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Links 17/4/2012: Wine 1.5.2 Released, Raspberry Pi Starts Shipping





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Linux Features Prominently at This Year’s CES


  • How Linux defines success and innovation
    Based on that incredibly important criteria, I hereby declare that Linux has reached the pinnacle of true success. Send the marketing folks home, ladies and gentlemen, we're done here, because everyone and their brother is now officially trying to the "the Linux of" whatever the sector within which they are seeking to succeed.

    The latest company to hang this label on their product line is VMware, which has declared via CTO Steve Herrod that their new Cloud Foundry platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will be the "Linux of the cloud."


  • More FUD About Security of GNU/Linux
    The truth is you are thousands of times more secure with GNU/Linux than that other OS. The count of malwares proves that. The incidence of malware infections proves that. The prevalence of GNU/Linux servers on the web proves that. The fact that M$’s servers are becoming more like GNU/Linux machines with time is another. Heck, M$’s 2008 server can even run GUIless and uses scripting. Where have we heard of that? Oh, GNU/Linux back about 1995.

    It is a standard military manoeuvre to seek out an enemy’s weakness and exploit it. If you are trying to run IT are you charging the enemy’s centre with it’s heavy artillery, enfilade fire and mines or are you going to flank him and cut his supply lines? We must do the same in IT. M$ has proven thousands of times that its software is insecure. We should run GNU/Linux. It’s the smart thing to do.


  • Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 195


  • Don't forget the newbies!


  • Linux and Open-source news overview for week 15-2012




  • Server

    • Ubuntu-Friendly HP Cloud Enters Public Beta
      According to survey results released earlier this year, Ubuntu still has a lot of room to grow in the cloud space. But it seems to be doing just that, the latest indicator being HP’s release of cloud products based partially on Ubuntu. Here’s the scoop, and why it matters for the Ubuntu world in particular.

      Last week, HP announced the public availability beginning May 10 of its HP Cloud platform, which began life as a private beta about six months ago. Most of the HP Cloud features are not very unique — it’s the same basic deal as other popular hosted cloud infrastructures, like Amazon EC2 — but one of the characteristics HP seems to be pushing is the open-source technologies on which its solutions are built, freeing users from vendor lock-in.






  • Kernel Space



  • Applications





  • Desktop Environments



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Calligra Project open source office suite released
        /li>

      • Managing Users with KDE
        KDE Plasma Workspaces provide a graphical interface and lots of eye candy for the desktop Linux experience. Many would argue that it is equal to or even better at this than Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. KDE, however, is not only a graphical frontend for Linux. It comes with a set of applications and also with a set of system administration tools that can help power users take control of their desktops or laptops without dropping to the command line.






  • Distributions

    • Slackware Needs Your Help
      For Slackware, it’s been no exception. Some of you faithful Slackers may have noticed lately that the Slackware home page has been offline. I posted about this at Jeremy’s Linux Questions forums. Alien Bob (Eric Hameleers) replied stating that it was an old hardware/lack of funds issue. This is sad. :(


    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family



    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat's reaction to Microsoft's open-source spinoff: Welcome! (mostly)
        There were a number of points in Cormier's blog post, however, that could be interpreted as being less complimentary toward the Redmond giant. A reference to Red Hat having attained its current status "not without opposition" may well be a veiled dig at Microsoft, as could a line asserting that "some of the new entrants [to the open source world] are surprising."


      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux celebrates 10 years of Enterprise Linux
        While Red Hat might be one of the largest open source providers in the world, Jim Totton, vice president for the company’s platform business unit, is surprisingly coy about mistakes the company has made and learnt from in the decade since it launched.

        Coming up to its 10-year anniversary in May, Totton is in Australia from the US to celebrate. However, discussing mistakes Red Hat has made over the years doesn’t appear to be on the agenda.




