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Links 8/6/2014: Valve Funds Mesa Development, SQLite 3.8.5 Released





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux





  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



      • Diving into FOSS
        Before sometime I got in touch with KDE community and was overwhelmed by it. Then I became a member of this community and started exploring about open source environment. The most fascinating thing about KDE community members is how committed they are to open source technology. Through IRC I would be able to contact with genius coders all over the globe. It’s been quite a time that I am using open source software. It is very much important to aware people about open source. We can have access to all robust and efficient soft wares for free. After being a part of KDE it interested me to use open source systems and I am really enjoying this.


      • Plasma Active on Qt5/KF5: Wallpapers and Activities Configuration


      • The future of activity switching
        The new pretty thing that is taking away my time is the activity switcher which got a rather big revamp for the next release of Plasma.


      • Plasma mediacenter 1.3 beta on Arch User Repository
        As you already know, Plasma mediacenter 1.3 beta is released on 3rd June.

        Many distros like Fedora, openSUSE, KUbuntu have already packaged this beta in their repositories

        So to make life of Archers easier, I have uploaded PKGBUILD for Plasma mediacenter 1.3 beta on AUR.


      • GSoC 2014: KDE Games
        I am Anuj Pahuja(alasin), a Computer Science undergraduate from BITS Pilani, India. It is my first GSoC and I can’t thank KDE Community enough for accepting me as a student.




    • GNOME Desktop/GTK



      • Get Your Ubuntu to Look like Mac OS X with a Simple Theme
        Most of the themes that can pull this Mac OS X transformation work on desktop environments like GNOME, MATE, Xfce, and so on, but not all of them work in Unity. The designer of this particular version made it compatible with GTK 3.10 and it works in Ubuntu as well.

        “The goal is to keep it as close as possible to ambiance on the code base with the same look as the original cupertino. If that isn’t possible for an element I will prefer the look of cupertino,” said the designer on gnome-look.org.






  • Distributions



    • New Releases



      • Release Announcement: LinuxBBQ "Cream"


      • GParted Live 0.19.0 Beta 1 Gets New Debian Base Update
        GParted Live 0.19.0 Beta 1, a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86-based computers that can be used for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions with the help of tools that allow managing filesystems, has been released and is now available for download.


      • Robolinux 7.5.3 OS Wants to Keep You Safe from NSA
        Robolinux 7.5.3 is a fast and easy to use Linux distribution based on Debian, and its developer thinks that it can be the solution for people who look to protect their privacy.

        If you remember from previous releases of Robolinux, the developer of this particular distribution came up with a working idea on how to move people from the Windows platform to Linux without them having to give up their favorite applications.


      • SparkyLinux 3.4 LXDE, e17, and Razor-Qt Distros Are Based on Debian Jessie
        SparkyLinux 3.4, a lightweight, fast, and simple Linux distribution designed for both old and new computers featuring customized LXDE, e17, and Razor-Qt desktops is now available for download.

        The SparkyLinux 3.34 "Annagerman" system is built on Debian GNU/Linux "Jessie" and is not all that different from the previous versions in the series, at least not in this particular aspect.




    • Screenshots



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family



      • OpenMandriva Lx 2014 review
        OpenMandriva Lx 2014 is the latest edition of OpenMandriva, a desktop Linux distribution derived from Mandriva Linux. It is one of the distributions that rose out of the ashes of Mandriva Linux; the other being Mageia, and, to some extent, ROSA Desktop.




    • Red Hat Family



      • Apple Copies Ubuntu, Pimping Scientific, and 500 Steam Games


      • The ultimate Scientific Linux pimping guide
        Several weeks back, we reviewed Scientific Linux 6.5, a rather spartan incarnation of the legendary RHEL 6, which might be considered too boring and outdated for modern home use. Well, not so. Once long ago, I showed you how to transform CentOS into a home use beast.

        Today, we will do it again, with the most comprehensive guide on Scientific Linux pimping ever made on Planet Earth. Here, you get a bit of everything, and then so. Best of all? This guide is also relevant for CentOS and even Fedora, so make sure you keep it close to your heart. Let's go.


      • Fedora



        • Public Fedora Board Meeting — Monday June 9th 2014
          Matthew Miller just announced that fortnightly public Fedora Board meetings are starting up again. The first meeting will be on Monday the 9th of June at 17:00 UTC time. (Matthew notes in the email to fedora-announce that the command date -d ’2014-06-09 17:00 UTC’ is an easy way to convert this into the timezone on your Fedora machine.)


