Say Three point Oh: Linux 3.0 is here

So after 39 major releases in the 2.6 series Linus Tovarlds finally tagged Linux 3.0.0 RC 1 in git.
Linus has contemplated moving away from the 2.6 series for a while now and had initially hinted at moving to 2.8 partly because "I[Linus] am not comfortable counting to 40 anymore " but finally settled on 3.0 to be released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the phenomenal,erm, innovative Free OS.
Here is Linus' original announcement in full

Yay! Let the bikeshed painting
discussions about version numbering
begin (or at least re-start).
I decided to just bite the bullet, and
call the next version 3.0. It
will get released close enough to the
20-year mark, which is excuse
enough for me, although honestly,
the real reason is just that I can
no longe rcomfortably count as high
as 40.
The whole renumbering was
discussed at last years Kernel Summit,
and
there was a plan to take it up this year
too. But let's face it -
what's the point of being in charge if
you can't pick the bike shed
color without holding a referendum
on it? So I'm just going all
alpha-male, and just renumbering it.
You'll like it.
Now, my alpha-maleness sadly does
not actually extend to all the
scripts and Makefile rules, so the
kernel is fighting back, and is
calling itself 3.0.0-rc1. We'll have the
usual 6-7 weeks to wrestle it
into submission, and get scripts etc
cleaned up, and the final release
should be just "3.0". The -stable team
can use the third number for
their versioning.
So what are the big changes?
NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Sure,
we have the usual two thirds driver
changes, and a lot of random fixes,
but the point is that 3.0 is
*just* about renumbering, we are
very much *not* doing a KDE-4 or a
Gnome-3 here. No breakage, no
special scary new features, nothing at
all like that. We've been doing time-
based releases for many years
now, this is in no way about features.
If you want an excuse for the
renumbering, you really should look
at the time-based one ("20 years")
instead.
So no ABI changes, no API changes,
no magical new features - just
steady plodding progress. In addition
to the driver changes (and the
bulk really is driver updates), we've
had some nice VFS cleanups,
various VM fixes, some nice initial
ARM consolidation (yay!) and in
general this is supposed to be a fairly
normal release cycle. The
merge window was a few days
shorter than usual, but if that ends up
meaning a smaller release and a nice
stable 3.0 release, that is all
good. There's absolutely no reason to
aim for the traditional ".0"
problems that so many projects have.
In fact, I think that in addition to the
shorter merge window, I'm
also considering make this one of my
"Linus is being a difficult
^&^hole" releases, where I really
want to be pretty strict about what
I pull during the stabilization window.
Part of that is that I'm going
to be traveling next week with a slow
atom laptop, so you had better
convince me I *really* want to pull
from you, because that thing
really is not the most impressive piece
of hardware ever built. It
does the "git" workflow quite well, but
let's just say that compiling
the kernel is not quite the user
experience I've gotten used to.
So be nice to me, and send me only
really important fixes. And let's
make sure we really make the next
release not just an all new shiny
number, but a good kernel too.
Ok?
Go forth and test,
Linus

from the paint-the-bikeshed department

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Say Three point Oh: Linux 3.0 is here

So after 39 major releases in the 2.6 series Linus Tovarlds finally tagged Linux 3.0.0 RC 1 in git.
Linus has contemplated moving away from the 2.6 series for a while now and had initially hinted at moving to 2.8 partly because "I[Linus] am not comfortable counting to 40 anymore " but finally settled on 3.0 to be released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the phenomenal,erm, innovative Free OS.
Here is Linus' original announcement in full

Yay! Let the bikeshed painting
discussions about version numbering
begin (or at least re-start).
I decided to just bite the bullet, and
call the next version 3.0. It
will get released close enough to the
20-year mark, which is excuse
enough for me, although honestly,
the real reason is just that I can
no longe rcomfortably count as high
as 40.
The whole renumbering was
discussed at last years Kernel Summit,
and
there was a plan to take it up this year
too. But let's face it -
what's the point of being in charge if
you can't pick the bike shed
color without holding a referendum
on it? So I'm just going all
alpha-male, and just renumbering it.
You'll like it.
Now, my alpha-maleness sadly does
not actually extend to all the
scripts and Makefile rules, so the
kernel is fighting back, and is
calling itself 3.0.0-rc1. We'll have the
usual 6-7 weeks to wrestle it
into submission, and get scripts etc
cleaned up, and the final release
should be just "3.0". The -stable team
can use the third number for
their versioning.
So what are the big changes?
NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Sure,
we have the usual two thirds driver
changes, and a lot of random fixes,
but the point is that 3.0 is
*just* about renumbering, we are
very much *not* doing a KDE-4 or a
Gnome-3 here. No breakage, no
special scary new features, nothing at
all like that. We've been doing time-
based releases for many years
now, this is in no way about features.
If you want an excuse for the
renumbering, you really should look
at the time-based one ("20 years")
instead.
So no ABI changes, no API changes,
no magical new features - just
steady plodding progress. In addition
to the driver changes (and the
bulk really is driver updates), we've
had some nice VFS cleanups,
various VM fixes, some nice initial
ARM consolidation (yay!) and in
general this is supposed to be a fairly
normal release cycle. The
merge window was a few days
shorter than usual, but if that ends up
meaning a smaller release and a nice
stable 3.0 release, that is all
good. There's absolutely no reason to
aim for the traditional ".0"
problems that so many projects have.
In fact, I think that in addition to the
shorter merge window, I'm
also considering make this one of my
"Linus is being a difficult
^&^hole" releases, where I really
want to be pretty strict about what
I pull during the stabilization window.
Part of that is that I'm going
to be traveling next week with a slow
atom laptop, so you had better
convince me I *really* want to pull
from you, because that thing
really is not the most impressive piece
of hardware ever built. It
does the "git" workflow quite well, but
let's just say that compiling
the kernel is not quite the user
experience I've gotten used to.
So be nice to me, and send me only
really important fixes. And let's
make sure we really make the next
release not just an all new shiny
number, but a good kernel too.
Ok?
Go forth and test,
Linus

