Category: Articles

open pc server integration – OPSI

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opsi is a Client Management System for Windows clients based on Linux servers

The opsi key features are:

  • Automated software distribution and patch management (opsi client agent)
  • Automated OS installation (unattended or image based)
  • Hardware and software inventories
  • Support of multiple locations

1. Automated software distribution and patch management:

Automated and non-interactive software installation may reduce your cost of system administration. It increases the security of your system since you distribute and install service packs and security patches in time. The opsi client agent service checks if there is an installation request for any software or patch release. In this case the software will be installed on the PC using the script-based program opsi-winst, which initiates and controls the installation processes. This is normally done after every system boot and before the user login takes place.

2. Automatic OS installation: 

The operating systems Windows XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7 and 2008(R2) (32/64 Bit) (Linux planned) can be installed automatically without any user interaction.

3. Hardware and software inventory: 

The opsi-tool hwaudit collects hardware information via WMI and sends it to the opsi-server. The results will be displayed in the opsi management interface. The data can be sorted according to several hardware criteria.

The opsi-tool swaudit collects software information from the PC’s registry and sends it to the opsi-server. The results can also be seen in the opsi management interface.

4. Support of multiple locations: 

Even with multiple locations opsi can be used. While storing and administrating the configuration data on one single server, the packages with the software can be deposited on several different depot server.

opsi server runs on Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, SLES, CentOS, UCS and RHEL.

Visit the project site at http://www.opsi.org/en

Google Summer of Code 2012 Is Over

  By Articles, FLOSS, Imaging, OSS

Four out of five GIMP students successfully finished their work in the Google Summer of Code 2012 program. Unfortunately one of the students wasn’t able to complete all of the work.

The code written by the students has already been merged to main development branches and is expected to be available in the next releases of GIMP and GEGL.

While the first public version of the Unified Transform Tool will only be available in the 2.9.x series, new GEGL operations will be present in the next release of GEGL already.

The students ported the following GIMP filters to GEGL operations: Shift, Wind, Cartoon, Photocopy, Oilify, Softglow, and a variety of noise generators.

The GEGL-based node editor is a standalone project and will eventually be released separately.

It was a great summer. We thank all the students for participating and we would love to see them around in years to follow.

GIMP 2.8.2 Released

  By Articles, FLOSS, Imaging, OSS

We’ve just released GIMP 2.8.2, the first update to the new stable version of GIMP. The update brings several dozens of fixes to various issues of all scales.

Most notorious bugs fixed are: not being able to remember JPEG saving options, slow canvas redraw, not showing page setup options on Windows. There’s also a workaround for the bug that used to cause showing incorrect file size values on Windows. For the complete list of changes please see the NEWS file.

Additionally we did a lot of work to make a native build of GIMP for Mac a possibility. The official GIMP.app will be available soon. Windows installers of v2.8.2 will be available from the usual location shortly.

Beginning with this version we are also switching to a new versions numbering scheme. Final releases now always have even number of the micro version, and the versions in Git always have an odd number.

Preview of GNOME 3.5.5

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Preview of GNOME 3.5.5.

Matthias Clasen gave readers of his blog another one of his release previews this Saturday of the upcoming GNOME 3.5.5. The big feature this release is the “new screen lock implementation.” Beyond that, various applications and System Settings received some improvements as well.

We Are Looking for Windows Developers

  By Articles, FLOSS, Imaging, OSS

It’s been a long time since we last had an active Windows-based developer. Consequently, GIMP has accumulated a plethora of bugs specific for that operating system. As much as we’d like to provide a smooth user experience for Windows users, we simply do not have the required human resources.

Hence, if you are an experienced Windows-based developer who is interested to help GIMP become a first-class citizen in the Windows world, please get in touch with us. Our main communication channels are the gimp-developer mailing list and IRC. Here is the list of all reported bugs for the Windows version of GIMP.

If you go for IRC, we recommend sticking there for several hours, since we are mostly Europe-based, and you maybe aren’t in the same timezones span. Most development talks happen on IRC anyway, so staying online helps the communication.

All GSoC 2012 Students Passed Midterm Evaluation

  By Articles, FLOSS, Imaging, OSS

We are glad to announce that all of our Google Summer of Code 2012 students passed the midterm evaluation last week.

All projects are coming along nicely. The unified transform is already quite functional, the experimental GEGL editor is maturing, more filters were rewritten into GEGL operations, and more parts of GEGL were adapted for the new image processing core.

There’s also substantial progress with the Seamless Clone tool that was part of Google Summer of Code 2011 program. The tool relies on Poly2tri — a C++ library for generating constrained Delaunay triangulations. You can read more about this project in the developer’s blog.

The Poly2tri library is likely to be used by the next generation of the Cage Transform tool (available since v2.8). This is expected to simplify and hence speed up calculations which are currently slow when used on large images.

Inside Googles amazing Accessory Development Kit demo hardware video — Engadget

  By Articles, News

Inside Googles amazing Accessory Development Kit demo hardware video — Engadget.

 The coolest thing at Google I/O this year isn’t a cheap tablet or a pair of overpriced glasses or even akiller keyboard. It is, believe it or not, an alarm clock. But not just any alarm clock — this is an alarm clock with potential. What you see above, and demonstrated in the video after the break, is the gadget that was handed out to attendees who went to learn about the Android Accessory Development Kit. It has an array of RGB LEDs on the front which it can use to display simple numerals and digits, but thanks to a bevy of sensors — and plenty of connectivity options — that’s just the beginning. USB? Check. NFC? Definitely. Accelerometer, colorimeter, magnetometer, barometer, hygrometer, thermometer? Yes, all that and more

Embrace big data now or fall behind the competition, analyst warns

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Embrace big data now or fall behind the competition, analyst warns.

BOSTON — Companies that fail to take advantage of the opportunities presented by“big data” management and analytics technologies can expect to fall behind the competition and possibly go out of business altogether, according to one IT industry analyst who spoke Tuesday at the Talend Connect conference.

The world is just getting started with big data technologies like Hadoop and MapReduce, and several obstacles – such as a dearth of skills and old-fashioned thinking about data — continue to stand in the way of their adoption, said Jeff Kelly, a principal research contributor at Wikibon.org and a contributing editor at SiliconANGLE.

New Usability Project

  By Articles, FLOSS, Imaging, OSS

Since 2006 we’ve been improving GIMP’s user interface with help from Peter Sikking and his team at man + machine interface works. Some of the best improvements in GIMP’s UI over past several years are the direct result of our collaboration.

We are happy to announce that for the next 10 weeks Marinus Schraal is joining Peter Sikking to work on a concept of a new widget set for tools’ options in GIMP. The net outcome will be a functional spec for new UI elements that will be compact and easy to use.

By the way, recently Peter did another GIMP related interaction design course at the FH Vorarlberg, Austria. His students worked on possible new user interfaces for Liquid Rescale plug-in that implements content-aware scaling.