Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 20/2/2013: Linux 3.8





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Spain's Extremadura publishes tailored Linux distribution
    The government of the Spanish autonomous region of Extremadura published Linex 2013 on Monday last week. This tailored version of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution was unveiled in the city of Mérida by Sergio Velázquez, secretary general for the regions department for Employment, Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation and Manuel Velardo, director of Cenatic, Spain's open source resource centre.


  • Hiring managers: “A good Linux-head is hard to find”
    A new report shows Linux experience is in greater demand — and, hiring managers say, harder to find — than in past years.

    The 2013 Linux Jobs Report, released today by the Linux Foundation, surveyed 850 hiring managers and 2,600 Linus pros and found that Linux might be a good area of focus for aspiring techsters.


  • Desktop



  • Server

    • IBM data centre fault enters second day
      IBM's $80 million data centre in South Auckland has now been down for more than 30 hours and customers say the outage is having a serious impact on their businesses.

      One east Auckland school has been left completely stranded in the same week that it hosts a visit from the Education Review Office (ERO).

      IBM said today from Sydney that it had a team of global experts working on the outage as a high priority.






  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • control and openness
        Occasionally people ask me what I think about Plasma Active appearing on various devices, knowing that we're working on a tablet ourselves. It's a really good question, and gets to one of the core tensions around open culture: the interplay between control and benefit.

        The conventional wisdom is that to maximize benefit, control must also be maximized. Thus the historical emphasis on proprietary technology in the IT industry, something that has been slowly but surely shifting with time but certainly has not fully swung away from proprietary-is-better.


      • The Luminosity of Free Software, episode 4
        It's that time of the week again already! Yes, the Luminosity of Free Software episode 4 will be broadcast live tomorrow at 20:00 UTC via Google+ Hangouts, and you're all invited.






  • Distributions



    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family



    • Red Hat Family



      • Fedora

        • Fedora 18: Nice Tweaks to the OS, but It's Haunted by a GNOME
          With a code name like "the Spherical Cow," the new Fedora 18 software has to be good, right? After all, a better Linux kernel and some added features make the operating system a good choice for busy work environments. A limp GNOME 3 desktop, however, may bring users and that rotund bovine to a screeching halt.


        • Firefox 19 Comes With A Built-in PDF Viewer
          Mozilla Foundation has announced the latest version of Firefox open source Web browser. The release does bring new features including a built-in PDF viewer that allows you to read PDFs directly within the browser.

          According to Mozilla, this feature “makes reading PDFs easier because you don’t have to download the content or read it in a plugin like Reader. For example, you can use the PDF viewer to check out a menu from your favorite restaurant, view and print concert tickets or read reports without having to interrupt your browsing experience with extra clicks or downloads.” This feature is already available in Chrome for more than two years now.






    • Debian Family

      • Debian 7 Progressing, Mageia 3 Delayed
        Debian 7.0 is progressing and testers were treated to Release Candidate 1 recently. On the other side of town Mageia has reported a change in the release schedule for upcoming version 3.


      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu unveils Linux tablet
            The company is developing a united phone, computer, TV and tablet operating system that it hopes will provide a more intuitive interface than that currently offered by Google’s Android.

            It announced a mobile phone interface using the open-source operating system in January, and has since secured a partner to make compatible silicon chips. It claims it will launch to consumers in October. Devices aimed at both the premium and budgets ends of the market will be available.


          • Ubuntu for tablets unveiled: A crazy idea that might just work


          • Ubuntu Linux Primed for Life on Tablets


          • Shuttleworth: Ubuntu tablets won't be as “jarring” to users as Windows 8
            After today's announcement that Canonical has created a tablet interface for Ubuntu Linux, company founder Mark Shuttleworth described his ambitions and answered questions from reporters in a conference call.

            He addressed many topics including how Ubuntu for tablets and phones will differ from Windows 8; Canonical's discussions with hardware makers and carriers; potential release timelines for phones and tablets; whether Ubuntu devices will be "hackable"; and the chances of Canonical finally becoming profitable.


          • Ubuntu Pros and Cons
            Whether more people love Ubuntu or loathe it is an impossible question to answer. I know people who spend most of their free time promoting it as volunteers — and just as many who denounce it as a betrayal of everything free and open source software (FOSS) represents.

            The trouble is, so many hopes have been invested in Ubuntu over the years that it invites extremes. While some still hope that it will live up to its initial promise and bring Linux to the mainstream, others find the compromises for the sake of business a betrayal of those same promises.

