduled Backup
Just $5/Month

Screenshots

Settings panel, allows you to set the backup speed, external devices and so on.

Schedule backup or continuously back up your data.

Exclude folder you do not want secured.

Encrypt your files. Set a password and your files are stored with high encryption.

Detailed view of what files you have stored.

Online Restore View

Online Restore Options

Give Backblaze a try. It’s is free and your first step to a satisfying online backup system.

Virtual Terminal for Chromium OS/Google Chrome OS

CoCaman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:06:37 +0000

So I managed to get Chromium OS on a virtual machine running. Now I am playing around a little bit. I will document my progress here.

First thing, you need to get the virtual console. Do this by clicking CTRL + ALT + T. More commands are on this shortcut list.

Now you have a functional terminal/console.

Microsoft and Open Source

CoCaman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:23:43 +0000

Photo by localjoost

Microsoft Switzerland invited to a short presentation and discussion round with Hank Janssen from the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center (OSTC) in Redmond. He talked a little bit about their infrastructure (which is impressive and awesome by the way), projects Microsoft has contributed to and why they do it. I made a few notes and will try to remember the most important parts, from the talk and the rich discussion afterward.

First their lab really looks like a lab. Hundreds of servers (over 400 to be precise) are either mounted or lying around in a small room – a former lumber-room – with cables allover. The servers are important, because they should reflect real world behavior an scenarios. Beside those servers the OSTC has access to over 360 Linux distributions for testing and developing. All together is this the highest density of computer power in a single lab inside of Microsoft.
Besides the Redmond lab Microsoft has a second lab in Cambridge which they are using with Novell and their employees. This lab is primarily used for SAMBA support and interoperability testing.

The Microsoft Commitment to Open Source

Make Windows the best platform for Open Source. To reach this goal, they need a strong community and developers willing to do this. And this might be one of the bigger challenges. As seen in the discussion, people still see Microsoft as a big evil corporation. Steve Ballmer’s comments about “Linux being Cancer” are still present in peoples mind. And they are hard to get out.

Microsoft and Open Source Projects

A big item on Microsoft’s Open Source list is PHP. The team set up windows.php.net to give developers on the Windows platform some news and insights.
For example, the PHP team still uses Visual Studio 6 to compile the binaries. The reason is that there are some dependencies to an old Apache version. Asking the Apache Software Foundation about that, they said that’s because they have some dependencies to an older Perl version. The Perl team said, they did not know why the dependency still exists. And because the original source code is not available due to various reasons (programmer left the project, nobody has a copy) the OSTC re-wrote the library and PHP can now be compiled on the latest Visual Studio 2008 version. Many hours spent, but that helped to bring the PHP 5.3 version to the same level as the Linux version, feature and bug level.
Besides fixing old version, Microsoft is also adding new features such as support for Windows Azure on PHP, methods to read and write Excel and Word documents (something many companies requested for invoicing or automated document generation) and better support for Active Directory and Exchange.
In case you wonder now why Microsoft supports PHP, it is because it has a huge market share. Hank also told me that a few years ago Tim O’Reilly said based on books sales that the next big thing is Ruby and Python. But you barely see those languages. The decision for PHP is solely based on capitalization. But also most PHP installations are on Apache httpd servers on Linux machines. I still think Microsoft should either port ASP.net or the Internet Information Server to Linux

The Microsoft team is also working and extending Hadoop. A technology developed by Google to store and map large collections of data and computing them. I knew that Yahoo is a big player and I think it is great to see Microsoft using Hadoop for their search engine Bing.

Microsoft and the Linux Kernel

On July 21st 2009 Microsoft announced the release of 20’000 lines of code to the Linux Kernel. If you look back a few years and you would thought that Microsoft would release code to the Linux Kernel everybody would think you are mad. But now it became reality.
Of course as many other big companies behind the Linux Kernel (if you still think most of the Linux code is written on weekends and by hobbyist, you are wrong) also Microsoft is doing this for their benefit. The source code that was released is for a technology called Hyper-V. Hyper-V is a visualization technology as Xen, VMware or how they are all called. The code Microsoft contributed is actually driver code to emulate hardware. This helps to run the Windows operating system better on Linux. According to Hank his code should be available in a few weeks in the next kernel version 2.6.32.
You know think it mus be impossible for a big and closed source company like Microsoft to release code in open source. And yes, it was quiet challenging as Hank told me over a beer. He had a meeting with each and every lawyer Microsoft has. But no one said immediately no to him. He never had to change any line of code for reasons like patents violation or other policies. But one of the problems he came across was the fact, that Microsoft and other companies like IBM use a software to analyze source code and verify that no offensive language or profanity is used. As you maybe know, coding Linux drivers require some includes and usage of pre-defined variables. One of this variables is “slave”. This word is also on Microsoft’s list. Hank had to argue that he could not change a word he has no influence on. And in computer terms, everybody knows what a “slave” is.

