http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA

I concur.

Interestingly, the last question came from a guy who just joined NVidia to do opensource work there. “Even though you gave me the finger, I still thank you!”

To which he replied:

“I actually like being outragous at times, its amusing, I guarantee you if you make that video available on the Internet, there will be thousands of people really upset. I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended
“

libimobiledevice is a software library that talks the protocols to support iPhone®, iPod Touch® and iPad® devices on Linux. Unlike other projects, it does not depend on using any existing proprietary libraries and does not require jailbreaking. It allows other software to easily access the device’s filesystem, retrieve information about the device and it’s internals, backup/restore the device, manage SpringBoard® icons, manage installed applications, retrieve addressbook/calendars/notes and bookmarks and synchronize music and video to the device. The library is in development since August 2007 with the goal to bring support for these devices to the Linux Desktop.

So far, Libmobiledevice supports full system access, music/video syncing, USB Internet tethering, SSH tunneling, and springboard & app management. Unfortunately, calendar, contact, notes, and bookmark syncing is still one way (device to computer). While camera syncing and system update and restore is still not supported.

That said, Libmobiledevice does seem to offer a very good solution for those out there dying to sync their music on iPod touch, since that is the main purpose of the device. However, its a different case with iPhones and iPads, since people rely on these devices for calendars, contacts, notes, and bookmarks.

Check out Libmobiledevice in action:

Installation

OpenSuse: openSUSE 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, Factory

Fedora 12+: Packages in the official repositories

Mandriva: Packages are available in “Cooker”

Ubuntu: Add this PPA for Karmic. On Ubuntu Lucid, the packages are already in the official repositories

Songbird, the popular open source media player has announced that it will halt its support for Linux. Currently the Songbird team is working fervently to meet their next release, NOFX, release date scheduled April 26th. It seems that Songbird’s small team has too much on its plate and came to this disheartening decision:

After careful consideration, we’ve come to the painful conclusion that we should discontinue support for the Linux version of Songbird. Some of you may wonder how a company with deep roots in Open Source could drop Linux and we want you to know it isn’t without heartache. We have a small engineering team here at Songbird, and, more than ever, must stay very focused on a narrow set of priorities. Trying to deliver a raft of new features around all media types, and across a growing list of devices, we had to make some tough choices

While I don’t really use Songbird, I know that its a solid product that many users have come to depend on. My initial knee jerk reaction was anger, but soon realized that Songbird has supported Linux for 4 years (since day one.) They wouldn’t give up on Linux unless they were really stretched out too thin.

The more important question here is: how can we fix this? Would an influx of volunteering coders bring Songbird back to life on our favorite OS? Would liberating the development team to allow more willing coders to contribute do the trick? How about forking it?

The Songbird team has put so much effort over the years, and I am sure it was a very hard decision. I would very much like to hear from them on how the community at large could help.

Via [leftyb]

.

Hello fellow Linuxologists! I am sure you have noticed that it has been a while since a new blogpost popped up in your RSS/Twitter feed. Don’t worry, we are not dead (yes we, its not just Rami anymore.) Since New Years, we have been working diligently on this new theme along with our main designer Kumail, who has been so supportive & inspirational, and I would like to take this chance to thank him for everything.

The New Design

We are still not content with the final design, and will continually tweak, add, and remove features, but it has taken such a long time to finalize, that we decided to launch despite it not being final. We would very much like to get your honest feedback of this design and how we can improve it or enhance it. Just keep in mind that we are still continually working on the backend so you might notice some changes here and there. The commenting system will continue to be handled by Disqus, however we are having some trouble with the platform, and contacted Disqus in order to resolve it. The categories are still being fixed, which will be instrumental in our new outlook (see below.) Finally, we will also add some widgets on the sidebar and actively start to look for some sponsors. So if you are interested in sponsoring or know someone who does, please let us know.

A Fresh New Outlook

We will basically try to focus on GNU/Linux on the desktop for regular everyday home users. GNU/Linux in the enterprise, while compelling, isn’t our focus here. All the controversy surrounding Microsoft & Novell, or SCO’s shenanigans generally do not concern us.

Also, The Linuxologist will be broken down to categories dedicated to the top five GNU/Linux distros: Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, and Gentoo. Why these five distros? Well its just a rough estimation that isn’t based on any scientific study really. Looking at distrowatch, and asking on our Facebook fan page, we arrived to this conclusion. That said, this is not set in stone at all, adding more major distros is always a possibility.

