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Mihalis Tsoukalos
has over 15 years of UNIX system administration and programming experience and has been using Linux since 1993. He is also proficient in Oracle database administration, Cisco IOS and Cocoa. In this issue Mihalis shows us how to sync files with Unison, a useful open source CLI tool (42-45).Himanshu Arora
is a software programmer, open source enthusiast and Linux researcher. His articles have been featured on IBM developerWorks and Computerworld among others. He also blogs at mylinuxbook.com. This month he shows us how to make the most of Vim with his expert guide starting on page 62.Michael Reed
is a technology writer, and he’s been hacking away at Linux for over 15 years. He specialises in desktop Linux solutions among other things. In issue 131 Michael shows us how to get started with databases using LibreOffi ce – it’s easier than you might think. See his work on pages 34-37.Jon Masters
is a Linux kernel hacker who has been working on Linux for some 18 years, since he fi rst attended university at the age of 13. Jon lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and works for a large enterprise Linux vendor. You can fi nd his indispensable Kernel Column on pages 22-23 this month.Gareth Halfacree
is our new resident news reporter and brings us the latest from all over the open source ecosystem, starting on page 14. Also this issue, Gareth speaks to Intel about its new dev platform MinnowBoard on page 6. You can also find his review of this potential RasPi-beater on pages 12-13.Rob Zwetsloot
studied aerospace engineering at university, using Python to model complex simulations in class. Along with tutorials, reviews and more this issue, Rob tells us which IDE we should be using (pages 72-77) and walks us through the build process of an Onion Pi (pages 46-49).Yo
ur t
ea
m o
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in
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ts
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Get in touch with the team:
[email protected]
Welcome
to issue 131 of Linux User & Developer
Welcome to the latest edition of Linux User &
Developer, the UK and America’s favourite open
source and Linux magazine.
When you’re trying to make the best Linux and open
source read in the world, there’s nothing more useful
than feedback from readers. There’s little point us
being here if we don’t aim to give you a healthy dose
of what you want, so we pay close attention to what you
have to say. But what have you been saying? After collecting,
formatting, graphing and a lot of stubble scratching, it’s clear
many of you want more tutorials, bigger reviews and more
introductory and intermediate developer content.
As you’ll see this issue, we’ve dedicated more pages
to tutorials and guides than ever before and we’ve even
reformatted our distro reviews to make them more useful.
We still need your help, though. If you’re keen to learn more
about development in the open source fi eld, we want to know
what languages and frameworks you care about. We’ve been
focusing very heavily on Python in recent months and intend
to continue with this, but would you like to see Qt, Vala and
C++ here too, or something else entirely?
Let us know on Facebook and Twitter or simply drop me an
email directly at [email protected].
Russell Barnes, Editor
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We chat to Scott Garman about Intel’s first foray into the world
of Linux-powered open hardware development systems
Scott Garman, the man Intel has appointed as the ‘evangelist’ for its first steps into open hardware development, has a history of embedded development. “I’m not a hardcore
kernel hacker,” he tells us during an interview to commemorate the launch of the MinnowBoard single-board computer, “but a generalist who enjoys working with the big picture in mind.”
A software engineer for the Yocto Project, a collaborative effort to make the development of Linux distributions for embedded platforms as simple as possible, working under Intel’s
Intel’s big fish
in a little pond
n Scott Garman is a Yocto Project engineer
at Intel, and the company’s evangelist for the MinnowBoard
Open Source Technology Center, Garman has already given plenty back to the community. He’s responsible for Yocto-related training materials, including one of the most popular screencast introductions to the project, and is now leading the effort to introduce the first open hardware platform designed with Yocto firmly in mind: the Intel MinnowBoard.
The MinnowBoard, reviewed on page 12, owes a clear debt of gratitude to devices like the Raspberry Pi and the BeagleBoard. Designed around Intel’s ‘Queens Bay’ platform, which has
at its heart a low-power 32-bit Atom processor, the board is designed as a development platform to bring the flexibility and familiarity of the x86 instruction set architecture to embedded systems – and to do so at a low cost.
Most surprisingly of all, the device is open hardware: all specifications, schematics, board layouts and firmware packages are available for download and reuse under a permissive licence – a first for an Intel hardware product. Clearly, this is a departure from the norm, and one of which Garman is understandably proud.
Intel’s big fish in a little pond
How did the MinnowBoard come about?
“I’d say development in earnest started happening at the end of 2012. MinnowBoard was an unusual project because of the way Intel and CircuitCo [the company behind the BeagleBoard and BeagleBone development platforms] collaborated on it. The Intel Yocto Project team provided input to help design the requirements for MinnowBoard around performance, openness, flexibility and standards. CircuitCo then used an Intel reference design – the ‘Queens Bay’ platform – and adapted it as needed. They also manufacture and sell the MinnowBoard, so it’s primarily their product, not Intel’s. The result is a win-win situation where our team got a great development platform and more, and CircuitCo has a compelling product platform to sell.
“We’ve been really happy to work with CircuitCo on this, because they understand the open hardware/open community model so well, but we both had plenty of things to learn from each other during the process of bringing
up this first board. It’s turned out to be a great collaboration and we’re really pleased with the results.
“In one sense, the Intel team working on this is extremely small. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to discount the contributions that many people have done to help make this happen, even if they weren’t involved with the project full-time on a daily basis.”
What led to the decision to choose the Queens Bay platform, with its ‘Tunnel Creek’ Atom processor, in the MinnowBoard?
“Two main issues led us to use Tunnel Creek CPU for MinnowBoard. One, we were looking for longevity of the platform. Going with an open hardware model means that this is going to be an attractive board for embedded product companies to use and adapt for commercial products. I can tell you from experience, there is nothing more frustrating
“To my knowledge,
MinnowBoard is
the first hardware
platform designed
with the Yocto
Project in mind”
nThe MinnowBoard itself
is compact yet powerful, and boasts impressive I/O capabilities
nAlong with the power and reset buttons
on the right, the MinnowBoard boasts four programmable buttons
nThe MinnowBoard sits on four stilts to help aid the
passive cooling of its 1GHz Intel Atom processor
The open
hardware movement n Open hardware – an offshoot of open source, where the schematics, component lists, and even the individual Gerber files for having printed circuit boards made are released under a permissive licence – is growing increasingly popular. Although the Raspberry Pi, one of the most popular low-cost embedded development platforms, is proprietary, many of its competitors are more open: as well as the MinnowBoard, the Gizmo, the BeagleBoard and its smaller BeagleBone offshoot, the Olimex OLinuXino family, and the microcontroller-based Arduino range are all open hardware.
