10.24.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel at 4:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Commentary about the Linux Foundation’s activities as of late
TThe Linux Foundation’s Web sites have been full of news and PR recently. There were some major events and also a new force for promotion. Scholarships were being granted [1,2,3], a paper was released about the Long-Term Support Initiative [4,5], several happenings in New Orleans were being noted [6,7], technical articles were published (e.g. [8,9,10]), and future events were being announced (e.g. for the car industry [11]). There are several other examples [12,13,14], but the latest interesting news may come from the UK.
“Amicable communication with the Linux Foundation can help correct what this marketing-led organisation sometimes says.”The LinuxCon Europe conference, which takes place in Edinburgh right now (this week), covers issues associated with licensing, including the GPL [15]. OIN speaks out (lawyers) and so does Mr. Zemlin, who is a branding/marketing person. They actually make some reasonable points and they don’t overuse propaganda terms like “intellectual property” (at least based on the report from IDG, which also tried to explain how to choose a Free software licence a few weeks ago [16]). A few weeks ago the Linux Foundation finally paid a small tribute to the GNU project, congratulating it on its 30th anniversary. Linux owes its success to the GPL, the GNU project which includes GCC, and of course the philosophy of GNU, which surely attracted many developers.
What’s noteworthy here is that despite our criticism of the Linux Foundation (most recently for revisionism) there are many good things to be said as well. Amicable communication with the Linux Foundation can help correct what this marketing-led organisation sometimes says. If terms like “cloud” or “intellectual property” ever take over the message of “Linux” (GNU/Linux), then we are losing credibility. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
-
As a first-generation Vietnamese-American, Nam Pho says he learned to make the most of limited resources and opportunities in many facets of his life. When it came to computing, this meant dealing with secondhand hardware. He built his Linux skills through frustrating, but educational, attempts to get old computers up and working again.
-
Linux Foundation Training scholarship winner Andrew Dahl is relatively new to the Linux community but he’s already jumped in to help on the XFS file system, fixing bugs and reviewing a small number of patches. As a file system engineer at SGI, he works on NFS, XFS and SGI’s CXFS (Clustered XFS.) But in his spare time he likes to dabble in Qt application development and fix kernel bugs he finds on his current hardware.
-
-
The Linux Foundation today is releasing a new paper that reports on the value of the Long-Term Support Initiative (LTSI), which is a common Linux kernel base for embedded products and is maintained by the Consumer Electronics Working Group at The Linux Foundation.
The paper reports the value of LTSI is $3 million per version. The authors of the paper arrived at the economic value of LTSI based on the methodology originally used in a highly-regarded study by David A. Wheeler and that was later used in a 2008 Linux Foundation study that estimated the value of Linux. Details of the methodology and results as applied to LTSI are on pages 5 and 6 of the report.
-
-
-
One of the highlights of my time at LinuxCon and CloudOpen this year in New Orleans was the first-ever women in open source luncheon held the very first day of the conference. It was a real pleasure and an inspiration to see women from all backgrounds and levels of experience with Linux and open source come together to talk about their skills and interests in technology.
-
High-availability (HA) Linux is increasingly being used to help companies meet market demands for fast-paced R&D and shorter product cycles. The medical industry, for example, is using server clusters to model the effect of drugs, conduct gene sequencing and develop personalized medication. Large telcos, banks and stock exchanges, ISPs and government agencies also rely on HA Linux to ensure minimal service disruptions in their mission critical workloads.
-
Linus Torvalds released the 3.11 “Linux for workgroups” kernel on Monday with many new features and fixes that improve performance and lower power consumption. Changes are also in keeping with recent industry trends toward the energy-efficient ARM architecture and the use of solid state drives (SSD).
-
-
-
Intel left plenty of room for speculation yesterday at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) when it announced a low-power, small-footprint processor family called the Quark. One of the biggest questions is whether it will support advanced platforms like Linux.
-
A GitHub account may be one of the best ways for open source developers to showcase their technical skills to potential employers. But system administrators and DevOps engineers who don’t code, don’t have an easy equivalent for proving their skills in, say, spinning up a secure server.
-
After more than 20 years of development, Linux is the largest, most successful collaborative project in the world. More than 10,000 developers from more than 1,000 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since tracking began in 2005, according to the foundation’s latest annual development report. It powers servers, mobile devices, stock exchanges, cars, appliances, air traffic control towers, the space station, genomics research… the list goes on and on. So, what’s next?
-
To avoid legal difficulties when managing intellectual property for open-source projects, more tech savvy lawyers are needed, according to the Linux Foundation.
Educating lawyers, however, is not the only solution, argued other open-source insiders at the LinuxCon Europe conference in Edinburgh this week.
[...]
Having lawyers with a better understanding of the technology involved in open-source projects would indeed be a way to overcome legal difficulties, said Deb Nicholson, community outreach director of the Open Innovation Network (OIN).
“I would agree that having more tech savvy lawyers that understand open-source legal issues would be good,” Nicholson said. “Smaller companies are desperate to find someone who can advise them,” she said, adding that even if they can pay them, finding an attorney who understands the issues can be difficult.
[...]
While public licenses such as Creative Commons, the GNU General Public License or other free and open-source software licenses have emerged as relatively easy-to-use standardized copyright agreements, more work can be done to make licensing easier, according to Maracke.
-
Getting the right license for your open source project can mean the difference between success and failure for your software.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 3:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The NSA-friendly back doors chosen politically, barring technical considerations and assessment
Summary: Forced disclosure of administrative documents in France reveals a secret Microsoft deal which is purely political and not technical
FOLLOWING our coverage of Microsoft and spooks collaborating (two months before the NSA leaks began), APRIL (software freedom advocacy group in France) sent us what it called a “[f]ollowup on “Open Bar” contract between Microsoft and French ministry of Defence,” stating:
you wrote a few months ago an article about the “Open Bar” contract
between Microsoft and French ministry of Defence
http://techrights.org/2013/04/21/nato-and-microsoft/.
FYI We published last weeks news documents. These documents show that
choosing an Open Bar contract was indeed the result of a political
decision which clearly was made before the feasibility and risks studies
were being performed.
