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Links 2/10/2015: Qubes 3.0, Linux.Wifatch





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop



    • Why your Linux PC isn't vulnerable to the devastating XOR DDoS malware
      Linux isn’t perfectly secure, but there’s no big Linux exploit story here. The real problem is how many poorly configured Linux systems exist in the real world. Linux isn’t a magic bullet that will make a system secure—it has to be locked down properly, too.


    • Google Chromebooks: The most popular classroom computing device
      In Apple's place, Google with its Chromebooks have stepped in. Chromebooks are cheaper, easier to manage, and easy to share between students. The low upfront price is a big factor, but there's far more.

      For example, Google offers programs just for schools, Google Apps for Education Suite; class-specific ChromeOS and Android apps, and Google Play for Education. Chromebooks that come with Google Play for Education range at prices from $199 to $227.


    • Kali Linux: Why Aren’t We Arguing More about Mr Robot?
      In episode 0 of Mr Robot, we’re introduced to our hiro protagonist [Elliot], played by [Rami Malek], a tech at the security firm AllSafe. We are also introduced to the show’s Macbeth, [Tyrell Wellick], played by Martin Wallström]. When these characters are introduced to each other, [Tyrell] notices [Elliot] is using the Gnome desktop on his work computer while [Tyrell] says he’s, “actually on KDE myself. I know [Gnome] is supposed to be better, but you know what they say, old habits, they die hard.”




  • Server



    • Google and NASA are getting a new quantum computer
      The famous Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab is getting some powerful new hardware. A joint project between Google, NASA, and the Universities Space Research Association, the Quantum AI Lab today announced a multiyear agreement to install a D-Wave 2X, a state-of-the-art quantum processor released earlier this year. With over 1,000 qubits, the machine is the most powerful computer of its kind, and will be put to work tackling difficult optimization problems for both Google and NASA.




  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



      • Kubuntu: Plasma 5.4.2 Ready testing! Come join the fun.
        Today we have the latest Plasma 5.4.2 ready for Wily (backports will not be made until this one has been tested and released)


      • The Future of Kontact
        Supplemental to what we reported previously about the work in Randa [1, 2] there was a session on the future of Kontact, KDE’s personal information manager (PIM). Over the years this tool has evolved into a monster making both development as well as usage sometimes tricky. It’s time to cut hydra’s arms.






  • Distributions



  • Devices/Embedded



    • Compact, low power IoT gateway runs Linux on i.MX6
      VIA’s 30mm tall “Artigo A820” IoT gateway runs Linux on an i.MX6 DualLite, and offers optional WiFi and 3G in addition to Fast and GbE Ethernet ports.

      Like last year’s Artigo A900 mini-PC, the Artigo A820 runs Linux on a dual-core, 1GHz Cortex-A9 SoC. This time, however, VIA Technologies has turned to Freescale’s i.MX6 DualLite SoC instead of its own Via Elite E1000.


    • Phones



      • Fairphone launches v2 of it conflict-free, upgradeable smartphone


        There's a company offering a repairable and upgradable smartphone out there and Jack Wallen believe it is just what the world needs. Read on to see if you agree.


      • Android

        • Facebook gives Android a kick in the byte code
          To improve the mobile performance of its social network, Facebook is enhancing Java bytecode on the Android platform with its Redex project, providing a pipeline for optimizing Android DEX (Dalvik Executable) files.


        • 13 of the best Android apps from September
          Coming off the back of the summer holidays always make September a busy month and this year it was no different.

          From useful spam fighting options arriving for Gmail to movie tracking and the launch of a huge repository of online tutorials across a range of subjects.

          We’ve sorted the wheat from the chaff and what follows is the best new and updated apps from September.

          All you need to do is clear a few minutes in your schedule and click your way through the list.


        • Google reveals new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices
          Google's Chromecast streaming media player has proven to be a popular item on Amazon, getting four star ratings and lots of positive comments from Amazon customers. Now Google has announced a brand new Chromecast, and also the new Chromecast Audio device.


        • Hands on: Google Pixel C convertible tablet
          It’s difficult to tell if the new Google Pixel C is a great idea, or an awful one. It feels like a greatest hits list of Windows 8 convertible failures. It’s a clamshell, and the tablet is connected to the keyboard via magnets. But to open it or close it, you have to pull it apart and reconnect it. You can also flip the tablet upright and stick the keyboard to the back of it, though it makes the tablet thicker and heavier than you may like. The entire converting process is messy. Google tries to cover it all up with a beautiful aluminum design and smooth hinges that adjust angle easily. But will it be fun to use every day? I’m not so sure.


