Angela Byron is the co-maintainer of the Drupal open source content management system and framework.  She talked to us a bit about her role with the Drupal project, and Drupal 7, the recently released, latest version of Drupal. more>>

The recent weeks have been interesting in the world of online translation management as Transifex got promoted to 1.0. As we are one of the project using the hosted service at transifex.net since almost a year now it was with both joy and disappointment we read the changelog. While bringing many nice features and awesome changes it also dropped the key advantage feature and the real killer, direct integration with VCS (in our case git at sourceforge.net).

For the time being we can not guarantee that changes made in LXDE translation files at transifex.net will be integrated in the main LXDE component code. The general rule of thumb is to not use transifex.net to do updates to LXDE components until further notice because the risk of changes being in conflict it might make your changes corrupt. We still have the Pootle server running and as long as nothing changes there it is a good way of doing the translations. For a limited time period we will also accept changes via e-mail, send a message to the LXDE i18n mailinglist to get this sorted out for you.

We will try to get transifex.net going again. There is a possibility that we will fail and decide to not support it.
Either way we will state that here at the blog and in the LXDE i18n mailing list so just check back here in some days.

But there's not a huge blob of people called 'the open source community'. Instead, there are thousands of smaller groups, each interested in a specific portion of the wider community - such as documentation, translations, local advocacy, mapping, testing, gaming or programming. There's a phenomenal diversity of contributions, despite our common aims. And while each group focuses in on its particular area, each segment fits together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the global open source movement we know and love.

Most of us enter this community by installing Linux, playing around with it and realising we want to contribute. Then we figure out what kind of contributions interest us and look for a community that suits our preferences. Often, we find the perfect place to contribute, but sometimes we reach a dead end or, even worse, stumble upon a community that's doing nothing.

Here, we'll look at how to build a community. Whether you want to help an existing but struggling one get back on its feet or create an entirely new group, the next six pages are designed for you. Everything here can be applied to both online and offline communities, from technical software communities to local book clubs. So go grab yourself a cup of coffee, sneak a biscuit, and get ready to build an empire...

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If you haven't gotten our subtle hints during the past year or so, IRC certainly is not dead. It really is the best way to get knowledgeable support from the folks who know best. There are a few caveats, however, that may not be obvious to people new to this old-school chat protocol.

Get a Good Client more>>

Connect USB devices to your Nexus One

• Hardware
  • Nexus One
  • Micro USB OTG cable (e.g.)
  • USB Dual Power Cable (e.g.) to provide power to the hub chip through the uplink port, since the Nexus One doesn’t provide bus power
  • Powered USB 2.0 hub (will charge the Nexus One) (e.g.) and optionally a battery pack for mobile use (e.g.) (measurements)
• Software based on Android 2.2 Froyo FRF72 (2.1 may work, too)
  • Download binaries…
    • boot.img or zImage
    • Modules (Mind /system/lib/modules/bcm4329.ko!)
  • …or build from source
    • git clone git://android.git.kernel.org/kernel/msm.git
      cd msm
      git checkout origin/android-msm-2.6.32
      wget http://sven.killig.de/android/N1/2.2/usb_host/.config
      patch -p1 < android-kernel_msm-3c98b0d_Nexus-One_usb-host.patch
      make -j2 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/android-ndk-r4/build/prebuilt/linux-x86/arm-eabi-4.4.0/bin/arm-eabi-
  • Install kernel
    • Boot from RAM (till next reset)…
      • /android-sdk-linux_86/tools/fastboot boot arch/arm/boot/zImage
    • …or write to flash (boot.img from a nandroid backup)
      • /getramdisk.py /boot.img
        /android-sdk-linux_86/tools/fastboot -b 0x20000000 flash:raw boot arch/arm/boot/zImage ramdisk.img
  • Start ConnectBot, enable full screen and connect to Local
    • su
      insmod drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko
      # Ignore the Unbalanced enabled for IRQ 58 stack trace for now
      insmod drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.ko
  • Substitute device mode (or port Andrew de Quincey’s work)
    • Use adb over TCP/IP
      • adb connect IP_address:5555
    • Filesystem access
      • Nexus One’s
        • On Air (Vista/7 registry patch)
      • PC’s
        • insmod fs/cifs/cifs.ko
          mount -t cifs -o username="username",password="password" //IP_address/share /mnt/sdcard/cifs

Links:

Hackaday: http://hackaday.com/2010/06/08/nexus-one-as-usb-host/

Sven Killig: http://sven.killig.de/android/N1/2.2/usb_host/

After a long weekend at SCaLE 8x with some of my favorite people, Linux Journal's Kyle Rankin, Bill Childers and Shawn Powers, I have officially become a huge fan of the annual Southern California Linux Expo. more>>