I spent some free time today getting caught up on the large backlog of phonon-gstreamer bugs. Towards the end, I started to have delusions of grandeur: Imagine a phonon-gstreamer codebase that doesn’t require supporting a zillion different audio frameworks, and instead belays that task to something that I don’t have to maintain.
Just read another "forget desktop Linux" piece by a writer trying to cover Free software on a sight ostensibly doing the same. This is exactly the sort of thing I wrote about in a recent blog entry, and it's sad to see it continue.
The argument goes something to the affect that "since there is a movement towards enabling more devices at work and schools, the desktop no longer really matters."
I understand my colleague Andrea's passion for mobile devices and social media, but her conclusions seem seriously flawed. The reason I am writing this article is to ensure people understand the great value of Linux on the Desktop.
In it Maria Korolov trots out a long list of “problems” with GNU/linux for large businesses. Here’s an example: “a typical organization will have one application for every 10 users, and, today, about half of those applications require the Windows operating system”
That makes no sense at all. It means businesses, money-making organizations, are foolishly paying for far too many applications. The largest organizations on the planet are governments and as we saw in Munich, it is worthwhile to shed unnecessary applications and rationalize the rest.
I did some very simple timing of several different Linux distributions on this system before I changed the disk drive, and found that they all took about one minute from the GRUB menu to a ready.-to-use desktop. I repeated those tests with the SSD, and found that the average boot time had been cut to 30 seconds or less! The overall impression of using the system is faster with the SSD as well.
Clearly, GNU/Linux works for them. It’s just silly that some commentators here cling to the idea that nothing can be done without that other OS. There is clear evidence to the contrary.
nginx saw its 9th consecutive month of increased market share, gaining 894k hostnames and increasing its share to 5.48%, more than double the value it held a year ago. Apache fared the worst this month, losing 17.5M hostnames. However, it remains far ahead of the competition with two out of every three hostnames being served using Apache.
After David Airlie brought up the new DDX driver API for the X.Org Server, a new discussion was born concerning the lack of patch review taking place for the X.Org Server.
David Airlie commented on the developers' mailing list about the lack of patch review for the new API patches, he wonders how he's "going to get the next 50 patches in at this rate some time this year." Alan Coopersmith then responded with how there seems to be a harder time overall in getting patch reviews done. Coopersmith says, "I've got no ideas how to fix this quickly, but we need to get it fixed."
The new driver API for the X.Org Server that would finally allow for the X.Org stack to better compete with modern desktop drivers on Windows and Mac OS X, may actually see the light of day, prior to the Wayland push.
File compression is still the best way to send a huge bunch of photos to your dearest friend. It is one of the most important operations on almost every operating system, and is, therefore, inundated with a barrage of apps concerning it. On Windows too, file compression comes built-in, and so does on Linux. That said, the default compression method isn't always the best one, and even if it is, there are people who are looking to trying out new tools for the same operation.
Scalado Album correctly classifies images based on location and date, it provides only a placeholder, rather than a thumbnail, for some images. That was a disappointment. Images shot with app HDR Camera, for example, showed as a placeholder in the album, while images shot with the stock camera and others, including Vignette, showed successfully as thumbnails.
Wildfire Games has released the tenth alpha version of 0 A.D., an open source, historical real-time strategy game which features excellent graphics and sound. The new alpha brings Hellenic factions, basic technologies, civilization phases, click-and-drag wall building functionality, healing and more.
The Xfce 4 desktop offers a vast array of customization options that will leave your desktop looking nothing like the default. Take advantage of all the excellent graphical user interfaces offered for all of your options, settings, and preferences.
Video editing is one of the few areas where GNU/Linux is behind Windows and Macs. There are no professional grade video editing software for Linux. However, there are many honest attempts to bring quality video editing to the Linux platform. Kdenlive is one such project.
Dave Edmunson, one of the lead developers behind KDE LightDM recently published an UPDATE describing some of the features (and shortcomings) already part of the first KDE LightDM release, as well as explaining a bit of what€´s coming along in the next few months for the 0.2 release. Dave explained how some KDM features are still missing in KDE LightDM-0.1, but in turn, some of the screenshots he€´s sharing look very promising. Among others, the benefits of using LightDM is, as its name rightly points out, its relatively low weight when compared with GDM or KDM. On top of that, there are obvious gains in terms of looks and flexibility. To give an example, changing the login screen wallpaper and/or welcome image will be very simple. Along the same lines, things like having the login screen and KSplash incorporating the same wallpaper the user has in her/his desktop should be easier. Inconsistencies between login screen and KSplash in terms of resolution and things of the like should also be out of the way thanks to the common QML thread. Here€´s a picture of the Login screen control module, as it looks today. Note these are early days for this piece of functionality, so chances it may not look exactly like this come future releases:
I'm pleased to announce our Kolab 2.4 product series can now be labeled 2.4.1!
