09.25.14

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• After XP, is an open source operating system for you?

  Instead of moving to Windows 8 or waiting for Windows 9, enterprises might consider Linux because of the open source operating system’s flexibility.

• Kernel Space

  • Linux Foundation Offers Online Certification Exams

  • Linux Foundation Certified Engineer Will Sheldon on What It’s Like to Pass the Exam

    I was drawn to the stability of the platform and the vast array of GNU FOSS software available coupled with the fantastic community surrounding so many software projects.

  • Graphics Stack

    • Intel Publishes Open-Source “Skylake” Mesa Graphics Driver Support

      Earlier this month Intel published initial Skylake Linux graphics support for their DRM kernel driver. Today they have released the Mesa 3D driver support for Skylake, their next-generation architecture coming out by the end of 2015 to succeed Broadwell.

• Applications

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to use xargs command in Linux

    • Simple backup to DropBox

    • How to install Moodle on Ubuntu 14.04

  • Games

    • Beyond Gravity Casual Platformer Released On Steam

      Beyond Gravity has been on Linux for quite a while now on Itch.io, but now it joins the many Linux games on Steam. It’s a casual high score fest platformer.

    • Shadowrun Online Looks Like It’s Gearing Up For A Linux Release

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • 2.8.6 → 2.9 → 3.0 → …

      Yesterday Kexi 2.8.6 has been released within Calligra. Click the link for a list of changes, and a mention of pretty unusual addition to Kexi – it proposes direct donations on its Welcome screen. It turned out to be convenient and hopefully not too annoying given what the benefits might be. It’s best explained by the screen shot.

    • KDE Applications 14.12 Release Schedule Published

      If all goes well, KDE Applications 14.12 will be released on 17 December. The current release schedule that was published on Wednesday has an API/feature/dependency/message/artwork freeze on 29 October, a beta release on 5 November, a second beta on 12 November, and beta 3 on 19 November. The KDE Applications 14.12 release candidate is due out on 26 November and then if all goes well the official release will come on 17 December. KDE Applications 14.12.x point releases will come monthly just like we saw with the conventional KDE 4 Software Compilation releases.

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • Gnome 3.14 Review

      In a nutshell I like Gnome 3.14 a lot. It’s a really nice release. Though I am a hard core Plasma user, I see myself spending some time with Gnome, enjoying things like online integration, easy-to-set-up Evolution and many more features which I can’t find in KDE’s Plasma. That said, both are my favorite. They both excel in their focus areas. If you have not tried Gnome yet, do give it a try.

    • There’s Wayland Changes Needed Before GNOME Will Be 100% Ported

      With yesterday’s GNOME 3.14 release the Wayland support is considered sufficient for day-to-day use running the GNOME stack on Wayland rather than an X11 Server on Linux. However, the GNOME developers don’t consider this to be “100% complete” yet and there’s still some more work needed to be cleared up on the Wayland side.

• Distributions

  • Sharing Distros, Tiny Core Fights Fires, and Bash Bug

    In today’s Linux news the Linux Journal has the story of a firehouse that saved time, money, and hair by using Tiny Core Linux. GNOME 3.14 is “lazier” than ever and Fedora 21 is getting lots of kudos. Red Hat is on its way to Mars and Bash has been found to be vulnerable to attack.

  • Practical Tiny Core in the Fire Service

    From a budgetary standpoint, I was encouraged to keep costs down. The first decision and the easiest decision was to use Linux. I just shaved off the cost of the Windows license.

  • The hair loss cure for new Linux users

    To foster the idea of sharing installable distros for specific hardware or purposes, I created distroshare.com. An example purpose may be to mimic Windows or Mac OS X for users comfortable with those user interfaces. Anyone can submit a distro to share and each one will be reviewed for security issues or functionality problems. Submissions can be uploaded directly to distroshare.com or a link to the file/project can be provided in the submission form. The submission form also accepts an optional PayPal or Bitcoin address for users to donate to. Currently there are nine distributions listed and only three for a specific machine (the Acer C720 chromebook). As the number of distributions grow, we should see more desktop Linux users and perhaps even cause OEMs to pay more attention.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Fedora

      • GNOME 3.14 released — all this goodness will be in Fedora 21

        Today, the GNOME Project announced the availability of their latest stable release, GNOME 3.14. This version of GNOME is what will be available as the basis of the Fedora 21 Workstation, and features a wide range of amazing new features and enhancements. This new version contains major updates to the weather application, the evince document viewer, maps, and games. The default theme has been given a lot of care and attention, including new transition animations. Additionally, GNOME 3.14 now also has support for “Captive Authentication”, so when logging into a wifi hotspot, the login screen is automatically pops up.

