In response to the article that I posted on linuxjournal.com about transitioning GNOME wallpapers, the web editor suggested that I show people how to create desktop background slide shows in other desktop environments, as well.
In anticipation of the upcoming OpenPandora console release, some videos of the OS and final case have recently been posted. I will share them with you.
OS Snippet #1:
OS Snippet #2:
OS Snippet #3:
Here is one of the first assembled Pandora consoles:
Multiple Pandoras in action, at a variety of different tasks:
EvilDragon's Pandora Prototype:
N64/Analog "nubs" demo:
D-Pad demo with Picodrive:
These are very exciting developments. I am among the people who pre-ordered this console, and I have been waiting patiently for it to arrive. Good things come to those who wait. I look forward to getting my Pandora console in the near future! Visit Pandora Press for more Pandora Console info from the unofficial blog. The official Pandora Console page is located here.
I was recently published on Linux Journal about creating a slideshow that runs as a background in the Gnome desktop environment.
For those of you that learn more with videos, I was able to find a video of someone manually editing the XML and creating a custom slideshow background.
Intel recently announced a 48 core processor, dubbing it "Single-chip Cloud Computing". We are reaching the point where our children will look at us and ask "Back in the olden days, did you really have to use a computer with only one computing core? It must have been so slow!"
Here are some videos that explain the technology:
Note in the first video (starting around 1:40), they mention the motherboard and operating system setup for testing a chip such as this: "...We also developed a Linux operating system for this platform based on the full-featured standard Linux kernel where we applied the necessary changes for the specifics of this experimental platform..." Score one for Intel, but give the assist to Linux.
Seeing the developments in Linux private cloud computing, such as Ubuntu's Enterprise Cloud and ParaScale's Cloud Storage Solutions, chips such as this one will help pave the way for task specific operating systems and appliances in addition to coding projects that will take advantage of the massively parallel power that these chips possess. We live in exciting times...
Yesterday (Nov. 30th), Sun announced its first major update to VirtualBox 3 with the release of version 3.1. The major new features include:
Teleportation (aka live migration); migrate a live VM session from one host to another (see the manual for more information)
VM states can now be restored from arbitrary snapshots instead of only the last one, and new snapshots can be taken from other snapshots as well ("branched snapshots"; see the manual for more information)
2D video acceleration for Windows guests; use the host video hardware for overlay stretching and color conversion (see the manual for more information)
More flexible storage attachments: CD/DVD drives can be attached to an arbitrary IDE controller, and there can be more than one such drive (the manual for more information)
The network attachment type can be changed while a VM is running
Complete rewrite of experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts making use of the latest USB enhancements in Solaris Nevada 124 and higher
Significant performance improvements for PAE and AMD64 guests (VT-x and AMD-V only; normal (non-nested) paging)
Experimental support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface; see the manual for more information)
Support for paravirtualized network adapters (virtio-net; see the manual for more information)
In addition to the major features, a slew of minor fixes have been included, such as fixes in the 3D support of guest OSes while playing games such as Unreal Tournament.
As always, see the Changelog and the user manual (in PDF or HTML) for all the details. I am incredibly impressed with the pace of VirtualBox's development. Every time I turn around, they add another cool feature.
Ars Technica has a review of version 3.1, as well.
If you're reading this blog, you've probably heard of Linux before. What you may not be aware of is how the Linux Foundation and linux.com figure into the equation.
The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium decicated to fostering the growth of Linux. It was founded in 2007 in a merger of the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG). More about the Linux Foundation can be found in the organization's about page. An item of note about the Linux Foundation is that they employ Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.
In May of 2009, the Linux Foundation also relaunched linux.com as a community site for Linux users, having acquired it from Sourceforge Inc./Geeknet in early 2009. Their newly launched site is a site that I have enjoyed quite a bit since its launch. It contains a wide variety of Linux related news, as well as also containing a rather large community portion. Linux.com allows you to create your own groups, either pre-existing (such as NEWLUG) or brand new, (such as Pandora Console Fans). This offers Linux geeks an opportunity to gather and communicate in a central location.