        • Google announces the LG Nexus 5X and Huawei Nexus 6P; pre-orders start today
          Google has officially taken the wraps off its new flagship smartphone lineup. In keeping with the current smartphone release trends, Google is announcing two devices today: the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. The 5X is made by LG, and the 6P is made by Huawei. The Nexus 5X starts at $379, and the 6P starts at $499, and both phones will ship later this month. Pricing for other territories is starting to dribble in—the Nexus 5X and 6P will begin at €£339 and €£449 respectively in the UK—but we'll update the article with more complete information as it's made available.


        • Google announces the new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio
          The new Chromecast has a disk-like design, a departure from the original's dongle construction. Its improved internals should also make streaming easier and faster. Now featuring three antennas, it supports 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi for faster connectivity and heavier formats like 1080p. While the new Chromecast handles video and game streaming, the Chromecast Audio device will handle streaming music or podcasts. The new Chromecast plugs into a device with HDMI; Audio uses both optical and headphone jacks to plug into speakers.


        • Huawei’s first Android Wear watch is a beautiful yet basic timepiece
          Huawei isn't exactly the first company that comes to mind when you think of stylish connected devices. The Chinese manufacturer has delved into wearables with its TalkBand series, but those were slow to come to the US and their fitness tracker-meets-Bluetooth-headset capabilities were peculiar. Now Huawei wants to test the waters of Google's wearable OS with its new smartwatch, simply dubbed the Huawei Watch, and it's a solid first attempt at Android Wear.










Free Software/Open Source



  • Apache Foundation retains informal vibe to manage $1m of open-source projects
    The Apache open-source community gathered at its annual conference in Europe this week to collaborate on new projects to drive the future of the web and cloud ecosystems, with a handful of new projects under incubation.


  • Seize the opportunity to explain open source
    Kids have an insatiable appetite for knowledge. I would estimate that all of us with children have had them go through a phase of asking "Why?" constantly. In truth, it often comes at the most inconvenient moment for a parent; like when the world is literally going to explode unless your child puts down the green marker pen, and instead of doing it, they just look up at you and ask "Why?" I was no different. I went through the "Why?" phase. My daughter has been through it and my nephew is going through it right now.


  • AWS launches a managed Elasticsearch service
  • Amazon launches managed Elasticsearch service
  • AWS debuts Elasticsearch Search, its distributed search and analytics engine
  • Amazon flings open source Elasticsearch at Big Data's cloud
  • New Amazon Elasticsearch service eases setup, with exceptions


  • Amazon Adds Open Source Elasticsearch Platform to AWS Cloud
    Elasticsearch is a Java-based open source framework for searching textual documents on a massive scale. It is designed to be highly scalable and compatible with cluster-based distributed-computing infrastructure.


  • IBM and EMC team up: There’s no “I” in open source
    Sometimes when you are distracting the signal from the noise, you get an exclusive. Today theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, got the full story on the EMC and IBM partnership to work in an open-source environment to make Hadoop more accessible to the enterprise.


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • Firefox Is Much Better than Any Other Browser and Here's Why
        We often read about comparative tests between browsers and we see that Google Chrome or Opera are extremely fast, or that some other browser gets really good scores in rendering, and so on. The truth is that none of that really matters when you are using browsers in the real world, and in the real world Firefox shines and it's head and shoulders above everything else.






  • SaaS/Big Data



    • The return of TryStack, life as a PTL, and more OpenStack news
      Interested in keeping track of what's happening in the open source cloud?


    • A Brief Comparison of Mesos and Kubernetes
      The recent announcement of Mesos on Windows means developers and organizations that work between Linux and Windows platforms may use their own tools without requiring heavy resource management. Those working with the Google Cloud Engine may prefer working with Kubernetes, while people accustomed to Microsoft Azure may enjoy the Mesosphere workflow pipeline. Each has their own strengths and shortcomings, though the gap between stack management services lessens as more technology is brought to other platforms.


    • MapR Technologies Unveils In-Hadoop Document Database
      MapR integrates Web-scale enterprise storage and real-time database management and adds native JSON support to MapR-DB, its NoSQL database.




  • Databases



    • Pivotal Aims at Oracle Database Business with Open Source Tech
      Software company Pivotal is taking on Oracle’s traditional database business with its latest effort to advance open source. The company is contributing both HAWQ advanced SQL on Hortonworks’ Hadoop analytics and MADlib machine learning technologies to The Apache Software Foundation (ASF).




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS



    • If Drupal were a band it would be Rush
      Getting my clients' developers and sysadmins to stick to all of the documented processes I've set up for them.

      I have years of experience implementing Drupal-based solutions, so I have a rather solid understanding of what works and what doesn't. But some folks without any experience with Drupal try to shoehorn it into incompatible environments. I do my best to explain all of this and why to ensure that, when I'm gone, folks can take all of my wiki documentation and run with it (use it and update it as necessary).




