The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed a Guru Meditation VERR_ACCESS_DENIED with certain guests (bugs #7589, #8247)
• VMM: fixed a Guru Meditation VERR_PAGE_TABLE_NOT_PRESENT with Ubuntu 32-bit guests with nested paging enabled on AMD CPUs (bug #10183)
• VMM: preserve segment limits and attributes when switching to unreal mode required for some legacy guests to work properly (VT-x without unrestricted guest execution only; bug #9941)
• VMM: fixed a VM hang after a resume from pause / savestate with SMP guests in rare cases
• 3D Support: several fixes for the Windows WDDM video driver crash
• NAT: fixed a crash on attempt to process ICMP datagram under some circumstances (bug #10527)
• Host-only Networking: lifted the maximal number of interfaces to 128 on Linux and Mac OS X hosts (there is no such limitation for Solaris and Windows hosts)
• EFI: fixed wrong SEC/PEI Core entry point calculation (bug #10531)
• VRDP: fixed a display update problem (bug #10503)
• Main: set the proper VM state if savestate failed for some reason (bug #6189)
• Main: more useful error message if a medium is inaccessible
• VBoxManage: fixed controlvm savestate if the VM is already paused
• Mac OS X hosts: addressed issues running on Mountain Lion Preview 3 (bug #10267)
• Linux hosts: Linux 3.4 compile fixes
• Linux hosts: fixed wrong help path in some rpm-based packages (bug #10418)
• Guest Additions: fixed handling of custom environment variables during VBoxManage guestcontrol execute (bug #10581)
• Windows Additions: fixed guest driver crash of VBoxSF in certain cases (4.1.10 regression, bug #10408)
• Windows Additions: don’t load the WDDM driver if 3D support is not available for Windows 8 guests to keep the guest maintainable in that case (still better to miss some features than providing a blank screen)
• Solaris Additions: added support for X.org Server 1.11 and 1.12

You can download the binaries here: http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.16/

nPth is a non-preemptive threads implementation using an API very similar to the one known from GNU Pth. It has been designed as a replacement of GNU Pth for non-ancient operating systems. In contrast to GNU Pth is is based on the system’s standard threads implementation. Thus nPth allows the use of libraries which are not compatible to GNU Pth.

ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/npth/npth-0.90.tar.bz2

History
When porting GnuPG-2 to Windows in 2004, the GnuPG team had the need of a replacement of GNU Pth, which was not available for Windows. They came up with an emulation based on the native Windows thread system. Experience since then showed that such an emulation is a solid way to provide a co-routine based framework. Given that thread implementations (in particular pthreads) are now in common use on all platforms, there is not must justification left for not using them.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 is available for download free of charge. OpenOffice 3.4 features:

• word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics, databases, drawing, and mathematical editing applications support for Windows, Linux (32-bit and 64-bit) and Macintosh operating environments
• native language support for English, Arabic, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Galician, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese
• improved ODF support, including new ODF 1.2 encryption options and new spreadsheet functions
• enhanced pivot table support in Calc
• enhanced graphics, including line caps, shear transformations and native support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
• improvements in performance and quality

The complete list of new features, functions, and improvements is available in the Release Notes.

via Jury possibly deadlocked on copyright issues in Oracle vs Google

Google reply to the motion was that: “Although Google releases some versions of Android through the Android Open Source Project, the internal functionality of Android running on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is Google’s trade secret.”

via The Android source code on the Galaxy Nexus is Google’s “trade secret”.

Issue 154 of Linux Format contained an article entitled ‘Learn to Hack,’ walking readers through the use of the Metasploit Framework exploitation toolkit to gain access to computer systems running a variety of operating systems. The article also covered password cracking, network sniffing, and man-in-the-middle attacks over encrypted protocols. But, importantly it also covered how best to protect your systems from the self-same attacks and concept often referred to as Ethical Hacking.

via Linux Format censored over ‘Learn to Hack’ feature

You can download the binaries here: http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.14/

1) There will be lots of websites carrying news, results, information and statics about the event. Linux is the most popular web hosting platform in the world. Without Linux (and to be fair FreeBSD etc) there would be no Internet.

