01.27.12

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers

GNU/Linux

• Katherine Noyes: I’m a Linux fan, and I enjoy helping to bring Linux to the forefront

  If you have enjoyed two interviews I made with women in Linux world before, I am sure you will love this one too. I’ll not talk too much in the beginning. Let me introduce my today’s guest: Katherine Noyes.

• Desktop

  • Geography of GNU/Linux

    NetApplications used to restrict geographic reports of web stats to subscribers. Today they will let anyone have the information:

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Remind

• Kernel Space/Free Desktop

  • The Case for the /usr Merge

  • LPI Joins the Linux Foundation

  • Compilers Mature For Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge, Prep For Haswell

    The leading open-source code compilers — namely the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and LLVM/Clang — now have maturing support for Intel’s Sandy Bridge microarchitecture with further optimizations for the forthcoming Ivy Bridge successor. With the current and next-generation Intel support covered, open-source compiler developers have already moved onto beginning work for supporting Intel’s Haswell microarchitecture that will not be launched until 2013.

  • Graphics Stack

    • New ATI Video Driver Supports Ubuntu 11.10

    • NVIDIA’s LLVM CUDA Compiler: Open-Source, 10% Faster

      Back in December there was an announcement from NVIDIA that they would open-source their CUDA compiler based upon the LLVM back-end. NVIDIA today released their new CUDA implementation that’s based upon LLVM. Besides being open-source, which will allow it to be ported to new (non-NVIDIA) architectures/hardware, there’s also a measurable speed boost in the switch over to LLVM.

• Applications

  • Publish Photos with PhotoShow

  • SyncWall – Wallpaper Changer with Synchronization Features

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Fixing Sound Startup on KDE

    • sdcv: command-line based Dictionary for Linux

    • Getting started with SELinux

    • How to Make Programs Start Automatically in Linux Mint 12

    • [How to] Play with Unity ‘Keyboard Shortcuts Overlay’ In Ubuntu 12.04

    • Finding “lost” computers on the web the homebrew way

    • Finding instances by name with boto in pythonv

    • Manage Your PDF Documents With Mendeley

    • Create Temporary Desktops For Applications

    • Cinnamon Bread oops Cinnamon Desktop is piping hot

    • Newrez- A great nautilus script to change screen resolution to one higher than your display’s physical dimensions

    • Creating and Customizing New Entries and Fields using Pybliographic

    • Using Pybliographic and Lyx for Citations and Bibliography Part 1

    • Using Pybliographic and Lyx for Citations and Bibliography Part 2

    • Unpacking Boxes…

    • Linux Time Command Examples

    • Dualbooting Windows 7 And Linux Mint 12

    • Resize Linux storage with LVM

    • Bulk renaming using Thunar

      Thunar is a lightweight file manager that comes with Xubuntu and other Xfce-based distributions. It has several useful features not found in other popular file managers, like ‘Bulk Rename’. To use this feature, select a group of files in the Thunar file pane and hit the F2 key, or choose Rename from the Edit menu. A window appears with ‘before and after’ views of your file names, and a drop-down list showing the renaming possibilities.

  • Games

    • ‘Lttle Dew’, Cute Zelda Like Action Adventure Game Coming Soon to Linux

    • Fallout Meets Minecraft in New Linux RPG: 3079

      The game is a mix of Minecraft and Fallout style gameplay. Minecraft because of its blocky graphics and art and Fallout because of its open ended sandbox style exlporation based gameplay. All areas, buildings, items, quests and characters are randomly generated. This game is still under active development, so lots of new features and improvements will land overtime.

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • KDE 4.8 adds adaptive power management, new windowing tricks

    • Status Update: KDE Partition Manager

      There hasn’t been any substantial development work being done on KDE Partition Manager for quite some time. This is indeed very deplorable and mostly owed to the fact that I am so far the only developer working on the project. The time I was able to devote to open source work has been severely limited over the last couple of months due to, as they say, circumstances beyond my control.

      So the project has remained in a rather dormant state since my series of blog entries about the upcoming featurs in version 1.1 and the post about the new partition widget design that had been so magnificiently done by Hugo.

