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 Ubuntu/Kubuntu is available free of charge and we can send you a CD of the
latest version (9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)) with no extra
cost, but the delivery may take up to ten weeks, so you should consider
downloading the CD image if you have a fast Internet connection. To order: |
Apply all of the browser, application and OS patches you want, your
machine still can be completely and silently compromised at the lowest
level--without the use of any vulnerability.
That was the rather sobering message delivered by a pair of security
researchers from Core Security Technologies in a talk at the CanSecWest
conference on methods for infecting the BIOS with persistent code that
will survive reboots and reflashing attempts. Anibal Sacco and Alfredo
Ortega (above) demonstrated a method for patching the BIOS with a small
bit of code that gave them conplete control of the machine. And the
best part is, the method worked on a Windows machine, a PC running
OpenBSD and another running VMware Player.
"It was very easy. We can put the code wherever we want," said
Ortega. "We're not using a vulnerability in any way. I'm not sure if
you understand the impact of this. We can reinfect the BIOS every time
it reboots."
Sacco and Ortega stressed that in order to execute the attacks, you
need either root privileges or physical access to the machine in
question, which limits the scope. But the methods are deadly effective
and the pair are currently working on a BIOS rootkit to implement the
attack.
"We can patch a driver to drop a fully working rootkit. We even have
a little code that can remove or disable antivirus," Ortega said.
The work by the Core team follows on to research done on persistent rootkits by John Heasman of NGSS,
who was able to devise a method for placing rootkits on PCs using the
memory space on PCI cards. In a presentation at Black Hat DC in 2007,
Heasman showed a completely working method for loading the malware on
to a PCI card by using the flashable ROM on the device. He also had a
way to bypass the Windows NT kernel and create fake stack pointers.
In an interview at the time, he told me: "At that point it's game over. We're executing 32-bit code in ring zero."
As application and operating system protection mechanisms continue
to become more sophisticated and more difficult to evade, expect to see
more and more attacks targeting the hardware and low-level software,
where there are still opportunities for success.
|
The whole FAT licensing saga between Microsoft and TomTom just got a whole lot more complicated. Microsoft sued TomTom
because the satnav maker had not licensed FAT from Microsoft, even
though several others have. This left TomTom in a difficult position:
not license it, and face legal penalties - license it, and violate the
GPL. The second part, however, is up for debate now: the terms under
which Microsoft licenses FAT may not violate the GPL at all. Near-instant update: On Slashdot, Bruce Perens and Jeremy Allison have explained
that the FAT terms are still a GPL violation. Allison accidentally
emailed the journalist who wrote this story with the wrong information. In
other words, TomTom could license FAT from Microsoft under terms that
would not violate the GPL. The terms in question add a cap to
royalties, which in fact does not violate the GPLv2, according to GPL
experts like Eben Moglen and Jeremy Allison (Allison later had a change
of heart, and now believes it is a violation, but he isn't
sure). Even though these terms have mysteriously vanished from
Microsoft's website, Microsoft has confirmed that the terms are still
applicable.
David Kaefer, General Manager of IP Licensing at Microsoft, said: "When
we announced the FAT licensing program in December 2003, we indicated
that pricing would be $0.25 per unit up to a cap of $250,000 for
devices that use FAT for removable memory, such as flash memory cards.
At that time, we also noted that some companies may wish to negotiate
broader or narrower rights than our standard license for flash memory
type scenarios and that pricing may vary. Today, our public pricing
approach is unchanged."
This raises two interesting questions. First, why didn't TomTom license
FAT properly, without violating the GPL? Secondly, and this is maybe
even the more interesting question: why didn't Microsoft point this out
in the first place? It could've saved them lots of bad publicity if
they did. |
At Opera, we love speed. We work hard to make our browser faster
with features that speeds you up, but your connection also plays a big
role on how fast you can go.
Some people have fast
connections, a lot have slow connections. Many are always on the run
from one place to another — making it hard to find regular fast
connection points. Even if you do, it might be that too many people are
on the Wi-Fi in the cafe or that you are browsing through your mobile
phone when commuting on the train.
That’s why we’ve been
working on Opera Turbo, a server-side optimization and compression
technology that provides significant improvements in browsing speeds
over limited-bandwidth connections by compressing network traffic. This
does not only make you surf faster, but also lowers the cost of
browsing when you are on a pay per usage plan.
Today we
start our time limited test phase for Opera Turbo, please read below to
learn a little about how Turbo works and where to download it. You can
also see it in action in the following video:
Bottom left corner is where the speed is
When
turned on, Opera Turbo will display the average compression rate. Hover
your mouse over the Opera Turbo icon to see a tooltip with the amount
of bandwidth saved as long as it has been enabled.
Throttle your bandwidth to see the big difference
Opera
Turbo will work with any type of connection, but to get the most out of
it you should be on a situation with limited bandwidth. In case you
can’t attend a crowded conference today or aren’t on a bus connected
through your phone, you can simulate a slower connection speed with: NetLimiter 2 Pro on Windows and the pipe command on the Mac. We recommend limiting your bandwidth to 100Kbps.
Opera Turbo doesn’t change the Web site
Turbo uses a technology called “Opera Web Optimization Proxy”, which is different from the Opera Binary Markup Language
used in Opera Mini. Web sites layout and text will look exactly the
same, but image resolution may appear considerably lower as a result of
the compression. Dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax
(XmlHttpRequests) and Flash are supported, but some plugin content will
load only after clicking on the empty element.
Your privacy is important
Even
when Turbo is enabled, encrypted traffic does not go through our
compression servers. This means that when you are on a SSL site, we
bypass these traffic and let you communicate with the SSL site
directly. Opera generates statistics of the usage of Opera Turbo, but
these are aggregated numbers and no information can be linked to a
single user. Opera does not store any users’ private information.
Opera Turbo will be part of future desktop versions
This
is a time-limited release, but the feedback we receive from this test
release will help us determine how and when to move forward with Opera
Turbo.
You can download the test version of Opera Turbo right here and start playing around with it right away. Please report any bugs or join the discussion at the My Opera community. Download Opera Turbo |
 A bug report posted in the bug tracker for the next version of Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)
describes a massive data loss problem when using Ext4, the future
standard file system for Linux, available as an option when installing
Ubuntu 9.04. The report describes a crash occurring shortly after the KDE 4
desktop files had been loaded, resulting in the loss of all of the data
that had been created, including many KDE configuration files.
In a reply,
Ext4 Developer Ted Ts'o explains the background of the problem. Like
other modern file systems, such as XFS, Ext4 implements delayed
allocation – writing new data can take up to 60 seconds. This increases
the performance and allows for optimisation of the data organisation on
the hard drive platter.
The KDE and GNOME desktop applications often read and write a large
number of small files (for example, the configuration files for your
personal settings). If the system crashes there may not be enough time
for the data to be allocated and written to the hard drive – under
ext4, the files may be truncated. This is because of delayed
allocation. When a new file is created, the change is noted in the
journal, but the data isn't written to the disk for a new file for
anything between 45 and 150 seconds. The file system then catches up,
allocating space for the file and writing the data. The exact technical
details (which are critical system calls ftruncate() and rename()) can
be found in the Ext4 developer's answer to the bug report.
Ts'o describes a workaround that tries to accurately identify this
case and avoid the delayed allocation, but points out that other modern
file systems, such as XFS and the new Btrfs, are also affected by this
problem. The patches will not be included in the coming release of
2.6.29, but are queued for the 2.6.30 kernel.
Ts'o says that the application should be fixed so it does not write
and rewrite small files. He advises that "this is really more of an
application design problem more than anything else." Programmers had
become accustomed to and dependent on, the behaviour of Ext3,
which has a commit interval of 5 seconds and a default journalling mode
of "data=ordered." Ext3's default journalling mode means that metadata
is written to the journal in ordered mode, so any associated data
changes would be forced to be written to the disk first. When Ext3
became the default file system developers came to rely on its
behaviour. (jk/c't) |
 San Francisco (CA) - At the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco on
April 8-10, 2009, a meeting of the great OS minds will take place.