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Elive 2.3.6 beta released

        This new version includes:

        Configured network connections are now persistent on reboot for USB Images.

        Improved USB bootable Image by creating a separate partition, this fixes the issue with USB images not booting on some rare computers

        Elive now boots with an amazing Splash theme

        Improved the listing of kernels on the boot screen

        Added memtest to the boot screen

        SSH between Elive computers is now much faster

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Flavours and Variants

          • elementary OS Freya beta review

            Ok, enough about tarnished acronyms. Let’s get back to elementary OS Freya beta, which was released in early August. As with any distribution that I review, there are stuff that I like about elementary OS Freya and stuff that I don’t like. A particular issue that I don’t like is the same one I drew attention to in my review of the Luna edition.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Tiny i.MX6 module takes Linux into harsh environments

    Toradex is adding a Freescale i.MX6-based model to its SODIMM-style Colibri family, with up 4GB eMMC flash, industrial temperature range, and Linux support.

  • Tizen Samsung Gear S will be arriving in the US this fall

    Our readers in the US will be relieved to hear that the upcoming Samsung Gear S will making its way to the United States this fall. Samsung have announced that AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless will all be offering the mobile 3G Tizen Smartwatch. There is no information regarding pricing or exact release dates at the moment, but we expect further Information to come soon as per announcement.

  • ARM gives Internet of Things a piece of its mind – the Cortex-M7

    ARM has had a look at the fridges, speakers and robots that use its Cortex-M series processor cores and decided they need a few maths lessons.

  • Phones

    • Ballnux

      • openSUSE 13.2 Beta 1 vs. Fedora Linux Benchmarks

        With this week’s openSUSE 13.2 Beta release I decided to run some benchmarks to see how the performance compares to that of Fedora Linux.

    • Android

      • Take control of Android app permissions on a per-app basis with XPrivacy

Free Software/Open Source

• Dan Allen and Sarah White: Documentation Dearth Dooms Open Source Projects

  Dan Allen: I can understand the programmer’s dilemma in having to write documentation. It can be a long and painful process. Documentation in open source is often a missing link. There are four major pillars of developing open source software. Each one has it own elements of problem-solving associated with it. These are design, code writing, testing and documentation.

• Puppet-wearing devs: There’s now an app (or two) for that

  Kanies, who is the original author of Puppet, said the Puppet Server has been re-engineered for increased efficiency, greater flexibility, and improved stability and scalability. The new version, which is now available in Puppet 3.7, improves improved performance by 300 per cent, he said.

• SaaS/Big Data

  • What’s new in OpenStack Juno

    OpenStack is on a six-month release cycle, with each release given a code name starting with consecutive letters of the alphabet. On October 16th, OpenStack Juno will be released, with several new projects, and lots of new features. Here’s a few of the things you can expect in the next release of OpenStack. This isn’t intended to be comprehensive—just a taste of some of the things that are coming.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Is Oracle Using Canonical to Counter Red Hat?

    Penguinistas now have another reason not to adopt Ubuntu as their operating system of choice. Canonical and Oracle have each announced, in separate blog posts, that the two companies are working together to insure the compatibility of each company’s Linux offering on the other’s OpenStack cloud implementation.

  • Oracle OpenStack for Oracle Linux Now Generally Available

  • Cities in Italy Drop Proprietary Software and Adopt LibreOffice

    Italian cities Todi and Terni have decided to drop the proprietary office solution used by the city’s administration and to adopt LibreOffice.

• Public Services/Government

  • 7 local governments announced to build with Code for America

    This week, Code for America is thrilled to announce new partnerships with seven local governments for the 2015 Code for America Fellowship Program. The official announcement was shared with more than 750 attendees at the annual Code for America Summit on September 23, and in this press release.

• Openness/Sharing

  • The Man on a Quest to Open-Source Cancer Research

    Isaac Yonemoto is a chemist, but he’s been writing software code since he was a kid. He calls himself a “semi-recreational” programmer, and now, he’s running an experiment that combines this sideline with his day job. In short, he’s using open source software techniques to kickstart the world of cancer research.