        • More fedora.next branding ideas
          We previously posted about some of the logo design ideas that Máirín Duffy was working on for the 3 products of fedora.next (Cloud, Server, and Workstation). Since that post, Máirín has also posted a bunch of other iterations, and I also entered the fray with a few ideas of my own. Now, Máirín has done another round of design ideas. Check them out, and join the discussion over on her blog.






    • Debian Family



      • Elive 2.2.6 beta released


      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu



          • Apple introduces Unity Scopes-like search and no one cries foul
            This week, Apple announced the new OS X Yosemite, and Linux users across the Linux-verse stood up and proclaimed "Oooo, I'd like to lay my hands on the lily-livered swab is writ that forgery!" Why so up in arms? Because Apple has done what Apple does -- riff on features from other platforms and claim they've recreated a wheel that will make your life far easier. What did they do this time? Let's chat.

            One of the big features of OS X Yosemite is included in the Spotlight tool. For those who don't know, Spotlight is the OS X search tool that, up until Yosemite, searched the local drive. As of Yosemite, anyone who has touched the Ubuntu Unity Dash will notice something very similar to Scopes.

            [...]

            When Ubuntu released Unity Scopes, a very large and very vocal group from the Linux community cried foul, that Scopes was an invasion of privacy, was insecure, and would probably steal their identity...

            ...maybe not that last bit. But there was plenty of backlash from the community (many of whom didn't even use Ubuntu).

            How will the Apple community react when they start using the Scopes-like feature in Yosemite? They'll love it. They'll realize how convenient it is to be able to, from one location, search their local drive, Wikipedia, Amazon.com, and countless other sources.


          • Ubuntu 14.04 - There has never been a better time to switch to Linux
            You would think that writing about the latest version of Ubuntu 14.04 would be easy but it is hard to write about one of the biggest Linux distributions without repeating everyone else's sentiments or covering the same ground that was covered with Ubuntu 13.10.

            With that in mind please don't be disappointed that much of what I will be writing here has been written before.

            There is nothing revolutionary about Ubuntu 14.04, especially if you have already tried Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10 and Ubuntu 12.04. The improvements to Ubuntu have been slow and steady.


          • Meizu Will Present A Meizu MX3 Phone Running Ubuntu Touch, At The Mobile Asia Expo 2014
            Earlier this year, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2014) in Barcelona, Canonical has announced the first two phone manufacturers that will create Ubuntu Touch-based smartphones: Meizu and Bq.


          • More OpenSSL Vulnerabilities Found, Ubuntu OSes Get Patched


          • Flavours and Variants



            • An Ubuntu MATE Desktop Spin Might Still Materialize
              There's been much talk in the past about creating a spin/derivative of Ubuntu Linux using the MATE Desktop Environment fork of GNOME2. While no spin materialized for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, talk of developing a new spin is again happening.


            • Ubuntu Might Get An Official Ubuntu MATE Flavor Soon


            • Linux Mint 17 Qiana MATE : Video Review and Screenshot Tour
              Linux Mint 17 Qiana is the latest version of linux mint that based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, it was released and announced by Linux Mint Developer a few days ago. Linux Mint 17 is a long-term support release which will be supported until 2019. In addition, The Linux Mint developers plan to use this package base until 2016.

              Linux Mint usually comes with four desktop editions: Cinnamon Desktop Environment, MATE Desktop Environment, KDE and XFCE, although currently, only Cinnamon and MATE editions are available, XFCE and KDE edition should arrive shortly.












  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



      • Your Android phone, now with NSA-grade security
        NSA-grade security is now coming to an Android device near you.


      • Tizen-powered Samsung Z smartphone with open source mobile OS
        The Samsung Z looks and feels very much like Samsung's Android smartphones. There's the tiles section at the top of the home screen, with some app icons at the botton, and there's the pull-down notifications and settings tray at the very top. You also get the hardware Back and Menu buttons, in addition to the main Home button. The Settings app looks almost identical to Samsung's Android version.








Free Software/Open Source



  • Open Source Lightweight Directory Access Protocol Solutions
    LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is an application protocol for accessing directory services. It runs on a layer above the TCP/IP stack incorporating simplified encoding methods, and offers a convenient way to connect to, search, and modify Internet directories, specifically X.500-based directory services. It is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol. LDAP utilizes a client-server model.


