Future of Open Source: Hack This Gadget, Jun 15, 2009

The open source movement gave rise to Linux and spawned a generation of collaborative coders. Now it's extending its reach to the hardware industry.

It seems that some more details on the capabilities of the newly launched Palm Pre and on its webOS platform have made it into the wild, and among them the fact that the handset can easily run unsigned firmware. It all starts with the installation of a native Linux version of the FCEUltra NES emulator from within a Debian chroot.

Linux's changes may not be as big from version to version, but they tend to be thoroughly tested and stable.

A team of developers from the Interactive Computing Lab at the ENAC (Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile) aeronautics academy in Toulouse, France have successfully created proof-of-concept multi-touch drivers for Linux.

Linux kernel version 2.6.30 has been released, adding support for new file systems, performance improvements, and new hardware drivers.

2.6.29.5 has been released today.
See changelog for full details.

Files added: 1
Files changed: 329
Files removed: 0

Suse Linux and Windows will become more closely integrated next week, when Novell releases a product allowing Microsoft management tools to monitor the open source operating system.

You may know of Xandros Linux; for many people exposure came through the Eee PC, with this being the distro chosen by Linux-turncoat ASUS. Yet, what is Xandros' stance on open source software? Might Xandros be a thinly-veiled Microsoft tout as Linspire reborn?

 View older news this year: Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan
 View news from other years: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999