There, sponsored by Intel, will be assembled together the Linux
Foundation, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft representatives. For the
first time ever, the three-way group will sit down at a single table to
debate and discuss the future not only of their respective operating
systems, but also the OS industry in general. What will come from such
a meeting? I truly believe that only God knows.
The sit-down meeting will be moderated by Jim Zemlim, Executive
Director at the Linux Foundation. It will include Microsoft's Sam
Ramji, Director of Platform Strategy, and Sun's Vice President of
Developer and Community Marketing, Ian Murdock. But where's Apple? Apple currently holds around 10% of the global OS marketshare,
and yet they are notably absent from these talks. Surely the UNIX-based
OS X maker has something to contribute? The gathering is by invitation
only, so maybe they weren't invited. Or, maybe they were but have
chosen not to go -- deciding instead to do their own thing (which would
not be out of character for Apple).
Also on the agenda is IDC Program Vice President, Systems Software, Al
Gillen, who will share new findings on operating system forecasts and
who will give a talk about the economic downturn and its impact on the
global OS markets.
Edward Screven, Oracle Chief Corporate Architect, will deliver the
opening day keynote with the company's business model centered around
Linux.
The Host sponsor, Intel, will send Imad Sousou, Director of the Open
Source Technology Center, who will speak about Mobile Linux and its
Moblin State of the Union keynote and demonstration.
A panel comprised of Jono Bacon (community manager at Ubuntu), James
Bottomley (kernel developer at Novell), Joe Brockmeier (community
manager at openSUSE), Dan Frye (VP of open systems development at IBM's
Systems and Technology Group) and Karsten Wade (of the Fedora Project),
will discuss community contributions to the OS movement.
LWN.net's editor-in-chief, Jon Corbet, along with additional panelists
(comprised of Greg Kroah-Hartmann, Andrew Morton and Keith Packard of
Ted Ts'o), will discuss the Linux kernel and what's coming next.
The event is an invitation-only gathering of the brightest minds in
Linux, including core kernel developers, distribution maintainers,
ISVs, end users, system vendors and other community organizations. This
is the only conference designed to bring together such disparate
business models, DRM beliefs, closed and open source initiatives, and
free and fee-based models, into a single forum for such a discussion.
As the sponsor, it seems that only Intel could go to San Francisco.
The event will be co-located with the CELF Embedded Linux Conference,
along with the Linux Storage and Filesystem workshop. For more
information on this, see Collaboration-summit.
For more information on the Linux Foundation, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft OS meeting, see the Linux Foundation's press release. This is the third annual summit. See highlights from 2007 and 2008.
In 2007, the primary focus was on drivers. In 2008 the drive theme was
extended, but it was also about Internet compliance as well as
virtualization. |
|
Last week, Matthew Dempsky posted an attack against Dan Bernstein’s djbdns software. Djbdns is one of several alternatives for the popular BIND nameserver, and is backed by a unique security guarantee that offers $1000 to the first person to publicly report a verifiable security hole in djbdns. The problem found by Dempsky allows an attacker to poison DNS records:
The security hole here is that an administrator that uses djbdns 1.05 to serve DNS content does not expect that configuring his name server as above will cause it to send records for names outside of burlap.dempsky.org. I.e., an attacker can trick the administrator’s name servers to include arbitrary DNS records in response to queries for names within domains he controls.
Less than a week later, D.J. Bernstein has acknowledged that this was indeed a security issue:
Even though this bug affects very few users, it is a violation of the expected security policy in a reasonable situation, so it is a security hole in djbdns. Third-party DNS service is discouraged in the djbdns documentation but is nevertheless supported. Dempsky is hereby awarded $1000.
There will be a new release of djbdns soon that will fix this bug and will come with a new security guarantee. This is a big contrast with the way a supposed security issue in qmail was handled. In that case, Bernstein denied there was a security issue because “Nobody gives gigabytes of memory to each qmail-smtpd process, so there is no problem with qmail’s assumption that allocated array lengths fit comfortably into 32 bits”.
While we’re waiting for a new release, users of djbdns are strongly encouraged (even by Bernstein himself) to install the patch provided by Dempsky. The same bug is also present in the dnscache component, but Matthew Dempsky thinks it cannot be exploited in a caching-only server, so even though users of that software should install the update as well, there’s less of a rush for them. Here’s a copy of the patch:
--- response.c.orig 2009-02-24 21:04:06.000000000 -0800
+++ response.c 2009-02-24 21:04:25.000000000 -0800
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
uint16_pack_big(buf,49152 + name_ptr[i]);
return response_addbytes(buf,2);
}
- if (dlen <= 128)
+ if ((dlen <= 128) && (response_len < 16384))
if (name_num < NAMES) {
byte_copy(name[name_num],dlen,d);
name_ptr[name_num] = response_len;
Let’s hope this doesn’t affect the perceived security of the alternative for DNSSEC that Bernstein has recently proposed; so far DNSCurve appears to have some significant advantages over DNSSEC, both in terms of security and ease of administration.
|
 Embedian
is shipping a Linux-ready ARM11 MXM computer-on-module (COM) and
evaluation kit. The MXM-6410 COM is equipped with a Samsung S3C6410
system-on-chip (SoC) that weds a ARM1176JZF-S core clocked to 667Mhz
with a multimedia co-processor that can encode and decode
MPEG4/H.263/H.264 and decode VC1, says Embedian.
(Click for larger view of MXM-6410 module)
The
MXM-6410 targets multimedia-enabled embedded applications, including
devices that require real-time videoconferencing, says Embedian. The
module is based on a Samsung S3C6410
system-on-chip (SoC) with a ARM1176JZF-S core clocked up to 667MHz.
This 65nm-fabricated SoC integrates a Multi Format Codec (MFC)
co-processor that is said to support real-time videoconferencing, as
well as TV-out, for both NTSC and PAL modes. In addition, the module is
equipped with a JPEG codec, a 2D graphics accelerator, and a 3D
graphics hardware accelerator that supports OpenGL-ES 1.1 and 2.0
rendering.
The Samsung SoC is supported by 128MB each of mDDR
and NAND flash memory, says Embedian. A 242-pin MXM golden finger
connector provides a wide variety of interfaces on the board. These are
said to include TFT LCD, dual USB host interfaces, Ethernet, four RS232
interfaces, camera, CF, IDE, AC97 Audio, IIC, PWM, TV-out, and SPI.
Embedian's original MXM-7114
(Click for details) |
Embedian launched its original MXM-7114 COM in November 2007. Its most recent MXM COMs -- the MXM-8310 and MXM-8110 -- were released last July, based on the Marvell PXA320 chip. Shortly before, a new organization called Qseven announced its own a multi-vendor COM spec that also uses an MXM connector. Formed by European COM module vendors Congatec, MSC Vertriebs, and Seco,
and with 14 members total, Qseven launched the first version of its
Qseven specification, calling for four mounting holes instead of
Embedian's two, and a slightly larger 70 x 70mm size instead of
Embedian's 66 x 50mm format. Qseven bills its format as being
mobile-device oriented and "legacy-free," offering support for new
formats like SDIO, while spurning some older I/O technologies.
Specifications for the MXM-6410 are said to include:- Processor
-- Samsung S3C6410 with ARM1176JZF-S core clocked up to 667MHz, plus
Java acceleration engine, 16KB/16KB I/D cache, and 16KB/16KB I/D TCM
- System bus -- 266Mhz 64/32-bit, with AXI, AHB, and APB buses
- Multi
Format Codec co-processor -- MPEG-4/H.263/H.264 encode/decode up to
30fps@SD/D1; decoding of VC1 video up to 30fps@SD/D1; various encoding
tools available
- JPEG codec -- Encoding YCbCr 4:2:2/RGB565; decoding YCbCr 4:4:4/4:2:2/4:2:0 or gray
- 2D graphic accelerator -- Line/point drawing, BitBLT and color expansion /text drawing
- 3D
graphic accelerator -- 4M triangles/s @133MHz (transform); 75.8M
pixels/s fill-rates @133MHz (shaded); Programmable Shader Model 3.0;
128-bit (32-bit x 4) floating-point Vertex Shader, etc.