Read on :
http://www.april.org/en/open-bar-contract-between-microsoft-and-french-ministry-defence-new-documents-support-political-game
This page says: “This framework contract, which was signed without any open call for tender or competitive procedure, granted right of use on some Microsoft products and associated services for the duration of the contract, i.e. four years. It was signed in complete secrecy, despite numerous negative opinions, and was the subject of several leaks to the press.”
“Taking advantage of this information, we made two successive requests for administrative documents. The first one obtained a partially usable response. We are now publishing the released documents resulting from the second one.”
This is very fascinating and it can give clues as to what happens in other countries. France is generally considered one of the most FOSS-friendly countries in the world when it comes to the public sector (based on Europe-wide assessment from professional assessors it was ranked first). Microsoft's assault on standards, which include ODF, was very interesting in France because then too it involved political corruption and involvement by Nicolas Sarkozy, who was close to Microsoft executives. This led to OOXML apologism and adoption [1, 2],
It is clear that Microsoft is intimidated (poor Microsoft!) if not deeply shocked to find the French police moving to GNU/Linux. Other proprietary software vendors are becoming “legacy vendors” as some call them [1] and as proprietary systems show massive failures in the British public sector, e.g. [2], we are likely to see more nations embracing Free/libre software (new example in [3,4]), with ODF leading the way in many cases (LibreOffice gets more support [5,6] and development effort [7]). Speaking of the UK, things change here for the better and just yesterday the UK Home Office became a client of the company I work for. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
-
It’s clear that open source is shaking up the technology industry. What isn’t yet clear is how this impacts legacy vendors.
-
Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the committee, said the report was further evidence of a “systemic failure” in the government’s ability to draw up and manage large IT contracts. “This saga is one of the worst and most expensive contracting fiascos in the history of the public sector.
-
-
A recently unveiled search engine for accessing the collections of Finland’s archives, libraries and museums was built on open source, announces the country’s National Library. “The advantage of open source is that it enables organisations to work together to develop a system without limits, contracts or procedures.” The engine itself is also made publicly available.
-
The Document Foundation (TDF) announces that Studio Storti is now a member of its Advisory Board. Studio Storti is the largest provider of open source solutions to the Italian Public Administration, and is launching a LibreOffice Division to support migrations from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.
-
-
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in Free/Libre Software, Red Hat at 3:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News about Free/Open Source software in education
Red Hat has had some promotion of Free software (which it falsely labeled Open Source) in education [1,2,3] and it covered some important points. Children can only be taught “computing” if they are taught how to deal with code and in order for knowledge to pass between people a model of sharing needs to be encouraged. Fortunately, as we are constantly reminded by the “Open Access” (free as in freedom access) movement, more people are starting to really ‘get’ it. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
-
How do you make money from something that is free? Borrow some moves from the commercial open source playbook.
-
-
This is a website where kids can play little games (available in 40 languages) and then click the ‘See inside’ button to see the code behind the game in a kid friendly way. It’s a great way to get kids to see code and learn not just programming, but the concepts of open source.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in News Roundup at 2:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
-
Free Software/Open Source
-
-
Have you been looking for a job, or perhaps some work on the side? If so, and you have Linux or other open source skills, the news is good. Demand for Linux and open source workers continues to rise. We’ve covered this trend as reported by careers sites such as Dice.com, and by The Linux Foundation, but one of the most detailed breakdowns appears at LinuxCareer.com, through its IT Skills Watch report. In addition to reporting on demand for Linux skills, it breaks down how the demand looks for workers with skills in other areas ranging from PHP to Apache Tomcat.
-
Indian enterprises are increasingly moving to open-source software, recognising the cost benefits and flexibility it offers over proprietary software. A falling rupee, which increases licensing costs, is likely to hasten the shift from softwares made by companies like SAP, IBM and Oracle.
The government has already embraced open-source in a big way — the Aadhaar project is a case in point. Now, companies like Hungama Digital Entertainment, Uttam Energy, Bilcare, payment processor Euronet, insurer Star Union Dai-chi and IT outsourcer iGate — have also started using open-source software. And the list is growing.
-
To prevent disruptions and scale up its service while keeping costs down, Twitter has had to drastically change its core infrastructure, taking up open source tools while doing so.
-
-
Unesco, the educational, scientific and cultural organisation of the United Nations, is promoting the development and use of open source solutions for water resource management. At the end of June, in Paris the UN officially launched a network of experts ‘Hydro Open-source software Platform of Experts’ (HOPE), to “contributes to the dissemination of innovative practices”.
-
Oldenbourg Verlag just published a special issue on open source that I edited. Titled “the unstoppable rise of open source” it provides a five-article overview of open source past, present, and future.
-
In all my writing work, I use only Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to get the job done. I’ve been questioned about this a number of times, and the best answer I can give people is: It’s complicated. There are lots of reasons I use FOSS over all other options, and I think I’m ready to put them all out there for y’all to see.
-
I am happy to inform my readers that finally SOS Open Source will soon be released in open source!
-
I vividly remember my first experience using the Internet in 2000. The amount of information I was hit with by typing my first search term, university, was far beyond my wildest imaginations. This plethora of knowledge filled my mind with wonder, excitement, and enlightenment. I suddenly had the power to read, analyze, and learn about anything and anyone. The knowledge created by some of the greatest minds in the history of mankind was at my disposal, free of cost and just one single click away. I felt empowered.
-
Marten Mickos is one of the most respected leaders in open source. Here’s why.
-
You can’t run a business—even a small one—without technology. You need computers, smartphones, file storage, a website, and a whole host of other tech assets. So how do you afford it all with a budget that’s tighter than a hipster’s jeans?
-
Just days after a brand new cloud operating system was released, IBM is out with a new operating system of its own. FusedOS is IBM’s new research project that’s now an open-source general purpose OS.
-
Open source is all about collaboration. When you write some code and put it out there for others to read, use, and build upon, you’re giving a gift to the world. With the instant global communication the Internet provides us today, countless developers around the world can (maybe even anonymously) collaborate, giving and taking code, sharing knowledge with each other, and advancing our collective corpus of work.