  • Business





    • Semi-Open Source





  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • What do you have to say? Share it at LibrePlanet 2016
      LibrePlanet 2016 is coming! Next year's conference will be held **March 19-20, 2016 in the Boston area**. The call for proposals is open now, until November 16th. General registration and exhibitor registration will open later in October.


    • Chicago GNU/Linux talk on Guix retrospective
      Friends... friends! I gave a talk on Guix last night in Chicago, and it went amazingly well. That feels like an undersell actually; it went remarkably well. There were 25 people, and apparently there was quite the waitlist, but I was really happy with the set of people who were in the room. I haven't talked about Guix in front of an audience before and I was afraid it would be a dud, but it's hard to explain the reaction I got. It felt like there was a general consensus in the room: Guix is taking the right approach to things.




  • Public Services/Government



    • EC to increase open source for software development
      The European Commission aims to primarily use open source tools for developing software that is distributed publicly, shows an overview on open source adoption that was presented last week by the EC’s Directorate General of Informatics (DIGIT) at a conference in Tampere (Finland). Already much of the EC’s own software is developed using open source. However, over the next 3 years, DIGIT will push to make ‘open source first’ the target for all the new EC software development projects.




  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • Most Popular Programming Languages In The IT industry
      Programmers are always in high demand these days for jobs, especially if they have fluency in coding language. Learning programming in various languages for engineers is a no-brainer, but some basic understanding of the languages can be invaluable to anyone, even if you’re not looking forward to becoming a master coder.


    • PHPUnit 5.0


    • PHP version 5.5.30 and 5.6.14
      RPM of PHP version 5.6.14 are available in remi repository for Fedora ≥ 21 and remi-php56 repository for Fedora ≤ 20 and Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS).






Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

The Slopfarms' Business Case (or Business Model) Never Existed and Nowadays, in 2026, They've Mostly Collapsed
Hopefully by year's end many slop suppliers will be offline and slopfarms that rely on them throw in the towel
IBM CEO and CFO Make It Hotter in the Kitchen
Who's gonna leave the kitchen while they cook the books?
 
