You want to install Ubuntu on your Windows computer, don’t you? The thing is, you’re not 100% certain, yet. What if it goes wrong?
Fortunately, there are many ways in which you can try Ubuntu Linux and see whether you really like it, from running a Live CD to installing the OS in a virtual machine, before going all the way and installing it alongside Windows to dual boot.
You might even abandon Windows altogether, converting your device into a 100% Ubuntu computer!
After all this time it still amazes me when I see Windows XP used among the public. Some of the most recent examples I've seen in 'the wild' have been with home users and some small businesses.
In this article, I'll look into what the attraction is to continue using Windows XP and which Linux distributions might make the best candidates for a switch.
After debuting its own Chromebook for education last year, Dell is turning its Chrome OS attention to offices. The company announced on Tuesday a new computing appliance to deliver Windows applications on Chromebooks.
In tandem with virtualization software, one Dell Appliance for Wyse - vWorkspace can serve up Windows apps to up to 350 Chromebooks or Chromeboxes. Dell says the cost starts at $180 per user for the server hardware and licenses, hypervisor and vWorkspace broker. The Chrome OS devices can also be managed or deployed through the new appliance.
Two months after Docker brings in new faces to lead security efforts, a new benchmark for securing Docker container deployments debuts.
Varnish Software has just released Varnish API Engine, a high performance HTTP API Gateway which handles authentication, authorization and throttling all built on top of Varnish Cache. The Varnish API Engine can easily extend your current set of APIs with a uniform access control layer that has built in caching abilities for high volume read operations, and it provides real-time metrics.
Apcera, Google, Red Hat and VMware are supporting CoreOS' application container specification effort, which extends the reach of containers beyond Docker.
The open source quagga router is garnering attention as a flexible choice for SDN. It's easy to set up with the right hardware.
I'm announcing the release of the 3.10.77 kernel.
Ben Hutchings, the maintainer of the Linux 3.2 kernel branch, announced today the immediate availability for download and upgrade of a new maintenance release for one of the oldest LTS (Long Term Support) kernels.
Here's a Mother's Day Sunday release for you all, whether you're a mother or not. Because hey, it's Sunday afternoon once again, and that's just how my -rc releases roll.
It's Sunday, so Linus Torvalds has just announced the third Release Candidate (RC) version of the upcoming Linux 4.1 kernel, which should be released sometime in summer.
Linux kernel 4.0.2 is now available for download on the kernel.org website, and it is the second maintenance release to the stable and most advanced branch of the Linux kernel, version 4.0. This release brings a number of improvements, updated drivers, code cleanup, and bugfixes in various areas.
After the announcement of the Linux 3.14.40 LTS kernel by Greg Kroah-Hartman, Jiri Slaby had the pleasure of informing us about the immediate availability of Linux kernel 3.12.42, an LTS (Long Term Support) release that brings important fixes and updated drivers.
With the forthcoming Linux 4.1 kernel there is finally out-of-the-box acceleration for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 series on the Nouveau driver. With the Nouveau DRM/KMS driver able to self-generate the needed firmware/microcode to enable acceleration, it's quite easy to get running. However, the performance leaves a lot to be desired.
While OpenGL 4.0+ support continues to be tackled for Mesa, finishing up OpenGL ES 3.1 support within Mesa seems to be a pressing priority for Intel.
While a few months back there was talk of libinput 1.0 coming after libinput 0.13~0.14, libinput 0.15 was released today as the latest major pre-1.0 update to this input handling library used by Wayland compositors, optionally as an X.Org input driver, and is starting to be integrated on Mir.
Thanks to work by Samuel Pitoiset, NVIDIA's hardware performance counters of their recent GPU generations are now being exposed through the open-source Nouveau Linux graphics driver.
Julien Cristau of Debian has released updated versions of some of the older X.Org DDX drivers.
A Red Hat developer mentioned to us at Phoronix that they're seeing "drastically improved battery life" in some cases with the Linux 4.1 kernel to the extent that it's up to 2~4 hours of extra battery life with the kernel upgrade to Git. I've since started some fresh Linux laptop battery tests.
It's been a while since last running any extensive Amazon EC2 cloud benchmarks. However, in trying out the latest releases of a few distributions, I ran some quick cloud benchmarks yesterday.
