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Links 28/4/2015: Plasma 5.3, Cutelyst 0.8.0





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop



    • Citrix Delivers Linux Virtual Desktop Offering
      Citrix is out with some interesting moves in the Linux virtual desktop arena. The company has a new kit called the “Linux Virtual Desktop Tech Preview” which is available here for XenApp or XenDesktop customers with active Subscription Advantage accounts. Citrix Partners can get it as well.


    • Chrome OS will get Lucid sleep mode
      François Beaufort, a Google developer, writes on his Google+ page that Chrome OS is receiving the ability to perform some Wifi functions while the device is sleeping.


    • VXL Launches Gio 6 Linux OS for its Suite of Thin, Cloud and Zero Client Desktop
      VXL Instruments has developed and designed exclusively in-house, VXL's new, industry-leading Gio 6 Linux operating system features a new look, user-friendly design together with greater flexibility, connectivity, security and multimedia capabilities.




  • Server



    • Linux vendor Cumulus rolls out management pack
      Linux network operating system developer Cumulus Networks this week at Interop rolled out a management platform that provides a common interface and operational process for data center racks.

      The Cumulus Rack Management Platform is based on the company’s Cumulus Linux network operating system code base. Out-of-band management switches running Cumulus RMP may be managed by the same Linux toolsets as both servers and data-plane switches running Cumulus Linux, the company says.


    • VMware Draws on Open Source to Manage Cloud Micro Services
      VMware last week released details about two new open source projects that aim to bridge the divide between the company's virtualization software and other vendors' containers. Both projects integrate into VMware's unified platform for the hybrid cloud, allowing the company to create a consistent environment for cloud-native and traditional applications.






  • Kernel Space



    • A Brief Update On Fwupd For Linux Firmware Updating Of Devices
      One of the latest focuses of prolific free software developer Richard Hughes has been on fwupd, an open-source and easy way to update device firmware.

      Fwupd is part of the initiative to make updating of UEFI/BIOS easily from the Linux desktop and fwupd can be used for updating the firmware of peripheral devices like Richard Hughes' ColorHug device.


    • Updating OpenHardware Firmware
      One of the use-cases I’ve got for fwupd is for updating firmware on small OpenHardware projects. It doesn’t make sense for each of the projects to write a GUI firmware flash program when most of them are using a simple HID or DFU bootloader to do basically the same thing. We can abstract out the details, and just require the upstream project to provide metadata about what is fixed in each update that we can all share.


    • Graphics Stack



      • AMD Radeon R9 290 OpenGL On Ubuntu 15.04: Catalyst vs. RadeonSI Gallium3D
        While I've posted some new AMD OpenGL benchmarks on Ubuntu 15.04 since last week's release of the Vivid Vervet, the Radeon R9 290 wasn't tested since at that time this Hawaii graphics card was busy on other Phoronix test systems. However, due to the interest level in seeing some fresh Ubuntu 15.04 numbers for the Radeon R9 290 series, here's some numbers.


      • Nouveau NVC0 Gallium3D Driver Now Exposes GLSL 4.10
        While there's still more work to be done before advertising OpenGL 4.0~4.1 compliance, the Nouveau NVC0 Gallium3D driver is now advertising support for GLSL 410 (4.10), the GL Shading Language version to match OpenGL 4.1.


      • GTX 750 Maxwell Acceleration Starts Working On Nouveau With Linux 4.1
        While the Nouveau developers remain blocked by NVIDIA on bringing up accelerated support for the GeForce GTX 900 series, with the forthcoming Linux 4.1 kernel there is initial GeForce GTX 750 "Maxwell" accelerated support out-of-the-box.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



  • Distributions



    • BackBox Linux 4.2 Is a Complete Penetration Testing Distro Based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS [corrected URL]
      BackBox Linux, a distribution based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS, developed perform penetration tests and security assessments has just received a new update and is now ready for download.