            There is ample evidence for both these reactions — and, no doubt, for those in between.


          • Why More People Are Choosing Ubuntu


          • Ubuntu for tablets revealed with split screen multi-tasking, preview for Nexus slates coming this week


          • Ubuntu Linux Primed for Life on Tablets


          • Open Ballot: Are you excited by the Ubuntu tablet?


          • Ubuntu phones won't ship till 2014, might be locked down by carriers
            Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that smartphones running Ubuntu Linux would ship in October of this year. Ubuntu boss Mark Shuttleworth says that's a mistake. Today, the founder clarified that while a smartphone friendly version of the operating system — Ubuntu 13.10 — will be widely available in October with developer preview builds available this week, phones likely still won't ship until early 2014. Though the OS will be ready for phones this year, he explained that the devices themselves would probably still need months of carrier testing.


          • Canonical to Highlight Ubuntu Cloud, Management Solutions
            As the CeBIT upcoming convention in Germany nears, Canonical has announced what it will be showcasing at the event–which, in turn, provides some clues about where the company behind one of the world’s most popular open source operating systems might be concentrating its efforts in coming months. Alas, Ubuntu tablets are not on the list. But if you’re interested in Ubuntu on servers in and the cloud, there’s going to be a lot to see in Hanover between March 5 and 9.










  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones

      • Tizen 2.0 operating system released to developers
        The Intel and Samsung backed operating system is seen as potential competition to Android in some markets


      • So Who's Your Daddy? Return of the World's Most Accurate Forecaster in Mobile. Today? Windows Phone Forecasts and Foibles
        So who's your daddy in mobile numbers? Lets look at the forecasts made about Windows Phone, after the Nokia-Microsoft partnership was announced. If you remember, I recently examined the accuracy of the Nokia forecasts made (and found that I had once again been the most accurate forecaster in mobile. But will that reputation hold through this, very challenging Windows Phone forecasting conundrum?)

        When the world's largest computer software company has said that the future of computers is mobile, and then sees its position in software for mobile phones (ie smartphones) fall from 12% and second biggest to 2% and 6th in the market - and at that point, promises to grow back to a 'third ecosystem' - it is either being brave with a cunning plan, or being foolish with forlorn hope and hype.


      • Ballnux



      • Android

        • HTC One Announced!
          The new flagship phone from HTC has just been announced, and it's planning to go head to head with the competitor flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S III and the LG Optimus G.


        • Swipe Launches Android-Powered Phone Tablets In India
          After the launch of Fablet F1, Swipe Telecom has come up with two new 5-inch fablets in the Indian market - Swipe Fablet F2 and Swipe Fablet F3. Swipe Fablet F2 is claimed to be India’s first 2G dual SIM smartphone fablet. Swipe Fablet F3, on the other hand, comes with the latest 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. These devices are set to add another dimension to the market priced at Rs 7,590 and Rs 9,290, respectively.

          Swipe Fablet F3 offers a dual 3G SIM and allows you to use your Skype account and make free video/voice calls to your contacts with the correct hardware support. Moving between home screens and switching between apps feels effortless and the browsing speed is enhanced. The Fablet F3 has a 5-inch enhanced display with 5-point multi touch Screen. It also includes 0.3 MP front facing camera and a 5 MP rear camera. For the first time, Swipe has introduced 360€° Camera Technique, a camera technique which will take you to different levels of capturing images.


        • Sony Xperia Z May Get Android 4.2.2 Update In March
          If latest rumours are to be believed, Sony Mobile’s Xperia Z should get a taste of the new Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system by next month. What’s more, a leaked screenshot of the update for the Sony Xperia Z raises hopes that the newest flavour may come by late March.

          According to XperiaBlog, which got the screenshot from an anonymous tipster, the Jelly Bean update will arrive on the handset with firmware version 11.1.A.1.450 inside. "However, we are told this is a beta version, so expect the firmware version number to be in the form of 11.1.A.X.XXX by the time it is released," the post adds.


        • Control Your Linux PC With Voice Commands: Siri For Linux?
          James McClain has managed to get voice recognition working on GNU/Linux. You can now open sites, ask questions and perform other tasks just by voice. While initially developed for Ubuntu it is distro agnostic and can be used by other distributions as well.