Video (formerly Totem) 3.16.1, the official movie player of the GNOME desktop environment based on Gstreamer that features a playlist, a full-screen mode, seek and volume controls, and many other features, has been released and is now available for download.
NetworkManager 1.0 was released after more than one decade of development at the end of 2014. Nearly six months later, the first point release to NetworkManager 1.0 is now available.
Almost everything that happens on a Linux system is logged in some way. These log files are typically stored plain ASCII text in a standard log file format, although they can be in binary format. Most logs are stored in the traditional system log subdirectory /var/log. Logs keep track of events, such as system errors, user activities, and transaction histories. These log files are everywhere.
Today, May 4, we announce the immediate availability for download of the Enlightenment 0.19.5 desktop environment, a release that fixes a significant amount of issues discovered since Enlightenment 0.19.4, which is currently used by default in various GNU/Linux distributions.
The procps project for a few years has been hosted at Gitorious. With the announcement that Gitorious has been acquired by GitLab and that all repositories need to move there, procps moved along to GitLab. At first I thought it would just be a like for like thing, but then I noticed that GitLab has this GitLab CI feature and had to try it out.
Windows/Mac/Linux: If you’re running your Raspberry Pi in headless mode and you’re not using a static IP address, it’s a pain to locate the IP address. Adafruit made a simple little utility that makes the process as easy as a click of the mouse.
The ownCloud developers have released the third maintenance release for the open-source ownCloud 8.0 self-hosting cloud server software that lets anyone to build his/her own file hosting service without too much hassle.
The ownCloud development team, through Daniel Molkentin, has had the great pleasure of informing us about the immediate availability for download of the ownCloud Desktop Client 1.8.1, which has been declared by the project leader the best release ever.
The third beta to VirtualBox 5.0 is now available. VirtualBox 5.0 is a big step forward to Oracle's virtualization software and adds PV support to Windows/Linux guests, XHCI controller support for USB 3.0 devices, bi-directional drag-and-drop to guests, and more.
VirtualBox 5.0 Beta 3 brings more fixes over the earlier beta releases. There's XSAVE/AVX/AVX2 extensions now exposed to the guest when available, GUI improvements for encryption handling, improved volume control, fixed SB16 playback, and a variety of other improvements went in.
Details on VirtualBox 5.0 Beta 3 can be found via the release announcement at VirtualBox.org.
Oracle has announced today, May 7, the immediate availability for download and testing of the third Beta version of the forthcoming VirtualBox 5.0 cross-platform virtualization software for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released CrossOver 14.1.0 for both Mac OS X and Linux. CrossOver 14.1.0 has important bug fixes for both Mac and Linux users.
CrossOver Linux, an application based on Wine that allows users to install popular Windows applications and PC games on a Linux computer, is now at version 14.1.1 and is ready for download.
Opera Software, through Tomasz Procków, has announced the general availability for download and testing of the Opera 30 web browser, which has just been promoted to the Beta channel.
On May 7, Opera Software, through Mateusz Madej, announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the Opera 31 web browser in the Developer channel, available for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X operating systems.
Here's a book that could teach you more than you ever thought possible about make.
On May 8, the CryEngine team from Crytek published a brief announcement informing game developers about a small, yet very important modification to their EULA (End-User License Agreement).
Crytek known from its very popular first-person shooter Far Cry promised better Linux support in the very near future, with its CRYENGINE game engine.
Project Ascension is the name of a new launcher that aims to provide a unified experience for gamers who have titles on multiple gaming clients, and to encourage said platforms to compete. Confused? We were too.
The Unvanquished development team, through Corentin Wallez, has had the pleasure of announcing today, May 10, the immediate availability for download of a new Alpha build of their first-person shooter game for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X operating systems.
GOG.com is taking its job seriously, and they are working to promote Linux in any way they can. Now, the DRM-free digital platform has just released three classic Star Trek games, and they all come with Linux support.
Diablo III and its expansion, Reaper of Souls, are amongst the most played games from Blizzard, and they are now making a comeback after Blizzard made some serious changes to the gameplay by introducing adventure mode and rifts.
Valve has announced today, May 6, the general availability of a new stable update for its popular SteamOS operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux and powered by the awesome Steam for Linux client.
Lethal League, a competitive projectile fighting game developed and published by Team Reptile on Steam, has just received a Linux version.