    • New Releases



    • Screenshots/Screencasts



    • Red Hat Family



      • Fedora



        • CUDA enabled programs
          There is a new repository available with CUDA enabled programs in package format. This contains programs that have been linked to CUDA libraries or have CUDA support enabled. At the moment this is available only on Fedora 21, if there is sufficient feedback I will enable it also for other distributions.


        • Making It Easier To Deploy CUDA On Fedora
          While Fedora 21 ships with decent OpenCL support, if you're running the binary NVIDIA graphics driver on Fedora Linux and wishing to use CUDA-accelerated programs, it's a little bit easier today thanks to a new third-party package repository.


        • FLISOL Panama 2015 Report
          Panama Fedora team participated in Festival Latinoamericano de Instalación de Software Libre (FLISOL) given on Saturday, April 25th at Universidad del Istmo, main campus.






    • Debian Family



      • Debian 8.0 Jessie Debuts After Two Years of Effort
        New Debian releases don't occur every day, or even every year. This past week, Debian 8.0 codenamed Jessie was released after nearly two years of development effort. Debian is the first major milestone update for the GNU/Linux distribution since Wheezy was released in 2013.


      • why not trying to package Hadoop in Debian?
        OpenStack Sahara already provides the reproducible deployment system which you seem to wish. We “only” need Hadoop itself.


      • Backporting and git-buildpackage
        For working with Debian packages, one method of maintaining them is to put them in git and use git-buildpackage to build them right out of the git repository. There are a few pitfalls with it, notably around if you forget to import the upstream you get this strange treeish related error which still throws me at first when I see it.


      • Derivatives







  • Devices/Embedded



    • Arrow Electronics Joins Open-Source Software Pioneer Linaro to Help Bring Innovative New Boards to Market


    • Compact embedded PC runs Linux on Bay Trail
      Aaeon’s ruggedized, 158 x 95 x 20mm “Boxer-6403″ PC offers Celeron or Atom SoCs, plus four USB ports and double helpings of GbE, serial, and mini-PCIe I/O.


    • Phones



      • Tizen



        • Learn more about the Tizen Web Application Development Process
          Tizen is a new Linux based HTML5 centric Operating System that will offer developers a great opportunity for developers to bring their existing or new apps to a brand new ecosystem, where they actually have a chance of being discovered, and better still stand a chance of generating some real cash revenue.


        • Samsung’s 4K SUHD Smart Tizen TV
          The Samsung Smart TV revolution is upon us, and Samsung promises to redefine your viewing experience with television. We now have curved screens that feel more natural to watch as we see the world in a non-linear way, so why should we watch TV on a flat screen?

          Samsung Tizen TV offers some great image quality and promises to be able to become the Smart hub of your Smart home, allowing you to control peripheral devices from the comfort of your armchair.




      • Android



        • Android could ignite the Nokia of old
          For an entire generation, the name Nokia will stir up a lot of emotion. From the iconic 3210 to the symbolic N95, the pre-smartphone years were Nokia’s heyday and a large majority of current smartphone users will be able to recall using a Nokia handset in their past.


        • Disney's Infinity Digital Toys Finally Come To Android With The Toy Box 2.0 App
          If you're not familiar with Disney Infinity, it's basically the media giant's answer to digital toys like Skylanders, Angry Birds Telepods, and Nintendo Amiibo. The gist is that you buy your kids RFID-enabled collectible statues, they stick 'em on a base station, and then they can use digital versions of those characters inside the Disney Infinity game. Is there a technical reason that a completely digital character needs a $15 hunk of physical plastic to unlock? Why certainly, so long as "technical reason" includes "making Disney a boatload of money."


        • Google blushes over Google Maps showing Android icon urinating on Apple icon
          As of Monday, all was well in Pakistan's Ayub National Park, at least as far as Google Maps was concerned, which was showing it as a verdant green swath of pixels.

          It was a nice change from the image of Google's Android icon peeing on an Apple logo: an image that a map prankster uploaded to Google Maps and which had stayed up for an undetermined time.


        • Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition to get Android 5.1 Lollipop
          The Galaxy S4 may be more than two years old now, but it’s still very much a part of Samsung’s Lollipop upgrade plans. The device has already received an Android 5.0 upgrade, and according to a new report, Google Play Edition variants will get Android 5.1, too.


