Links: KDevelop 4.0.1, GNOME 3...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-24 07:32:48 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-24 07:33:50 UTC
Summary: GNU/Linux news roundup
GNU/Linux
The Playstation 3 slim is not just a gaming console, but also a powerful PC besides the styled layout that the playstation 3 has. Everybody generally use the console for it?s main objective, to perform video games, with out realizing how significantly more the console can offer them . With Linux on Playstation 3 you can do almost everything a computer can do and then some with your Ps3. Not to mention installing Linux system on a Playstation 3 is very effortless. Here are some of the benefits linked with setting up Linux system on a Playstation 3 slim.
This is an old favorite of mine. Here is the problem, switching desktops on a Linux machine with or without compiz is not intuitive. Why? because it is related to some window keys Ctrl+Alt+Right or Left Arrow, it is a secondary menu, or it depends on the mouse being at the corner of the window.
Defragmenting the hard drive. It's hard to believe that even Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft, is still prone to this problem. The NTFS filesystem (used by Windows NT and up) has other quirks, but it seems to slowly get fragmented and requires defragmenting from time to time. This process can take a long time depending on your hardware, and no doubtedly has to happen when you are not using your computer. It's more like a band-aid to the problem, whereas Linux solves the problem up front by not even allowing fragmenting to happen at all. This has been the case since the ext3 filesystem was first used for Linux, and is still the case today with the ext4 filesystem. To quote the Linux System Administrator Guide: "Modern Linux filesystem(s) keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Some filesystems, like ext3, effectively allocate the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. Therefore it is not necessary to worry about fragmentation in a Linux system.". Again, this is brilliant.
So let's look at two of the most common operating systems used today used in datacenters and on server systems. On one hand, Windows and the other Linux.
Windows by nature has more downtime per system, because Microsoft releases patches that require frequent rebooting. Windows patches are scheduled to be released on the second Tuesday of each month, so at a minimum once per month Windows systems will need to reboot. Sometimes, patches are released even more frequently, depending on the severity. Windows just can't activate a majority of software updates without rebooting the entire system.
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Server
- Over two thirds (29 out of 42) of the most reliable hosting companies use Linux (would they use GNU along with it?)
- 14.2% use BSD (FreeBSD to be more precise)
- A little less than 10% use Windows
- 3 out of 42 are a big question mark
The z196 can be configured to include up to 80 specialty engines to further reduce costs and increase performance including the System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) for integrating Java workloads with core business applications, the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) designed to help free-up computing capacity and lower IT costs, and the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) to optimize Linux workloads running on the mainframe, IBM said in its press release.
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Graphics Stack
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Applications
Why do I care about this so much? Because I have music playing whenever I'm using this computer, and when you add up work plus free time, I'm at this computer 8-10 hours per day. Music keeps me sane during multi-hour debug sessions. Music is an integral part of my life, and a music app is an integral part of playing music.
It's very important to me that the programs and tools I use all day are comfortable. Otherwise I become cranky. If you were a carpenter, would you want to use a hammer with a wobbly handle all day? I'm a programmer, and I want to use comfortable computer programs.
Clementine is very comfortable.
A library management system (also known as an integrated library system) is an automated resource planning system which enables a library to operate efficiently, freeing staff from unnecessary tasks. This type of software typically offers functionality such as cataloging, searching, reporting, acquisitions, library circulation and management embodied into a central system.
A student information system (also known as a student management system or school management system) is computer software for educational institutions to manage student data.
We continue our Linuxables series on the Linux text editor. As you might have noticed, this is one of those topics that breed much contempt. If you talk about vi, you must give equal time to emacs. If you talk about Kate, you best talk about Gedit. And that is precisely where we are - Gedit (although we have yet to talk about Kate, that comes next week).
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By default Gedit will be installed on a GNOME desktop.
GSmartControl is a really useful Linux app to check the health of your hard disk drive. GSmartControl is basically a graphical user interface for smartctl, which is a tool for querying and controlling SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data on modern hard disk drives. Only ATA drives including both PATA and SATA are supported for now.
