07.02.15

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Desktop

  • Turning Windows users into Linux users with MakuluLinux Aero

    Slick, sleek, and fast and very Windows-like … this is a distro that could get your users on the path of OS righteousness

  • EU court to decide on PC and software bundling

    The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is expected to rule within weeks on the practice of forced sale of licences for operating systems and other software bundled with computing devices. On 25 June, France’s Court of cassation referred to the CJEU a complaint of a French citizen who wanted to purchase a PC without any pre-installed operating system.

• Server

  • Can Data Infrastructure Vendors Stop Hackers?

    The ecosystem is based on Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), but it adds role-based access control with a policy for each role, so no one can get to the system root and the root can’t see user data. All access is logged, so any attempts to penetrate the system can be traced. Policies are based on roles such as security admin, audit admin and sysadmin, and each file is tagged with a security level so some users can see it while others can’t.

  • OpenVZ / Virtuozzo 7 Beta First Impressions

    There will eventually be two distinct versions… a free version and a commercial version. So far as I can tell they currently call it Virtuozzo 7 but in a comparison wiki page they use the column names Virtuozzo 7 OpenVZ (V7O) and Virtuozzo 7 Commercial (V7C). The original OpenVZ, which is still considered the stable OpenVZ release at this time based on the EL6-based OpenVZ kernel, appears to be called OpenVZ Legacy.

• Kernel Space

  • Linux Kernel 3.14.46 LTS Has ARM and ARM64 Improvements, Updated Drivers

    After announcing the release of the Linux kernel 4.1.1, Linux kernel 4.0.7, and Linux kernel 3.10.82 LTS, Greg Kroah-Hartman also published details about a new maintenance release of the Linux 3.14 kernel branch.

  • Interviews: Linus Torvalds Answers Your Question

    Linus: You can say the word “systemd”, It’s not a four-letter word. Seven letters. Count them.

    I have to say, I don’t really get the hatred of systemd. I think it improves a lot on the state of init, and no, I don’t see myself getting into that whole area.

    Yeah, it may have a few odd corners here and there, and I’m sure you’ll find things to despise. That happens in every project. I’m not a huge fan of the binary logging, for example. But that’s just an example. I much prefer systemd’s infrastructure for starting services over traditional init, and I think that’s a much bigger design decision.

    Yeah, I’ve had some personality issues with some of the maintainers, but that’s about how you handle bug reports and accept blame (or not) for when things go wrong. If people thought that meant that I dislike systemd, I will have to disappoint you guys.

  • Linux Kernel 3.10.82 LTS Is a Very Small Update with Five Fixes

    Immediately after having published details about the Linux kernel 4.1.1, Linux kernel 4.0.7, and Linux kernel 3.14.46 LTS maintenance releases, Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the immediate availability of Linux kernel 3.10.82 LTS.

  • ZFS On Linux 0.6.4.2 Brings Linux 4.1 Support, Fixes

    ZFS On Linux, a native port of the ZFS file-system to the Linux kernel via out-of-tree modules, was updated last week.

    ZFS On Linux 0.6.4.2 brings fixes for a variety of issues, improved metadata shrinker performance on pre-3.1 kernels, Linux 3.12 improvements, and support for the brand new Linux 4.1 kernel.

  • Graphics Stack

    • Libdrm 2.4.62 Is An Important Update For Open-Source GPU Drivers

      Libdrm 2.4.62 was released this week as a significant update to this DRM library for interfacing between the kernel DRM drivers and user-space.

    • X.Org Server Lands More Mode-Setting/GLAMOR Improvements, But No Sign Of 1.18

  • Coreboot

    • NVIDIA Tegra X1 Chromebooks Appear Closer, Support Added To Coreboot

      Google engineers have added support for the Tegra X1 “T210″ SoC to Coreboot. Additionally, they’ve added support for the “Smaug” Chromebook to Coreboot that uses this latest-generation NVIDIA Tegra 64-bit SoC.

    • “Veyron Shark” Is The Latest Motherboard Added To Coreboot

• Applications

  • PolyBrowser 2.0 (Gecko-based Internet Browser) Can Now Be Installed On Linux

    As you may know, PolyBrowser is yet another internet browser based on the Gecko engine, the same engine used by Firefox and Pale Moon. The browser focuses on working with multiple web pages at once, the most distinctive feature being the ability to zoom in and out of web pages, to monitor more tabs at once.

  • Mallard Documentation Sites With Pintail

    When we first designed Mallard, we designed it around creating documents: non-linear collections of pages about a particular subject. Documents are manageable and maintainable, and we’re able to define all of Mallard’s automatic linking within the confines of a document.

  • Obnam 1.10 released (backup software)

    I have just released version 1.10 of Obnam, my backup program. See the website at http://obnam.org for details on what it does. The new version is available from git (see http://git.liw.fi) and as Debian packages from http://code.liw.fi/debian, and uploaded to Debian, hopefully soon in unstable.