John Stowers has announced yesterday, May 14th, the release of GNOME Tweak Tool 3.4, an utility popular among users of the GNOME 3 desktop environment.
You may have heard of ROSA before, but you may not be sure where. Almost 9 months ago, I reviewed Mandriva 2011 "Hydrogen", and that version of Mandriva was developed in conjunction with ROSA Labs, a Russian Linux development group. Since then, Mandriva seen quite a roller-coaster ride and is now essentially on life support. It is all but certain that there will be no new releases of a distribution with the name "Mandriva" (or "Mandrake" for that matter). One fork appeared over a year ago, and that is called Mageia; that aimed to replicate and build upon the traditional KDE desktop that Mandriva used before the year 2011. The other fork is ROSA, and it is essentially a continuation of the novel desktop introduced in Mandriva 2011 "Hydrogen". It seems like ROSA will become the haven for all Mandriva users that had not already gone to Mageia.
A new version of the Parted Magic open source, Linux-based, multi-platform partitioning tool has been released. Labelled "2012_05_14", the update is based on the 3.3.6 Linux kernel and includes version 1.12.1 of X Server.
Linux is the operating system of choice for those who decide to go their own way. The open source model means the building blocks are there for you if you decide that you need your very own operating system.
The latest version of Rocks cluster distribution – an open source toolkit for real and virtual clusters – has been released.
In a blog post today Mandriva COO Jean-Manuel Croset announced that the new strategy going forward will be to let "the distribution evolve in and under the caring responsibility of the community." Mandriva SA will, of course, be a part of this entity.
After months of prevarication, and announcements that sounded as though they were emanating from a publication like Pravda, the company now says it will turn over development of the distribution to the community.
The man who made the announcement, chief executive Jean-Manuel Croset, appears to have a poor memory. The horse bolted some time ago - a goodly portion of the development community, fed up with the company's dithering, forked the distribution in 2010 and created the Mageia GNU/Linux distribution.
Mageia is a Linux distribution forked from Mandriva Desktop. Mageia 2 is the upcoming release, which is slated to be made available for public download just four days from today.
Jean-Manuel Croset, CEO of Mandriva SA, announced last evening, May 17th, in a blog post, that the company decided to cease the Mandriva Linux operating system and transfer the responsibility to an independent entity.
Fast forward one day, it seems like trying Fedora 16 Live was a failure: he gets a wallpaper and a mouse cursor, nothing else. I am showing a random screenshot from the web, trying to understand if he has a normal GNOME Shell empty desktop or is a deeper problem and this drives me to a large explanation on what GNOME, Unity, KDE, Xfce, LXDE are (and a statement of my desktop preference). I am asked again about my phone number and ignore the question. Then he wants to give Ubuntu a try, I don't have a problem with that but he has: the same empty desktop with no panel, no right-click menus, no nothing. If is not the display, then it may be video drivers (ATI), so I recommend either a newer Fedora (F17 RC1 is online) or VESA parameters for boot (me blaming AMD).
The Fedora Project has pushed back the release of the Fedora 17 Linux distribution by a week, from 22 May to 29 May. The main reason is that the project wants to take care of four bugs classified as blockers in the current release candidates; if possible, the developers will also use the extra time to fix a dozen other problems.
In my continued look at out of the ordinary Linux distributions, I installed Crunchbang Linux. Crunchbang’s main version is a distribution based on Debian’s stable branch (known as “squeeze”). This review is based on the 32-bit version of Crunchbang Linux. At this time, Crunchbang offers a regular version and one with backports installed (for the new kernel, among other things). I chose to use the regular version, R20120207 “Statler”.
The move from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 resulted in varied emotions with many people liking the much needed change and for many, lets just say that they felt devastated.
The Linux Mint team, after waiting out the initial change with Mint 11, released Mint 12 with Gnome 3 and now they have their work cutout with the Gnome 2 fork MATE and the Cinnamon Shell.
