Links: KDE SC News (Including Akademy), Distribution Reviews, and Upside for Red Hat
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-21 22:33:37 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-21 22:33:37 UTC
Summary: News about KDE, new releases, and Red Hat's healthy state
K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
It is a bit later than I envisioned, but here it is. Day one of using KDE4 of a seven day series on the Desktop Environment.
If you are new to my Seven Day Challenges, you can also read through my Gnome Shell or Windows 7 Seven Day series.
I ended up taking two "breaks" during the day today to do "30 minute hacks". This is where I do something in the codebase that may or may not end up being useful but which I find interesting to try out, keeping the exercise to a length of 30 minutes or less.
At Akademy in Tampere we interviewed Dirk Hohndel, Chief Linux and Open Source Technologist (we would call him 'dude') at Intel. He was present representing Intel and checking out what the KDE community is up to. As he sacrificed spending the 4th of July with his family for this, we were anxious to talk to him. Sunday, after the Elegant keynote by Aaron Seigo, we managed to catch him for a chat and first asked him what he thought about the keynote.
Not content to just sit back and learn tmux alongside cone, I also spent a little time over the past few days messing with a few other distros, both on this machine and a much faster one.
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Reviews
Distro Release Votes (%)
PCLinuxOS 2010.1 137 (31%)
Linux Mint 9 78 (18%)
Ubuntu 10.04 (and brethren) 63 (14%)
OpenSUSE 11.3 47 (10%)
Fedora 13 20 (4%)
Arch Linux 2010.05 19 (4%)
Pardus 2009.2 18 (4%)
Other 16 (3%)
Mandriva 2010.1 13 (3%)
Slackware 13.1 13 (3%)
Sabayon 5.3 4 (0%)
CentOS 5.5 2 (0%)
Usually, when installing a new operating system the hope is that it’s as up-to-date as possible. After installation there’s bound to be a few updates required, but no more than a few megabytes. Damn Vulnerable Linux is different, it’s shipped in as vulnerable a state as possible.
The idea behind DVL is to offer an operating system for learning and research for security students. As the DVL website explains:
Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is everything a good Linux distribution isn’t. Its developers have spent hours stuffing it with broken, ill-configured, outdated, and exploitable software that makes it vulnerable to attacks. DVL isn’t built to run on your desktop – it’s a learning tool for security students.
[...]
For general operating system distribution there is an obsession with always shipping the most up-to-date version. It’s a good obsession to have, as for the most part we all want the most current and secure software running on our machines.
Kongoni is billed as a Slackware-based, desktop-oriented GNU/Linux distribution and live CD, with a BSD-style ports tree and a graphical management system. Given that Slackware is the most BSD-like Linux this seems to make sense.
Having heard good things about FreeBSD, Arch, and Gentoo which come to mind, this sounded intriguing and I decided to give this young project a spin. Kongoni has only had one release out so far, version 1.12.2 released 12/07/2009, a year old by the time you read this. This release was still based on Slackware 12 according to the developer, but has moved up since then via the repository. At the moment it is in sync with Slackware current, I suppose until the new release is out which, going by the kernel 2.6.34 and application versions will be based on Slackware 13.1.
[...]
Kongoni definitely has character and I hope it will be able to build a community to sustain it, rather than just the passing curious distro-hopper. Kongoni offers with their base install yet another way of doing things and in particular another way of using Slackware. It also is, not to forget, a Live CD by default, which should strike a chord with people looking for a Slackware based Live CD, particularly as we haven't heard anything from the Bluewhite64 or the Slax projects in this respect for a while. (The Slax community has been providing unofficial remixes now for a while, but they're not touching the base.)
Overall, I’d have to give Mandriva’s “Farman” release a solid eight and a half out of ten. I’ve always been a Mandriva fan since the first time I’ve used it, and it remains to this very day one of the best distros I’ve used. RPM based or not, if you’re starting out with Linux and would like a gentle introduction to how Linux can work smoothly, without using Mint or Ubuntu, Mandriva’s certainly my choice for you. And if you’re more experienced with Linux, Mandriva still has a lot to offer you in terms of customization, stability, and the lightness that comes with their experience in the Linux market. Well done, Mandriva, well done. Once again, you prove that Red Hat can be amazing: it just depends on how you use it.
PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family
The second release candidate release of KDE 4.5 was released last week and again thanks to neoclust we have packages for Mandriva 2010 Spring since the beginning of this week.
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Red Hat Family
Piper Jaffray is out with a research note this morning, where it reiterates its Overweight rating on Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT); it also has a $37.00 price target on the stock.