Finally, and most importantly, we believe in the power of open source, and not just in software, but in many different fields including this blog! For that reason we decided to liberate this blog a bit: Any person with an Internet connection can blog for The Linuxologist. Go ahead, click on login (top right) and register. You will be taken directly to WordPress admin page with contributor privileges. From there, you can write your own article, howto, post pictures, or embed videos. Whatever submitted will be reviewed by our staff and edited, if required, then published. If the material is lacking, our staff will contact you and work with you to fine-tune your content until its ready for publishing.

We look forward to your comments, feedback, and contribution! Stay free and open my dear Linuxologists!

Here I compiled a quick and dirty list of the top 9 Linux stories in 2009. Did I miss any? Please tell us in the comments.

9-It’s time to party like it’s 1234567890

On February 13, 2009 at exactly 23:31:30 (UTC), the decimal representation of Unix time was equal to ’1234567890′. Parties and other celebrations were held around the world, among various technical subcultures, to celebrate the 1234567890 day. Somebody even created a website to chronicle 1234567890 day, Geeks partied, and even Google joined in the action!

8-Microsoft stuns Linux world, submits source code for kernel

In July, Microsoft annoucned that it released 20,000 lines of code to the Linux kernel:

The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree. The drivers will be available to the Linux community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

However, it was just too good to be true. Only a mere days after Microsoft’s announcement, it was discovered that the only reason MS released it because of a GPL violation.

7-Microsoft ‘indoctrinates’ Best Buy workers with anti-Linux lies

In an effort to thwart Linux sales on netbooks, Microsoft has started a training program at Best Buy to educate their experts on Linux. And true to their fashion, MS resorted to FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) and straight out LIES! However, Microsoft still maintains that Linux is not a threat to their market, they are just spending all this money to help people make an educated decision. Funny thing, is that they ended up promoting Linux. And true to our fashion, The Linuxologist debunked. Here are some scans of their expert program:

6-Linux Kernel turns 15

On March 13 1994, the first stable Linux kernel was released. Little did Linus know that his little project will take upon the world!

5-Chrome OS

Announced on July, Chrome OS is set to have a publicly available stable release during the second half of 2010. The operating system is based on Linux and will run only on specifically designed hardware. The user interface takes a minimalist approach, resembling that of the Chrome web browser. Because the browser will be the only application residing on the device, Google Chrome OS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Internet.

4- Microsoft Patents Sudo

You know that little command you type to make all the magic work, “sudo?” Well yeah, Microsoft tried to patent it! I know, I know, some argue that its not really sudo and that is something different. But that is no the point. The point is that this illustrates how silly software patents are and we should all together eliminate it from our lawbooks. Amen to that!

3-Mark Shuttlworth Stepping Down as Ubuntu CEO

On 17 December 2009 Mark announced that, effective March of 2010, he would step down as CEO of Canonical to focus energy on product design, partnership and customers. Jane Silber, COO at Canonical since 2004, will take on the job of CEO at Canonical.

2-Mysql vs. Oracle

In April, Oracle Corporation entered into an agreement to purchase Sun Microsystems, current owners of the MySQL intellectual property. Sun’s board of directors unanimously approved the deal, it was also approved by Sun’s shareholders, and by the U.S. government in August. However, this raised serious concerns because Oracle is essentially a database company. In Europe the merge is under scrutiny by EU antitrust regulators, whose main concerns are on conflict of interests with existing database software by Oracle. Michael Widenius, father of MySQL, launched a petition to pledge EU Commission to stop the deal.

1-Android Taking The World by Storm

2009 will be looked at as the year that Android OS really took off. The first Android phone was released in October 2008, the G1, wasn’t really a big hit. A few of the early adopters, including me, picked it up. However, in 2009, things really boomed. More than a dozen devices were announced/released, covering both mid and high ends of the smartphone market. Most notably, the Motroloa Droid, was lauded by many analysts and was put right up there with the iPhone. By November 23rd, Android accounted for at least 20% share of the US smartphone market. Not a bad feat in one year.

Today the Linux Foundation announced a new holiday promotion.  For every new individual member who joins ($99/year), the Linux Foundation will also give a free membership to a student.

