Links: Linux News (SSHFS, Drivers), Applications, Instructionals, Unigine Game, and Distributions
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-21 16:06:25 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-21 16:06:25 UTC
Summary: Accumulation of Linux and GNU news including a Zenwalk 6.4 review
Graphics Stack
Last month we reported on the status of kernel mode-setting with the Glint driver that's being done as a Google Summer of Code project to provide KMS support for the ancient 3Dlabs Permedia 3 and Permedia 4 graphics cards and to better document the Linux KMS/DRM driver writing process. As part of the Glint KMS discussion, it emerged that an independent developer (James Simmons) happened to hack together a 3dfx DRM driver. This was interesting as the work was never published or accepted into the mainline kernel, but today we finally are able to lay our eyes on this open-source 3dfx driver for the Banshee, Voodoo 3, and Voodoo 5 graphics cards.
Userspace file systems are one of the coolest storage options in Linux. They allow really creative file systems to be developed without having to go through the kernel gauntlet. This article presents one of them, SSHFS, that allows you to remotely mount a file system using ssh (sftp).
Applications
Most Linux users are familiar with the top command. Top shows you a list of processes on your system and provides a ton of useful information such as their CPU usage and owner. Unfortunately, this isn’t always enough data and many people don’t know where to turn next. This article covers three performance monitoring applications that show information top doesn’t tell you, and can greatly help in troubleshooting bottlenecks or just finding out more about your system. These utilities are iftop, iotop, and pv.
digiKam is undoubtedly a powerful application for processing and managing your photos, but there are situations when you need something lighter. For example, I use my netbook when I'm on the move to off load photos from my camera and quickly go through them. For this, I use Geeqie, a lightweight image viewer that offers a slew of nifty features that make it an indispensable tool in my arsenal.
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Instructionals
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Games
Earlier this month the developers behind the Unigine Engine shared their latest update on this advanced 3D engine that's fully supported under Linux. With the latest work on this game engine, there are significant performance optimizations to UnigineScript (the developers say these optimizations are "HUGE"), volumetric light shafts, optimized rendering of meshes in non-instanced mode, optimizations of the Unigine math library, and a note there is a new terrain system on the way, among other changes. Unigine Corp also dropped their first public confirmation of a new strategy game they are developing.
Desktop Environments/WMs
This time around, in our Alternative desktops series, we’re going seriously old-school Linux with Fvwm. Although using Fvwm will make you feel like you’ve gone back in time, it still has it’s place in today’s world. Where speed and simplicity are the single most important desire on a desktop, you really can’t go wrong with Fvwm. The only problem with this wonderful little desktop is getting used to the configuration.
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
Most of you probably haven't heard about Clementine before. But every linux music enthusiast must be aware of Amarok 1.4, which for many like me, was the best open source music player for Linux. Even though it was KDE app, I used it as my default music player in Ubuntu Gnome. It was that good. But everything changed once KDE developers decided to rewrite Amarok.
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GNOME Desktop
I can't stand the default menu Ubuntu comes with and I only keep it because I have to know under which submenu the user can find an installed application when posting on WebUpd8. This wouldn't be needed if people used a menu with a search function but anyway. Also, since I install quite a few applications, half of it requires scrolling and makes it almost unusable.
There are gazillions of people on this planet right now. Not all of them will ever care to build their own flavor of Linux. But Linux gives you the ability to choose how YOU want things, and then share it with the world. I’ve talked before about where you can go to build your own version of Linux. It’s not as difficult as you might think it is… so what are you waiting for?
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Reviews
It’s been a long time since I last took a look at Zenwalk. I’ve always had a sweet spot for it, though I haven’t had a chance to really give it a full spin in quite some time. Although I am primarily a KDE user, there’s something about Zenwalk that always keeps my attention: It’s simple, fast, and gets the job done. Not only that, but its one of the best lightweight distros around.
Zenwalk uses XFCE as it’s desktop of choice (though other versions are available) and from the past times I’ve used it, it appears to be focused on allowing your system to run free, rather than bog it down with unnecessary eye candy and bloat. Zenwalk manages to pack a punch with a large variety of useful applications preinstalled, without slowing you down in the process.
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Red Hat Family
Red Hat Enterprise Linux now comes with built-in virtualization (KVM) but is Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) about to go to the virtual mat with VMware? If you look at their RHEL video, you'll come away with a resounding 'Yes' to that question.
Red Hat purchased Qumranet in 2008 to acquire their KVM-based virtualization solution and SolidICE product based on the SPICE protocol.
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Fedora
As Ian and Ryan already blogged, the Fedora Design Team is evaluating new branding fonts: Comfortaa for headings and either Cantarell or Droid Sans for body text.
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Debian Family
After ten editions in nine countries spanning four continents, and for the first time in the US, the Debian project is holding the annual Debian Developer conference, DebConf, at Columbia University in New York City on August 1.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
I believe such a philosophy, like Ubuntu’s code of conduct, is important and every project should have one.
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Flavours and Variants
Huzzah! So, the official (and huge) ISO for the second release of Netrunner is up, out and available right now! (torrent)
Here’s the distrowatch announcement.
Moving to KDE
The biggest change in this version is moving to KDE for the desktop.
Something important to understand about that: when I say “KDE for the desktop”, that doesn’t mean Netrunner is running all KDE apps. There are a lot of GNOME (and other) apps in there, because we are trying to present the best selection of applications and for some reason some people like some of the non-KDE apps better.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
- there will be more mass layoffs
- Speed of GNU/Linux
- The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
- Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
- Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
- Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
- We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
- Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
- Links for the day
- What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
- OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
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- China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
- OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
- The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
- Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
- If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
- Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
- Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
- School breaks are when classrooms are shut
- No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
- Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
- Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
- violations against the EPO's very staff
- New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
- We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
- Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
- 99.8% to go!
- BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
- the FUD machine never rests
- Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
- Links for the day
- Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
- Links for the day
- Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
- People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
- Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
- Links for the day
- Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
- Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
- GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
- Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
- In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
- They ought to move to GNU/Linux
- Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
- Links for the day
- Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
- Links for the day
- Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
- Links for the day
- Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
- Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
- To them, it's either Google or Yandex
- In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
- These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
- What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
- resist, do not capitulate
- Site May be Even Faster Now
- It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
- Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
- People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
- Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
- It's not happening only in Lenovo
- What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
- some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
- Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
- We're only getting started
- More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
- It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
- Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
- Links for the day
- Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
- Links for the day
- Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
- Links for the day
- In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
- Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025