03.07.14
Posted in GNU/Linux, Red Hat at 9:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Red Hat’s Fedora 21 will come out in the middle of October, according to a newly-published schedule
AFTER much anticipation and speculation [1] it turns out that the next release of Fedora will be in late autumn, some time in the middle of October [2]. Phoronix, which recently wrote some in-depth analysis (with a lot of links) about Fedora, also explained how Mesa 10 packages were made available for Fedora 20 [3].
The nice thing about the Fedora project, as we pointed out before, is not only its insistence on free/libre graphics drivers but also extensive work on such drivers. Without Fedora we would all be losing a lot.
Fedora does not need to look ‘ugly’ or ‘not polished’ (it got this reputation some years ago when poor releases were made). Fedora has no consistent ‘face’ because it’s highly customisable and unlike Ubuntu (which demotes “alternative” desktops/themes) it comes in several very different ‘flavours’ [4] which are all managed and distributed (as equal) by Red Hat. Fedora 20 looks like a solid option and half a year from now we will see another fine release of Fedora, which is always getting better. I have used many release of Fedora over the years and I was always mostly satisfied. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Fedora.Next is bringing lots of changes as the longstanding distribution seeks to effectively remake itself and move forward with greater vigor. When it comes to this next major distribution update, Fedora 21 already has lined up support for non-KMS drivers to be abandoned, other old GPU support removal, out of the box OpenCL support, Wayland support improvements, Hawkey usage, and many other changes, besides simply having updated upstream open-source Linux packages.
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The next Fedora Linux release is being postponed until October since if shipping in August they are left midway between GNOME 3.12 and 3.14. GNOME 3.14 will be released by late September and thus if shipping in mid-to-late October would allow time for a fresh GNOME 3.14 desktop to be incorporated into the release. October/November release targets have also been what’s long been sought after by Fedora (among other distributions) for nailing close to the GNOME release time-frame and other software projects.
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While Fedora 20 is looking to land GNOME 3.12 as a stable release upgrade, the developers normally shipping a bleeding-edge Linux graphics stack haven’t sent down any stable release updates for the much-improved Mesa 10 drivers. Fortunately, there’s some unofficial choices.
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Lifehacker reader Royale with Cheese has a sharp-looking flat desktop that looks like OS X at first glance. It’s actually Fedora 20, and it’s smooth as butter. Here’s how he set it up.
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Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, Red Hat at 8:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Updates and news from the Debian camp, focusing on the silent or lesser-acknowledged role of this international project in computing
Linux Mint, which does not come with Amazon spyware (unlike Ubuntu, which fell behind Mint in DistroWatch), seems to be leaning more and more towards Debian with this new release [1] which was reviewed some hours ago (in the publication sense) [2] and surely has momentum [3]. Even the release candidate (RC) [4] received such coverage [5] (mind the UEFI ‘secure’ boot rant), proving that there is definitely some interest from users (Jim Lynch’s/IDG’s sensationalist headline merely links to screenshots like these [6]).
Debian recently added OpenRISC support [7,8] (Debian is perhaps best known for huge hardware diversity) and there is a new project for better security [9] (think of it like SELinux, except intervention of the criminal NSA, which wants back doors in Linux [1, 2, 3, 4]). Red Hat's Systemd may not be the only option [10], but we don’t know for sure yet. Someone needs to continue to offer alternatives to Systemd. Debian is very important with its many new derivatives [11], role in hardware [12] and embedded domination [13] (bar Android and closed Linux-based systems), hence the importance of its decision on init systems.
A strong Debian (and derivatives like Ubuntu) acts as an essential regulating force in the face of Red Hat/CentOS domination; lack of diversity, history teaches, limits security and increases vulnerability. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 201403.
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The four distributions obviously have a lot in common; Debian is well known as one of the oldest, best established and most respected Linux distributions, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is derived from Debian, with a lot of the goodies which have been developed for the Linux Mint ‘main’ distribution added, and both SolydXK and Tanglu are derived from a combination of those two plus a good bit of work in packaging, repositories, updates, appearances and such.