    • Debian Family

      • Debian Project News - April 16th, 2012
        * Debian project leader elected * Registration open for DebConf12 * Personal BSP initiatives * The state of Debian s390x * Interviews * Other news * Upcoming events * New Debian Contributors * Release-Critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release * Important Debian Security Advisories * New and noteworthy packages * Work-needing packages * Want to continue reading DPN?


      • Siduction 11.1
        Siduction 11.1 is a fork of the Aptosid distro. Siduction comes in KDE, Xfce or LXDe spins. You can get 32-bit or 64-bit versions of each spin. Siduction is based on Debian Sid and includes Linux Kernel 3.1-6 and X.Org server 1.11.2.902.


      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Speed up your computer with Ubuntu
            Windows is great, but after a while, it can get cluttered up with too many programs and become intolerably sluggish. Backing up your files and reinstalling it can help, but an alternative is to try the free Ubuntu operating system. Ubuntu isn't too demanding and can make even a lowly netbook seem sprightly compared with running Windows on it.


          • Job Posting Reveals Canonical's Plans for Ubuntu Phone OS


          • Ubuntu wants to be your cloud and data-center Linux


          • Ubuntu/Canonical Goes Global
            Ubuntu GNU/Linux has been global on the web but Canonical/Mark Shuttleworth has a larger project in mind. So far they have created business relationships with most of the large OEMs and provided cloud services and content-distribution portals.


          • Ubuntu Phone OS Takes A Step Closer?


          • Canonical is not interested in the Linux kernel
            Two weeks ago a Linux Foundation report showed that since version 2.6.32, Microsoft had committed more code to the Linux kernel than Canonical. Since then, Canonical has faced claims from rivals that it does not contribute to Linux as much as it should given its popularity.



          • Adopt An ISO
            We need to ensure we get total coverage of our different ISO images; the different images that you can download and install from. Each of these images has a small set of mandatory tests that we need to run through to ensure everything is working. We want to ensure all of these mandatory tests are run so that we can find any problems before the release and get them fixed.


          • Flavours and Variants

            • Installing Linux Mint 12
              Y'all should know by now that I'm a Linux user. I write in Linux, I game in Linux, heck, my house has been Microsoft-free for about three years and I've never looked back. (The only exception being my day-job laptop. I'm stuck with Windows there.) The only thing that really bugs me about Linux is the uncertainty of upgrades.

              I've been using Linux Mint for a while now. Since version 8, I believe, when I changed over from Ubuntu. I find Linux Mint more user friendly than just straight Ubuntu and this is important. I'm a very plug-and-play kind of person. I don't want to sit around installing drivers and slogging away at software installs. I want to plug it in, turn it on, and have it work. When I installed Linux Mint 8 for the first time, it did just that.












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi $35 mini system starts shipping
      Raspberry Pi, the $35 Linux system about the size of a credit card, is fully baked and ready to eat... er, ship.

      The system was designed by a British nonprofit with the idea of encouraging people everywhere, particularly young people in developing countries, to become more interested in programming.


    • First Wave of Raspberry Pi Units Arriving in Users' Hands


    • Delivery begins for first units of Raspberry Pi’s $35 Linux computer


    • Raspberry Pi fetches over the odds on Ebay


    • Conquered: Raspberry Pi Starts Shipping


      Free Software is resilient, Raspberry Pi has proven it again. After a month full of challenges and hurdles whether it be wrongly soldered LAN port or requirement of getting a CE mark the tiny devices are now shipping. For those who missed to order, the Raspberry Pi boards from RS and Allied are priced at €£21.60 plus a shipping charge of €£4.95 to any destination worldwide, plus VAT and import duty as applicable.


    • Raspberry Pi Gets New Arch Linux ARM Build


    • Phones



      • Android

        • HTC Golf Images Leaked To Press


        • Rooted Kindle Fire screenshot tour
          This screenshot tour was created to accompany DeviceGuru’s forthcoming post describing how we rooted and tweaked an Amazon Kindle Fire. The tour comprises more than 100 screenshots, which showcase the Kindle Fire’s standard homescreens and settings, the utilities and process we used for rooting and tweaking it, and the overall end result.






