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Links 5/4/2016: Linux Civil Infrastructure Project, SUSE's New CTO





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Maybe it’s time to trust Microsoft. Maybe not.
    Is this truly a changed Microsoft? Personally, I don’t believe it is. The day they stop this silly 235 patent BS, then we might talk about it. But you know as well as I do, if they pull the covers back on their lie-of-the-century, then they may stand to lose billions in paying back those companies they extorted in the past.

    “Oh those patents. Yeah, that was silly wasn’t it. Well, we’re sorry your company lost share holder value due to having to pay us all that money. But let’s just let bygones be bygones…whaddaya say?

    Stick it all up in your bygones Microsoft. You’re a liar and a thief and the only reason most of your higher execs aren’t in prison is that U.S. law and your good ol’ boy network protected you. You aren’t fooling anyone. You don’t love Linux any more than I love liver and onions. You have merely realized that the only way you are going to survive into the next decade is to integrate Linux into your strategies…and integrate it deeply.

    Let’s face it. You need us. More than we need you.


  • Server



    • Five key legal considerations when negotiating cloud contracts
      Watch out for some cloud providers’ complex, multi-document contract structures that may be poorly updated and oddly worded. In particular, don’t assume that you know what’s in a provision based on its heading. For example, in some terms, ‘force majeure’ seems to be elastic-sided enough to capture “changes in the taxation basis of services delivered via the Internet” as a force majeure event!




  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



      • Plasma Wayland Image Update
        It’s your fortnightly update to the Plasma Wayland image. Rather pleasingly window decorations are the right colour and I can resize windows.


      • QtCon Call for Papers
        QtCon 2016 Call for Papers is open. The event will assemble KDE Akademy, VideoLAN Developer Days, Qt Contributors' Summit, FSFE Summit and KDAB Qt training day. We invite contributors to these projects to present their work and insight at QtCon 2016. The conference will take place from 1st to 8th September in Berlin, Germany. The talks will be from 2nd to 4th with KDE continuing with BoFs till the 8th






  • Distributions



    • Five Linux Distros that Break the Mold
      One of the complaints we hear sometimes about the plethora of GNU/Linux distributions is that they’re all “cookie cutters.” One is just like the other, we’re told, so why have so many versions of the same thing? For starters, except for a couple of rare instances, no two Linux distros are exactly alike, not even when they start with the same base. The most obvious example here would be Ubuntu, which although based on Debian, offers the user an experience completely different from the parent distro. Likewise, Linux Mint is built with Ubuntu under the hood, but as many Mint users will attest, the distro is hardly just a rebranded *buntu.


    • Reviews



      • Matriux Linux Operating System For Hackers — An Alternative To Kali Linux
        Matriux is an open source Linux-based operating system that’s designed in accordance with the needs of security researchers and professionals. The OS comes with more than 300 hacking tools that include the likes of Wireshark, Aircrack-ng, Nmap, Vidalia, TrueCrypt and more. Matriux hacking OS features a traditional desktop environment that’s powered by GNOME Classic




    • New Releases



    • Arch Family



      • Manjaro Linux LXQt 16.04 Lands with Linux Kernel 4.4.4 LTS, Software Updates
        Hot on the heels of Manjaro Linux JWM 16.04 Community Edition, the Manjaro Linux LXQt 16.04 Community Edition operating system has been released earlier, April 4, 2016, and it is now available to download.

        According to the release notes, Manjaro Linux LXQt 16.04 Community Edition is now powered by Linux kernel 4.4.4 LTS, includes a 64-bit version of the Chromium web browser, and the 32-bit flavor of Mozilla Firefox, a new screen capture tool that can be activated with the Print Screen button.

        As expected, the stable branch of the Manjaro Linux operating system has been used to generate the Manjaro Linux LXQt 16.04 release, which comes with the multilib repositories enabled by default for 64-bit systems, as well as the latest version of the advanced Calamares graphical installer.