Cult inquiry: Parliament of Victoria, last chance to have your say
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
When an Entire News Site is About One Topic (and One Topic Only)
Tomorrow we start a new series for the new month
Links 28/02/2026: Bill Epsteingate Admits Sex With Young Girls, "Epstein Files Are the Horror That Keeps on Giving"
Links for the day
IBM: Where Companies Come to Perish
thelayoff.com is censoring stories
Tech Layoffs Are Not Because of Slop, They're an Effect of a Rotting Economy and Tech Giants Being Too Deep in Debt
Block is rapidly sinking in debt
March in London Today Against Slop's Harms to Society (and the Environment), Starting at 12:00 GMT at the Microsoft OpenAI Office
Today there is a protest in London (UK)
Microsoft Mass Layoffs Have Officially Resumed, Microsoft's Waggener Edstrom/Frank Shaw Lied
"The former employees say this was a mass layoff"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 27, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 27, 2026
Links 27/02/2026: Block Cuts 40% of Its Workforce While Blaming Ponzi Scheme, Netflix Backs Out of Bid for Warner Bros.
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/02/2026: Unlearning Literacy (Slop) and Firefox as Slop-ware
Links for the day
It Looks Like Linux Chief Linus Torvalds Made a Good Call Regarding Kent 'Slop' Overstreet
Having never met or even chatted to Overstreet, I'm not in a position to judge him
Links 27/02/2026: Slop Incompatible With Nuclear Codes, Chinese Slop "Chatbots Censor Themselves"
Links for the day
Please Report the European Patent Office (EPO) to Europol for Cocaine Abuse and Tampering With Witnesses and Media to Hide This Cocaine Abuse
there are already police reports connected to the matter
Like a Mafia: Kris De Neef and Nellie Simon, Who Help Campinos Cover Up Cocainegate at the EPO (Substance Abuse at the Highest Office), Are Bullying EPO Whistleblowers
They're all in this together [...] At this point, undoubtedly, the EPO is run like an organised crime operation. Nothing more, nothing less.
pulltheplug.uk Says the Internet Harms Us, Will March in London Tomorrow
Maybe the site is down due to high access demand
EPO Management Trying to Hide Cocainegate, Silence/Discredit Whistleblowers, and Probably in a Panic Due to the Strikes
At the moment, Johannes' mates are receiving over 100,000 euros as a reward for doing illegal drugs
Jim Zemlin's 'Linux' Foundation is the Real Link Between Linux and Pedophilia
It's about the deeds, not the words
The GNU Manifesto Turns 41 in March (Next Week)
And RMS turns 73 next month
The Sister Site is Still Improving the Static Site Generator (SSG) We Use in Techrights
We have a common mission and every week we make measurable advancements
Techrights is 100% Disconnected From Cheeto's America, the Problem is Hired Guns in London Helping Violent Americans Attack Us Domestically
Not a new problem, not limited to us
Greenland Needs to Disconnect From United States Tech to Protect Its Independence
The more Greenland protects itself from Social Control Media, the more robust or resilient it'll be to regime change
Open Source Endowment (OSE) Looking to Raise Money for Free Software, But It's Hard to Know who Runs the Open Source Endowment Foundation
Their Web site does not (easily) show who the Board of Directors includes
Apple Doesn't Want Anybody to Ask What Happened to Vision Pro
They lost a lot of money
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on Slop and Breach of Confidentiality
They should absolutely not ignore this
If You Want More Verifiable (Auditable) Security, Use GNU Linux-Libre
GNU/Linux will never be 100% secure
Microsoft XBox Can't Stop Talking About Slop
Will we see more "prepared" (under embargo) Microsoft propaganda released simultaneously at 9PM tonight?
Rust Will Not Inherit the Earth, It Barely Deserves a Place on the Planet
Rust - like Haskell and many other short-lived fetishes - will come and go
Truth Versus Fiction: IBM's Collapse Due to Money Crunch, Not Slop Disguised as Code
core issue is financial
Almost 5,000 Known Gemini Capsules
It is now just 98 short of 5k
Priceless leaks found in crowdfunding campaign
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 26, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 26, 2026
[Video] "New RMS [Richard Stallman] Positive Media" Reaches Millions of Viewers This Week
Assuming 5+ million people will watch this on the first week, that's good publicity for the Free software movement
Another Quiet Slop Day Passes By
the number of slopfarms we can locate/track is fast decreasing
Gemini Links 26/02/2026: Sending a Thesis and Lupa/Onion ("Lupa now lists Gemini .onion addresses")
Links for the day
Links 26/02/2026: Bcachefs Man Bonkers, "Seven Journalists Convicted for Taking Photos at Courtroom"
Links for the day
Links 26/02/2026: "Peak Mental Sharpness" and "The Whole Economy Pays the Amazon Tax"
Links for the day
If You Value Privacy, Follow the Likes of Eben Moglen, Phil Zimmermann, and Richard Stallman, Not Back Doors' Boosters Who Mislabel Themselves as Security Experts
Signal is not really secure
"Community" Site Deleted by Jeffrey Epstein-Connected 'Linux' Foundation Had Interview Where Eben Moglen Spoke of GPLv3 and of DRM, Back Doors Etc.
Deleting what happened or what was said two decades ago
Richard Stallman (Free Software Foundation) and Eben Moglen (Columbia Law School) Explained 25 Years Ago That Proprietary Software (and Proprietary Firmware) Would Lead to Back Doors
a fortnight after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US
Writer's Block is Not a Problem to Us, Only a Lack of Time
Or timewasting by aggressive militants who try to silence us [...] People who experience writer's block very often find it depressing (it feels unproductive) and sometimes come to the conclusion that perhaps writing isn't for them
Giving to the Community Versus Taking From the Community (or Worse, Attacking the Community)
some people bring no contributions, only harm
LLM Slop Will Try to 'Rewrite' History of UNIX and GNU/Linux
We occasionally see slopfarms spreading misinformation about UNIX, GNU, and Linux
March Plans for Techrights
next month we plan to start the series about how the SRA failed
Where Does the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Stand on Machine-Generated Legal Documents and Copy-pasting One Client's Lawsuit to Start Another (for American Serial Strangler)?
Now that many law firms cheat (copypasta, paper DOoS, LLM slop, breaches of rules, even defaming the other side) the SRA cannot keep up
Of Course Android is Not Free Software
That Android is not about freedom should not be so shocking
Talking About Blackboxes
Having just reposted a couple of articles from Alex Oliva
Microsoft Slop is Already Killing XBox
Microsoft will fail at alleviating such concerns
Two Weeks Have Passed and It Looks Like Conde Nast's Ars Sloppica Sacked "Senior" "AI" "Reporter" Benj Edwards But Did Not Remove All His LLM-Produced 'Articles'
the editorial standards at Conde Nast's Ars Sloppica are a joke
Alex Oliva (GNU Linux-Libre): Stricter is Less Popular
Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
Fraud and Crimes at Microsoft
A lot of these American companies simply cheat and even bribe
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 25, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 25, 2026
FSF's Alex Oliva on Hardware Black Boxes
Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva