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Links 4/4/2012: GNOME 3.4 Live CD, GIMP 2.8.0-RC1





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • Little Drive, Big Deal
      You’ve heard of Linux, but haven’t had a chance to see what all the fuss is about. After all, your computer runs Windows. But what if you could plug in your USB drive and temporarily turn your PC into a Linux system? Even better, when you’re done, your machine will go back to its regular Windows-powered self, with no trace of Linux left behind?

      You can work this bit of OS prestidigitation with UNetbootin, a free Windows utility that downloads and installs any version of Linux to your flash drive, then makes that drive bootable. It’s an easy, hassle-free way to test-drive the OS, which runs entirely from the drive, making no changes whatsoever to your




  • Server

    • Dell-Clerity: Shifting IBM Mainframe Apps to Linux, Windows


    • Can An ARM-Based Supercomputer Become the World’s Fastest?
      Ramirez, a manager with the center, is in the midst of building a new supercomputer, called Mont-Blanc, that will use the same kind of low-power chips that you can find in tablets and smartphones today. Starting next month, his team will start assembling the first Mont-Blanc prototype using Nvidia's Tegra 3 processors instead of the RISC or Intel x86-compatible processors that are used on virtually all of today's supercomputers. The Tegra 3 will handle communications between different parts of the system while the actual number crunching will be done by yet-to-be-determined low-power multicore Nvidia graphics processors similar to the GeForce 520MX.






  • Kernel Space



    • Android As A First Class Citizen To Linux Kernel
      Greg Kroah-Hartman was asked today during a panel he was moderating at the 6th annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit about Google's Android on the mainline Linux kernel.

      For those that haven't been paying attention, since last year there's been a concerted effort to mainline more of Google's Android changes into the mainline Linux kernel. Android patches that went into the mainline Linux kernel previous suffered some rot, but this latest effort has the backing of several companies and is finally coming to fruition within stable kernel releases.


    • Who Are the 'Unkown' Linux Kernel Developers?
      There are a lot of different people that contribute code to the Linux kernel. In fact, according to the 2012 Linux Kernel Development report from the Linux Foundation, more than 7,800 developers from nearly 800 different companies have participated in Linux kernel development.

      Not all of those companies and developers participate in every kernel release. According to the report, for the recent Linux 3.2 kernel release, some 1,316 developers contributed, representing 226 different companies. While there is lots of participation, over the last five years the top 30 developers have contributed 20 percent of the total code.


    • The Linux Foundation Releases Annual Linux Development Report


    • How is Linux Built? Our new report and video.
      When you work for the Linux Foundation you get a lot of questions on just how Linux is built. Given the massive scale of the development and ubiquity of Linux today, some of us in the community might think everyone understands how the largest collaborative project in computing works. How you submit a patch. How maintainers work with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. But because of Linux's unprecedented growth in mobile, embedded and cloud computing, among other areas, new companies and developers are looking to participate. More than ever before, actually.


    • How Linux is Built


    • Linux boss: We're number one where it counts
      "We want to continue our trajectory in every corner of the industry," Zemlin told The Register. "We're seeing Linux as the primary platform for greenfield sites in large enterprises, the primary operating system for cloud computing build outs, and we're seeing tremendous growth in mobile and the embedded markets."

      While some in Redmond might point to the fact that Linux is still not king of the corporate desktop, Zemlin said that that battle isn't particularly relevant anymore. People use a wider variety of computing devices to use computers, and the browser is the becoming the most common interface for most users.


    • Linux Kernel 3.3.1 Is Available for Download
      Greg Kroah-Hartman announced on April 2nd the immediate available for download of the first maintenance release for the stable Linux 3.3 kernel series.

      Linux kernel 3.3.1 incorporates ARM fixes, updated drivers (wireless, Radeon), USB updates, as well as some improvements to various filesystem, such as CIFS, EXT4, XFS and NFS.


    • Slideshow: Live from Collaboration Summit


    • How Linux Talks to the Internet of Things: A Look at IEEE 802.15.4
      If you pay much attention to the futurists on the Web these days, no doubt you're familiar with the term "Internet Of Things." It may be yet-another-buzzword, but the central concept is quite real: the spread of low power, Internet-connected devices that use wireless networks to communicate with our PCs and servers. After all, you don't need a computer in your water heater or electric meter: you just need a sensor, and way to read it remotely. Linux will be a major player in this space, but most developers still aren't familiar with the network standards that make it work, like IEEE 802.15.4.


    • What is tmpfs ?


    • Graphics Stack

      • Non-Linux OSes Still Playing In An Intel UMS World
        While Intel has a lot of interesting work going on right now within their Linux kernel DRM driver and elsewhere within their open-source graphics stack, operating systems like OpenIndiana/Illumos and FreeBSD are still catching up, but they're still a ways off.

        Pushed out yesterday was an updated Intel graphics driver for the OpenSolaris-derived OpenIndiana. This new Intel X.Org driver is derived from xf86-video-intel 2.9.1... Yes, what was released as upstream in October 2009 while the latest Linux users are now running xf86-video-intel 2.18.0 with many, many features and changes since that point.