- Memory -- 128MB mDDR (266Mhz 32-bit); can be ordered with 256MB
- Flash -- 128MB NAND
- Other memory support -- Interfaces for SD/SDHC, CompactFlash (CF) I/II 3.3V, and IDE (shared with CF) ATA
- Networking – 1 x 10/100 Ethernet interface (Davicom DM9000B chipset), supporting IEEE 802.3u 100Base-TX and 802.3 10Base-T
- USB
-- 2 x USB 1.1 host interface (12Mbit/s speed), with one configurable
as client; 1 x USB client 2.0 interface, supporting high speed as
Device (480Mbps)
- Serial -- 4 x RS232 interface, TTL level
- Video interfaces -- VGA (800x600) with TFT support; TTL interface; video post processor interface; TV Out
- Audio interfaces -- AC97 2.3 interface with ALSA support
- Discrete I/O -- 12 general-purpose digital I/Os
- Security
Sub-system -- AES and DES/3DES accelerators with ECB and CBC support;
SHA-1 Hash engine; H/W HMAC support; Random Number Generator;
FIFO-Rx/Tx; DMA I/F to SDMA1
- Camera interface -- supports up to 4096x4096 in YCbCr 4:2:2 format; ITU-R 601/ITU-R 656 format input support
- System bus interface -- 16-bit or 8-bit
- IIC interface -- 1-ch Multi-Master IIC-Bus
- SPI interface -- compatible with 2-ch Serial Peripheral Interface Protocol 2.11
- Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) -- 2-ch 16-bit timer with PWM / 1-ch 16-bit internal timer
- Interrupt request -- 8 available interrupts
- Touch panel interface -- 10-bit CMOS ADC
- Other features -- Watchdog timer 16-bit; JTAG interface
- Power -- +5V DC power input only, with real-time clock battery
- Dimensions -- 2.0 x 2.6 inches (50 x 66mm); MXM format
- Operating system -- Linux 2.6.21 (will upgrade to 2.6.28 in a few months), Debian ARM Linux; Windows CE 6.0
MXM-6410 Eval Kit
(Click to enlarge)
MXM-6410 Eval Kit
A
separately sold MXM Computer on Module MXM-6410 Evaluation Kit
(pictured above) is also available. Features are said to include:- 2 x MXM-6410 modules.
- Carrier board
- Reference carrier board schematics and design guide
- 800x480 LCD panel.
- LCD backlight inverter board
- LCD FPC/LVDS cable
- Serial Console cable
- MXM connector
- Power board
- 12V-2A power adapter
- 1GB CF memory card with root file system pre-installed
- Email or forum technical support
Availability
The
MXM-6410 is available now with Linux or Windows CE 6.0 pre-installed,
and an evaluation kit (pictured above) is also available. Pricing was
not disclosed. More information, and a detailed spec list, on the
MXM-6410 should be available here, and more on the eval kit may be here.
|
 Cuba launched its own variant of
the Linux computer operating system this week in the latest
front of the communist island's battle against what it views as
U.S. hegemony.
The Cuban variant, called Nova, was introduced at a Havana
computer conference on "technological sovereignty" and is
central to the Cuban government's desire to replace the
Microsoft software running most of the island's computers.
The government views the use of Microsoft systems,
developed by U.S.-based Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), as a potential
threat because it says U.S. security agencies have access to
Microsoft codes.
Also, the long-standing U.S. trade embargo against the
island makes it difficult for Cubans to get Microsoft software
legally and to update it.
"Getting greater control over the informatic process is an
important issue," said Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes,
who heads a commission pushing Cuba's migration to free
software.
Cuba, which is 90 miles (144 km) from Florida, has been
resisting U.S. domination in one form or another since Fidel
Castro took over Cuba in a 1959 revolution.
Younger brother Raul Castro replaced the ailing 82-year-old
leader last year, but the U.S.-Cuba conflict goes on, now in
the world of software.
According to Hector Rodriguez, dean of the School of Free
Software at Cuba's University of Information Sciences, about 20
percent of computers in Cuba, where computer sales to the
public began only last year, are currently using Linux.
Nova is Cuba's own configuration of Linux and bundles
various applications of the operating system.
Rodriguez said several government ministries and the Cuban
university system have made the switch to Linux but there has
been resistance from government companies concerned about its
compatibility with their specialized applications.
"I would like to think that in five years our country will
have more than 50 percent migrated (to Linux)," he said.
Unlike Microsoft, Linux is free and has open access that
allows users to modify its code to fit their needs.
"Private software can have black holes and malicious codes
that one doesn't know about," Rodriguez said. "That doesn't
happen with free software."
Apart from security concerns, free software better suits
Cuba's world view, he said.
"The free software movement is closer to the ideology of
the Cuban people, above all for the independence and
sovereignty."
(Editing by Jeff Franks and Bill Trott)
|
 The
smartphone market will slow to a 13 percent growth rate in 2009, but
will rebound in 2010, projects Forward Concepts in a recent study.
Forward Concepts also suggests that Linux's current share (11 percent)
has been given a boost by the Android-based HTC G1 (pictured).
The
"Smartphone & Chip Market Opportunities" study projects 13 percent
growth in the smartphone market to 164 million units this year. The
rate is down from 19 percent growth in 2008, but still better than that
projected for most electronics segments this year, says Forward
Concepts. The research group rather optimistically projects that
smartphone growth rates will bounce back up again as early as 2010.
Over the next five years, it estimates that the segment will see an
overall 21.7 percent growth rate, to 387 million units in 2013.
Smartphone shipments. (Source: Forward Concepts.)
At the end of 2008, Forward Concepts sees the OS breakdown for the smartphone market like this:- Symbian -- 49 percent
- Microsoft Windows -- 14 percent
- RIM -- 13 percent
- Linux/Android -- 11 percent
- O/S X (iPhone) -- 10 percent
- Palm -- 2 percent
- Danger -- 1 percent
The
firm offers little analysis of OS share, except to say that, "Although
Symbian is expected to remain dominant, market penetration and shares
of most of the other [platforms] are projected to grow." Forward
Concepts also says that Windows "has grown to" its 14 percent share,
and that Linux and Android "have reached" 11 percent share, suggesting
that both these platforms are on the upswing.
In addition, this appears to be one of the first studies to reflect the first sales of HTC's Android-based G1 phone
(pictured at top), which according to T-Mobile, has sold quite well.
Considering that most other recent smartphone surveys prior to the late
October G1 launch have put Linux share at well under 10 percent, this
11 percent estimate would seem to suggest a Linux surge based on the
G1. (For example, a Gartner smartphone report based on the 3Q results, showed Linux at 7.2 percent, and a Canalys study covering the same period pegged Linux even lower, at 5.1 percent.)
Although Forward Concepts did not define the smartphone genre, the study most likely reflects other Linux smartphones, from companies like Motorola, NEC, and Panasonic. These typically LiMo-compliant models are generally considered feature-phones, rather than smartphones, by other market research firms.
The study is too early, of course, to reflect sales of the Linux-based Palm Pre,
which runs a new WebOS Linux distribution, and is not due until the
second quarter. Meanwhile, several more LiMo-based Linux phones are
also expected to ship this year, including a smartphone from an
undisclosed vendor to be sold by Vodafone.