FXI's Cotton Candy, A $200 USB stick size PC running Ubuntu and Android 4.0 will start shipping at the end of this month to anyone who has pre-ordered the device in back in February.
These devices were supposed to ship in March but a number of new changes had delayed the manufacturing process. New features include a more durable casing, a micro USB port and improved Android 4.0 support.
This is a guest post by Tom Slominski, a 15 year old Ubuntu user who ‘loves Linux, open source and web development with a tad of alternative rock sprinkled on top.’
Are you looking for a job? Well, if you're a good designer, live in London, UK, and you want a job at Canonical, now it's the right time to apply for one of the many positions offered by the company behind the popular Ubuntu operating system.
LinuxMint13 RC is available for testing, this release comes with 2 versions in a separated dvd`s: Mate and Cinnamon. For LinuxMint13 Cinnamon, apart of being very light offers some customization and integration of new applets, extensions and themes that can be found on the official website of Cinnamon. for Linux Mint13 Mate, also offers a version with the desktop environment that brings the user experience of Gnome Gtk 2 +3, this version is stable, fast and well integrated with Gnome 3.
Xubuntu is a community-developed Xfce-flavored version of Ubuntu. It is supposed to be elegant, lightweight and easy to use. Reading my previous reviews of Xubuntu Karmic and Natty, you will find my experience to differ from the supposed mission statement. In the best case, Xubuntu was adequate but nothing more. Not quite the replacement for Gnome as some would claim.
In my talk at Linux Fest Northwest — and I say this often to anyone who will listen — I mentioned that there is a “digital Darwinism” at play in the FOSS paradigm. That is, distros and FOSS programs rise and fall depending on the quality of the software and the community that gathers around them. Good distros and programs — the “fittest” — survive, and the others, well, not so much.
Linux Mint 13 has jumped straight to a release candidate, hot on the heels of Ubuntu 12.04s release, and with a controversial switch to Yahoo search…
The World at Work is powered by GE. This new series highlights the people, projects and startups that are driving innovation and making the world a better place.
FXI's Cotton Candy created a market for Android powered USB PC. FXI is selling its Cotton Candy for US $200, and now there is a competitor.
If you thought the Raspberry Pi was the only tiny, ultra-inexpensive, pocketable computer running an open source operating system, think again. Not only is the OLPC effort showing signs of new life, but a number of Chinese web sites are now offering Android-based MK802 computers in thumbdrive-style form factors (shown here) for under $75. The prices even earn you free shipping if you happen to live in one of several Asian countries. Is there a market for these?
Google plans to take another shot at direct sales for its line of Nexus phones -- Android smartphones that offer an unadulterated strain of the mobile OS. The plan would cut carriers out of the distribution loop, and it's similar to something Google tried years ago. That plan flopped. This time, Google will have more manufacturers as partners and more devices, but will consumers accept unsubsidized prices?
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google wants to work more closely with smartphone manufacturers for the next version of Android – believed to be code-named "Jelly Bean". The report says that up to five manufacturers will receive early access to the new mobile operating system in order to be able to launch phones carrying Google's Nexus branding. The phones could be available in shops as early as late November this year. Google also wants to reverse its recent policy of selling largely through phone network channels, and to once again focus on selling Nexus phones directly; the newspaper cites sources familiar with the matter.
As if the current share were not large enough, HTC and FaceBook are rumoured to be getting together on a smart phone to be released in time for Christmas. FaceBook has a huge opportunity for advertising the new gadget. Rumour has it that it will run Android/Linux. Between all the OEMs making Android/Linux smart phones, service providers promoting them and “Big Brothers” like Samsung, Google and now FaceBook promoting them globally, no consumer will be able to hide from Android/Linux smart phones. Share of shipments now is well over 50%. The only question is how large the share will become. There does not seem to be any limit yet. At the present rate of growth everyone on the planet could have one within a few years. Will people ever have a need for two?
It's mid-May -- do you know where your Ice Cream Sandwich update is? Six months after Android 4.0 made its debut on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, millions of owners of legacy Android devices are still anxiously awaiting the day the new firmware gets downloaded on their own electronic real estate. At least the scene today is much more pleasant than it was just a few months ago, as ICS is finally rolling out to several popular devices. But if you're shopping for a phone or tablet, how can you possibly keep track of which device has what version?
After years of trying and failing to discourage manufacturers from adding user interface (UI) layers to Android, Google appeared destined for success with the visually refined Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich"). Despite predictions that ICS would kill off the "skins" for good, however, HTC's Sense and Samsung's TouchWiz have not only arrived in new Android 4.0 versions, but they have met with positive reviews.