Open hardware can lead to rapid advances in features and technologies for the projects that adopt it, but as with open source software there are risks: the Arduino’s open nature has led to it being one of the most copied projects around, with Far Eastern factories churning out illegitimate clones by the dozen and misappropriating the project’s trademark in direct contravention of its otherwise extremely permissive licence.
InTervIew
How the MinnowBoard came about
Intel’s big fish in a little pond
standards. The Intel Atom CPU provides plenty of performance for high computational workloads. It also has strong I/O performance due to PCI Express powering its Gigabit Ethernet and SATA disk features. We also make PCI Express available through MinnowBoard’s expansion connector to enable high-speed I/O to custom hardware projects, for example interfacing with FPGAs or other hardware.
“The MinnowBoard can be used for fun hobby projects, yet scales up to higher workloads. It’s expandable via several PC and embedded bus standards, and offers an environment for custom fi rmware development.
than developing a successful embedded product and then fi nding out that your components are about to enter end-of-life. Queens Bay is a platform used in IVI [In-Vehicle-Infotainment] devices, and was designed with a long lifespan – since people tend to own cars for a long time. It still has four to fi ve years left in the product’s life cycle.
“Two, the time to execute was now, so we weren’t about to wait for upcoming Intel platforms to roll out. Tunnel Creek met our main requirements and was available immediately, so we ran with it.”
What advantages does the x86 architecture used in the Atom processor offer in the embedded space, compared to ARM or other RISC platforms?
“Compatibility is likely the biggest advantage. Linux originated on the Intel 386, and whether you’re working on embedded or desktop applications, the toolchain, libraries etc were designed on and are pretty much guaranteed to work on x86.
“Performance is another signifi cant one. Countless person-years have been put into optimising compilers such as GCC to take full advantage of x86 platforms, so you can leverage that to its greatest benefi t.”
■The MinnowBoard includes eight GPIO pins
and a dedicated expansion port for ‘Lures’
■Larger and pricier than the
Pi, the MinnowBoard offers full x86 compatibility
■With Gigabit Ethernet and a real-time clock, it pulls ahead
of the Raspberry Pi
Do you agree that the success of the ARM-based Raspberry Pi has demonstrated a clear demand for low-cost development boards from hobbyists?
“Yes, absolutely. One of the things I appreciate and respect about the Raspberry Pi project is that it’s introducing so many new people to embedded Linux development. It used to be that embedded was a niche thing that software engineers specialised in, and now the embedded Linux community is becoming much more diverse, especially with younger people. I love that.”
What does the MinnowBoard offer that other, more established development boards lack?
“MinnowBoard stands out in its combination of performance, fl exibility, openness and
Intel’s big fish in a little pond
“The open hardware model is
very attractive in empowering
your customers”
MinnowBoard includes PC architecture standards including PCIe, USB and SATA, as well as embedded standards such as SPI, I2C, GPIO and even [a CAN bus] for automotive applications. It was designed with the Yocto Project in mind, which is an industry-wide
standard for embedded Linux.”
The MinnowBoard is open hardware – how important do you think that will be to its success in the market?
“The open hardware model is very attractive in empowering your customers and allowing them to innovate in ways you can’t anticipate. Since people are free to reproduce and customise the MinnowBoard, the sky is the limit with this board’s potential. I think this will be fundamental to [its] success.
“Keep in mind that open hardware is meaningful not only if the design fi les are available, but when all the parts are available through accessible distribution channels and the board’s price is not subsidised. If someone wants to rebuild it, or rebuild something similar, they can at about the cost it’s being sold for now. Not many boards can offer that potential.”
What made Intel get involved in hobbyist-level embedded computing development?
“We wanted MinnowBoard to become a useful platform for Yocto Project development that encouraged experimentation and the pursuit of fun projects in addition to more serious embedded applications, as a board we would use in Yocto Project training courses. And we needed it to be flexible enough so you could do interesting things in a classroom-style setting, which lines up with what hobbyists want, too.”
With the board now in the hands of early adopters, have you seen any particularly innovative or exciting applications for the MinnowBoard emerge from the community?
“It’s still a bit early for me to have good visibility into this, as the board has only been available for about three weeks [at the time of the interview]. As I hear about community projects, I do intend to highlight them on our social media channels.
“I am aware of someone who plans to use a MinnowBoard as part of a quality control system for 3D printers by making use of computer vision capabilities. I’ve also heard that folks in the FGPA design community are quite interested in the MinnowBoard due to its high-speed expansion capabilities. There’s also a group of students interested in building out learning exercises on the MinnowBoard, as a way to advance their embedded design skills.”
Intel has something of a mixed history with the open source community - in particular in failing to release graphics drivers for selected Atom processor models. With the MinnowBoard being truly open, does this signal a shift in attitude towards the open source and open hardware communities at Intel?
“The Open Source Technology Center at Intel is full of incredibly talented, well-known and passionate people who care deeply about openness. In recent years this group has grown dramatically in both size and infl uence, and it refl ects the reality of the increased infl uence open source plays in the global software ecosystem.
“Intel’s Core graphics have open source drivers that work with hardware acceleration, and the upcoming Bay Trail Atom platform makes use of it. This will address the issue you mentioned with graphics drivers on Atom. I’m looking forward to this, and I think Intel is defi nitely moving in the right direction in this regard.”
Intel and CircuitCo have published a list of current and proposed add-on boards, dubbed Lures, for the MinnowBoard. Is there a particular add-on you would like to highlight?
“One of the Lures that I’m sure will be quite popular is the Trainer Lure – the one based on an Arduino [microcontroller]. Combining the computational power of MinnowBoard with
the embedded input/output capabilities and community of Arduino will open up a lot of interesting possibilities.”