  • WikiHouse open source project: fast and cheap homes

    We’ve seen examples of low-cost 3D printed houses (and an unrelated castle), and while they’re all interesting, they are out of the reach of most prospective home buyers. That could change with WikiHouse, a project that aims to provide the public with plans for cheap homes that can be built in a matter of days.

  • Open Access/Content

    • Maryland professors test open-source textbooks

      For university students enrolled in Scott Roberts’ PSYC 100: Introduction to Psychology class since fall of 2010, the idea of a college course that doesn’t require spending hundreds on a textbook isn’t foreign, it’s reality.

    • The story of Aaron Swartz and his fight for open

      A new documentary about the life of Aaron Swartz was released in June this year. It recounts the story of one of the most impactful young talents of the Internet age, and the tragic saga of his quest to make the world a better place.

      Directed by Brian Knappenberger, the film was funded through Kickstarter and backed by 1,531 supporters who collectively pledged $93,741, surpassing the initial funding goal of $75,000.

Leftovers

• Security

  • Trolling in the aisles with LulzSec: Teh Internet is Serious Business

    The story of LulzSec is one of trust and betrayal, justice and lawlessness, authority and subversion. In the winter of 2010, six geographically disparate people came together online to form a hacking group that delighted some, infuriated others and quickly came to the attention of law enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic.

• Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • I Was a Pair of Boots on the Ground in Iraq

    I was once a pair of “boots on the ground,” so I know a little about what the phrase means. And I can tell you that, listening to the back-and-forth between the White House and the Pentagon over who exactly we’re sending to Iraq (and now possibly Syria), neither side is giving the American people the whole story. First of all, you know those boots on the ground everybody’s still discussing whether we should deploy? Well, they’re already there. We are already effectively engaged in combat in Iraq, in direct contradiction of what President Obama said when he announced he was taking action against the Islamic State terrorists, telling the American people in an address from the White House that the mission “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.” He said pretty much the same when he told troops at MacDill Air Force Base: “The American forces do not and will not have a combat mission.”

  • When are boots on the ground “boots on the ground”?

    President Obama vows not to involve U.S. troops in another land war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. He refers to this as not having “boots on the ground.”

  • America’s never-ending war

    It is official: US President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama is at war again. After toppling Libyan ruler Muammar el-Qaddafi and bombing targets in Somalia and Yemen, Obama has initiated airstrikes in northern Iraq, effectively declaring war on the Islamic State – a decision that will involve infringing on the sovereign, if disintegrating, state of Syria.

  • Reactions to Obama’s Naked Aggression Against Syria

    On Tuesday, Obama attacked another country lawlessly. Syria poses no threat to America.

  • Israel Part of US Anti-Syrian Coalition

    It’s unannounced. It’s no secret. Israel is heavily involved. It’s been so all along. It wants Assad ousted.

  • ‘Peace’ President? How Obama came to bomb seven countries in six years

    Barack Obama, the man many hoped would be the ‘peace President’ when he entered office, has bombed seven countries during his six years in office.

    The President oversaw the first US air strikes launched in Syria this week, in a huge escalation of America’s military campaign against Isis (also known as Islamic State).

    Mr Obama was elected partly of his opposition to the Iraq war and was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

    The arguably optimistic decision taken by the Norwegian Nobel Committee was taken just nine months into his Presidency and came as he was trying to manage the war in Afghanistan.

    His famous speech in Cairo saw the President declare he was seeking “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world”, sparking hopes he would be the antidote to George W. Bush’s controversial term.

  • ‘The Last Days of Vietnam’ traces a complicated exodus from war

    Multiple stories of heroism, indecision and guilt converge in a riveting documentary

  • ‘Last Days in Vietnam’ review: Sadness, heroism that must be told

    One of the film’s less affable talking heads is Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who negotiated the Paris Peace Accord two years earlier. I’ll leave it to viewers to evaluate his input here.

  • Once upon a time in Vietnam

    It’s very hard to watch the vile vampire Kissinger in hornrims smiling as he mimics a human being.

  • The Kurds as cannon fodder

    Once again the West has found a way to use the Kurds as cannon fodder for its own purposes. Once more, however, the biggest losers will be the ordinary Kurdish people.

