2004.09_France Choose Linux, Iraqi User Group, New Zealand Stock Exchange.pdf

NEWS

World

World News

French Ministry Chooses

Home-Grown IT Solution

Despite globalization, there is a tendency

for governments all over the world to go

local when it comes to updating and

deploying their IT infrastructures. So it

was no big surprise when, at the begin-

ning of July, the French Ministry of

Equipment announced the replacement

of 1,500 office and infrastructural Win-

dows NT servers with home-grown

Mandrake Linux.

The Paris-based Linux distributor

Mandrakesoft will not only be providing

the software solution (Mandrake has

developed two purpose-built distribu-

tions based on its own Corporate Server

product, specifically adapted to the

requirements of the Ministry), but will

also be responsible for deployment,

training and support.

However, this contract does not mean

total migration as yet. At present, the

entire IT infrastructure of the ministry

and its 160 remote locations consists of

2,000 Windows NT servers and 60,000

workstations. What will happen to the

remaining Windows installations, is still

not certain. Recently, the French Minis-

ter of Civil Service, Renaud Dutreil, was

quoted by Reuters as saying “the compe-

tition is open”, thus possibly starting

another transatlantic feud. This time

between the US (with Microsoft at the

fore) and France.

All-Indian Linux

With support for Indian lan-

guages in Linux and Linux

applications rapidly growing

(see Issue 45, p13), Indian

Open Source proponents

around Indranil Das Gupta

and Sayamindu Dasgupta are

busily collecting ideas for an

All-Indian Linux distribution. The

“Grand Indic Distro/Desktop”, or, for

short, GRIND as the project has been

nicknamed, won’t however re-invent the

wheel: Either it will become yet another

offshoot of an existing Debian or RPM-

based distribution with an Indic-script-

enabled installer, or (and this looks like

the more promising solution) not a fully-

flavored distro at all.

The idea here is to compile a meta-dis-

tribution that equips several basic distros

(like Debian, SuSE, Fedora, Mandrake,

…) with localized packages. To do this, a

software like the Ximian build system

“Build Buddy” would be necessary that

compiles RPM, Debian and other pack-

ages from one source according to a

given set of XML metadata.

The packages themselves could be dis-

tributed by Ximian’s Red Carpet with the

help of the Open Carpet tools, and first

experiments have given promising

results.

Meanwhile, an announcement on the

Debian internationalization mailing list

marked a turnaround in the discussion

as to whether Debian is a suitable base

for non-latin distro projects: Not only

does the Debian installer support UTF-8

by now (which would be extremely

important to the GRIND project), but

also bi-directional (bidi) languages like

Farsi, Hebrew and Arabic (see the pic-

ture above).

■

Fight with Linux!

India’s President APJ Abdul Kalam has

been widely known for his support of

Open Source and locally developed soft-

ware solutions (see Issue 45, p13), but

when he underlined his preferences

recently at a meeting of the Indian

Navy’s Weapons and Electronic System

Engineering Establishment in New Delhi

at the beginning of July, it had a special

touch: The former scientist and engineer

appealed to his country’s

armed forces to use non-

proprietary technology to

fend off cyber security

threats.

Stating “Even though

the required software for

the equipment could be

developed by the private

Lively Linux User Group

in Iraq

The Iraqi Linux

user group recently

found itself the

center of interest,

when BBC Online ran a story about it. In

contrast to other projects in the region,

the 200 members of the group decided to

run their website in English.

This, and the lively activity on the site,

makes it an interesting source of infor-

mation. For example, Ashraf Hasson

from Baghdad, gives a good account on

how Iraqis go online these days.

industry, it is essential that the technical

know-how and the architecture is fully

available with these services for ensur-

ing provision of lifetime support for the

software” he knew what he was talking

about: A former head of India’s Defence

Research and Development Organisa-

tion, he was not only the architect of

India’s guided missiles project. On May

11, 1998, Kalam led India’s successful

underground nuclear weapon

tests which were followed by a

technology embargo by the USA.

In front of this audience, his

words had additional weight:

India’s President is the supreme

commander of the country’s

armed forces (which consist of

army, navy, and air force).