In
the vendor analysis, Nokia continues to lead in smartphone sales with a
year-end 2008 share of 34 percent for its Symbian-based phones, says
Forward Concepts. Nokia is followed by RIM (BlackBerry) at 13 percent,
Apple (iPhone) at 9.6 percent, and Sharp (mostly Windows Mobile) at 5.7
percent. Sony Ericsson is next with a 5.3 percent market share,
followed by HTC at 5 percent, Motorola at 4.6 percent, and Samsung at 4
percent. Another 16 vendors represent the remaining 18 percent share
(see table below). Linux handset market leader Motorola recently
announced more low sales numbers
for its mobile phones, and also said it would focus on building Android
phones this year, returning to Windows Mobile development next year.
Smartphone units by vendor share. (Source: Forward Concepts.)
Japan
still leads in smartphone consumption, with a 21 percent share, says
the study, followed by Western Europe at 18 percent, and North America
and China, each with 17 percent apiece.
The study analyzes the
top 24 smartphone vendors, and provides forecasts by global region,
wireless technology, operating system (OS), and processor platform
through 2013, says the group. The report also forecasts handset
components including:- Digital basebands
- RF transceivers and PA's
- Communication processors
- Application processors
- Graphics
- Multi-touch screen controllers
- Memories
- Specialty chips for:
- Camera sensors
- WiFi
- Bluetooth
- FM
- GPS
- Mobile TV
- NFC
- Fingerprint sensors
- Accelerometers
Stated
Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts, and editor of the report,
"Despite the slowdown in the overall mobile handset market, the strong
growth for Smartphones is partly due to the uptake in mobile data which
leads to higher revenue for the operators. Because of the higher data
revenue that it brings, we project that higher-end feature phones will
lose market share to Smartphones, as a result of the narrowing spread
in (subsidized) up-front net cost to the end user."
Stated
Satish Menon, co-author of the report along with Carter L. Horney,
"Strong 3G mobile Internet demand will drive a long-term growth trend
in the global Smartphone market with 2013 penetration levels exceeding
50 percent in the major operator-subsidized regions of North America
and Western Europe."
Availability
The 607-page
"Smartphone & Chip Market Opportunities" study, which costs $3,750,
profiles over 80 companies and includes 64 figures and 152 tables, plus
an appendix, says Forward Concepts. More information may be found here.
|
 Icop
has announced a little panel PC built around the company's own 32-bit,
x86-compatible SoC (system-on-chip). The PDX-057T has a 5.7-inch
touchscreen display, 256MB or 512MB of RAM, CompactFlash Type I/II and
microSD storage, and a Mini PCI slot, according to the company.
(Click here for a larger view of Icop's VDX-6354)
 The new PDX-057T employs Icop parent company DMP's Vortex86DX
SoC (right), announced in November of last year. The Vortex86DX is
built using a 90nm process, comes in a 27 x 27mm package, and is said
to use under two Watts while running at up to 1GHz.
The Vortex86DX is said to include the complete 486SX instruction set, adding floating point support. Unlike DMP's previous Vortex86SX,
the SoC is capable of running Windows XP and Windows XP Embedded, has
256MB of embedded L2 cache, and supports up to 1GB of 33MHz DDR2
memory, according to DMP.
Icop's VDX-6354 module also uses DMP's Vortex86DX
(Click for details) |
The Vortex86DX SoC doesn't include an IGP (integrated graphics processor), though DMP added VGA to its subsequently released Vortex86MX. We suspect that Icop has given the PDX-057T VGA capabilities using a separate XGI Volari Z9s chipset, just as it did on its recent VDX-6354 PC/104 module (right).
In
any case, Icop's little panel PC (5.98 x 4.41 x 1.3 inches) is said to
offer 640 x 480 resolution on a 5.7-inch resistive touchscreen display.
The device is offered with either 256MB or 512MB of RAM, while storage
is via CompactFlash Type I/II and microSD expansion slots, both
externally accessible.
 
The left and right sides of Icop's litle PDX-057T
(Click on either to enlarge)
The
PDX-057T, which weighs less than a pound, includes three USB ports,
"optional" audio output, an RS232 port, a 10/100 Ethernet port, and a
PS/2 port for keyboard/mouse connection. The panel PC also sports a
connector for an optional antenna, relevant when a wireless LAN card is
installed into the device's Mini-PCI slot.
The standard version
of the PDX-057T accepts 5VDC input power from an external 15W adapter.
An alternative version, the PDX-057T-8, replaces the barrel connector
shown above with two terminals, said to be capable of accepting input
voltages varying from 8VDC to 15VDC. This model likely targets use in
vehicles. Holes on the rear of the device, meanwhile, conform to the 75
x 75mm VESA mounting standard, the company says.
Features and specifications listed by Icop for the PDX-057T include the following:- Processor -- 1GHz Vortex86DX
- Memory -- 256MB or 512B of DDR2 RAM
- Display -- 5.7-inch resistive touchscreen display with 640 x 480 resolution and 300:1 contrast ratio
- Storage -- Includes CompactFlash Type I/II and microSD slots
- Networking -- 10/100 Ethernet
- Other I/O:
- 3 x USB 2.0
- 1 x RS232
- 1 x PS/2
- Audio line out (optional)
- Expansion -- Mini PCI slot
- Operating temperature -- -5 to 60 deg. C (23 to 140 deg. F)
- Power requirements -- 5VDC (PDX-057T-5) or 8VDC to 35VDC (PDX-057T-8)
- Dimensions -- 5.98 x 4.41 x 1.3 inches (152 x 112 x 33mm)
- Weight -- 0.82 pounds (374g)
Further information
According
to Icop, the PDX-057T runs Linux, Windows CE, Windows XP, and DOS.
Pricing was not released, but the device will be available during the
first quarter of 2009, according to U.K. distributor Datasound
Laboratories. More information on the PDX-057T may be found on the
Datasound website, here. |
 Glacier
is shipping a lower-cost, reduced-feature version of its ruggedized
Everest panel PCs that targets warehouse, supply chain, and shop-floor
environments. The e4000 model is equipped with a 600MHz Celeron or
1.4GHz Pentium M processor, and is available with an Igel thin-client
image for Linux.
(Click for larger view of Glacier Everest E4000)
The e4000 is a more affordable version of the Glacier Everest
PC panel announced last year, now called the e5000, says Glacier.
Typical applications include onboard forklift computers, warehouse
walls, and shop floor data collection stations. According to a company
spokesperson, the company spun off the stripped down e4000 model after
a number of warehouse, supply-chain, and shop-floor customers asked for
"fewer features and a lower cost, but with the same need for
durability."
Like the e5000, the e4000 can be purchased with a
600MHz Celeron or 1.4GHz Pentium M processor, and can be equipped with
up to 1GB of DDR SDRAM, says Glacier. The unit ships with a choice of
either a 10.4-, 12.1-, or 15-inch SVGA (800 x 600-pixel) LCD screen
with 5-wire resistive touchscreen. The display can be fitted with an
optional sunlight-readable display, as well as a novel heated touchscreen that keeps the screen clear even when wheeled in and out of a freezer, according to the company.
The
e4000's shock-protected 2.5-inch hard drive is available in capacities
starting at 40GB. Peripheral interfaces include an Ethernet port, and
two USB 2.0 ports, instead of the e5000's three ports (it sacrifices
the internal port), and a single serial port instead of two. Audio I/O
is provided, but not the e5000's VGA out connector. The e4000 lacks its
sibling's PCMCIA slot, but offers a mini-PCI expansion slot. The other
two omissions are the internal backup battery and the "rotating drive,"
said the spokesperson.
In addition to the PS/2 keyboard/mouse
ports, controls include three programmable function buttons and status
LEDs. A custom diagnostic and configuration utility enables data
logging and real-time monitoring of processor temperature and other
critical system statistics. The 6-60 VDC power supply is said to
include an intelligent UPS (uninterruptable power supply) function.
Igel image available for thin client operation
Until September, the Glacier Everest was available only as a Windows XP-based thick client, as reported on in this WindowsForDevices.com story. At that time, Glacier announced the availability of the Igel-5310 LX Premium Image, which is now also offered for the e4000.
