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01.01.12

Links 01/01/2012: Alien Arena 7.53, Calculate Linux 11.12

Posted in News Roundup at 5:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Think Penguin’s “Penguin Air” Review.

    It wasn’t that long ago when we were forced to buy Windows machines, only to uninstall it and install Linux. But for most everyone, things are still the same. We shamelessly hand over our hard-earned money to Microsoft for something that we never wanted, nor planned to ever use. Most laptops are more than powerful enough for us to get by on, and those of us who know a thing or two about system requirements will gladly take a bargain system if it suits our needs. Sometimes it’s just about freedom, though many don’t know what it is as it regards to computing. You can certainly liberate any laptop (or desktop for that matter) from its shackles and regain freedom, but it goes a little deeper than that.

  • No Rants Just Sincere Concerns for Linux at Home

    Gone are the days of dirty commands on a text console. In 2012 99% users are going to use computers as just other electronic appliances. They are not going to worry what’s going under the hood as long as it works. I’m using Linux more than a decade (two of my home PCs are linux – Debian and PCLinuxOS, 100′s of my office workstations are linux – CentOS and Fedora), even administered some desktops for sometime. Here are my list of basics that go wrong in Linux, always.

  • Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 180, Happy New Year!

  • Kernel Space

    • Host storage devices vulnerable with KVM Linux virtualisation

      According to a kernel update advisory by Red Hat, root users in a guest system that is virtualised with KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) can, in certain circumstances, gain read and write access to the Linux host’s storage devices. The advisory says that the hole exists when a host makes available partitions or LVM volumes to the guest as “raw disks” via virtio. Privileged guest users can send SCSI requests to such volumes that the host will execute on the underlying storage device – which allows the guest system to access all areas of the device rather than just the permitted partitions or volumes.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

  • Distributions

    • Best Desktop Distributions

      A few days ago a friend, being new to Linux, asked me about different distributions and that led to a long talk about their merits and failings. So, being new to blog-sphere, I decided to play it safe and write about best desktop distributions. But I also thought that I could do this a little differently. Best as in best for the Linux Desktop. First let us find some criteria for choosing distributions:

      1. Considering an usual desktop user uses around 1000-2000 package, the distribution must have over 10000 packages. Let’s just say over 9000.
      2. It must not be a cosmetic derivative, or a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of a…
      3. It must be up-to-date. My criteria for this is two important packages: linux (* > 3.0.6) and libreoffice (* > 3.3). This packages manage to give a good sense of up-to-dateness for the desktop.
      4. It must have an active community.
      5. It must support both KDE and Gnome 3.
      6. It must not be a testing variant.

    • That’s my name, don’t wear it out

      Linux Mint: I particularly like the naming convention Clement Lefevbre has come up with for Linux Mint. It’s alphabetically a woman’s name ending in “a.” We’re at Julia now. I asked Clement once what he’d do when he got to “Zelda” (or whatever the “Z” name will be for Linux Mint when they get that far . . . and they will), and he said that it was simple: Start with a name beginning with “A” and end the name in “e.”

    • New Releases

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Firefox 9 Is 30% Faster Than Firefox 8 | Install Firefox 9 On Ubuntu 11.10 and Earlier Releases
          • Search YouTube videos on Ubuntu with the YouTube Lens
          • What I Love About Ubuntu Unity

            I think the most important thing to understand about Unity is that it is not primarily a program or a desktop. It is primarily a set of specifications which are implemented in different ways. The two most prominent implementations are Unity and Unity 2D, but there are already several others. Since Unity is a set of specifications, it is possible to implement parts of it without that being considered an incomplete implementation. For instance, the indicators are supported on LXDE, Xfce, Windows, KDE and others. This is very important. For instance, people are complaining about not all Gnome Panel applets being ported to Gnome Panel 3 yet. This is because the applets become part of the panel itself, meaning that it has to be completely compatible or it won’t work. This is not the case with indicators, which is why all indicators are already supported on Gnome Panel 3. The panel just needs to support the indicator specification and then all indicators automatically work. It is also an uncomplicated specification, so it’s easy and quick to do.

          • Ubuntu rolling out the new

            If you’ve been thinking about giving Linux a run on your computer, Ubuntu’s next major release could be the one for you.

            Ubuntu 12.04, otherwise known as Precise Pangolin, will be released in April 2012 and promises to be one of the better releases of the past year from Canonical as the Ubuntu developers finally get to grips with the major desktop changes the OS has been going through.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Verizon Does A GoDaddy Drops $2 Bill Charge Plan

    It appeared to be a GoDaddy like day for Verizon and the customer broke the hell. The next day Verizon was forced to drop the plan.

  • Security

    • Researchers publish open-source tool for hacking WiFi Protected Setup

      On December 27, the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued a warning about a vulnerability in wireless routers that use WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) to allow new devices to be connected to them. Within a day of the discovery, researchers at a Maryland-based computer security firm developed a tool that exploits that vulnerability, and has made a version available as open source.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Civil Rights

    • Go Daddy really and truly opposes SOPA now

      Now, after the Reddit Go Daddy protest gathered steam; Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales announced that he would be moving Wikipedia’s domain names from Go Daddy; and, last but not least, aggressive ads from competiting Internet domain registry and hosting companies such as Namecheap, Adelman has had a real change of heart.

  • Copyrights

    • Actual damages for single unauthorized download of software program held to be cost of single license fee
    • Goodwill And Hospitality Theft Continue To Drive Up The Cost Of The Holiday Season

      This holiday season many lawyers, executives, lobbyists, and politicians will have their relatives, friends, and family members stay in their households. With the economy slumping, some out-of-town visitors can’t afford to stay at hotels. When money is tight, these visitors know they can count on the hospitality of family and friends, who will welcome them in with open arms and good cheer.

      However, these hosts need to remain vigilant and avoid being swept up in the general goodwill of the holiday season. In the rose-colored fog of the Christmas-to-New Year’s festivities, it’s easy for these situations to get out of hand. Guests have a tendency to get too comfortable very quickly and before you realize it, it’s nearly February and a variety of house guests have begun to refer to you as “Dad” or “Grandpa” and you’re on the hook for video rentals, dry cleaning bills and dental appointments. Your vehicle is now referred to as the “family car” (often by non-family members), your house has become a combination day care/animal shelter and your walk-in closet is now home to a family of Guatemalan refugees.

      What starts as selfless “giving” swiftly becomes one-sided “taking.” These interlopers are not only stealing the relatively priceless* time of their hosts, but also their unbillable goodwill. While “goodwill” would seem to be in infinite supply during the latter part of December, the available supply dwindles at a rate inversely proportionate to the number of hours the “family car” has been missing.

      *Not actually “priceless.” Billing for used time runs anywhere from $400/hr. [lawyers] to $55,000/hr. [executives] to $20+ billion/hr. [politicians].

      The result of this goodwill “piracy” is nothing short of tragic. As time and goodwill are swiftly “stolen” by house guests, the host’s direct family often finds itself having to do without. At best, they can only hope to have a few moments between meals and Immigration raids to angrily discuss efforts to block the rogue infringers, perhaps by seizing the guest bedroom and posting a sternly-worded warning on the door.