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The Linux Mint blog is reporting that Linux Mint Debian Edition 201403 has been released. LMDE is a semi-rolling distro that is based on Debian Testing. It is a good alternative for those who want the features of Linux Mint without having to use Ubuntu as its base.
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We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun testing the release candidate!
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The installation was absolutely routine with the exception of the well-known difficulty with UEFI firmware configuration on the HP Pavilion. There was even good news on that system, though, because the very difficult wi-fi adapter (Ralink 3290) seems to work just fine.
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Mempo is a project started in H2’2013 that’s been trying to provide a secure yet robust Debian platform that currently classifies itself in a “pre-alpha” state. Mempo is patching Debian packages with better security and privacy, providing newer versions of packages than what’s found in Debian, using a hardened “GrSecurity” Linux kernel, and is working to support other work in and outside of Debian.
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Since the Debian technical committee decided they will use systemd over Upstart, the latest vote on their agenda was over init system coupling and how Debian developers maintaining packages should deal with different init systems or what guidance the technical committee should send to these package maintainers.
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Tanglu is a fairly young project and perhaps has flown under the radar somewhat. The 1.0 release is a major milestone for the distribution, which is based on a mixture of Debian Testing, Debian Unstable and in some cases even Debian Experimental.
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PLDA has launched an SODIMM-like computer-on-module claimed to be the smallest Xilinx Zynq COM yet, supported with a carrier board and Debian Linux BSP
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Posted in GNU/Linux at 8:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Arch (GNU/)Linux is used by a lot of people and inspiring big derivatives such as Manjaro, Chakra GNU/Linux, and more
LAST YEAR we started writing quite a lot about Arch (GNU/)Linux because it had become popular, and not just among advanced computer users. Many people out there are now Arch users, including, according to this new interview [1], the voice behind Linux Voice. Arch is a very fast-moving distribution which offers the latest of everything (including Linux of course [2,3]), so no wonder we see many people raving about it [4] and exploring it [5].
Chakra, a beautiful derivative of Arch, was recently reviewed by DistroWatch [6] and another derivative, Manjaro, received two good reviews in recent weeks [7,8].
As we argued last year, for those who seek a cutting-edge, secure, community-driven distribution that is not Debian “unstable”, Arch is definitely an option. One can think of Manjaro, Chakra etc. as the Knoppix/Ubuntu of Debian. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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I’ve run Arch for a couple of years. I like its minimalism and the way you end up knowing every installed component. I’m not massively keen on having to check the Arch website before upgrades (because things break), or the way you have to start from scratch with every fresh install. Getting hold of the latest releases is one of the most important parts of my job, and the Arch User Repository is the best way I’ve found of getting hold of software that more often than not installs. I love the way it bundles the source code, and the way you can rollback packages. It’s also relatively straightforward to modify packages yourself, which I’ve occasionally found useful. At the moment, I’ve also got Mageia 4, Fedora 20 and Mint 16 installed on the same machine.
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During the last years Arch Linux proved to be a pioneer distribution, especially when we talk about the latest software releases. Unfortunately, this was not the case with Linux kernel 3.13, which caused some issues and required modular PS/2 keyboard support.
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Okubax’s desktop is actually pretty simple — it’s less about the wallpaper and more about the other customisation tricks.
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Probably the best part for me(so far) is with breaking away from Ubuntu, I’ve been forced to take a serious look at the various window managers and desktop environments out there. Which has brought me to i3.wm, on it’s own its excellent although there are a lot of new key bindings for me to learn and a almost crazy amount of customizability to play with, and it is missing some of the standard functionality I want in a desktop environment, such as wall papers, lock screen etc. Luckily it can replace the window manager in XFCE4 easily and makes for an excellent combination.