  • Nine Advantages of Open Source Software
    While it initially seemed revolutionary, open source software is actually rooted in traditional IT processes. Technology, after all, has always been about collaboration and continuous improvement. (In the early days of the ARPANET, for example, researchers established a "request for comments" procedure to improve the project.) Of course, there have been trepidations raised about open source. But the always-active open source communities are more than happy to address any concerns. As a result, more than one-half of the software acquired over the next several years will be open source, according to industry research.


  • SaaS/Big Data



  • Databases



    • SQLite 3.8.5 Arrives with New Features
      SQLite 3.8.5, an in-process library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine, has been released with an impressive list of changes and improvements.

      Most of the SQLite releases are maintenance ones, but from time to time the developers make some important changes. The current update features a few new options, so an update is recommended.




  • BSD



    • FreeBSD 9.3 Beta 2 Is Now Available
      One week after FreeBSD 9.3 went into beta, the second beta update is now available.

      FreeBSD 9.3 is the next major FreeBSD 9 update due out that brings down some features from FreeBSD 10.0 like the Radeon KMS/DRM driver support, Xen HVM support, Apple MacBook trackpad support, disables hardware random number generators by default, and has a ton of other changes.

      FreeBSD enthusiasts can find out more about the forthcoming 9.3 update via the tentative release notes. FreeBSD 9.3 is expected to be officially released in mid-July.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • GNUstep's position on Swift
      I wanted to make this post to make it clear to the community regarding GNUstep's position on the new Swift language. If the language is released as open source then GNUstep will fully support it. If it is, however, not released as open source then we will either take steps to create an implementation ourselves or provide any assistance needed to a group of people other than ourselves who are willing to take that on.


    • We're glad you liked Email Self-Defense. Let's take it even farther.
      Yesterday was a big day for defending our freedom and privacy on the Internet. The FSF and its supporters joined the ranks of thousands for Reset the Net, the biggest-ever day of action against bulk surveillance.


    • Theming and Style in GNUstep
      Not only the pixmaps and colours can be changed, also the style of the interface. This include the menu style (vertical, in-window or Mac OS style), the scrollbar position (right or left), the behaviour of contextual menus, popup list and pulldown list (so these can have similar behaviour of the gtk components). The Silver theme include an style that let users run GNUstep’s apps on, for example, Gnome without problems.


    • GNU remotecontrol: Newsletter – June 2014
      GNU remotecontrol relies on OS file access restrictions, Apache authentication, MySQL authentication, and SSL encryption to secure your data. Talk to us you want to find out how you can further strengthen the security of your system, or you have suggestions for improving the security of our current system architecture.


    • GNU Nettle 3.0 Cryptographics Library Released
      The developers behind the Nettle project are out with a new major update to their dual-licensed GPLv2 and LGPLv3+ cryptographics library.






Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

Layoffs in Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft's LinkedIn
There are silent layoffs at Microsoft this month
We Don't Depend on Google and Don't Care for Google
We have our own site search and we don't depend on Google to bring visits/visitors to us
Facebook Layoffs Due to Enormous Debt, Nothing to Do With "Hey Hi" Slop
The lies about "hey hi" in relation to layoffs will only contribute to further public resentment towards: 1) the media and 2) all the slop.
Universities Became Bad Places for Work
What happened to academia?
 