    • EA, Sony, Nintendo pull support from SOPA (but their industry association still supports it)

12.30.11

Links 30/12/2011: Cuba Progresses With GNU/Linux, Red Hat Expects Staff Boost of 24%

Posted in News Roundup at 5:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • The Top Five Linux Stories of 2011
  • TLWIR 29: Mozilla News, LibreOffice Chart Trick and Bitcoin Rises Again

  • Desktop

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Ubuntu Razor-qt Remix Screenshot Tour

      Softpedia announced yesterday, December 28th, the immediate availability for download of a new Ubuntu Remix, this time featuring the next-gen, super-fast, simplistic Razor-qt desktop environment.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • GNOME 3.3.3 Heats Things Up For GNOME 3.4

        GNOME 3.3.3 is now available as the latest update in what will ultimately become GNOME 3.4 next March.

      • The Year in Review: Desktop Linux Developments in 2011

        The “year in review” pieces that proliferate old and new media alike around this time of year get tedious pretty fast. But because I’ve yet to see a good compilation of the major developments — and there were plenty of them — that affected desktop Linux in 2011, I couldn’t think of any better topic for my last post of the month. That may make me a hypocrite, but if you can forgive a personal flaw, keep reading for a look at how the Linux world has evolved in the last 365 days or so.

  • Distributions

    • Pinoy Linux flavor stirs ripple in OS community

      The latest version of a locally developed operating system made the country proud early this month when the Linux-based software made a good impression among enthusiasts of the open source community.

    • Google Chrome Uses Graphics Card to Accelerate SVG, CSS

      Google has just added a new flag in its Chromium 18 builds that extends the browser’s hardware acceleration feature.

    • Chakra and Pinguy OS find spots in the top 25 fastest growing projects

      GNU/Linux distros Chakra and Pinguy feature in the Top 25 fastest growing projects compiled by SourceForge.So find out who else features in the list…

    • TechSource’s Top 10 Linux Distributions of 2011

      As we say goodbye to a momentous 2011, it’s time to reflect on some of the big happenings in the FOSS world. Apart from Android’s rise, Torvalds’s rant, and a tasty ice cream sandwich treat, the year also saw some big changes taking place for popular Linux distributions. While many of the changes ranged from annoyingly buggy to downright unusable, a few pleasant minty surprises did manage to cleanse the Linuxiens’ palettes.

    • The Linux top 10 hit parade

      Picking the top ten Linux distributions is fraught with problems. There’s very little hard data to go on and the nature of open source means that most users are getting copies of their favourite Linux release from a variety of sources – from official download channels to third-party sites or even from friends.

    • Austrumi 2.4.5: Small and Mighty

      The Austrumi team released a new version of their operating system recently, on the 30th of September, 2011.

    • New Releases

      • Endian 2.5
      • Calculate Linux 11.12 released

        You are welcome to choose between several flavours: Calculate Directory Server (CDS) if you need a server option; Calculate Linux Desktop featuring a KDE (CLD), GNOME (CLDG) or XFCE (CLDX) desktop; Calculate Media Center (CMC) if a media center is what you want; or, if you would rather prefer a scratch distribution, either Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) or Calculate Scratch Server (CSS).

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat (RHT) Crosses Pivot Point Resistance at $41.46
      • Get 10% To 20% Returns With Agilent And Red Hat Options

        Tech stocks have taken a beating in 2011, but in my opinion the market has it all wrong. The PowerShares Index (QQQ) has been trending sideways all year in the face of increased revenues and profits. Many tech stocks have been beating estimates and projecting growth into 2012. The QQQ has barely returned 1% for 2011, and 2012 isn’t looking any better. Using LEAPS, you can beat the market and get returns ranging from 10% to 20%.

      • CEO Of Cloud Firm Red Hat Expects To Boost Staff 24%

        Founded in 1993, the company has become a leading provider of support and related services for the Linux open-source operating system, which companies often use to build cloud computing-based data centers. That’s where users store data and apps that they access via the Internet, or the “cloud.”

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 11.10: Setting up Oneiric

            The latest Ubuntu is slick and sublime, and while it gets a lot right, there’s still some essential tweaks you can do to make the most of your new install.

          • Introducing Ubuntu Calendar Lens for Unity
          • Full Circle Magazine – Lite!

            I know we’ve spoke about a mobile/epub version of Full Circle before, but I have good news! Our latest team member, Jens, is working on an epub edition of FCM which I previewed on our Facebook and Google+ pages. It’s looking good so far, and I hope to have more to show you on that next week some time.

            In the mean time, think of Full Circle Magazine Lite as a quick beta test edition of FCM to read on tablets and mobile phones. The first edition (FCM#56) is available through Google Currents, and app that you can download either from the Android Market*, or the Apple App Store.

          • Poulsbo Looks Better On Ubuntu 12.04, But Still Ugly

            Intel GMA500 “Poulsbo” graphics have a better out-of-the-box experience under the forthcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release thanks to improvements in the open-source field, but ultimately it’s still an ugly mess.

          • Ubuntu AppStore Goes Online

            One thing that GNU/Linux misses the most is marketing. We never get to know about the new and useful tools which are being added due to the lack of PR muscles. Recently Ubuntu made yet another incredible move which makes the application installation process of Windows look ancient. Ubuntu silently took its apps on-line by launching ‘Ubuntu App Directory’ (the name can be more attractive like Ubuntu App Shop).

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Lubuntu is a Nice Clean Desktop

              I am not going to make Lubuntu my day-to-day distro, on this machine. However, I would highly recommend it, and will use it, on older machines. Lubuntu is also a good alternative to those who want an alternative to Ubuntu’s Unity desktop.

            • Xubuntu 11.10 with Xfce4 Desktop

              I wasn’t really planning on installing Xubuntu, but it was the only Live/Install edition with the Xfce desktop that would install on an external USB drive from a USB stick, and that supported the Broadcom Wireless driver required by my HP mini netbook. The Xfce desktop is an alternative for those with older computers with minimal memory and older graphic cards.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • $25 Raspberry Pi Linux PC Said to Arrive in January
    • Enea Inks Binding Deal To Sell Nordic Consulting Business

      Enea said it would focus on operating systems solutions and has the building blocks to deploy an entire system solution featuring Linux, realtime operating systems and hardware environments. Also, Enea would continue to offer services such as training and product related consulting services through their consulting units in Phoenix, Bucharest and Beijing. After the divestment, Enea would have 400 employees in 9 countries.

    • LLVM/Clang On The ARMv7 OMAP4 PandaBoard ES

      Here’s a quick look at running the LLVM/Clang compiler on the OMAP4460-based PandaBoard ES compared to the default GCC compiler.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Android for Dummies: Make your own build of CyanogenMod

          For those of our readers that are looking to get into Android ROM development, but may not know where to start, there is a new tool created by XDA developer Lithid that will allow you to start some basic experimenting using the popular CyanogenMod ROM. The project, entitled CyanogenMod Compiler (CMC), allows users to tweak some simple settings such as wallpapers and language packs then compile ROM builds from the CM repository.

