08.02.12

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Kernel Space

  • Graphics Stack

    • Pixman Keeps On Pushing & Optimizing Pixels

      Pixman 0.27.2 has been released and it offers up more features.

    • Wayland Losing OpenWF Display Back-End

      While an OpenWF back-end compositor for Wayland once provided hope that more hardware would work with Wayland whereby OpenWF Display drivers were available, the OpenWF support is being dropped already from the compositor.

• Applications

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Install Latest VLC Media Player 2.0.3 In Ubuntu

    • Install MyUnity On Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

    • How to fix your discrete GPU temperatures

    • Understanding the SysRq Key – The Magic Key To Control Linux

    • Install MyUnity On Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

    • How to permanently disable menubar in Gnome Terminal

  • Games

    • Minecraft 1.3 Comes With New Adventure Mode

      The new version of Minecraft, Minecraft 1.3 brings in the most awaited features like adventure mode and trading.

    • Why one free software pioneer takes issue with Steam on Linux

      GNU Project founder Richard Stallman voices his concerns about the implications of putting Steam on the open Linux platform.

      Just last week, Valve announced that it’s looking to bring its popular Steam distribution service to Linux, noting that adding games to the operating system could boost its adoption in the long term.

    • Valve Ports Left 4 Dead 2 to Linux OS

    • Valve’s L4D2 Is Faster On Linux Than Windows

      Valve’s growing Linux team is already experiencing success in optimizing the Source Engine, and in particular their initial Left 4 Dead 2 game, for Linux. In fact, the native Linux build with the Source OpenGL renderer is faster than running the game on Windows 7 with DirectX!

      We’re already known that Valve Software intends to speak at SIGGRAPH LA 2012 about how they optimized their Linux OpenGL game client — taking it from just a few frames per second to over 300 FPS. Now on Valve’s official Linux blog is a new post this evening about Faster Zombies!.

• Desktop Environments

  • MATE 1.4 Released, PPA Available

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • BackupMail, New App For KDE Personal Information Manager Allows To Migrate KMail Data

    • 4.9 Releases – Quality, Stability

      KDE has announced its Version 4.9 Releases to KDE Plasma Workspaces, KDE Applications, and the KDE Development Platform, dedicated to the memory of KDE contributor Claire Lotion. The full announcement has details.

      These releases got special attention to the general levels of quality and stability. In particular, there was a focus on eliminating any regressions from previous releases. Thanks to the efforts of the KDE Quality Team and its new contributors, the 4.9 Releases are the best ever.

    • KDE Software Compilation 4.9 Officially Released

    • KDE 4.9 arrives with incremental improvements, KDE devs prepare for Qt 5

      Developers intend to modularize KDE libraries for next version of the platform.

  • GNOME Desktop

    • ZaReason’s Valta X79

      I was recently contacted by Earl Malmrose of ZaReason, who wanted to know if I’d like to review ZaReason’s new Linux-based desktop computer, built around the new Intel 6-Core processor and quad channel memory. I told him I’d be thrilled to review it, and asked if he’d also include a snappy ATI video card so I really could push the system to the limit using one of my favorite side hobbies, namely cryptocurrencies.

      I start with a review of the system itself and finish with a bit of fun—I run the numbers and see what sort of CPU and GPU-hashing power I can get from it. Whether you think cryptocurrencies are a brilliant take on alternative economics or a dumb idea that wastes electricity, I can assure you no one knows how to overclock hardware quite like a Bitcoin miner. (I don’t actually overclock this system, since I’m sure ZaReason would like it back in full working order, but I push it to the max with stock settings.)

• Distributions

  • Zorin OS 6 Core: fresh blood

    Changing the operating system on your computer is not like flipping a switch. It is a cultural change, too.

    Different operating systems give you different degrees of freedom, different degrees of access to knowledge of “what is inside”. And, what is more important for a non-technical user, they give you different user interfaces.

    Windows users are used to having a panel at the bottom of the screen, window control elements at the right side of the window, the Windows Start button and so on. If you see something like the modern design of the Unity interface, nothing is the same as Windows. It’s a steep learning curve, isn’t it?

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat CEO Likes CentOS Linux – Oracle Linux, Not So Much

      Red Hat makes its money from selling support subscriptions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Mostly the same bits are available entirely for free by way of the community led CentOS project that clones RHEL.

      I recently chatted with Red Hat CEO about CentOS and the long story short is he’s good with CentOS.

      Having CentOS out there is a good thing. It broadens our community. There are people that don’t need the things that we have in subscription and it’s great that there is an offering build off the same code base.

    • Red Hat: Big Hires, Big Virtualized Storage Push Into Cloud

      Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is making multiple strategic hires that will deepen the open source company’s work with channel partners across Linux, virtualization, storage, cloud platforms and JBoss Middleware. The evidence surfaced when The VAR Guy met Red Hat North America Channel Chief Roger Egan at CompTIA Breakaway this week. Here are the exclusive details.

      First up, Egan’s role is evolving. Going forward he’ll have more of a strategic role — focusing on how Red Hat’s partner program must serve a range of company types: Resellers, VARs, integrators, cloud and telecom service providers, OEMs (like Dell, HP and IBM) and ISVs (independent service providers). The VAR Guy believes Egan still reports into Red Hat Global Channel Chief Mark Enzweiler.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Install HandBrake 0.9.8 In Ubuntu

          HandBrake is an open-source, cross-platform multi-threaded video transcoder for Mac, Linux and Windows. You can use it to convert to and from different media formats. The availability of presets make the conversion easier even for novice users. Just select the media device to which you want the video to be transcode to and HandBrake will manage the rest.