Links 15/03/2026: Slop "Bubble Driving Interest in Chip Alternatives" and Wildlife Erosion Reported
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 14, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 14, 2026
Change of Address at the Hired Guns, Address Removed
Companies tend to alter their 'shell structure' in anticipation of major action
The Good IBM Managers Have Flown Away, All That's Left is the Book-Cooking Loyalists
IBM is just cheating the SEC and shareholders. This seems to be the only thing IBM's management is nowadays good at.
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 12 Out of 200: Months Ahead of Serial Strangler From Microsoft Who Helped Double the Lawsuits (Funded by Third Parties) as 'Revenge' for Exposing Crimes
In 2024 I sat down and wrote about what had been done to me and to my wife
Crime Comes in Many Forms
apparently the SRA is OK with stranglers of women in America bullying the media in the UK
commandlinux.com, linuxteck.com, linuxiac.com, and linuxsecurity.com are Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Domain Name
once readers realise they read slop they immediately lose interest
Links 14/03/2026: Adoption of Slop Has Killed BuzzFeed, Russia Sees "Economic Gain From Iran War"
Links for the day
Patriotism is Conditional, If It's Unconditional, Then It's Like a Cult
My love for Software Freedom is only as strong as my love for Freedom of the Press
Links 14/03/2026: Mass Layoffs at Facebook ('Meta') and Sweeping Layoffs at Twitter (xAI), Social Control Media and Slop Are Only Debt
Links for the day
Wrong Time, Wrong Place (Digg)
Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian can relaunch Digg.com, but we doubt it'll work "this time for real!"
Reporting New and Suppressed Information is What Journalism is All About
In the domain of Free software, there are very few sites out there that offer exclusive coverage on community affairs and there are many gagging/censorship attempts
The Limits of Speech and the Rationale of Limitations
it seems to be part of an international trend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 13, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 13, 2026
Gemini Links 14/03/2026: Goodness, AD534 Multiplier Module, and Extroverts Online
Links for the day
Atlassian Corp: We're Doing Layoffs Because of "Hey Hi"; Wall Street: Atlassian Corp is Just a Failing Business
Don't ask "the media"
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 11 Out of 200: Cannot Censor His Spouse, Accusations Are Repeated Today
He already has a history of threatening to sue gay people in America; he cannot take criticism too well
Price of Storage, Price of Energy... What Next?
EPO workers are going on strike because their salaries don't keep up with price increases and tech companies without connections in "the channel" face long delays, low availability, and high prices (no "bulk" purchases), which further solidifies monopolies.
Don't Forget Red Hat's RTO (Return-to-office) Layoffs
How many people still remember that Red Hat did the same thing?
Reminder: Microsoft silent Layoffs by RTO (Commute Time and Lack of Comfort/Work Satisfaction) Already in Effect This Year
It's difficult to measure how many employees have already "left on their own" due to the RTO policy
Founder of IBM Ventures Has Just Quit IBM
Some people leave IBM and many people 'leave' IBM
Signs of Impeding Mass Layoffs - Not Just Quiet Layoffs - at Microsoft
Beneath the surface there are waves of layoffs and even entire teams are let go
Career Science and Academia as Corporate Propaganda 'on Tap'
article about surveillance
Veteran GNU/Linux Journalist Jack Wallen Tries Geminispace and Likes It
It'll turn 7 some time soon
Scheduled Maintenance Tonight
There will be similar work early next week
"Alternative to Microsoft Office" Must Use Free/Open Standards/Formats for Real Sovereignty
It would make sense for the EU to invest in its own workers and its own software projects, more so now that there are hostile countries both to the east and to the west
IBM Has No Clue How to Integrate Companies Like Red Hat
IBM is failing to respect this company's culture
Fake Articles From Sites With "Linux" in Their Name/Domain Name
we can at least hope that linuxteck.com made a decision to quit slop
Links 13/03/2026: New US Weapons for Taiwan, Pakistan Air Strikes Hit Kabul
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/03/2026: Exhaustion and Smartphone Addiction
Links for the day
Friday the 13th & Debian Developers afraid to nominate in DPL elections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 13/03/2026: Chatbot "Pentagon Contract" (Bailout) and Secret Service Ditches Slop Pusher
Links for the day
When Everybody Has a Right/Access to An Attorney/Lawyer (But Some Get Funding From Malicious American Corporations to Spend a Million Dollars on Many Lawyers and Several Barristers)
And send about 75 KG of legal papers to the residence of the "opponent"
European Qualifying Examination (EQE) Being Reduced to Pieces of Papers One Can Buy, Patent System Rapidly Losing Its Legitimacy
Welcome to the "new Europe"
Priorities in 2026
2026 is an interesting year
Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Producing More Propaganda for EPO "Cocaine Communication Managers"
The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) has this new paper about Willis Towers Watson (WTW) and its annual EPO-sponsored propaganda, pretending all is well when things are clearly dire
Head of Microsoft Office and Microsoft 360 is Leaving Microsoft Amid Problems and Mass Layoffs
Microsoft is like a "legacy" company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 12, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 12, 2026
Gemini Links 13/03/2026: "Someone to Take Over Antenna" and Random Seed/RNG
Links for the day