Look At Your Gerber Files With Gerbv

September 3, 2009 by Devlin Thyne 7 Comments

gerbv_with_loaded_gerber_files

Tired of making kindergarten macaroni art PCBs? Check your Gerber files before you send them off to a fab house with a Gerber file viewer. Viewplot , GerbTool’s Viewer , and FAB 3000 Free DFM are all free versions of for-pay software to view your Gerber files. If you use Windows and demo software, these are nice options. If not, you can use gerbv. Allied with gEDA, Gerbv is free, open source software that you can use to view all of your RS-274X Gerber files and Excellon-type drill files. Still being worked on with an active development group, gerbv does not have all the bells and whistles, it does have the ability to delete objects. Check it out after the break. Continue reading “Look At Your Gerber Files With Gerbv” →

Ubuntu 9.04 On Kindle 2

September 3, 2009 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

kindle2

[digg=http://digg.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_Jaunty_on_Amazon_s_Kindle_2]Having read books on a Palm device for years we were excited when Amazon came up with the Kindle. Our problem is that if you’re going to carry around a portable device it should do a whole lot more than just display text from a few books. [Jesse Vincent] managed to get Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope running on the Kindle 2. This opens up endless possibilities to run whatever you want on this hardware.

The new functionality was presented in a talk at OSCON 2009. Be warned, [Jesse] has a very high geeky-hacker level. Make sure you have a tech dictionary and Google at the ready when you watch the video embedded after the break. His talk starts at about two minutes in and runs for five minutes total. Continue reading “Ubuntu 9.04 On Kindle 2” →

Lubuntu 9.10 Alpha Image Available

September 1, 2009 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

lubuntu_first_beta

The alpha version of Lubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is now publicly availabile. The project brings together Ubuntu and LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. This combination makes for a lighter version of the most popular Linux distribution. Both Xubuntu (which utilizes the Xfce desktop) and Lubuntu are meant to run well on lower resource computers such as netbooks. With the ISO smaller than 400mb and using quite a bit less system resources Lubuntu looks promising.

Right now it looks like the original backup ISO link is down. If you can’t wait, try this torrent.

[via Softpedia]

Starfish PBX Goes Public

August 31, 2009 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

starfish_pbx_public

Starfish PBX takes the very popular Asterisk telephony platform and adds an open source, fully functional web management interface. Asterisk allows you to be your own private branch exchange; think of it as your own telephone company. You can setup extensions in your home or office, configure an intercom system, implement a hold system with music, manage voice mail, and integrate Voice over Internet Protocol. Starfish PBX, available in alpha release today, aims to make Asterisk available to a wider user base by simplifying the interface used to setup and maintain the system.

[via Digg]

Lego IPod Hacking Robot

August 30, 2009 by Zach Banks 14 Comments

800px-Nanotron-3000-farthen-1

The Linux4nano project has been working to port the Linux kernel onto the iPod Nano along with other iPods in general. Although the iPodLinux project has had luck with some older iPods, newer models protect firmware updates with encryption. One of the ways they plan on running code on the device is through a vulnerability in the notes program; it causes the processor to jump to a specific instruction and execute arbitrary code. To take advantage of this, they first need to figure out where their injected code ends up in the memory. Currently, they are testing every memory location by painstakingly loading in a bogus note and recording its effect. Each note takes about a minute to test and they have tens of thousands of addresses to check over several devices.

Continue reading “Lego IPod Hacking Robot” →

Ubuntu Developer Week

August 29, 2009 by Mike Szczys 3 Comments

ubuntu_dev_week4

Next week, August 31 through September 4, is Ubuntu Developer Week. If you’ve always wanted to help out with an open source project but didn’t know how to get into it, this is your chance. The week consists of 25 one-hour sessions held interactively through IRC and led by some of the best of the Ubuntu development team. Participate in as many or as few sessions as you want. Check out the Ubuntu Developer Week page or their fancy brochure (PDF) for more information.

Want to see what it’s all about before committing to a live session? You can view the IRC logs from the January sessions. In addition to ‘Getting Started’, you may find the ‘Packaging 101’ and ‘Launchpad Bug Tracking’ session notes interesting.

Ubuntu Repository Crash-course

August 27, 2009 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[blip.tv ?posts_id=2542951&dest=-1]

[Alan] has just posted an Ubuntu screencast that will take you through a crash course in the Ubuntu repositories. If you are new to Ubuntu this will give you a much better grasp on how software repositories are handled.

The different types of updates are discussed: Security updates fix bugs that cause a system vulnerability. Updates (generic) are for bug fixes that aren’t a security threat. Proposed updates are for testing before an update hits the ‘updates’ section. Finally, backports are updates from a newer version that have been ‘backported‘ so systems running older versions of Ubuntu can have the benefit of newer features and fixed bugs.

He also provides some tips on selecting package sources (main, universe, restricted, and multiverse), and choosing the fastest mirror to reduce download times. This screencast is just part one and we hope to see 3rd party repositories, personal package archives, and repository caching covered in future installments.