2) Mobile devices will be prevalent during the games for spectators, commentators and the teams themselves. Among all these mobile devices a large proportion of phones and tablets will run Android. Which itself uses the Linux kernel and the GNU tool chain. With O2 providing (in collaboration with Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea councils) providing free Wi-Fi access to broadband services London, even humble Wi-Fi only tablets will be able to go online in and around the Olympics venues.

3) The third category of open source software that will be used during the 2012 games is embedded solutions. Linux and other open source projects have found their way into all types of embedded devices from routers, switches, Wi-Fi access points and even set-top-boxes.

I am looking forward to the games and I am looking forward to Linux and open source playing their role.

The Release Notes for CentOS-5.7 can be found on-line at: http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS5.7

Downloading CentOS-5.7 by Torrent
When possible, consider using torrents to run the downloads. Not only does it help the community and keeps mirrors from running up high bandwidth bills, in most cases you will find its also the fastest means to download the distro.

CD:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.7/isos/i386/CentOS-5.7-i386-bin-1to8.torrent
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-5.7-x86_64-bin-1to8.torrent

DVD:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.7/isos/i386/CentOS-5.7-i386-bin-DVD.torrent
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-5.7-x86_64-bin-DVD.torrent

Direct download
For direct downloads goto http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/5/isos/

• 700MHz Broadcom media processor featuring an ARM11 (ARM1176JZF-S) core, Broadcom GPU core, DSP core and support for Package-on-Package (PoP) RAM
• 128MiB (Model A) or 256MiB of SDRAM (Model B), stacked on top of the CPU as a PoP device
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
• Composite and HDMI video output
• One USB 2.0 port provided by the BCM2835
• SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
• General-purpose I/O (About 16 3v3) and various other interfaces, brought out to 1.27mm pin-strip
• Optional integrated 2-port USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller (Model B)
• Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)
• Capability to support various expansion boards

CentOS 5.7 should include:

• Various KVM and Xen improvements, including:
  • Xen 32bit performance improvement
  • Xen boot time reduced
  • KVM CD-ROM emulation improvements
  • KVM live migration speed improvements
• Usage of XFS in conjunction with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 High Availability Add-On/Clustering as a file system resource is now fully supported.
• System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) improvements
• Support for the Security Content Automation Protocol, including a library and set of utilities. Allows security managers to verify security configuration and vulnerability status
• Fencing features to improve cluster reliability in Cisco UCS systems and VMware environments.

According to the press release:

Oracle delivers up to 90 percent cost savings over Microsoft SQL Server with MySQL Enterprise Edition,(2) which includes a complete suite of visual tools for modeling, development, monitoring, administration and backup of Windows-based MySQL applications.

The MySQL Installer for Windows give users:

• An intuitive graphical interface that guides users through the installation process.
• The ability to install all MySQL products that are required at once.
• An integrated update system for all MySQL products installed.

“Oracle continues to invest in MySQL to address the evolving needs of Windows users,” said Tomas Ulin, Oracle’s MySQL vice president of Engineering. “With MySQL’s new installer for Windows and failover clustering certification, enterprise users and ISVs can improve management, reduce cost, and power business critical applications with MySQL Enterprise Edition using native Windows Clustering Services.”

via Oracle Enhances MySQL Installer and High Availability for Windows.

The rationale for the proposal is that “there is a need for a flexible, high performance distributed key/value store that provides expressive, fine-grained access labels. The communities we expect to be most interested in such a project are government, health care, and other industries where privacy is a concern. We have made much progress in developing this project over the past 3 years and believe both the project and the interested communities would benefit from this work being openly available and having open development.”

via NSA proposes Accumulo NoSQL database to Apache.

After lots of hunting around on the net, here is the solution to running Ubuntu 10.04 without a monitor.

STEP 1 – Edit the /etc/default/grub file and set GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”nomodeset”.

Now the top part of my grub file looks like this:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset"

Then update grub from terminal with: update-grub

STEP 2 - Create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the following:

Section "Device"
Identifier "VNC Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "VNC Screen"
Device "VNC Device"
Monitor "VNC Monitor"
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "VNC Monitor"
HorizSync 30-70
VertRefresh 50-75
EndSection

STEP 3 – Configure remote desktop access using System->Preferences->Remote Desktop.