Ear Candy Automatically Fades and Raises Volume Levels in LinuxLinux only: Free utility Ear Candy makes your sound system smarter. If you're listening to music and a Skype call comes in, or you load a YouTube video, Ear Candy gently lowers your music volume to let the other sounds through.
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Proprietary
More than two years after version 1.0 arrived and about one month behind schedule, the Wine Project development team have released version 1.2 of their Windows API implementation. Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is free open source software that allows users to run Windows applications on Linux and Unix by providing its own native replacements for Windows DLLs. According to Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard, Wine 1.2 represents more than 23,000 changes, including over 3,000 bug fixes, and includes a number of improvements and new features.
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Instructionals
Retouching your photos in digiKam is radically different from how it works in Aperture. In digiKam, you first have to open the image Editor. In the image Editor, you can select from the top menu the different manipulations that you apply to your photo. You pick one manipulation that you want to do and on the right side of the window, the controls for this particular manipulation appear. Here you can adjust the settings. For some tools, the changes are displayed straight away, for the more computing extensive tools you have to press the “try” button to see the effect. DigiKam has made it easy to check what the effect of the adjustment is going to be: there are four split screens available and there is a mouse over option available that shows the original or the adjusted photo depending on where your mouse is. You can select the behaviour of the Image Editor on the bottom right corner. In that same corner, you also find the apply button, which probably does not need any explanation!
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
I’m happy to announce the availability of our first patch level release for KDevelop 4.
Well, here comes a good one I think. As I was talking to some people on the KDE IRC channel yesterday, there was a comment made about a possible way to orient new KDE users on how to use the desktop. However, I believe that users should be left clues to discover their desktop on their own. There should not be an intro popup or anything like that. Ponder about this for a moment.
Today, the KOffice team presents a contest to create great KPresenter slide templates, offering t-shirts for the winners and of course inclusion in the next KPresenter releases for all good submissions. Read on for information on the contest!
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GNOME Desktop
This September, a new desktop will be unveiled to the world in the form of GNOME 3. This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop. It's different, it's intuitive, and it follows the current evolution of what the desktop should be. But best of all, it's all about Linux.
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I have owned a Victorinox USB flash drive for several years now - long enough that it is only a 512MB unit, and it was considered "typical" at the time that I got it. I recently decided it was time to get a new one with a capacity more typical by today's standards. My basic selection criteria was very simple - besides the capacity, it must not have any knife or scissors which would cause me problems when taking it in my backpack on commercial flights.
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Reviews
Parted Magic is a Slackware-based Linux distro which is made for the sole purpose of partitioning hard disks. Parted Magic comes with tools like GParted, TestDisk, fdisk etc. The latest release, Parted Magic 0.5 was released yesterday and it includes Linux kernel 2.6.34.1, GParted 0.6.1 etc.
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New Releases
After several years of development, German T2 creator Rene Rebe has announced the release of version 8.0 of his cross compiling Linux distribution System Development Environment (SDE), T2 SDE. According to Rebe, the latest release includes more than 10,000 Subversion revisions, hundreds of new packages, performance improvements and several new features.
The Sabayon Linux team has now released two new flavours of the Gentoo-based Linux distro packed with alternative desktop environments for those who prefer them or have slower computers. The Sabayon 5.3 XFCE and Sabayon 5.3 LXDE ‘spins’ are more experimental in nature than the regular release though they are considered stable enough for regular use. This is just the first step, more spins are planned, and these two will continue to evolve until they reach a more mature state.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
Flavours and Variants
Some love Gnome, others love KDE, for me it’s XFCE all the way. When I jumped on the Ubuntu bandwagon several years ago it was only natural that I’d use Xubuntu.
If you’re looking for a great KDE distribution built on Ubuntu packages, Linux Mint KDE is the one to get. Forget Kubuntu, Mint does everything it does and more. In fact, it’s everything Kubuntu used to be. By itself, Mint’s KDE edition shines with custom tools, a customized appearance, and attention to detail at just about every turn. Distributions like this one make it harder for me to choose a single distro to stick with, as there are many great ones out there to try out.