        • Best root only applications for Android devices
        • Smartphones getting the ICS update

          With the impending retail release of the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus smartphone in some parts of the world, Google will be making Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) open source.

        • 10 apps to add to your new Android phone
        • India To Become Android Super Hub?

          Chennai, the capital of south Indian state Tamil Nadu, is known as an electronic manufacturing hub with multinational corporations setting up Electronics/Hardware manufacturing plants in the region, especially in the Sriperumbudur electronics SEZ. The city is also home to many IT companies is fast becoming the support hub for Android, reports IBNLive.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Death and Rebirth of the Netbook

        As much as some of the Wintel “partners” would wish small cheap computers to go away, the netbook keeps going like the Energizer Bunnytm. Shipments are down quite a bit from a year ago with all the noise about smart thingies but the netbook is beloved because it is small, cheap, portable and comes with a keyboard.

        Intel has just announced an Atom processor designed for netbooks. At 1.6gHz it can be fanless but at 1.8gHz it wants a fan. In spite of 32nm technology and lots of features to reduce idle power consumption the thing must still be a hog. It uses 3.5 to 10 W while ARMed CPUs are way less than 1W per core. These gadgets are dual-core/dual-threaded. I guess Intel expects heavier batteries will do the trick…

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Unix Server Market Poised For Growth, Transitions

    While the Unix server business has lost much of its glamour in the face of assaults from Windows, Linux, and the cloud, there is still plenty of life — and growth — in the business, although for the foreseeable future that growth will be enjoyed only by IBM.

  • One of the Nails in M$’s Coffin

    In all that time, shareholders reaped short-term gains. Insiders reaped huge windfalls. End users suffered one indignity after another. A better product was not produced until 2009 by which time the world had seen a better way to do IT: GNU/Linux on desktop and server and Android/Linux on mobile devices. M$ has climbed to the top of the “shareholder value” ladder only to find it’s not resting on anything. The monopoly is a house of cards now that OEMs are discovering they can cut M$ out of the stream of revenue. M$ is scrambling to put something forward in the mobile space buying Nokia (more or less) and pushing a laughable product consumers don’t buy and suing competitors to hold them back. In a year or two all this will bear fruit and M$ will be on a downward slide with no bottom.

  • The secret to getting rich in 2012: Open APIs

    If the last decade was all about open source, the next decade will be about open APIs. However, as with open source, APIs aren’t necessarily a guarantee of billions in the bank. They’re simply the ante for playing the technology game at scale. That scale will be determined by who gives developers the best access to data, and that access is a function of open APIs.

  • Security

  • Finance

    • Bill Black: What if the SEC investigated Banks the way it is investigating Mutual Funds?

      The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday (12/27/11) entitled “SEC Ups Its Game to Identify Rogue Firms.” “Rogue” is an interesting word with a range of definitions. When it is used as an adjective its meaning is: “a playfully mischievous person; scamp.” The trivialization of the most destructive elite frauds is one of the most common forms of what criminologists call “neutralization” of the moral content of wrong doing. Neutralization increases crime.The actual story makes it clear that the criminals that the SEC was identifying were not “rogues.” They were the CEOs of seemingly legitimate firms. The SEC is identifying “accounting control frauds” – the frauds that cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. The SEC is not identifying a few rotten apples, but roughly 100 hedge funds likely to have engaged in accounting fraud. The WSJ describes the SEC’s identification system:

    • Good Luck Occupiers, But Here’s Why “Facebook For Protesters” Won’t Work

      Members of the Occupy movement are building a “Facebook for protesters” called The Global Square, Wired reported yesterday. Less than a traditional social network, it’s an international collaboration network. While a valiant effort, I see 3 big problems with the project’s concept that will limit its success and impact.

      The Global Square is designed to allow Occupy Wall Street, local Occupy movements, and other protesters to coordinate and share knowledge across different content management systems. Some of the reasons for starting the project that its developers told Wired include:

      1. Connecting and mobilizing protest movements
      2. Creating an open-source alternative to Facebook and other corporate social networks
      3. Protesters don’t trust Facebook to keep their data and messages private from authorities

12.29.11

Links 29/12/2011: Linux Gains Respect From Enterprises, Approval of Army

Posted in News Roundup at 5:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux Gains Respect from Enterprise

    Clear advantages on usability and TCO related benefits are turning the tide in favor Linux usage within enterprise segment today.

    Over the past few years, Linux adoption rates in the enterprise have increased to encouraging levels. Enterprise users have quoted a wide range of TCO and ROI benefits, and as a result Linux has become a favorite strategic platform for business applications for a good number of enterprises.

  • Points about migrating from Windows to GNU/Linux

    I’ve had more questions lately about open source software, from co-workers and from other discussions. There seems to be a lot of curiosity of what open source is and how it can benefit. I’ve decided to take a moment and touch on the main issues I commonly explain to people that are currently using proprietary software such as Windows and Microsoft products, and are thinking of switching to open source alternatives. Switching operating systems and software is not as much of an issue as it used to be, as software is becoming more homogeneous. Some key points about migrating from Windows to GNU/Linux are:

    - Current and long term customers and are forced to pay for upgrades year after year, despite of how long they have been a Microsoft customer. It’s similar to paying maintenance on software, really. The worst example was with Windows Vista. Microsoft customers ended up getting this operating system on new PCs, and even though Microsoft admitted that Vista was a “mistake”, Microsoft turned around and focused on Windows 7 and making these very same customers pay full price for the Windows 7 upgrade, at the same price level as users still on XP. The moral move by Microsoft would have been to offer significant discounts to customers on Vista, with a different price level than those with XP. With open source, there are no upgrade costs to worry about. Once you decide to use an open source product, you are free to use it for as long as you wish, provided the product is continually developed.

  • Desktop

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE SC 4.8 – Is KDE In A Permanent Feature Freeze?

        On 22 December, KDE unleashed its first release candidate of the next major iteration of the 4.x series on an unsuspecting pre-Christmas world. KDE 4.8 is a major release number. As such, I was hoping for some pretty cool new features. However, looking at the release announcement, I see that there are only three new features worthy of mention…

      • How to Get a Dock-Like Taskbar in KDE with Icon Tasks

        KDE has always given users the ability to add launchers to its panel, and it has always had a very usable task manager. Until recently, however, there has not been a comprehensive and well-designed merging of the two. The Icon Tasks widget has changed all of that. It is a robust plasma widget that includes support for task-oriented launchers and even the Ubuntu Unity API.

      • Very short 4.8 first look (from a user’s perspective)

        The release candidates of the 4.8 generation are out since a few days and now also openSUSE packages are available in the KDE Unstable repository.

        Release candidates by KDE are usually very solid with incomplete translations as biggest drawback but since translating is usually done during RC phase, it’s to be expected.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • GNOME 3.3.3 Heats Things Up For GNOME 3.4

        GNOME 3.3.3 is now available as the latest update in what will ultimately become GNOME 3.4 next March.

        GNOME 3.3.3 was announced on Friday, 23 December, but only this morning did the release announcement clear GNOME’s mailing list queue.

