Linux Magazine: "The MythTV hard disk recorder software is available in a new version that is based on Qt4 and supports new hardware and the VDPAU decoder."

Google unveiled its Chrome operating system to the open-source community today and said it has designed the netbook OS to be faster, simpler and more secure than those offered by rivals.

eldavojohn writes "Almost 6 years ago we discussed a vaccine to help people quit smoking as it entered human clinical trials. Now it looks like the finishing touches have been put on a deal that will go into effect once phase III testing of the drug now called NicVAX is completed. NicVAX was developed by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, who have agreed to license it to GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals; it is expected to complete phase III testing successfully. Others have fallen short of this goal, in pursuit of a smoking-cessation market expected to hit $4.6 billion worldwide by 2016. Nabi has also sold an experimental vaccine for staph infections; and in 2008 we discussed news of a cocaine vaccine."

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Linux.com: "So you've got that shiny new openSUSE 11.2 system up and running. Now what? The default repositories have plenty of software, but there's much more for openSUSE in community and semi-official repositories that you might find useful."

CWmike writes "iPhone owners charging Apple and AT&T with breaking antitrust laws asked a federal judge this week to force Apple to hand over the iPhone source code, court documents show. The lawsuit, which was filed in October 2007, accuses Apple and AT&T of violating antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act, by agreeing to a multi-year deal that locks US iPhone owners into using the mobile carrier. On Wednesday, the plaintiffs asked US District Court Judge James Ware to compel Apple to produce the source code for the iPhone 1.1.1 software, an update that Apple issued in September 2007. The update crippled iPhones that had been unlocked, or 'jailbroken,' so that they could be used with mobile providers other than AT&T. The iPhone 1.1.1 'bricked' those first-generation iPhones that had been hacked, rendering them useless and wiping all personal data from the device. The plaintiffs say that the source code is necessary to determine whether all iPhones were given the same 1.1.1 update, and whether it was designed to brick all or just some hacked iPhones."

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The OMG!Ubuntu blog reports on the decision, however preliminary, at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Dallas to remove the GIMP image editor from the 10.04 Lucid LTS release of the wildly popular Linux distribution. Those assembled seem to think that GIMP is not used enough and is not consumery enough. And that the F-Spot photo manager can do basic photo editing and is much better for the average user. Oh, do I have bones — plural — to pick over this one.

feldhaus writes "The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday."

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Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest: "It would be fitting to honor that international effort by giving a Peace Prize to Linus Torvalds, perhaps in 2011 on the 20th anniversary of the August 1991 Linux announcement, or in 2012 on the 50th anniversary of Pauling's award."

Ricky writes "Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer — or at least something more frequent than months-to-years. Ars talks with Microsoft's general manager for IE, who says the IE9 development cycle will look much the same as previous versions. Not a great idea."

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Help Net Security: "ENISA's report is the first to take an independent, in-depth look at all the security and privacy issues of moving into the cloud, outlining some of the information security benefits of cloud computing, as well as 35 key security risks."

Free Software Magazine: "Programming is more fun when you keep score. The extreme programming (XP) development model popularized the idea of test-driven development (TDD) with professional programmers in mind. But TDD turns out to be even more useful for lone amateur programmers, because it provides much needed motivation in the form of more visible rewards for your work."

eldavojohn writes "If you think the iPhone app store is the only mobile game store suffering an exodus, some game publishers claim Android's app store isn't much better, for a different reason — it doesn't generate much revenue. In fact, French game developer Gameloft (which owes 13% of its profits to iPhone game sales), said, 'We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like... many others. It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue. We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.' So the trade-off seems to be more sales but an annoying approval process, versus a lack of sales promotions and no annoyance around approval. It seems that those in it for money will opt for iPhone, and those in it for distribution will opt for Android. Or maybe someone will get it right one of these days?"

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In Part 1 I talked about the messy state of Linux documentation, and how telling users to rely on Google is not documentation. Good documentation is equally important as good code. Today we look at the different types of documentation, from man pages to glossy books.

Wine Reviews: "Any customer purchasing CrossOver Games or CrossOver Professional until November 25th will be automatically registered to win this loaded CodeWeavers Gaming PC."

Take a screenshot of your desktop and post it to the Linux Journal Flickr pool (or e-mail it to us). Our editors will pick the 5 they deem "coolest" on Monday and we'll post them here for all to revel in.

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huckamania was one of many readers to write with the news that the University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Unit was hacked, and internal documents released. Some discussion and analysis of the leaked items can be found at Watts Up With That. The CRU has confirmed that a breach occurred, but not that all 61 MB of released material is genuine. Some of the emails would seem to raise concerns about the science as practiced — or at least beg an explanation. From the Watts Up link: "[The CRU] is widely recognized as one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change. Consisting of a staff of around thirty research scientists and students, the Unit has developed a number of the data sets widely used in climate research, including the global temperature record used to monitor the state of the climate system, as well as statistical software packages and climate models. An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server. Here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today: 'We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.' The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files. It contained data, code, and emails apparently from the CRU. If proved legitimate, these bombshells could spell trouble for the AGW crowd." Reader brandaman supplied the link to the archive of pilfered data. Reader aretae characterized the emails as revealing "...lots of intrigue, data manipulation, attempting to shut out opposing points of view out of scientific journals. Almost makes you think it's a religion. Anyone surprised?" And reader bugnuts adds, for context: "These emails are certainly taken out of context, whether they are legitimate or fraudulent, which adds to the confusion."

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Motorola has been involved in open source phones for years, but the Droid running Google Android represents its first opportunity for a home run in some time.

Netstat -vat: "The first update to PHP 5.3 is now available providing 5 security fixes in addition a long list of bug fixes to the popular open source dynamic language."

Klaus Knopper has released version 6.2 of his Debian-based live-CD Linux distro. Based on Debian 5.0 (& Lenny& ), the new version uses the lightweight LXDE as the default desktop, and includes a new version of the ADRIANE talking menu system for vision-impaired users....

pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Jason panel, an independent group of scientists advising the federal government on issues of science and technology, has concluded that the program to refurbish aging nuclear arms is sufficient to guarantee their destructiveness for decades to come, obviating a need for a costly new generation of more reliable warheads, as proposed by former President Bush. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and other Republicans have argued that concerns are growing over the reliability of the US's aging nuclear stockpile, and that the possible need for new designs means the nation should retain the right to conduct underground tests of new nuclear weapons. The existing warheads were originally designed for relatively short lifetimes and frequent replacement with better models, but such modernization ended after the US quit testing nuclear arms in 1992. All weapons that remain in the arsenal must now undergo a refurbishment process, known as life extension. The Jason panel found no evidence that the accumulated changes from aging and refurbishment posed any threat to weapon destructiveness, and that the 'lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss of confidence.' But the panel added that federal indifference could undermine the nuclear refurbishment program (as this report from last May illustrates). Quoting the report (PDF): 'The study team is concerned that this expertise is threatened by lack of program stability, perceived lack of mission importance and degradation of the work environment.'"

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