-
There was a slight compensation when the German city of Munich reportedly were planning to distribute free CDs of Ubuntu 12.04 to its residents. That’s a step forward but certainly not good enough. Why I say it’s not good enough is because they can do more – a lot more than what they are currently doing.
Since these organizations will more than likely have their own support team and not rely on purchasing support contracts, the only reasonable source of revenue via clients buying support contracts for Open Source software gets blocked.
-
DokuWiki is a simple but versatile wiki. Find out how to install, configure, and begin using DokuWiki.
-
-
Where is Free & Open Source Software headed to? On the one hand, there is a trend that seems to veer it towards a more professional field, with new analysis and tracking tools that aim at improving not just the quality of code but its legal compliance as well. More and more large companies adopt FOSS either as users or as developers, or both, and that’s a good thing too. But does this announce the upcoming end of copyleft licences and that more structured approaches will ultimately kill the wild and spontaneous bunch that FOSS “once” was? No it won’t. First, the FOSS adoption among enterprise field does not depend on one license only. There’s also a lot of enterprise software released under GPL, by the way. But perhaps we have to accept and embrace Free and Open Source Software for what it is: an undefinable field that is at the same time a state of the art, a set of business models around software and services, a demand for our digital freedoms and a set of best practices on digital innovation alongside an extremely effective way to license software. And yet I’m not even sure I’ve covered it all. Today FOSS is growing not just in the enterprise: it’s at the core of the Makers’ movement and the 3D Printing revolution; it has inspired the Open Hardware movement, the Open Knowledge and countless other initiatives. Very few of these have reached a maturity stage and even inside the realms of FOSS development, things continue to be the same: at the beginning, a developer has an itch to sratch, and code to share with the world….
-
Most students at Carnegie Mellon have used, or at least heard of, open-source software. Examples of such software include the browser Firefox and the mobile operating system Android. Open-source software, in most basic terms, makes its code publicly available for modification and distribution by users. Proponents believe that creating an open community of programmers who modify software for their own uses provides the best possible experience for users, allowing them to customize according to their own needs.
-
-
Open source products have very uneven penetration into the world of business technology. If you look at content management systems or languages, open source rules. But if you look at the market for ERP software or for storage systems, open source hasn’t made much of a dent.
-
Events
-
The dates of October 23-24 have been circled on my calendar for a while. Why? Because All Things Open is coming to Raleigh, NC. It’s the first open source-focused conference of it’s kind to come to the capital of North Carolina. I’m also excited because having the conference come to Raleigh fulfills one of the five pillars in my definition of an open source city.
-
It was really great to be able to attend LinuxCon in New Orleans in September. I’d like to thank again HP’s OSPO team and in particular Eileen Evans, VP leading it, to sponsor my travel there. HP is also a Platinum sponsor of both the Linux Foundation, CloudOpen & LinuxCon events.
-
-
When IT-oLogy opens the doors to the All Things Open conference in Raleigh on October 23, the focus will be on open source in the enterprise. That’s only fitting, given the fact that Raleigh is Red Hat’s playground–and Red Hat practically wrote the book on enterprise level open source.
-
-
-
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
-
Version 4.0 of GNU Make, the widely-used software that’s relied upon extensively by developers and those building their software from sources, is now available. GNU Make 4.0 does bring with it a handful of new features and capabilities.
-
-
People trickled and and were greeted by the friendly face of FSF operations assistant, Chrissie Himes.
-
Hey all. Things are busy here in MediaGoblin-land, but we’re making great progress. Since our last update several things have happened, including Natalie Foust’s branch being merged! So administrative tools have officially hit git master. That’s great news!
-
Programming
-
Use OpenCL with very little code — and test it from the Python console.
-
It’s results like this that convince Jessica that when open source communities invest in diversity outreach, everyone benefits. Since implementing a beginner series, intermediate workshops, and open source sprints, the Boston Python user group has over quintupled in size, from 700 members to 4000+. They are now the largest Python user group in the world. That type of growth is something all open source communities should aspire to.
-
-
The shell is the most basic of environments for working with your Linux system. Whatever you may think of working in a text environment, I guarantee that once you have fully experienced the power of simple text, you will be forever convinced. Text is compact. Text is fast. System administration over a network is best experienced at the shell level. Those forced to resort to graphical tools over a slow Internet connection are also quickly converted.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
10.23.13
Posted in GNU/Linux at 7:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: On the decline of GNU/Linux as advocacy-worthy
With GNU and Linux becoming so standard it sometimes seems like GNU/Linux advocacy is dead. It’s just hardly necessary anymore. People just use Free software for almost everything, even without making any noise about it. Almost everyone uses Google, Apache, and Firefox or another browser with Free/libre software inside it. Linux Format has a short new column that alludes to these points [1]. Clients at work, which include parts of the British government (especially now that policies are improving [2]), have moved to Free/libre software without even publicly announcing it. You have to see it from the inside to know it. It’s almost as though it’s not even something that merits announcing, so nobody bothers. We’re not in the 1990s anymore.
“Just because we don’t hear so much about GNU/Linux doesn’t mean it went away.”Here in my house everything is running Linux and GNU — from smartphones to tablets and laptops or desktops. The workstation that I bought just over 5 years ago is having serious hardware problems, but it still boots, so I had it re-purposed as a media centre in the living room, essentially making even the ‘TV’ a GNU/Linux-powered appliance (Free software from the ground up). This is not a unique practice [3]. Some use GNU/Linux for music production purposes [4], so it’s clear that even areas where GNU/Linux was notoriously lagging (audio, just like gaming) there is major change now. Sometimes, as in [5], the use of GNU/Linux for music production is not even mentioned, it’s implied.
Just because we don’t hear so much about GNU/Linux doesn’t mean it went away. It’s just being taken for granted. Its rise is no longer newsworthy. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
-
Nine years ago, we were playing with a niche OS that had just become the default OS for the web. Now we’re playing with an OS at the heart of computer science, from educating our children to powering the world’s super-computers in the cloud.
-
The UK government has adopted its first two open standards under its plan to shift departments away from proprietary systems.