      As an aside, this design has again been improved quite a bit after that post, so here’s a current KDE Partition Manager screenshot (also, everyone likes screenshots):

    • First Impression on KDE 4.8.0

      I have just finished upgrading my desktop to use KDE 4.8.0, which was just released by KDE team few hours ago while i was sleeping. Thanks to Eric Hameleers, i could get the early release of KDE packages and downloaded this packages as i slept last night. When i woke up this morning, all i have to do is to make sure everything is already up to date by running the rsync script once again.

      Next on, performed the command written on the README and performed the upgrade. Don’t forget to have a complete look on the README as there has been a renamed packages. After i rebooted my machine, KDE started to be loaded and there was a new splash screen called Air and Ariya Splash Screen which is very minimalistic, but it does look more professionals.

    • KDE 4.8 on Cauldron

      Wizards, sorcerers, witches, shamans, pajés and other mystical creatures that are KDE and Linux users celebrate: KDE 4.8 is avaiable in Mageia Cauldron repositories!

  • GNOME Desktop

    • GNOME 3.3.4 Development Release Is Here

      The GNOME Project announced a few minuntes ago, January 26th, the immediate availability for testing of the fourth development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.4 desktop environment, which brings various fixes and improvements.

    • Bringing Ubuntu (GNOME) Classic To 12.04 LTS?

      While Ubuntu’s Unity interface has come a long way since it made its full-on debut a year ago, it’s still not desirable to everyone. Likewise, GNOME 3.x is maturing, but not everyone is happy there with the radical changes from the GNOME 2.x desktop that many have become to know and love.

• Distributions

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • MEPIS 11.5…

        Although MEPIS 11.5 is nowhere near completion yet (actually, the process has just begun), I am very happy because the rumor about it was true: Warren Woodford is currently updating some packages…

      • vical/Ubuntu

        • Time to Kill Compiz Config Settings Manager in Precise?

          A very interesting discussion on Ubuntu Desktop mailing list has been started by Ubuntu developer Jorge O. Castro where he has proposed removal of Compiz Config Settings Manager (CCSM) completely from the archive.

        • Nuvola Player Might Just be the Perfect Replacement for Banshee in Ubuntu

          Nuvola Player is so unlike any of the music players for Linux we have featured here so far. What Nuvola Player does is, it runs web interface of cloud music service in its own window and provides deep integration with the Linux desktop (system tray, Ubuntu sound menu, dock menu and notifications). Nuvola Player’s currently supported services include Google Music, Grooveshark, Hype Machine and 8tracks.

        • Behind Ubuntu’s shift into mobile

        • Development Update

        • Ubuntu TV vs. Google TV: Battle of the Linux-based Smart TV

          Google TV, despite being launched and relaunched with much pomp and expectations, has not quite managed to reach the market it intended to. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to proclaim that the foray of Internet on our television screens previously has been an utter failure. And this, you see, is despite the fact that there are giants like Apple and Google scampering for the top spot.

        • Ubuntu 12.04 Adds Launcher Customization

• Devices/Embedded

  • Raspberry Pi – Size doesn’t Matter

    Raspberry Pi, a newly launched credit-card sized computer, weighing about 45g, can be plugged into your TV and a keyboard. The main purpose of this innovation, by the Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charitable one; by building the cheapest computer at $25, can provide an assured fundamental level of functionality.

  • [Video] Working Prototype Shown for New Linux Based Gaming Handheld ‘GameGadget’, To Be Released in March

    Couple of months back, we reported about a new Open Source Linux gaming handheld GameGadget. At that time we were a bit suspicious as many such projects were announced in past and they have now gone into oblivion.

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Best GarageBand-like Apps For Android

        You are busy strumming at that beautiful guitar, moving from the verse to the chorus. Just as the word SOLO appears on the lyrics page, with a flourish of excitement and a slight fumble of fingers, you manage to finish what seemed like the most difficult riff of your life. You complete the song and then, wiping the sweat from your brow, you shout out loud “I need to start a band.”

        Starting a band eh? Well, it’s not as easy as it looks, well, at least, that’s what I’ve heard many people say. And anyway, who’d go through the trouble of looking for new bandmates? No, no, not me sir; I’m just happy sitting here in front of my computer and having the world come to my desktop. And what better way to do that than to have a cool app like GarageBand instantly downloaded on my desktop?

      • Amazon selling Galaxy Nexus for a cool $100

        Wanna grab the hottest new Android experience but without burning a hole in your pocket? Head to Amazon and pick up the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for $100 with a two-year service agreement. The promo price is only good with any new Verizon Wireless contract, family or individual. We’re not sure how long this deal will last so don’t waste time wondering if the price will get better. It hasn’t yet and we don’t suspect it will anytime soon.