  • micro-webapps: webconf-spec, nginx support, tests and new github repositories

  • Proprietary

    • Opera 32 Dev Brings Bookmarks Tree View and Password Sync Improvements

      On the last day of June, Opera Software announced the immediate availability for download and testing of a new snapshot for the upcoming Opera 32 web browser for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • How to setup Apache Cassandra NoSql Database with Ubuntu 15.04

    • How to install rEFInd to dual boot Windows 8 and Linux in UEFI Mode

    • Setting up a Cluster With Proxmox

    • Reproducible testing with docker

    • HAProxy with Debian/squeeze clients causing random “Hash Sum mismatch”

    • Stumbling into the world of 4K displays [UPDATED]

    • How-to: SSH to Multiple Machines Simultaneously

    • How to configure SNMPv3 on ubuntu 15.04 server

    • Easily Analyze Your HTTP Traffic – Install And Configure Webalizer On Ubuntu 15.04

    • How to Migrate Ext2/Ext3 File Systems to Ext4 on Linux

    • Troubleshot & repair Linux networks

    • Install Open Source, Cloud Computing Web Desktop EyeOS on Ubuntu Linux 15.04

    • Ubuntu 15.10 Alpha 1 has been released, Installation Guide [ With Screenshots]

    • 15 Interesting Linux Command

    • How To Properly Upgrade Linux Mint 17.2 RC, Linux Mint 17.1 Or Linux Mint 17 To Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela

    • DigiKam 4.11.0 Released With Bug Fixes, Install/Update In Ubuntu 15.04/Linux Mint “Refaela” Or Other Darivatives

  • Wine or Emulation

    • Codeweavers On DX11 in WINE, Steam Machines & Porting

      Last week, following the announcement that Codeweavers would soon provide DirectX11 support for games and applications, I decided to get in touch with James Ramey, President of Codeweavers, in order to learn more about their plans and their progress on that front. He was kind enough to make himself available to answer some of our questions.

  • Games

    • Ubisoft Releases Anno Online, Its First Game for Linux

      Ubisoft hasn’t expressed any interest in the Linux platform until now, but it looks like that might change, although I wouldn’t get my hope up. Anno Online just landed on Linux, but it’s a browser game published through Steam.

    • ARK: SURVIVAL EVOLVED AVAILABLE NOW FOR MAC AND LINUX ON STEAM EARLY ACCESS

      Studio Wildcard announced today that the open-world survival game ARK: Survival Evolved is available now for Mac and Linux on Steam Early Access, and is among the first large-scale Unreal Engine 4 games released for these new platforms. The Mac and Linux versions share all of the features and content of the PC game and include seamless cross-play no matter which platform survivors choose. ARK players can dive into the dynamic island ecosystem where they craft weapons and tools, build multi-story houses, commune with other tribes, as well as tame, train, and ride dinosaurs from the vicious T-Rex to the monstrous Spinosaurus and soaring Pterodactyls.

    • ARK: Survival Evolved Is Available Now for Mac & Linux Early Access

    • ARK Survival Evolved Mac, Linux Versions Get Steam Early Access

    • ARK: Survival Evolved Now Available on Mac, Linux

    • ARK: Survival Evolved Released For Linux, Here’s An Early Look & Thoughts

    • NEON STRUCT Stealth Game Shows Promising Linux Sales

      The developer of NEON STRUCT the stealth game from Minor Key Games (Eldritch, You Have to Win the Game, Super Win the Game) has posted stats of their sales, and Linux is doing well.

    • DiRT Showdown Looks Like It’s Getting A Linux Release

    • 3D Sandbox Puzzler ‘Infinifactory’ Officially Released For Linux

      The sandbox factory puzzler by SpaceChem and TIS-100 developer Zachtronics has left Early Access after five months of tweaks and bug fixing. Infinifactory was made available for Linux in March, and I’ve now had a chance to play a few hours of the game.

    • Steam for Linux Usage Continues Its Downward Spiral in June

      The Steam for Linux platform got a great start, but for some strange reason the number of users has constantly been decreasing for the past few months and it looks like it’s not stopping, although the rate seems to be changing.

    • The State & Complications Of Porting The Unity Editor To Linux

    • The State of Unity 3D Game Engine, Editor On Linux

    • Terraria 1.3 Release Coming Later This Month With Many Improvements

      Terraria 1.3 is slated to be released in a few days on June 30, and coming with it are 800 new items, new mini-Biomes, achievements, a harder ‘expert mode’ and “more unknown stuff.” Why does this matter? Because in July, following the 1.3 release, there are going to be Mac and Linux ports of the game!

    • Mesa 10.6.1 Brings A Bug-Fix For Dota 2 Reborn

      Of interest to Phoronix readers will be the “glsl: binding point is a texture unit, which is a combined space” fix, which landed in Mesa Git last week and is back-ported to Mesa 10.5 and 10.6. This fix addresses compilation failures with Dota 2 Reborn, Valve’s first Source Engine 2 game. Separately, last week Valve updated Dota 2 Reborn with many fixes that included a fix when running on the open-source AMD Radeon driver.

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • KDE Plasma 5.3.2 Lands with Fix for Shutdown Scripts, More

      Plasma 5.3.2 has been revealed by the KDE Community, and the KDE desktop has received a number of important fixes that will be welcomed by the users.

    • KDE Ships KDE Applications 15.04.3

      Today KDE released the second stability update for KDE Applications 15.04. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

    • Global Shortcuts In KDE Plasma Under Wayland

    • KDE Marks Four Years In Its Process Of Porting To Wayland

    • KDE Plasma 5.3.2 Fixes Shutdown Scripts, Few Dozen Other Bugs

    • Qt 5.5 Officially Released

    • KStars Observers Management patched

      This update is a little break from my current GSoC project so i won’t talk about my progress just yet. I will talk about the current observers management dialog that is currently active in KStars. Basically, an observation session requires observer information like first name, last name and contact. Currently, an observer could be added only from the settings menu so i thought that it would be more intuitive if this functionality was placed in a more appropirate place and a proper GUI was to be implemented for a better user experience.

    • The Kubuntu Podcast Team is on a roll

      Building on their UOS Hangout, the Kubuntu Podcast Team has created their second Hangout, featuring Ovidiu-Florin Bogdan, Aaron Honeycutt, and Rick Timmis, discussing What is Kubuntu?

