The Command Line Interface has its uses, acknowledged Mobile Raptor blogger Roberto Lim, "but no piece of technology targeted at the consumer market should ever require that something be done via CLI; keep it as an option or you can take it out all together. "If it is there, it should just be there for the IT people or tech support to use when you encounter a problem."
So, the naysayers are “out to lunch”. Their pet “video editing” section is dominated by GNU/Linux:
Thanks to Google and the Chromebook, the Linux desktop is getting its chance to make a retail come-back.
Every tech writer on the Internet seems to want to be the one to crack the code and figure out what Microsoft plans to do with Surface. I thought I was one of them until I spent three days trying to write this article. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really care what Microsoft’s plans are or if they’ll pan-out for them. They bore me. They’re irrelevant now.
You must already know about the funny codenames of each release of Ubuntu. However, Im sure not many of you know that Linux kernels have their codenames too. And of course, these codenames are weird and funny as hell, like Homicidal Dwarf Hamster, Pink Farting Weasel or Sheep on Meth. ( And as you can guess, Linus Torvalds is the author of these codenames). The codename of each Linux kernel can be found in the makefile of the source trees.
As part of a GSoC project through the Linux Foundation, some of the popular open-source DRM graphics drivers are being back-ported to older Linux kernel releases.
While Intel's Ivy Bridge processors are only two months old, there's already a feature-rich driver and the full programming documentation available. Meanwhile for the Radeon HD 7000 series from AMD that is now more than six months old, the open-source driver is still incomplete and the documentation is lacking.
There's some hope for NVIDIA laptop customers that rely upon their binary Linux graphics drivers that one day hope to utilize Optimus Technology.
Following the changing of the Catalyst release schedule and dropping old hardware support, Catalyst 12.6 for Linux has been officially released. However, it's already disappointing some Linux binary driver users.
Tomahawk is a free and open-source music player that allows you to connect your other machines and friends via Jabber, Google Chat and Twitter. You can browse and play their libraries, playlists and stations.
John Diamond, the CEO of COR Entertainment LLC, has shared with Phoronix that the plan is to release Alien Arena: Reloaded on 6 July. The Alien Arena: Reloaded Edition game will feature twelve new levels, two new player characters, and an innovative new weapon when it comes to the game assets.
Of course, KDE is very dear to me and to Kolab and so, in addition to me, there will be a few other members of the Kolab community will meet at this year’s Akademy. Key contributors Christian Mollekopf and Jeroen van Meeuwen will be present and available to discuss Kolab related issues. Jeroen will also give a talk about release engineering processes using KDE as an example. His experience from the Fedora Project, Cyrus IMAP, Cyrus SASL and from his roleas a Systems Architect at Kolab Systems provides him with ample experience to give some insight into how release engineering and quality assurance within the fast-paced KDE project could be improved further.
Good news for KDE lovers. If you own a Raspberry Pi, you will now be able to run your favorite K Desktop Environment and integrated programs in it. Thanks to a developer named Luca Tringali.
Tringali got a original Debain release that supports ARM architecture and built an image with basic Plasma desktop and utilities.
One of the reasons many Gnome users were frustrated with default Gnome 3 Shell was the lack of power off button by default. All you got when clicking of the user menu at top right was a suspend option. You might have to waste some moments to search Google and learn to use the Alt key to get Power Off.
The highly anticipated mechanism which is used to bar Gnome users from performing certain actions is on the way, and its name is Lockdown.
Few days ago the new BoD was elected and today Gnome Live addresses the roles and responsibilities for each member.
The latest release of the Parted Magic versatile partitioning tool gives users the option to install NVIDIA's proprietary video driver. Instead of using the bundled open source nouveau driver, which may have problems on some hardware, users can download and install an NVIDIA binary driver module. When doing so, lead developer Patrick Verner notes that users will need to first disable the nouveau driver from the Fail Safe menu.
We like to think that there is a Linux distribution for everything. There is a distribution for browsing the web, one for playing video games, one for privacy, and there is one for security – Qubes OS.
With new major releases of Ubuntu and Fedora out the door in the past quarter, the developers at these and other community distributions are now hard at work on future versions of their respective Linux-based operating systems. Smaller, more specialised distributions have also been publishing new versions at a rapid pace.