-
A few months back, after I installed Xubuntu on my eeePC netbook, and this effectively gave it a second and much faster life, I also asked you if you have recommendations for my T42 box. Well, today, we are not going to do that. Instead, we will dedicate some time in rejuvenating my LG RD510 box, which I purchased four years back and then installed with four instance of Jaunty.
-
There’s a definite interest in Linux for music. One of my more consistently popular posts is about using Linux for music production. Gabbe goes way beyond that post, completely revealing a wonderful workflow that optimizes his machine for making music and shows how the flexibility of Linux really lends itself to creative endeavors. Gabbe also makes the important point that Linux makes music production possible for people who might not be able to afford expensive production software like Pro Tools.
-
I am embarrassed to admit that I have never in my life considered the struggle of blind musicians to find Braille music scores. I did not realize until last week that only about 1% of sheet music is available in an accessible format, but my friend Robert Douglass is hoping to change that with his Open Well-Tempered Clavier – Ba©h to Bach project on Kickstarter.com.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in News Roundup at 6:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
-
Applications
-
Xnoise features a simplified interface. You see just the essentials: your media collection list and the title, album and artist for selections placed in the play list. The resizable media library sits openly on the left side of the application window. Its hierarchical tree design makes it easy to find any single track, artist, album or genre.
-
-
Working remotely is not a new thing for Linux Administrators. Especially when he/she is not in front of the server. Generally, the GUI is not installed by default on Linux servers. But there may some Linux Administrators who choose to install GUI on Linux servers.
-
Google has taken up development of Flash, calling it PepperFlash
-
-
apt-fast is a “shell script wrapper” for apt-get and aptitude that can drastically improve APT download times by downloading packages with multiple connections per package. apt-fast uses aria2c or axel download managers to speed up the APT download time. Just like the traditional apt-get package manager, apt-fast supports almost all apt-get functions such as install, remove, update, upgrade, dist-upgrade etc. And one more notable feature is it supports proxy too.
-
If you want to do quick everyday photo manipulations on a bunch of images, you will usually not go for Photoshop. Adobe Lightroom is what people inside the Photoshop universe will recommend you. Today we have an even greater solution for you. The formerly commercial, now Open Source tool LightZone will really excite you. The most enthralling thing is, it works totally different from anything you know…
-
-
-
It’s a good week for music fans on Linux. Following the recent update to Banshee comes a new release of the lightweight Qt music player Musique.
-
-
-
My daughters love the movie Pitch Perfect. I suspect our XBMC has played it more than 100 times, and I’m not exaggerating. Whether or not you enjoy young-adult movies about singing competitions and cartoon-like projectile vomiting, I’ll admit it’s a pretty fun movie. The question my girls ask me most often is about the audio-mixing software the protagonist uses to make her “sick beats”.
-
-
-
-
Clementine is one of the most popular music players in the Linux world, absolutely loved for the Amarok 1.4 way things work and the huge list of available services it can connect you with and please your ears and heart. The music player/organizer has already reached maturity releasing version 1.0 and then bug fixing and slightly enriching functionality with 1.1 that was released 9 months ago.
-
Xnoise, a media player for GTK+ with great speed and lots of features that allows listening to music and playing video in a very intuitive way, is now at version 0.2.19.
-
-
-
-
This will probably be the shortest post I have to offer, about a single application.
You should be able to guess what this does, just by reading the title.
-
Take a semantic Zeitgeist-powered application/file launcher and bind it to the panel. What do you get? Something worth putting in the spotlight, that’s what.
-
-
-
-
Have you ever seen a system monitoring tool that sticks to your desktop, refreshes automatically, can have various beautiful GUIs, is highly customizable and can provide plethora of information (including weather information, e-mail notifications etc.) related to your system? Well, I am not sure if there is any system monitoring software that contains all these features, except one — Conky.
-
The console calculators I’ve seen thus far have been slanted toward the scientific, with each one striving to be exceptionally precise and capable of some very impressive math.
-
LiVES, a simple-to-use, powerful video editor and VJ tool that allows users to combine realtime and rendered effects, streams, and multiple video/audio files, is now at version 2.0.6.
-
Just a few days after the Pitivi 0.91 Alpha, the official release has occurred with support for the GTK+ 3.x tool-kit, GStreamer 1.x APIs, and is now powered by the GStreamer Editing Services.
-
-
Proprietary
-
You are a Linux user, addicted to Facebook, tired from getting your web browser open all the time on the Facebook page, and searching for a Linux application that can use Facebook chat without losing the performance and the features ?
-
Hello Linux Geeksters. Maxthon, a freeware internet browser working on Windows and Mac OS X comes to the Linux platform. There is no release date available, but things will get interesting from now. Firefox and Chrome will be obligated to bring new features to the two browsers.
-
-
Project Releases
-
-
AbiWord 3.0 is finally out with support for the GTK+ 3.x tool-kit and a significant number of other new features to the GNOME-focused multi-platform open-source word processor.
-
Highly-performant, Open Source Big Data distributed database in use at Adobe, CERN, Comcast, eBay, GoDaddy, HP, IBM, Instagram, Netflix, Plaxo, and Sony, among others, to create modern, data-driven applications
-
-
OpenZFS is the truly open source successor to the ZFS project. Our community brings together developers from the illumos, FreeBSD, Linux, and OS X platforms, and a wide range of companies that are building products on top of OpenZFS.
-
-
Samba, which has been bringing Windows-compatible file sharing to Linux servers, Mac servers, and desktops for years, takes another step forward.
-
Instructionals/Technical
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Now I plan to release a series of how-to articles covering configuration of multi-layout keyboards in Linux. It is obviously a task for the desktop environment in use for the particular Linux distribution. Let’s starts with the obvious leaders in the Linux world.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
If you want to know what video/audio codec are used for the video file you downloaded from somewhere, you can play the video itself. Most media player software such as VLC or MPlayer can display properties of a video file being played. However, there are command-line utilities that allow you to determine video properties quickly.
-
-
-
The increasing popularity of Linux and Linux-native gaming platforms such as Steam is bringing mainstream gaming to Linux. If you are a hardcore gamer, you will probably pay great attention to the performance of the graphics card on your system. Many of you may be willing to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for high-end video cards to enjoy maximum gaming experience.