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The short version of all this is Chakra has some nice features and it does some interesting things. I love how amazingly fast the project’s build of KDE is on my hardware and I like that the project does some things a bit differently. I like that the team has put together an increasingly comprehensive collection of documentation. I especially appreciate that GTK-based software is no longer shipped in stand-alone bundles, but rather in an add-on repository, allowing the user to add software using a single package manager, rather than switching between different software managers. In short, I feel Chakra has made positive progress over the past year. The distribution still has rough edges, plenty of small, unpleasant surprises for the unwary user, but overall it is improving. The project is well worth a look if you are a fan of either Arch Linux or the KDE desktop.
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Manjaro is one of just a handful of desktop distributions that are trying to make all the goodness of Arch Linux available to new and seasoned users alike. It’s matching along with Antergos and Chakra Linux in this regard, though it seems to be further along than Chakra Linux and running neck-and-neck with Antergos.
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Manjaro Gnu/Linux is a Unix Like Operating System which is Arch Linux Based. This desktop oriented Distribution has desktop environment Xfce by default and any other desktop environment can be installed and configured later.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, Servers at 7:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: As IBM declines it is worth remembering that GNU/Linux no longer rests on the shoulders of few giants
LAST month we wrote about IBM's not-so-secret NSA relationships causing massive issues for IBM in China (mostly because the NSA’s secrets have leaked), resulting perhaps in some of the latest layoffs, which now include “up to 25 percent of ‘hardware’ division” [1]. IBM recently sold yet more of its hardware business to China (after it had sold some to Lenovo) and it remains one of the most dominant GNU/Linux players. Its commitment is very real [2] even if self-serving, e.g. for “Watson” PR [3,4] and use of Free/libre/gratis software to sell super-expensive hardware. We oughtn’t treat IBM as an enemy, even if it often lobbies for software patents and spreads proprietary software [5] while looking for volunteers [6]. Famed journalist Cringely, who wrote many damning posts about IBM around 2012 (a series which predicted much of what’s happening to IBM right now), has just published somewhat of a strong-worded criticism of IBM [7] in relation to GNU/Linux.
With or without IBM’s support, GNU/Linux is going to do just fine on servers. OpenStack is massive [8], DigitalOcean (GNU/Linux servers) has just bagged a lot of venture capital money [9], banks and stock markets around the world depend on GNU/Linux servers [10], and the Internet as a whole is predominantly GNU/Linux-based [11] (at all levels, including back-end computational servers [12]). The fiction that IBM is synonymous with Linux or that Linux depends on IBM is about 14 years old and it’s out of date. IDC claims that the servers business is in decline [13] (maybe just better use of virtualisation and GNU/Linux efficiency for automation and provisioning [14]) and the days of UNIX are quickly ebbing away [15], taking away the lustre from UNIX giants like IBM.
The mobile (phone/tablet) interaction with servers will continue to be a top trend — one that IBM failed to forecast or at least capitalise on. What remains of IBM may not be much a decade down the line (it looks somewhat grim), but that oughtn’t be much of a factor as far as GNU/Linux is concerned. Google and Android (with servers and phones) make much of IBM with its mainframes, laptops and office suites/collaboration tools obsolete. Google is far from the only player using GNU/Linux to that effect.
GNU/Linux is the tool of no single company. It’s the foundation of many platforms and the unifying system that becomes ubiquitous (universal). █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Big Blue confirms it’s commencing workforce cuts, but declines to put a number on the job losses. A source tells CNET the layoffs entail up to 25 percent in the Systems and Technology group.
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About a year ago IBM doubled down on its commitment to the open source cloud, announcing that all of its cloud offerings would be built on OpenStack and renewing its investments in KVM, the Linux-based kernel virtual machine. Since then, both projects have undergone major changes, including the move last fall of KVM and the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) to become a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.
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Free IBM Cloud Platform for developers…yeah, that’s a big deal. That platform being based on the latest IBM POWER7 and POWER7+ processor-based servers running Linux, AIX and IBM i operating systems…very big deal indeed!