A few days ago, we posted about the release of Zorin OS Home and Ultimate edition. Today, Zorin OS group has released Zorin OS Business edition aimed at small and medium sized business organizations.
There have been some rumors floating around that Mandriva was going to abandon their transition to RPM 5, a fork of the original Red Hat Package Manager. Mandriva began moving to RPM 5 quite a while ago because it offers increased performance and added features. So today Per ÃËyvind Karlsen, Mandriva Project Leader, confirmed that Mandriva has no plans to abandon RPM 5.
Mandriva Open Source Relations Manager, Charles Schulz, today tried to clarify the foundation's vision of structure of community interaction and resulting products. Instead of explaining, he posted a flow-chart to illustrate the relationships between downstream and upstream projects, contributors, and the Mandriva distribution.
With all the attention that tends to get heaped on Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora, it can be easy to forget about all the many other worthy contenders out there offering users a world of free choice.
Red Hat claims it is the No. 3 backer of OpenStack (in terms of code contribution) and a Platinum members of the 180-plus member OpenStack organization but it still won’t say when it plans to ship an OpenStack distribution.
Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) will buy FuseSource, a 2010 spinout from Progress Software Corp. focused on open source integration and messaging products, according to an announcement Thursday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
When it comes to open source technologies, the decision is even tougher since the technology by definition is open. It's a challenge that Linux leader Red Hat grapples with all the time. This week, Red Hat decided to go the buy route, and acquired middleware player Fusesource for an undisclosed sum. In an interview with InternetNews, Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst explained why he decided to acquire Fusesource and how he goes about the buy versus build decision making process.
Red Hat has announced dates for Red Hat Summit to be held next year. This is the ninth annual Red Hat summit and it will be held in Hynes Convention Center in Boston from June 10-14 2013. Leaders from technology industry as well as software professionals from different areas will join this conference.
Red Hat has used the ongoing Red Hat Summit and JBossWorld 2012 conference to announce four open source products for operating hybrid clouds. They include OpenShift Enterprise PaaS Solution, a bundle of several Red Hat products that enables customers to set up a platform as a service (PaaS) on their own infrastructure, offering the same capability as Red Hat itself offers with its OpenShift public cloud products.
Chris Smart today blogged that the next release of his Fedora-based Linux distribution would be delayed due to various developmental issues. Kororaa 17 Beta 1 was released June 3, but recent problems have thrown a wrench into the works.
Fedora 17 S390x, a.k.a. IBM System z mainframe computers, isn't a primary architecture but is a secondary arch similar to the recent Fedora 17 ARM release.
Unfortunately I have yet to get my hands on any Loongson hardware, but on OpenBenchmarking.org it was discovered that Linux benchmark results are beginning to appear for the ICT Loongson-3A V0.5 FPU.
Canonical recently joined hands with Dell to sell Ubuntu pre-loaded laptops in 850 Dell stores across India. With this partnership, Canonical aims to make Ubuntu a common name in India.
The canonical team has released second Alpha images of Ubuntu 12.10 Quantzal Quetzal.
The final release of Ubuntu distribution version 12.10 is expected on 18 October 2012, with support through April 2014.
To the best of my memory, this is something I've never done officially, a whole article dedicated to changing Ubuntu's looks on a serious level. The simple reason is, there never has been any need for that, and there isn't one now. But if you're into uber-aesthetics, you might like this article.
Today, inspired by the work of a guy named mack_guy911, I will show you a handful of extremely beautiful themes and icons sets that you can use in any Unity-flavored Ubuntu or even Gnome 3 installation. We will also learn a little more about tweaking tools that can help you in this task, namely Ubuntu Tweak Tool and Ubuntu Tweak. Yes, those are two different programs. Please, follow me on a tour of beauty.
Reportedly, the two Linux kernel based cousins- Ubuntu and Android can team up in the near future to knock Apple’s iOS down in the smartphone segment.
The strength of Apple lies in the simplicity and integrity of its iOS. Everything is tightly bound and that makes it relatively easy to use and easy to familiarize with. That’s probably what makes it the world’s hottest smart-phone selling brand.