-
-
The Novell networking protocol, IPX, is commonly used between Windows systems and NetWare servers (The IPX protocol). IPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange. This is a network layer that is commonly used with the SPX protocol that is the transport layer.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
ps displays information about active processes, with a number of custom fields that you can decide to show or not. For the purposes of this article I’ll focus on how to display information about memory usage. ps shows the percentage of memory that is used by each process or task running on the system, so you can easily identify memory-hogging processes.
-
-
-
-
-
Games
-
Monaco is coming to Linux on Monday, October 21, breaking down another barrier to entry for crafty players. Monaco is already out on Xbox 360, PC and Mac, and it even has a European boxed collector’s edition because it’s a high roller. The Linux edition will have “a ton of free/new content,” according to the announcement.
-
-
-
We told you early in September that Shadowrun Returns (Steam Link) was going into beta soon and it looks to be finally hitting our digital shelves.
-
These days, everyone is suddenly extolling the virtues of “open-source” gaming consoles, such as Valve’s upcoming Steam Box, Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA ) Shield handheld console, the kick-starter-funded Ouya, and the new Mad Catz M.O.J.O.
-
-
-
-
“Linux has been around for so long that you wonder what Valve are thinking, but it does serve their interest in that this is a FOSS OS that can be picked up by any OEM,” suggested Lewis Ward, a research manager at IDC. “What Valve is doing could have the potential not to work but, from my experience, they’re very careful about how they go about doing what they do.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
While more and more closed-source games — ranging from indie titles to AAA games — are heading to Steam ahead of SteamOS and Steam Machines, there still isn’t too many open-source games on Valve’s digital distribution platform. Here’s some information why one of the more popular cross-platform open-source first person shooters isn’t yet to be found on Steam.
-
DICE is interested in developing for Linux, and feels the OS need only one “killer” game for the platform to become mainstream. Speaking with Polygon, DICE’s Lars Gustavsson said the team wants to get into Linux development “strongly”.
-
It would only take one “killer” game for the Linux platform to explode its way into mainstream gaming, DICE creative director Lars Gustavsson told Polygon, revealing that the development studio would “strongly” like to get into Linux.
-
-
-
If you haven’t heard by now, there’s a new gaming system called SteamOS that is trying to bring the world of PC gaming into the console-dominated living room. A custom Linux operating system that has been optimized specifically for video games, SteamOS is causing all sorts of excitement in the gaming community.
-
-
The Bard’s Tale, an RPG developed and published by the famous inXile Entertainment studio, has arrived on Steam for Linux.
-
-
Total War developer ‘absolutely intends’ to support SteamOS
-
Net Games Laboratory, an independent development studio founded by veterans of some of Eastern Europe’s most successful online gaming companies, today announced that its team-based arcade space shooter Cannons Lasers Rockets will launch for PC, Mac and Linux on digital download platforms in November 2013. An online space shooter in which players choose from hundreds of spaceships to customize and team up to defeat other groups of players in fast-paced dogfights, Cannons Lasers Rockets’ highly-competitive gameplay draws from MMOs and MOBAs alike to create a new space combat experience. The game will be playable cross-platform across PC, Mac and Linux at launch, with mobile releases planned for later dates.
-
Would you consider buying an Oculus if Steam games start to support it?
-
-
-
Fistful Of Frags – First person shooter set in the Wild West times. Take part in frenzy team versus shootouts or play cooperative missions against AI managed enemies. Most of the classic black powder guns are available in single or dual wield setup.
-
Q-Games’ fourth title in its PixelJunk series, PixelJunk Shooter, is migrating from PS3 to PC, Mac and Linux on 11th November.
-
-
Major figures across the games industry have come out in support of Valve’s new SteamOS operating system, part of the company’s new approach to bring PC gaming into the living room.
-
-
-
Running a SteamOS system is not quite as straightforward as buying a new game console, or even gaming on a Windows PC or Mac. If you’re scratching your head over the system’s niceties, inner workings and possible benefits, look no further: Tom’s Guide has provided answers in a convenient Q&A format.
-
Valve’s Mike Sartaina briefly talks about Nvidia’s involvement with the Steam Machines prototypes.
-
“This is another example of Linux moving into a sector and taking over,” suggested blogger Kevin O’Brien. “The proposed new Steam Box is good, but for any dedicated gamer, PCs are where the real action is. I think this can benefit all Linux users by getting Nvidia to open their drivers. Nvidia may not care about Linux users, but they won’t ignore Valve.”
-
Valve has just announced a new Beta version for its Steam Linux client, this time with just a few changes and fixed.
-
‘The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief’ is a thrilling crime adventure in three chapters from the creators of ‘The Book of Unwritten Tales’. Full of twists and turns, it immerses you in both sides of the story, combining thrill-of-the-chase whodunit with the risk and reward of a heist story.
-
The Dead Linger is the definitive zombie apocalypse survival horror experience! Set in a planet-sized, procedurally generated world, survivors learn to fight, run, and survive against the never-ending and relentless zombie hordes.
-
Alien Arena is a free, open-source first-person shooter built around the CRX engine, an open-source, Quake-based engine. It features a fast-paced gameplay taking place in a Sci Fi universe over dozens of maps. Alien Arena provides both single-player and multi-player modes.
-
Of the newest game releases on Steam, around 20% of them are supporting Linux from the start, but that will certainly rise.
-
Valve has been very clear that there will be a number of manufacturers making a number of living room-centric boxes running the recently announced SteamOS. Still, there’s a lot of attention being paid to the prototype box Valve is creating and distributing free to 300 lucky beta testers this year (before the boxes get a wider launch next year).
-
Today the high-end gaming industry is controlled by two players Sony and Microsoft. It’s becoming a very tightly controlled walled garden leaving no place for 3rd parties.
-
-
After last week announcing Steam Machines as the Valve-backed Steam “living room consoles” (a.k.a. Steam Box) powered by the Linux SteamOS, today Valve has released the prototype hardware details that they will be shipping to 300 beta testers.
