Just weeks after Northrop Grumman got approval to begin building a new breed of mobile radar systems for the Marine Corps, the Corps has asked the defense contractor in Linthicum to change the operating system.
The Department of Defense announced a $10.2 million contract modification Wednesday to change the operator command and control software on its G/ATOR radar system Microsoft Windows XP to a Defense Information Systems Agency compliant Linux OS.
Ingrid Vaughan, director of the program, said the change would mean greater compatability for laptop computers used to control the system in the future.
In a statement released Friday, she said Microsoft Windows XP is no longer supported by the software developer and the shift to a DOD approved Linux operating system will reduce both the complexity of the operating system and need for future updates.
IBM partners with Docker, launches the IBM Containers Service and becomes the first company to sell integrated solutions with Docker Hub Enterprise.
The launch also included the first of a set of accompanying open APIs aimed at helping ecosystem partners create products and services that align and integrate with the new Docker orchestration offerings. In high demand from developers, the timeline for future APIs is not for several months, which may disappoint some ecosystem partners who have already been waiting for some time for the “plugin APIs” that will enable them to integrate their ecosystem products with the Docker Engine.
The role of system administrator means candidates “need to operate at a somewhat higher level of abstraction," as Heikki Topi, a professor of computer information systems at Bentley University and a member of the education board at the Association for Computing Machinery, has put it.
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees the Linux open source computer operating system, added to its Oregon staff this week by hiring Portland's Steve Westmoreland as chief information officer.
In the beginning, software was free, something you needed to make the hardware run. Then Microsoft (MSFT) and others demonstrated that people would pay for proprietary code, and for a long while software wasn’t free. But proprietary code was often clunky, and what worked on one kind of computer had to be re-created on others. Soon people realized there was a better way, and software became free again, sort of. Open-source software is essentially software that’s open to the public for tinkering, and over time that tinkering makes the code stronger. Linux, the classic example, is an operating system that’s been so extensively customized and built upon, versions of it now run everything from data centers, PCs, TVs, and cars to your Android smartphone. Companies still charge for apps and services, but much of the technology we use today is based on building blocks that are free and open to the imagination.
Over the past couple of years, The Linux Foundation has emerged as a very influential organization overseeing not only directly Linux-related initiatives, but important technology efforts including building out "The Internet of Everything." This week, the foundation made a series of announcements, including the news that it is expanding its leadership team, and news about events that the foundation will sponsor in 2015. Here is more.
Due out next week is a very significant update to AMD's Catalyst Linux graphics driver as they continue to work towards the unified AMD Linux driver strategy.
Intel's Edison Module is a development platform for prototyping wearable computing devices and IoT devices. Here's some Linux benchmarks with the Intel Edison running on Debian.
When new Linux desktop users arrive, the first thing to be done is locate apps to take the place of the ones they left behind. Most often, the bare installation will contain everything you need to get work done. But there are certain app categories that demand you do a bit of searching to get just the right tool.
One such category is personal finance managers. With the Linux platform, you’ll find applications to meet just about every need to keep track of your finances. So if you don’t want to pay the price of QuickBooks Online, you can take control of those records and keep them on your desktop or laptop.
But which apps to use? Doing a quick search, you’ll find a number of entries in the finance space ââ⬠all of which are not created equal. Instead of going into an in-depth analysis of the cream of the crop, I want to highlight three of the personal finance managers that could, in fact, serve you well as you track your earnings, savings, stocks, etc.
You've heard the rap on Google's Chrome OS plaftorm: Sure, it's fast and boots up quickly, but there are lots of top-tier applications that won't run it, because Chrome OS does everything in the cloud. When Google first announced its cloud-centric Chrome OS platform, which primarily eschews applications that reside on the desktop for ones out in the cloud, people came out of the woodwork citing popular applications that wouldn't run on it. Among these applications, the Windows crowd made a big deal out of the fact that Photoshop wouldn't run on Chrome OS.
You have a machine someplace, probably in The Cloud, and it has Linux installed, but not to your liking. You want to do a clean reinstall, maybe switching the distribution, or getting rid of the cruft. But this requires running an installer, and it's too difficult to run d-i on remote machines.
Roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing games. It literally means "a game like Rogue". Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game first released in 1980, standing out for being fiendishly addictive. Its goal was to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, hidden deep in the 26th level, and ascend back to the top.