    • Road so far

    • July Update for KDE Applications 15.04

      Today, the KDE Community is happy to announce the release of KDE Applications 15.04.3. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

    • KDE ActivityManager in Emacs

      Today I whipped up a small Emacs minor-mode to interface with KDE’s ActivityManager system. It’s my first minor-mode and it’s janky as fuck right now, but I’m going to expand on it to eventually be able to filter, for example, to just buffers that are linked to your current activity, pushing me towards a long-standing goal of mine to create a system which flows with what I’m doing, rather than forcing me in to its workflow.

    • Convergence through Divergence

      This time around, I’m adding a mechanism that allows us to list plugins, applications (and the general “service”) specific for a given form factor. In normal-people-language, that means that I want to make it possible to specify whether an application or plugin should be shown in the user interface of a given device. Let’s look at an example: KMail. KMail has two user interfaces, the desktop version, a traditional fat client offering all the features that an email client could possibly have, and a touch-friendly version that works well on devices such as smart phones and tablets. If both are installed, which should be shown in the user interface, for example the launcher? The answer is, unfortunately: we can’t really tell as there currently is no scheme to derive this information from in a reliable way. With the current functionality that is offered by KDE Frameworks and Plasma, we’d simply list both applications, they’re both installed and there is no metadata that could possibly tell us the difference.

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • StratOS Kickstarter Project Claims Full Mobile Convergence with GNOME, Likely a Scam

      StratOS is supposed to be a new operating system that uses GNOME, and it’s a project currently raising money on Kickstarter. Surprisingly, this is not the unusual part. Its developers are also claiming full convergence of the OS, for desktop and mobiles, which is highly unlikely.

    • smarter status hiding

      In heavily populated IRC channels such as #debian on Freenode, a lot of idle IRC users are joining and leaving every couple of seconds. At the moment, we display a status message for every user in the room which in some cases results in a lot of visual noise.

    • Photos: future plans

      This is the third in my series of blog posts about the latest generation of GNOME application designs. In this post, I’m going to talk about Photos. Out of the applications I’ve covered, this is the one that has the most new design work.

    • West Coast Summit

      This is the last day of the GNOME West Coast Summit, and for the past three days we’ve been working and discussing topics…

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • Simplicity Linux 15.7 Comes at the End of July with Linux Kernel 4.0

      David Purse from the development team of Simplicity Linux, a distribution derived from LXPup and built around the LXDE desktop environment, has announced the release of the first Beta build towards the final version of Simplicity Linux 15.7.

    • Tanglu 3 RC1 Has systemd 221, Linux Kernel 4.0, KDE Plasma 5.3 and GNOME 3.16

      The Tanglu development team, through Matthias Klumpp, has announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the first RC (Release Candidate) version of the forthcoming Tanglu 3 GNU/Linux operating system based on Debian 8 “Jessie.”

    • Solus Gets Linux Kernel 4.1.1 LTS and UEFI Fixes

      StratOS is supposed to be a new operating system that uses GNOME, and it’s a project currently raising money on Kickstarter. Surprisingly, this is not the unusual part. Its developers are also claiming full convergence of the OS, for desktop and mobiles, which is highly unlikely.

  • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

    • Mageia 5 Linux Distro Offers New Tools, Improved Stability

      The Mageia 5 Linux distribution, which launched June 19, provides new tools, improved stability and overall ease of use. The Mageia Linux distro was first formed in September 2010 as a fork of French Linux distribution Mandriva. While Mandriva as a commercial entity ceased operation in May of this year, Mageia is alive and well, continuing on its mission of creating a user-friendly desktop-focused Linux distribution. New features in Mageia 5 include support for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) hardware, which enables Mageia to run on a broader array of systems than previously. Historically, Mandriva was focused on the KDE Linux desktop as the default. In addition to KDE, Mageia offers users an easy installation choice of other desktops, including GNOME 3.14, Cinnamon 2.4.5 and Xfce 4.12. With Mageia 5, the Btrfs next-generation Linux file system is now fully supported, providing users with a robust file system capability. Helping users move from Microsoft’s Windows operating system is also part of Mageia 5, which has a Windows settings import feature. eWEEK examines key highlights of the Mageia 5 Linux distribution release.

    • Mageia 5: I See no Change… and That’s Good!

      Normally, I test a new distro more cautiously; first, I run a VM, then, I run a live version on the actual system where I wish to install before I decide to wipe out the root partition and say hi to the new OS.

    • OpenMandriva Lx 2014.2 Screencast and Screenshots

    • OpenMandriva Lx 2014.2 “The Scion” Pays Tribute To Mandrake

      With Mandriva having been liquidated (allegedly due to employee lawsuits), OpenMandriva is paying tribute to it — and its precursor, Mandrake — with their new point release.

  • Arch Family

    • Arch Linux 2015.07.01 Is Now Available for Download

      Being July 1 and all that, that time has come for a new Arch Linux build to surface the Web. Arch Linux 2015.07.01 has been released earlier, and you can download it right now!

  • Red Hat Family

    • Good bye credativ [moving to Red Hat]

    • Hello Red Hat

      In my new position I will be a Solutions Architect – so basically a sales engineer, thus the one talking to the customers on a more technical level, providing details or proof of concepts where they need it.

    • Oracle Linux 6 Administration Professional Certification Now Released

    • Digital education presents new challenges and opportunities for IT

      At Red Hat, our IT organization is working with each of our business partners to help them develop digital strategies and solutions to enable them (and us) to be more effective. We’re investing in the deployment of new communication and collaboration tools in the organization. And we’re trying to better understand the needs of our end users as individuals rather than solely as a part of sales or as a part of marketing. We’re building an internal consulting capability so that we can help our end users be more efficient and effective in their jobs as a community of associates, in addition to being part of a business function.