The
Igel image is based on one of three firmware stacks available for
Igel's "Premium" line of thin client PCs. The Premium line falls in the
middle of the company's Linux-compatible line-up of nine thin client models.
The software is said to enable IT administrators to manage hundreds or
thousands of devices at once, and to provide remote access to user
profiles, device settings, updates, diagnostics, and support.
Also
available for the e4000, along with the Windows XP and XP Embedded
distributions, is Glacier's own "fully supported Linux implementation,"
which the company will customize, it says. One customer is already
deploying a large order of e4000 systems with a Linux implementation
that was co-developed by Glacier and the customer, said the
spokesperson.
Stated Dan Poisson, Glacier's director of
engineering, "The E4000 configuration has been re-engineered to
incorporate the features most commonly requested by warehouse, freight,
and shop floor customers."
Availability
The e4000 is available now at an undisclosed price. More information on the Everest may be found here.
|
 OpenSynergy
is readying a Linux-based "car operating system" and an Intel
Atom-based evaluation board for automobile infotainment systems. The
COQOS platform aims to let Linux-based infotainment applications and
AUTOSAR-compliant telematics modules share the same system-on-chip
processor, which is virtualized by a "micro operating system" (μOS)
layer.
Interestingly, the technology is said to enable both
Linux and AUTOSAR apps to share a common audio and OpenGL graphic
layer, enabling AUTOSAR applications to output to multimedia displays
and audio for the first time, says the company. Additional touted
benefits of the approach include reducing the count of ECUs (engine
control units), minimizing development costs, and even increasing fuel
efficiency, by reducing the weight associated with multiple, separate
vehicular computer networks.
COQOS integrates a real-time
micro operating system, μOS, to partition a single SoC into multiple
virtual machines (VMs). The arrangement is claimed capable of
partitioning a Linux-based infotainment platform from AUTOSAR
operations, which is required for safety reasons.
COQOS architecture
(Click to enlarge)
AUTOSAR
(AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is an open, standardized
automotive software architecture, jointly developed by automobile
manufacturers, suppliers, and tool developers, says the AUTOSAR
organization. It is said to be designed for the development of
vehicular software, user interfaces, and management for all application
domains.
With COQOS, the μOS micro-kernel "plays the role" of
the AUTOSAR OS required by the AUTOSAR compliant software that controls
internal automobile functions, OpenSynergy says. Thus, AUTOSAR modules
would likely have to be ported to the environment. Few details seem to
be available about the OS, although a similar open source project
evolved several years ago from the "TelemetryBox" project. Both
projects appear to be defunct now, at least as open source efforts.
IPC
(interprocess communication) between AUTOSAR and Linux environments is
provided by runtime environments (RTEs) that presumably run within each
stack. A Virtual Application Bus (VAB), meanwhile, is said to handle
communications between Linux infotainment applications.
Features listed for the COQOS framework are said to include:- AUTOSAR 3.1 Basis Software
- AUTOSAR 3.1 RTE Generator
- Processor Resource Management
- Communication interface between AUTOSAR and infotainment
- Firewall between infotainment and AUTOSAR
- Linux 2.6
- Middleware for infotainment applications
- OpenGL graphic support
- Fast-boot mechanism
- Software updates
The
framework supports both x86 and ARM architectures, says OpenSynergy.
The company does not appear to have more information on the Intel Atom
evaluation board at this time.
One company currently shipping
Atom-based boards targeting automotive systems is Congatec, which in
December launched an IVI (in-vehicle infotainment) Starter-kit based on
a COM Express module with a netbook-like chipset, with added CAN bus
and other automotive goodies. The Congatec Starterkit is promoted for
use with the Intel-sponsored Moblin Project's IVI software,
although software is currently not included in the Kit, according to
reports from developers on Moblin's mailing list. Wind River announced
in May of last year it planned to drive IVI development
and also commercialize the stack, but apparently has not yet merged its
work with the IVI project, perhaps suggesting its customers have not
yet begun distributing the software. (More details on Congatec's IVI
Starter Kit to follow shortly).
OpenSynergy has launched an "ECO
Partner Program" that can be joined on several levels. The company
provides "ECO Partners" with basic access to products and installation
support. "Premium ECO Partners," meanwhile, are expected to port COQOS,
as well as promote joint solutions to potential customers.
Stated
Frank-Peter Bohm, CEO of OpenSynergy, "COQOS meets different market
trends: Reducing cost in system development and hardware components
notwithstanding increasing demand in automotive functions. We think
that modern processors [like] the Intel Atom processor are going to
play an important role in that constellation."
Availability
OpenSynergy
is close to offering release 1 of COQOS and its Intel Atom evaluation
board, says the company, and will show COQOS 1.0 and the Intel Atom
board at the the CeBIT 2009, March 3-8 in Hannover, Germany, at Intel Pavilion P33. |
In depth: A lot of people have been chattering
about the improvements Windows 7 brings for Windows users, but how does
it compare to Ubuntu in real-world tests? We put Ubuntu 8.10, Windows
Vista and Windows 7 through their paces in both 32-bit and 64-bit tests
to see just how well Ubuntu faces the new contender. And, just for
luck, we threw in a few tests using Jaunty Jackalope with ext4.
When Windows users say that Windows 7 is easier to install than
ever, what do they really mean? When they say it's faster, is it just
in their heads, or is Microsoft really making big strides forward? And,
perhaps most importantly, when Linux benchmarkers show us how
screamingly fast ext4 is compared to ext3, how well do those figures
actually transfer to end users?
These are the questions we wanted to answer, so we asked Dell to
provide us with a high-spec machine to give all the operating systems
room to perform to their max. Our test machine packed an Intel Core i7
920, which in layman's terms has four cores running at 2.67GHz with
hyperthreading and 8MB of L3 cache. It also had 6GB of RAM, plus two
500GB of hard drives with 16MB of cache.
The tests we wanted to perform for each operating system were:
- How long does each operating system take to install?
- How much disk space was used in the standard install?
- How long does boot up and shutdown take?
- How long does it take to copy files from USB to HD, and from HD to HD?
- How fast can it execute the Richards benchmark?
We also, just for the heck of it, kept track of how many mouse clicks it took to install each OS.
Before we jump into the results, there are a few things we should make clear:
- To ensure absolute fairness, install time was measured from the
moment the computer was turned on until we reached a working desktop.
- The same computer hardware was used for all tests, and all operating systems were installed fresh for this article.
- We used the Ultimate versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, simply because Windows 7 was provided only in this flavour.
- We used the Windows Vista SP1 disk to accurately reflect what users are likely to experience todaay.
- Our Windows 7 version is the open beta that Microsoft issued
recently. It is probable Windows 7 will be at least this fast in the
final build, if not faster.
- For Ubuntu 9.04 we used the daily build from January 22nd.
- All operating systems were installed using standard options; nothing was changed.
- After checking how much space was used during the initial install,
each operating system was updated with all available patches before any
other tests were performed.
- Our journalistic friends have informed us that Windows Vista (and,
presumably, Windows 7 too) has technology to increase the speed of the
system over time as it learns to cache programs intelligently. It also
allows users to use flash drives to act as temporary storage to boost
speed further. None of our tests are likely to show this technology in
action, so please take that into account when reading the results.
- The filesystem, boot, shutdown and Richards benchmarks were performed three times each then averaged.
And, of course, there's the most important proviso of all: it is
very, very likely that a few tweaks to any of these operating systems
could have made a big difference to these results, but we're not too
interested in that - these results reflect what you get you install a
plain vanilla OS, like most users do.
Install time
Amount of time taken to install, from machine being turned on to working desktop. Measured in seconds; less is better.
At first glance, you might think that Ubuntu clearly installs far
faster than either version of Windows, and while that's true there is
one important mitigation: both Windows Vista and Windows 7 run system
benchmarks part-way through the installation to determine the
computer's capabilities.