-
-
In an interview Friday Ryan Gordon talked with Kris Graft of www.gamasutra.com about Linux gaming development. With so many notable quotes available, it’s difficult to pick just one for the teaser. The central theme of Gordon’s responses is that Linux is a viable platform for gaming – more now than ever.
-
Valve has completed their string of announcements this week for their Steam Machine, and today’s announcement was not what everybody wanted (a Half-Life 3 announcement), but a reveal of their controller for the Steam Machine.
-
Chip company and graphics specialist Nvidia has put its considerable weight behind Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS.
By announcing plans to optimize the Linux-based SteamOS for its own range of components, Nvidia has ensured that Valve’s free operating system has a fighting chance and becomes a viable option for many PC gamers.
-
If Monday’s announcement of SteamOS was greeted with a great deal of interest and speculation, Wednesday’s announcement that Valve was getting into living room PCs with broad compatibility and a full range of supported hardware was a major letdown. The limited information available doesn’t point to much of anything beyond “We’re doing a cheap living room PC.” So what are the options and potential for a Steam Box? To answer that, we need to consider three separate questions. Valve’s just-unveiled controller, while interesting, is unlikely to be the peripheral that makes or breaks the device, particularly since it’ll work on the Windows side of the equation as well.
-
Just a few days after it was released, I purchased the game, Deluxe Edition, at USD64.99. Even though this is a hefty price, I wanted to support both Bohemia Interactive as well as Steam for their gallant Linux efforts.
-
-
The Valve developers have been releasing their catalog of 3 at a steady pace, and now Half-Life: Source and Half-Life Deathmatch: Source have officially exited the Beta stages.
-
Neverending Nightmares is a psychological horror game featuring a truly interactive narrative structure allowing the player to shape the outcome of the game. The player character navigates a chilling and constantly shifting reality as they experience false awakenings into new and different nightmares.
-
Valve also promise that they’re working on bringing music, TV and movie services to SteamOS…
-
-
-
-
-
It’s been a while in the making…
-
Independent developer Polypusher Studios is delighted to announce the imminent release of its debut game, Montague’s Mount. The Irish studio has been working closely with UK publisher Mastertronic to complete the title and it will be launching digitally on October 9, 2013. Developed for PC, Mac & Linux, Montague’s Mount will be available on Good Old Games, Get Games and GamersGate. Fans of Steam can vote for the game on Greenlight.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Chainsaw Warrior (Steam Link) from Games Workshop is the classic nail-biting game for one strong-nerved player!
-
So two bits of Steam news for you, Valve has put 64bit support for Linux games into Steam now on the official non-beta client and also announced family sharing of games.
-
-
2013 may go down in history as the year gaming came to Linux. It feels like there’s news of a new release every week, and they only seems to be comming faster. On the Steam platform alone, there’s almost 200 games for Linux users to download.
-
Open source gaming console and kickstarter legend OUYA is facing some harsh criticism over what appears to be the bungled handling of a questionable campaign. OUYAs “Free the Games” fund promised to match funds raised by game developers on crowd funding sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
-
Worlds of Magic is a 4X game being developed by a team of Master of Magic fans, determined to recapture the gameplay feel of the original MoM but with updated technology. Worlds of Magic was covered on GOL here during its successful crowdfunding campaign in April and has been making steady progress since then.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Security at 6:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Proprietary on top of Free/libre is like mud below a fortress
Summary: The need to be able to verify that programs treat users respectfully and how it applies to Android
A new version of Android is said to be just days away [1]. There are already some rumoured features [2], but it is hard to tell more because the development process is not as open/free as Google would like us to believe. Google already lost a prominent FOSS figure because, according to him, Android was not so loyal to freedom or openness anymore.
“One cannot build back doors if they become visible. It’s a case of trust through deterrence.”Android is becoming somewhat of a de facto standard in watches these days [3,4], even though some companies go the other way [5]. In this area of watches, unlike CCTV-like eyeglasses (Google also explores taking fingerprints soon [6]), partners of Google appear to be ahead of Google. The same goes for TVs based on Android [7]. Android is almost becoming a de facto standard in embedded also [8].
Let’s accept the fact that Android is here to stay and to thrive (around 80% market share now), but how secure is it really? According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, spies are now accessing the microphone (and maybe camera) of Android devices remotely. Let’s accept the fact that the user is the weakest link (installing malware on one’s own [9]) and without a doubt users will always need to step in and do potentially risky things (adding software, as promoted in [10-12] this month, is the strength of Android). We are left dependent on trusting developers, not just within Google but also outside it (the community is developers is broadening [13]). Many of them are releasing proprietary software into Google’s digital market, so how can we — as users — check that these applications really respect our privacy and strictly obey OS-level restrictions? The users need not be developers, they can simply rely on several other users auditing or forking the code out of curiosity. One cannot build back doors if they become visible. It’s a case of trust through deterrence. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
-
Two pictures shared by @KitKat on Twitter suggest Google will launch the operating system on October 28.
-
A single messaging app for Android might be closer than you think, as Google unveils new settings in KitKat to officially set a default text-messaging app.
-
Sony shipped its Android-based SmartWatch 2 in the U.S. market, featuring higher-resolution, NFC sync, and water resistance, while also launching its Xperia Z Ultra phablet and Xperia Z1 phone. Meanwhile, Google’s long awaited smartwatch — rumored to be a Nexus model codenamed Gem and featuring Google Now technology — is expected to be unveiled with Android 4.4 (aka KitKat) on Oct. 31.
-
When a new tech product launches, reviewers usually come to some sort of consensus. Often something just clicks, and you see raves across the board. Other times, the product has obvious flaws, and critics are all equally quick to point those out. The early consensus for the Samsung Galaxy Gear, however, isn’t quite jiving with us. Though it’s been almost universally panned, we had a very different take on it. Why? Read on, as Gizmag gives you a different perspective on the new Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch.
-
Nike is only shooting itself in the foot with its stubborn reluctance to work with Android.
-
A coming web standard being pursued by the FIDO Alliance seeks to enable much wider use of biometric sensors to access accounts. FIDO should reduce, if not eliminate all together, the use of passwords to access accounts on mobile devices. The initial FIDO-equipped Android devices are on track to roll out in early 2014.