On May 8, KDE announced the general availability of KDE Frameworks 5.10.0, a maintenance release that fixes bugs and improves performance. All users of KDE Frameworks 5.9.0 and previous versions are urged to upgrade to KDE Frameworks 5.10.0 as soon as possible.
KDE Frameworks 5.10 was released on Friday as the latest add-on libraries complementing Qt within the KDE world.
Martin Gräßlin just shared that with the forthcoming KDE Plasma 5.4 update, KWin will serve as a proper Wayland compositor!
For years now Martin and other KDE developers have been working toward Wayland support and separating out the X11 Linux support. A huge milestone was reached today with the latest KWin code now being able to function as a proper Wayland compositor.
The Qt 5.5 Beta was supposed to happen back on 12 March, but that goal failed to be realized. However, it looks like Qt 5.5 Beta is quite close now with The Qt Company putting out a beta snapshot.
Krita is an open-source digital painting software that is undergoing a big upgrade right now. Before the developers manage to get version 3.0 out the door, a new release was made available in the 2.9 branch.
Continuing with the first day: Shobha Tyagi elaborated on the acceptance problems when moving users from Microsoft Windows to Linux based systems at her university. That talk resulted in interesting follow-up discussions on regional differences.
After three intensive days the GNOME.Asia Summit 2015 have concluded in Depok, Indonesia.
The 2015 Summit started off with a series of workshops with a focus on how to start contribute to GNOME.
The Tiny Core development team had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the Tiny Core Linux 6.2 operating system, an independent distribution known for being one of the smallest Linux kernel-based OSes in the world distributed as Live CDs.
Today, we are happy to introduce you to the Lakka Linux kernel-based operating system that acts as a DIY (Do It Yourself) retro emulation console build around the RetroArch game emulator software.
You don’t need a modern PC to run some 25-year-old game, of course, but that’s where Lakka comes in. It’s a lightweight OpenELEC/ RetroArch-based Linux distribution which transforms small computers into retro games consoles.
Monday May 11, 2015 we are releasing Black Lab Linux 6.5 SR1. Black Lab Linux 6.5 SR1 is the first service release of the free release of our distribution. This included all security and bug fixes from our initial release until May 6, 2015 which includes several important bug fixes.
Along with security fixes Black Lab Linux 6.5 SR1 completes our transition to one standard desktop, KDE. Black Lab Linux 6.5 SR1 will not have separate ISO's of the different desktops but you can download and install alternative desktop environments from the repositories.
On May 11, the Black Lab Software developers announced the immediate availability for download of the first service release of the Black Lab Linux 6.5 computer operating system.
With Kodi 15 coming along, the OpenELEC team has released their first beta of the next version of their multimedia focused Linux distribution.
On May 7, the OpenELEC development team, through Stephan Raue, had the pleasure of announcing the general availability for download and testing of the first Beta version of OpenELEC 6.0, a Linux kernel-based operating system for embedded devices.
Zbigniew Konojacki has had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the final and stable 4MLinux 12.0 and 4MLinux Allinone Edition 12.0 distributions.
We are happy to announce our eight update for Manjaro 0.8.12.
The Manjaro development team, through Philip Müller, announced this past weekend the immediate availability of a new update for the current stable branch of the Manjaro Linux operating system.
Meet ChaCha20 stream cipher and Poly1305 authenticator, together forming the ChaCha20-Poly1305 Authenticated Encryption with an AEAD construction. Currently, ChaCha20 is the preferred cipher for Google Chrome and Android 5.0+ OS. It is interesting to note that ChaCha20 was initially created as a variant of Salsa20 in 2008, by Daniel Bernstein (Google).
Red Hat has announced today the immediate availability of the first public beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.7.
On May 5, Red Hat had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download and testing of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.7 Beta operating system, a pre-release version that brings a number of new features and fixes in order to keep the 6.x branch stable and reliable.
Hey everyone! Fedora 22 is on the cusp of being released and the Fedora Cloud Working Group has elected to organize a test day for May 7th in order to work out some bugs before shipping it off to the rest of the world.
Red Hat's Christian Schaller had recently been collecting Fedora Workstation feedback on his personal blog in order to continue to improve Fedora moving forward. This week he's summarized the feedback provided by the community to see what they dislike the most about Fedora and where improvements can be made in the future.
From the creator of numerous GNU/Linux distributions, we are happy to introduce you today to RaspEX, a distro based on the Debian GNU/Linux 8.0 (Jessie) and designed to run on the Raspberry Pi 2 computer board.