  • Distributions

    • Review: Chakra 2011.12 “Edn”

      There’s a new build of Chakra out, and I have some free time to check it out, so I’m doing so now. The other reason why I want to try it now is because a member of my family was raving about KDE in Fedora, so I figured it would be worth my time to dig deeper and see if I can massage KDE into becoming something that I could really like and use regularly. I’ll spare any introductions because I’ve reviewed Chakra enough times already, so I’ll skip to the main part of it.

    • Clonezilla: A Drive-Duping Monster With a Fearsome Face

      Clonezilla does a lot. But it does have limitations, not the least of which is its kludgy, archaic textual interface. Still, the interface offers a simple and straightforward approach to cloning a hard drive partition. What Clonezilla lacks in prettiness it makes up for in performance. It has no lack of network devices, sharing protocols and external storage hooks.

    • Refactored Tiny Core Linux 4.2 released

      Tiny Core Linux 4.2 has been announced, with this release focusing on refactoring Robert Shingledecker’s ultracompact Linux distribution to be more modular. This has involved creating a new “Core” foundation for the platform comprising the 2.4 MB kernel and 5 MB of gzipped surrounding essential programs and utilities.

    • Arch, Ubuntu, and Debian Linux ported to the HP TouchPad tablet

      Before hackers figured out how to install Google Android on the HP TouchPad, people were using the 9.7 inch tablet to run Ubuntu Linux… sort of. The discontinued tablet actually shipped with HP’s webOS software preloaded and early attempts to run Linux didn’t boot Linux instead of webOS. They basically let you run Ubuntu alongside Android and run Ubuntu apps without rebooting using UbuntuChroot.

    • 13 weird and wonderful niche Linux distros

      Here are 13 of the best, oddest and most useful distributions that Linux has to offer, and why on Earth you’d want to use them.

    • And the best distro of 2011 is …

      I am absolutely sure this article will provoke as much agreement as hate and criticism, as the controversial list topped by Ubuntu is going to anger the hardcore users. But that’s the simple reality, the way I see it, take it or leave it.

      Like I’ve mentioned earlier, 2011 was a turbulent and unhappy year for Linux. KDE has blossomed but then it’s little wilted in the winter. Gnome 2 and Gnome 3, that’s a sad story, let’s hope MATE wins, although I’m skeptical. Unity started as something you had to hate, but it’s becoming a normal alternative to existing choices, and a rather good one. Do not diss it too lightly, take it for a spin. You might be surprised.

      So you might ask me, dear Dedo, were you testing desktop interfaces or Linux distros? Well, for most part, the two are inseparable, no matter how much you try. It’s the precarious, delicate combination of the system AND the desktop that makes the final product. Even though you can separate them, it is quite evident from dozens of failing attempts that the task is not that simple. A good desktop is an art, and it has to look pretty. But then, it also must be solid, robust and without any bugs. In this brutal race, Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot comes as the big winner of 2011. It, works, period.

    • New Releases

    • Red Hat Family

      • Who Sat on My Red Hat?

        Linux vendor Red Hat (NYSE: RHT ) reported third-quarter results last night, and shares dropped 8% the morning after. You’d think the company missed analyst targets, management guidance, and the inside of a barn with a shotgun, judging by the market reaction.

      • Red Hat cuts $87M real estate deal with Progress Energy

        Red Hat and Progress Energy Progress Energy Latest from The Business Journals Report: Progress Energy reaches million deal to lease out Raleigh towerProgress Energy CEO to discuss Duke merger at forumProgress Energy CEO to discuss Duke merger at forum Follow this company have reached final terms for their sublease arrangement at Progress’ Two Progress Plaza tower in downtown Raleigh with a lease contract valued at roughly $87 million – before significant concessions – over the next 23 years.

      • Red Hat (RHT) Approaches New Downside Target of $40.99
      • CloudLinux OS Added by JaguarPC

        A Linux-based operating system, CloudLinux offers kernel-level control to web hosting providers. Specific features of the OS include the ability to limit application resources (to safeguard against traffic spikes), tenant isolation, expert support, and more.

      • 2 Useful plugins for Yum

        In these days i’ve worked a lot on Red Hat Enterprise and Centos machines, and so i’ve used yum to install, upgrade, remove and download packages.

      • Fedora

        • PHP 5.4 To Be Included in Fedora 17

          Two weeks ago we were announcing the new features of the upcoming Fedora 17 (Beefy Miracle) operating system, due for release on May 8th, 2012.

    • Debian Family

      • I replace sun-java6 with openjdk-6 in Debian Squeeze, everything still works

      • Derivatives

        • EeeMC 12.04.24: An Ubuntu 12.04 Based HTPC

          Whosa, the developer behind the EeeMC project, announced yesterday, December 27th, the immediate availability for download and testing of the EeeMC 12.04.24 Beta operating system.

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Changing the LightDM login background in Ubuntu 11.10
          • 5 Alternatives To Unity For Ubuntu Users [Linux]

            We’ve previously written about Ubuntu’s Unity desktop environment, which we touted as a “big leap forward” for Linux when it was introduced with Ubuntu 11.04. Unity was certainly a big leap in a new direction, but it left a lot of users behind.

            Luckily, Linux is all about choice and Ubuntu’s software repositories contain a variety of excellent alternatives to Unity. Each desktop environment you install appears as an option when you click the gear icon on Ubuntu’s login screen. You can install as many as you want and find the one that’s right for you.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • As 2012 Dawns, Mint Leads the List of Top Linux Distros

              It’s a different landscape now in the world of desktop Linux, so as 2011 draws to a close and 2012 dawns, I’d like to take a look at where things stand when it comes to the many choices available in this free and open source operating system.

              Anything could change in the coming months, of course, but here are the top 10 desktop Linux distributions as of late December 2011.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi $25 PC on course for January arrival

      The $25 computer project known as Raspberry Pi is set to go on sale next month.

      The tiny computer, which runs Linux on an ARM processor and sports USB, audio and video out, as well as an SD card slot, was designed to be an ultra-low-cost computer aimed at children.

      In a blog post picked up by Business Insider this week, its creators noted that the machine will be available in January following some additional testing on the hardware and software.

    • U.K. Charity Preps $25-$35 PCs For Early 2012 Launch

      Don’t be fooled by the device’s tiny footprint and low cost. Raspberry Pi is fully capable of rendering Blu-ray-quality, 1080p video playback. What’s more, the Raspberry Pi integrates the requisite hardware-accelerated graphics capabilities for supporting imaging, a camcorder, streaming media and 3D gaming.

    • Phones

      • Tough negotiator: HP wanted $1.2B for webOS and Palm’s assets (exclusive)

        $1.2 billion. That’s how much HP paid for Palm last year, and it’s also how much the company was trying to sell its Palm assets for over the latter half of 2011, VentureBeat has learned.

      • HP wanted $1.2 billion for WebOS and Palm assets

        HP has already made the decision to open source its WebOS platform, but according to a VentureBeat insider source, the company had initially wanted to sell WebOS along with other Palm assets for $1.2 billion. This is the same amount that HP paid when it acquired Palm back in 2010, meaning it was trying to offload a failing purchase without taking a loss.