    • RHEL for SAP HANA now on Amazon Web Services (AWS)

    • Fedora

      • Fedora For MIPS Is Now Out In Testing, Supports The Creator CI20

        In cooperation with Imagination Technologies, the first Fedora image for the MIPS architecture is now out in testing.

        This initial Fedora 22 MIPS release supports the low-cost MIPS Creator CI20 development board that packs in two 1.2GHz MIPS32 processor cores and PowerVR graphics.

      • Pinos Is For Linux Video What PulseAudio Is For Audio

        Christian Schaller of Red Hat explained in the new blog post, “One of the original goals of Pinos was to provide the same level of advanced hardware handling for Video that PulseAudio provides for Audio. For those of you who has been around for a while you might remember how you once upon a time could only have one application using the sound card at the same time until PulseAudio properly fixed that. Well Pinos will allow you to share your video camera between multiple applications and also provide an easy to use API to do so.”

      • Fedora Is Still Looking For A Diversity Advisor

        Back in March there was the announcement of Fedora looking for a diversity advisor as a volunteer position to help promote diversity within this popular Linux distribution. Unfortunately it looks like their initial search didn’t yield any suitable applicants so they’re back to looking for more people interested in that position.

      • FUDCon APAC 2015 – Summary

      • FUDCon APAC 2015 in Pune

        I had the pleasure to attend my second FUDCon APAC, in Pune, India this time. I arrived the day before the conference at the airport in Bombay where I met Tuan. After four tiring hours, we arrived to Pune and met Kushal.

      • FUDCon, where friends meet

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Debian-Based OpenMediaVault 2.1 NAS Solution Adds WiFi and VLAN Support

        Volker Theile, project leader of the Debian-based OpenMediaVault NAS (Network-attached Storage) distribution, was more than happy to inform us about the immediate availability for download of OpenMediaVault 2.1.

      • antiX 15 Officially Released, Based on Debian 8 “Jessie” but Without systemd

        Straight from Thessaloniki, Greece, the antiX development team has had the great pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the final release of the antiX 15 GNU/Linux operating system.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Firms work to bring computers to Meridian classrooms

          “We are taking these and installing Ubuntu/Linux software on all the computers and then putting them back in Meridian’s public schools,” said AOTECH owner Robb Hudson.

        • Ubuntu Touch Web Apps Push Notifications Are Coming Soon, Here’s a Demo Video

          After having reported last week that work started on implementing push notifications for Web Apps on the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system, Canonical’s David Barth now comes with more great news about the latest developments in the Web Apps area.

        • Intel Compute Stick with Ubuntu Goes on Sale, Lower Specs than Windows Version

          The Ubuntu 14.04 LTS flavored Intel Compute Stick is finally going on sale next week, and it joins the Windows version that was already made available a while back.

        • Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Update Will Bring Interesting New Features

          As you may know, Canonical has released the Ubuntu Touch OTA-4 Update and while ago, and now is working at implementing new features for the OTA-5 Update, which should get released in mid-July, if it does not get delayed for some reasons.

        • The 1TB UbuTab Ubuntu Tablet Is A SCAM!

        • How to use PPAs to install bleeding-edge software in Ubuntu and Linux Mint

          Linux users install most of their software directly from a centralized package repository managed by their Linux distribution of choice. This is a convenient, one-stop shop place to get your software—but what if the repository doesn’t have the program you need, or you want a newer version? For Ubuntu and Linux Mint users, that’s where personal package archives come in.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Cinnamon 2.6.12 Desktop Environment Is Now Available for Linux Mint 17.2

            Today, July 1, Clement Lefebvre released the twelve maintenance release of the modern and open-source Cinnamon 2.6 desktop environment for the Linux Mint 17.2 (Rafaela) operating system.

          • Linux Mint 17.2: If only all penguinista desktops were done this way

            Thankfully this is not the case with Mint 17.2 because the underlying packages from Ubuntu have not changed. You can update to Mint 17.2 directly from Update Manager. That will continue to be true for the rest of the 17.x release cycle (which will last through Ubuntu 16.04, due in April 2016).

          • Linux Mint 17.2 officially released

            Well, it’s here. Linux Mint 17.2 is now available for download. Currently only the Cinnamon and MATE releases are out and other editions will launch later. For users on 17.0 or 17.1 more announcements will follow next week when the update is made available for those users as an upgrade. It’s not clear yet whether 17.0 users will be able to choose to go to 17.1 or 17.2 or whether 17.2 will be the single destination those users can jump to.

          • Ubuntu MATE hardware partnership with LibreTrend

            Ubuntu MATE is an official flavour of Ubuntu focussed on usability and stability, which has gained massive traction in the Linux community over recent months. Inspired by the traditional GNOME 2 interface of classic Ubuntu releases, Ubuntu MATE is the perfect distribution for easing the transition between Microsoft Windows or Mac OS and Linux.

          • Ubuntu MATE Project Donates Money to Geany, Transmission, and MATE Devs

            The Ubuntu MATE team makes monthly donations to other projects that are being used by this distribution and this month’s targets are Geany and Transmission, along with a couple of MATE developers.

          • Linux Mint 17.2 Officially Released With Cinnamon/MATE Flavors

            Just a few short weeks after the Rafaela 17.2 RCs, Linux Mint 17.2 has been officially released this morning in the form of the Cinnamon and MATE desktop spins.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux-based DAQ board has simultaneous ADC and DAC I/O

    The DT7816 is billed as a “real-time ARM-based, high throughput, high accuracy, simultaneous data acquisition module.” Its feature set is similar to the mainboard in Data Translation’s recent DT7837 device, including the open source Debian Linux distro, an FPGA, and a Texas Instruments Sitara AM3352 system-on-chip with a single Cortex-A8 core. However, the DT7837 is designed specifically as a dynamic signal analyzer for measuring noise and vibration while the DT7816 is a general purpose data acquisition board.