For new users of Linux, there are quite a few positive aspects to linux.com. The site features a variety of newbie friendly resources, most of which are located in the Free Linux Support section of the website, such as tutorials, new user guides, answers, and documentation. It is nice to have all of this information in an easily accessible place.
I'm a member. Here is my user tag:
If you like linux.com as well, feel free to friend me, participate in groups, and comment on my community blog posts!
If you're a Linux user, you may be frustrated with the current Linux implementation of Flash, especially when it comes to viewing videos on YouTube. As I mentioned earlier, YouTube isn't just for reruns of He-Man, videos of Super Mario World speedruns, Harry Potter Puppet Pals, and the evolution of dance anymore. Unfortunately, YouTube videos (which use Flash) have some issues in Linux, especially if you are among the people who run dual screens under the same X server (I run Twinview with the proprietary Nvidia drivers).
Allow me to explain some of the current issues. In the interests of bandwidth, smaller thumbnails are shown, but larger res versions are available if you click on them. Let's assume that you have found awesome blog or website on the Internet about Linux stuff with embedded YouTube videos, such as the Pandora Video Vault or, ahem, my blog. Example number one: You start the video, then attempt to maximize the video to see more. Sadly, instead of filling your whole screen, huge white bars above and below your video appear, and the video plays at the same resolution as before you maximized. Sometimes, the video gets smaller! Example number two: Your dual screen computer has Firefox open in its secondary display, and you try to maximize your window. Instead of maximizing in the current screen, it takes over the primary display. To add insult to injury, it still has the large white bands above and below the video.
Clicking on your Internet browser in the secondary display immediately causes the video to return to the embedded link in the page. The same thing happens if you click the primary window. You're pretty much stuck viewing the videos in the resolution in which they are initially presented.
Enter MiniTube, stage left. MiniTube (currently at version 0.8.1)allows you to overcome some of these restrictions and annoyances. MiniTube opens up as an application and allows you to easily make the videos full screen. It's available for Linux and Mac OSX. Since it doesn't use Flash, you may also see performance increases on hardware that doesn't play well with Flash.
Since MiniTube is a YouTube video viewer, I should probably include a youtube link to it. Unfortunately, the only link to a current video that I can find is in Italian from Paglia's Blog with a strange Matrix-esque soundtrack. It shows off Minitube well enough, though.
There are still some issues with MiniTube, though. When watching full-screen videos on MiniTube, if you interact with a web browser window in the screen opposite the full-screen video, the menu panels will appear. Most of the time, this is fine, as the video is still large, and I am able to interact with the browser without having any of the aforementioned craziness occur.
Navigation in MiniTube is an issue. The only method that MiniTube appears to use for navigation is a small search window in the upper right hand corner. After entering a search term, you can search for the most relevant, most recent, or most viewed entries. Finding a particular video that's already been embedded in a web page is not as straightforward as simply clicking it. You typically have to search MiniTube for the explanatory text shown in the embedded window, such as "Pandora mupen64plus" or "Stanford Programming Methodology". The search function does work quite well, but it's a little annoying to type something like "Stanford Programming Methodology" over and over again. On the main screen of MiniTube there is a search history, so you don't necessarily have to retype everything, but move navigating options would be nice.
MiniTube doesn't feature any graphical feedback on how the video is loading. One of the videos I watched started stuttering about halfway through. After pausing the video for about a minute and starting it again, it played just fine, but it would have been nice to know how much buffer remains before I get to the stuttering.
This next thing might be either positive or negative depending on what you prefer. MiniTube is designed to be a refactoring of YouTube into a more television-like experience. When you mouseover the full screen, nothing happens. This can be liberating if you are used to YouTube contstantly reminding you about the Escape key allowing you to leave full-screen mode, as well as displaying some rather annoying pop-ups. However, the only navigation you can do from full-screen is "Stop", "Play", "Skip", and "Exit Full Screen". Once you are back in the windowed MiniTube player, you can skip around in the video using the slider.
Conclusion: Although MiniTube is not perfect, I will keep using it in order to avoid the full-screen shenanigans that happen with Flash. If Adobe gets their act together and release versions of Flash for Linux that don't suck, I may change that opinion.