A bit of a flippant one - just how many mouse clicks does it take to install an OS with the default options?
Surprisingly, Ubuntu 8.10 gets it done with half the clicks of
Windows 7. NB: hopefully it's clear this doesn't make Ubuntu 8.04 twice
as easy to install. Measured in, er, mouse clicks; fewer is better.
Disk space used immediately after a fresh install. Measured in gigabytes; less is better.
While some people might complain that we used the Ultimate editions
of both Vista and Windows 7, they probably forget that the standard
Ubuntu includes software such as an office suite as standard. NB: Vista
failed to detect the network card during install, leaving us without an
internet connection until a driver was downloaded on another computer.
Bootup and shutdown
Boot up time was also measured from the moment the machine was
turned on, and the timer was stopped as soon as the desktop was
reached. The Dell box does take about 20 seconds to get past POST, but
to avoid questions about when to start the timer we just started it as
soon as the power button was pressed.
Amount of time taken to boot, from machine being turned on to working desktop. Measured in seconds; less is better.
The 32-bit version of Windows 7 is the only one to beat the
one-minute mark, but that advantage is quickly lost in the switch to
64-bit. Linux has always been rather slow to boot, but as we understand
it reducing boot time is one of the goals of the Ubuntu 9.04 release.
Amount of time taken to shutdown, from button being clicked to machine powering off. Measured in seconds; less is better.
Windows lags a little behind the Linuxes, with 64-bit again proving a sticking point - this time for Windows Vista.
IO testing
To test filesystem performance, we ran four tests: copying large
files from USB to HD, copying large files from HD to HD, copying small
files from USB to HD, and copying small files from HD to HD. The HD to
HD tests copied data from one part of the disk to another as opposed to
copying to a different disk. For reference, the large file test
comprised 39 files in 1 folder, making 399MB in total; the small file
test comprised 2,154 files in 127 folders, making 603MB in total. Each
of these tests were done with write caching disabled to ensure the full
write had taken place.
Amount of time taken to copy the small files from a USB flash drive to hard disk. Measured in seconds; less is better.
Amount of time taken to copy the small files from one place to
another on a single hard disk. Measured in seconds; less is better.
Let us take this opportunity to remind readers that Windows 7 is still at least nine months from release.
Amount of time taken to copy the large files from a USB flash drive to hard disk. Measured in seconds; less is better.
Amount of time taken to copy the large files from one place to
another on a single hard disk. Measured in seconds; less is better.
With the exception of Windows 7 while copying larges files around a
hard drive, Windows generally suffered compared to Linux in all of
these tests. Obviously Windows does have to worry about some things
that Linux doesn't, namely DRM checks, but these figures show a drastic
performance difference between the two.
Notes: Vista and Windows 7 really seemed to struggle with copying
lots of small files, but clearly it's something more than a dodgy
driver because some of the large-file speeds are incredible in Windows
7.
Both Vista and Windows 7 seemed to introduce random delays when
deleting files. For example, about one in three times when deleting the
files from our filesystem benchmark, this screen below would appear and
do nothing for 25-30 seconds before suddenly springing into action and
deleting the files. However, this wasn't part of our benchmark, so
isn't included in the numbers above.
This was very annoying.
Richards benchmark
Notes: This was done using the cross-platform Python port of
Richards. For reference, Ubuntu 8.10 uses Python 2.5.2, Ubuntu 9.04
uses Python 2.5.4, and we used Python 2.5.4 on the Windows tests. Even
though the 64-bit results for Linux and Windows don't look that far
apart, we have to admit to being very impressed with the Windows tests
- the deviation between tests was just 3ms on Vista, and 5ms on Windows
7, compared to 20ms on Linux.
Amount of time taken to execute the Python Richards benchmark. Measured in milliseconds; less is better.
It's clear from that graph that having a 64-bit OS can make a real
difference in compute-intensive tasks, but it's not too pleasing to see
Windows pip Linux to the post in nearly all results.
Switching to ext4
All the Linux benchmarks above were done using ext3, so what happens when we switch to ext4? Well, not a lot:
Boot, shutdown and filesystem tests for Ubuntu 9.04/x86-64 using
ext3 (blue) and ext4 (red). Measured in seconds; less is better.
Although there's no difference in shutdown speed, the boot time
using ext4 dropped by 8 seconds, which is a fair improvement. We can
probably discount the the USB to HD tests simply out of error margin,
which leaves the HD to HD tests, and there we find a very healthy
boost: 3.7 seconds were shaved off the small files test, making ext4
about 25% faster. Our tests also showed an improvement in the large
file test, but it's not as marked.
Conclusions
Benchmarks are always plagued with questions, uncertainties, error
margins and other complexities, which is why we're not going to try to
look too deeply into these figures. Obviously we're Linux users
ourselves, but our tests have shown that there are some places where
Windows 7 really is making some improvement and that's good for
competition in the long term. However, Linux isn't sitting still: with
ext4 now stable we expect it to be adopted into distros fairly quickly.
Sadly it looks like Ubuntu 9.04 won't be among the first distros to
make the switch, so users looking to get the best performance from
their Linux boxes will either have to fiddle with the default options,
have patience, or jump ship to Fedora - which will be switching to ext4 in the next release.. www.tuxradar.com |
 Linus Torvalds has ceased to use KDE in favour of Gnome. It has declared it in interview to edition Computerworld: " I used to be a KDE user. I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster I
switched to GNOME. I hate the fact that my right button doesn't do what
I want it to do. But the whole "break everything" model is painful for
users and they can choose to use something else." |
A next-generation package manager called Nix
provides a simple distribution-independent method for deploying a
binary or source package on different flavours of Linux, including
Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, Fedora, and Red Hat. Even better, Nix does not
interfere with existing package managers. Unlike existing package
managers, Nix allows different versions of software to live side by
side, and permits sane rollbacks of software upgrades. Nix is a useful
system administration tool for heterogeneous environments and
developers who write software supported on different libraries,
compilers, or interpreters. Why
provide yet another package manager? Because current package managers
fall short in the upgrade cycle. Everyone gets burnt by software
dependencies, at some point. In particular, with a major release of any
given distribution, many people choose not to upgrade until it is time
to do a fresh install. With Nix, upgrades are always safe: they don't
overwrite previously installed packages. This means previous versions
will continue to work, and you can easily roll back. Nix started as an academic project at Utrecht University in the
Netherlands. The name is tongue in cheek; in Dutch it means "nothing." The problems: destructive upgrades, software versioning, heterogenous environmentsAll popular package managers, including APT, RPM and the FreeBSD
Ports Collection, suffer from the problem of destructive upgrades. When
you perform an upgrade -- whether for a single application or your
entire operating system -- the package manager will overwrite the files
that are currently on your system with newer versions. As long as
packages are always perfectly backward-compatible, this is not a
problem, but in the real world, packages are anything but perfectly
backward-compatible. Suppose you upgrade Firefox, and your package manager decides that
you need a newer version of GTK as well. If the new GTK is not quite
backward-compatible, then other applications on your system might
suddenly break. In the Windows world a similar problem is known as the
DLL hell, but dependency hell
is just as much a problem in the Unix world, if not a bigger one,
because Unix programs tend to have many external dependencies. Also, destructive upgrades make it hard to undo, or roll back, an
upgrade. Unless you or your package manager makes a backup of all the
files that got replaced, you cannot easily undo an upgrade. Finally, while the package manager is busy overwriting all the files
that belong to a package, your system is temporarily in an inconsistent
state in which a package may or may not work properly. Hit the power
switch on your computer halfway through your next OS upgrade and see if
the system will still boot properly! Usually, an upgrade of a package will make the older version
disappear. Sometimes a package manager allows a few versions next to
each other -- say gcc-3.4 and gcc-4.3. However, this only works if the
packager has arranged for this by making sure that the two versions
install to different paths. What if you want to test gcc-4.0.3 without
disrupting your system? Or if you want to test software using different
compiler, library, or interpreter versions and combinations? What if
you want to try the latest beta version of an application without
risking your existing installation? Then there is the problem of multi-distribution support. Developers
and systems administrators have no way of knowing what combinations of
kernel, libraries, and packages a user is running. When a user tries to
install some software and complains about a missing library, you can
suggest he try to find the appropriate packages, but you have not
tested them in the same combination of dependencies. You can ask him to
build from source, but he may not be using appropriate versions of
libraries and compiler. Even if you are lucky enough to work for an
institution that standardizes on a single distribution, you may find
users' libraries are outdated and do not support the software you want
to deploy. Existing package managers do well enough in furnishing stable
systems because they depend on a long period of testing by a lot of
people. However, when users need more recent software, because of a bug
or some missing functionality, they turn to so-called "testing" or even
"unstable" packages, which often come with a range of dependencies that
also get updated on the users' systems, potentially introducing
instabilities in other software that depends on those components. Nix has a more graceful approach that lets different versions of
software coexist. Rather than installing packages in global locations
such as /usr, it instead stores each package in its own directory under
/nix/store. The top-level directory for each package contains a
cryptographic hash based on all the inputs used to build the package.