        • Samsung announces Wi-Fi version of GALAXY Camera
          Samsung today announced a Wi-Fi version of the Samsung Galaxy Camera will be offered in the coming weeks. Stopping short of giving a price or exact launch time frame, the hardware maker indicates that the camera is the exact same as the 3G/4G model. This means the same Android 4.1 Jelly Bean experience with 21x Super Long Zoom lens and a super-bright 16M BSI CMOS.


        • 51 Must-Have Android Apps










Free Software/Open Source



  • Events

    • ApacheCon North America 2013 Only a Few Days Away
      ApacheCon North America 2013 (http://na.apachecon.com), the Apache Software Foundation’s (http://www.apache.org/) official conference starts this Sunday. The event will take place at the Hilton Portland and Executive Towers, Portland, OR from 24 February-2 March 2013 (http://na.apachecon.com/venue/).




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS

    • Choosing an open-source CMS, part 2: Why we use Joomla
      In this, the second installment of our three-part series on finding the best open-source content management system (CMS) for your needs, we asked two organizations that use Joomla to explain why they felt that Joomla was the best choice for them, how the transition went, and whether they're happy with the results.




  • Education

    • openStudent replaces traditional student achievement system
      The Saanich school district of British Columbia has banded together and is funding an open source Student Information System (SIS) called openStudent. It has been licensed under the Education Community Source license (modified Apache 2.0) to ensure that they have better control of the code. Yet, the decision didn't come about easily.




  • Public Services/Government

    • Open Source for America awards: Nominate someone today
      Open Source for America (OSFA) announced today the opening of its nomination period for the annual OSFA awards. Each year, the organization recognizes individuals, projects, and deployments that support its mission to encourage free and open source software adoption in the U.S. government.




  • Standards/Consortia

    • Web Served 7: Wiki wiki wiki!
      This series is proving a lot more popular than I'd figured. Who would have thought so many people enjoy noodling around with Web servers? By popular demand, "Web Served" now enters the bonus round with two things I didn't think I was going to be able to get to: MediaWiki in this piece, and Etherpad Lite in the next.






Leftovers

  • Study: All Internet Pages Connected in 19 Clicks or Less
    Hungarian physicist Albert-László Barabási has published a new paper which claims that you can connect any two pages on the Web by 19 or fewer links. That may not seem impressive until you consider that there are more than 14 billion webpages in existence.

    Slate's Jason Bittel reported, "Everybody is familiar with 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,' right? Well, according to a Hungarian physicist, the Internet works basically the same way. Despite there being something like 1 trillion pieces of Web out there (websites, hosted images, videos, etc), you can navigate from any one of them to another in 19 clicks or fewer."

    Smitsonian's Joseph Stromberg added, "Barabási credits this 'small world' of the web to human nature—the fact that we tend to group into communities, whether in real life or the virtual world. The pages of the web aren’t linked randomly, he says: They’re organized in an interconnected hierarchy of organizational themes, including region, country and subject area. Interestingly, this means that no matter how large the web grows, the same interconnectedness will rule. Barabási analyzed the network looking at a variety of levels—examining anywhere from a tiny slice to the full 1 trillion documents—and found that regardless of scale, the same 19-click-or-less rule applied."


  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



  • Cablegate



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Friendly Oil–Not the Venezuelan Kind
      With the Keystone climate protests in Washington bringing climate change back into the media, we're hearing a lot about how the Keystone pipeline will, at the very least, mean that we'll be getting our oil from a nice country.






  • Finance

    • Michael M. Thomas’ Solution to the Crisis
      Throw in what’s in the “stimulus” package and you’re probably at close to $3 trillion.

      So why not simply distribute $25,000 tax free to every U.S. taxpayer? There are 100 million of us, in round figures, so we’re talking about $2.5 trillion, give or take.


    • Anti-austerity strike to bring Greece to a standstill
      Greek workers walk off the job on Wednesday in a nationwide anti-austerity strike that will disrupt transport, shut public schools and tax offices and leave hospitals working with emergency staff.




  • Privacy

    • EU Parliament: Will Liberals (ALDE) Weaken Privacy in Industry Committee?
      While the “Industry” (ITRE) committee is about to vote on its opinion regarding data protection regulation, it is now clear that the outcome will depend on the Members of the liberal ALDE group. They will have to choose between allowing full-on exploitation of our personal data or imposing tough safeguards to protect our fundamental right to privacy. Citizens must act today 20 February before 4pm and urge their MEPs to defend the general interest by choosing the latter.


    • Southampton Council in the dock
      Southampton Council’s attempt to justify it’s policy of requiring taxis to record audio and video of every journey took another blow yesterday when the ‘First Tier Tribunal’ ruled against it.