      • New Verizon MAP Shows DROID 4 Price Drop to $199, Bionic and 32GB RAZRs Discounted Too

      • Vignette Lets Android Photogs Get Their Art On

Free Software/Open Source

• What is Zorp?

  Briefly Zorp is an open source proxy firewall with deep protocol analysis. It sounds very sophisticated at first, however, the explanation below will make it easy to understand.

• Events

  • Free Embedded Linux Training at Yocto Developer Day on February 14th

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Thunderbird 9.0 Officially Lands in Ubuntu 11.10

      After the official upgrade to Firefox 9 in Ubuntu 11.10 at the beginning of the month, Canonical announced on January 24th that the Mozilla Thunderbird 9.0 email client is now available on the official software repositories of the Oneiric Ocelot operating system.

• BSD

  • GhostBSD 2.5 – Now with an Easy Graphic Installer

    GhostBSD 2.5 was released a few days ago and the headline on ghostbsd.com reads “Now with an Easy and Secure Graphic Installer.” GhostBSD is obviously a free BSD (and not coincidently, a FreeBSD derivative), but it aims to be a user-friendly free BSD and to improve the GNOME experience on FreeBSD.

• Project Releases

  • Samba 4.0 Dances Closer To Release

    After a very long and exhausting development process that’s been going on since 2003, while simultaneously developing the Samba 3.x series, Samba 4.0 is dancing closer to an official release this year.

  • FFmpeg 0.10 Gets New Filters, Decoders, Encoders

  • Airtime radio software hits version 2.0

    Sourcefabric has announced the release of version 2.0 of Airtime, its open source radio management software. According to its developers, the focus of the major update was to “reduce the time and effort station managers and DJs spent on behind-the-scenes work”.

• Public Services/Government

  • Europe Sees Another Mass Migration of Government IT to FOSS, This Time in Spain

    At a time when Europe is facing a hard time in a financial crisis and Apple is worth more than Greece, price cuts of any form are always welcome. Perhaps for this reason, a slew of European countries have moved to FOSS technologies for use in their internal operations. France, Germany and many prominent European economies have started using FOSS technologies, and have benefited hugely in saved IT costs. This time, Spain’s autonomous region Extremadura wants to move to open-source solutions in place of their current proprietary desktop software.

• Licensing

  • Sorting Out the Sharing License Shambles

    At the heart of the various movements based around sharing — free software, open content, open access etc. — lie specially drawn-up licenses that grant permissions beyond the minimal ones of copyright. This approach has worked well — too well, in fact, since it has led to a proliferation of many different licenses: the Open Source Initiative recognizes over 60 of them for open source. That’s a problem because slight incompatibilities between them often make it impossible to create combined works drawing on elements released under different licenses.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Digital Textbooks Go Straight From Scientists to Students

    “When we approached them, they essentially told us we were too small,” Johnston said. Frustrated by the experience, Johnston set out to create open source software to publish the book himself.

• Programming

  • Avoiding The Vendor Perl Fad Diet

    It looks like Red Hat is distributing Perl without the core library ExtUtils::MakeMaker. If you’re not familiar with the details of the Perl 5 build chain, all you need to know is this: without MakeMaker, you’re not installing anything from the CPAN.

    Ostensibly Red Hat and other OS distribution vendors split up Perl 5 into separate packages to save room on installation media. Core Perl 5 is large and includes many, many things that not everyone uses all the time… but the obvious reaction to defining a core subset of Perl 5 that a vendor can call “perl” is another of those recurring discussions which never quite goes anywhere.

  • Binpress Integrates with Github, Adds a Commercial Layer Over Open-Source

Leftovers

• Health/Nutrition

  • The High Cost of Allowing Health Insurers To Continue Keeping Us In The Dark

    In his State of the Union address, President Obama said very little about health care reform, but what he did say was a reminder of how tight a grip the insurance industry has on the U.S. health care system — and will continue to have if the Affordable Care Act is not implemented as Congress intended. And it is largely up to the President to make sure that it is.

• Censorship

  • Is Twitter Helping Users Get Around Its New Censorship Rules?

