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Digg Melts Down (and DRM continues to break)

In what surely will be the most talked about story of the week (just above Dell shipping Ubuntu on PCs), Digg melted down last night. I watched it in real time last night as more and more users added stories displaying the banned HD-DVD encryption key.

It’s amazing how one 16 digital hexadecimal string of numbers (and a little bit of censorship) can wake up a community.

The blog at Franticindustries has the best recap of the story I’ve seen yet.

But never until today has the entire Internet risen as one to protect their right of free speech, with one string of hexadecimal numbers being their defeaning shout.

As the article goes on to say, Digg was only the catalyst – almost every other major tech site of note has the key displayed in a story or a user submitted comment. The early adopters and tech enthusiasts are rising up against DRM – it’s now becoming more than a movement. In the year when major record labels are going DRM free in music, users patience with digital rights management for next gen technologies is wearing thin. Users want to use their content how they want to – they don’t want to be told when and how they can use their content. If I want to listen to music I legally purchased online on the device of my choice, I should have that ability. If I want to buy a movie on DVD, and encode it to watch on a portable player, I should be able to do that. If I want to watch a DVD movie on my computer, that doesn’t run Windows, I should be able to do that.

This is how we got DVD playback on Linux – one software company left a hole open displaying the encryption key, and it happened again with HD-DVD. When both parts of the key are available to the user – one half on the hardware or in software playback, and the other half in the media itself, users are going to figure it out. Just like the Digg users rising up as one, the community dedicated to breaking the encryption is united as well.

For some reason, this key has become more than just a way to circumvent copy protection: it is now a statement.

It says: information must be free.

In as little as 24 hours, countless iterations of the key have sprung out. There’s a registered domain containing the key; there’s a string of colors equivalent to the key value; hell, if license plates were allowed to have 32 digits I bet there would be a great demand for a particular number.

09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

Remember this number.

And get involved. Learn more at Defective by Design and join the EFF.

Gaming on (Foresight) Linux

Linux seems to always get a knock when it comes to gaming. I know personally I believed the FUD, before making the switch to Linux full time 2 years ago and learning otherwise. What Linux doesn’t have in quantity as a gaming platform, it does make up in quality.

A lot of the open source and freeware get the publicity, but id software and Epic, among other developers, makers of Quake and Unreal Tournament respectively, continue to put out native Linux binaries of their software.

With the upcoming Enemy Territory: Quake Wars release, I installed Quake IV, Doom 3 and the original Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory on my desktop today. Since I did a clean install of Foresight a couple months ago, I wanted to make sure I work out any kinks before ET:QW’s release.

Everything worked like a champ – I downloaded the Linux installation files from id software’s bittorrent server, installed those in /home/silwenae/games (I’m lazy, didn’t feel like chmod’ing /usr/games), copied the pak files over, and ran Doom 3 and Quake IV. Mapped my keys, cranked the video settings, and I was online in minutes fragging away.

The only small glitch I ran into with Quake IV, and this hasn’t happened in my two or three previous installs, was that it started in Spanish. A quick Google search turned up the fix: Go into your home folder, and in the .quake4 directory (which is hidden, hit ctrl-h in Nautilus to view hidden files and directories), and then the q4base directory, and edit the Quake4Config.cfg file with your favorite text editor, and change the value of sys-lang to english, and you’re all set.

Everything worked great out of the box, I didn’t have the funky Alsa / OSS sound issue I had in the past with Ubuntu, even that worked flawlessly.

Who said you couldn’t game on Linux? Come get some!

Getting Started with Foresight Linux User Guide

I’m pleased to announce the 1.0 release of the Getting Started with

Foresight Linux User Guide:

[http://wiki.foresightlinux.com/confluence/display/docs/Getting+Started+with+Foresight+Linux

]1

The User Guide provides a high level overview of Foresight Linux, including:

  • Download and Installing Foresight Linux
  • Post-Installation Configuration
  • Using Applications
  • Updating Foresight / Adding & Removing Programs
  • Getting Help
  • Getting Involved with Foresight Linux

The User Guide is intended for users new to Linux or new to Foresight,

though advanced users may learn something as well.

The User Guide currently lives on the Foresight Wiki, so if you have

any updates or see any errors, feel free to update it, I would love to

have some more eyes looking at it. I hope to export it to HTML and /

or Docbook in the next month or so.

The TCLUG meetings are back!

The Twin Cities Linux User Groups are back! After almost 2 years, we’re set to have our first meeting (except for last summer’s installfest). Two volunteers and myself have been meeting to brainstorm topics, meeting flow, and trying to find a location.

If you live in Minnesota, and you’re new to Linux and want to learn more, or an old hand at Linux and want to meet some like-minded people, come join us, everyone is welcome! There’s a Google calendar link in there as well, so you can indicate if you want to come.

Here’s the announcement I sent to the mailing list this morning:

Mark your calendars! The Twin Cities Linux User Group is pleased to

announce two upcoming meetings.

Please feel free to forward this announcement. After a brief hiatus, we’re excited to bring back regular meetings of the TCLUG. The TCLUG website will be updated soon with the event information as well.

Date: Wed., May 2nd

Time: 6:30 – 8:00

University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus, EE/CSci Building , Room: 3-210

200 Union St SE, Minneapolis 55455

(Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/2omnv6)

Topics:

  1. Welcome & Introduction

  2. Linux on a USB Flash Drive (Eric Peterson)

  3. Getting involved (TCLUG information, future meetings & meeting

topics, volunteer to speak at a TCLUG meeting)

Food and drink are not allowed in the U of M classrooms. For those who would like to get to know each other a little better, we will be heading out for food and drinks afterward. (Location TBD) We invite everyone to come along!

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June Meeting (Tentative, more information at 5/2 meeting):

Date: Wed., June 7th

Time: 6:30 – 8:00

University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus, EE/CSci Building , Room: 3-210

200 Union St SE, Minneapolis 55455

(Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/2omnv6)

Topics

  1. Feedback from 5/2 meeting

  2. Lightning talks: We would like to provide short time slots (10 – 30 minutes) for any member to demonstrate a project or discuss a topic with the group.. More information will be available at the May 2nd meeting.

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Upcoming events are also viewable on the TCLUG Google Calendar:

http://tinyurl.com/2c5d8w (Requires a Google Account).