Perhaps most pleasantly, TROG uses a keypad arrangement for movement, but for laptop users like me, also uses the nine keys between QWE and ZXC as compass directions. TROG also keeps to the popup-menu theme, with character creation and most inventory actions bouncing to the forefront as selection menus.
Galcon 2: Galactic Conquest is a new game in the famous Galcon series developed by Hassey Enterprises, Inc, and is now available for Linux users.
The first Linux hint on there is "Everybody wants to rule the world", and it seems like that's the only Linux hint on the page so far. It's probably related to their previous hints.
More details on the Linux port of the first-person shooter are to be shared at a later date, according to the publisher.
KDE's third update of its 4.14 series of Applications and Development Platform is now available in Chakra's stable repositories. With this release kde-workspace has also been updated to version 4.11.14.
About 2 years ago I tried Zorin 6.0 and have used it and upgraded it on one of my computers since. I especially like the Zorin OS desktop experience because I can change it to look like Windows 7 or like Mac. That is flexibility! I also enjoy the Ubuntu type repository system!
Puzzle GNU/Linux is a strange OS distribution that shows the value of open source ingenuity. This Linux distro is built around a hybrid desktop that is highly customizable.
Another Makulu Linux distribution was released today, and that's always good news! This time it is the KDE desktop for the Makulu 6.x series. The Xfce version of this was just released a couple of weeks ago, so I don't expect for there to be any major surprises: I hope that means this will not be a very lengthy post.
‘Linux Lite’ is a GNU/Linux distribution based on the Ubuntu’s Long Term Support releases. It includes the lightweight & fully functional XFCE desktop environment, comes with full support for proprietor multimedia playback & a few applications of its own (software updater, additional app installer, a ‘cleaner’…) that should assist a novice user for easily managing the installed operating system.
The new version improve font appearance for GTK2 applications and brings more accurate GTK2 styles in both classical and modern Q4OS themes. Lookswitcher, the tool to switch between Q4OS desktop themes, now works flawlessly, it has been fixed to prevent styles mixing on some rare switch attempts. Shortcuts in non-default Kickoff menu have been updated. More internal improvements has been made and several minor bugs has been closed.
Karanbir Singh today announced the inaugural release of CentOS rolling builds. CentOS will be releasing monthly respins of CentOS to include "all security, bugfix, enhancement and general updates." In other news, openSUSE 12.3 nears the end of its support and hit game BioShock Infinite looks to be heading to a Linux machine near you.
It has been more than a month since the new structure of opensuse Tumbleweed was announced (see my earlier post), and we have seen it in practice for a month.
Overall, this is a nice package. It might be a good place to start for someone wanting to try out opensuse for the first time.
openSUSE 12.3 is now very close to reach End of Life and the support cycle will be terminated in a few weeks time, meaning no more updates will be provided for the aging operating system.
The example of how the NSA intentionally inserted weakened string constants into Elliptic Curve Cryptography lay hidden for several years, in fact, and was only exposed by a languishing open Red Hat trouble ticket. What was odd was how given the potential seriousness of the incident, no action was being taken to look at the source code and change it. As more comments appended to the ticket, the level of suspicion grew to the point of where NIST was forced to open up an investigation.
The two tech vendors see the OpenStack solution as an ideal platform for telecommunications vendors that want to bring NFV to their networks.
Communication and collaboration between development and operations can be difficult to achieve in many organizations, especially in larger environments. These two areas have traditionally operated within 'silos' separate from each other - something that can lead to delays and miscommunication.
As 2014 draws to a close, we're seeing a lot of action from telecom players and the open source community surrounding Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) technology. Telecom companies have traditionally had a lot of proprietary tools in the middle and at the basis of their technology stacks. NFV is an effort to combat that, and to help the parallel trends of virtualization and cloud computing stay as open as possible.
Yes, it is fun to use. I really haven't felt that way in a very long time and I look forward to turning on my PC every day because Fedora 21 Workstation with GNOME Shell 3.14 is just that good. I would add, Red Hat is the largest supporter of The GNOME Foundation and has worked closely in the design of GNOME Shell. Red Hat also provides web infrastructure for The GNOME Project. The relationship is close knit. The end result is what you see and use.