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Typically with new technologies like this the inventors haven’t thought much about security or they rely on a small installed base to keep the product or service under the radar of the bad guys. But pCell, for all it’s high tech loveliness, is a Software Defined Network proudly running in a data center on plain old Linux servers.
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According to an official OpenStack User Survey Ubuntu is the most used Operating System for production deployment of OpenStack. OpenStack is an Open Source project to build a framework for the creation of cloud platforms, predominately Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms. The survey found that Ubuntu accounts for 55% of the host Operating Systems used for OpenStack deployments, CentOS accounts for 24% and Red Hat for 10%. These results are not completely surprising as Canonical invests heavily in Ubuntu’s OpenStack development, it was one of the founding members of The OpenStack Foundation and is a Platinum Sponsor of the foundation.
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Cut-price virtual-server hosting biz DigitalOcean has banked a whopping $37.2m from Andreessen Horowitz and other valley investors.
The mammoth series-A funding round was announced on Thursday and will give the 50-person company the funds it needs to aggressively hire talented developers and expand globally, while keeping its Linux cloud server prices as low as $5 a month.
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Friday evening can be a very busy time in Citibank’s Changi Business Park office in Singapore. Hundreds of mission-critical applications hit the production servers, security patches are applied, hundreds of professionals including developers, systems engineers, Linux gurus, and management professionals spend the whole night on the conference calls ensuring the smooth functioning of servers at this financial giant. The applications that get life over the weekend have monetary value and therefore require robust servers to host them. These servers need to maximize the utilization of the applications and should have the stability to run for a longer period of time without a reboot. These servers should also have the capability to be scaled up as the infrastructure grows. The bottom line: these enterprise level boxes need to be tough.
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Linux is the foundational bare-metal operating system on which the stack runs. The Apache web server first came on the scene in 1995 just as global Web use was starting to grow explosively, tracing its roots back to the very first NSCA HTTPd webserver. From April 1996 to the present day, the open-source Apache HTTP Server has held the enviable distinction of being the most widely deployed Web server on the planet.
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The rise of big data, cloud computing, mobility and social media — what IDC dubs the ‘third platform’ — represents a big opportunity for Linux and open source more broadly, analyst Sally Parker this morning told the SUSE Open Forum in Sydney.
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The server business had a mixed 2013. According to IDC’s fourth quarter 2013 Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, global revenue came in at $14.2 billion, which is a 4.4 percent year-over-year decline. In contrast, analyst firm Gartner reported that fourth quarter server revenues declined by 6.6 percent.
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Under the old-fashioned “enterprise computing” infrastructure model, servers were given cutesy names like “Cookie,” “Dakota,” “Reagan,” or “Aardvark.” Each server was procured individually and configured by hand (often by several different people). Because each server was configured manually, no two servers were exactly like. Each machine was like a special snowflake.
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If your knowledge of the UNIX operating system is basically the line from the 1993 movie “Jurassic Park” (where Lexie goes, “It’s a UNIX system! I know this!), you might want to brush up a bit more on the subject. Sure, there’s Wikipedia, but if you’re a video fan, you’ll want to check out this film, published today on YouTube by the folks from the AT&T Tech Channel.
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03.06.14
Posted in News Roundup at 1:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Privacy
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The authorities must take the necessary time to remedy the slapdash introduction of a database containing the medical records of the entire population of England.
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Medical data has huge power to do good, but it presents risks too. When leaked, it cannot be unleaked. When lost, public trust cannot be easily regained
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Facebook still gets a lot of press these days, and it supposedly has more than a billion users. But I’ve pretty much given up on it for business and personal use. Over the last couple of years I’ve found that Facebook just wasn’t worth the effort and time that I was putting into it.
First I deleted the Facebook pages for my blogs, and then I eventually deleted my Facebook account altogether.