That creates a unique identifier such that multiple versions of a
package don't interfere with each other, and different packages on your
system can use different versions of some dependency without causing a
conflict. This means that you can atomically upgrade and roll back
packages. Getting started with NixIronically, the best way to install Nix is to fetch and compile it from source using the normal ./configure ; make ; make install
commands, as root, as this will work for any system, including Mac OS X
and the BSDs. You'll need a standard GNU g++ build environment and curl
installed to bootstrap Nix. Once Nix is installed it no longer depends
on those tools. Nix stores packages and some metadata under the
directory /nix, so make sure there is enough space there. If / doesn't
have enough space, either use a special partition for /nix , or
bind-mount /nix to a filesystem that has 5 to 50GB of space available.
You should also add the file /usr/local/etc/profile.d/nix.sh to your
bashrc file. It sets up some environment variables (like $PATH) that
Nix needs in order to work properly. Once Nix itself is installed, you can start using it to install
software. You can get Nix Packages (Nixpkgs), a large collection of
packages for Nix, by downloading it from the Nix Web site
or checking it out from its Subversion repository. However, the easiest
way to use it is to subscribe to the Nixpkgs channel, which is just a
way to distribute the latest version of Nixpkgs automatically to users:
nix-channel --add http://nixos.org/releases/nixpkgs/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
nix-channel --update
Nixpkgs consists of a large set of Nix expressions, which are
Nix's language for describing how packages are built, similar to Gentoo
ebuilds. Nix is essentially a source-based package manager, like
Portage, but Nix will automatically download precompiled binaries of
packages if it can locate them by their hash values. The Nixpkgs
channel contains a lot of precompiled binaries, which speeds up package
installation significantly. Once nix-channel has downloaded Nixpkgs, you can see what packages
are available. The nix-env tool acts much like yum and apt-get. You can
see a list of packages by running nix-env -qa '*', or to list all the packages named Firefox, nix-env -qa firefox. That should return a list like:
firefox-2.0.0.17
firefox-2.0.0.17-with-plugins
firefox-3.0.4
firefox-3.0.4-with-plugins
You can add the -s flag to see which packages are pre-built in the
Nixpkgs channel. An S in the listing indicates that the package can be downloaded in binary form.
--S firefox-2.0.0.17
--- firefox-2.0.0.17-with-plugins
--S firefox-3.0.4
--- firefox-3.0.4-with-plugins
Installing a package with dependenciesTo see the power of Nix, let's say you want to install Firefox 2,
with all its dependencies and a bunch of plugins, such as Flash,
without overwriting anything on your existing system. Just type nix-env -i firefox-2.0.0.17-with-plugins
and Nix downloads and compiles these packages. Even though
firefox-2.0.0.17-with-plugins is not available precompiled in the
channel, most of its dependencies are. Nix will download binaries where
possible, and compile from source otherwise. Firefox has lots of
dependencies, from the GNU C library to GTK. Your distro will already
have most of these, but Nix installs its own copies to make sure that
you get exactly the right versions and that they don't interfere with
rest of your system. After all, nowadays, why not sacrifice a bit of
disk space to get predictability? So now you should be able to run the Firefox you just downloaded by simply typing firefox
on the command line. (You may need to set the FONTCONFIG_FILE
environment variable to /etc/fonts/fonts.conf to make sure it can find
your system's fonts.) Now let's try upgrading to Firefox 3, either with the command nix-env -i firefox-3.0.4-with-plugins, or nix-env -u firefox,
which would have made Nix pick the latest version. After this, you
should have Firefox 3 installed, but the old Firefox is not gone -- it
has not been overwritten. The two versions automatically end up in
different paths:
/nix/store/vskr06rlblihz22...-firefox-2.0.0.17-with-plugins
/nix/store/w1i05b7s30zqz...-firefox-3.0.4-with-plugins
You can see from this why packages do not interfere with each other.
You can run either version of Firefox cleanly from the above paths. Outside of Nix, you can still use the installed packages on your native system. The Nix packages are extra and independent. ProfilesOne can invoke a program directly from its path, or by adding paths
to the system's search paths, but the long path names obviously make
this ugly. That is why nix-env automatically generates trees of
symlinks to the installed packages automatically. To make this work,
you would have in your $PATH something like ~/.nix-profile/bin, which
points at one of these trees of symlinks. This is incidentally how Nix
can do atomic upgrades and rollbacks: it just generates a new tree of
symlinks to the new packages, then flips ~/.nix-profile to point at the
new one. You can have more than one of these trees of symlinks, or profiles,
each containing different activated packages. This lets you set up a
profile for a specific version of any application within a profile. For
instance, you could set up a profile to try out the latest version of
Firefox by entering the command:
nix-env --profile my-firefox-test -i firefox-3.0.4-with-plugins
then running ./my-firefox-test/bin/firefox (which is a
symlink to the actual location of Firefox 3 in /nix/store) -- it won't
affect your 'normal' Firefox in ~/.nix-profile/bin. RollbackSince installing Firefox 3 did not overwrite the old Firefox 2, it
is straightforward to roll back changes. If you want to go back to
Firefox 2, all you need to do is say nix-env --rollback to return to the previous situation. Of course, you'll probably want to get rid of old versions
eventually. If you are sure you do not need to roll back any more, you
can say nix-collect-garbage -d to delete all unneeded
packages from the system -- in this case Firefox 2 and any dependencies
that are not used by some other (still enabled) package. Creating your own packagesFinally, Nix comes with a domain-specific language for writing
package descriptions. This functional yet straightforward language
provides an elegant way of providing and maintaining packages with
their assorted dependencies. A package for PHP with dependencies, looks
like:
# Nix expression for building PHP. This is a function that given some arguments
# (like flex and libxml2) builds an instance of PHP in the Nix store.
# These are the function arguments...
{stdenv, fetchurl, flex, bison, libxml2, apacheHttpd, postgresql ? null, mysql ? null}:
# and this is the result of the function: a build action.
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "php-5.2.4";
src = fetchurl {
url = http://nl3.php.net/distributions/php-5.2.4.tar.bz2;
sha256 = "1h513j7crz08n7rlh8v7cvxfzisj87mvvyfrkiaa76v1wicm4bsh";
};
inherit flex bison libxml2 apacheHttpd;
builder = ./builder.sh;
buildInputs = [flex bison libxml2 apacheHttpd];
patches = [./fix.patch];
}
This Nix expression requires libxml2, among other packages, and
allows a choice of SQL back ends on installation. Nix expressions come
with a large number of commands for package definition, which usually
makes package descriptions compact and easy to understand. At build
time the environment is clean and isolated from all other libraries, so
dependencies always have to be included explicitly. A missing
dependency will always be detected, which is a great feature for software developers. The ability to pass options to the package configuration allows for
flexible package management. For instance, you could build a package
with GUI support on desktops and without GUI support on servers.