    The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq comprises two rival armed groups — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — which have a history of killing each other’s supporters in their mutual drive for absolute power. The PUK began as a faction inside the KDP. In 1964 the KDP militia literally pushed the dissident faction into Iran.

  • White House Fence Jumpers, 9/11 and “Khorasan”, the Mysterious Al Qaeda Splinter Group

    Just when we thought the jokes and lies couldn’t get any sicker and thicker, we get, via CBS, a new figurative, yet also polysemously literal, present: “Khorasan.” Of course, the “new”, to be sure, is also by now rather old. Do have a look; we’ve got yet another recycling of the bin Laden/Emmanuel Goldstein image, this time associated with the out-of-thin-air Khorasan group. CBS kindly informs us that “an expert on Al-Qaeda” (who is undoubtedly also expert in the knowledge of Eurasia, Eastasia, and telescreens) “says they [Khorasan] are following bin Laden’s vision.”

  • Hoping Bombs Will Solve Iraq/Syria Mess

    Contradictions beset the U.S. war over Iraq and Syria. The principal target ISIS wouldn’t even exist but for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria have benefited from defections of U.S.-backed “moderates.” But now warplanes and missiles are supposed to fix things, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

  • Ron Paul: Congress votes for more war in the Mideast

    >Last week, the House and Senate voted to rubber stamp President Obama’s war plans for the Middle East. Both bodies, on a bipartisan basis, authorized the U.S. to begin openly training and arming the rebels who have been fighting for three years to overthrow the Assad government in Syria.

    Although the Syrian government also has been fighting ISIS and related extremist groups for three years, the U.S. refuses to speak to the Syrians and has warned Assad not to interfere with the U.S. attack on sovereign Syrian territory

  • Guest Post: Is Credible Vetting of the Syrian Opposition for Human Rights Abuses Possible?

    Tucked inside the continuing resolution the United States Congress passed late last week was a provision to authorize the training and equipping of “moderate, vetted” elements of the Syrian opposition. The CIA has been carrying out a covert, small-scale version of this program, according to media reports. However, the rapid territorial gains and brutality of ISIS tipped the scales and encouraged the administration to go bigger – and go public — with a $500 million Pentagon-run, train-and-equip program, said U.S. President Barack Obama in a Sept. 10 speech.

  • The JFK Assassination: The CIA’s “Lone Assassin” Propaganda Strategy for the Warren Commission Report

    Communiqué encouraged media assets to counter notions of “political conspiracy”

• Censorship

  • Hundreds of High Schoolers Walk Out to Protest Conservative Takeover of History Standards

    What Board Chairman Ken Witt probably didn’t expect is what happened next. Yesterday, hundreds of students from five high schools marched out of their classrooms and into the streets to reject the conservative board’s proposal. Carrying signs such as “people didn’t die so we could erase them,” the students demanded that the proposal be withdrawn.

    To get a sense of the size of the protests, the local CBS station reported that 500 students walked out at a single high school, Arvada West High. That is about a third of the students at the school.

    In addition to the mass student protests, teachers have been leading actions as well. Last week, as many as 50 teachers at Standley Lake and Conifer high schools staged a sickout to protest the new standards, forcing classes to be canceled.

• Privacy

  • Opinion/Editorial: U.S. should take a look at its spying

    It took awhile, but Washington now has done the responsible thing and ceased spying on friendly governments.

    That information comes from current and former U.S. officials, reports The Associated Press, although the CIA has declined to comment.

• Civil Rights

  • Director thanks Jeremy Renner for helping him avoid horror shocker

    In the new Cuestra film, Renner portrays investigative reporter Gary Webb, who became the target of a vicious smear campaign that drove him to the point of suicide after exposing the CIA’s role in arming Contra rebels.

  • Return of the messenger: How Jeremy Renner’s new film Kill The Messenger will vindicate Sacramento investigative journalist Gary Webb

    Nearly two decades after the reporter exposed a connection between the CIA and crack cocaine in America, Hollywood chimes in with a major movie

  • Kill the Messenger’s Jeremy Renner Admits He Got Hitched

    “Kill the Messenger” is a political thriller about real-life journalist Gary Webb who documented the link between drug dealers, contra rebels in Nicaragua and the C.I.A. He wrote a series of articles for the San Jose Mercury Times called the “Dark Alliance” series in 1996. His work received critical praise and attention from the media, who later turned on him and discredited his work.

