init6 Technology

I have recently purchased a replacement router for my WRT54GS that I recently deployed for someone. I purchased the Linksys WRT160NL with the assumption that at some point there would be custom firmware for this. It runs on a miniature version of Linux much like the older WRT54GL. It’s based on a different chipset however due to the availability of Draft N wireless.

Many projects are working on creating custom firmware, but here is the one I have been keeping an eye on.

I thought this was a great article over at Gizmodo.

I have to say for the most part, I completely agree with this guy. Just recently I switched to Ubuntu for quite some time and then to a Mac. I had pretty much the same realization, almost everything I do is online now and the OS really doesn’t matter much. All three have their highlights and their low points. Windows does have one glaring problem, it is the most popular which means almost every virus and spyware program is aimed firmly at it. So I would say, why hold the bullseye when you can get out of the line of fire altogether?

GNOME 2.26 was released today.

New features:
- Comprehensive New Disc Burning
- Simpler File Sharing
- Evolution Evolves its Migration from Windows
- Media Player Improvements
- Volume Control Integrated with PulseAudio
- Support for multiple monitors and projectors
- Almost Telepathic Communication
- Location Epiphany
- Fingerprint Reader Integration
- And more

Read about the details from the source.

A new IM client has been released into the wild recently from the guys at Synapse. The Synapse IM client looks like it has some very nice features.
- Grid view for viewing the icon/picture representation of your friends
- Activity feed for a unified view of your friends’ statuses, currently playing music, twitter updates, and more
- Easy photo sharing with drag and drop functionality and Flickr integration for existing photos
- Website previews including video
- Syntax aware code sharing
- Extensible through a plugin architecture

Catch the screenshots below all courtesy of Synapse IM:

Tux Radar put up a great article about the Linux kernel explaining what exactly it does. Head over there to take a look.

Here is an excerpt:

The kernel is a piece of software that, roughly speaking, provides a layer between the hardware and the application programs running on a computer. In a strict, computer-science sense, the term ‘Linux’ refers only to the kernel – the bit that Linus Torvalds wrote in the early 90s.

All the other pieces you find in a Linux distribution – the Bash shell, the KDE window manager, web browsers, the X server, Tux Racer and everything else – are just applications that happen to run on Linux and are emphatically not part of the operating system itself. To give some sense of scale, a fresh installation of RHEL5 occupies about 2.5GB of disk space (depending, obviously, on what you choose to include). Of this, the kernel, including all of its modules, occupies 47MB, or about 2%.

Today the people at Ubuntu unveiled the new Alpha 6 release of Ubuntu 9.04. With a final release date of April 23rd, this release is getting quite close to a Beta and even final state. This release of Ubuntu is titled Jaunty Jackalope. I’ve already played with a previous Alpha release and was very pleased. I’ll be trying this new one out shortly, if I can get it downloaded quick enough.

Some features of this release:

X.Org server 1.6
The latest X.Org server, version 1.6, is available in Jaunty.

Font size optimization
Font dot-per-inch settings are now optimized based on your monitor’s capabilities, rather than defaulting to 96 dpi. You can further customize your dpi settings via System → Preferences → Appearance → Fonts → Details…

New style for notifications and notification preferences
Included in Jaunty is a simple menu which can be used to set preferences for notification icons, such as where they pop up on the taskbar. There is a possibility that Ubuntu 9.04 will get a whole new notification system, as shown in the Flash movie below:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/jaunty904_notifications_example1_web_092.swf

Ext4 filesystem support
Alpha 6 supports the option of installing the new ext4 file system. ext3 is still the default filesystem for Jaunty. However the Ubuntu team is considering ext4 as the default filesystem for the next release based on user feedback.

Linux kernel 2.6.28
Alpha 6 includes the 2.6.28-8.26 kernel based on 2.6.28.7.