-
Google may be keeping quiet on when the Google TV platform will be updated to the Jelly Bean operating system, but developers are already hard at work.
-
Zhongshan Gosinggo has begun selling a 4.1 x 1.5 x 0.6-inch Android 4.1 mini-PC that includes both WiFi and Ethernet ports. The Gosinggo GSG-TB-06 is equipped with a 1GHz Allwinner A10 processor and Mali-400 GPU, as well as 1GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 32GB of flash, an HDMI port, and dual USB ports.
-
Let’s get this out of the way. Android as an operating system is very secure. It has multiple layers of protection to keep malware at bay, and it requires your specific permission to do almost anything that could lead to your data or the system being compromised. However, Android is an open system that trusts you the user and its community of developers to do the right thing. If you want to, you can give away a lot of permissions, and even access to deeper parts of the system if you’ve rooted your phone. Android tries to protect you from yourself, but if you nudge it, it lets you have the final say on what to install (and from where, like unknown sources and beyond the regularly-patrolled walls of Google Play) and who to give permissions to.
-
There comes a time in every smart phone owner’s life when the number of installed apps outweighs the brainpower available to the owner to keep them all managed. Enter Aviate, a new home screen management system for Android that aims to keep everything under control, intelligently.
-
-
Android tablets have come a long way since the first, the Motorola XOOM, appeared. The right apps make them great tablets for both work and play.
-
The Big Android BBQ is a unique combination of developer conference and enthusiast get-together, all wrapped up in a general celebration of the Android operating system. Attendees come from all over the world to share ideas, best practices, or just to hang out with friends. This year the conference saw more than 40 sessions ranging from Glass development to hardware hacking, with more than a few things in between.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in Free/Libre Software at 6:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Mozilla makes its commitment to a Free (as in freedom) Internet even stronger by hiring the man who brought Free/libre codecs to desktops and then to the Web
THERE is plenty to like about Firefox. In many ways, this browser has been responsible for breaking Microsoft’s Web browser monopoly (which had warped many sites into Internet Explorer-only walled gardens, until some time in the middle of the previous decade).
Mozilla — although some say that it relies on advertisers — is openly resisting some surveillance practices (only to alienate many advertisers) and after mostly abandoning Firefox several years ago (moving to Konqueror and Rekonq) I found myself drifting back to it earlier this year. Something appears to have changed internally at Mozilla and t doesn’t seem to be just a PR exercise. Mozilla made Firefox very simple to install on GNU/Linux (with Qt or GTK) and Firefox downloads helped me save a dying workstation this week (I very quickly download the latest Firefox for its WebM support and then run it every time I boot from a Live CD; the hard drive is a mess at all levels).
“The impeding forces that eternally detest and persistently hindered one encoding one’s own videos with a free format were Microsoft and Apple; both pretty much refused to support free multimedia codecs.”Mozilla’s support of open video formats has been noteworthy (Ogg). It goes a long way back. Opera did some work to that effect as well, years before Google had its own Web browser. The impeding forces that eternally detest and persistently hindered one encoding one’s own videos with a free format were Microsoft and Apple; both pretty much refused to support free multimedia codecs. Now that Mozilla hires Chris ‘Monty’ Montgomery (from Red Hat) it gains a lot of credibility. Monty Montgomery is very serious when it comes to open video/audio formats and his influence inside Mozilla can only be positive. As for Mozilla’s recent affinity for GNU/Linux, it should not be surprising. Firefox OS, after all, is where Mozilla puts many of its eggs [2] and it is based on Linux. There are more reasons than before to support Mozilla. Google too uses Linux (and sometimes GNU) to run its browser (Android, ChromeOS), but Google is not as serious about software freedom [3]. It is more like marketing to Google and it typically has two editions of every piece of software; one that’s free/libre and one which is proprietary and has extra features. It is being reported that Qt is moving from the KHTML-derived WebKit to Chromium Engine, which is not necessarily a good thing. Google may have a lot more money than Mozilla [5] (it also funds Mozilla indirectly), but given its tendency to use GNU/Linux only to promote its surveillance (via browsers) [6] it seems safe to always recommend Firefox over Chrome. When people show me an Android device the first thing I ask them is whether they want help replacing Chrome (spyware) with Firefox.
Speaking of freedom on the Web, some time this week an article will be published in the press about DRM in HTML5 and Techrights was approached for a column to give its take on the subject. There are still some dark forces trying to shut the Web, not just fill the Web with patent liabilities and unprecedented levels of surveillance. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
-
Xiph.org founder Monty Montgomery is leaving Red Hat to join Mozilla next week. Montgomery announced the change on Google+ Tuesday, writing: “This is not a reflection on Red Hat, but rather jumping at an opportunity offered by Mozilla.”
-
Phones running Firefox OS will soon also be available in Germany, Brazil and other countries
-
In that era, Google had nothing, so any adoption—any shred of market share—was welcome. Google decided to give Android away for free and use it as a trojan horse for Google services. The thinking went that if Google Search was one day locked out of the iPhone, people would stop using Google Search on the desktop. Android was the “moat” around the Google Search “castle”—it would exist to protect Google’s online properties in the mobile world.
[...]
Android went from zero percent of the smartphone market to owning nearly 80 percent of it.
-
Digia developers working on the Qt tool-kit have decided they will switch from using the WebKit browser engine to instead using Google’s “Blink” engine fork for Chromium. The new Qt web rendering engine will be called Qt WebEngine.
-
Rewards designed to improve security of software critical to Internet’s health.