    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Cisco Cius Android Tablets & AppHQ: At Cisco Partner Summit?
        When Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers and other executives take the stage at this week’s Cisco Partner Summit, The VAR Guy wonders: Will Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) executives be armed with Cius tablets? The answer to that question could reveal how Cisco is feeling about its purpose-built tablets, which run Google Android and leverage the Cisco AppHQ app store.

        Cisco Cius tablets don’t seek to compete in the consumer tablet market. Rather, the devices are designed for corporate executives who leverage unified communications and video applications. Cisco Partner Summit 2012 (April 16-19, San Diego), could provide a prime stage to update partners on the Cius.








Free Software/Open Source



  • Open Networking Foundation Set to Advance OpenFlow
    One of the most exciting up and coming trends in the world of networking in the last few years has been emergence of Software Defined Networking (SDN). At the core of the SDN revolution is the open source OpenFlow protocol which has helped to define the entire SDN space.


  • Netflix to Open Source Army of Cloud Monkeys


  • Netflix Pledges to Open Source Its "Monkey" Cloud Utilities


  • Netflix open sources cloud tools in hopes to attract people


  • How will open source react to Microsoft?
    The hits just keep on coming for the Android mobile operating system--albeit this time from European telecom vendors that are insisting the Linux-based operating system would help prop up the flagging Lumia smartphone sales… if only the Lumias ran Android instead of Windows Phone 7.


  • Web Browsers



  • Databases

    • MySQL founder's latest MariaDB release takes "enterprise" features open-source
      MontyProgram AB, the company formed by MySQL creator Michael "Monty" Widenius in the wake of his break with Sun Microsystems, has released the latest version of MariaDB, a “drop-in replacement” for MySQL built on the MySQL 5.5 codebase. MariaDB 5.5.23, which according to developer Colin Charles has "1.5 million additional lines of code compared to MySQL," pushes forward the development of an open-source database with features that aim to match those of Oracle’s commercial-only MySQL releases.





  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice/OpenOffice//Calligra



  • BSD

    • A look at FreeNAS 8.0.4
      A few weeks ago I asked if readers would be interested in seeing reviews of network-attached storage (NAS) projects. The feedback was really positive and so I present the first of what I hope to be a series of reviews covering NAS solutions. This week we will be looking at FreeNAS, a FreeBSD-based project sponsored by iXsystems.

      Before we get started I think it's only fair that we address the question of why we might want to run a dedicated NAS operating system rather than a generic server system. For instance, this week we're looking at FreeNAS, what motivation do we have for using it instead of FreeBSD or a popular Linux server distribution? The answer is largely one of specialization. People looking at network-attached storage are looking for a place to store files (usually a lot of files) and aren't interested in other features a server operating system might provide. A NAS box will be focused on storing and transferring files, it's probably not going to serve up e-mails or websites or provide DNS services. With that in mind, a NAS should come with all the tools we might need to easily add new disks, take snapshots, perform backups and, being focused on these tasks exclusively, it can cut out any extras, providing a lightweight solution.




  • Standards/Consortia





Leftovers



  • Security



    • Hacking IT systems to become a criminal offence
      Cyber attacks on IT systems would become a criminal offence punishable by at least two years in prison throughout the EU under a draft law backed by the Civil Liberties Committee on Tuesday. Possessing or distributing hacking software and tools would also be an offence, and companies would be liable for cyber attacks committed for their benefit.




  • Civil Rights

    • Expert: New CISPA Bill Isn't SOPA, But Still Attacks Constitutional Rights
      Congress' latest attempt at a bill that affects the way people use the Internet has many scared, with some calling the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is "worse than SOPA," the bill that caused widespread Internet outrage and blackouts before ultimately being shelved. Experts say the danger level associated with CISPA depends on the answer to one question: Which Constitution amendment do you care about more, the First or the Fourth?




  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin
      The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

      In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."






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