How critical is Linux and the Yocto Project to the MinnowBoard’s success?
“We designed the board to be a Yocto Project development platform, and Yocto produces embedded Linux distros. So it’s pretty core to our purpose. It was the primary motivation behind the project itself – to my knowledge, MinnowBoard is the fi rst hardware platform designed with the Yocto Project in mind. But most people using the MinnowBoard may have no knowledge of or interest in the Yocto Project – that’s okay, too.”
Is the MinnowBoard likely to be the fi rst in a family of open development boards from Intel, or is it merely an experiment for the company?
“There are a lot of people within Intel who are excited about open hardware. I can’t speak [about] any specifi c future product plans, but I think the future is very, very bright.”
Queens Bay
The code name for the combination of an Intel Atom E6xx-series processor with the EG20T controller hub (code-named Tunnel Creek and Topcliff respectively), Intel launched the Queens Bay platform in 2010 with the embedded market fi rmly in mind.
Initially, the company targeted in-car computer systems for navigation and entertainment – so-called ‘infotainment’ devices – but claimed the platform would be equally at home in gaming, communications, point-of-sale, industrial and digital signage applications.
The Tunnel Creek family of processors are not true system-on-chip designs, offl oading much of the circuitry to the EG20T chip, but do include the CPU, a graphics processor supporting up to two simultaneous displays, an audio controller and a hardware video codec on a die some 46 per cent smaller than its predecessors.
Until the launch of the MinnowBoard, however, using Queens Bay in hobbyist applications was almost impossible: Intel’s offi cial development board was provided only to registered hardware partners, and came with the expectation that you would be placing an order for a few thousand processors once you had fi nished your design.
INTERVIEW
How the MinnowBoard came about
Intel’s big fish in a little pond
MinnowBoard vs Raspberry Pi
Specifications
MinnowBoard
Intel’s Atom-powered development board is the first to be Yocto Project-compatible and runs Angström Linux. While considerably more
expensive than the Raspberry Pi, it utilises the x86 architecture so offers computational power more akin to desktop and mobile computers. It’s also a very complete package, offering both Angström Linux on a microSD card and a properly rated power supply in the box.
However, without decent driver support for the Intel GMA 600 GPU and a DVI-over-HDMI video interface (no HD audio or HDCP encryption), it lacks the same multimedia appeal as the Raspberry Pi.
■SATA support brings
mass storage within easy reach of MinnowBoard
■It has fewer GPIO pins,
but includes two LEDs and four buttons to control
■Analogue audio input is
a defi nite step up from the Raspberry Pi
■Gigabit Ethernet means
faster networking – great if you’re planning a server
■Four stilts and bigger
dimensions mean it towers over the RasPi
■MinnowBoard needs
a staggering 2.5A to keep its lights fl ashing
Price £162 Dimensions 106 x 115mm
Weight 119g
Operating system Angström Linux (Yocto certifi ed) supplied on microSD
Processor 32-bit Intel Atom E640T single-core at 1GHz Video Embedded Intel GMA 600 Max resolution 1366 x 768 (no HDCP encryption)
Memory 1GB DDR2 (shared), 4MB SPI fl ash (fi rmware
storage)
Output DVI-over-HDMI (no audio), analogue audio out Input Analog audio in, 2x USB,
1x SATA-2, 1x micro-USB, 1x mini-USB, 1x serial console, SD card slot, 1x micro-SDIO, 8xGPIO pins
Networking 10/100/1000 Ethernet Real-time clock Yes (no battery installed)
Extras Lure connector with CAN bus, HD audio, LVDS, IC, 3x PCI Express, SATA-2, SDIO, SPI bus, UART, 2x USB
Power 5V at 2.5A (adaptor included)
■The stilts increase airfl ow to help keep the
1GHz Intel processor (under heat sink) cool
■The MinnowBoard supports tinkerers with
two on-board LEDs and six buttons
COMPARED
MinnowBoard vs Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi has inspired thousands to try Linux for the first time and reinvigorated interest in bare-metal computing. It opens the
door to the creation of fascinating Internet Of Things projects and drastically lowers the barrier of entry for both programming and physical computing. It’s not all plain sailing, though. Its low-price means the out of the box experience isn’t stellar. One still needs to acquire a microSD card, an HDMI cable and power supply, meaning ‘starter packs’ can retail upwards of £60.
While its raw processing power is left in the shade by Intel’s x86 CPU, the Raspberry Pi continues to amaze users with its remarkable multimedia prowess.
(Model B, Rev. 2)
■The RasPi could really
do with a Lure port - even just two more USB ports would be great
■A microSD card
slot would have been preferable here ■26 GPIO pins means there’s massive scope for tinkering. No analogue support, though, sadly ■The multimedia support is frankly stellar ■The audio on the RasPi is probably its weakest aspect. No mic support either ■The Broadcom SoC is brilliant, even if it chugs occasionally Price £28 Dimensions 86 x 54mm Weight 40g
Operating system None included (Raspbian & others supported)
Processor ARM1176JZF-S (armv6k) single-core at 700 MHz
Video VideoCore IV
Max resolution Full HD with HDCP encryption
Memory 512MB DDR2 (shared)
Output DMI (with HDCP encryption), composite RCA,
analogue audio out
Input 2x USB, 1x micro-USB, SD card slot, 26x GPIO pins
Networking 10/100 Ethernet
Real-time clock No (can be added via GPIO)
Extras DSI display connector, JTAG headers, CSI (camera module) connector, SPI bus, I2C, UART
Power 5V at 700mA (not included)
■The Pi’s small size makes it ideal for hiding
behind a monitor or stashing in a project box
■Standard SD card support is good, but
high-speed SD cards are worth the extra expense
VS
Intel MinnowBoard
Review
Clearly, the MinnowBoard is no Raspberry Pi. Measuring
102mm on its shortest side, it’s signifi cantly larger, requires a whopping 2.5A from a 5V power supply to run and costs almost six times as much as the credit-card-sized Pi. The MinnowBoard does offer something the Pi lacks, however: full x86 compatibility.
