07.24.12

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Rethinking Linux Hardware: Upgrade or Buy New?

  When you come from the proprietary operating system way of thinking, it’s difficult to get your mind around the idea of not automatically needing to upgrade your PC hardware every two years. While upgrading is not an absolute necessity, more often than not we feel compelled to, as if to make sure we enjoy maximum compatibility.

  On the Linux desktop, however, it’s completely different. You aren’t bound to the usual set of rules that come with a proprietary desktop. Generally speaking, peripherals from any time period are going to do well on the Linux desktop.

• Desktop

  • Chrome OS Beta Brings Major Improvements

    Google has updated the beta channel of Chrome OS to version 21.0.1180.50. This version is available for Chromebooks (Samsung Series 5, Samsung Series 5 550, and Cr-48) and Samsung Chromebox Series 3.

  • Chromebox Review: A Ketchup & Salt Affair

    You will notice that there is no HDMI port on the back. I suppose it would be easy enough to throw a couple of bucks at a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, but even still, the option would have been nice and would have made the Chromebox more complete to more people.

• Server

  • Fear not, Linux admins: There are TOOLS to help you

    Most Linux distributions have a significant focus on security. This does not mean they are necessarily ready for production out of the box. Tools like SELinux, excellent firewall options, and robust access controls can make Linux exceptionally secure. Despite this, actually deploying a Linux system into production still requires that the systems administrator have some idea what they are doing.

• Kernel Space

  • Linux 3.5 Advances Open Source Stability

    After seven release candidates and two months of development, Linux creator Linus Torvalds released the Linux 3.5 kernel on Saturday afternoon. The new Linux kernel is noteworthy for a number of incremental improvements it includes, which could serve to make Linux more stable and resilient than ever before.

  • Graphics Stack

    • X.org Foundation becomes a non-profit charity

• Applications

  • Zsh 5.0.0 Released With Highlight And Color Command Line Support

  • SlickEdit

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Free Guides for Getting Up to Speed with Linux

    • How To Benchmark Your System (CPU, File IO, MySQL) With sysbench

    • WordPress Performance Comparison: Using Nginx, Apache, APC and Varnish in Different Scenarios

    • Improve Photos Automagically with aaphoto

    • Dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7 on a computer with 2 hard drives

    • Configure An Email Gateway With Scrollout F1 Anti-Spam & DLP

    • CPanel and Cron Jobs Tutorial

  • Games

    • Linux will play games as well as they perform under Windows

      I am writing this article under considerable strain, as by tonight Linux shall be no more the same. I can bear the torture no longer; by the time you have read this hastily scrawled web page you may guess, though never fully realize, why it is that I must forget or vanish.

    • Intel and Valve collaborate to develop open source graphics drivers

      According to a blog post by Intel Software Engineer Ian Romanick, the Linux development teams from Intel and game developer Valve are collaborating to develop the open source drivers and the game engine for the forthcoming Linux port of first-person shooter game Left for Dead 2 (L4D2). Romanick said that the two parties met at Valve’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington to track down performance bottlenecks in the game and driver code, and to investigate the potential requirements for further OpenGL features.

• Desktop Environments

  • GNOME Desktop

    • GNOME 3.5.4 Comes With a Revamped Nautilus

      The GNOME Project unleashed a few minutes ago, July 23rd, the immediate availability for download and testing of the fourth development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.6 desktop environment.

• Distributions

  • Airinux 12.05 Screenshots (07/23/2012)

  • Improve Photos Automagically with aaphoto

  • New Releases

    • Peppermint Three

    • Peppermint OS Three: The real-deal desktop cloud Linux

      Since Peppermint Three just arrived today I haven’t had much of a chance to play with it, but I like what I see of it so far. It’s fast, it’s simple to use, and it does a real nice job of marrying cloud and local functionality and letting you decide how much of either one you want on your desktop. Give it a try. I think you may like it.

    • Linux Mint 13 KDE Edition Has Been Released

    • Linux Mint 13 KDE Edition Released

      The Linux Mint team has announced the release of Linux Mint 13 “Maya” KDE edition. This release is based on Ubuntu 12.04 long term support release and will be supported with security updates for a period of five years. It comes with KDE 4.8, Linux kernel 3.2 along with several improvements and bug fixes.

    • Linux Mint 13 “KDE” Released

  • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • The Quest of Getting Midi and Karaoke to Work in Mandriva 2010.2 and Mageia 2

      There are times in which a seemingly simple task becomes a challenge. For me, this happened when I was called to substitute a Japanese teacher and wanted to use a .kar file in the class to practice.

  • Gentoo Family

    • Premade Gentoo Stage 4

    • Gentoo debates recruitment schemes

      First, Gentoo has 280 people with commit rights to the main repository. Numerous experiments have shown that an average human brain can’t deal with relationships in a group of >100 peers or so (the size of an ancient tribal band). So some degree of bureaucracy/HR is absolutely required for a project of such size, otherwise you get chaos.