from the paint-the-bikeshed department

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Lovelock come down : Fedora 15 released

Fedora 15 was released at 4 pm today Nairobi time.
The latest incarnation of the popular Red Hat sponsored Linux distro known for its reputation as a Bleeding edge distro debuts Gnome 3.0 the new, erm, innovative desktop offering from the Gnome people, KDE 4.6, Mozilla Firefox 4.0, the LibreOffice productivity suite, a fork of Open Office, the Btrfs file system among other featur as well as support for predictive text for Indian languages and -you couldn't guess this one given a thousand tries - support for the rupee sign.
Web devs will no doubt be delighted to find Python 3.2 Maven, Ruby on Rails 3.0.5 and GCC 4.6 in Fedora 15.

from the release dept

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Op/Ed: When Blogger was down. Or hosting a FLOSS News blog on a proprietary platform

So my chum @eebrah A-list lover of FLOSS, made sure to know that his [fairly non-existent] eyebrows were raised at the rather suspect decision to host open sorcery daily on Blogger,when [incredible -if I may say so myself] open source alternatives exist.

The irony of hosting an open source blog on a proprietary platform was apparently lost on me.

And on a day when Blogger was down, it seems to me for some sort of maintenance or something [dead of the night in San Francisco is unfortunately office hour in Nairobi ] my Nigerian connect[not what you think ] @bigbrovar made me understand that that was the price I had to pay for hosting a blog about open source on a proprietary platform. He went further and helpfully suggested Wordpress.

The fact that if you Google "Open Source linux news kenya" or "Kenyan free software news" today you will get largely irrelevant links is in my estimation a problem.
The value of localized news with unique local insights and perspectives can not be understated.

For years I had bemoaned the lack of local open source news in Kenyan tech reporting in the mainstream media. Complaining it dawned on me would do no good. All media outlets have their target audience. There only way to address no media attention is to create your own media. In this day and age that couldn't be simpler. So I decided to do something about it.

I do not *shock! horror !* own a computer.

My newly acquired Huawei
Ideos Android 2.2 phone had opened up a world of possibilities. I now had always on Internet access [on occassions when I could afford prepaid credit] and publishing tools like the Wordpress and Blogger Droid apps I had recently installed on my phone.
Years of waiting for the perfect tools and set up to land on my laps were over. This had to be my perfect set up. This *was* my perfect set up.I had to do something. Fast. My [rather limited] years of entrepreneurial experience have taught me the value of both being fast, and first. Release early, release often as ESR would say.
Besides it was also a lucrative business opportunity. I had recently had my Ad Sense account approved. And I could publish ads and make a ton of dosh.

Plus it would be a perfect opportunity to hone my writing and editorial skills and build a portfolio . The easiest way to be a writer is to write. And as my sister says the surest sign of laziness there is in a writer is a lack of portfolio.

Only way I knew of easily publishing Google Ads was on a Blogger site. Besides I didn't have much leeway as my phone was and still is my primary means of publishing the site and all my other blogs.

So I set off. My plan was simple. I would focus on stories about a segment of the local FOSS scene I was already comfortably familiar with - university campuses.

Also some FOSS apps have gained acceptance and wide spread use in the Kenyan tech scene. VLC, the media player for example is widely used in Kenya, might be second only to Windows Media Player[ which *curses * comes default ] . Firefox is,as elsewhere in the world, also wildly popular.
Stories about such programs would have a wider appeal than just the intended FOSS audience.

I would give news about custom builds, useful scripts by uni students, reviews and previews of upcoming Linux distro releases, FOSS events and other happenings in the local tech scene of relevance to the .ke FOSS community.

If the idea picked up sufficient buzz and AdSense revenue to purchase a domain and hosting then I would purchase a domain and move to a hosting platform of choice as soon as I had figured out how to publish Google Ads on the chosen platform.

