One of the most crucial pieces of any UNIX-like operating system is the init dæmon process. In Linux, this process is started by the kernel, and it's the first userspace process to spawn and the last one to die during shutdown.
During the history of UNIX and Linux, many init systems have gained popularity and then faded away. In this article, I focus on the history of the init system as it relates to Linux, and I talk about the role of init in a modern Linux system. I also relate some of the history of the System V Init (SysV) scheme, which was the de facto standard for many Linux distributions for a long time. Then I cover a couple more modern approaches to system initialization, such as Upstart and systemd. Finally, I pay some attention to how things work in systemd, as this seems to be the popular choice at the moment for several of the largest distributions.
A reddit discussion that focused on things about Linux that most users don't know has gotten tons of responses, and some of them are quite interesting and informative.
When TrackingPoint first showcased its Linux-powered scopes with tracking assistance that substantially improved rifle accuracy, even in the hands of untrained hunters, it kicked off a controversy over what level of technology was appropriate for hunting or home defense, and whether the company encouraged irresponsible behavior. Now, it seems that debate is coming to an end thanks to imminent financial failure. While the company’s website remains online for now, there’s a new header that notes: “Due to financial difficulty, TrackingPoint will no longer be accepting orders. Thank you to our customers and loyal followers for sharing our vision.”
The parent company behind the Linux rifle, TrackingPoint, is having financial difficulties and is no longer accepting orders. Elsewhere, Tony Mobily said the time for Desktop Linux passed without it ever becoming a success while Bruce Byfield discusses how the design philosophy of desktop projects influences their end product. Qt and KDE celebrated 20 years of Qt development goodness and Linux.com wants to know your favorite single-board computer.
Master Linux quickly and efficiently with the next great courseware offer from TNW Deals. The Linux Learner Bundle puts you in command of the basics with 6 elite courses and 50+ hours of interactive learning content.
What they heck? Run KVM VMs inside of Docker containers? Why would anyone want to do that? Well, so you can embed KVM VM disk images inside of Docker images... and easily deploy a KVM VM (almost) as easily as a Docker container. That kind of makes my head hurt just thinking about running a Windows 7 Desktop inside of a Docker container... but someone out there is doing that. Yikes!
Dell is one of the most important providers of Ubuntu-powered hardware, and the company has just released a new laptop called Inspiron 15 3000 Series Laptop Ubuntu Edition.
Companies like Dell or IBM have helped to make Ubuntu much more popular because they sell a lot of hardware, and they are shipping that hardware with Ubuntu preinstalled. It might not seem like a big deal. After all, you can always install something else, but many customers don't switch to a different OS and Ubuntu remains installed.
Buyers, especially tech enthusiasts are crazy about the latest tablets and phones that roll out, thus the sales for PCs are pretty low. In the near future, individuals may start using these devices as desktop PCs instead. A major blow for the computer companies might be on the verge of happening, thus a new design concerning the software may also be implemented. So, we can say goodbye to operation systems and apps with one sole UI. It would be awesome though to see how the apps we use change their format depending on how they are being used. This whole process was called convergence and was inspired by those who creating Ubuntu OS when they rolled out a mobile device that also worked as a computer back in 2013. And even though the campaign for this phone didn’t go as planned, those at Canonical were dedicated to implement big changes and make their Ubuntu operating system, into this versatile UI. And right behind them is the Microsoft Company, a strong competitor that also wishes to do the same thing with Windows 10. So it seems that the “convergence” battle is on and the question is: which one will stir the biggest wave?
The Argentinian devs who created Popcorn Time took down its website and GitHub repository in July 2014 in response to a takedown request from the Motion Picture Association of America.
A couple of teams later forked the original Popcorn Time source code. One fork is PopcornTime.io, and the other is Popcorn-time.se .
A new release 0.2.13 of RInside is now on CRAN. RInside provides a set of convenience classes which facilitate embedding of R inside of C++ applications and programs, using the classes and functions provided by Rcpp.
OpenMS is free software available under the three clause BSD license and runs under Windows, MacOSX and Linux.
Adblock Plus today launched Adblock Browser for Android. Currently in beta, the company’s first browser was created by taking the open-source Firefox for Android and including Adblock Plus out-of-the-box.
The first Beta for LibreOffice 5.0 has been released by The Document Foundation and the bug hunting season has been declared officially opened.