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Overall: 5/5 (Great!)
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Phones
I caught an excellent presentation by Aaron Williamson from the Software Freedom Law center here at OSCON yesterday examining why smartphones built on open source software aren’t as open as they possibly could be. What Williams talked about was often eye opening, though there were a few points I found myself disagreeing with him on.
He started the presentation by talking about Motorola’s Droid X and the controversy that was stirred up when hacking enthusiasts discovered that Motorola had implemented an encrypted boot loader that forced the device to boot into a “recovery” mode in the event a custom ROM was detected on the device. While this was shocking (and even infuriating) to some, The only thing setting Motorola apart from the other Android OEMS in this case is that they’re actually enforcing the restrictions mandated by the OS maker.
Mobile photography could get a shot in the arm thanks to the combined efforts of Stanford University researchers and Nokia Research, who have pushed a new open-source digital photography platform out the door. FCam – or “Frankencamera” – is initially available for the Nokia N900, and unlocks high-end functionality like RAW image capture, full manual controls and low-light imagery through combining multiple shots of varying ISO and exposure settings.
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Android
In two reports filed from this week's OSCON conference, The Register says that Google will open Android's internal development kit to contributors, and that Linux maintainers are holding tough in negotiating with the search giant regarding Android's readmission to the kernel. Meanwhile, Linux 2.6.35 RC6 was released, featuring enhancements to network scalability, memory management, and sleep-wait detection.
Interest levels in syncing music collections have notched up a bit of late with the introduction of a plethora of new Android-based super phones. That is, unless you happen to be one of those owners with a large quantity of digital music encumbered by digital rights management (DRM) better known as copy protection. In that case, you might want to do some research into converting said digital files into a more portable format. Meanwhile, for the rest, with media ready to load up on a new cool phone, we'll take a look at Linux options.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- British Justice Minister Sarah Sackman Blasts Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
- The "legal industry" is due for "some reckoning"
- Someone at Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is Censoring the Birthday Greetings to Richard Stallman
- Some people remember
- Links 16/03/2026: Moscow Experiencing Cellphone Internet Outages, "Salman Rushdie Is Tired of Talking About Free Speech"
- Links for the day
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- Links 17/03/2026: American Fentanylware (TikTok) Investors Implicated in Kickbacks, "Big Oil Knew It Was Wrecking Louisiana’s Coast"
- Links for the day
- For Third Time in a Week The Register MS Runs Google SPAM That Paints Google as an Ally of Women (Which is False, They're Womanisers)
- What does that make The Register MS to women?
- GAFAM Deprecating Old Videos ("Content") by Removing the Support for Their Format for No Good Reason
- "Security" is not a valid excuse
- Credit/Debit Cards Have Long Been Called Plastics, Over Time They're Becoming More Like Pure Plastics
- They cost less than a dollar to manufacture
- The European Patent Office (EPO) Holds a Public Demonstration Tomorrow and It'll be Live-streamed
- The EPO's workforce was meant to be capable of speaking many languages and have extensive experience in the sciences
- People Who Attacked Techrights Also Attacked My Mother
- Picking on old ladies because you don't like Free software advocates is never OK
- Little Community Element Left in CentOS
- CentOS, unlike Fedora, was meant to be long supported and solid
- Social Control Media is Cancel Culture (Companies Like Facebook Also Punish/Ban Accounts for Mentioning "Linux" and Lobby for Anti-Linux Legislation)
- The masters of Social Control Media decide what ideas can and cannot be expressed
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 16, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, March 16, 2026
- The European Patent Office (EPO) Illegally Transitioning Into 'Gig' 'Economy' Equivalent (a Shop for Patent Monopolies in Europe)
- for scabs aka SEALs
- At Least Six EPO Strikes Next Month (Yes, Six!)