        • Will This Android Wear Update Fend Off the Apple Watch?
          Meanwhile, Google has kept the ability to customize Android Wear low compared to Android for smartphones and tablets, which has caused several manufacturers to experiment with homegrown solutions. These updates keep Android Wear's feature set compelling enough to keep most OEMs from venturing out on their own.


        • The Livescribe 3 smartpen finally works with Android devices
          Livescribe has been in the business of merging physical content you generate — things like hand-written notes and voice recordings — with the digital world for years now. The Livescribe 3 "smartpen," which launched in the fall of 2013, was certainly its most successful attempt to date. The combo of the Livescribe 3 pen alongside specially designed notebooks meant that you could take traditional notes, make drawings, do calculations, or anything else you do with a pen and paper and have them synced to your phone, tablet, or computer. That’s assuming you were an iOS user, of course — the Livescribe 3 only supported Apple’s mobile devices.


        • Samsung Galaxy Android 5.1 Release Details Arrive
          While the Android 5.1 update probably won’t be hitting the Samsung Galaxy S6, Galaxy S5 or Galaxy Note 4 anytime soon, it does appear that the rumored Galaxy Android 5.1 Lollipop update will be hitting at least one device in the near future.










Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Security



  • Transparency Reporting



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • ‘All Weather Is Part of Actual Climate’


    • Climate change could drive air conditioning to boost carbon emissions
      The climate is full of feedback loops. When a warming climate melts sea ice, the water that's left behind reflects far less sunlight, leading to a further warming. Now, some researchers at the University of California Berkeley have looked at a human feedback loop: the relation between climate change and air conditioning. Using Mexico as an example, they find that the rising use of air conditioning may boost the country's electricity use and carbon emissions by 80 percent before the century is over—but only if economic growth continues at a pace that allows people to buy air conditioners.






  • Finance



    • The End of a Job as We Know It
      The concept of a job, as we know it, is starting to go away.


    • Wall Street Halts Twitter Trading Following Earnings Leak (Liveblog)
      Wall Street briefly halted trading for Twitter stock Tuesday afternoon after the company’s Q1 earnings were leaked early.

      Twitter missed analyst’s revenue projections, and the market reacted as Twitter stock quickly dipped almost 6 percent before trading was halted. Trading then resumed, and the stock finished the day down more than 18 percent.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Vouchers on the Move: Return to School Segregation?
      Twenty-five years ago, Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson signed the nation's first school voucher bill into law. Pitched as social mobility tickets for minority students, Wisconsin vouchers allow children to attend private, and sometimes religious, schools on the taxpayers' dime.




  • Censorship



    • Salman Rushdie: The authors boycotting event awarding Charlie Hebdo a prize for free speech are 'pussies'
      Salman Rushdie has accused fellow authors, including Peter Carey and Michael Ondaatje, of being “pussies” for boycotting an event organised by the free-speech organisation PEN at which the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is to be given an award.


    • Rieder: Why 'Charlie Hebdo' deserves free speech award
      A debate has erupted over the decision by PEN American Center to give its annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

      It was at the offices of Charlie Hebdo that an assault by Muslim extremists in January left 12 people dead, including the publication's top editor and a number of prominent cartoonists.


    • Demonoid Blocks Adblock Users – Fair or Fail?


      Demonoid, once one of the Internet's most popular torrent sites, is now barring users who try to visit the site with advert blocking software Adblock installed. The move raises some interesting questions, not least the value of revenue to torrent sites and the intricacies of whether or not content really should be 'free'.




  • Privacy



  • Civil Rights





Recent Techrights' Posts

A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
 
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
We never used "the cloud"
Amazon Web Shenanigans
An ongoing, experimental endeavour
Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
"More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
This won't end well
Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
A crashing franchise
Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
Links for the day
As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
there's nothing unreasonable about it
A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
Links for the day
US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
some weeks ago
All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
Each year it gets worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025