    • Application of the DPA to surveillance activities
      The First-Tier Tribunal (“FTT”) has just issued the first ever tribunal decision concerning the application of the Data Protection Act 1998 (“DPA”) to surveillance activities: Southampton City Council v The Information Commissioner EA/2012/0171, 19 February 2013. In this case, the Council’s licensing committee had resolved in 2009 that all taxis it licensed should be fitted with digital cameras, which made a continuous audio-visual recording of passengers. The Information Commissioner (“ICO”) issued an enforcement notice against the Council under the DPA, requiring the Council to stop audio recording, because it was in breach of the Data Protection Principles in the Act (the first Data Protection Principle in particular).




  • Civil Rights

    • Think there's no alternative? Latin America has a few
      Not only have leaders from Ecuador to Venezuela delivered huge social gains – they keep winning elections too


    • Aaron Swartz’s FBI File
      Two of the 23 pages were not released, according to the FBI, due to; privacy (U.S.C Section 552 (b)(7)(C)), sources and methods (U.S.C Section 552 (b)(7)(E)) and, curiously, putting someone’s life in danger (U.S.C Section 552 (b)(7)(F)). Putting someone’s life in danger? Typically that refers to informants. Did someone close to Swartz provide information to the FBI on him or is the FBI just being really dramatic? Or is this standard justification for not releasing the Special Agent on the case’s name? I am honestly still confused by that box being checked off.


    • Aaron Swartz's FBI File




  • DRM

    • I Can't Let You Do That, Dave
      In my new novel, Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother, I explore what happens to people when their computers don’t listen to them anymore. Imagine a world where you tell your computer to copy a file, or to play it, or display it, and it says no, where it looks at you out of the webcam’s unblinking eye and says, “I can’t let you do that, Dave.”




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Trademarks

      • Wikimedia and Internet Brands settle travel wiki dispute
        The Wikimedia Foundation has announced a settlement of the legal dispute with Internet Brands, owners of Wikitravel, which began when the Foundation's alternative travel site, Wikivoyage, was being planned. The settlement requires both parties to post on their sites a statement that they "believe there is enough room for multiple travel sites to co-exist, and for community members to contribute to multiple sites in this area."




