Podcast Season 1 Episode 8

Posted at 9:57pm on Wednesday May 13th 2009

Title: Wolves in the Moonlight

In this episode: OpenOffice.org 3.1 is out and we take a guess at just how many lines of source code it has, Glibc has been forked, a ZDNet report whose name we can't pronounce takes a potshot at Moonlight, and our Open Ballot asks whether we need a standard package manager.

What's in the show

News: OpenOffice.org 3.1 has been released, Glibc has been forked and Mozilla is considering revamping the Firefox icon.
Hot Topic: Dana Blankenhorn has said that Moonlight is "open source assuming the subordinate position."
Discovery of the week:
- Mike: TinyCoreLinux
- Andrew: NetVideoHunter Firefox Addon
- Graham: Fotoxx
- Paul: Screen Profiles
Open Ballot: Should we standardise on a single package format?
Special offer: subscribe to Linux Format magazine and save up to 55% - that's just $7.62 an issue!

Presenters: Andrew Gregory, Paul Hudson, Graham Morrison and Mike Saunders

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Download as low-quality MP3 (27MB)

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Your comments

comments?

rod (not verified) - May 13, 2009 @ 10:53pm

so... where's that link about the bug fix comments? :P

Firefox icon

avoura - May 13, 2009 @ 11:39pm

Considering that in nature a firefox is a small red panda, will Mozilla update their Firefox icon to reflect that and get rid of the fox image?

Common package file format

timon37@gmail.com (not verified) - May 14, 2009 @ 12:56pm

From what I've seen, it wouldn't change anything and the whole package format is a trivial and unimportant matter.

The problem is that apps/libs can be compiled with different options/features, different dependencies, against different version of a lib, different tools or differently configured tools. Which means that if you have let's say package X version 3.1.2 in fedora and debian, it can be completely incompatible, because for example fedora chose to compile it against package Y in version 1.99 which is unavailable in debian, and binary incompatible with the previous 1.80 which is in debian. There are a lot more complicated cases than this primitive example.

This is not a matter of "just because" it's a matter of different goals of the distros. Some value security more so they go with older versions, some need feature xyz so they have to go with a newer version.

There are also problems with where to install stuff, like some distros allow you to install both kde 3.5.x and 4.x but others don't. Also problems with many versions of the same lib installed at the same time and the scripts to manage alternative settings for packages.

These/There are differences that are part of the distro and are important because that distro targets something different than others and the contents of the package simply MUST be different, so a common format would give you:
X-3.1.2_debian_lenny.tgnf (the great new format)
X-3.1.2_fedora_11.tgnf
instead of:
X-3.1.2.deb
X-3.1.2.rpm

High Quality smaller than low quality

loki1950 - May 14, 2009 @ 9:27pm

Well someone had to mention it :D
High Quality Ogg 22 Mb
Low Quality Mp3 27 Mb
glad that got sorted.

RE: High Quality smaller than low quality

Anonymous Penguin beating up windows logo (not verified) - May 15, 2009 @ 6:14am

LOL

If there's an open ballot why ignore it?

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 15, 2009 @ 8:29pm

Nearly all the comments read out were saying there should be a standard package manager. That didn't reflect the view of the open ballot comments.

TinyCoreLinux as a Lemming

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 16, 2009 @ 9:31am

Would TinyCoreLinux make for a good packet generator or target living within my Virtual Lab ?

linux using american for five years now

Glen Cohoon (not verified) - May 16, 2009 @ 6:06pm

So where are these episode notes you keep talking about??? Like the ones mentioned about the command line tips and the one more thing??? Love you magazine and your podcasts....