The big news today is that a fifth release candidate for Fedora 21 was needed, but Fedora 21 was given a GO for the December 9 release. Fedora folks are also talking about a '"Tick-tock" release cadence' for future versions, which would alternate feature releases with "release engineering and QA process and tooling."
Debian is going astray. Unless they wake up, many loyal devotees of Debian will move to other distros that do IT the right way. I’m a little old to be distro-hopping but even I can see the necessity of escaping the entanglement, the single point of failure, and the loss of control that systemd represents.
Meizu is really under the spotlight lately. The company has launched their latest handset just recently, Meizu is doing great as far as sales go and everything seems to be in place. This Chinese OEM has big plans, no doubt about that. They have signed an agreement with Alibaba a while back in order to use parts of Alibaba’s YunOS in their own Flyme OS and basically created a partnership between two companies. That’s not the only agreement Meizu signed in the last couple of month, just last month this company has agreed partnership with Canonical, a UK-based company which is known as the creator and developer of Ubuntu operating system some of us are very familiar with. Ubuntu OS has been available for PCs for a long time now, but this company created a mobile version of this OS (Ubuntu Touch) as well and we’ve seen it in action when Canonical showcased it on one of the Nexus handset a while back, I really don’t recall which one was it. Ubuntu was also shown off on Meizu MX3 a while back and it will be arriving on Meizu handsets officially in Q1 2015 according to the agreement which Canonical and Meizu signed.
Adeneo announced Android 4.4.4 (KitKat) BSPs for the TI Sitara AM335x and Sitara AM437x development platforms and the AM335x-based BeagleBone Black SBC.
Adeneo Embedded is a Platinum Member of the TI Design Network, and has previously released a number of Linux and Android BSPs (board support packages) for Texas Instruments processors and development boards. In Feb. 2013, for example, Adeneo announced an Android BSP for the TI OMAP 5 family of system-on-chips.
Rapberri Pis are all the rage these days, but now there's a new kid on the micro-computing block. Unveiled by British chip design company Imagination Technologies, the MIPS Creator CI20 is being dubbed as a rival mini-comp to the venerable Pi.
Today, Android is the world's most pervasive mobile operating system on the planet, powering millions of smartphones, tablets, wearables, and more. But that wasn't always the case, and Android's public life started from humble beginnings just about six years ago.
Skully announced a limited public pre-order round for its Android-based head-up display motorcycle helmet, available for $1,499 through Jan. 8.
The “world’s first augmented reality motorcycle helmet,” was a record-breaking $2.8 million Indiegogo success this summer, says Skully. (The frozen Indiegogo page shows a total of $2.44 million, but hey, it’s still a lot of money.) The helmets are now shipping, and beginning Monday, anyone can order the smart helmet, as long as you have $1,499 left in your holiday gift fund.
Is it finally safe to upgrade to Android 5 after the recent release of Android 5.01? Based on my experiences with my pair of 2013 Nexus 7 tablets, the answer is an unqualified yes.
November sure was a busy month for new apps and notable updates; from photo recognition, to launchers, to Biz Stone’s new app for sharing random thoughts.
Univention presents their annual Graduate Prize for dissertations dealing with applicable and in €demand open source solutions. The winner of the Univention Graduate Prize will receive $2,500 USD. Univention is a leading supplier of open source products for the operation and management of IT infrastructures.
Last month I wrote about an important development for companies outside the world of computing: collaborating on non-competitive code specific to their sector. That change in business practices is still in the early stages, and will probably take some years to move into the mainstream. Far further along is the transformation of many manufacturing companies into ones where open source plays a central role, not just in their IT infrastructure, but in their product line too. That's simply a consequence of the fact that more and more products are adding digital elements, and that the cheapest and best way to do that is to use open source.
As a result, analysts and reporters are constantly asking me what I think regarding their chance of success. Companies are also often asking me my thoughts on whether they should open-source a technology and whether to do it as a separate project or within the sphere of an existing open-source project. Overall, this trend toward open source is very encouraging. Unlike closed-source/proprietary code, open-source licenses allow one to look at the code – to understand the inner workings and spot problems but also to be inspired. The real power of open source is the ability for people to build on top of the original source code.