Neil McGovern was elected as Debian Project Leader in April. The project is going through some major changes such as a switch to systemd. We reached out to McGovern to understand his roles and plans for one of the most revered open source projects.
Željko Popivoda, the lead developer of the Linux AIO (All-In-One) project, had the pleasure of informing Softpedia today about the immediate availability for download of Linux AIO Debian Live 8.0.0.
The news comes after yesterday's keynote of Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, where we learned about the goals of the next major version of the world's most popular free operating system, Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf).
Forget drones and warships, Ubuntu now powers the world’s first ‘smart’ refrigerator called ChillHub
CANONICAL HAS BEEN chilling after announcing the first fridge powered by Snappy Ubuntu Core, the firm's lightweight platform for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Canonical has already come up with such feature with the Ubuntu Edge phone. The device reportedly has the feature to boot either to Ubuntu OS or Android and gives users the same experience PC experience when connected to a larger display.
During the Ubuntu Online Summit (UOS) event for Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) that took place early this week, between May 5-7 on the UbuntuOnAir channel, the Ubuntu developers discussed the possibility of switching to the GCC 5 compiler by default.
The new application switcher for Unity 8 has been demoed at the latest Ubuntu Online Summit and it shows the rapid progress that the Ubuntu developers are making with the latest version of the famous desktop environment.
This Ubuntu smartphone should have “Converged Unity Experience”. This means it will be some kind kind of Smartphone with desktop computer functionality; it could hook up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard.
The new application switcher for Unity 8 has been demoed at the latest Ubuntu Online Summit and it shows the rapid progress that the Ubuntu developers are making with the latest version of the famous desktop environment.
Martin Pitt, a renowned Ubuntu and Debian developer, came with the proposal to enable stateless persistent network interface names in the upcoming versions of the Ubuntu Linux and Debian GNU/Linux operating systems.
The Snappy packages that are being worked on by Canonical are taking all the headlines and with good reason. They provide many advantages, and one of them is the ability to rollback an update, even for critical components, such as the Linux kernel.
ChillHub is a refrigerator with two USB ports and built-in Wi-Fi connectivity. In addition, ChillHub has an open-source iOS-compatible app that provides seamless integration with the refrigerator by giving a user access to sensor data and control of the refrigerator’s components allowing for new interior accessories to be easily developed. This is a first-of-its-kind platform that enables the development of new hardware products that can operate inside a cooled space.
IoT is a new concept that stands for Internet of Things, and it basically describes the ecosystem that gathers all the devices capable of connecting to the Internet at the second annual Internet of Things World conference. People tend to think of phones, smart TVs, tablets, and computers when you say devices that can go online, but there are so many more out there that have online capabilities, and yet we don't think of them very often.
The world is changing, and it looks like everything will soon be powered by operating systems and apps, and that includes drones, as unlikely as it might sound.
Back when the GNOME 2 desktop was forked in 2011 as the MATE Desktop Environment, there were polarized views from the Linux community how this fork of GNOME2 could survive and what sort of future it would have. Four years later, MATE is still being maintained, there's distributions shipping with MATE as the default desktop, and the project is managing to stay relevant.
One of the most interesting smartphone makers to come out of China as of late is Meizu. The company has already introduced a few handset models on the market, and they have been getting pretty good reviews so far.
Given that GCC 5 (technically GCC 5.1) was released in late April, it was too late for Ubuntu 15.04, but now it will have six months of maturing for Ubuntu 15.10. This upgrade doesn't come as a surprise given that it's been that way for GCC's major annual releases going back years. There's been no discussions at all about making LLVM/Clang the default compiler in Ubuntu Linux, though this alternative compiler continues to be offered in the Debian and Ubuntu archives.
The roadmap for the next major update of the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system used in various Ubuntu Phone devices, including BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition and Nexus 4, was revealed on May 5 during a "Phone roadmap" session as part of the Ubuntu Online Summit event that takes place these days between May 5 and 7.
Canonical revealed details about a ClamAV vulnerability that has been found and fixed in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.04.
Linux Mint is one of the most used open source operating systems, especially with the Cinnamon and MATE flavors, but the developers also have a few other distros in the works, including a KDE one. It looks like the latest KDE version won't arrive by default too soon..