■

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/

3830545.stm

http://www.iraqilinux.org/modules.

php?name=News&file=article&sid=25

September 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

■

http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfmod/

project/?ximian-bb

http://www.opencarpet.org/

http://sayamindu.randomink.org/

ramblings/

http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2004/

06/msg01453.html

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World

NEWS

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B2D Chinese Linux Distribution

Striving for hard disk installation of

BV1AL Knoppix, the first Chinese Knop-

pix distribution (see Issue 28 p12), B2D

(BV1AL To Debian) is a modular Chinese

Linux distribution, which is easily

updated using the Debian APT mecha-

nism. First released on June 13 2004,

the 1.7GBytes B2D package includes ker-

nel 2.4.26, the Chinese DFM file

manager, the Nvu 0.3 web authoring sys-

tem , Chinese Mozilla 1.7, and Chinese

Firefox 0.9.

For obvious reasons, the

brand-new Chinese Open-

Office version 1.1.2, which

was released June 29, did

not make it into the distro.

Given its instability in the

installation process, users

still prefer the Ooo 1.1.1

firefly version anyway.

B2D development will

not stop here, however.

B2D maintainer Ming-

Song Kuo, the

leader of the

Ta inan Network Centre in

Taiwan, believes in the

motto “the simpler, the bet-

ter”, and aims to develop a

multi-purpose Chinese Linux

distribution with straightfor-

ward installation (for

desktop, workstation, server,

and lab applications with

terminal server technology).

As an experimental free soft-

ware project, B2D is just one

of the projects recently registered with

OSS Foundry (OSSF), an Open Source

development website with a source-code

repository for applications developed in

Taiwan.

■

http://moe.tnc.edu.tw/~b2d/

http://free.tnc.edu.tw/

http://www.openfoundry.org/en/

http://ooo.tnc.edu.tw/

ftp://ftp.nctu.edu.tw/OpenOffice/

localized/zh-tw/1.1.2/OOo_1.1.

2_LinuxIntel_install_zh-TW.tar.gz

■

Young City, New Conference

New Zealand Stocks

The New Zealand Stock Exchange has

announced a move to consolidate its cur-

rent IT infrastructure around Linux. The

new system uses an Oracle database to

handle the database needs of all of its

markets.

By moving to a Red Hat Linux system

and Oracle’s 10g database, the stock

exchange has managed to consolidate

from running 21 separate databases to

just a single one. This has given the mar-

ket a commercial advantage as it has

dramatically cut response times for

queries. Take the maximum trade values,

for example. Previously, this search took

36 seconds, but now it is down to just

0.03 seconds.

The move was prompted by the sav-

ings brought about by the ability to

change to multiple cheap SMP boxes

rather than expensive large scale main-

frames.

The reasons given for using Linux

were that it provided clean code that was

lean, with little overhead, and thus capa-

ble of running faster.

With the GUADEC, “Wizards of OS”, and

LinuxTag conferences in June, the KDE

Community World Summit to follow in

August and both the Linux-Kongress and

Open Office conference in September,

European Open Source enthusiasts have

a tight travel schedule this summer. But

as geograpers will know, the European

continent borders with the Ural moun-

tains to the east, and European Open

Source conferences take place even fur-

ther east of the new European Union

borders.

Ta ke the “1st International Conference

of Free Software Developers on the River

Protva”, for example. There, the city of

Obninsk, situated about one hundred

kilometers south-west of Moscow in the

Kaluga region, plays host to a three days

meeting July, 28--30, providing develop-

ers from Russia and other countries with

the opportunity to discuss technical,

philosophical and other questions

related to Open Source development.

The location has obviously been

selected carefully: Obninsk was founded

as an artificial city, providing accommo-

dation for the scientists and workers at

the world’s first nuclear power plant,

which opened in 1954. Today, the city

with its 108,000 inhabitants is proud to

be one of the most important scientific

centers in Russia, a mindset in which an

Open Source development conference

fits perfectly.

On the weekend following the confer-

ence, participants are invited to move on

to what must now be regarded as a tradi-

tional stamping ground, the Linuxfest at

the city of Borovsk, the 6th festival of its

kind in succession, and organized more

like an activity vacation.

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http://2004.guadec.org/

http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.

php?L=3

http://www.linuxtag.org/2004/

http://conference2004.kde.org/

http://www.linux-kongress.org/2004/

http://marketing.openoffice.org/

ooocon2004/

http://www.altlinux.ru/?module=conf

http://www.obninsk.ru/eng/

http://lrn.ru/index.

php?module=linuxfest

■

http://nzx.com

www.linux-magazine.com September 2004

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