  • Data Translation Offers Real Time ARM-Based Data Acquisition Module

  • Tough, IP67-sealed box PC runs Linux on Atom

    X-ES unveiled a rugged, sealed embedded PC that runs Linux on an Atom E3800, and offers 4GB of ECC RAM, IP67 protection, M12 ports, and -40 to 70°C support.

  • Phones

    • Tizen

      • Samsung Sells a Million Tizen Phones as Mozilla Rethinks Firefox OS

        On June 29, Samsung announced that since January, it has sold over one million units of its Tizen-based Samsung Z1 smartphones in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. According to Reuters, Samsung will “launch several more Tizen smartphones at varying prices.”

        The Reuters report, which did not mention a timetable, was based on a tip from an undisclosed source. The story also cited a Counterpoint study that estimated the Z1 to be the best-selling smartphone in Bangladesh in Q1 2015.

    • Android

      • Some Notes From Smartpnone Wars, incl Samsung, Huawei, Olympus and Kantar latest numbers

        Blackberry results came out last week. They managed to sell 1.1 million smartphones. Its still going down the Cliff, that is down from 1.6 million three months prior and Blackberry’s market share is around 0.3%. And they are still making a loss. As I said the Passport form factor was not the solution.

      • You can now use any Android app on your Mac w/ BlueStacks App Player

        BlueStacks, a free desktop Android emulator that lets users play any mobile game or app on the big screen with a mouse and keyboard, has mostly been limited to PC users until today. But Mac users are about to get access to the software that the company says already has around 90 million users on Windows.

      • Android Lollipop update headed to multiple devices

      • 5 Samsung Galaxy Android 5.1.1 Update Details

      • Moto X Android 5.1 Lollipop: 3 New Updates Emerge

      • Verizon Says Android 5.1.1 LMY47Z is Ready for Its Nexus 6

      • Motorola Droid Turbo Smartphones To Get Android 5.1 Lollipop Update This Week

      • This Unauthorized Stream Will Let You Listen to Apple’s ‘Beats 1′ on Any Android Device

      • Want to listen to Beats 1 on Android? You’ll have to wait as Apple just killed unofficial streams

      • Here’s a very unofficial way to listen to Beats 1 on Android devices

        Apple’s worldwide radio station Beats 1 launched yesterday alongside the company’s new streaming service, but it’s currently only available for iOS, OS X, and Windows users — the Apple Music app won’t arrive on Android until this fall. However, there is a workaround. Simply click here to listen to a live stream of Beats 1 which works on Android devices running Android 4.1 or later, iOS devices running iOS 6 or later, and OS X machines using the Safari browser. We’ve tested the live stream successfully on all these devices, but be warned: the service is far from reliable.

      • The Earth, on Android

        The hardest part was to figure out, how to compile everything with cmake instead of qmake and Qt Creator. There are some very basic things what can sabotage your successfully packaged and deployed app. For example if you did not set a version number in cmake for your library…

      • Smart Android Launcher Yahoo Aviate Gets Overhauled, Accused Of Being A “Google Now Clone”

        Yahoo’s Aviate Android launcher, which the company acquired for $80 million in order to own a piece of the growing mobile ecosystem, as it doesn’t have its own mobile operating system or hardware in play, has seen continued development in the months following the deal. The latest addition to this intelligent homescreen application is something Yahoo is calling the “Smart Stream” – essentially, a stream of personalized content that adjusts throughout the day based on where you are and what you’re doing at the time.

      • GameCube Games Now Running On One Android Device

        June has been a big month for the team working on the Dolphin emulator, which allows users to play GameCube and Wii games on their PC. In addition to getting Virtual Console games up and running, they’ve also managed to get GameCube games working on an Android device (albeit one that few of you will own).

      • Google Launches iOS And Android Apps To Help Developers Manage Their Cloud Platform Resources On The Go

        If you’re in charge of managing apps on Google’s Cloud Platform, chances are you are intimately familiar with the inner workings of the web-based Google Developers Console. Until now, that was pretty much the only way to get a quick overview of the health of your system. Now, however, Cloud Platform users can also use Google’s new mobile apps for iOS and Android to manage their Google App Engine- and Compute Engine-based apps on the go.

      • YouTube for Android now supports 60 FPS video

      • YouTube now streams 60fps video on Android and iOS

        YouTube introduced the ability to play videos in 60fps back in October of last year, but that was limited to the Web. Now it’s introducing the same functionality on the mobile YouTube apps as well.

      • CyanogenMod is building a flexible open-source browser for Android

      • The Biggest Mobile MOBA Finally Launches On Android

        Super Evil Megacorp’s mobile MOBA has been a big success on iOS, with some 1.5 million active users frantically touching turrets each month. Today the game officially launches on Android. Welcome, fresh meat.

        Vainglory made its debut during Apple’s iPhone 6 press conference last year, a showcase for iOS’s Metal graphics API. It’s a very pretty mobile take on the MOBA, with only a single lane and a jungle for each three-player team to contend with. Matches are relatively fast (under 20 minutes) and a a hell of a lot of fun when I win.

      • MP3.com Founder Launches Clone of Apple Music’s Beats 1 For Web, iOS and Android

        Freebeats1 debuted Wednesday as part of 6 Seconds, a free radio app for iOS and Android that was launched earlier this year by MP3.com founder and serial entrepreneur Michael Robertson. Freebeats1 simply monitors Apple’s radio station and then compiles a playlist of the same songs, explained Robertson. But don’t expect to hear the same music at the same time: “The songs are not in the same order as Beats 1 because there’s lots of talking on Beats,” he said, adding that Apple’s station also tends to repeat a lot of songs.