Xubuntu Core though isn't to be confused with Ubuntu Core or Snappy package management as is the case with upstream Ubuntu. Xubuntu Core is simply a slimmed down version of the Xfce version of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu GNOME 15.04 is an official ubuntu flavors based on ubuntu 15.04, released and announced by Ubuntu Gnome Team with the latest version of GNOME 3.14. This release is supported with security patches and software updates for only 9 months, until February 2016.
We announced last week that the Ubuntu MATE operating system based on Ubuntu and built around the traditional MATE desktop environment was available for the Raspberry Pi 2 computer board.
After Debian had adopted systemd, many of the distros based on this operating system made the switch as well. Ubuntu has already implemented systemd, but Linux Mint is still providing dual options for users.
The Linux Mint developers have announced today, May 7, in what appears to be the shortest monthly newsletter ever released, that the team works hard these days to bring you the second installment of the Linux Mint 17 operating system.
The Arduino IDE is heading into a rather neat consolidation of the numerous Arduino inspired boards out there. The introduction of a mechanism, in version 1.6.2, to allow people to plug their boards into the IDE easily is starting to snowball. To understand why this is important, before 1.6.2’s release if you had a custom board and the tools to make it work with the IDE, then to install them involved copying files into directories, editing files and crossing fingers (and being disappointed often). Anyone who used a lot of boards would find themselves with multiple copies of various versions of the IDE just to keep life simple.
A new Kickstarter campaign was launched for a small CHIP mini PC, and the response from the community was over the top. It's the first device of its kind that arrives at this price, and its makers are surely surprised at the sheer amount of support that they have received. They initially asked for just $50,000 (€45,000), but in just a few days they managed to raise more than $550,000 (€445,000), and they still have 25 days left in their campaign.
Around two years back, Israeli company SolidRun launched CuBox-i, a line of ARM-powered 2-inch cube PCs with a starting price of $45. It’s now upping the ante on that front with a device it says is the “smallest ARM quad core 4GB mini computer” out there.
The Raspberry Pi is a heck of a deal at just $35 but now there’s a new option that significantly undercuts the foundation’s popular PCB. Meet C.H.I.P., a tiny barebones system billed as the world’s first nine dollar computer.
The Compute Stick does come with a USB port, to which you could attach a 500 gigabyte USB disk drive, but unfortunately Microsoft won't let you install Windows to a USB drive, either. If you buy the Linux version of the Compute Stick, you're probably stuck with Linux.
While Android Lollipop OTA updates are already available for the Sony Xperia and HTC One series devices, users are now anticipating the inevitable Android 5.1 roll out. In the sections below, we will look at the Android situation for the following devices - Sony Xperia Z3, Z2 and HTC One M7, M8.
A new Android OTA update has been released recently for some select devices, bumping up their Android versions to Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.
FaceTime is Apple’s video calling system, and when it was introduced Apple promised to make it open source. We’re still waiting. One day, we hope, we’ll be able to tell you how to get Apple FaceTime on Android. But until that day comes, we'll keep you posted with all the alternatives on offer.
The release notes proving that Motorola is ready to roll out the Android 5.1 Lollipop update for the Moto X 2013 and Moto X 2014 versions were finally unveiled, which means that the first two versions of the brand's flagship smartphone will finally get the highly anticipated mobile operating system.
Google has introduced an interesting new feature to the Google Play Store after it began allowing users to pre-register for upcoming Android apps.
Android M, the next version of the mobile OS from Google which will be unveiled at the upcoming Google I/O conference, will give users more control over their privacy, reports Bloomberg.
Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is reportedly bound to receive the latest Androids 5.1.1 Lollipop OS update and it will bring dramatic improvements in the camera features of both devices.
SamMobile cited sources who were close to Samsung saying that the South Korean tech company is working on a big software update that will be pushed to Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. The camera update is similar to what HTC One M9 received that greatly improved the quality of the photos.
A report citing people familiar with the matter suggest that Google has plans to give Android users more control over what information the apps they install can access. The app permissions on Android are expected to receive more detailed choices, according to the report.
While traditionally iOS has seen higher mobile ad revenues than Android, this trend saw a reversal in the last quarter as per the new State of Mobile Advertising report by Opera Mediaworks.
What's one of the easiest ways to breathe in new life in your phone's interface is by giving it an icon overhaul. There are already a great lot of totally awesome and beautiful icon packs for Android.