Conclusion

I have one request: Stop thinking “Microsoft vs. Open Source” and start thinking “Microsoft and Open Source” or “Microsoft for Open Source”.
This post could sound to “Microsoft friendly” for you. Well, you are not open minded enough then. Microsoft is no different than IBM, Red Hat, Novell or Google. They just have a different history. And maybe we should put that away… In the end every contributor (as a company) to Open Source wants to make money.

Breaking the Network: SSH Server as Proxy for Secure Browsing

CoCaman — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:39:18 +0000

Our university LAN is pretty restricted. You can only access the most basic ports like http (80), ftp (21), ssh (22), pop3, imap and so on. But what if you need another port like a port to manage a webserver?
After some tuning and searching we came up with the almost perfect solution. And it is very easy but effective.
All you need is

A UNIX (Linux/Ubuntu for example) server with a SSH server and your account
Firefox 3.5 (works with earlier versions)
FoxyProxy Addon for Firefox

Install Foxyproxy and restart Firefox. If you install Foxyproxy later, the windows below will look differently! You will than have to use the settings below and add regex and so on later.

First open a xterm console and enter the following command:

ssh -C2qTnN -D @

Now edit your Firefox proxy settings under

Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Connection -> Settings

In this window enter the following values:

Enter localhost or 127.0.0.1 as the server and as port the number you used in the SSH command.

I used a regex https?://.*:2083/.* that checks any URL I visit and if it matches, the “SSH Proxy” is activated. Of course the SSH connection has to be open to work. You can alter my regex and use any other port like 10000 for Webmin or 443 and that will redirect ALL SSL traffic trough your SSH server.

This works like a charm and is almost perfect. Next thing is to have the SSH connection being started directly by Foxyproxy.

Settings for non Foxyproxy users

If you do not want to use Foxyproxy, your proxy window should look like this:

Make sure you only enter the IP address or localhost in the Sockets proxy section! If you try this and it wont work, enter about:config in your browser bar and search this entry: network.proxy.socks_remote_dns and set it to true. Without Foxyproxy you will not be able to define different proxy server or use the proxy server based on rules/regular expressions. All your traffic will be routed trough your SSH server. And this could make surfing slower and your downloads even slower.

Some information from calomel.org. Thanks to Christian for testing and researching with me.

Ubuntu 9.04 Install & Release Party @ HSR

CoCaman — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:27:25 +0000

When: Monday, May 4th 2009
Where: Room 5.001, University of Applied Sciences, Rapperswil (Map)
Time: Starting at 15:00 (3:00 PM)
Install CDs and backup hard disc for storing your data are available!

The flyer can be downloaded: install-party-hsr.

Organized by alt.comp.hsr, the association for Linux, Unix and other alternative Operating System at the University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil.

Sun Microsystems & Oracle – News and Questions

CoCaman — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:34:52 +0000

I’ve just received the newsletter from Sun Microsystems Switzerland regarding the acquisition/merger of Sun into Oracle.

On April 20, 2009, Oracle announced a definitive agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems. The proposed transaction is subject to Sun stockholder approval (JAVA), certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently and it is business as usual.

And ..

Sun’s core innovations such as Java, Solaris and SPARC are some of the computer industry’s best known brands and most widely deployed technologies. Oracle Fusion Middleware is built on top of Java and we believe that following the closing of the acquisition Oracle will be able to ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Solaris operating system and SPARC servers are the leading platform for the Oracle database. With the proposed acquisition of Sun, we believe Oracle will be able to optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique and innovative features of Solaris. Like Sun, Oracle supports many platforms and also remains committed to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance its strong industry partnerships.

But not a single word about MySQL. What does this mean to the popular Open Source Database System? Has Oracle any interest in it? Will it vanish? Or should the former chief engineer and boss of MySQL AB take it back?
Can Oracle actually develop such a big open source software? Questions we will get answers sooner or later, better or worse.

vim: Regex Search and Delete Line

CoCaman — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:17:52 +0000

:%g!/\< $STRING\|VALUE$\>/d

Explanation
:%g Range to search. %g means the complete file
! Negotiation. Can be used to negate the regex
\< $STRING\|VALUE$\ regular expression (regex). Can be anything
/d command to execute with each line found. d means delete

Example used
:%g/INSERT INTO `table` VALUES>/d

This command deletes ALL lines with INSERT INTO `table` VALUES from the current file.