      • Best Android tablets for work and play: July 2015 edition

        It is no exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of different Android tablets on the market to choose from, but if you filter this down to “best” tablets then this list boils down to only a handful.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open Source Education Begins at an Early Age

  Open source software (OSS) is becoming a standard in the technology market, and much of today’s youth will find themselves using open source in their future educational and professional endeavors. But to do so, this younger generation will first need to develop the skills that will allow them to build, create and explore OSS technology effectively down the road. This calls for education in open source.

• Google open-sources its software for making trippy images with deep learning

  The deepdream project is now available on GitHub. The project relies on the open-source Caffe deep learning framework. Deep learning involves training artificial neural networks on a large pile of data — for example, pictures of geese — and then throwing them a new piece of data, like a picture of an ostrich, to receive an educated guess about it.

• Troll repellent: fighting online harassment with open source

  Randi Harper has been a FreeBSD src committer, a DevOps engineer, and a FLOSS Weekly co-host. Recently, she’s taken on a new role: target of sustained harassment. Randi met the harassment head-on and began developing tools to make the Internet a less hostile place. Her new organization, the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, seeks to reduce online abuse through analysis, tools, and cooperative efforts.

• Open Source History: What We’ve Learned So Far

• José Luis Rey murder, computer hero who helped recover PDVSA during the strike of 2002

  Jose Luis Rey, computer expert Venezuelan community activist Software and Free Knowledge in Venezuela, who was part of the team that recovered the computer operations of PDVSA during the strike of 2002-2003 coup, was found died in El Hatillo, Miranda state, victim of a shooting.

  It is presumed that King was robbed to strip him of his motorcycle. Friends and relatives say that he was not aware of enemies.

  His remains will be veiled Valles Wednesday in the funeral of Caracas, in the early afternoon.

  King was founder of different groups of free software, as VELUG and Solve, and fought tirelessly to realize the Decree 3,390 of migration to Free Software, signed by Commander Chavez, which does not fully meet today.

• Web Open Font Format (WOFF) for Web Documents

• Happy Canada Day! 21 Canadians in open source to follow

• Altera, Brain4Net and CertusNet Join the OPNFV Project to Accelerate Open Source NFV

• Amazon releases open-source TLS implementation in response to OpenSSL issues

• AWS s2n: Open-source TLS Implementation in Less than 6,000 Lines

• Amazon just wrote a TLS crypto library in only 6,000 lines of C code

• 5 tips for translating documentation

• Intel infosec folk TEE off open source app dev framework

  Intel wonks Brian McGillion, Tanel Dettenborn, and Thomas Nyman (plus N. Asokan of Aalto University and University of Helsinki) released the OpenTEE software framework for developers as an alternative to expensive or non-existent TEE tools.

• Events

  • Nominate a free software community contributor in Cascadia

    As the Seattle GNU/Linux conference enters its third year, we decided we could do more to highlight the amazing community in Cascadia (a region on the west coast of the United States that includes Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Idaho). This area, especially in Washington, may seem like a haven for proprietary software, but when you take a closer look, you realize people are doing the hard work of helping friends, colleagues, and students embrace free software everywhere.

  • Open Source Hong Kong 2015

    Recently, I’ve been to Hong Kong for Open Source Hong Kong 2015, which is the heritage of the GNOME.Asia Summit 2012 we’ve had in Hong Kong. The organisers apparently liked their experience when organising GNOME.Asia Summit in 2012 and continued to organise Free Software events. When talking to organisers, they said that more than 1000 people registered for the gratis event. While those 1000 were not present, half of them are more realistic.

  • Tizen:Common Milestone 3.0.2015.Q2 released

  • Not long to go now, TuxCon Conference 11-12 July Bulgaria

    Not long to go now for the second annual TuxCon Conference taking place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. For those that do not know, this is a free community event that is about free and open-source software for Internet of Things, mobile, embedded and wearable devices. The Conference will start on 11 July at the International Fair Plovdiv, were there will be lectures and also lightning talks. The second day of the conference (12 July) will see it moved to the Olimex Training Building were there will be Workshops and a hackathon.

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox 39 Release Delayed Due to Last Minute “Stability Issue”

      The first Firefox 39 stable release was supposed to be unveiled by the end of June, but it looks like it’s being delayed due to a stability issue.

    • Firefox 39 Has Been Delayed A Few Days Due To A “Last Minute Stability Issue”

• SaaS/Big Data

  • Engine Yard’s Deis Launches Support for its PaaS

    This year, Engine Yard bought Deis, an open source Platform-as-a-Service project. It provides a PaaS that can rub on public clouds, private clouds, or bare metal. Starting now, Engine Yard will offer its well-known support options to companies that want Deis support.

  • Elastic puts its open-source Big Data search engine in the cloud

    The Netherlands’ Elastic BV is ticking another item off the fairly narrow list of ways to monetize open-source software with the launch of new hosted implementations of its hugely popular free search engine for unstructured data that offer a simpler alternative to manual deployment. The launch couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

• Databases

  • Why do Big Data projects fail? Hotels.com CTO on adding value

    Big Data projects have a lot of promise, but the majority fail. A recent study found just 11% of corporate leaders in the UK have generated any cash using data, despite recognising the value it holds, although Chief Technology Officer at Hotels.com Thierry Bedos says focusing on Big Data as a business rather than an innovation project can set you on the path to success.

  • Big Data Bits: Big Data for All Edition

    Big Data is supposed to level the business playing field, but up until now it has not. Because even though it’s cheaper to store data in Hadoop or to work with open source NoSQL in theory, it’s too expensive in a more practical sense because it’s too hard and the talent isn’t available.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice 4.4.4 Arrives with Over 70 Bug Fixes

    The Document Foundation announced that LibreOffice 4.4.4 is now available for download and packs over 70 bugfixes. It’s not the last one in the series, so expect to see more of these in the coming months.