I set about putting my plan to action.

I wrote two posts on a pal's computer.


I transferred the posts on my phone via Bluetooth.

I registered opensorcerydaily on my blogger account [opensorcery.blogspot.com was already taken by some idiot who 's never used it since 2008].

Next I set up a twitter account, for publicizing the blog you know. I had zero budget [that's right zilch] so advertising was out of the question, and besides word of mouth works best.

I cut and paste the article on my Blogger app and published it. [ the identica account came later]

I posted links to the articles to the @open_sorcery twitter and mentioned my pals @fredmanglis @kelzoko and @eebrah to inform em.

And thus open sorcery daily was born.

So here's a sneak peak of operations at Open Sorcery Daily [ which has variously been a seat on a 58 matatu in Nairobi, my former campus dorm room, and of late my room, currently typing this up on my Droid while seated on my bed ].

I get wind of a interesting story usually while going through feeds or via a link tweeted at me by @eebrah. I try to research the story. You know find press releases,sites with material I can reuse without being sued, preferably CC licensed articles. I type up the story,proofread and edit it.

All on my phone.

I then post the article and post a link to @open_sorcery daily's identica and twitter.

So there you have it. I have learnt two things in going about this whole process.

A very loyal and supportive FOSS scene does exist [shout out to the folk @JKUAT LUG and my cousin @icecream for all the love for all the love] They just do not get much mention from .ke tech journas and they lack a central focal point or news outlet. [ read opportunity ]

Secondly, you can chose to sit down on your ass and pontificate all day [@eebrah called hosting Open Sorcery Daily on Blogger "treachery"] or you can chose to support us or better yet go out and do your own thing. Such is the FOSS way.

I am proud of how I went about all this and my only regret is that I did not do it earlier.

Anything I could have done differently? Let me know.

Welcome to the story of building a media empire on an $100 Android smartphone-or how I intend to do it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

LPI announces new East African Affiliate, LPI - East Africa

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), recently announced a new affiliate in East Africa.

LPI-East Africa, to be headed by longtime Kenyan FOSS advocate Evans Ikua will promote LPI programs and certifications in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Jim Lacey, president and CEO of the
Linux Professional Institute noted a significant growth in LPI Exams in Africa.

Mr. Ikua was the founding chairman of the Linux Professional Association
of Kenya and provides Linux and
Open Source web solutions and training programs through his consulting company, LANet Consulting.


Established as an international non-profit organization in September 1999
by the Linux community, the Linux
Professional Institute is the premier Linux Certification organization worldwide and is globally supported by the IT industry, enterprise customers, community professionals, government entities and the educational community.

Inquiries on LPI-East Africa activities
and programs may be made via email.


from the more-reasons-to-ditch-your-MCSE-dept

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Honeycomb turns Bitter

A top Google exec announced at the close of this year's Google i/o conference that it will not be releasing the source code of Version 3.0 of it's Android mobile OS.
This as you might imagine has caused quite a furor in the FOSS community. The social networks were abuzz this morning with talk of a possible GPL violation.
Others were of the controversial opinion that since Ice Cream Sandwich the next version of the popular mobile OS would be "open sourced" then there was no cause for worry.
It remains to be seen how events will unfold but a flame war will definitely follow.


From the is-google-still-good depth.

Nairuby / nai.rb, Nairobi Ruby Brigade Announced

Here's the post, crossposted from nj3ma.wordpress.com announcing the recent formation of the Nairobi Ruby Brigade :

So finally got round to creating the
Nairobi Ruby Brigade. We are starting
out as a Google Group and mailing
list. Sure more stuff is going to follow.
I was totally spoilt for a choice of
names for the group seeing as Nairobi
and Ruby gave me endless wordplay
opportunities. Finally settled on
nairuby for the group email address
and Nai.rb for the group name.
The Nairobi Ruby Brigade is essentially
a user group for Ruby and Ruby on
Rails enthusiasts, developers and even
watchers /followers in Nairobi.
Hoping to get the group going as a
place where to keep apace with the
pulse of the local Ruby/RoR scene.
Folks are invited to join and announce
projects,ask and answer questions
and post Ruby/RoR web dev jobs and
events etc.
So here’s the link click on it and get
busy http://groups.google.com/
group/nairuby

From the having-verbal-fun-with-programming-language-names dept

openSUSE 11.3 local build announced

From the customs dept

Anthony over at the JKUAT Linux Users Group has announced the availability of his custom build of OpenSuse 11.3 christened openSUSE
11.3 SB Rough Diamond.

More details about the Custom build are available here jkuatlinux.blogspot.com/2011/03/opensuse-113-sb-rough-diamond.html

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Jkuat Linux User Group

From the where-is-the-local-linux-scene dept

In my sojourns on the blogosphere I happened to stumble upon an excellent local Linux resource. The JKUAT Linux Users Group blog. They seem to have a good thing going.
Here is the link to their blog: http://jkuatlinux.blogspot.com