Illegal Surveillance on Surveillance Oversight
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U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released the following letter from Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan acknowledging that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act applies to the CIA. The question was asked of Brennan by Wyden in a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 29, 2014. Wyden is a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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This refusal will give those who claim the programs are “legal” another notch on the rhetoric belt, as if not discussing the legality (or illegality) of the program was the equivalent to being found legal by the highest court in the land. If the courts are unwilling to entertain surveillance-related cases, either by refusal to grant standing or refusal to hear the case at all, the defenders can continue to claim the programs are legal.
Drones
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You’ve got to hand it to Hamid Karzai. He is nothing if not brazen. Other world leaders might be embarrassed if caught accepting bags of cash from the CIA. Not Karzai. Instead, he is bragging to reporters that the CIA money was “an easy source of petty cash” and reassuring anyone who will listen that he will continue on the CIA payroll.
The question is: What is the CIA getting for its (read: our) money? I am not opposed in principle to the CIA paying off the leaders of other countries; it has certainly done so before. If intelligently used, cash can be a valuable part of an influence operation; it can be a vital source of support for strong pro-American leaders such as Ramon Magsaysay, the president of the Philippines from 1953 to 1957.
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Have you heard about the Ithacans in Dewitt court battles, sentenced to jail for peaceful demonstrations against drone warfare at Hancock Field? And wondered if there was any way you could help?
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Concretely, the figures did not include injured individuals that died after been transported as wounded to other localities, such as hospitals or camps. The demise occurring after, even long afterwards, and as consequence of injures received in the combats or air strikes. In other words, media reports on “war casualties”– in the context of the given combat or air-strike event which is the subject in the report – invariably refer as fatalities only to those who perished in situ and at that very occasion.
Civil Rights
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- Ed: iophk commented on this saying that “The rationale for the arrest, the hyperlink, is interesting in the context of the EU consultation which ended today. Some of the questions pertained to possible changes to copyright law disallowing hyperlinking to external objects.”
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Well, well, well. We were about to put up the post below, describing the arguments that Barrett Brown’s lawyers filed about why the criminal charges against him for sharing a link (which they claimed was trafficking in stolen credit card details) were completely bogus… and it appears that the DOJ itself was convinced. Just hours after Brown’s lawyers filed their comprehensive argument, the DOJ has filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charges that stem from the cutting and pasting of the link. The other charges, concerning threatening acts (described below) and “obstruction of justice” (for hiding his laptop in a cabinet) remain, meaning that he is still facing significant jail time. But the core charge, concerning cutting and pasting a link, is now being dismissed. Of course, it’s still a travesty that the DOJ ever included that in the indictment in the first place.
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This latter category, comprising 48 of the prisoners, was profoundly troubling to those of us who had looked closely at what purported to be the evidence against the prisoners, and had concluded, with good reason, that it was profoundly unreliable. This is because it consisted, to an alarming degree, of self-incriminating statements made by the prisoners themselves, often in circumstances in which coercion, or other forms of pressure were used, or of statements made by other prisoners, even though many of these prisoners had been identified as unreliable by personnel at Guantánamo, and also, in some cases, by judges reviewing the supposed evidence in the prisoners’ habeas corpus petitions.
NSA vs. Privacy
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The central pillar of Obama’s plan to overhaul the NSA surveillance programs calls for shifting storage of Americans’ phone data from the government to telecoms or an independent third party. But telecoms don’t want that job. Companies say they are wary of being forced to standardize their own data collection to conform to the NSA’s needs.
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The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is the federal agency within the executive branch that’s expected to independently review anti-terrorism efforts to see if they comply with established law and to ensure “liberty concerns” are addressed. Some think a privacy group so close to the President would only be a “rubber-stamp” operation. But the PCLOB surprised more than a few when its recent 238-page report bluntly condemned the NSA surveillance program collecting bulk telephony call records as illegal, saying it should be shut down. Now the PCLOB is turning its attention to “PRISM,” the purported NSA surveillance program that has come to light through leaks to the media from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
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Another former NSA official has offered his contribution to the “Snowden has destroyed the NSA” narrative. Jack Israel, former “technical director for NSA’s analysis & production directorate” has posted an op-ed at the Baltimore Sun that makes all the usual stops on the talking point circuit on its way to claiming the leaks have done “permanent damage” to the NSA.