- The pressure intensifies over time
- Several MPs Blast Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Inaction and Ineffective Action This Week
- "Four MPs have written to the SRA"
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 14 Out of 200: The Abusive Cases of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft and His Litigation Buddy Garrett Did Cause "Serious Harm"
- claims were de facto abandoned at the trial
- Today's Discussions About How IBM Pushes Workers Out
- The corporate media keeps trying - baselessly and in vain - to paint everything that happens with the "hey hi" brush
- Linux Teck (linuxteck.com) and Ubuntu PIT (ubuntupit.com) Are Botspam
- now they just keep experimenting by trashing their sites and reputation
- Links 16/03/2026: Arctic Security and 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin'
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/03/2026: KN95 Skins and CSS Surprises
- Links for the day
- Debian is Dying for Some of the Same Reasons IBM's Fedora is Rapidly Dying
- Prioritising CoC censorship, not communities
- The Register MS is Again Femmewashing GAFAM (Which Makes Widows) in Exchange for Money
- This is a moral issue because they betray or harm women and prop up authoritarian regimes
- Gemini Links 16/03/2026: AB 1043, Lagrange Android Beta 47, and Poetry
- Links for the day
- "Slop-forking" or "Vibe-forking" as the New 'Noble' Plagiarism
- New Cloudflare Slop Project?
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VII - Cult Mentality, Mobbing, Nepotism
- Does the EPO actually believe in the law?
- 2026 Microsoft Layoff Rumours
- Surely if we had properly-functioning media, then someone would investigate this rather than rely on official statements from Microsoft and WARN notices
- EPO Strike This Week
- contact your national representatives about it
- Gemini Links 15/03/2026: "Create Opportunities for Good Things to Happen", DOSbook, and Bitcoin Criticism
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 15, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, March 15, 2026
- Pirate Praveen Arimbrathodiyil & Debian denouncing volunteers, hiding romances
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 15/03/2026: WB Games Montréal Undergoes Layoffs, "Swiss Reject Cuts to Public Broadcasting"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/03/2026: Messages in Bottles and Audio Streaming in Lagrange for Android
- Links for the day
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 13 Out of 200: Abuse of Process to Make False Accusations of UKGDPR Violations
- familiar barrister and same lawyers
- Thrown Under the Microsoft Bus
- Microsoft wants disposable contractors
- Quitting IBM and "Rumors of an Upcoming RA [Mass Layoffs] in April 2026"
- Blue layoffs or "RAs" were confirmed upfront by the CFO
- GNU/Linux Distro Builders Barely Paid Enough to Pay Basic Bills, Chief of "Linux" Foundation (Not Even Using Linux!) Increases His Own Salary by Over 50% in 5 Years
- Salaries or compensation correlate with the ability to exploit people, not to create things
- What Puts the Brakes on GNU/Linux Adoption on Laptops and Desktops is Monopoly Control (or Monoculture) Over the Distros
- Distros that adopt systemd are controlled by IBM and GAFAM
- The "Zero-Sum" Fallacy
- Fallacies like "zero-sum" - especially in the context of foreign affairs including war - are utterly ruinous
- A Happy Birthday to Richard Stallman
- Richard Stallman will turn 73
- Jürgen Habermas is Dead, But the Politicised, Inherently Corrupt, Corporatised Court for Patents That He Inspired Is Not
- In the news throughout the weekend
- Mountains of Abuses of Process by Brett Wilson LLP on Behalf of Americans and Sometimes at the Expense of British Taxpayers
- a virtual "limited liability"
- linuxteck.com FUD by LLM Slop, ubuntupit.com Passes the Slop Baton
- Unless they get back to doing long-form authentic articles, as opposed to slop, no good will come out of it
- Links 15/03/2026: New Shortages, Lynx Populations Depletion
- Links for the day
- Sruthi Chandran & Debian Diversity, Favoritism, Hidden Conflicts of Interest
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- software in the public domain
- Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
- Links 15/03/2026: Slop "Bubble Driving Interest in Chip Alternatives" and Wildlife Erosion Reported
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 14, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, March 14, 2026