• BSD

  • Running BSD on the desktop with MidnightBSD 0.6

    MidnightBSD FreeBSD is a fine operating system to run on servers and some people feel the characteristics which make FreeBSD suitable for servers (conservative updates, stability, performance) also make the operating system a good choice for desktop computers. Or, at least, FreeBSD could be a good desktop operating system with a few tweaks. That is the premise behind MidnightBSD, a desktop-oriented project that forked from FreeBSD. “MidnightBSD was forked from FreeBSD 6.1 beta. The system was forked to allow us to customize and integrate the environment including the ports and system configuration. We wish for the system to appeal to beginners as well as more experienced BSD users. Many operating systems are under active development; with MidnightBSD, we wish to focus on optimization and usability improvements for desktop users.”

  • OpenSSH 6.9 Released, Prepares For OpenSSH 7.0

    OpenSSH 6.9 was released yesterday as the final step before the expected OpenSSH 7.0 release in late July.

  • SafeStack Merged Into LLVM To Protect Against Stack Buffer Overflow Attacks

• FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • May 2015 – Brest, Athens, Heraklion, and Chania

    In May 2015, RMS traveled to and spoke at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest, France and to Greece, where he spoke at Commons Fest in Athens, at the Natural History Museum of Crete, in Heraklion, and at the Technical University of Crete, in Chania.

• Public Services/Government

  • France: ‘tax source code will be made public’

    France’s tax department is willing to make the source code available for its income tax software system, says Axelle Lemaire, minister responsible for Digital Affairs. However, preparation takes time, she told April, France’s free software advocacy group, last month.

  • Open standards lower costs, French IT firms say

    Mandating open ICT standards and demanding interoperable ICT systems will lower the costs of government ICT systems, while increasing performance, agree one hundred French ICT firms working with open source and open standards. They responded to a poll organised last month by CNLL, a trade group.

  • EU open source project aims to touch every aspect of computer science

    The OpenDreamKit initiative forms part of a €7m pot for establishments across Europe led by Université Paris Sud. All the code from the event will be open source and available free on the internet.

  • EU open source software project gets green light

  • EU funds open-source software project to advance computational science

  • EU open source software project receives green light

  • Poznań patron of hackathon for open source apps

    The city of Poznań (Poland) on 20 and 21 June co-organised, a combination of a workshops and a hackathon aiming to deliver prototypes of smart phone applications for citizen participation. The city is funding the outcome of the hackathon; the development of an app to bring neighbours closer together.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Thomson Reuters open sources data APIs for developers [Ed: clearly openwashing]

    People can build their own customised applications on top of the financial intelligence firm’s vast swathes of data using the Thomson Reuters Elektron family of APIs.

  • Thomson Reuters Rolls Out APIs for Elektron

  • Thomson Reuters Unveils Open-Source Data API ‘Family’

  • James Cameron’s Open Source Sun Flower

    James Cameron, director of Titanic and Avatar, is a solar power advocate. Actually, “advocate” may not be strong enough. He is a solar power fanatic who is determined to convert the movie industry to renewable energy so it can shrink its carbon footprint.

  • James Cameron’s Plan to Fix Solar Panels

  • The ‘Titanic’ director just built a better solar panel

  • An Open-Source Guide to Help You Build Your Own Graffiti Drone

    Artist Katsu has been working hard at extending the language of public mark making, and his latest experiments have been drone-based. Long known for his distinctive, large-scale fire extinguisher tags that trail across whole walls, his spray-painting flying machines are the latest evolution of his interest in “things that can make marks,” he tells Hyperallergic.

  • Open Data

    • Second CDDG Workshop on internet tools for citizens’ participation

      The European Committee on Democracy and Governance (CDDG) recently organised its second Workshop on e-Democracy and e-Governance. The theme of the workshop was the “Current state of use of electronic tools in the context of citizens’ participation”, focussing on the work of the Council of Europe and its standards in relation to e-Democracy, e-Governance as well as the internet.

    • IODC 2015: do we need a global open data standard?

      A global Open Data standard could be useful in providing a unique starting-point to aid data publication. This conclusion was reached during the 3rd International Open Data Conference in Ottawa (Canada) in May.

  • Open Hardware

    • Open Source 5-Axis 3D Printer Built By Master’s Student (videos)

      Master’s Student Øyvind Kallevik Grutle at the University of Oslo has created a 5 axis 3D printer for his studies with the first prototype of the machine taking 2-3 months to build and design.

• Programming

  • The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: June 2015

    It being the third quarter, it is time at RedMonk to release our bi-annual programming language rankings. As always, the process has changed very little since Drew Conway and John Myles White’s original analysis late in 2010. The basic concept is simple: we regularly compare the performance of programming languages relative to one another on GitHub and Stack Overflow. The idea is not to offer a statistically valid representation of current usage, but rather to correlate language discussion (Stack Overflow) and usage (GitHub) in an effort to extract insights into potential future adoption trends.

Leftovers

• NHS IT failures mount as GP data system declared unfit for purpose

  The towering scrapheap of NHS IT failures may about to rise further, with the increasingly expensive GP Extraction Service IT system deemed not fit for purpose by the government’s spending watchdog.

  Costs for the GPES IT system, which is supposed to extract data from all GP practices in England, have ballooned from £14m to £40m, with at least £5.5m wasted on write-offs and delay costs, said the National Audit Office.

  The GPES has so far managed to provide data for just one customer – NHS England – who received four years later than originally planned.

  The NAO said the need for the service remains and further public expenditure is required to improve or replace it.

• Alton Towers apologises for taking up to an hour to evacuate passengers from monorail in searing heat

• Science

  • What’s a data scientist and how do I become one?