Sept. 11th? Referenced heavily. The bulk of Israel’s op-ed recounts the agency’s actions after the Sept. 11th attacks, including its newfound interest in the internet. Rather than acknowledging the failure to collaborate that allowed a known terrorist (and 9/11 participant) to reenter the country unnoticed, Israel blames this on another, older leak.
Nobel Peace Prize is a Joke
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Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman who faces international criticism for this week’s invasion of Ukraine, is among the 278 people nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Putin was reportedly nominated for his work in defusing last year’s Syrian crisis.
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Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden are among a record 278 people nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
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Ukraine
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The ultra-right Svoboda Party has scored six major cabinet ministries in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk approved by the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday. Svoboda is an ultra-right, anti-Semitic, Russophobic party with its base of support in the Western Ukraine.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was spurred by U.S. behind-the-scenes actions, says former Ohio congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday accused Kucinich of being a pacifist because of his opposition to the Iraq war, and Kucinich countered that war is wrong but not all U.S. military action is so.
O’Reilly then asked how Kucinich would have handled the Ukraine crisis had he been president.
Assange
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Chris Hedges is among the last of a dying breed: the war correspondent that has spent his life with society’s outcasts and the faceless victims of conflcit. I ask how he came into journalism and what he thinks are the crucial attributes for a journalist. “I originally came to journalism through the priesthood actually. I was studying at Harvard Divinity school, originally intending to become a minister when I met a fantastic guy named Robert Cox. Robert had been editor of the Buenos Aires Herald during the dirty war in the late 70’s. He was a very brave man. The government at the time’s way of disposing of its enemies was ‘disappearing them’; they’d simply vanish into the night, usually never to be seen again. Bob used to print the names of those who had been disappeared the previous day above the fold in his newspaper.
“Eventually, he himself was disappeared, although his life was saved by the intervention of the British and American governments. He really opened my eyes to the possibility of journalism, and what journalism can do.”
He emphasises a balanced approach. “One of the most important things you can do as a journalist is have a strict sense of objectivity and wish to stick to the truth. Orwell is the absolute epitome of this aspect of our profession, particularly in books such as Homage to Catalonia. I’ll illustrate with an example from my own career. When I covered the war in Kosovo, I spent the vast majority of my time covering the atrocities of the Serbian security forces, who, if they hadn’t been stopped by a NATO intervention, would have committed murder, massacre and rape on a huge scale. But when they withdrew, their role was replaced by that of Albanian thugs who instead starting beating and murdering elderly Serb couples who had nothing whatsoever to do with Milosevic and his crimes
Police
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Seven Democrats voted against moving forward with President Obama’s nomination of Adegbile, which the Fraternal Order of Police and other groups opposed because of his involvement in the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
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That’s when Electra police officers Matt Wood and Gary Ellis approached Nesin, setting off a series of actions that will leave your blood boiling. The pair engaged in unethical police behavior starting off with asking Nesin for his identification even though he had broken no laws, all the way to Electra city attorney Todd Greenwood admitting that they do not follow the Constitution in their town, with a lot of strong-armed bullying taking place in between.
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Posted in GNU/Linux at 11:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Firefox OS
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Mozilla has designed a phone that’s even more affordable for emerging markets and thus redefines the entry level for smartphones. Mozilla engineers were able to accomplish this by adjusting the hardware requirements of the operating system to run on a 1 GHz CPU, single core Spreadtrum chipset with only 128 MB of RAM. That’s only 25 to 50 percent of the RAM found in existing entry-level devices on the market, said Joe Cheng, product manager at Mozilla in this video demonstration of the prototype phone, below.