    • OpenSUSE/SUSE



      • SUSE Linux Gets a New CTO
        SUSE named a new CTO today, with Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo taking on the the role of Chief Technology Officer, reporting to CEO Nils Brauckmann.

        The last time I personally ever spoke to a SUSE CTO was way back in 2009, when Markus SUSERex (now CEO of OwnCloud) held the job, and SUSE was still part of Novell.

        Giacomo joins SUSE from Swisscom Hospitality Services, where he was CTO and vice president of innovation. Giacomo has as a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Geneva, where he was a senior researcher


      • SUSE Expands Executive Leadership, Naming New Chief Technology Officer


      • Suse expands distributor network in Mideast


      • Turris Omnia and openSUSE
        About two weeks ago I was on the annual openSUSE Board face to face meeting. It was great and you can read reports of what was going on in there on openSUSE project mailing list. In this post I would like to focus on my other agenda I had while coming to Nuremberg. Nuremberg is among other things SUSE HQ and therefore there is a high concentration of skilled engineers and I wanted to take an advantage of that…




    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family



      • Debian GNU/Linux 8.4 "Jessie" Live DVD ISOs Are Now Available to Download
        We reported the other day on the immediate availability for download of the installation-only ISO images of the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 8.4 "Jessie" operating system.

        It took one more day for the Debian Project team to generate all the Debian GNU/Linux 8.4 Live flavors, and as promised, we're informing you today about their availability for download, just in case you want to showcase them to your friends or deploy them on new computers.


      • There's more than one way to exploit the commons
        Debian ships an operating system that prides itself on stability. The Debian definition of stability is a very specific one - rather than referring to how often the software crashes or misbehaves, it refers to how often the software changes behaviour. Debian is very reluctant to upgrade software that is part of a stable release, to the extent that developers will attempt to backport individual security fixes to the version they shipped rather than upgrading to a release that contains all those security fixes but also adds a new feature. The argument here is that the new release may also introduce new bugs, and Debian's users desire stability (in the "things don't change" sense) more than new features. Backporting security fixes keeps them safe without compromising the reason they're running Debian in the first place.


      • Derivatives



        • Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5
          Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5 is desktop-friendly distribution based on Debian. Built on Debian's Stable branch, Parsix comes with a useful selection of applications and some nice customizations, but so do many of the other Debian-based and Ubuntu-based distributions. So what exactly is Parsix's niche? What does it do better than its competition? I downloaded the 1.3GB 64-bit ISO and gave Parsix 8.5 a trial run in order to try to find out.

          Booting from the Parsix ISO provides six options: "Boot or Install Parsix" with text mode, failsafe video, and failsafe alternative boot/install options; "Test CD for Defects"; and "Boot from First Hard Disk." After using the "Test CD for Defects" option to check the ISO for errors, I selected the standard "Boot or Install Parsix" option, which resulted in a fairly quick load time. The GNOME desktop was ready to use and the installer was readily available on the desktop.


        • Canonical/Ubuntu



          • Another Ubuntu Linux Tablet? Yes, But This Time, It's not ARM-Based
            Want an x86 tablet that can run GNU/Linux? If a new crowd-funding campaign succeeds, it could be yours.

            MJ Technology has launched an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to develop what it says will be the "world's [sic] first true made for Linux/Ubuntu x86/x64 tablet." In non-geek terms, that means a tablet that comes with a 64-bit x86 processor -- the same type used in most desktop and laptop computers -- rather than an ARM chip, the architecture common in tablets and other mobile devices.


          • Ubuntu 15.10: Changing the Linux game
            I’m not new to Linux operating systems. I have tried and reviewed earlier versions of Ubuntu as well as experimented with other Linux distributions but I have to admit that none of my earlier reviews have been positive. There were always inherent problems, graphical or systematic, that I have had to spend time trying to fix, something that I did not have time for. I expected Ubuntu to work right out of the box, much like how I deal with a fresh install of Windows where I set it up and install the applications that I want. But this was never the case with Ubuntu; the operating system always pushed me to give it more time and manually fix operating system problems.