By joining the Linux Foundation, members help support the work of Linus Torvalds, as well as programs that promote and protect Linux.  Members have access to exclusive benefits, including a Linux.com email address (ex: joe@linux.com); a Linux Foundation t-shirt; employee purchase pricing at Dell, HP, and Lenovo with savings up to 40% on purchases of hardware and accessories; 35% off O’Reilly books and e-books; a variety of deep discounts to attend events or subscribe to industry publications; and the ability to run for a Linux Foundation board seat, among others.  With all these perks, the membership can quickly pay for itself. Here is the full press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, December 9, 2009 – The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that for every new individual member who joins the organization between today and January 31, 2010, the Linux Foundation will give a free membership to a student for one year.

New members can elect to sponsor a student on the Linux Foundation wait list or can request the membership be given to a friend or family member with a valid student ID. Students who are interested in obtaining a sponsored membership can sign up at the Linux Foundation website and will be sponsored on a first-come, first-served basis. Proof of student status must be provided. Details can be found at the website:www.linuxfoundation.org/about/join/individual/get-one-give-one-promotion

“Individual members are the heartbeat of the Linux Foundation, and students bring to the table new ideas and energy required to advance Linux into a new decade,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation. “New members who join during our holiday program will get the additional benefit of contributing to the advancement of Linux by bringing the next-generation of architects, maintainers and experts into the community.”

Members have access to exclusive benefits, including a Linux.com email address (ex: joe@linux.com); a Linux Foundation t-shirt; employee purchase pricing at Dell, HP, and Lenovo with savings up to 40% on purchases of hardware and accessories; 35% off O’Reilly books and e-books; a variety of deep discounts to attend events or subscribe to industry publications; and the ability to run for a Linux Foundation board seat, among others.

Both corporate and individual members are helping the organization that employs Linus Torvalds and supporting programs that promote and protect Linux. The annual membership fee for individuals is U.S. $99. Students receive all the same benefits as individual members.

Boot Process

The first screen you’ll encounter is in French but it boots in English by default.
Before completely booting, you’ll be asked about your locale configuration. Select what’s appropriate. For example, I chose ‘us’ for the Default keymap.

Your screen’s resolution is not auto-detected and you have to choose from a few low-quality options (1024×768, 800×600 and 640×480). This works if you are evaluating SliTaz as a rescue distro or for older or less powerful hardware.

First Impressions

While the interface doesn’t have the style and flash that is more commonly associated with Linux distros today, it was not so rough that I did not know what to do. No one will be won over by the looks of the Openbox-based GUI alone. This has been my first time with Openbox, “a standards compliant light-weight extensible window manager”.

Hardware Support

One of the things that keeps me in love with Linux is the excellent hardware support provided by most distros. SliTaz does not have the best hardware support. My wireless USB mouse, Lexar JD Firefly USB key, SkullCandy headphones and wired NIC were all recognized and functioned properly. My integrated webcam, USB webcam, SD card and wireless NIC were not recognized. SliTaz offers WPA_Supplicant for those who are interested in taking up that fight. That being said, better hardware support is on the short list of things to work on to make Slitaz better for the next release.

Actual Size

Like any tiny distro, SliTaz is measured at its slimmest. The ISO is about 29.1 MB. Once booted, the root filesystem used approximately 138.4 MB. By comparison, DSL’s ISO is about 50 MB and booted the root filesystem expands to about double the size of the ISO.

Applications

Ubuntu’s ISO size hovers around 690 MB. In order to make a fully functional, GUI distro, there are going to be a lot of packages available in Ubuntu that SliTaz does not offer. That being said, it looks like a lot of thought went into selecting which packages made the cut. GIMP is noticeably absent, in favor of mtPaint 3.30 which is very basic but gets the job done with an intuitive interface, quicker load time and snappier response.

SliTaz includes some home-cooked graphical clients for different network utilities like rsync and SCP.

The “mail client” provided is Ghost In The Mail which, according to its SourceForge page, hasn’t had any news since February of 2006. I was able to send mail using it but receiving mail is another story. Users will need to check mail using webmail or telnet.

NoteCase notes manager is another one of the applications that made the cut but isn’t quite grown-up. Simply creating a node in order to start taking notes was a chore. (Hint: Right-click in the left pane to get started.)

SliTaz is surprisingly web-aware. The ‘Multimedia’ menu has an entry for Jamendo Music which opens http://www.jamendo.com in a web browser. The ‘Office’ menu has an entry for Wikipedia Encyclopedia which opens http://www.wikipedia.org in a web browser. There are a number of websites marked as favorites in the web browser. Among these are: Zoho Office, Meebo Messaging, Digg and Facebook.