      • Unreleased 7-inch TouchPad Go Reviewed, Deemed a Good Tablet

        Although webOS is now an open-source platform available for all, that doesn’t mean we can’t take a look at some cool hardware of what could have been. The TouchPad Go — a 7-inch version of the TouchPad was never mass produced or officially announced, but webOS Nation got their hands on a prototype and gave it a thorough review.

      • Android

        • Samsung may allow Android 4 on Galaxy S, Tab after all

          Samsung may be rethinking its decision not to bring Android 4 to the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab (hat tip to The Verge). After the company’s announcement that neither device could be updated due to the size of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, the company is reportedly considering backing down on its decision due to “strong customer demand.”

        • 2011: The year Android had Multiple Personality Disorder

          In 2011 Google’s Android brought us splits in versions, open source commitment, carrier and OEM implementations, preferred device vendors and application ecosystems.

        • The Army goes Android

          The U.S. military stands to be stuck in its way when it comes to technologies. For ages the only smartphone you could use in Department of Defense (DOD) operations was a Blackberry. Now, as first reported by Stars and Stripes, you can use your Android phone and tablet on DOD business and with DOD networks.

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Top Ten Stupidest Things That Happened In Tech In 2011

    1. There was a movie called “Source Code” that had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with programming.

  • Five Open Source Technologies for 2012
  • Call for promotion of mother tongue

    Addressing the first technical session of the fourth international conference on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), Ms. Gordon, a specialist in international development, expressed concern over the tendency in India to use English as the medium from the kindergarten level. “I am not sure you will have the same level of technological capability if you start doing that. Research shows that people’s ability to think conceptually is facilitated by having their first years of education in their mother tongue. It is very important to stay with the language at least for the first few years.”

  • Top Open Source Projects of 2011: Find the Award Winners

    It’s that time of year when the open source community looks back on what the best projects and products of the past 12 months were. A peek at some of the compilations on this topic shows that there is some agreement on which projects and products stood out, but there are also some outlier technologies from this year that you may not be so familiar with. Here is a handy guide to some of the best open source offerings of 2011.

  • OStatic’s Best Read Open Source Resource Guides and Collections

    Since OStatic’s inception, we’ve produced regularly updated roundups on everything from free books on open source topics, to top FOSS applications for working with video and digital music, to collections of resources for learning Linux. Many of these roundups are good ways to dive into open source applications for the first time, and join communities that you may not have known about. Marking the end of 2011, here is an updated collection of the most popular roundups we’ve done, which include hundreds of our favorite open source applications and guides for using them.

  • Ada Initiative adviser deserts group

    An adviser of a non-profit group that aims to increase the participation of women in free and open source software and culture has quit, describing the group as having achieved little since it was set up, despite spending nearly $US100,000.

  • Fearless open source predictions for 2012

    Ah, the sweet smell of a new year. Although I have to admit, 2011 wasn’t the best of years for Linux and open source, it certainly wasn’t the worst. But what 2011 did do was build a nice solid base for things to come. And I believe 2012 will be a vastly improved year for our favorite software and platform.

    I won’t go as far to say that 2012 will finally be the year of the desktop for Linux — I think that flag has flown enough over the last decade (and to no avail). But, the good news is that the desktop landscape is about to see some serious changes as the multi-touch form factor starts to take a larger role. But more on that later. So, what is possible (besides ‘anything’) for the up-coming year? Here are my prognostications.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla isn’t a charity case – and Google’s $300m will do nicely

        Some people seem to think Google gave Mozilla a sweetheart deal when it renewed its search agreement for Firefox. At roughly $300 million per year, it will fund quite a bit of open-source development at Mozilla, but this isn’t a case of Google going soft during the Christmas season. It is, as Mozilla veteran Asa Dotzler argues, simply a case of Google paying the going market rate for traffic to its ads.

      • Why Google Continues to Fund Firefox

        Just before the holiday weekend Mozilla announced that it had renewed its long-standing search revenue agreement with Google, which will reportedly net Mozilla $300 million a year (as part of a three-year contract). The renewed contract comprises the bulk of Mozilla’s funding and is unquestionably a good deal for Mozilla. What’s less immediately clear is why Google — which now has its own Chrome browser — would want to continue the deal.

  • SaaS

    • OpenNebula 2011: A Year of Innovation in Cloud Computing

      Technology
      The stable version of OpenNebula 2.2 was released in March with the new SunStone GUI and important new features for fault tolerance and scalability. Seven months later, in October, the project released OpenNebula 3.0 with management of zones and virtual data centers, new authentication methods with usage quotas, a VM template repository, a new monitoring and accounting service, and a new network subsystem with support for Open vSwitch and 802.1Q tagging. OpenNebula 3.0 features the latest innovations in cloud computing for the deployment of cutting-edge enterprise-ready on-premise IaaS clouds.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice Had a Great Year

      Only Slackware, CentOS, PCLinuxOS, and ArchLinux do not ship LibreOffice. RedHat is a major contributor to LibreOffice so it will likely be shipped by them sooner or later and CentOS will follow. I think the number “over 30 million” is a conservative estimate. The distros shipping LibreOffice ship more than 30 million. The number must come from their downloads which include users of that other OS so the number could be twice as large as that. I would not be surprised if LibreOffice reaches 100 million users shortly. It’s that good.

    • Oracle Tip – The Department of Defense and Open Source Software

      Many major software companies, including Oracle, utilize Open Source software in their products. Most commercial software is actually blended software: software that is sold under a different licensing terms from Open Source, but is probably built using a variety of Open Source components.

    • Oracle v. Google – Inquisitive Judge Invites Questionable Approach

      In an order issued yesterday (657 [PDF; Text]) Judge Alsup invited the parties to submit memoranda analyzing an alternative approach to the use of the Sun/Google 2006 negotiation. In so doing Judge Alsup is inviting an almost insoluble problem that can ensnare courts and juries when applying the Georgia-Pacific factors in determining damages. Don’t expect Google to leap at this approach.

  • CMS

    • 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

      Matt Mullenweg is the founder of WordPress, an open-source publishing platform run by a non-profit foundation, and also the CEO of Automattic, a for-profit entity that offers services based around WordPress. We asked him for his reflections on 2011 and his New Year’s resolutions for 2012 because he is an entrepreneur who has achieved great success but also someone who has insights into where the web is going.

  • Semi-Open Source

    • eDoctor, Inc. Announces New Integrated OpenEMR Solution

      eDoctor, Inc., an innovative provider of Health IT solutions, now offers a Meaningful Use-certified Ambulatory EMR through the Open Source OpenEMR project. A state-of-the-art Web-based software system, the eDoctor OpenEMR is a comprehensive Health IT package providing numerous features including practice management, clinical management, and electronic billing. Integrated within the eDoctor OpenEMR are certified NewCrop-based e-Prescribing, the iON Laboratory Order and Entry System, and our new Patient Appointment and Management System- all designed to streamline office workflow, increase physician and patient satisfaction, and earn Medicare incentives.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

    • XBMC 11 beta released

      It’s been a long time in coming but the beta version of XBMC 11 has now been released. Version 11 “Eden” adds lots of new features and improvements to the open source home theater software for both Mac and Windows.