New features at a glance:
* Xfce 4.10 * mintMenu and MATE applets * MDM * Artwork improvements * Search engines
The Google I/O conference is in full swing this week, and many of the rumors from recent weeks are coming true. As we discussed last week, Google did show off its new $199 7-inch Nexus tablet that will run the latest Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" mobile OS. Hands-on reviews of the tablet, many of them favorable, are appearing. Of course, Android 4.1 is also big news and will be at the heart of Google's mobile strategy going forward. Here is more on what's new in it.
At the moment, the only officially-announced smartphones to use a quad-core Samsung Exynos processor are the Galaxy S III (not all versions), and the Meizu MX 4-core. But there’s a third one that should be announced soon: the Lenovo LePhone K860.
With Android 4.1 Google Chrome has become the default web browser of Android devices. Which means that Chrome for Android is out of beta and get its first stable channel. However, Chrome is available only for devices above Android 4.0.
Improvements include a smoother and more responsive UI across the system, a home screen that automatically adapts to fit your content, a powerful predictive keyboard, richer and more interactive notifications, larger payload sizes for Android Beam sharing and much more.
Nexus Q was the surprise announcement that Google made during IO2012. Google claims that Nexus Q begins the new wave of content consumption devices. Nexus Q is primarily a streaming device which can stream content (movies and music) from the cloud to your entertainment system. It requires an Android tablet or phone to control it and then you can simply stream the content from your account.
So you just got that shiny, new HTC One X or One S (or One V outside the U.S.), and suddenly it's no longer running the latest version of Android. That's no good. Neither is it HTC's fault, but still.
Google is making another attempt to fix the Android update problem at the Google I/O conference. The plan is to give smartphone, tablet and chip manufacturers earlier opportunities to adapt their current and new hardware to forthcoming Android versions. Google said that it hopes that this will allow users to receive their updates faster.
Citing the usual "industry sources," Taiwan-based DigiTimes says the search giant is planning a 10-inch Android tablet with display panels to be supplied by Wintek and AU Optronics. Wintek is the manufacturer behind the touch-screen panels for the Nexus 7 and has already picked up orders for around 500,000 panels from Google for the 7-inch tablet, according to the company's chairman.
The 7-inch tablet also introduces to the world Android 4.1 aka Jelly Bean. The tablet is seen by press as a competitor to Amazon's Kindle Fire, but Nexus 7 is more than just a content consumption device. The tablet features the new Google Maps which offers offline feature; all new offline voice search, and new Google Earth (with high quality 3D images).
The Nexus 7 has been unveiled today to much fanfare. 2 years after the first mainstream Android tablet devices were introduced, Google has finally decided to make an official foray into a segment that is already populated by its immensely popular mobile operating system.
Twitter has announced that its Iago load generator is now available as open source. Chris Aniszczyk, Open Source Manager at Twitter, says that the micro-blogging company created Iago because existing open source and commercial load generators couldn't provide all of the capabilities it required.
Continuing from the theme of the tests a few days back benchmarking Wheezy: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD vs. Debian GNU/Linux, here are some new numbers. Here's some brief numbers concerning Debian GNU/kFreeBSD versus DragonflyBSD 3.0.2.
He explains that innovation doesn't require a PHD, and that open source development is a great example of innovation and a way to bring different opinions together to advance technology.
"Open source software is an innovation in that it brings together in a productive way programmers who disagree on many things," Mickos said. He goes on to list other examples such as Facebook, the touchscreen, and e-learning.
Adobe's non-free technology Flash is dying a slow death. The company earlier announced that they will discontinue Flash for Android devices. Now, the company has posted that there won't be any updates of Flash Player for mobile browsers. Adobe Flash will no longer be available in Google Play Store after August 15.
The Competition Bureau is supposed to defend the Canadian economy from anti-competitive acts like exclusive dealing, bundling, price-fixing and the like. Despite some good work, the departing chief did nothing about M$ and its “partners” excluding GNU/Linux from retail shelves all across Canada. She did nothing about bundling that other OS with nearly every PC sold in Canada for decades. Clearly that prevents competition for operating systems and prevents competition on price/performance. Shame…
The World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a final ruling today against the U.S. country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law. This popular pro-consumer policy, which informs shoppers where meat and other foods were raised or grown, enjoys the support of 93% of Americans, according to a 2010 Consumers Union poll. Now Congress must gut or change the law to avoid the application of punitive trade sanctions.