        • Ubuntu Developer Summit Schedule Announced

        • Ubuntu Developer Summit Sponsorship Now Open

          The Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) is the most important event in the Ubuntu calendar. It is where we get together to discuss, design, and plan the next version of Ubuntu; in this case the Ubuntu 13.04 release.

          The next UDS takes place at Bella Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark from the 29th Oct – 1st Nov. You can find out more about why UDS is interesting from the perspective of a member of the community, an upstream contributor, and a vendor. We also welcome everyone to participate remotely if you can’t attend the event in person. More more details on how to get there, see this page.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Linux Mint Discontinues Gnome 2 Repositories

            With the arrival of Gnome 3, Gnome 2 was discontinued in most major distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse, Arch Linux etc. However, a few distros like Debian, Gentoo are still using the old desktop while Linux Mint maintained a separate repository called gnome2-frozen for older gnome builds. However, soon they will discontinue that as well.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Phones

    • Android

      • comScore: Android now own 51.6% of the mobile market, Samsung still leading the OEMs

      • Android: Open, but not Broken [Take on app piracy]

        ‘Open is broken’, that’s what main-stream iOS developers and despondent Android developers feel. The Dead Trigger cataclysm has apparently triggered a lot of Anti-Android vibes, in and around the tech-world. Though claims that Android is giving too much liberty to the end-user in the name of “Open Source” seems a bit legitimate, claiming that it is designed for “piracy” is a bit far-flung and to some extent sophomoric and pointless. Piracy sees no platform.

      • Raspberry Pi to get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

        The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced Android is coming to its tiny device. More specifically, Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is being ported over to the credit-card sized Linux computer.

      • Android 4.0 ported to Raspberry Pi’s $35 Linux computer

        The Raspberry Pi foundation announced today that its popular $35 Linux computer will soon be able to run Android 4.0. Google’s mobile operating system is being ported to the device by Broadcom developer Naren Sankar.

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • Archos ready to announce Gen 10 of Android tablets

    • Wikipad reveals specs for gaming tablet (exclusive)

      Wikipad, the company developing an identically named tablet that will ship with an attachable gamepad for console-style gaming, has revealed the specifications of the device in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat.

    • Second One Laptop Per Child’s XO Touch touchscreen finalized

      The OLPC XO Touch tablet will be getting Neonode touchscreens, as the next model makes the leap to laptop and tablet hybrid

Free Software/Open Source

• Amadeus Invites Third-Party Developers to Use Source Code

• Internet NZ sponsoring Open Source awards

  Internet NZ
  The organisers of the New Zealand Open Source Awards are pleased to announce that Internet New Zealand has been confirmed as a Platinum sponsor of the event which will be held in Wellington in November.

  Internet New Zealand Chief Executive Vikram Kumar says the organisation is proud to be supporting the Open Source Awards, noting that the vision of a free and uncaptureable Internet depends in large measure on open source software.

• Web Browsers

  • Chrome

    • Google Chrome 21 Released With Better Audio And Video Communication Support

      The Google Chrome Team have announced a new version of Google Chrome, Google Chrome 21.0.1180.57 for Mac and Linux and Google Chrome 21.0.1180.60 for Windows operating systems. This version comes with a new API for high-quality video and audio communication and some security and bug fixes.

• SaaS

  • What Took So Long? The First Open Source Private Cloud Software Arrives

    Rackspace has become the first vendor to deliver on the promise of true cloud-computing portability for businesses with Wednesday’s launch of the first commercial cloud service using OpenStack cloud technology.

  • ownCloud Invades More Distros, Apple AppStore, and Google Play

    ownCloud is a baby in the cloud space, but a fast-growing and useful baby. ownCloud was born at a KDE community event in 2010, and is already an easy and flexible server for sharing and syncing files.

• Project Releases

  • Pygmyfoto 1.0 Released

    Version 1.0 of Pygmyfoto, a no-frills application for publishing a photo roll on the web, is now available on GitHub. The first stable release features a handful of new features and improvements added since the latest beta version of the application. The older 1.2.3 version of jQuery bundled with the beta release has been replaced with jQuery 1.7.2. The jQuery lightBox plugin has been replaced with the Lightbox2 plugin. The pygmyfoto.py script features improved handling of EXIF metadata. Pygmyfoto now integrates the +1 button which can be used to share the published photos on Google+.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Giant robots and open source

    I know why you’re excited this week … you’ve seen the “Kuratas”, a 13 foot tall, 9,900-pound robot you can ride in at speeds of up to 6 miles per hour and which is equipped with a water bottle cannon and Gatling guns that can fire 6,000 BBs per minute (the operator can fire the armaments just by smiling … no, really, watch the video).

    The Kuratas robot, built by Japanese artist Kogoro Kurata and marketed by Suidobashi Heavy Industry, can be controlled by the onboard operator, a remote control device, or a smartphone and runs V-Sido, a “next generation robot OS”.

Leftovers

• Security

  • NVIDIA Linux Driver Hack Gives You Root Access

    NVIDIA’s had a past few weeks with Linus Torvalds having harsh words for NVIDIA, the downing of their forums, and now a NVIDIA driver exploit being revealed that gives normal users the rights to super-user privileges.