At the heart of the MinnowBoard is one of Intel’s less powerful processors: the Atom E640T. Running at 1GHz, the single-core chip offers a 32-bit x86 implementation – already putting it on the back foot compared to the dual-core 64-bit APU found on rival AMD’s Gizmo, the closest device for comparison – while generating a surprisingly small
Intel’s answer to the Raspberry Pi is here – but at nearly six
times the price, can it tempt buyers back to x86?
amount of heat, allowing for passive cooling through a compact heat sink.
With 1GB of RAM, the MinnowBoard offers a surprisingly powerful yet lightweight platform for embedded computing. Peaking, during testing, at 7W from the socket, it scored a respectable 95th percentile time of 11.49ms – almost fi ve times faster than the Raspberry Pi at 51.45ms, but still some way behind the Gizmo’s impressive 9.87ms score. Add in the fact that the Gizmo can run two threads simultaneously and it’s clear Intel isn’t going to win on outright performance – although it has included Hyper-Threading support in the MinnowBoard for pseudo dual-core operation.
Pros
Powerful, fl exible, open; a familiar x86 environment for newcomers to embedded developmentCons
Compared to ARM equivalents it’s expensive, and its performance lags behind AMD’s rival Gizmo deviceIntel MinnowBoard
DEV PLATFORM
£162.83
($200)
Intel MinnowBoard
■An HDMI port offers DVI video
connectivity, but does not carry digital audio
■The Lure connector, for
add-on boards, carries everything from CAN bus signals to three PCI Express lanes
■Two USB ports
provide connectivity for external peripherals
■Gigabit Ethernet gives
the MinnowBoard powerful networking capabilities
x86-based embedded development board
Intel MinnowBoard
REVIEW
Treating the MinnowBoard as a standard computer, however, misses the point entirely. The device is designed for embedded development, and to help Intel regain a foothold in a market that has become almost completely dominated by ARM-based systems. Accordingly, it includes eight buffered general-purpose input-output pins, along with two user-controllable LEDs and a set of four switches. Together, these turn the MinnowBoard into a ready-to-run system for developing embedded applications – and unlike with ARM-based devices, those used to an x86 toolchain don’t have to learn anything new.
The board also includes an expansion connector for add-in daughterboards dubbed ‘Lures.’ Designed to be analogous to the ‘shields’ of the Arduino microcontroller, the port gives each Lure access to considerable potential: as well as three PCI Express lanes, an SDIO channel, two USB channels and more, the port carries everything from CAN to I²C buses. Although there are no Lures available on the open market at the time of writing, several are in development – including one which will offer compatibility with Arduino shields.
That doesn’t mean the main board is bereft of connectivity: a micro-SDIO slot for the boot device, two USB ports, analogue audio connections, Gigabit Ethernet, and mini- and micro-USB ports for acting as a USB device or as a debug serial console are included. The board also features a SATA-2 port, offering up to 3Gbps of throughput to a mass storage device – with a second port available through the Lure
expansion port if required. minnowboard.org
More
information
At present, the MinnowBoard ships with a bare-bones installation of Angstrom Linux – no friendly out-of-box experience here. With full Yocto Project certifi cation, however, rolling your own OS isn’t a challenge and Intel is in talks with distributions including Ubuntu to add support for the board’s somewhat unique 32-bit UEFI fi rmware.
Using documentation – still in progress – from the project’s founders, the MinnowBoard is quick to offer up its GPIO capabilities. The only real disappointment comes from the HDMI socket, which only carries a DVI signal and not the audio required of a full HDMI implementation. There’s also no support for HDCP encryption, although anyone considering using the MinnowBoard as a media playback system has probably missed the point of its design and features.
Gareth Halfacree
Operating system Angström Linux (Yocto Certifi ed)
Processor 32-bit Intel Atom E640T single-core at 1GHz
Video Embedded Intel GMA 600
Memory 1GB DDR2, 4MB SPI Flash (Firmware Storage)
Dimensions 106 x 115mm
Weight 119g (excluding PSU)
Input/Output DVI-over-HDMI, Analogue audio in & out, 2x USB, 1x SATA-2, 1x USB device, 1x Serial console, Gigabit Ethernet, 1x micro-SDIO
Extras Lure connector with CAN bus, HD audio, LVDS, I²C, 3x PCI Express, SATA-2, SDIO, SPI bus, 2x UART, 2x USB
Power 5V at 2.5A
Technical specs
Summary
The MinnowBoard is a welcome foray from Intel into the world of open hardware and offers considerable potential. While its performance may lag behind the rival Gizmo board, the Lure connector holds promise for some impressive add-ons to come – but its high price means the Raspberry Pi has little to fear from this upstart.
Sage Gizmo
$199 (£154.29)
Based on an embedded AMD APU, it’s far more powerful than the MinnowBoard. Embedded graphics aid computer performance and a bundled expansion board makes getting started easy. It does, however, require more power under load.
gizmosphere.org
Also
consider
Raspberry Pi
£28.07
The Pi’s ARMv6 processor is considerably less capable than the MinnowBoard’s Atom – but at almost a sixth the price, it’s easy to overlook this in favour of having spare cash for add-on hardware and tinkering components.
raspberrypi.org
■A micro-SDIO slot plays host to
a bundled SD card containing the Angström operating system
■A small heat sink passively
cools the Intel Atom E650T processor
■Bundled risers lift the board up
in order to allow the processor room to cool
■Four switches
combine with two user-controllable LEDs to get users started with the board’s capabilities
A collaboration between the Linux Foundation and Selventa’s freshly opened OpenBEL project could help push the ideals of open source development further into the realms of scientific research, the groups have announced.
Previously a closed-source proprietary platform, OpenBEL – the Open Biological Expression Language – was designed to help users to capture, store, share and use life sciences content through what its creators describe as a “knowledge engineering platform.” Addressing the difficulties with sharing and using data, the team behind OpenBEL has been using it for ten years – but the platform was only opened up in June last year, a move that the Linux Foundation is claiming will be the making of the project.