Stripped-down versions of software and even documentation are feasible
with Nix. More complex examples can be found in the package source tree. ConclusionWith Nix, you can use a rock-solid and stable distribution like
Debian stable or Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a foundation. When you
need to deploy recent software, not provided by the distribution, Nix
provides support for multiple versions, complete dependencies, and
rollback. Nix allows you to escape dependency hell by creating a
predictable system for software managment. |
 PDF
software company Foxit is readying an electronic book reader that
weighs 6.4 ounces, measures 0.4 inches thick, and runs Linux. The Foxit
eSlick offers E Ink's low-power electronic-paper display, ships with an
MP3 player, and sells for $100 less than an Amazon Kindle.
(Click for larger view of the eSlick)
Hanlin eReader V3
(Click for details) |
As if spurred on by the success of the hard-to-come-by Amazon Kindle,
which was rekindled by a recent endorsement by Oprah Winfrey, more and
more vendors appear to be jumping into the ebook market. Like the
Kindle, many of the new ebooks run Linux, and nearly all use the
low-power E Ink EPD display technology.
The eSlick appears to be very similar to the recently introduced Hanlin eReader V3, as well as Bookeen's Cybook, which is on sale in Europe.
Both of those products run Linux (Wolf Linux in Hanlin's case), offer
similar 7.2 x 4.7 x 0.4-inch dimensions, provide similar USB and MP3
player features, and share the same E Ink 6-inch, 800x600 gray-scale
display.
Whereas the eReader V3 and Cybook use the Samsung S3C2410 clocked at 200MHz, the eSlick runs the faster Samsung S3C2440,
which offers an ARM920T RISC core clocked at 400MHz. The eSlick
provides more memory than the Hanlin and Bookeen readers, with 128MB
RAM, and like these two E Ink cousins, it supplies an SD card slot for
storage, in this case offering a 2GB card standard, expandable to 4GB.
eSlick in white
The
eSlick boasts up to 8,000 pages of continuous reading on a single
charge, Foxit claims. An actual duration claim in hours is not
provided, because EPD displays use power only to set an image, and none
to maintain it. For more about EPD technology, see E Ink's AM-100 EPD dev kit.
E
Ink says its technology has appeared in a variety of watches and other
consumer electronic products from Seiko, Citizen, and Microsoft. It is
also used in Sony's LibriE e-book, which is available in Japan. Linux
ebook readers that use E Ink e-paper include the Readius, Amazon Kindle, eRead Star eBook STK-101, and the original iRex iLiad.
eSlick up close
Aside
from the low weight, the key asset that seems to differentiate the
eSlick is Foxit's embedded display software. The ebook reader offers
Foxit Reader preinstalled, providing features including font controls
with text reflow, and a zoom capability that is said to enlarge pages
from 50 percent to 400 percent. Format support is limited to PDF and
TXT files, but the device ships with Foxit's PC-based PDF Creator
software, which is said to convert any printable document with formats
including TXT, PPT, DOC, XLS, and HTML to PDF document format.
Documents can then be downloaded to the eSlick via the USB connection.
The Creator software, however, only runs on Windows.
The eSlick includes an MP3 player
Specifications listed for the eSlick include:- Processor -- Samsung S3C2440 ARM 400MHz
- Memory -- 128MB
- Flash expansion -- SD Card slot (2GB card included); supports up to 4GB
- Display -- 6-inch E Ink Vizplex screen with 600 x 800 resolution and 166 dpi, 4-level gray scale
- USB -- 1 x USB 2.0 port (cable included)
- Audio -- MP3 player; earphones and adapter
- Controls -- Buttons for power, up, down, left, right, enter, delete, menu, and music
- Plugs -- Euro 2Pin, UK 3Pin, US 2Pin
- Battery -- rechargeable Lithium
- Case colors -- black, gray, or white
- Dimensions -- 7.4 x 4.7 x 0.4 inches (188 Ч 118 Ч 9.2mm)
- Weight -- 6.4 oz (180g) with battery; AC adapter included
- Text formats -- PDF, TXT
- Bundled software -- Foxit Reader Pro Pack, PDF Creator, PDF Editor (trial); PDF Page Organizer Pro (trial)
- Operating system -- embedded Linux
Availability
The
Foxit eSlick will be available in January for an introductory price of
$230 (standard price $260). More information may be available here.
|
 The
market for MIDs, netbooks, and other devices that straddle the notebook
and smartphone formats will turn into a battleground between X86 and
ARM architectures, says ABI Research. The competition will come down to
ARM's power-saving advantage vs. the X86 edge in software
compatibility, says ABI.
The ABI analysis on processors is part of its larger study of UMDs (ultra-mobile devices), which it defines as covering netbooks, ultra-mobile PCs, and mobile Internet devices (MIDs), such as BenQ's Intel Atom-based S6 MID
(pictured above). The processor rivalry is "playing a pivotal role in
how this market is shaping up," says the study, which notes that
X86-based processors from Intel are well entrenched in the PC world,
while ARM-based processors lead the way in handsets.
As mobile
converged devices sit in between, they will soon be the locus of
intensified rivalry between the platforms. In fact, says ABI, Intel and
ARM Ltd. are "already fighting it out, starting with marketing wars."
Converging toward a MID ground
Thanks
to Intel's push behind MIDs and netbooks, which both primarily run the
Intel Atom processor, the X86 camp appears to have the early lead.
However, ARM is likely to eclipse Intel in MIDs, says ABI. "X86-based
processor vendors are in a very good position in the near term as far
as product wins and market share are concerned," stated ABI Research
principal analyst Philip Solis. "However, as MIDs start to surpass
netbooks in shipment volumes, ARM-based solutions will be in a better
position."
The MID-like Archos 5 PMP
is based on TI's ARM
Cortex-A8-based OMAP3x
(Click for details) |
The
superior software compatibility of X86 processors from Intel and Via is
not likely to change soon, but unlike the netbook category, full
software compatibility may not be as big of an issue on handheld MIDs.
The bigger question is whether processors such as the Atom, and Intel's
next-generation mobile processor, code-named Moorestown, can keep up
with ARM on power management. "For devices such as MIDs, that may be
used very heavily all day or may need to last for days without
recharging, ARM-based processors hold the advantage," says ABI.
While
the study mentions Via Technologies as holding up the X86 fort along
with Intel, it does not make any predictions regarding the potential
success of Via's Nano processor in the category. In tech-publication
benchmarks comparing the Nano with the Atom, the Nano outperformed the Atom, but used more power under full load, suggesting that Nano, with its out-of-order pipeline, may be better suited to nettops.
As
Intel and Via continue to tune power management, ARM is working with
software vendors to improve compatibility, says the research group.
"The future shape of this market will be determined by engineering
success on the x86 side versus business success on the ARM side,"
concluded Solis.
Big ARM MID on the block:
Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet |
In ABI's first report based on its UMD research, focusing on MIDs,
ABI forecast that by 2013, MIDs will outsell netbooks, and that Linux
will take the "lion's share" of the market, selling 86 million devices
that year. The Linux MID segment will primarily be limited to three
platforms, said ABI, with the Intel-sponsored Moblin.
leading with 42 percent. Next in line, the group projected, will come
Maemo, which runs on Nokia's Internet Tablets, including the N810 (pictured). The N810 uses an ARM-based Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP 2420, and next year Nokia will release a new Maemo-5-based tablet that runs on TI's more powerful ARM Cortex-A8-based OMAP3x processor. The LiMo Foundation's mobile-phone oriented LiMo Platform, was pegged as coming in third in MID software.
Availability
More information on the ABI Research UMD study should be here.
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