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At the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona this week, there was much news on the open source phone front. As we repoorted, Nokia announced the Nokia X and X+, four-inch phones running Android that will become part of Microsoft’s mobile portfolio when its acquisition of Nokia closes soon. The other interesting aspect of the Nokia phones is that they are inexpensive, but Mozilla also made headlines at Mobile World Congress for its take on low cost phones. The company is talking up $25 smartphones based on Firefox OS, and the first ones have already been shown.
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Mozilla will take over some responsibility for issuing Firefox OS updates that carriers today have, a move that could help users avoid the fate of Android phone owners saddled with older operating system versions.
“We are pushing that envelope,” Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich told CNET. “We think we can get people on Wi-Fi upgrading through Mozilla.”
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Mobile World Congress (MWC) kicked off with a bang, with Mozilla announcing a US$25 smartphone built around a turnkey solution that features silicon from China-based Spreadtrum and software from Firefox.
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Jolla/Sailfish
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Jolla co-founder Stefano Mosconi is confident about the future of Sailfish OS and believes his company can carve out a niche in the smartphone market, with Finland desperate for it to succeed.
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Just a few months after the launch of its first handsets, Finnish smartphone startup Jolla has announced that Sailfish OS, the Linux-derived operating system that powers its devices, has reached version 1.0.
Tizen
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From the very start, Tizen has had the concept of device profiles, where there’s a common set of core software components (kernel, coreutils, networking stack, etc.) that are applicable to every type of device, and there are specializations specific to whatever it is you’re using. Take your hand and open it flat. Ok? Good. Your palm is the core software stack, and your fingers are the device-specific profiles – handset, IVI, TV, etc. Chances are good that many elements of the core stack will be the same, and in all cases you want to optimize for lower power consumption and better performance, but what a smartphone presents to the user is generally quite different from an IVI system, or a wearable device, or a camera, or a TV, or a refrigerator, or… I’m sure you get the point. One size doesn’t fit all, but you certainly can be smart about not reinventing the wheel for each product class.
Mix
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When it comes to smartphones, consumers have an array of choices from Apple to… well, Android.
The impression you get stepping into most phone carriers’ showrooms is that the programmers behind Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are driving most of the innovation in smartphones. You’ll find few phones on display that run other software systems.
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Even Microsoft’s Nokia went lower end with new X and X+ phones running a modified Android build and selling for just 89 and 99 euros, respectively. The irony works on many levels here, including the fact that before Nokia went high-end with Windows Phone, it dominated feature phone sales. Nokia phones are still the most commonly seen phones in developing nations.
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Posted in News Roundup at 11:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Valve boss Gabe Newell has concluded his Reddit AMA (conducted to support the fundraising effort Valve is doing for the Seattle Children’s Hospital), and in the process has offered a few snippets of information on what the company is up to.
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While many developers are jumping on board with Linux, odds are that porting their old titles is not likely to occur, whether due to cost, resources or perceived lack of interest. This issue can be solved by either “going native”, only running software that is available natively for Linux, or by employing an option such as Wine to get it to run under Linux. Another option includes virtualization, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
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Posted in News Roundup at 11:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Uhuru Software, a company specialising in delivering Microsoft platforms support for Linux on Monday announced the release of Windows support and a management console for Cloud Foundry to the open source community.
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In this post, I am going to show 10 popular video editing software available on Linux. I will not cover subjective merits such as usability or interface design, but instead highlight notable features of each video editor. If you have tried any particular video editor listed here, feel free to share your experience or opinion.
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MultiTail is an open source ncurses utility that can be used to display multiple logfiles to standard output in a single window or a single shell that shows last few lines of logfiles in a real-time like tail command which split console into more subwindows (much like screen command). It also supports color highlighting, filtering, adding and deleting windows and much more.
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This release is dedicated to the people of all nations living in Ukraine.
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