“All of us are smarter collectively than any one of us is by ourselves, and Linux is one of the greatest examples of that principle,” claimed Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “We are able to take what we know about Linux and collaborative development and transfer that to new industries. OpenBEL represents an amazing opportunity for openness and collaboration to
advance science, and we’re happy to impart our knowledge of collaborative software development to leaders in the life sciences industry. Successful open source projects don’t just host code; they make use of a full suite of open source best practices to quickly gain adoption and collaboration. We aim to help OpenBEL achieve even more success.”
“The Linux Foundation hosts the largest collaborative project in the history of computing: Linux,” stated Ted Slater, project
OpEn SciEncE
Linux Foundation leads
open science initiative
Partnership with OpenBEL will make sharing scientific data easier
“All of us are
smarter
collectively than
any one of us is by
ourselves”
Ted Slater
Your source of Linux news and views
OpenSource
www.linuxuser.co.uk
For the latest news and views Email us directly… [email protected]
nOpenBEL provides a platform for the capture and collaborative analysis of life sciences data
lead for OpenBEL. “It is the standard by which all open development projects measure themselves. We know our industry can learn a lot from this neutral steward of open development and governance… Also, by hosting OpenBEL at The Linux Foundation, we have access to a variety of important services to help facilitate collaborative development, allowing our teams to focus on our subject matter: life science.”
Hosting the OpenBEL platform with the Linux Foundation, its creators hope, will boost its adoption. Since going open source in June 2012, the project has already been adopted by organisations as diverse as the Harvard Medical School, the University of California at San Diego, the Fraunhofer Institute, and pharmaceutical giants Novartis and Pfizer.
The groups hope that wider adoption of OpenBEL will lead to a pooling of information on life sciences, with the platform allowing for easy dissemination and analysis using a standardised set of computable networks and application programming interfaces (APIs).
The deal with OpenBEL is the latest of the Linux Foundation’s Collaborative Projects, which include partnerships with the Yocto Project, Xen Project, FOSS Bazaar, and mobile platforms MeeGo and Tizen.
Details on the project, and links to the source code, are available on the official OpenBEL website at openbel.org.
nOpenBEL’s Ted Slater extols the virtues of
Linux
calendar
3 - 5 O
ct
ob
er 2
01
3
Open World Forum ’13
»Le Beffroi, Paris» France
» openworldforum.org
The first European summit designed to bring together technical experts and political representatives, Open World Forum includes speakers ranging from Microsoft’s Frederic Aatz to the CIO of the French Culture and Communication Ministry.
OggCamp
» LJMU Art & Design Academy, Liverpool
» England
» oggcamp.org
The largest open source and free culture event in the UK enters its fifth year. Based around the ‘unconference’ format, there will be three fluid tracks along with a series of scheduled speakers throughout the weekend.
CloudOpen
Europe
» Edinburgh International Conference Centre » Scotland » events.linuxfoundation.orgThe second annual CloudOpen conference looks to build on the success of the first, helping push forward the use of open source technologiesincloudcomputing.
The Foundation behind X.Org has lost its status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group in the US, following a failure to file taxes with the US Internal Revenue Service for three consecutive years.
“I was taken by surprise that the IRS hit ussorudely,”FoundationaccountantStuart Kreitmansaidatthecompany’smostrecent board of directors’ meeting. “I’ve had little issueswithmyownreturnsandhavealways foundthemtobereasonableandfriendly.”
Kreitman has, however, admitted that the tax returns have not been filed, but argued that the organisation has “never filedreturns.”
LinuxCon Europe
» Edinburgh International Conference Centre » Scotland » events.linuxfoundation.orgThe largest event covering Linux in general – rather than specific distributions – comes to Scotland, with over a hundred planned sessions. Followed by the Linux Kernel Summit, Automotive Linux Summit and Embedded Linux ConferenceEurope,allinEdinburgh.
Open source hosting outfit SourceForge has been criticised for bundling selected binary releases in advertising-laden packages.
LaunchedinJulythisyear,DevSharebundles software with add-ons such as AnchorFree’s HotSpotShield. SourceForge claims it provides an easy way for developers to monetise their
efforts; its critics claim it’s nothing more thanmalware.
“SourceForge, once a mighty force for the good of open source, has fallen far from its previous lofty heights,” opined Red Hat developer Justin Cliff in a post to the Gluster Project blog. “I’m not against monetisation at all, we all have lives and need to pay our bills. Butnotthroughabusingusertrust.Notthrough preyingontheunskilledorunwary.Tomisquote MargeSimpson:‘Theynotonlycrossedtheline, theythrewuponit.’”
SourceForge, now owned by Dice Holdings, has defended the initiative. “SourceForge will always respect the rights of our users and we will never infringe on them. DevShare offers a transparentinstallationflowthatgivesusersall the necessary information to make educated choicesaboutwhatsoftwaretoinstall.”
The decision to launch the programme, currentlyinbeta,hasledtocallsforhigh-profile projects to move to alternative hosts; others – including FTP client FileZilla – have, however, alreadysigneduptoDevShare.
OPEn SOURCE
“They not only crossed the line, they threw up on it”
nThe DevShare programme introduced by
SourceForge owner Dice Holdings has drawn strong criticism
OPEn SOURCE
X.Org loses
non-profit status
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ThelatestintheLinuxcommunity
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SourceForge DevShare
branded ‘malware’
TheFoundationisnowconsideringjoining an umbrella organisation in order to reduce thepaperworkrequiredofitsmembersand prevent this sort of embarrassing situation fromrecurring.nThe X.Org Foundation is considering
letting others take care of its paperwork in future
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Your source of Linux news and views
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Aims for a trillion devices sold by 2025
GOVERNMENT
Cambridge-based low-power processing giant ARM is throwing its weight behind the Internet of Things, forming a new IoT business unit with the aim of selling a trillion devices by 2025, and purchasing IoT specialist Sensinode Oy.
Claimed by its proponents to be the next logical evolution of the internet, the Internet of Things looks to equip everything possible with internet-connected sensors and interactivity as the means to making people’s lives easier.
ARM plans to integrate Sensinode’s 6LoWPAN and CoAP standards with its own Cortex-based mbed microcomputing platform, which it sells both for embedded hardware development and in breadboard-friendly format for hobbyist use.