  • Licensing

    • Open Source Licensing Defuses Copyright Law’s Threat to Medicine

      Enforcing copyright law could potentially interfere with patient care, stifle innovation and discourage research, but using open source licensing instead can prevent the problem, according to a physician – who practices both at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center – and a legal scholar at the UC Hastings College of Law.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Malaria researchers try open source approach to drug discovery

      The term “open source” describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product’s source materials. I’m sure you’ve heard of open source software such as Perl, WordPress, Linux and Android, and are familiar with open content projects such as Wikipedia and Wiktionary, but what about open source drug discovery?

  • Programming

    • What to Look for in PHP 5.4.0

      PHP 5.4.0 will arrive soon. The PHP team is working to bring to some very nice presents to PHP developers. In the previous release of 5.3.0 they had added a few language changes. This version is no different. Some of the other changes include the ability to use DTrace for watching PHP apps in BSD variants (there is a loadable kernel module for Linux folks). This release features many speed and security improvements along with some phasing out of older language features (Y2K compliance is no longer optional). The mysql extensions for ext/mysql, mysqli, and pdo now use the MySql native driver (mysqlnd). This release also improves support for multibyte strings.

Leftovers

  • SCO’s bankruptcy keeps rolling along ~pj – Updated

    SCO is still around. The bankruptcy continues, of course, because you can’t get too much of a good thing. SCO has filed its monthly operating reports for November. And who should show up now but Riverside Claims LLC? Here’s what they do. Perhaps they’d like to get their claims paid. What claims, you ask? Well, for example, the claim they had assigned [PDF] to them by a Chinese software provider, Shenyang Neusoft Co. Ltd, long, long ago, in 2008. My, they are patient. It’s a claim for $11,364.81. Will they ever get paid? Good luck.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Obama Memo: Redeem Yourself With Rail

      Good news springs forth from the bad news, however. The footprint of America’s passenger rail system may lie beneath overgrown lilacs, but the majority of the rights-of-way have been maintained. To give some idea of the great contraction that took place with our rail system as the folly of our national highway program went into overshoot, these two maps from a half century ago tell the tale. (source: National Association of Railroad Passengers). The first is from 1962, when the intercity passenger rail network still covered 88,710 route miles.

  • Civil Rights

    • SOPA: All Your Internets Belong to US

      The U.S. Congress is currently embroiled in a heated debated over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), proposed legislation that supporters argue is needed combat online infringement, but critics fear would create the “great firewall of the United States.” SOPA’s potential impact on the Internet and development of online services is enormous as it cuts across the lifeblood of the Internet and e-commerce in the effort to target websites that are characterized as being “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” This represents a new standard that many experts believe could capture hundreds of legitimate websites and services.

    • SOPA’s most frightening flaw is the future it predicts
    • American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted For Anything

12.28.11

Links 28/12/2011: Quad Core Linux Devices, Darrell Steinberg for Open Access

Posted in News Roundup at 5:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • TextSecure App For Android Is Now Open Source

    Following the discovery of Carrier IQ, the devious app that stealthily collects data on smartphone users, putting a little more priority on security is worth considering. After all, you never know who is watching so you should probably assume that lots of prying parties are watching.

  • Open Source Software Development Helps You Get Edge in Web World

    The open source application development has become so much popular in the web world, as the users can change it as per their exigencies. Open source software refers to computer software that is to be availed in source code format.

  • WonderSchool streams world to a tablet

    Open Wonderland — an open source, Java-based alternative to OpenSim — is now available on a tablet. According to WonderSchool, a subsidiary of Germany’s THINSIA, clients can now access the platform on an iPad by having their user session streamed to the device.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • 7 Benefits of Mozilla’s Rapid Release!

        Just shortly Mozilla has released Firefox 9 according to its rapid release development oscillation. This rapid release has increased concerns about add-on firefox compatibility and revamped interface that is confusing for consistent browser users. Mozilla has already been criticized for its rapid release program particularly in enterprise sector. Nevertheless, there are benefits of rapid release program too; that we seem to negative. Lets investigate them.

  • Business

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Magneti Marelli Introduces Open-Source Platform for the ‘Connected Car’

      In the area of telematics and infotainment technologies for automobiles, Magneti Marelli presented what it believes to be the first open-source platform for in-vehicle infotainment devices. The platform complies with automotive requirements in terms of performance and durability, and, at the same time, is equipped with software developed and certified according to GENIVI Alliance compliance specification.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Steinberg pushes free digital college textbooks for California

        Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg wants to create a digital library of free course materials for California college students.

        The proposal, unveiled earlier this month, is bound to be popular with students grappling with rising tuition and fees at California’s public colleges and universities.

      • Our View: Open-source texts for state colleges

        A fat hardbound economics text that looks no fancier, if no worse, than a best-selling novel that goes for $26.95 can easily be priced at $95 and even into the triple digits. The professors who write these texts famously fight – or are perhaps encouraged to do so by their publishers – the always strong market for used books in college communities by writing sometimes imperceptibly small updates to the original editions and requiring students to buy new.

Leftovers

  • Civil Rights

    • SOPA? Get YOUR message across.

      My friend Katie had some bumper stickers made up that pretty much echoes my sentiments of SOPA/PIPA. I normally don’t dally in bumper stickers but this one is going on the old Explorer as soon as it arrives in the mail. 5 bucks out the door to include shipping.

12.27.11

Links 27/12/2011: Linux 3.2 RC 7, GNOME 3.3.3

Posted in News Roundup at 4:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Razor-qt: A New Linux Desktop Alternative

      Among GNOME 3, Ubuntu Linux’s Unity, and Windows 8′s Metro, there’s no denying that desktop environments have become a hot topic in 2011. More specifically, mobile-inspired interfaces are becoming increasingly commonplace, challenging users to accept a whole new paradigm in the desktop world.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Qt 5 For Your Web Applications In The Browser

        A Nokia developer shared this week that his Qt 5.0 patch-set for Google Native Client is roughly on par with the Qt4 port, which he hopes to have integrated for upstream development in Qt5. This work allows for the Qt5 tool-kit to be used by web applications within supported web-browsers.

      • Demystifying Krita with Comics

        If you’re like most people, getting started with an app like Krita can be intimidating. Working with a graphics tablet takes as much getting used to as learning to draw with ink and paint. How all the settings and tools work together when “used correctly” is a whole other problem. Fortunately, Krita has just released a training DVD that shows novices how it’s done, and helps fund development at the same time.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • GNOME 3.3.3 Released Just in Time for Christmas

        The GNOME Project announced a few minutes ago, December 23rd, the immediate availability for download and testing of the third development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.4 desktop environment, which brings assorted improvements and bug fixes.

      • Linux Mint’s Cinnamon: A GNOME 3.x shell fork

        GNOME 3.2 keeps losing fans so leading Linux desktop distribution Mint turns its attention to forking the GNOME shell into a GNOME 2.x like desktop: Cinnamon.