      • Intel outlines open source development projects
        The director of Intel's Open Source Technology Center Imad Sousou outlined the chip giant's plans to invest in the open source community and provided an update on two key projects, speaking at the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit in San Francisco.


      • Kernel Log: Intel hibernate bug fixed
        New versions of the Linux kernel fix a bug in Intel graphics drivers which could cause memory corruption. AMD has released X.Org drivers for its new Trinity processors. In September there will be a conference for X developers in Nuremberg. Progress has been made on GPGPU support in Mesa 3D.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



  • Distributions

    • What DEFT brings to the table


    • New Releases



    • Red Hat Family

      • CentOS Desktop
        I may be (half) joking sometime, but it happens to be serious too: encountered an old laptop (in bad shape, lot of dead pixels and such, it was a workhorse back in its time) which refuses to play along with Windows: bluescreen at startup, bluescreen at fresh install, hardware problems. The first thought: memory problems but memtest96 running from a Fedora live CD disagrees... but if I booted the device from that CD, just for the kicks I booted the distro (F14): works correctly, no lock-up, even WiFi is supported OOTB (so I suspect the hardware problem lies with the video card and is triggered by real use, not by the VESA driver).


      • Red Hat's $1B milestone notable but chump change vis-a-vis overall Linux industry
        The Linux Foundation’s exec director saluted Linux distribution leader Red Hat for reaching $1 billion in revenues but pointed out that the overall Linux industry is worth many, many billions today.


      • Red Hat Turns More Into More
        Margins matter. The more Red Hat (NYS: RHT) keeps of each buck it earns in revenue, the more money it has to invest in growth, fund new strategic plans, or (gasp!) distribute to shareholders. Healthy margins often separate pretenders from the best stocks in the market. That's why we check up on margins at least once a quarter in this series. I'm looking for the absolute numbers, so I can compare them to current and potential competitors, and any trend that may tell me how strong Red Hat's competitive position could be.


      • Porticor Joins Red Hat Innovate Initiative
        Porticor€®, the leading cloud data security company delivering the only cloud-based data encryption solution that infuses trust into the cloud by ensuring customer keys are never exposed, today announced it has joined the Red Hat Innovate™ program, enabling Porticor to leverage the power, openness and collaborative nature of open source communities, including enhanced access to Red Hat collaboration initiatives and software programs.




    • Debian Family





  • Devices/Embedded

    • Mentor Embedded Linux supports open source Yocto Project
      Mentor Graphics Corporation has released its next generation Mentor Embedded Linux platform that includes support for the Yocto Project, an open source collaborative project established by The Linux Foundation. The Mentor Embedded Linux platform helps developers build Linux-based embedded systems, independent of hardware architecture. With the new Mentor Embedded Linux platform, developers also gain the ability to easily select the best Linux kernel for their needs, irrespective of the kernel developed by Mentor Graphics or by a semiconductor company or by any third party.


    • Phones



    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets







Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Security



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The Fracking Frenzy's Impact on Women
      Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has generated widespread media attention this year. The process, which injects water and chemicals into the ground to release "natural" gas and oil from shale bedrock, has been shown to contribute significantly to air and water pollution and has even been linked to earthquakes. But little has been reported on the ways in which fracking may have unique impacts on women. Chemicals used in fracking have been linked to breast cancer and reproductive health problems and there have been reports of rises in crimes against women in some fracking "boom" towns, which have attracted itinerant workers with few ties to the community.






  • Finance

    • Exclusive: The $1.3 billion bond deal haunting Goldman
      The Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to bring charges soon against Goldman Sachs (GS) for a 2006 mortgage investment deal. The agency hasn't said which one yet, but Fortune has learned there's a good chance the SEC's case will focus on Fremont Home Loan Trust 2006-E, a bundle of more than 5,000 mortgages that has cost investors, including mortgage guarantor Freddie Mac and by extension U.S. taxpayers, an estimated $545 million.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Copyright paradigm shift in visegrad countries
        The field of copyright is associated with important cultural, social, and technological aspects, all of which have to be taken into account when formulating policy in this field. In the last 20 years, copyright and patent holders in different fields of industry and art have entered into a period of redefinition. Today, the copyright that served to protect the interest of creators in the last centuries is a barrier of invention and knowledge-sharing.


      • US government: We hear there's child porn on those Megaupload servers, judge!
        Megaupload wants the servers back to help with its defense, but with most of its assets seized by the federal government, it can't pay for them. Carpathia would normally wipe the servers and lease them to new clients, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation is demanding that legitimate users of the site be allowed to retrieve their personal data first. The Motion Picture Association of America doesn't want this to happen without assurances that its copyrighted content won't be retrieved and distributed again; besides, it might want the servers for a future lawsuit of its own. And the federal government yesterday announced that the servers “may contain child pornography,” which would render them "contraband" and limit Carpathia's options for dealing with them.








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