“Sensinode is a pioneer in software for low-cost low-power internet connected devices and
HARDWARE
ARM begins Internet of Things push
has been a key contributor to open standards for IoT,” claimed ARM’s John Cornish of the deal. “By making Sensinode expertise and technology accessible to the ARM partnership and through the ARM mbed project, we will enable rapid deployment of thousands of new and innovative IoT applications.”
The move comes as industry analysts predict a pending explosion in the number of connected devices, with Bill Morelli of IHS offering an estimate of 30 billion connected devices by 2020 – a fi gure that ARM is going to do its best to exceed.
Small-scale IoT projects, including printers that act as Twitter gateways and environmental monitoring systems, often make use of ARM-based microcomputing systems – most
frequently, these days, the low-cost and high-performance Raspberry Pi or its more fl exible alternative the BeagleBone Black – while others use lower-cost microcontroller devices from Atmel, Texas Instruments and others.
Local government coffers
already €1.3 million richer
The Valencian regional government in Spain has completed its planned switch from proprietary software to LibreOffi ce.
The project to migrate to an open source alternative began in 2012, and has already been credited with saving the government €1.3 million in software licensing fees.
“Apart from economic benefi ts, the commitment to free and open source software brings other advantages, including having the solutions available in the Valencian language as well as in Spanish, and IT vendor independence, which encourages competition,” said Sofi a Bellés, director general of the Valencian government ICT department. “We also have the freedom to modify and adapt the software to our every need.”
Valencia has long been at the forefront of open source adoption, having pushed a programme of Linux adoption in schools back in 2005. Covering 110,000 PCs installed across all regional schools, the move to Lliurex Linux is claimed to have saved over €30 million so far.
“Installation of the free offi ce suite is part of the regional government’s strategic commitment to its use of free software. It will not only help save costs for licences,” Bellés
Valencia
completes
LibreOffice
switch
added, “but also boosts the development of the local ICT sector, promotes the use of Valencian in the digital world and improves interoperability and security of the administration’s IT systems.”
The move has been lauded by the European Commission’s JoinUp programme, which looks to improve interoperability between public administrations through standardisation, suggesting other governments may follow suit.
ARM begins Internet of Things push
commitment to its use of free software. It will not only help save costs for licences,” Bellés
administrations through standardisation, suggesting other governments may follow suit.
■Moving to LibreOffice has saved the Valencian government a small fortune
■ ARM is pushing its technologies, including the
Following his decision to name Linux 3.11 ‘Linux for Workgroups,’ Linus Torvalds has posted a nostalgic message celebrating its final release candidate.
“Hello everybody out there using Linux – I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, even if it’s big and professional) for 486+ AT clones and just about anything else out there under the sun,” Torvalds wrote. “This has been brewing since April 1991, and is still not ready.”
The message is an amusing echo of his 1991 initial Linux release notice, which called for Minix users to try Linux and claimed it “won’t be big and professional like GNU.”
linux
Torvalds celebrates
linux 3.11
The latest in the Linux community
News
open source
Experts warn users to beware as
malware spreads
malware
Hand of Thief Trojan
targets linux
Developer 4a Games has confirmed that first-person shooter metro: last light is heading to linux following its debut on windows earlier this year.
Due to arrive on Steam for Linux later this year, Metro: Last Light is one of the first big-name titles to be released on Linux in the same year as its Windows counterpart – and marks a growing trend for development houses to consider Linux as a valid target market for their software.
Development of the Linux release was performed in-house at 4A Games, with the company crediting its custom game engine for making it easy to port to alternative platforms. The game will also be launching on OS X around the same time.
viDeoGames
Linux gaming no longer being ignored by triple-A developers.
“We are very happy with the results,” said 4A’s CTO Oles Shishkovstov. “We hope that Mac and Linux gamers will appreciate our efforts to create the best possible version for their machines.”
metro: last light heads to linux
n4A Games has ported Metro: Last Light to
Linux, for launch later this year
a Trojan horse, dubbed the Hand of Thief, has been discovered targeting linux users and attempting to grab banking credentials and other sensitive data.
The Trojan, discovered by RSA researchers, includes sophisticated anti-monitoring and anti-virtualisation techniques which make it hard to analyse. Sold for around $2,000 on underground sites, the Trojan is claimed to be effective against all common Linux desktop distributions.
Anti-virus experts are positioning the Trojan as proof that such protective software is a requirement on Linux. “It’s yet another reason why Linux users shouldn’t be complacent about their computer security, and run an anti-virus program,” claimed former Sophos consultant Graham Cluley. “The statement that the Linux platform is absolutely secure now seems even more illusive,” added Avast!’s Peter Kálnai.
However, the Trojan can only install when provided with root access – something the majority of modern desktop distributions shut off behind a password. By being careful about what is installed and not providing a password to an unexpected pop-up dialog, Linux users should largely be protected from its ravages.
Those who frequently install software from outside their distribution’s official repositories, however, should take heed: as the popularity of Linux grows, sadly so too does its attractiveness to criminals.
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The free software column
Opinion
open source
open source robotics
robotics is a fascinating subject. It links
computers to the physical world, allowing them to move around, sense their environment, and to interact with it. Building your own robot, however, has traditionally required that you spend a huge amount of time and energy to get even the most basic of robotic systems up and running. You need mechanical engineering skills to build the chassis or body, electronic engineering skills to wire up the motors and the sensors, and programming skills to animate the robot, to control its body to get it to do what you want. These barriers to entry mean that people entering into the field of robotics – either in search of a stimulating pastime, or perhaps as part of more formal research – can quickly be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work required. The initial dreams of building a robot to fetch your beer or to walk your dog get pushed further and further back, as more and more time is sucked up just getting the basics working.
Things are changing, however, and the barriers to entry are falling. The relentless march of progress in consumer goods means that a lot
Linux is increasingly being used for cutting-edge robotics – opening up the
field to anyone interested in learning more
Linux is the platform
for robotics
of commonly used robotics hardware – such as cameras, accelerometers and communication devices – are now both much cheaper and much smaller than they were ten years ago. Actually making use of electronic sensors, and motors, is also a lot easier now, as platforms like the Arduino make connecting electronic components to your computer, and controlling them, both quick and simple. On top of all this, small, powerful computers such as the Raspberry Pi and the BeagleBoard, to name but two, mean that you can now cram much more processing power into your robots at an affordable price.