-
If you are comfortable with the Chrome browser and can confine your computing tasks to the applications delivered from the Chrome store, the Chromium OS may well be all the computing power you need. This particular build is quite usable but not yet prime-time capable. It is fast on low-end hardware and has a moderately sized memory footprint.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
Further Recent Posts
- New Article From Heise Explains Erosion of Patent Quality at the European Patent Office (EPO)
To nobody's surprise, the past half a decade saw accelerating demise in quality of European Patents (EPs) and it is the fault of Battistelli's notorious policies
- Insensitivity at the EPO’s Management – Part V: Suspension of Salary and Unfair Trials
One of the lesser-publicised cases of EPO witch-hunting, wherein a member of staff is denied a salary "without any notification"
- Links 3/1/2017: Microsoft Imposing TPM2 on Linux, ASUS Bringing Out Android Phones
Links for the day
- Links 2/1/2017: Neptune 4.5.3 Release, Netrunner Desktop 17.01 Released
Links for the day
- Teaser: Corruption Indictments Brought Against Vice-President of the European Patent Office (EPO)
New trouble for Željko Topić in Strasbourg, making it yet another EPO Vice-President who is on shaky grounds and paving the way to managerial collapse/avalanche at the EPO
- 365 Days Later, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas Remains Silent and Thus Complicit in EPO Abuses on German Soil
The utter lack of participation, involvement or even intervention by German authorities serve to confirm that the government of Germany is very much complicit in the EPO's abuses, by refusing to do anything to stop them
- Battistelli's Idea of 'Independent' 'External' 'Social' 'Study' is Something to BUY From Notorious Firm PwC
The sham which is the so-called 'social' 'study' as explained by the Central Staff Committee last year, well before the results came out
- Europe Should Listen to SMEs Regarding the UPC, as Battistelli, Team UPC and the Select Committee Lie About It
Another example of UPC promotion from within the EPO (a committee dedicated to UPC promotion), in spite of everything we know about opposition to the UPC from small businesses (not the imaginary ones which Team UPC claims to speak 'on behalf' of)
- Video: French State Secretary for Digital Economy Speaks Out Against Benoît Battistelli at Battistelli's PR Event
Uploaded by SUEPO earlier today was the above video, which shows how last year's party (actually 2015) was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire, echoing the French government's concern about union busting etc. at the EPO (only to be rudely censored by Battistelli's 'media partner')
- When EPO Vice-President, Who Will Resign Soon, Made a Mockery of the EPO
Leaked letter from Willy Minnoye/management to the people who are supposed to oversee EPO management
- No Separation of Powers or Justice at the EPO: Reign of Terror by Battistelli Explained in Letter to the Administrative Council
In violation of international labour laws, Team Battistelli marches on and engages in a union-busting race against the clock, relying on immunity to keep this gravy train rolling before an inevitable crash
- FFPE-EPO is a Zombie (if Not Dead) Yellow Union Whose Only de Facto Purpose Has Been Attacking the EPO's Staff Union
A new year's reminder that the EPO has only one legitimate union, the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO), whereas FFPE-EPO serves virtually no purpose other than to attack SUEPO, more so after signing a deal with the devil (Battistelli)
- EPO Select Committee is Wrong About the Unitary Patent (UPC)
The UPC is neither desirable nor practical, especially now that the EPO lowers patent quality; but does the Select Committee understand that?
- Links 1/1/2017: KDE Plasma 5.9 Coming, PelicanHPC 4.1
Links for the day
- 2016: The Year EPO Staff Went on Strike, Possibly “Biggest Ever Strike in the History of the EPO.”
A look back at a key event inside the EPO, which marked somewhat of a breaking point for Team Battistelli
- Open EPO Letter Bemoans Battistelli's Antisocial Autocracy Disguised/Camouflaged Under the Misleading Term “Social Democracy”
Orwellian misuse of terms by the EPO, which keeps using the term "social democracy" whilst actually pushing further and further towards a totalitarian regime led by 'King' Battistelli
- EPO's Central Staff Committee Complains About Battistelli's Bodyguards Fetish and Corruption of the Media
Even the EPO's Central Staff Committee (not SUEPO) understands that Battistelli brings waste and disgrace to the Office
- Translation of French Texts About Battistelli and His Awful Perception of Omnipotence
The paradigm of totalitarian control, inability to admit mistakes and tendency to lie all the time is backfiring on the EPO rather than making it stronger
- 2016 in Review and Plans for 2017
A look back and a quick look at the road ahead, as 2016 comes to an end
- Links 31/12/2016: Firefox 52 Improves Privacy, Tizen Comes to Middle East
Links for the day
- Korea's Challenge of Abusive Patents, China's Race to the Bottom, and the United States' Gradual Improvement
An outline of recent stories about patents, where patent quality is key, reflecting upon the population's interests rather than the interests of few very powerful corporations
- German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, Who Flagrantly Ignores Serious EPO Abuses, Helps Battistelli's Agenda ('Reform') With the UPC
The role played by Heiko Maas in the UPC, which would harm businesses and people all across Europe, is becoming clearer and hence his motivation/desire to keep Team Battistelli in tact, in spite of endless abuses on German soil
- Links 30/12/2016: KDE for FreeBSD, Automotive Grade Linux UCB 3.0
Links for the day
- Software Patents Continue to Collapse, But IBM, Watchtroll and David Kappos Continue to Deny and Antagonise It
The latest facts and figures about software patents, compared to the spinmeisters' creed which they profit from (because they are in the litigation business)
- 2016 Was a Terrible Year for Patent Trolls and 2017 Will Probably be a Lot Worse for Them
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is planning to weigh in on a case which will quite likely drive patent trolls out of the Eastern District of Texas, where all the courts that are notoriously friendly towards them reside
- Fitbit’s Decision to Drop Patent Case Against Jawbone Shows Decreased Potency of Abstract Patents, Not Jawbone’s Weakness
The scope of patents in the United States is rapidly tightening (meaning, fewer patents are deemed acceptable by the courts) and Fitbit’s patent case is the latest case to bite the dust
- The EPO Under Benoît Battistelli Makes the Mafia Look Like Rookies
Pretending there is a violent, physical threat that is imminent, Paranoid in Chief Benoît Battistelli is alleged to have pursued weapons on EPO premises
- Links 29/12/2016: OpenELEC 7.0, Android Wear 2.0 Smartwatches Coming
Links for the day
- Links 28/12/2016: OpenVPN 2.4, SeaMonkey 2.46
Links for the day
- Bad Service at the European Patent Office (EPO) Escalated in the Form of Complaints to European Authorities/Politicians
A look at actions taken at a political level against the EPO in spite of the EPO's truly awkward exemption from lawfulness or even minimal accountability
Content is available under CC-BY-SA