  • Distributions

    • Linpus Lite Desktop 1.6 review

      Linpus Lite is a Linux distribution published by Linpus Technologies, Inc., a Linux software solutions provider based in Taiwan. Linpus Lite Desktop is, as the name suggests, the version designed for traditional desktop computing. Aside from that, the company also publishes other editions (for example, Linpus Lite Android Edition and Linpus Lite PCTV), but those are for OEMs and ODMs vendors only, and not available for download by the public. (OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer; ODM – Original Design Manufacturer.)

    • New Releases

      • Clonezilla 1.2.11-40
      • SMS 1.6.3
      • Semplice 2.0.0
      • LITRIX 11-12
      • Grml 2011.12
      • AgiliaLinux 8.0.0: Ooops, We Did It (Again)!

        Stop, you could ask, why is this version 8 then? Because AgiliaLinux is not a brand-new distribution. It is based on MOPSLinux, a project which stopped development. The previous version of AgiliaLinux was more or less a remake of MOPS. The current version is a fully independent development.
        This version was planned for release ages ago. A member of the development team wrote a comment on my post about AgiliaLinux 7 stating that version 8 was due in June. And finally… in October they did it!

      • Tiny Core Linux 4.2 Introduces Tiny Core Plus

        Robert Shingledecker proudly announced earlier today, December 27th, the immediate availability for download of the Tiny Core Linux 4.2 and Tiny Core Plus Linux 4.2 operating systems.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Weaker Euro to hurt Red Hat Q4 revenue

        Business software maker Red Hat Inc forecast fourth-quarter revenue largely below analysts’ expectations hurt mainly by a weaker euro, sending its shares down 7 per cent in after-market trade.

      • Arciero Testifies for Red Hat to Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council

        State Representative James Arciero recently testified before the Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council (MEACC) in support of Red Hat, Inc., a Westford high tech company, in their bid proposal for a tax credit to create new jobs at their Westford office. The MEACC subsequently awarded a state tax credit of $3.4 million.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Tweak Your Ubuntu Unity Desktop With MyUnity

            One of the reasons that many hated the Unity desktop in Ubuntu is because there is a lack of customization option. People switched from Windows/Mac to Linux is mainly because Linux offers them an environment where they can customize everything to their liking. When Canonical reduced your ability to do what you want with your desktop, many people start to grunt about it and some even switched to Linux Mint.

          • Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 released
          • Ubuntu IVI Remix Beta 2 Officially Released

            Canonical, through Lars Anderson, announced last evening, December 21st, the immediate availability for download of the Ubuntu In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) Remix operating system.

          • Canonical Releases Beefed Up Database API for Ubuntu One
          • CTL launches MB40U Ubuntu notebook
          • Quality In Ubuntu

            Over the last year quality has become a strong area of focus inside Canonical. This has included re-factoring the roles and responsibilities of QA staff (focusing them on defect analysis as opposed to just bug triage), Pete Graner has been leading an effort to get an extensive automated testing infrastructure in place, Jason Warner has led an effort to put acceptance criteria in place for Canonical upstreams (this requires that a certain level of quality is assured before Unity updates are landed in the development branch of Ubuntu), and I have hired Nicholas Skaggs who starts in January to build out our QA community, with a particular focus on manual testing and triage.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • $25 Linux PC ‘Raspberry Pi’ to Go in Production Early Next Year

      Much awaited credit card size $25 computer Raspberry Pi is about to go in production early next year. First run beta devices are currently being tested. If all goes well, you will be able to purchase it in January.

    • Boxee 1.5 for desktops arrives, but the end is nigh

      Boxee released version 1.5 of its free multimedia streaming software for Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops today, but simultaneously announced that it will cease offering the Boxee desktop software after January 2012. Thereafter, the company will limit its focus to devices such as the D-Link Boxee Box.

    • Boxee Mac media player reaches end-of-life with new version

      The Boxee project has come a long way from its humble origins as a fork of the Xbox Media Center, bringing easy video playback and a couch-to-screen UI to the Mac, then later to Windows and Ubuntu, and now to the company’s own dedicated Boxee Box

    • Boxee 1.5 for desktops arrives, but the end is nigh

      Boxee released version 1.5 of its free multimedia streaming software for Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops today, but simultaneously announced that it will cease offering the Boxee desktop software after January 2012. Thereafter, the company will limit its focus to devices such as the D-Link Boxee Box.

    • Boxee updates apps to version 1.5, says no more upgrades for PC users

      Boxee rolled out version 1.5 of its Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu apps today, but the news is bittersweet: according to the company, this will be the last time it issues an upgrade for PC. The platform’s future will be on the Boxee Box and the other streaming devices that run Boxee OS, from partners like Iomega and Nuu Media. It’s not a totally surprising move — the upcoming Boxee Live TV won’t be usable with a computer, and Boxee has had some issues getting major partners on board with its PC software anyway — but we’re betting there are plenty of home theater PC fans feeling abandoned on the day after Christmas.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • 10 Android apps for holidays
        • 7 Best Free Android Home Computer Emulators
        • 5 beautiful Android Launchers worth trying out
        • Android Approved By Pentagon For DoD Usage, Major Setback For iPhone

          The Pentagon has approved a version of Android running on Dell hardware to be used by DoD officials, along with the BlackBerry. The approval of Android by the DoD is a major setback for Apple’s iPhone.

          This doesn’t mean that DoD employees can use any Android phone. The Pentagon has approved only Dell’s hardware running Android 2.2. Interestingly Dell recently discontinued its Streak phone which runs Android 2.2. Dell is now offering Dell Venue which runs on Android 2.2. So, this is the phone which DoD employees can use.

        • Android Is Finally Coming Back to Linux Kernel

          Tim Bird in collaboration with many Linaro and individual developers, including Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman, announced the beginning of the Android Mainlining Project, to include Android’s patches and features into the mainline Linux kernel.

        • Sharp unveils the AQUOS PHONE IS14SH – a 2.3 feature phone for the masses

          While Sharp has never had a strong foothold in Europe or the US, the Japanese manufacturer has been the leader in the mobile segment in its own country for many years. Sharp does have a few high-end Android phones like the AQUOS PHONE 102SH which features a 4.5-inch 720p display, 12 megapixel camera, a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP4430 processor and a waterproof body, but the majority of their sales are comprised of clam-shell or slide-out feature phones.

        • “$100 ICS Tablet” Novo7 is available for pre-order… for $120

          More than a few people got excited at the prospect of a $100 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet when a no-name manufacturer sprang out of China marketing the Novo7… and immediately became less excited at a $60 shipping fee that seemed more than a little fishy. Now the same low-powered tablet is sitting pretty with a pre-order status on import sites PandaWill and Merimobiles, both of which seem legitimate enough as far as Internet storefronts go. The latter is claiming an $80 discount off of the “retail” price of $200.

        • Bringing Android/Linux Home in 2012
        • HTC Flyer’s price dropped to £199, sale season starts early

          Really wanted a tablet for Christmas but the high prices put you off? Well Dixons online in the UK could well have come to the rescue by dropping the price of the HTC Flyer to £199 for the wifi only version.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Amazon Kindle Fire Will Burn Your Fingers If You Try To Root

        Amazon is a great company when it comes to buying physical stuff — their delivery is great. But when it comes to the digital content Amazon is as freaky as Apple. The company DRMs its books locking users into Amazon ecosystem. It also ‘endorsed’ usage of DRM for Android apps. Now, the company is playing Apple/Sony by wasting its resources in pushing patches to remove roots and ROMs from jail-broken Kindle Fire. Amazon recently pushed an update (6.2.1) for its Kindle Fire which breaks the root on jail-broken devices.