In order to put this hardware to good use, however, you need software, and as luck would have it, Linux is the platform where the most exciting developments in robotic software are taking place. Writing the software for modern robots can be one of the most involved and complicated parts of the process. Software is needed for controlling
motors, reading values from sensors and, possibly most importantly, to provide high-level control and AI. A number of distributed software environments have
been produced to try to ease the development of robotic software. But the Robot Operating System (ROS) produced by a company called Willow Garage in Silicon Valley is arguably one of the most successful. ROS is not actually an operating system, but rather a BSD-licensed open source software framework which runs on Linux. It allows interfaces to be defined for common bits of robotic software, such as the drivers for cameras and motors, and it allows this software to be run as a large number of separate processes called ‘nodes’ – either all on one machine, or transparently distributed over a network of machines.
Alan broun
is currently studying for a PhD at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. He is also the managing director of Dawn Robotics Ltd –www.dawnrobotics.co.uk
Over the last five years, ROS has dramatically eased the process of writing robotic software. Now you can download a large number of pre-compiled packages to quickly allow you to hook up common sensors such as cameras or Microsoft’s Kinect. High-level services such as inverse kinematics, map building and speech recognition are easy to plug in, and ROS also provides a great selection of visualisation tools so that you can see what’s going on from your robot’s point of view. When you need to write your own software, you can do it in the language you choose. Low-level motor drivers can be written in C and then communicate over ROS’s network layer with high-level control processes, written in a language such as Python or Java.
Not having access to robotic hardware is no bar to entry, as ROS also provides support for simulators such as Gazebo. ROS has been embraced by the robotics research community and so lots of simulations of cutting-edge robots are now provided by the teams who built them. So, for absolutely no cost at all, you can get access to Willow Garage’s PR2 robot, NASA’s Robonaut and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot. This last robot is currently being used in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which seeks to get a humanoid robot to drive a car and move around a disaster area, so it’s ambitious stuff.
Now is an exciting time in robotics, and Linux is the platform on which some of the coolest stuff is happening. If you haven’t tried it yet, then I would urge you to download and have a play with ROS, start building yourself a robot and join in all the fun!
“Not having access
to robotic hardware
Can you volunteer for
Code Club?
We need people who know how to program computers to volunteer to run a club at their
local primary school, library or community centre for an hour a week.
We create the projects for our volunteers to teach, the projects we make teach children how
to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and websites.
Get involved, let’s teach the next generation to code!
Code Club is a nationwide network of volunteer-led
after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11.
Your source of Linux news and views
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Simon Brew
is a technology writer and editor, working across the Linux, Windows and Mac OS X platformsI play games. I’ve always liked playing games,
and suspect I’ll continually sneak one or two in for the rest of my days. If you talk to my editor, he’ll obviously tell you that I’m the most reliable hitter of a deadline that he’s ever met and that my words arrive perfectly formed, requiring the barest of edits before they’re laid before your
eyes. Scratch that: thanks to computer games, I’ve slipped under the proverbial door seconds before it slams shut more times than I’d care to admit.
But games are changing. For someone who was brought up with the spirit of 8-bit computing, where anyone could spend a day or two locked up in their bedroom coding a game, the current climate is all a little disconcerting. Take Watch Dogs: this is a big game that a big publisher is making, that before it’s even been released has been put on the fast track for a big-screen movie. Or the evil of Candy Crush Saga, the mobile game revolution that doesn’t want any money off you up front, but is happy to take as much off you as it can once it’s got you cosy and sitting on the sofa.
Games are interesting, and always have been, because they’re at the forefront of control. I think back to sticking dongles in the back of my Commodore Amiga to stop people pirating a game (naturally, the only people inconvenienced turned out to be the people who legitimately coughed up), or lining up pictures on wheels.
Then, as technology evolved, so did the methodologies of control. PC gaming, through
Windows, has taken things to scary levels. At one stage, the publisher Ubisoft implemented a system whereby you had to go online and prove you were legitimate once a day, else you weren’t allowed to play the title that you’d legally bought. Naturally, one day its servers weren’t working properly and people weren’t allowed to play their game. Those running pirates copies could.
Microsoft has tried to implement a similar system with its upcoming Xbox One games console, although it’s had to perform a significant U-turn when the volcano of public opinion erupted. Still, those buying a game for an Xbox One machine will need to ‘activate’ it. A friendly word that, isn’t it? It sounds so reasonable and happy. Just do one thing and everything will be active and working. What could be easier? The truth, of course, is that it’s a further eradication of users’ rights in the proprietary software sector.
The problem is that what happens in videogaming increasingly becomes a dry-run for what we get in the broader technology ecosystem. Publishers know that people will endure a degree of hassle to play a game, and they take advantage of it ruthlessly. Now, we’re at a point where Adobe’s Creative Suite of tools won’t even be sold in a box any more – it’s the cloud version or bust, and a subscription. Someone’s been looking at the World Of Warcraft model.
Even in the app sphere, where the spirit of the bedroom programmer should still be alive and well, there’s a corporate sheen that’s taking the fun off things. That Candy Crush Saga model has proven to be the proverbial grail for many, in that the appearance of a free, open approach is just a disguise for one of the most ruthless gaming money-making machines I’ve seen in recent times.
It’s why the good ones need supporting, of course. But for all the marches of progress, the loss of an ethos has become real collateral damage.
the Open SOurce cOLumn
Simon fears the future of gaming is the future of technology
Fair game
The free software column
Opinion
open source
the Free soFtware column
non-profit Foss organisation the software Freedom conservancy has reached an amicable agreement with samsung to release the code for samsung’s exFat file system driver for linux under the terms of the Gpl. The exFAT driver code came to light
through its inadvertent release via GitHub (lwn.net/Articles/560424/) and the use of a binary version in a Samsung Linux-based tablet.
The Software Freedom Conservancy, led by Bradley Kuhn, works with developers and manufacturers to ensure compliance with the GPL. The greater part of the job is to point out the legal obligation to manufacturers and to help them achieve compliance, and most will happily comply.