      Second, it’s not enough for the answers to quizzes to be discoverable. Much of it is information you need to know by heart, so you don’t make mistakes and break user machines or community rules in the first place, instead of merely being able to google for how to fix the mess you had made after the fact.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Fedora

      • Linux 3.5 Debuts as Fedora Gets a Cinnamon Dusting

        There are a few things that keep the Linux Planet spinning, one of them is the Linux kernel itself. This week, we saw a new kernel debut, providing another incremental step forward for performance and stability.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Community Leadership Summit 2012

          With a busy week away, I am just catching back up with everything. I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the Community Leadership Summit 2012 that happened the weekend before OSCON. You can also read a wonderful write-up from Andy Oram.

          This was the fourth Community Leadership Summit, and I was delighted with how everything went. We had a wonderful turnout with around 280 people joining us, and a fantastic breadth of sessions from our attendees. Topics of conflict, governance, gamification, diversity, collaboration, structural integrity, scale and more all generated great discussions and I think every one of us who joined the event took away some lessons learned.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Juju: DevOps for Cloud Services

            Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, is trying to make Development/Operations (DevOps) on the cloud easy with its Juju framework. The Juju project has been around for a while, but frankly it wasn’t that impressive… until now. At a demo at the Open Source Conference (OSCON), Jorge Castro, a Canonical developer relations executive, and Mark Mims, a software engineer, showed that Juju is finally ready for cloud prime time.

          • Linux Mint 13 now in KDE, XFCE flavours

            Get the latest, greatest Linux Mint, now with even more community loved desktop environments

          • Linux Mint 13 Xfce released: Installation tour

            Not just a refuge for those disillusioned with Gnome and KDE, the Linux Mint 13 Xfce distribution stands on its own merits

• Devices/Embedded

  • D-Link MovieNite Plus review

    Although Apple’s and Roku’s streaming media players are the darlings of “cordcutters” seeking freedom from cable TV costs and restrictions right now, several other companies are angling for a slice of that rapidly emerging market pie. This review takes a look at D-Link’s most recent streaming player, the DSM-320 MovieNite Plus.

  • Power Strip’s a Penetration Testing Tool in Disguise

    The Power Pwn “is similar to a 1.2 GHz ARM-based processor running Linux,” M. Anthony Hughes, customer development manager, told LinuxInsider. It runs well-known open source tools including MetaSploit.

  • Phones

    • Android

      • ZTE launches N880E smartphone with Jelly Bean in China

        ZTE. the worlds fourth largest mobile manufacturer, according to a recent Garnter Report, has launched its first smartphone with the latest Android OS, Jelly Bean, in China. ZTE made the announcement in a press release.

        The ZTE N880E smartphone will run on Jelly Bean and is the third Android 4.1 smartphone. ZTE said that planned to also launch other handsets with Jelly Bean.

        The press release said: “ZTE has an excellent relationship with Google and this, combined with our extensive R&D capabilities and our experience of customising devices for partners around the world, means we are able to bring new technologies to market very quickly,” said Mr. Kan Yulun,Vice President and CTO of the Handset Division, ZTE.“Our aim is to provide the best quality customer experience for the best value, and the N880E is a great example of this.”

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • Review: My Sordid Fling With The Nexus 7

      I will give Google credit, their propaganda hype machine is starting to rival that of Apple Inc. I’ve had the Nexus 7 for two and half days now and I must say I am far from impressed. Don’t get me wrong, I love Android and have been a user of the ecosystem since day one back in 2008, but I am not in love with, nor would I date this device. I am sure some of you will think I am nuts, but just because you put the name Nexus on it doesn’t make it the best thing since the advent of the wheel, and if you’re still reading this I will explain why.

Free Software/Open Source

• Openness/Sharing

  • HuffPost releases Pollster, an open source API for managing election polling, fostering transparency

    In case you haven’t noticed, it’s an election year in the United States. And with the election in full swing, there is a plethora of data, from a myriad of sources, about what is on the mind of the electorate, what is driving voters to make their decisions, and how they are likely to vote.

    In an earlier phase of my career, I managed survey research. And a constant source of frustration was the difficulty in aggregating publicly available data and managing it outside of structured data formats.

  • Coming unglued: Lessons in openness from a successful crowdfunding campaign

Leftovers

• Hardware

  • 9 itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie computers

• PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • CMD Submits Testimony to the U.S. Senate on the Citizens United Case and the Rise of Super PACs and Nonprofit Front Groups

    The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has submitted testimony to the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee for a hearing on “Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the Rise of Super PACs,” this week.

    “[E]xtraordinarily wealthy corporations and individuals now have more potential power over who wins elections than at almost any time in a century, since dating back to the era of the ‘robber barons,’” CMD’s testimony states. “The system really is broken.”