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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

XBox Being Discontinued, Some Models of XBox Canceled, Not on Sale Anymore
First some of the largest retailers quit stocking/selling XBox, now a 2TB model is axed
Firehose of Spam (Fake News) From The Register MS Today
This is how awful the state of news sites really is
 
Next Week's "Bloodbath" at Microsoft Includes "Silent Layoffs" (Which Microsoft Won't Count)
The notion of "silent layoffs" is fast becoming the "new normal"
Akira Urushibata on the Likely False (Unverifiable) Claims Anthropic Makes About Defects for Marketing/Hype
Some pro-LLM person has managed to derail the discussion on this topic
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: "Team Campinos" in Split
The EPO team was of course headed by Campinos himself who delivered a "forward-looking" keynote speech to the assembled audience consisting mainly of Administrative Council delegates from the national IP offices
Supporting Women in the Free Software Community
The common theme here is abuse of women
Left IBM After Many Years, Came to Microsoft/XBox, Now Silent Layoffs at XBox
many inside XBox will have their last day next week
Gemini Links 27/06/2026: Homeworlds and Tarot Cards
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 26, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 26, 2026
Links 26/06/2026: SoftBank Forbids Mentioning That Slop is a Scam, "'We Need Courageous People' to Combat Greed and Corruption"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/06/2026: "Negativity of Reddit" and "Moving Blog to Gemini"
Links for the day
Same MIT Site That Fabricated the Fake News for IBM is Still Being Paid to Produce Fake "Reports" That Prop Up a Ponzi Scheme
If this is the media we deserve as a society and believe keeps us informed, then we are all doomed
'Social' Slop: The Social Control Media and Slop Crises Are Converging
Social Control Media and slop may have a shared fate. People will shun them both.
Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF) Speaks Out Against Campinos and Informs the Chairman of the EPO Administrative Council
Does Mr. Kratochvíl pay any attention at all?
'António the Pretender' Campinos is Digging His Own Grave With Grotesque Lobbying Intended to Undermine Democracy in Europe's Second-Largest Institution
One way or another, the EPO will never be the same again
The Principle of "Do No Harm"
"Do No Harm" is a common saying
After Years of Bluewashing People Who Are Still Labelled "Red Hat" Suddenly 'Leave' (Might be PIPs), IBM in "Forever Layoffs" Loop
Remember that Red Hat had mass layoffs this year
Microsoft Staff Bracing for Impact Ahead of "Layoffs Lottery"
some people start to assess who will get culled next
Donald Trump and IBM's CEO: Twins Separated at Birth, Saturating the Media With False Reports About Things That Don't Exist
Every "journalist" that went ahead with this fake news should be sacked on the spot for a rejection of fact-checking
The Register MS Will Become Indistinguishable From Spamfarms at This Current Pace
Follow the money...
Microsoft Layoffs Have Already Begun in Its PR Department
It is called Waggener Edstrom
Techrights Community as Litigants in Person (LIPs)
Unwittingly and due to circumstances we're had to step in to protect women abused by monstrous men who lack empathy
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Rest and Recuperation on the Adriatic Coast
The EPO President's connections with the Croatian SIPO date back to his days as head of the EU trademark agency EUIPO
Slopfarms Becoming Scarce and Few (or Inactive)
we'll try to refrain from even giving the remaining slopfarms any visibility
The Register MS Promotes Things That Do Not Exist... for Money
How much more ZTE spam will come out before 5PM?
Links 26/06/2026: RIP, Om Malik, 1966-2026
Links for the day
Memory Leaks Suck
Slop ('vibe') coding means lots of bad programs
Natural Disasters and Personal Disasters
Thank you, Om Malik, for the positive memories
Gemini Links 25/06/2026: Life Philosophy and Misery
Links for the day
GAFAM Became a Mainstream Term, and Why Words Matter
Conveying problems in useful terms [...] Impairing propaganda attempts (e.g. calling parrots "intelligence", back doors "confidential", and outsourcing "cloud") should be the first step
European Patent Office (EPO) on Strike Today, Next Week Another Historic Week
If you live in Europe, contact your delegates today
FSF FreeJS Project (Part of the GNU Project's Goals) Advanced Further in 2026
They're moving to reduce dependence on anything to do with Microsoft
SLAPP Censorship - Part 119 Out of 200: Our Suggestions to Our Politicians and Heads of State
coverage about SLAPPs and related matters
Microsoft Already Closing Down Studios, According to Some Publishers
It is being compared to what happened in Intel
IBM PIP Stories Told in Public, Fake IBM News (Fabricated Claims) Drown Media Sites
IBM is seeding fake news to help justify the bailout
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 25, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, June 25, 2026
Microsoft Falls to Lowest Value Since 2023
Microsoft can come back down to somewhere below $100
This Could be the Start of Microsoft's Biggest Wave of Layoffs in 50+ Years
This is what it looked like for Intel a few years ago
The Register MS is Promoting a Pyramid Scheme for Money, But It Is Over 6 Million Pounds in Debt
How much lower can the reputation of this publisher sink?
Gemini Links 25/06/2026: Unix-like People and NeoGeo
Links for the day
Members of the Delegations in the EPO's Administrative Council Told That Amid Unrest Campinos Must Go; a Year of EPO Strikes Means It's Time to Change Leadership
Which strategy is needed for the European Patent Organisation?
The Cyber Show on How Data is Misused and Broadcast is Abused to Crush Resistance to Harmful Technology
We recently published a number of articles about how Computer Science is coming under attack
Increasing Participation Rates in Staff Representatives' Elections at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The industrial actions seem to have brought colleagues closer together
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs Have Already Begun (Could Not Wait 'Til July)
Microsoft's biggest layoffs round in 50+ years?
Assessing the "Worth" of a Life
Don't let blunt plutocrats decide whether Venezuelans deserve sympathy or not
Planning 20-Year Techrights Event
Interested people can contact us in IRC
Links 25/06/2026: Earthquakes Strike Venezuela, Conflict of Interest in Kangaroo Court UPC
Links for the day
More Weight of IBM's Stock is Ascribed to Lies and Things That Do Not Exist
Turning stones into gold?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 118 Out of 200: Exposing Crimes is Not a Crime, It is a Public Service
We will soon enter the sixth year of lawfare
Links 25/06/2026: "Why We Need Seed Legislation" and XBox Chaos Predicted by Insiders
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/06/2026: Hobbies Change, Young love, Strange Encounter, and Raspberry Pi Zero W
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 24, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 24, 2026