The TYPO3 Association, a non-profit organization founded to ensure the sustained and long-term development of the various TYPO3 software projects--including the highly flexible, scaleable and customizable TYPO3 Web Content Management system--has joined the Open Source Initiative €® (OSI) as an Affiliate Member. TYPO3 supports an international community of users and developers through: internal and external communication, spreading knowledge and competence; organizing informational and training events, and; securing trademark rights in the interest of the TYPO3 community.
OnApps’ interface is available as open source GPL code under GNU.
Today, Mirantis is unveiling the free version of Mirantis OpenStack Express (the hosted on-demand version of the Mirantis OpenStack distribution) for developers. It’s a push to try and encourage developers to build products on top of OpenStack, as the need for a rich ecosystem of such tools is increasing.
Some open source communities form organically, forged by a common goal of users and developers working together to solve similar problems. But every project could benefit from having a few people dedicated to fostering leadership to make sure that the community around the project is as robust and sustainable as the project itself.
A new security service provides additional protection for users of the cloud-hosted version of the Drupal content management system.
The Department of Defense’s solicitation for a new EHR infrastructure has put $11 billion up for grabs, and the large-scale contract has attracted interest from some of the biggest names in the EHR market. Each team is bringing something a little bit different to the table in regards to expertise and vision for the lengthy, complex project. While interoperability is a top concern for everyone involved in the bidding, there’s more than one way to achieve it.
Jordan Hubbard... should need no introduction but if you don't know who he is, look him up... anyway, Mr. Hubbard spoke recently at the MeetBSD 2014 conference giving a presentation entitled, "FreeBSD: The next 10 years".
If we assume everybody is acting on the advice of their dentist and replacing their toothbrush every few months, then there's likely a lot of frayed bristles laying in landfill right now. But must our dental care devices take on such as short lifespan? The Goodwell open-source toothbrush is a modern take on oral hygiene, built from eco-friendly materials and made to last until you haven't got any teeth left to brush.
Juniper Networks on Wednesday unveiled a new data center switch based on open source hardware from the Open Compute Project, in a bid to better target the large cloud providers and Web 2.0 companies embracing the "white-box" switching model.
Dissatisfaction with Joyent's stewardship of the Node.js project has bubbled over, leading to the creation of the io.js fork
Tony Blair names Henry Kissinger as his role model.
Tony Blair has insisted that his much-criticised business dealings with dubious governments round the world have not been as lucrative as people think – as one of his staff suggested his wealth amounted to about €£10m.
In June 2014, Frederick Reese’s Mint Press report highlighted the fact that the advocacy group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) conducted a study showing that the three major broadcast newscasts – ABC World News, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News – featured billionaires almost four times as often as individuals affected by poverty. Poverty is an issue that affects 50 million Americans, a significantly larger number of individuals than the 482 billionaires that these newscasts covered.
Hang on to your hats, America.
And throw away that big, fat styrofoam finger while you’re about it.
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: We’re no longer No. 1. Today, we’re No. 2. Yes, it’s official. The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.
It just happened — and almost nobody noticed.
The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in “real” terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion — compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.
After spending hundreds of millions of undisclosed funds on state and federal elections, the corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council are demanding that state legislators preserve their "right" to anonymously spend money on politics and curry favor with elected officials, and to thwart shareholder efforts to hold the corporations they own accountable.
Thanks to ORG, block notices are now telling you more about the reasons why websites are blocked, explaining that court order can be challenged.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) gave its judgment today in a major surveillance case brought by Privacy International, Liberty and Amnesty International. Disappointingly, the IPT ruled against the NGOs and accepted the security services’ position that they may in principle carry out mass surveillance of all fibre optic cables entering or leaving the UK and that vast intelligence sharing with the NSA does not contravene the right to privacy because of the existence of secret policies.
Today EFF is pleased to announce Let’s Encrypt, a new certificate authority (CA) initiative that we have put together with Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai, IdenTrust, and researchers at the University of Michigan that aims to clear the remaining roadblocks to transition the Web from HTTP to HTTPS.
Wickr has launched a set of new desktop apps for anyone feeling skittish about conversing over the Internet.
RIPA governs the use of covert surveillance powers. In 2012 the Protection of Freedoms Act was introduced, partly to solve some of the issues created by the legislation, such as the use of intrusive surveillance for minor issues. Many problems still remain and the need to enact serious reform is now more pressing than ever.