    • Copyrights







Recent Techrights' Posts

Slop Nihilism is Funded by Big Oil
Eventually human civilisation will destroy itself
Professor Eben Moglen Recovering From Open Heart Surgery
From his public pages (this is not secret)
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, Fake Text, Fake Images, Negative Slant on "Linux"
Google News has lost its value; the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen off a cliff
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Relax-and-Recover on Proxmox and New Smolweb File Transfer Service
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Fact: EFF Got Corrupted by Corporate Money. Microsoft Lunduke (Political Noise): The Issue With EFF is, It Kills Babies.
Microsoft Lunduke - as usual - finds a way to make it about abortions
Pacing Publication Up a Bit
The news cycles have gotten rather light and slow
Links 17/09/2025: Power Outages, Digital Controls, and Attacks on the Mainstream Media (by Insecure and Corrupt Dictators)
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Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Flashing LineageOS and ROOPHLOCH
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Links 17/09/2025: Long COVID Study, "Exposing Pegasus", and Chatbots Exposing Sensitive Data
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Links 17/09/2025: Secret Settlement for Internet Archive and Google’s LLM Slop Summaries Attracting Lawsuits
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The True Cost of 'Generative Models'
Funded and promoted by the companies that profit from the waste
'Big Slop' Attacks Contemporary Information/Knowledge and Creative Works, 'Big Copyright' (Cartel) Attacks the Old
Someone at IA will hopefully "blow the whistle" on what they actually agreed
Why We Find It Difficult to Trust Rust
A comparison between C/C++ and Rust
Watching the OSI: Our Series Will Carry on Irrespective of the Chief's 'Resignation'
the OSI isn't even the real guardian of the term "Open Source"
Just What LibreOffice Needs? Another Language? (Rust)
what's all this concern about memory safety?
Many Microsoft Managers Are Leaving
"Hey hi" chaff or chaff about "hey hi" cannot eternally distract from the difficulties inside the company
There Are Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs, But Google News is Infested With Slopfarms
It contributes a lot to misinformation and it encourages plagiarism
Tomorrow, Microsoft's Tim Anderson's 'The Register MS' Offshoot Will Have Been Inactive for 2 Months (There's Also a Slop Problem)
We've already caught The Register MS using LLM slop for articles
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Leaves Microsoft After Nearly 30 Years
And not retiring
Even Windows Users Are Having Problems With "Secure Boot"
When it comes to security - Microsoft strives for the very opposite
Another Competition Crime of Microsoft, Long Facilitated and Advocated by a Bad Actor, Who is Funded by a Third Party to Commit Extortion Against People Who Have Correctly and Repeatedly Warned About It for Over 13 Year
We must always go back to the core issues
3 More Reasons to Replace Mozilla Firefox With LibreWolf
Thankfully there are de-enshittified versions of Firefox
USA Not a Place for Free Speech
In America, as in the US, the attacks seem more enhanced or advanced these days
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Links 17/09/2025: Google Layoffs in "Hey Hi" (AI), Perplexity Hit With More "Hey Hi" (Plagiarism) Lawsuits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Reclaiming Things in a Digital Age and Moon Phases in CGI
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Slopwatch: Google News is Slop, Google News is Plagiarism, Google News is Dying
Google is off the rails
Links 16/09/2025: "The Censorship Alarm Is Ringing in the Wrong Direction" and ASRock Does Microsoft E.E.E. on GNU/Linux
Links for the day
Serious "Breach of Confidentiality of Personal Data" in Europe's Second-Largest Institution, the EPO
Yes, the same EPO that routinely uses "data protection" and "GDPR" as a pretext for hiding or covering up its corruption and white-collar crimes (it even uses that as an excuse for refusing to obey courts' orders)
Adrienne Rockenhaus Says Her Husband Was Arrested for Running Tor and Denied Basic Rights in the United States
the US seems to be getting "russified" in its approach towards Tor
This is What Happens When Microsoft Canonical Lets Decisions on Ubuntu be Made by a Youngster From the British Army (Where He Did Mass Surveillance)
"Is Ubuntu Compromised?"
Back Doored Windows Giving GNU/Linux a Hard Time (Under the Guise of 'Security')
Is this complication intentional? Most likely, yes
Links 16/09/2025: Science, Security, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/09/2025: Command-line Options in POSIX Shell and Introducing Acre 0.9
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Microsoft 'Secure' Boot Versus Dual Boot With GNU/Linux
they're meant to assume everything is OK
Links 16/09/2025: While Oracle Pretends to be Rich It's Firing About 70 MySQL Workers, "Oracle's Revenge" (Faking Demand With "AI")
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Just Published a New Web Page About "Secure Boot Update Process" (Microsoft Also Admits Issues; PCs Can Stop Booting)
Why was this page issued and published only hours ago?
Microsoft Lunduke: I Spread Hate and Then I Receive Hate
Cry us a river, Microsoft Lunduke
"Use Wayland" Isn't a Bugfix for X (X11 is Still Necessary)
They tell us X is "dead" and we must all be herded into Wayland ASAP
"Disable Secure Boot and Fast Boot. Wipe and Start Over."
At least they didn't say, buy a new computer...
The Oracle Ponzi Scheme
Oracle isn't doing well, but it's nowadays fashionable to say "clown" and "hey hi" to prop up one's stock, even based on nothing at all
The New Head of OSI is an "Hey Hi" (AI) Obsessed Person
when Bryant says "AI" that doesn't mean AI
Taking Out the Battery, Opening Up Your Computer, Just Like a "Normie" Would
At this stage, any person who still says "enable Secure Boot" is misguided or persuaded by companies that sell rootkits
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers and Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News (Fake 'Articles' About "Linux" Spreading FUD)
searching for "Linux" today yields a lot of FUD
"Governments, local authorities, schools and hospitals can lead by example by procuring only Free Software"
Crossposted from Tux Machines
Cindy Cohn Leaving the Electronic Frontier Foundation While Its Co-founder John Gilmore, Whom She Apparently Helped Oust, Will Celebrate 40 Years of the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
EFF has been busy hoarding GAFAM money, whereas the latter is where all the real activism is done
The Reach of Techrights Has Broadened
We nowadays cover a broader range of issues
"Google is Googlebombing KDE's Project Banana"
So is Google googlebombing KDE's Project Banana? You decide.
Complicating Things for No Actual Benefit, Just Added Risk and More Difficulties Adding GNU/Linux and BSDs
Watch what it's like for people who wish to use BSDs
Some Very Large IRC Networks Are Growing
IRC will turn 38 next year
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 15, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 15, 2025
Links 16/09/2025: Autumn Party, RPG Planet, and Optical ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day