Retail outfit ZaReason has built a reputation over the years for offering quality Ubuntu-powered desktops and laptops at reasonable prices. It’s a bit of a surprise, then, to see that their latest offering — the ZaTab — is going to ship with Android pre-installed instead.
Recently, it appears that the program offering paradigm is the virtual store front so to speak. Google's play or Apples App store, to name the two most well known ones for mobile devices. Linux distributions have always had a form of application store where they are commonly known as repositories. In essence these 'stores' all work the same way. A single access point to all programs available for that operating system.
Shall we play a game? Just imagine you have written the program to end all programs and want to get this program into an application store for XYZ operating system. Which one do you think is the hardest to get into?
For your program to get into a Linux distribution it has to be already popular enough for someone to decide to do the work necessary so it can be included in the official repository. That someone can be you so I would say it is very easy for your program be become part of an official distribution.
I think we can discount windows for this exercise as it does not have an application store as such. Although there are rumours that they are working towards creating one.
There are a lot of excellent reasons to get involved with an open source project. You can learn a new language, improve your existing skills, be challenged by a community that is at the top of their field or even get better at managing complex distributed projects. There are also dozens of ways to participate. Open up a project's bug tracker and find an issue that needs to be fixed. Write a useful new extension or plugin. Even if you don't code, just about every open source project out there could use more testing, more documentation and tutorials and help handling the load on their support forums and mailing lists. If you are a heavy user of open source software it feels great to give something back to the community that has contributed so much.
There has never been a better time to be interested in digital photography. Not only do inexpensive digital cameras offer great high-resolution photos, but they come with very advanced feature sets. Over the years on OStatic, we've also covered a huge number of open source applications that can make editing, organizing and adding effects to digital photos much easier. If you're under the impression that you must have Photoshop to be a top-notch photo editor, think again. The open source applications that are available are beyond robust. Here is our updated collection of great tools for the digital
The OpenFlow open source protocol for software defined networking (SDN) took a big step forward today with the approval of the OpenFlow 1.3.0 specification.
In the metaphorical space between the two worlds, there were opportunities to play with Lego bricks, try a Chaos Machine, listen to nerd comedy, and talk zombies. You could learn about Camp Luminous, which arguably teaches open source principles, or learn to build a TARDIS from open plans.
Mozilla has introduced a new feature into the Firefox 13 betas called Reset Firefox which allows users to reset browser settings while retaining personal data.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is going to stop active participation in the open-source infrastructure cloud project OpenStack – something the agency’s employees were deeply involved in creating.
"I wouldn't count OO out just yet simply because of ONE reason... the license," said Slashdot blogger hairyfeet. "It's common knowledge that NOBODY in business will go near GPL after the V3 debacle. Apache on the other hand is MUCH more business-friendly, and the Apache server is used all across the business landscape, so I can see businesses getting behind OO for that reason alone."
Donald Harbinson, Program Director for Open Standards/Open Source at IBM, noted the official beginning of the transition on the [ooo-devel] mailing list on Tuesday.
"A few minutes ago, I submitted the IBM Software Grant Agreement and Corporate Contributor License Agreement for IBM Lotus Symphony contribution. This action means infra can begin to prepare to receive the 'Contribution' into svn when they're ready," Harbinson wrote.
The move was hardly unexpected, since IBM announced last January that the last release of Symphony, 3.0.1, would be the final one for IBM's version of the OpenOffice.org suite.
On the 7th of May 2012 The Document Foundation has announced its first certification program. This certification is aimed at professionals who are interested in having their skillset certified in order to provide professional services to their customers. The program is currently being rolled out, in fact the first official certification meeting will take place at the LinuxTag next week. I would like to explain what we are trying to achieve in a bit more details by shedding some light on the reasons such a program came into existence.
IBM has begun the process of contributing code from Symphony, its office automation suite, to the Apache OpenOffice project, saying: "This ends the Symphony fork here with Apache OpenOffice". Earlier in the year, the company announced its intention to make the contribution, as it plans to move customers to Apache OpenOffice. Historically, Symphony has been based on a combination of Eclipse Rich Client Platform and OpenOffice.org code that was acquired when the OpenOffice.org code was under a dual-licence which allowed IBM to use the code and not release its changes.