We have another four classic games that have gained Linux support thanks to GOG.com, our collection seems to be growing nicely with them!
We already knew that the Linux port of Van Helsing was put on hold, but now it seems the developers aren't going to port any of them to Linux.
Endless Legend was originally going to come to Linux, and then the developers decided it wasn't worth it. The Linux client had even been started and was looking good, but was dropped after the Windows and Mac OS clients were deemed too buggy. Now SteamOS has appeared in their voting system for what to work on, it needs votes.
The new Humble Paradox Bundle is now available for purchase, even if it's not exactly the most Linux-friendly collection of titles released so far under the Humble Bundle umbrella.
The famous Cossacks RTS series is returning after a decade, and it will be released as a Linux title as well. It's being developed by the same studio that made the original games, GSC Game World.
Linux desktop users have two main sets of utilities: KDE's and GNOME's. The GNOME utilities are found in GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon and Unity. Neither KDE nor GNOME has any objective advantage over the other, but the user experiences are so different that they could almost be two different operating systems.
Both utility sets have the same basic features, but each starts with its own concept of what users want. As I have said before, GNOME's utilities are exercises in minimalism, generally designed only for the most common use cases. By contrast, KDE's utilities are completist, typically cramming every possibly related feature into their windows, as well as every possible opportunity for customization.
On May 20, Steven Shiau announced the immediate availability for download and testing of a new development version of his popular Clonezilla Live CD that helps users with disk cloning operations.
Arne Exton, the creator of several distributions of GNU/Linux and Android-x86 Live CDs, has updated his LFA (Linux For ALL) distribution recently with a new, custom kernel package and various under-the-hood improvements.
Building on my experiences with chromium-dev (the development channel of the Chromium browser which is currently at version 44), I have made similar changes to my latest package for the chromium browser and its widevine and pepperflash plugins.
When high-value analytics can be brought to every worker's fingers, the old-style organizational structure becomes inefficient, Whitehurst writes. You want only employees who are mission-oriented, dedicated to what the company is all about, and you want to empower them to fulfill that mission, weeding out those who aren't so dedicated.
A recent Red Hat survey on mobile trends revealed that 70 percent of organizations plan to embrace the Internet of Things in the next 5 years. So where is Red Hat on the IoT stage?
To further understand Red Hat's IoT strategy, I reached out to the company's Senior Director of Product Marketing, Mark Coggin.
Fedora 22 is scheduled to be released next week but for that to happen there's still a number of blocker bugs that need to be addressed. The second release candidate of Fedora 22 Final is now available for those wishing to stress this major update of the Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution.
It's been four years and two weeks since Mark Shuttleworth expressed his goal of "200 million users of Ubuntu in 4 years." While Ubuntu's presence has continued to increase over the past four years, it doesn't look like that goal has been realized yet or will be by the end of the calendar year.
Canonical shows off its Orange Match Box appliance that runs Ubuntu's Snappy Linux at the OpenStack Summit.
Canonical published recently the first daily build Live ISO images of the upcoming Ubuntu Desktop Next 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) operating system were made available for download.
On May 20, Canonical published a new Ubuntu security notice where they've informed users about the immediate availability of a new kernel update for its Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system.
On May 20, Canonical published a new Ubuntu security notice where they've informed users about the immediate availability of a new kernel update for its Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system.
On May 20, Canonical had the pleasure of showcasing its latest products at the OpenStack Summit event that takes place these days between May 18-22, 2015 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The release schedule for Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) has been finalized, and we now have all the intermediary steps and the launch date for the next operating system from Canonical.
Details about a number of Oxide vulnerabilities which have been found and fixed in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, have been detailed in a security notification.
Canonical and Ubuntu continue to suffer the slings and arrows of the Linux community. Jack Wallen believes the infighting carries a hefty cost.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of open-source supplier Canonical, continues to strive towards the vision of a converged handheld device, despite his failed attempt to raise $32m through crowdfunding for Ubuntu Edge, the smartphone that doubles as a desktop PC.
Recalling the crowdfunding initiative that fell short by $13m, he says: “I’m really proud how people stepped up and said it was a good idea. We concentrated all our efforts on the software and now we're shipping phones.”
The 2015 Linux hacker board survey has arrived. In its second year, this collaboration between Linux.com and LinuxGizmos.com has collected 53 open-spec, community backed SBCs that run Linux and/or Android. Please take a few minutes to fill out our short SurveyMonkey SBC Survey, and select your favorite SBCs, then enter a drawing to become one of 20 randomly chosen participants who receive a free Linux SBC. Farther below, we offer brief summaries of the 53 boards, with links to product pages.
