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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

Rosanna Yuen & GNOME community triple tricked
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
IBM Layoffs Not Done, Terminations of Staff in India, Brazil, and Mexico Reported
This hopefully answers questions such as, "do the layoffs only impact US and Canada?"
Before Freenode Collapsed Its Staff (the People Who Now Run Libera.Chat) Were Censoring/Silencing Some Free Software Supporters
We still have this issue in the Free software community
All We Want to See is Any Form of Accountability in Europe's Largest Institutions
Because people at the top of institutions should never be above the law!
 
Corruption is a Reality, It's Not a Dirty or a Strong Word
Corruption is a topic some newspapers shy away from
How German Media Covered Cocainegate at The European Patent Office (EPO)
At some point we'll ask that same press to revisit the issue and this time comment on the EPO connection
Our Launch of Techrights Search Has Been Successful (So Far)
There are about 50,000 articles indexed there, going 19+ years back
Daniel Pocock Explains Social Engineering in Debian and Other Communities Increasingly Controlled by "Barons"
Communities are not corporations
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, November 07, 2025
Adrian & Diana von Bidder-Senn, Debian: detailed history of a death
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Crypto AG tricked ETH Zurich student internship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
An Old Story of Fraud at the EPO in the Netherlands (and How the Dutch Government Facilitated It)
We've already mentioned several other scandals where the the Dutch government engaged in fraud and passive corruption
Voicing Concerns About European Patent Office (EPO) in Rijswijk
The report is dated yesterday
Gemini Links 08/11/2025: KeePassRX and Pluribus
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli Targets "Linux" With LLMs, Google News Helps Blame "Linux" for Amazon WorkSpaces Flaws
Tonight's slopfest
Gemini Links 07/11/2025: Switzerland, k3s, and Privacy
Links for the day
Links 07/11/2025: Software Patents Squashed, Stock Markets Wobble Over Slop Uncertainties
Links for the day
A 19th Anniversary and High-Impact Exclusives
The end of 2025 will be very difficult for EPO management
The Register MS, Payroll First
GNU/Linux is a growing platform
Links 07/11/2025: US Government Shutdown Imperils Critical Functions, Slop in "AI" Clothing Debunked Some More, Bubble's Implosion Ongoing/Imminent According to Experts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2025: No Goodbyes, Homelab, Mouse Keys / Pointer Keys
Links for the day
12 Years for Justice is Far Too Slow (and More People, Especially Women, Are Hurt)
Why do police departments and legal systems fail to protect women?
Freenode and irc.com Are Still Around
It emulates retro terminals
We Don't Compete, We Analyse and Report
Principles are so much better than money and they're something money can never acquire
Red Hat is Also Laying Off Staff in India
Red Hat is a dishonest company
Finding Recent Talks of Richard Stallman
We already have many pages, documents, and media files. Organising them and helping people find them is the next Big Task.
Richard Stallman First Speaker at Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress the Weekend After This Coming Weekend
He'll be speaking over the Net
Diversity at Red Hat
Remember to judge corporations by their actions, not some Web pages with words in them
First the Python Software Foundation (PSF) Attacked Its Most Productive Volunteers. Now It Attacks Its Funding Sources.
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) rejected by PSF
News of Substance About the EPO's Substance Abuse (Cocaine)
EPO Cocaine Chronicles - link to archived BILD article and photos
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, November 06, 2025
On Midlife Crises
Focus on the sabotage, not politics
Hallmark of Fake News: "Single-digit" (Percentage) and 1% Isn't the Same Thing
apparently "rebalancing" is the new layoffs euphemism
Links 07/11/2025: Patent Trolls Target Germany, Celebrities Visit Ukraine
Links for the day
Misinformation/Disinformation Disguised as Information About GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL) Usage
GPL-type licences (reciprocal obligations) remain dominant
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and Google News Boosting WebProNews (All Slopfarms)
Those slopfarms just saturate the Web with misinformation and mindless chaff
Techrights and Tux Machines at Over 40
19 years of Techrights and 21+ years of Tux Machines
IBM Mass Layoffs This Week Not Limited to North America, Red Hat Staff Terminated
Do not relocate for a company that sees you as nothing but a number or a "human resource"
Coming Soon: More Proof of Cocaine Use at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Stay tuned
Entering Our 20th Year
...and still looking for answers
Mailing lists vs Discourse forums: open source communities or commodities?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 06/11/2025: "Component Abuse Challenge", Google Play Store Deemed Too Monopolistic
Links for the day
Microsoft and Microsoft GitHub (and Rust @ Microsoft GitHub) the Future of Ubuntu, They Want the Same for Debian
Ubuntu is not the place to find freedom
Richard Stallman Was Right About LLM-based Chatbots
the passing fad, LLM-based chatbots
IBM Has Not Been Good for IBM's Red Hat (Which Microsoft Also Attempted to Buy)
GAFAM or GIAFAM are not a force for good
Taking Back Control Over Technology We Purchase (Study, Modify, Enhance, and More)
"The war on general-purpose computing continues
Links 06/11/2025: EFF Wants New Executive Director, Microsoft's Azure Falls Over Again
Links for the day
All Set for Tomorrow
Techrights waves
The Corporate Media Carries on With Patently Phony and Misleading Narrative About IBM's Mass Layoffs
Instead of rightly alleging business failure or commercial (leadership's) weakness it is offloading blame to some mindless buzzwords
IBM Isn't Hiring Based on Age Groups. It Still Hires Based on Salary Expectations.
It is not about the skills available, it's about the expected cost of labour
Estimating the Scale of IBM's Mass Layoffs This Week
there is no denying that the IBM layoffs are vast
Telling Our Story as Victims of Online Abuse
This post will not mention any names
Claim That EPO Quotas Brought Corruption and Mischief to Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Nowadays corruption is the norm at the EPO and there is even rampant substance abuse among the people who run the Office
Rust's "Memory Safety" Talking Point Ought to be Discarded in Light of Fil-C
new memory-safe C/C++ compiler
Claim That IBM Has Another 8 Days to Lay Off 'Expensive' Staff
The consensus in comments we see is, IBM is a terrible place to work in, treatment of its workers is appalling, it's utterly foolish to relocate in an effort to retain a job at IBM, and it's foolish to join the company in the first place
Science Demands Facts, Not Dogma
Saying that restricted hardware is not secure hardware should be common sense
Site Anniversary is Tomorrow
The celebrations might delay our EPO series somewhat
Launching Techrights Search
New search interface and locally hosted back end
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 05, 2025