I enjoyed the task manager application that allows you to manage processes, kill, term or even nice them. Again, this is not for the faint of heart but the faint of heart should let sleeping dogs lie and abide by a “look but don’t touch” policy when it comes to things like task managers.

Improvements

SliTaz left some things out or incomplete, by my estimation. For example, opening ‘X defaults behavior’ from the Preferences menu opens your .Xdefaults file in Leafpad text editor. While the interface isn’t everything, it counts. SliTaz reminds me of using Linux years ago, before it was widely used by less technical or non-technical people on their desktops. The screen resolution offerings were abysmal. 1024×768 is very irritating on a widescreen 17″ laptop. The ‘Grab Screenshot’ utility immediately takes a screenshot and pastes it into a new document in mtPaint for you, making it impossible to take a screenshot of a menu or other widget that requires the focus of the mouse. I only evaluated the LiveCD version of the distro but once installed on a desktop, I am sure that some of these issues could be worked out.

Opinion

SliTaz has potential and the active community required to take things to the next step. SliTaz isn’t fancy but it provides a wonderful environment to log in and accomplish most tasks. SliTaz (Simle Light Incredible Temporary Autonomous Zone) is definitely the distro I will think about next time I need something for older hardware or a small rescue utility. SliTaz simply does not have what it takes, though, to be my new desktop Linux of choice. Ubuntu and Slackware will continue to own that title. Fortunately, none of what I see as necessary improvements impact the usability of the distro. Keeping track of SliTaz (http://forum.slitaz.org) is easy and I really look forward to hearing more as time goes on.

Did we miss any? Are there any other GNOME or Linux appearances out there? Please tell us in the comments.

1-The Big Bang Theory

If KDE were to appear on any show, then where better than KDE’s geekastic show “The Big Bang Theory?” In the latest episode “The Vengeance Formulation,” Leonard is proudly wearing a Konqueror shirt.

2-Lie To Me

Somebody over at Fox seems to be a KDE developer by night. In the latest episode of “Lie To Me,” the Lightman Group, a group that aids law enforcement in their investigations, run KDE on one of their machines. Not only that, but Kmail also appears with folders labeled: KDE Release Team, KDE Commits, KDE Plasma, and KDE Core Devel!

3-House MD

KDE4′s Oxygen icons appeared in an x-ray shot on House MD (click to enlarge)

4-Dexter

A KDE 3 desktop in a 2006 episode of Dexter

5-24

It seems that in the aim to improve security, CTU (the Counter Terrorist Unit) have switched operating system from MacOS. This can be seen in this shot from episode one:

Jonathan Riddell,  who first noticed this, asks an interesting question:

Interestingly, although KDE 3 has been out since mid-2002, the screenshot is of a 3-year-old KDE 1.x desktop. These older icons are made available under a public domain license. If a GPL’d set of icons had been used, would we now be legally able to modify, sell and distribute the episode under the terms of the GPL over the internet?

6-Alias

7-Lord of The Rings

To the surprise of many, KDE turns up unexpectedly on the extended DVD edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

In any case, I firmly believe that most people are afraid of Linux because they just don’t want to get out of their comfort zone. Linux on the desktop is perfectly capable of doing everyday tasks, and it does it more efficiently and securely. I know I have been using Linux exclusively for years.

A young Linux enthusiast that goes by the name PhrankDaChicken has created a script that will fully theme your Ubuntu desktop into an XP one.

Just download the tar.gz file, Right-click it and select “Extract Here”, then run the “InstallXpGnome.sh” by double-clicking it and choosing “Run”!

Wanna revert back? No problem! Just run the Restore_Settings.sh script in the restore folder.

Stay tuned for the reverse Howto: Theming XP to look like Ubuntu. And don’t forget to subscribe and follow me on Twitter!

As some people like dark themes and some people like bright themes, why not combine them into one set of matching themes with different shades? This is an idea for a Metacity theme that is based on the idea of having the sun shine into your windows. Could there be a better leitmotiv for the window design of a lucid release? The theme could be combined with any GTK theme if they are modified to have flat menu and tool bars.

Users will be able to choose from three different moods that represents the three different positions of the sun: Dawn, Day and Dusk.

Luckily, ingolemo over @ gnome-look.org took it upon himself to make these mock-ups real. So now you can use it on your working Ubuntu installation. Unfortunately Dusk didn’t turn out as awesome as the mockup, but Dawn and Day are quite impressive. Hopefully ingolemo, will update the themes and continually fine-tune them.

Download the themes from here.