Rate your favorite hacker SBCs, and you might win one of 20 SBCs including the BeagleBone Black, Creator CI20, DragonBoard 410c, and Edison Kit for Arduino.
The Lemon Pi single board computer tries to copy the success of the very popular Raspberry Pi, even the 40-pins feature port of the Raspberry Pi is copied(!)
The Lemon Pi features a powerful ARM Quad-core cortex A9 and Imagination PowerVR SGX544 GPU. Connectivity is handled by Multi-USBs, I2C, SPI, UART, I2S, PCM, SPDIF, MIPI DSI / CSI, HDMI, and Ethernet ports.
Linux—or a form of it, at least—and other open source programs soon could be playing a bigger role in the mobile and tablet market in Russia. And it has concerns over spying by the NSA to thank.
Google’s finally confirmed the Nexus 4 Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update and the new firmware should start rolling out in the near future. Here’s what owners of the former flagship need to know about the company’s brand new Nexus 4 Android 5.1.1 Lollipop release.
Google isn’t just going to sit back and let Apple take all the glory when it comes to smartwatches. The search giant has just begun rolling out the first major update for its Android Wear platform, adding a plethora of new features to the smartwatch mix.
We can be pretty confident that Google will be launching Android M at Google I/O next week, after it was accidentally mentioned in an Android for Work event schedule. As Android continues to mature with each new version it’s getting harder to predict what’s up next. We don’t expect a major overhaul this time around, but there’s definitely still work to be done.
Is the Android security risk overstated?
Developers are said to be reluctant to modify iPhone and Android apps for Windows Phone over doubts over app quality and how easy the process will be
Instagram’s Layout app, which landed on iOS in March, is coming to Android today.
Google has introduced a new limited run of Android device accessories called ‘Edition’ cases. These cases, which come in sizes compatible with Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Samsung Galaxy S5, Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 4, also come with a live wallpaper to match which displays satellite-captured images of Earth by night and constellation pics from the night sky of your current location by night.
What we're seeing on the right is a Motorola Droid Turbo that runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, despite the fact that an official Lollipop update has yet to be rolled out to the handset. The explanation for this is that the device pictured here belongs to Jose Arturo, one of Verizon's device test engineers, who says that the 5.1 update should reach end users starting mid June.
Researchers said there's an urgent need to mitigate runtime-information-gathering (RIG) attacks on Android mobile and Android-controlled Internet of Things devices. They demonstrated RIG attacks against IoT devices and developed an app to stop such attacks.
For many Nexus owners, the wait for Android 5.1.1 is finally over. Today, OTAs began rolling out for several Nexus devices which had thus far been stuck on Android 5.1. If waiting on an OTA update isn't your thing, you can now head on over to Google's Nexus developer page to get the latest factory images.
A couple months ago, Facebook’s photo social network Instagram released a popular collage app called Layout for iOS. Now Layout is available for Android. The Layout app lets you create a collage of your photos and it can be shared on social networks like Facebook or Instagram. The photo collage also saves to your Android device so that you can message it to your friends and family.
Even though they get plenty of attention from the press, the newest Android flagships aren’t necessary the best choices for many smartphone buyers, especially for Android fans looking for affordable high-end devices. The Asus ZenFone 2 is one alternative, a cheap Android phone that packs 4GB of RAM and costs just $299 in the U.S. However, there are plenty of other premium Android phones overseas that meet the same criteria: They’re powerful and significantly cheaper than the Galaxy S6, Nexus 6, HTC One M9 or LG G4. Unfortunately, many of them are also out of your reach, including the following two devices.
Last month the Nvidia Shield Android TV 500GB “Pro edition” showed up on Nvidia’s website with a price tag listed at $300, but shortly after this Nvidia pulled down the listing, claiming that this was a developer SKU and had been put up by mistake. As it turns out, that’s not exactly the whole story.
Here at BGR, most of our smartphone coverage focuses on brand new smartphonesthat are cutting-edge and high-end. After all, a huge portion of our readership consists of savvy tech fans who always need to have the latest and greatest gear. But not all of our readers are quite so enthusiastic, and some would rather save money and buy a more affordable smartphone — after all, $650, $750 or even $800+ is a whole lot of cash to spend on a phone.