Samsung is releasing the code for its exFAT file system driver
for Linux under the terms of the GPL. This is an important
breakthrough because of the participation of both Samsung
and the GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers
a Gpl breakthrough
As we all know, the GPL makes a simple pact between the coder and the user. Anyone can take, modify, copy, share and redistribute the software and the code, but must pass on the same rights to subsequent users of the software, including any modifications to the code.
The coder, who is usually (but not always) the copyright holder, gains because enhancements to the code are fed back through the development process. The manufacturer gains because third-party developers become involved who may bring new dimensions to the code. The user gains because the code remains free and the obligation is mutual, meaning that every other user has the same obligation to feed their changes back.
The only requirement of the GPL is that the source code be made accessible to end users, but this requirement is often ignored, especially when the code is reused in firmware and embedded devices. GPL code is used in thousands of devices, but many don’t comply with the terms of the licence.
The role of Software Freedom Conservancy is to alert manufacturers to failures in compliance and to help them to reach an amicable resolution. Most violations are resolved without court proceedings. In very rare cases this may involve litigation but as Jeremy Allison, a board member of Conservancy, observes: “The point is not to punish people for making mistakes, but to bring them into compliance. When people get into trouble it’s usually down to laziness and inconvenience. It’s usually a case of ‘I can’t be arsed, and it’s too much effort to do it right, so I’ll just use it’.”
richard hillesley
writes about art, music, digital rights, Linux and free software for a variety of publicationsThe great majority of infringements are not deliberate, and can be attributed to misunderstandings and lack of attention to detail. Manufacturers of mobile devices operate in a rapidly changing environment with short product cycles and shorter time-to-market. The market for firmware and mobile devices is highly competitive, and every new product comes to market with a new range of features. Failure to comply with the GPL is usually inadvertent, but releasing the source code is a small price to pay when set aside the considerable advantages of cost-effectiveness, speed to market, and the accessibility of pre-written and tested code that free software offers, especially when it is remembered that it is only the GPL’d code that has to be made available to others.
Sharing the code is useful to everyone, but the terms of the GPL haven’t always been enforced because the coders have other things to do, or the copyright has been assigned to corporate entities who don’t care about the licence beyond their immediate needs.
For this reason it is an important development that significant contributors to the Linux kernel, in the shape of Conservancy’s GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, have become involved in helping to ensure compliance with the terms of the licence, and that Samsung, a major manufacturer, was not only a willing and amicable partner in releasing the code, but was happy ‘to talk publicly about the matter’, which may make it easier to achieve compliance from other manufacturers in the future.
The drawback, in this instance, is that exFAT is owned by Microsoft, is a proprietary file format and has patent issues. The exFAT driver code can only be deployed by manufacturers or distributions that have obtained a licence from Microsoft.
“Sharing the code is useful to
everyone, but the terms of the GPL
haven’t always been enforced”
Your source of Linux news and views
OpenSource
The latest developments in the kernel
community, including changes to Linux 3.11
JOn MaSterS
Linus torvalds announced the latest release candidate of the 3.11 ‘Linux for Workgroups’ kernel on the 22nd anniversary of his original ‘Hello everybody’ email first introducing Linux back in 1991.
The last few weeks have been largely quiet in terms of changes merged into the mainline kernel, typical both of late summer and of the late stages in a kernel release cycle. It would seem that temporary fixes for the ongoing Windows 8 ACPI compatibility issues – which cause display backlights (now managed directly by certain Windows graphics drivers, rather than in the ACPI firmware) to misbehave on some laptops – will suffice for this release, but will be
your computer to provide many CPU cores for the operating system) scales, it does not necessarily do so in a linear fashion. The truth is that certain memory DIMM banks are ‘closer’ to certain CPU cores.
In an SMP system, every CPU can access every memory location in the system, which is typically ‘coherent’, meaning that the underlying hardware takes care of ensuring that memory locations cached internally by other CPUs are updated when a different CPU updates that same memory. But accessing a given memory location can be more expensive in terms of latency if it is not ‘local’ to a given processor – ie if the underlying hardware must take more steps to reach a given location by routing access to that location through an inter-processor local bus. To an application (and a user) this manifests in terms of slower performance than could be achieved if the memory for an application were strictly local to a given processor.
Linux handles NUMA in various ways. To a certain extent it can provide a level of transparent support, by ‘migrating’ memory for applications to be closer to the processors that are using it (copying the underlying memory locations to other locations more local to a given processor and updating the virtual memory translation tables accordingly), but special tools have been written to allow administrators to be more specific about how a given application should manage its memory. Mel Gorman, famous for writing the definitive book on Linux memory management, has been working on NUMA scalability problems recently, and both he and
Jon Masters
is a Linux kernel hacker who hasbeen working on Linux for some 18 years, since he first attended university at the age of 13. Jon lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and works for a large enterprise Linux vendor. He publishes a daily Linux kernel mailing list summary atkernelpodcast.org
the kernel column
raised again in the next cycle. If all goes according to plan, the final release should be out very shortly, in time for a summary in next month’s issue of Linux User & Developer.
Every Linux release has a (code) name, typically something very silly, and usually whatever Linus dreams up at the time he opens the merge window (the period of time during which disruptive kernel changes are allowed) for a new kernel release. But from time to time, a release name has a deeper meaning. The 3.11 release came close to happening on the 20th anniversary of the original Windows 3.11 ‘Windows for Workgroups’ release, but it was not to be. Still, Linus had some fun with the celebration of the 22nd anniversary of his original Linux announcement, posting a Google+ post in which he parodied himself, saying: “I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, even if it’s big and professional) for 486+ AT clones and just about anything else out there under the sun. This has been brewing since 1991, and is still not ready.”
nUMa development
Linux Weekly News recently noted that there can often seem to be themes to given periods of kernel development, and that this past month has had somewhat of a memory management theme. This certainly seems to be the case. But even more specifically, this month’s theme would seem to actually be that of NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) development. NUMA is all about dealing with the reality that as SMP (symmetric multiprocessing, the kind used in