  • Twitter Decides To Censor Locally, Rather Than Block Globally, In Response To Government Demands

• Civil Rights

  • FBI seeking social media monitoring tool

• DRM

  • EFF petitioning to extend legal protection for jailbreaking phones and tablets

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation is petitioning to renew a US Copyright Office ruling that makes smartphone jailbreaking explicitly legal. In 2010, the Office added an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act allowing users to modify phone firmware to run software that’s not approved by the manufacturer. Since exemptions only last three years, however, the ruling must be renewed over the coming months; the EFF is also adding protection for tablets to the new exemption. The Copyright Office is currently taking public comments on the proposed rules.

  • Tales From Ubisoft DRM: Latest DRM Goes From Horrible To Slightly Less Horrible

    We all know Ubisoft. That company that seems to think that piracy is such a huge problem on the PC and that DRM is the only way to stop it — even when fans complain about how horrible the DRM is. So it is really no surprise to find out that Ubisoft is still at it. It still thinks that annoying legitimate customers is going to prevent piracy of its games. This latest story of Ubisoft DRM woe comes from Guru3d.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • Dude! Where’s My Data?

      In light of the recent TERMINATION of operation of MegaUpload by Agent Smith and his colleagues, one has to wonder what happens to all the legitimate data that was stored on those servers? Are you one of the unlucky ones who is quite possibly having your private data scoured by the IT department gnomes at BIG BROTHER Central? Disturbing thought, huh?

    • SOPA and PIPA: What Bills Like These Mean to Open Source Software

    • Public Interest Groups Speak Out About Next Week’s Secret Meeting In Hollywood To Negotiate TPP (Think International SOPA)

    • Court Finds Copyright Trolling Lawyer Evan Stone In Contempt; Orders Him To Pay Attorneys’ Fees

      Remember Evan Stone? He’s one of a “new breed” of copyright trolling lawyers, who has been trying to sue large groups of John Does based on IP addresses, claiming they infringed on a client’s work. Of course, the end game of these lawsuits is not to actually take these people to court, but to find out who they are, send them a nastygram… with an offer to “settle,” and then get as many people to settle as possible. It’s basically a way to use the court system to force lots of people to give you money. Thankfully, the courts have been cracking down on many of the more egregious players in these games. Evan Stone was one of the earlier players in this space in the US, but one who made a pretty big mistake last year while representing porn producer Mick Haig. One of his cases came before a judge who recognized how sketchy these lawsuits were, and told Stone that he couldn’t subpoena for the Does’ identities just yet, and in the meantime, he asked Public Citizen and EFF to represent the interests of the still anonymous users. Amazingly, Stone sent the subpoenas anyway. The appointed lawyers discovered this when they heard from one of the Does in question. When they confronted Stone about it, he dropped the case in the most petulant manner possible (basically whining about the judge appointing these meddlesome lawyers who kept him from getting his way).

    • ACTA

      • ACTA: Note from Marietje Schaake, Member of the European Parliament

        As a Member of the European Parliament (EP), I am concerned about the ACTA treaty in the international trade committee (INTA). Please find some information about the procedure of the ACTA treaty in the EU, especially the EP, below. You can reach me on Twitter via @marietjed66, where I will also post a message about this post.

      • ACTA ‘Is More Dangerous Than SOPA’

        While panelists talked about what they saw as the relatively secrecy under which ACTA was authored, ACTA is by no means a new initiative. Posts about the act started emerging online as early as 2008 (the initiation began with the U.S. and Japan in 2006). Canada’s Foreign Affairs and International Trade site offers a comprehensive look at the act, and even tackles the claim that ACTA was built and ratified in secret:

        “This process has not been kept from the public. On October 23, 2007, the partners involved in ACTA at that time publicly announced that they had initiated preliminary discussions on ACTA. Several countries involved in ACTA have conducted public consultations on the key proposed elements of the ACTA.”

        One thing is clear: The temperature is finally rising for ACTA, and at least one Congressman now publicly sees it as a greater threat than SOPA. You can see the entire panel in the exclusive video above.
        What do you think? Is ACTA bigger, badder and more worrisome than SOPA and PIPA, or is Issa simply trying to steer votes to his own legislation?

      • Stop ACTA in Europe

        We’ve been hearing a lot lately about SOPA and PIPA in the United States. In the meantime, ACTA has been creeping along under the radar.

      • Polish Politicians Don Guy Fawkes/Anonymous Masks To Protest ACTA Signing