In April 1982, exactly 30 years ago, the European Internet was launched by the Dutch researcher Teus Hagen, at a European Unix User Group conference in Paris. EUnet was the very first European Internet backbone. NLnet Foundation subsequently took the lead of this initiative, and not only helped shape the European Internet, but was fundamental in establishing the currently biggest Internet exchange on the planet, and also built out a market leadership. In September 1997, so 15 years ago, it was acquired by UUnet, now Verizon. All money was put in a fund with the sole purpose to make the Internet better.
Darned if one of the in-laws hasn’t figured out how to lose weight… So, now “the little woman” is on my case to eat right. In the North I did eat right because I had only lean meat, fruits, vegetables and cereal to eat, you know, nutritious, filling stuff.
A few Members of the European Parliament started a Written Declaration for open and collaborative government. Gianni Pittella, Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, Marisa Matias, Katarína NeveÃÂalová, Marietje Schaake. Written Declarations are documents which could get co-signed by other Members of Parliament. They get adopted when they reach a majority. Written Declarations could be perceived as petitions within the European Parliament and civil society groups often pressure MEPs to sign a Written Declaration that suits their interests. Here it would be rather difficult to get them to endorse the document WD 0019/2012. The reason is simple: instead of “unrestricted” they drafted “current”. That single phrase makes the declaration appear like a Trojan horse.
At the end of April, I wrote about the idea that usage of the GNU General Public License (GPL) is declining and concluded that although new, commercially initiated open source projects were indeed tending to adopt other licenses, the use of the GPL itself is still growing -- especially among projects in its core community of GNU platform development. This article explores why commercial projects pick particular open source licenses and what might happen in the future.
Asked on the developers' mailing list last week was whether LLVM could be used for a decompiler, which an independent developer is working to construct.
After a winter lull, food stamp participation in Los Angeles County picked up again in March, to rise to a new all time high of 1,036,078 persons. Other economic data points to weakness in the nation’s largest state economy, as well. Indeed, falling tax collections are largely behind the recent budget deficit blowout of 16 billion dollars. And to think: many thought the years of California’s “budget crisis” were behind us. | see: Los Angeles County SNAP Users vs. Price of Oil 2007-2012.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Merrill Lynch & Co. employees discussed helping naked short-sales by market-maker clients in e-mails the banks sought to keep secret, including one in which a Merrill official told another to ignore compliance rules, Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK) said in a court filing.
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes God smiles on us. Last week, he smiled on investigative reporters everywhere, when the lawyers for Goldman, Sachs slipped on one whopper of a legal banana peel, inadvertently delivering some of the bank’s darker secrets into the hands of the public.
Pundits and Wall Street reforming politicians are crowing: Wowie! Jamie D has fought for weak regulations, especially a weak Volcker rule, but now Wall Street’s goose is cooked! We’re going to get a strong Volcker rule!
What a surprise: the U.K. government was forced to reveal under Freedom of Information laws more than 1,000 civil servants have ’snooped’ on British citizens’ private data.
Don’t worry about hackers illegally accessing government systems. It turns out government workers and civil servants who are trusted with private citizen data are more likely to access your data illegally.
Geek TV star uses Ubuntu 12.04 download as example of legal BitTorrent use.
Wheaton, actor on Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Big Bang Theory, and Eureka, is deep into the geek life and has been blogging for years. He may be the most prominent geek advocate in Hollywood, which he says gets him in trouble when he argues in favor of network neutrality and against ill-considered piracy crackdowns, like ignoring legal uses of BitTorrent.
Using his download of Ubuntu 12.04 as an example, Wheaton argues that BitTorrent saves time and resources. The direct download would take an hour, but the torrent feed did the job in six minutes. Piracy legislation that would shut down or hobble BitTorrent protocol traffic would not stop file sharing, but would ruin a good protocol.
There is a major problem with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that has little to do with IP or the internet: how does international law get made—by the President alone, or with Congress's involvement? ACTA's key problem in the United States is a Constitutional question that turns on the separation of powers. The President, or an office of the executive branch like USTR, can negotiate treaties that fall within presidential powers. But for topics that fall within Congressional powers, like IP law, the Constitution requires that Congress be involved in the process.
The most obvious and difficult way to involve Congress is through Article II of the Constitution. Under Article II, a treaty negotiated by the executive branch is presented to the Senate for ratification. The process is notoriously difficult, because it requires two-thirds of the Senate to approve. So USTR, almost understandably, wants to avoid the Article II process if at all possible.