Goldman Sachs cannot wiggle out of class action securities fraud claims by arguing that public statements that it valued "honesty," "integrity" and "fair dealing" were "puffery," not promises, a federal judge ruled.
You'd imagine, as the economy continues to tank, as banks continue to reveal themselves as incompetent (RBS and NatWest) or crooked (Barclays et al), as Europe drifts deeper into turmoil, that the two political parties who delivered these conditions might be interested in working out between them what brought matters to this grievous state. But the Westminster setup means they don't have to do anything so sensible. One of the things that both the Conservatives and Labour love about the first-past-the-post electoral system – maybe even the thing they love about it most – is that they have always got each other to blame.
Take Private Finance Initiatives, under which – across the public sector – taxpayers owe around €£229bn for assets worth a capital value of €£56bn. Hospitals, particularly, are struggling under a debt burden that obliges them to spend up to a fifth of their income on PFI commitments each year. PFI was imported from Australia as a wheeze under Thatcher, first implemented under Major, enthusiastically embraced under Blair, then under Brown, then utilised yet further under Cameron.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) (GS), the fifth- biggest U.S. bank by assets, eliminated several dozen jobs to pare expenses in the U.S., according to a person familiar with the matter.
The cuts affected positions in New York, New Jersey and Salt Lake City, Utah, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to comment and asked for anonymity. Another person with knowledge of the matter said the reductions affected administration and other jobs that don’t produce revenue.
Wall Street firms are targeting expenses as trading slows and new regulations pinch profit. Goldman Sachs employed 32,400 people at the end of March, down 8 percent in 12 months. Reuters reported the cuts earlier.
CNN jumped the gun this morning when it erroneously announced that the Supreme Court had struck down the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate -- appearing to side with the court's most vocal critics of the healthcare overhaul.
As the TPP negotiations progress, concern about the almost total lack of transparency (and the USTR's laughable statements to the contrary) is starting to gain significant attention. Most recently, we wrote about Rep. Darrell Issa's request to observe the next round of negotiations, and before that, Senator Ron Wyden's quizzing of Ron Kirk about transparency during a senate hearing. So far, the USTR has managed to brush this off by claiming everybody else in Congress was happy—but, like almost everything the USTR says about TPP, that too is blatantly untrue. Over 130 members of the House of Representatives have now chimed in by signing on to a much longer open letter addressed to USTR Ron Kirk, expressing specific concerns about the TPP process.
So called "cybersecurity" and "intellectual property" are two very different issues, but it seems that politicians are realizing that they get further by screaming about "cybersecurity threats" than about "intellectual property infringement." The latest proposed appropriations bill for the State Department includes a role for a "coordinator for cyber issues" -- which is an awful title.
The problem arises from natural selection. The more we use an antibiotic -- especially if we use it carelessly, failing to complete the full course -- the more we select for bacteria that are partially resistant to it. Over time, those bacteria thrive, displacing bacteria that are unable to withstand the antibiotic. Eventually, bacteria that are completely resistant to that particular drug are likely to evolve -- a situation that can have dire consequences. For example, even five years ago, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) was killing more people in the US annually than AIDS.
As Techdirt reported in 2010, the passage of the Digital Economy Act was one of the most disgraceful travesties of the UK parliamentary process in recent times; it was badly drafted, hardly revised and then pushed through with almost no debate in the dying moments of the previous government. Since then, two UK ISPs -- BT and TalkTalk -- have challenged the Act in the courts, but lost earlier this year.
The battle between Megaupload (David) and the US Government and the MPAA (Goliath) started out with a flurry of blows against the New Zealand based site staff, but in recent weeks the blows have all been falling stateside.
Today, the New Zealand High Court ruled that the search warrants used to raid Dotcom’s mansion were illegal, casting uncertainty over the entire ‘Mega Conspiracy’ case.
An earlier ruling by High Court Justice Judith Potter concluded that a previous search and seizure order was invalid because of improper paperwork. The documents were later corrected.
On June 25th, the European Union Parliamentary committee voted to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This signifies a major blow to ACTA, but its standing in the EU still comes down to the European Parliament vote scheduled for July 4th.