Since I am using OS X on the client end, I have to set a password otherwise the built-in VNC client wont’t connect.

STEP 4 – If you have set a password in the step above then you will need to set your keychain password to null. The reason for this is that the Remote Desktop password set in step 3 is store in the keychain. When you connect with VNC, Ubuntu asks you for your password. But since you are on a remote system and don’t have monitor connected you can’t enter the password – catch 22.

Start Applications->Accessories->Password and Encryption Keys. Right-click “Passwords: login” and click “Change Password.” Enter your current user account password and leave the new password fields empty. Click “Use Unsafe Storage.”

STEP 5 – If you haven’t already done so, set the machine to login automatically. Start System->Administration->Login Screen. Click “Unlock” and enter your password if necessary. Click the “Log in as” radio button and select your username.

Reboot – You’re done! Shutdown the machine, unplug the monitor and then reboot. You should be able to connect to the system over VNC without problem.

Warning – This should only be attempted on a secure local area network. Don’t do this on a server exposed to the Internet. By using automatic login then only password protection for your machine is the VNC login, and VNC can be easily hacked. You have been warned!

The new release was unexpectedly slow in arriving. In 2007, the CentOS project released CentOS 5 just 28 days after the official release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. As a recompile of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) source code into a rebranded, zero-cost Linux distribution, CentOS is dependent on Red Hat releasing the source code before it can start its own release cycle. But it took 242 days after the release of RHEL 6.0 before the CentOS team released CentOS 6.0.

Read the full article: What’s New in CentOS 6

The plan, reported by OSOR.EU, is being embarked upon for “long term strategic reasons” and aims to save around 5.3 million euros in proprietary licence costs. The hospital group is moving to a virtual desktop based environment for its employees and the proprietary office package they use would require a license for every user in that scenario. The switch will see the hospitals continue to use their ten thousand licences for the proprietary suite until they run out.

The hospital group will not move all of the users to Libre Office at once. The group will use its current ten thousand proprietary office licences until they run out. The group will renew some licences for ‘heavy users’, until further notice. Over time, says Thomsen, all of the staff will switch to Libre Office: “apart from those few with advanced spreadsheet tasks.”

[Thanks to The H Open Source]

The Ubuntu Server on ARM initiative is a multi-year initiative gathering broad participation. More project information can be found on the Ubuntu wiki

Download and Install
Installing the CR repository needs a manual step. You must download the correct centos-release-cr rpm and install it on your machine, this would setup the CentOS-CR.repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/

i386:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.6/cr/i386/RPMS/centos-release-cr-5-6.el5.centos.1.i386.rpm
md5: 67bbeb40cb77a91379847074667d2956
sha256: 50cd9f3d35b391a9009a9caae80182dcfccfa5abaf4ff4ef5f4d880bcf26b04c

x86_64:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.6/cr/x86_64/RPMS/centos-release-cr-5-6.el5.centos.1.x86_64.rpm
md5: c447f54818a657a9dfd7fdd28a28cfcc
sha256: dab390a0fca17612e438b215fc90448ebcef982e96e25cbea8426f00edc8b7a5

Notes

• All rpms in the CR repo are signed with the main distro key
• We hope to have the 5.7 Release ready in the next 7 to 10 days
• All updates released since 5.7 upstream, will also be added to the CR repo in the next 24 hrs
• Once 5.7 is released, the 5.6/cr/ repositories will be removed ( they will not be available on vault.centos.org )
• Baseurl for the CR repo is set to only use centos.org internal machines, this is to reduce the amount of time we need to spend in seeding and then managing external mirrors.
• All contents in the CR repo will be announced into a separate announcement list; once 5.7 is released the announcements will be re-sent to the centos-announce list.

I tried opening the eBook’s page using my Android phone but when I tried to download it the browser told me that the content was supported.

After a bit of searching on the net I discovered the answer is to copy the eBook file to the kindle directory on my sdcard.

The detailed steps are:

1) Download the .mobi file from Project Gutenberg.

2) Connect your Android device to your PC.

3) Tap at the very top of the screen and drag your finger down. Tap USB Connected and then tap Mount.

4) Copy the .mobi file to the kindle directory on your sdcard.