Corbin Davenport already has some impressive smartwatch hacks to his name, but his latest coding effort may well be his best yet: The teenager has managed to get the original Macintosh II software running on Android Wear (specifically the Samsung Gear Live watch).
A screenshot instigated all the frenzy but even before that, Sony had already made preliminary hints that Sony Xperia Z handsets are on the verge of getting an Android 5.0.2 bump.
In today's open source roundup: Nintendo prepares games for smart devices. Plus: A $9 computer that runs Debian. And a Linux rootkit users graphics cards to hide itself
The Nexus Player is Google's set-top box. Built by Asus and announced alongside the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, the Nexus Player brings Android Lollipop to your TV.
It acts as a bridge, giving Google an avenue to providing content for your TV and leverages a number of familiar technologies and services to do so. For those in the Google ecosystem, it seems like an easy option.
This week the makers of open source home media centre application Kodi formerly known as XBMC have announced the release a new official Kodi Remote App designed specifically for Android devices.
Arne Exton, the creator of numerous Linux distros, had the pleasure of informing Softpedia about the immediate availability of a new build of his custom Android-x86 project, based on Android KitKat 4.4.4 and designed to allow users to run Android on their computers.
Life’s not so good when you’re stuck in the shadow of a big rival with deep pockets, but if anything can drag LG into the sunlight, it’s the new G4. LG’s flagship Android smartphone for 2015, the G4 takes what we loved about the G3 before it - and made it into the Android-to-have among those in the know - and hits the boost button. Screen, camera, performance, all have been in line for an upgrade. Nonetheless, the rest of the mobile world hasn’t stood still either, so does the G4 have what it takes to push back against Samsung’s excellent Galaxy S6?
Qualcomm Atheros, Lantiq (part of Intel) and Broadcom have appointed representatives to the board of the Prpl (‘purple’) Foundation, organisation set-up by Imagination Technologies to support open-source software on the MIPS architecture.
Held in Tirana and with attention on gathering free libre open source technology users, developers, academics, governmental agencies and people who share the same idea. Oscal aimed to inform and promote that software should be free and open for the local community and governments to develop and customize to its needs; that knowledge is a communal property and free and open to everyone. The conference is supported and organized by Open Labs, the community that promotes free libre open source culture in Albania since 2012.
Today we’re excited to announce two new additions to the leadership team at Mozilla, one joining us for the first time today, and the other returning.
As anyone pursuing a big data initiative knows, every big data strategy really has two components: the technology and the people. The technology part is actually very simple to solve, relative to the people. As long as you're not trying to crack big data problems with relational database technology from 2004, this piece of the equation shouldn't be a big scary beast.
Just a few months ago, Pivotal announced that it would open source its entire big data stack: the Pivotal HD distribution, Pivotal Greenplum Database, Pivotal GemFire real-time distributed data store, Pivotal SQLFire (a SQL layer for the real-time distributed data store), Pivotal GemFire XD (in-memory SQL over HDFS) and the Pivotal HAWQ parallel query engine over HDFS. These updates, says Michael Cucchi, senior director of Outbound Product at Pivotal, underscore Pivotal's continued commitment to supporting that open source strategy.
Koha is a concept from Maori culture that can be translated as gift, present, offering, donation, or contribution. And, isn't that concept the ethos of open source culture?
Besides the six new X.Org projects this summer, there's also a lot of other interesting projects being pursued over the next few months via Google's annual Summer of Code initiative.
DragonFlyBSD developers continue porting over code from the Linux kernel's i915 DRM driver for supporting newer Intel graphics features on BSD. The latest work is for matching the DragonFlyBSD's ported Intel driver up through the code found in the Linux 3.14 kernel.
The first beta of GhostBSD 10.1, the desktop-focused distribution using the FreeBSD kernel with MATE Desktop Environment, is now available.
Here at Opensource.com, the staff, community moderators, and contributors strive to show how the ideas underpinning open source go beyond technology and apply to all aspects of life and society. Imagine organizing a conference around that idea.
Surrounded by small yet sturdy pieces of 3D-printed plastic, a Macintosh and a couple of 3D-printers, sits 22-year-old Diwakar Vaish at New Delhi-based A-SET Training & Research Institute’s robotics lab watching a robot move its mechanical joints to groovy songs from old Bollywood movies. Vaish, who has a faint smile playing along his lips while watching the show, has jolted the robotics sector with his new first ever 3D-printed humanoid robot.