SuseStudio: Easy Linux Install Disc Creation

CoCaman — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:41:43 +0000

I’ve been invited to the Alpha release of Novell’s SuseStudio, almost 9 months after I’ve first written about it. And I am impressed. The interface is dead simple. Within a few minutes and clicks you can generate your very own openSuse installation DVD/CD, VMWare image or live ISO. There are also a couple of pre-defined settings.

Some pre-defined appliances you can use.

Maybe I could use this to create a “perfect” Linux Media Center system. Although I would prefer a Fedora or Ubuntu base system. So far the use is free with 15GB of storage for my appliances. But I guess, Novell will charge in near future to use the system or for more storage or sharing appliances.

You can also watch a screencast that explains all the features of SuseStudio.

Geek Humor III

CoCaman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:37:06 +0000

Tux is taking a three month sabbatical to work as a barber, so Tuz is
standing in. He’s taken pains to ensure you’ll hardly notice.

I think he is kinda cute with yellow beak

IBM in Talks to Buy Sun?

CoCaman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:48:35 +0000

via WallStreetJournal
o rly?
SUN (JAVA): 3,723,526,925 US$ current stock value. IBM wants to pay up to US$ 6.5 billion:

If the deal does go through, which could happen as early as this week, IBM is likely to pay at least $6.5 billion in cash to acquire Sun, the people said. That would translate into a premium of more than 100% over Sun’s closing price Tuesday.

Geek Humor I

CoCaman — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:49:04 +0000

Dijkstra probably hates me.

Source: Linux Kernel Source Code kernel/sched.c

Why the Linux World is Geeky

CoCaman — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:22:56 +0000

CC BY-NC-SA occ4m

I am sitting in a class room on my holiday and getting taught about LPI1. Most of the time we read man pages. And there you see how crazy software engineers are. Little example?

man date
%p – locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known
%P – like %p, but lower case

Really, the big letter P is used to lowercase the output of the little letter p…

mv to rename a file
mv

less is more than more

nl add line numbers to all lines

kill can not kill zombies.
The are already dead. Just like in real life…

But of course, for “normal” users – aka Windows Switchers – this all does not really matter.

Web 2.0 and Open Source in Startups – A Sun Event

CoCaman — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:25:13 +0000

As promised last week this is a short review of the Sun Microsystem’s Event about “Web 2.0 and Open Source in Startups”. First: This event was more for founders and managers than for developers. And you could clearly see this. Most came with a shirt or suite. Neither Mathias, Christian nor me had a t-shirt with text on it. And this happens almost never

In general the event was about the efforts Sun did and does in the Open Source world. The most surprising fact was a finding by the European Commission that Sun and MySQL are the biggest contributor of work and man-hours in a general GNU/Linux distribution.

Click for bigger size
You can see, Sun’s effort is almost 4 times as big as IBM and 6 times as big as “Open Source” Red Hat.
Even Richard Stallman recognizes Sun’s importance:

I think Sun… has contributed more than any other company to the free software community in the form of software. It shows leadership. It’s an example I hope others will follow.

Gilles Gravier also mentioned some other Open Source to which Sun contributes:

GNOME
X.org, before the login prompt, most of the lines to boot are from Sun
OpenOffice.org, bought Germany based StarDivisio and made the office suite free and open source.
MySQL, bought for 1 billion dollars.
Mozilla Calendar, completely integrated into Sun’s Exchange alternative. Sun brings 7 of the team of 14 developers.
OpenSolaris

Gilles told that OpenOffice.org 3 will be under the GPL 3, instead of te LGPL 2 a the old OpenOffice.org versions.
What do you think are the main reasons for companies to use MySQL Database Server? Low costs and flexibilty, says Adobe, Nokia Siemens Networks, Discovery Financial. Big companies are looking at Open Source software and so should your startup!

Brad Wilkinson listed some of MySQL’s customers, like Google, GoDaddy, Adobe, Toys’R'Us and more. In a side note he mentioned that Facebook has 9000 (9k) servers. Not that much for the worlds seventh biggest website, according to Alexa.

If you are a startup, you DEFINITELY should take a look at the presentation by Patrick Liechti. Sun has some great features for young startups! They offer up to 60% on Sun hardware.

You can download all the slides from Sun’s website.

As a little goodie, I have an opensolaris Live CD and a Sun pen! Let me know if you would like it. But please promise to really use it!

It is good to know that Sun cares about Open Source, even the top managers, and that they support the growth of it. They also see the importance and need of it. And it is awesome to see geeks can get great jobs in worldwide companies

Finally: I think I now have the ultimate buzz word t-shirt

My photos are available on Flickr. Some are here as well.

Geekness - closer to the world » Linux

@HTC removes Desire Kernel Sources?

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HTC Releases Desire Kernel Source Code

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