  • A Farce at Forty

    These authors also assert that President Ford had not made a deal with the president who appointed him vice president and then stood aside to elevate him to the presidency, trading a pardon for the country’s two national offices over ten months. Many pundits as well as the dense ranks of Nixon’s opponents (they almost completely overlapped for a long time), screamed this at the time, including relatively sober commentators such as Joseph Alsop, but there was never a shred of evidence of it and such a thought arose only in the perfervidly malignant atmosphere confected by the anti-Nixon media, with, it must be admitted, what amounted to the cooperation of Nixon himself in his incompetent handling of the issues from the Watergate intrusion of June 1972, right up to his resignation in August 1974. Of course there was no such arrangement, the suggestion of it was always scurrilous and defamatory of both presidents, and to proclaim triumphantly 40 years later that they are now free of that suspicion is fatuous.

  • The fundamental rule of international law is that states cannot attack other states, even for humanitarian reasons

    Does US care about violating international laws? Nope. Is there any entity that can take action against US and Allies if they violate international laws? Nope. So what is the use in an UN and its Secretary General or the UN Human Rights head? They simply take home lavish salaries, remunerations and travel VIP and issue statements at all states the US and Allies are against. If so, is there a point in continuing with the UN? That’s a question that the public of the member nations must pose to their governments and decide to walk out of the UN as the current double standards and ugly precedents being created has reached beyond the level of tolerance. Since independence in 1776, the U.S. has been engaged in over 53 military invasions and expeditions and nothing is being done against such illegal actions.

  • ‘Surveillance state’

    Ex-CIA analyst joins Chico State profs in discussion of Fourth Amendment, government power over Americans

  • Torture in Iraq: Pakistani citizen challenges UK’s ‘act of state’ stance

    A Pakistani citizen who says he was tortured over a period of 10 years after being captured by UK special forces in Iraq and handed over to US troops will on Wednesday contest the government’s claim that he cannot pursue his case on the grounds that it would damage Britain’s relations with America, The Guardian reported.

    Yunus Rahmatullah was seized in Iraq in 2004 in an incident that was kept secret from ministers and only disclosed to MPs five years later. Rahmatullah, now 31, was released by the US without charge in May and is seeking to sue the ministry of defence (MoD) and the foreign office, accusing them of responsibility for his subjection to torture and abuse.

  • Spotlighting regional issues, UN reform, Latin American leaders address General Assembly

    Mr. Maduro Moros urged United States President Barack Obama to end the embargo in Cuba and called on the General Assembly to draft a document that would defend poor countries against “vulture funds” that sought to plunder economies and impose detrimental finance systems. He expressed solidarity with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and Argentina in particular. A decolonization plan for Puerto Rico was critical so that the island could join its neighbours in CELAC.

  • Senate Torture Report Vanishes

    Back here at home, the dispute over the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture, a hot button issue earlier this year, has also benefited, largely disappearing from sight. The meticulously researched Senate report, covering 6000 pages and including 35,000 footnotes, apparently concluded that torturing terrorist suspects was not only illegal under the United Nations Convention on Torture, to which Washington is a signatory, it was also ineffective, producing no intelligence that was otherwise unobtainable.

  • ROSS: Obama regime trampling free press

    AP’s Washington Bureau Chief, a reporter who has been illegally spied upon by the Obama regime, has just given a talk about the ways the president is trampling press freedom.

  • Don’t Execute Those We Tortured

    But there are reasons Mr. Mohammed should not be executed, irrespective of how one feels about capital punishment. He was the victim of blatantly illegal treatment — the C.I.A. waterboarded him 183 times in March 2003, and threatened to kill his children while imprisoning him in a secret jail — at the hands of the government.

  • France Adopts Anti-Terror Law Eroding Civil Liberties

    Last week, a nearly empty French lower house (National Assembly) voted with a large majority in favour of the “bill strengthening provisions on the fight against terrorism”. In an atmosphere heavy with “apocalyptic” anxiety and speeches on the terrorist threat – particularly online –, interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and rapporteur Sébastien Pietrasanta wore down all opposition, blocking any further thought on the serious breaches of the Rule of Law contained in this bill.