If you’re looking to buy a new smartphone and want to get some serious bang for your buck, here are two options that you can pick up at shockingly low prices.
The Information is back with more Google news before I/O. The outlet claims that Google is developing another operating system, this time for low-power "Internet of Things" (IoT) devices. The OS is codenamed "Brillo," and the publication claims Google "is likely to release the software under the Android brand, as the group developing the software is linked to the company’s Android unit." We're going to take that to mean "it's based on Android."
So as technology leaders — as the drivers of innovation — we must always be on the lookout for new ways to ready our organizations for agility. One means to that end is open source. Open source is the ultimate platform for flexibility, right? A platform that affords us the agility we need to quickly adapt as technology evolves, business demands expand and markets mature. A platform that allows us to innovate how we want, when we want — rather than innovating on the path and at the pace of our vendors.
Cultural heritage management tends to suffer from limited funding and resources, which can make a crisis — whether natural disaster, pipeline construction, or war — that much more catastrophic for assessing what’s in need of protection. An open-source system called Arches is the first online tool designed specifically to inventory heritage sites. It was created through a partnership between the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), and its third version launched earlier this month.
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Protocols Plugfest Europe 2015. It was really good to get out of the bubble of free software desktops where the community love makes it tempting to think we’re the most important thing in the world and experience the wider industry where of course we are only a small player.
I was in Depok, Indonesia last week to speak at GNOME Asia 2015. It was a great experience — the organisers did a fantastic job and as a bonus, the venue was incredibly pretty!
This is based on the proprietary former addon pocket, which is now no longer supported since it is being integrated.
It's only the beta channel, but this has all the hallmarks of a half-baked revenue stream for Mozilla that ultimately sells out user privacy - and what's worse, is opt-out, rather than opt-in.
Ever since NASA and Rackspace first got together in 2010 to create OpenStack, there has been the concept of an integrated OpenStack release. However, at the OpenStack Summit here this week, developers declared the integrated release model to be dead, being replaced with a new "Big Tent" model that redefines what OpenStack includes as a platform.
But backers of the project insist it’s as strong as ever. This week OpenStack is in the midst of its 11th semi-annual Summit in Vancouver. From all accounts it’s got the feel of a real tech show with an estimated 6,000 attendees and more than 500 companies supporting the project.
Alan Clark, chairman of the board at the OpenStack Foundation, discusses new efforts under way to improve diversity and grow the open-source cloud platform.
LibreOffice is a great OpenSource project. They have a Design Group and help you a lot if you’d like to do something for LibreOffice. Now LibreOffice prepare the new release LibreOffice 5.0 and for this release I’d like to be finished the LibreOffice Breeze icon set. Uri and I work since last November on the icon set so you also have a package available in your repository. Now I’d like to post that we are nearly finished. 98 % (2.700 icons) of the icon set is done, so it is ready for your review. As the monochrome LibreOffice icon set Sifr is less finished than Breeze, I though the fallback icon set for Sifr is Breeze.
Open source is increasingly changing the software industry. We can see open source products gaining market share in almost every category today, and this development is continuing at a fast pace.
Although a lot of business people still intuitively think of Linux when it comes to open source software, content management systems played a pivotal role in changing the mindset within corporations. Why? Because the CMS industry was one of the first to largely adopt open source products. Nowadays, the most corporations use open source content management systems for their web platforms. Some of them may not even realize it.
The action plan that France must submit as part of its membership of the Open government partnership (OGP) is mainly build on reforms already announced.
France will chair the Open Government Partnership from October 2016 to October 2017, after the OGP Steering Committee accepted France’s application at a meeting in Mexico on April 24.
Eastern Central Europe has to reinvent itself and digital tools are the way to succeed. This is one of the conclusions drawn during the Personal Democracy Forum Poland-Central Eastern. This conference, which took place in Warsaw in mid-April, was organised by the ePaà âstwo Foundation (Fundacja ePaà âstwo) - a Polish NGO aiming at developing democracy and transparency.
Last week, VA’s Center for Innovation launched its three-month Innovation Creation Series for Prosthetics and Assistive Technologies. The aim of the series is to build a suite of special prosthetics and other state-of-the-art technologies to support wounded veterans in their day-to-day lives.