• Security

  • Security advisories for Wednesday

  • What We Call Security Isn’t Really Security

    Well, it’s probably no shock to you that the security industry can’t agree on a definition of security. Imagine if the horse industry couldn’t agree on what is a horse. Yes, it’s like that.

  • UH OH: Windows 10 will share your Wi-Fi key with your friends’ friends

    Those contacts include their Outlook.com (nee Hotmail) contacts, Skype contacts and, with an opt-in, their Facebook friends. There is method in the Microsoft madness – it saves having to shout across the office or house “what’s the Wi-Fi password?” – but ease of use has to be teamed with security. If you wander close to a wireless network, and your friend knows the password, and you both have Wi-Fi Sense, you can now log into that network.

  • Former L0pht man ‘Mudge’ leaves Google for Washington

    L0pht co-founder and CTO of Veracode Chris Wysopal told Security Ledger software remains among “the last products that has no transparency to what the customer is getting, adding that the “pseudo-monopolies” in the industry can simply refuse to co-operate with third-party testers.

• Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Zero for 40 at Predicting Attacks: Why Do Media Still Take FBI Terror Warnings Seriously?

    On Monday, several mainstream media outlets repeated the latest press release by the FBI that country was under a new “heightened terror alert” from “ISIL-inspired attacks” “leading up to the July 4th weekend.”

  • Washington Post Debunks Fox Favorite Claim That Rolling Back Stop-And-Frisk Policies Increases Crime

    A Washington Post fact-check debunks the right-wing media myth that ending controversial stop-and-frisk policies that allow police officers to stop and search pedestrians they consider to be suspicious, has led to an increase in crime, a claim frequently made on Fox News.

• Finance

  • Economic Update: Pope Questions Capitalism

    We have fun with why US govt leaving Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York and we celebrate rising UK movement against austerity. Second half of show interviews veteran reporter Bob Hennelly on the Pope’s statement about ecology, environment, and a failing economic system.

  • Socialism Means Abolishing the Distinction Between Bosses and Employees

    Regulated private capitalism. State capitalism. Socialism. These three systems are entirely different from each other. We need to understand the differences between them to move beyond today’s dysfunctional economies. With confidence waning in whether modern private capitalism can truly be fixed, the debate shifts to a choice between two systemic alternatives that we must learn to keep straight: state capitalism and socialism.

• Privacy

  • WikiLeaks: New intelligence briefs show US spied on German leader

    On Wednesday, WikiLeaks published two new top-secret National Security Agency briefs that detail American and British espionage conducted against German leaders as they were discussing responses to the Greek economic crisis in 2011.

    The organization also published a redacted list of 69 German government telephone numbers that were targeted for snooping. That list includes Oskar Lafontaine, who served as German finance minister from 1998 to 1999, when the German government was still based in Bonn—suggesting that this kind of spying has been going on for over 15 years at least.

  • VPNs are exposing sensitive user data due to IPv6 leakage vulnerability

    A STUDY has found that 11 out of 14 virtual private network (VPN) providers are exposing personal information through a vulnerability known as IPv6 leakage.

    This is damning for such privacy services, many of which have seen increased use since the Edward Snowden PRISM revelations of 2013.

  • Orfox Is The Guardian Project’s Latest App For Bringing The Tor Browser Experience To Android, First Alpha Release Is Available

    The Guardian Project, the group behind previous efforts to bring Tor and other privacy-preserving software to Android, is working on a Tor-friendly browser built on the desktop equivalent’s codebase. This app, named Orfox, will replace its WebView-based predecessor Orweb.

• Civil Rights

  • TSA Asks America To LOL At Traveler Who Had $75,000 Taken From Him By Federal Agents

    The TSA runs a fairly entertaining Instagram account, if you’re the sort of person who is impressed by pictures of weapons seized from stupid passengers. That would be the extent of its social media prowess. Its blog is pretty much a 50/50 mix of Yet Another Thing You Can’t Take Onboard and Blogger Bob defending the TSA’s latest gaffe.

    One of the TSA’s official Twitter flacks tried to loft a lighthearted “hey, look at this thing we came across!” tweet. She couldn’t have picked a worse “thing” to highlight, considering the ongoing outrage over civil asset forfeiture.

• Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Europe to end mobile roaming charges by June 2017

    Lawmakers agreed a final proposal to scrap roaming charges and introduce rules based on “net neutrality”. Roaming charges are a part of life when you travel abroad and customers are penalised that just have to use their mobile phone for data. The good news now is that nonsense will come to end in June 2017, there will however be the usual fair use policy.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • UK police seize thousands of Android streamers modded for piracy

      Set-top boxes help deliver streaming services like Netflix and Now TV into our homes, but they’re also giving rise to less-than legal methods of watching films, TV shows and sport. As manufacturers have embraced the open nature of Android, enterprising users have found ways to install apps that facilitate piracy, which has become a business in its own right. This week, a number of police forces conducted raids on sellers of “pirate” Android streamers, confiscating thousands of units in the process.

    • Supreme Court won’t weigh in on Oracle-Google API copyright battle

      The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Google’s appeal of the Google-Oracle API copyright dispute. The high court’s move lets stand an appellate court’s decision that application programming interfaces (APIs) are subject to copyright protections.

    • Supreme Court Won’t Hear Oracle v. Google Case, Leaving APIs Copyrightable And Innovation At Risk

      This is unfortunate, even if it was somewhat expected: the Supreme Court has now rejected Google’s request to hear its appeal over the appeals court decision that overturned a lower court ruling on the copyrightability of APIs. The lower court decision, by Judge William Alsup (who learned to code Java to understand the issues), noted that APIs were not copyrightable, as they were mere methods, which are not subject to copyright.