            Linux is often used by power-users who love the operating system for its stability and ease of use, but here I will be talking about how user-friendly the system is for normal users who don’t code or use terminal commands.


          • Ubuntu Budgie Could Be the New Flavor of Ubuntu Linux, as Part of Ubuntu 16.10
            Last month we told you about a new GNU/Linux distribution called Budgie-Remix, whose ultimate goal is to become an official Ubuntu Linux flavor, possibly under the name of Ubuntu Budgie.

            Today, Budgie-Remix developer David Mohammed informs Softpedia about the progress made with the project, which Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said that it would definitely support if there were a community around the packaging, as well as the availability of the second Beta build for the upcoming 16.04 release.


          • Ubuntu Touch OTA-10 Update Brings VPN Support, New Out-of-the-Box Experience
            We told you yesterday that the Ubuntu Touch OTA-10 update for Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet devices has officially received a release date of April 6, 2016, from Canonical.

            And we promised to inform you about the new features that landed in the anticipated OTA-10 software for Ubuntu-powered devices. Therefore, it looks like Ubuntu Phone/Tablet owners will finally get VPN support, but without the ability to connect to PPTP VPN servers, Japanese keyboard support, and per-application download queues.


          • Ubuntu Touch's Web Browser Lets Users Copy/Paste Selected Web Content in OTA-10
            We reported earlier that Canonical finally decided on a release date for the next major software update of its Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system, OTA-10, due for release on April 6, 2016.

            Today, April 4, 2016, Ubuntu developer Olivier Tilloy reports on the major new features that have been implemented in the Web Browser app of the Ubuntu mobile OS, which will be pushed to Ubuntu Phone users on April 6 as part of the OTA-10 software update.


          • Ubuntu Touch OTA-10 Launches April 6 for All Ubuntu Phones and the Ubuntu Tablet
            Łukasz Zemczak of Canonical has just informed the community about the release date of the forthcoming OTA-10 software update for the Ubuntu mobile operating system.

            Ubuntu Touch OTA-10 has been in development for quite some time now, and we covered its development cycle during the past month, during which we told you about some of the new features and improvements that the update would bring to all supported Ubuntu Phone devices, as well as the brand new Ubuntu Tablet.


          • Five hundred days using Ubuntu Phone
            Today is my five hundredth day of using the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition exclusively as my mobile phone. This is a nice piece of hardware (good power, good camera and simple but elegant design).

            Here's what I've learnt.

            I have written a bunch of phone apps you can install and blogged it. Writing for the Ubuntu phone is by far the easiest platform I've developed for. Click packaging works really well and the speed at which you can release to the Ubuntu store and get the update on your phone is incredible. QML allows you to build beautiful apps quickly however can be a challenge when apps get more complicated. Qt / C++ is functional, but feels lacking compared to more modern languages. If I could get Swift and an improved QML working together I'd be very happy. I initially used the Ubuntu SDK for building and deplying the apps but have now switched to doing everything on the command line (I've never found an IDE that doesn't feel over-engineered).


          • Ubuntu on Windows?
            Then there are tools like Cygwin that create a Linux-like environment for the Windows command line. But although the environment is familiar, it falls short of supporting the full array of commands and features that would work on a normal Linux environment.


          • Flavours and Variants



            • REVIEW: Linux Mint 17.3 delivers better interface plus long-term support
              The latest version of Linux Mint, dubbed “Rosa,” offers long-term support and in our tests we found that it delivers an improved user experience no matter which interface is selected.

              Linux Mint is a desktop operating system for non-tablet, Intel/AMD-powered systems, in 32- or 64-bit processor families, based on Ubuntu core components, but without Ubuntu’s Unity UI.












  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
 
Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
Many of these disasters could be avoided
Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
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
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"
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
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
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?
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
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