Although Java was developed at Sun Microsystems, Oracle has served as the platform's steward since acquiring Sun in early 2010. During that time, Oracle has released Java 7 and Java 8, with version 9 due up next year. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill recently spoke to Oracle's Georges Saab, vice president of software development for the Java Platform Group, about the occasion of Java's 20th anniversary.
Following a report on Sunday, where Human Rights Watch said video and photographic evidence showed that Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs near villages in Yemen’s Saada Province at least two separate times, the US State Department said it is "looking into" the allegations but, as Foreign Policy reports, said the notoriously imprecise weapon — banned by much of the world — could still have an appropriate role to play in Riyadh’s U.S.-backed offensive (as long as it was used carefully).
The US is trying to win “hearts and minds” in Africa. It’s not going well.
Fox personalities criticized President Obama for calling climate change "an immediate risk to our national security" during his U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement address. But security experts agree with the president that global climate change does threaten U.S. national security.
The Nobel laureate writes, “There is much confusion about ISDS, but plain and simple: ISDS is about rewriting the rules of how our economy works, tipping the balance of power in favor of big businesses at the expense of workers and the public here and in partner countries.”
There is “no ducking the fact” that spending on the police has to face further cuts but it “is perfectly possible” to do it without affecting the quality of neighbourhood policing, the home secretary, Theresa May, has told officers.
Silence From Network After Christian Minister Arrested For Threatening To Kill Muslims
During a bizarre appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested the Obama administration is engaging in "Nazi stuff" by using ethnic politics, and wants to confiscate all the country's firearms and put people "in jail for even having them."
For an international fugitive hiding out in Russia from American espionage charges, Edward J. Snowden gets around.
May has been another month of virtual globe-hopping for Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, with video appearances so far at Princeton and in a “distinguished speakers” series at Stanford and at conferences in Norway and Australia. Before the month is out, he is scheduled to speak by video to audiences in Italy, and also in Ecuador, where there will be a screening of “Citizenfour,” the Oscar-winning documentary about him.
Communications massively collected for further behavioural analysis and profiling (PRISM) and sabotage of any commercial product dedicated to protect our data and communications (BULLRUN) are just examples of how everyday technology, now part of ourselves, has been systematically perverted and turned against us.
Back in January, David Cameron made what sounded like a threat to ban, or at least undermine, encryption in the UK. "The question is," Cameron said, "are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read. My answer to that question is: no, we must not." On its own that might be dismissed as a politician talking tough to please his supporters, but it's part of a much wider attack on strong encryption from the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic.
In October last year, FBI Director James Comey spoke of his agency's fears about things "going dark" because of encryption, while NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said encryption "does a terrible disservice to the public." A month later, NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker offered the view that the reason Blackberry had failed was because it used "too much encryption." More recently, Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, said encryption is "the biggest problem for the police and the security service authorities in dealing with the threats from terrorism," while the UK's National Policing Lead for Counter-Terrorism, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, called products that offer strong encryption "friendly to terrorists."
Cooke knew the CBP agents needed something in the way of reasonable suspicion to continue to detain her. But they had nothing. The only thing offered in the way of explanation as they ordered her to return to her detained vehicle was that she appeared "nervous" during her prior interaction with the female CBP agent. This threadbare assertion of "reasonable suspicion" is law enforcement's blank check -- one it writes itself and cashes with impunity.
After presenting her driver's license, Cooke, who surely learned in college that police (and even CBP agents!) need "reasonable suspicion" to detain someone, asks why she was pulled over. "You guys have no reason to be holding me," she says. A male agent who identifies himself as a supervisor has no explanation for the detention, but he says Cooke will have to wait for a drug-sniffing dog to inspect her car. "Well, they'd better be here soon, because if not, I'm calling 911, and this can all be figured out," Cooke says. "You guys are holding me here against my will." Eventually the female agent who first interacted with Cooke says she seemed nervous—an all-purpose excuse for detaining someone, since people tend to be nervous when confronted by armed government officials.
A Florida man who piloted a gyrocopter through miles of America's most restricted airspace before landing at the U.S. Capitol is now facing charges that carry up to 9€½ years in prison.
The Florida postal worker who flew his gyrocopter under the radar into Washington and onto the West Lawn of the Capitol earlier this year faces nearly 10 years in prison after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday.
Doug Hughes, 61, was indicted in U.S. District Court in D.C. on two felony counts of flying without a pilot's certificate and lacking registration for his small aircraft, each carrying up to three years in prison.