For downloading see below links or hit a local mirror:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/alpha-6/ (Ubuntu Desktop, Server, Netbook Remix, and MID)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-6/ (Ubuntu Education Edition)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-6/ (Kubuntu) Kubuntu release notes
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-6/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/jaunty/alpha-6/ (UbuntuStudio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/jaunty/alpha-6/ (Mythbuntu)

Beware this is an Alpha release so don’t go installing this on a main system and complaining about instability. However with that said, in the past I’ve found past Ubuntu Alpha releases this far along to be fairly stable. Happy Ubuntu’in?! Is that a term?

I’ve had a question or two from friends about what init6 means or stands for. I thought I’d take a few seconds to explain.

“init 6” performs reboot in a clean and orderly manner,informing the svc.startd daemon of the change in runlevel,which subsequently achieves the appropriate milestone and ultimately executes the rc0 kill scripts.

“reboot” performs an immediate system reboot,does not execute the rc0 kill scripts,simply unmounts file systems and reboots the System. It is not recommended,especially when you are rebooting after a live-upgrade of OS & any patch-updates ,etc.

In other words “init 6″ tells the UNIX/Linux system to reboot gracefully.

For more details on the whole “init” command structure and options look here.

Xandros, the linux version of choice on the Asus Eee PC, has taken what they have learned from that market and applied it to a new mini OS called Presto. Presto is designed to be a fully functional linux desktop that you can boot into within seconds and use the most common applications. It’s designed to be installed on a laptop or other hardware on the move where booting into a full version of WIndows can be trying and definitely annoying. The best part of Presto linux is that it doesn’t replace Windows it just installs on top of it. When you turn on your laptop you have a choice of quickly booting Presto linux or instead waiting for your full version of WIndows to load.

Here is a list what’s provided by default:

• Browse the web securely using Firefox™
• Chat using instant messaging (IM)
• Make free Skype™ calls
• Listen to music and watch videos
• View and edit documents created in Microsoft Office™
• Download games, music, videos and more through the Presto online store

The last one on the list is very interesting because Xandros is following the “App Store” idea and working on providing applications for download directly from them. Presto also connects to networks over WiFi, 3G, xDSL, LAN and cable. Additionally, Presto includes a 14-day free trial of Real Player SuperPass to watch TV online and listen to thousands of radio stations worldwide.

Here are few screenshots just for completeness:

The OEM version is available immediately. A consumer download for $19.95 and a free trial version will be made available to the public on April 13, 2009 at www.prestomypc.com (a beta version will be available on March 16).

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I have absolutely no idea what I would really need this for, however it does seem as though the possibilities are endless. Have you ever wanted a webserver running in a Altoids container? Or perhaps one that can be hidden under a lamp shade? Me either but I’m sure someone does.The picture below is of the picotux which claiming to be the worlds smallest Linux running computer, at 35mm x 19mm x 19mm it sure seems to be small enough for the claims. This thing comes with a preloaded uCLinux operating system and it’s can run a telnet server and a webserver.

I heard about this thing from here.

Here are some of the specs:

I found this on Digg this evening and thought it was a great idea. Apparently, Debian Linux has released a frontend install loader that runs from Windows. It was adapted from a similar project for Ubuntu (which I was unaware of). You can even visit a website to directly start the process.

Here’s the details straight from the horses mouth, so to speak:

“This is the announcement of “Debian-Installer Loader”, a win32 loader for
Debian Installer.Overall, the process is very simple (it’s been inspired by a similar
project with Ubuntu). D-I-L runs on the users’ win32 system,
auto-detects whether the CPU supports 64-bits, picks the appropriate
linux and initrd.gz images for netboot, and uses GRUB for DOS to
chainload into it.

This has a few interesting applications:

- Migrating to Debian on hardware without CD drive (or USB boot capability).

- Migrating to Debian for users who have no idea how to burn an ISO
and/or how to configure their BIOS for CD boot.

- Migrating a system to Debian inmediately, at any time, wether
we have a boot CD at hand or not.

- Advocating Debian to Windows users. Rather than give them a CD
(expensive), give them a piece of paper with an URL.”