The Piper Jaffray analysts said, “We recently interviewed 45 Red Hat partners to assess opinions of RHEV and found that 80% believe RHEV already delivers a TCO that is superior to, or equal with, VMware (NYSE: VMW). Customers appear ready for an open, viable alternative to VMware, as contacts indicate several large VMware customers are taking a very close look at RHEV. Our prior work showed that RHEV can drive 10% of RHT's bookings in the next 12-24 months, and the current results provide reason for incremental optimism.”
Shares of Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) booked a new 52 week high today by trading above $32.52, traders are definitely monitoring Red Hat's price action to see if this move attracts further buying into the stock.
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) develops and provides open source software and services, including the Red Hat Linux operating system.
RHEL 6 is an excellent product. It works great. You have everything. Well, almost everything. Except NTFS support, everything works superbly, without any hitches. RHEL 6 combines modern technology with stability and quality to create a perfect formula. Whether you want this to become your server or your desktop, you have the right tools for the right job. Memory footprint is low, suspend & hibernate works, Wireless works, the choice of programs is well balanced, what could you ask more? And remember, this is only a beta release!
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Fedora
Dennis asked, “What do you see as the biggest challenge in your starting weeks/months?”
Jared replied, “We need to continue to push Fedora development, and to make the Fedora community more inclusive. I’m reminded this week at FUDCon at the barriers to entry that are there, not because we’re trying to be exclusive, but because of language and cultural differences for example… My biggest challenge in the beginning is to find ways to get buy-in from all the parties involved so that we can push with a concerted effort. I’d rather make it a collaborative effort.”
The author of autoten has done a superb job in keeping the application fuss-free & that should be appreciated as nobody wants to wander through menus to get simple things installed. Considering this application will be used by amateurs, there is no way they will get lost or feel intimidated by the huge(complex but informative) homescreen. Autoten gets a highly recommend tag from our side.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
First question that comes to mind is really? The COO of Ubuntu's Canonical argues that the desktop OS is virtually dead, replaced by "a new breed of "desktop" platform." He contends that the big players that have our attention like Google and Facebook are increasingly OS agnostic, thus making the base OS more and more irrelevant.
The Ubuntu Software Center will feature software which you are able to purchase.
Sounds like the same thing as all the other’s right?
Security Consultant Lenny Zeltser has released a lightweight version of Ubuntu that includes a collection of malware analysis tools and runs as a VMware Virtual Appliance.
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Flavours and Variants
After more than a year in development, the Jolicloud developers have confirmed that the major 1.0 release of their operating system has started rolling out to existing users this week. According to a post on the Jolicloud blog, founding members that have been running Jolicloud since the first Alpha release will receive the update first.
The team behind the Peppermint cloud-based flavor of Linux is at it again, this time delivering Peppermint Ice – a new version of Peppermint featuring a Site Specific Browser for launching Web applications and cloud applications.
Summary: Peppermint Ice is a great alternative for Peppermint OS One users that wanted Chromium as their default browser. It’s also perfect for anybody that wants a web-centric distro that is extremely fast and stable.
Rating: 4/5
Based on Lubuntu 10.04, Linux 2.6.32, Openbox 3.4.10, LXSession 0.4.3, and Xorg 1.7.5, Linux Mint 9 LXDE features a complete desktop computing experience while being easy on system resource usage thus making it suitable for older hardware and situations where speed is a crucial factor.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
- Neither legal nor useful
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- Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
- people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
- Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
- That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
- The Demise of LLMs
- We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
- Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
- Links for the day
- Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
- Links for the day
- Firing Away With Nonsense
- Or fighting fire with fire
- Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
- Links for the day
- The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
- This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
- Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
- Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
- Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
- And likely in prior years, too
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
- Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
- EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
- Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
- Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
- Gemini Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
- Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
- cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
- Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
- Links for the day
- Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
- Links for the day
- If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
- Nope.
- Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
- Links for the day
- Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
- The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
- EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
- slides
- Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
- The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
- EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
- "The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
- Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
- It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
- After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
- Microsoft is in effect collapsing
- Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
- we're on the right track
- Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
- For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
- Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
- Links for the day
- Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
- Links for the day
- Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
- Links for the day
- The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
- They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
- "Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
- Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
- Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
- The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
- New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
- Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
- Abuse of Process
- 5RB is employing people who help violent men
- What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
- "Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
- Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
- IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
- It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
- Unable to find a business model
- GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
- Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
- Wayland is Bad for the Planet
- If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
- Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
- Microsoft is a very malicious company
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
- On Microsoft Layoffs
- we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
- EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
- This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
- Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
- Links for the day
- Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
- That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.