But what about the motors themselves? For his entry to The Hackaday Prize, [Shane] is designing an open source engine. It’s small, it’s a two-stroke, and it’s diesel, but it’s completely open hardware; a great enabling project for all the open source dirt bikes and microcombines.
The Khronos Group today announced the official release of the SYCL 1.2 specification. SYCL is the Khronos Group's single-source heterogeneous programming language that serves as an abstraction layer for utilizing OpenCL while writing standard C++ code.
Lots of chatter in my news feeds the last few days about Oracle allegedly hiring most of Nebula's OpenStack devs. Trouble is it's not entirely accurate.
[...]
I can't speak to the rest of Nebula staff, and no doubt some of them have landed at Oracle - but not all.
Hackers will put Internet-connected embedded devices to the test at the DefCon 23 security conference in August. Judging by the results of previous Internet-of-Things security reviews, prepare for flaws galore.
Recently, I have received a large amount of subscription confirmation emails. These mails are from public mailing lists, especially lists of Free and Open Source Projects, included but not limited to OpenBSD, FreeBSD, GNU Project, Ubuntu, CentOS, and Qt. The "subscribers" are from multiple IP addresses. After I shared my experience to social networks, I have found more than 10 victims of the same attack, included a famous Chinese tech-blog writer. One of us received more than 10k email for 24 hours. Some of our emails have already stopped operating and refusing all new incoming emails.
A worrying factor at this early point, according to the retired official, was Saudi Arabia, which had been financing bin Laden’s upkeep since his seizure by the Pakistanis. ‘The Saudis didn’t want bin Laden’s presence revealed to us because he was a Saudi, and so they told the Pakistanis to keep him out of the picture. The Saudis feared if we knew we would pressure the Pakistanis to let bin Laden start talking to us about what the Saudis had been doing with al-Qaida. And they were dropping money – lots of it. The Pakistanis, in turn, were concerned that the Saudis might spill the beans about their control of bin Laden. The fear was that if the US found out about bin Laden from Riyadh, all hell would break out. The Americans learning about bin Laden’s imprisonment from a walk-in was not the worst thing.’
Whatever her views on other matters are, Pamela Geller is right about one thing: last week’s Islamist assault on the “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest she hosted in Texas proves the jihad against freedom of expression has opened a front in the United States. “There is,” she said, “a war on free speech and this violent attack is a harbinger of things to come.” Apparently undaunted, Geller promises to continue with such “freedom of speech” events. ISIS is now threatening to assassinate her. She and her cohorts came close to becoming victims, yet some in the media on the right and the center-right have essentially blamed her for the gunmen’s attack, just as far too many, last January, surreptitiously pardoned the Kouachi brothers and, with consummate perfidy to human decency, inculpated the satirical cartoonists they slaughtered, saying “Charlie Hebdo asked for it.”
The Conservatives are already planning to introduce the huge surveillance powers known as the Snoopers’ Charter, hoping that the removal from government of the Liberal Democrats that previously blocked the controversial law will allow it to go through.
The law, officially known as the Draft Communications Data Bill, is already back on the agenda according to Theresa May. It is expected to force British internet service providers to keep huge amounts of data on their customers, and to make that information available to the government and security services.
Faced with criticism from lawmakers and civil rights groups, the U.S. Department of Justice has begun a review of the secretive use of cellphone surveillance technology that mimics cellphone towers, and will get more open on its use, according to a newspaper report.
Information security professionals were overwhelmingly opposed to a plea to rethink encryption by the Department of Homeland Security at last week's RSA conference.
But it’s too late for that now. All the money – $16,000 in cash – that Joseph Rivers said he had saved and relatives had given him to launch his dream in Hollywood is gone, seized during his trip out West not by thieves but by Drug Enforcement Administration agents during a stop at the Amtrak train station in Albuquerque.
The ACLU has a "new" app available that allows users to record interactions with the police and automatically upload them to the ACLU's servers to preserve the footage in case the phone is seized… or smashed on the ground.
Public libraries started appearing in the mid-1800s. At the time, publishers went absolutely berserk: they had been lobbying for the lending of books to become illegal, as reading a book without paying anything first was “stealing”, they argued. As a consequence, they considered private libraries at the time to be hotbeds of crime and robbery. (Those libraries were so-called “subscription libraries”, so they were argued to be for-profit, too.)