      • Kindle Fire Rooted Again

        One lesson that Amazon seems to not learn despite being a heavy Linux user is — don’t waste your time on un-rooting your devices. Let the developed do what they want to do with the devices they ‘bought’. This is a cat and mouse game where in the end the developers will win.

      • Sony Tablet S To Get Android 4.0

        Sony has finally given some indications of upgrading their Sony Tablet S to the version 4.0 of Android. Sony has not made any official statement, but a forum moderator did reply to a thread stating that the company is looking into ICS. He also said that there is no commitment at this moment. This language is vague but typical and safer for the thread moderator.

Free Software/Open Source

  • FLOSS for Science Books November 2011
  • Two decades of Linux: the big open source stories of 2011

    In 1999, Linux founder Linus Torvalds joked about plans for world domination. But as the Linux kernel celebrated its 20th birthday this year, Linux, and open source in general, have achieved a limited version of world domination. As we reported in August, Linux in its many forms now powers a majority of the world’s supercomputers. Apache web servers running on Linux and other Unix operating systems serve up the majority of the web sites on the Internet, and Linux powers some of the biggest sites on Earth—including Facebook, Google and Wikipedia. And embedded versions of Linux are part of the explosion of network-connected consumer devices, most notably as the basis of Google’s Android mobile OS.

  • Encouraging the next generation of hackers part 2 – Software implementation
  • Open*Business: 2011 in review
  • Open*Business 2011 best images

    The visual components on opensource.com are an important element to the look and feel of our content. The images help set the tone for the site. The imagery embodies qualities such as motivational, editorial, authoritative (but not authoritarian), human, and optimism.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Download Firefox 10.0 Beta 1 and Firefox 9.0.1 for Linux

        A day after the release of Mozilla Firefox 9.0.1 security fix, Mozilla unleashed today, December 23rd, the first Beta version of the upcoming Mozilla Firefox 10.0 web browser for Linux operating systems, and other supported platforms.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice seeks bug hunters

      The Document Foundation has announced its first bug hunting session for version 3.5 of the open source LibreOffice office suite – to be held online on 28 and 29 December. On those days, the Quality Assurance (QA) team and some experienced developers will be available on the IRC channel #libreoffice (IRC link) from 8am to 10pm UTC and will accept bug reports not only via Bugzilla, usually the only option, but also by chat and email.

    • USPTO Rejects Another Oracle Patent, Google Looks Stronger

      USPTO has presented Google with a last minute Christmas gift by rejecting Oracle’s U.S. Patent No. 6,192,476. According to Groklaw, on December 20 the USPTO issued a final rejection in the ex parte reexamination. All of the claims of the patent were subject to reexamination, including Claim 14. Claim 14 of the patent was the only claim being asserted by Oracle in this litigation, writes Groklaw. This rejection means Oracle has already lost 17 out of 21 patents, including all seven of the patent’s independent claims.

  • Healthcare

    • When Medicare Isn’t Medicare

      Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

      That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.

  • Project Releases

  • Programming

    • LLVM 3.1 Will Enhance AVX & Bring AVX2 Support

      While LLVM 3.0 has been barely out for one month and a release schedule for LLVM 3.1 hasn’t even been plotted yet, there are already some new details about what this next release of the extremely popular open-source compiler infrastructure will offer.

      In particular, LLVM 3.1 is poised to offer bug-fixes and overall improved support for Advanced Vector Extensions. AVX is the x86 instruction set extension that first appeared with Intel Sandy Bridge processors in early 2011 and then made their way to the AMD side with the Bulldozer launch.

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Under the Surface of Non-OPEC Supply

      In 2002 Non-OPEC oil production contributed 60.75% of the world’s total oil supply. But technology, competition, and access to capital through listings on stock exchanges have not been able to overcome limits of geology. Global giants such as Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil have essentially abandoned the effort to meaningfully expand their oil reserves. Instead, they are now shifting course in favor of a strong, natural gas emphasis. The result is that Russia in the past decade has accounted for nearly all of the supply growth in crude oil, among Non-OPEC producers. Indeed, without Russia, Non-OPEC supply would be in steep decline. Instead, it’s merely flat.

  • Finance

    • ’2012: What’s in Store…’

      The Private Global Power Elite embedded in major governments is dead set on imposing World Government on us sooner rather than later. Let’s look at 12 mega-processes – veritable “Triggers” – that we infer they are using to achieve their goals.

      ­All roads lead to World Government. This should come as no surprise. London’s Financial Times openly articulated this view in an article by their chief foreign affairs commentator, Gideon Rachman, published on 8 December 2009, whose title said it all: “And Now for a World Government.” These goals are echoed by the Trilateral Commission, CFR and Bilderberg insiders – even by the Vatican.

      Macro-managing planet Earth is no easy matter. It requires strategic and tactical planning by a vast think-tank network allied to major elite universities whereby armies of academics, operators, lobbyists, media players and government officers interface, all abundantly financed by the global corporate and banking superstructure.

    • Argentina tango lessons: Europe’s turn for financial danse macabre?

      Exactly ten years ago Argentina suffered a full-scale financial and governmental collapse. That was the end-result of over a decade of doing exactly what the IMF, international bankers, rating agencies and global “experts” told us to do.

      Then President Fernando de la Rúa kept applying all IMF recipes to the very last minute, making us swallow their poisonous “remedies”.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Jack Abramoff Explains The Return On Investment For Lobbying: 22,000% Is Surprisingly Low

      We’ve talked a lot about the political process and how things work in DC to get things like SOPA pretty far along, even as the public seems to be almost universally against it. As you hopefully know by now, Larry Lessig has been focusing his attention on the issue of the deep-seeded corruption in the way our government works today, and his recent book, Republic, Lost focuses deeply on the issue. A few weeks back, Lessig did a fantastic interview on the subject with the Boston Review. In it, he describes how Congress picks up on unpopular legislation for the sake of scaring people (on all sides) into donating to their campaigns…

  • Civil Rights

    • Analyzing Carrier IQ Profiles

      As we explained in our post on Carrier IQ’s architecture, one of the main factors in determining what the Carrier IQ stack does on a particular phone is the “Profile” that is running on that device. Profiles are files that are typically written by Carrier IQ Inc. to the specifications of a phone company or other client, and pushed to the phone by Carrier IQ Inc. using its own command and control infrastructure. Profiles contain instructions about what data to collect, how to aggregate it, and where to send it.

    • Obama Gave Manning “Verdict First, Trial Later.”
    • Why Stop Billions When You Can Stop Millions….?

      You will receive the same thing I received…a form letter mechanically stating the reasons to support SOPA. Jobs, yada, yada, yada. Protecting American IP, yada, yada, yada….it takes a staffer about 30 seconds to scan your email and hit send on thier boiler-plate response.

      You and your “opinion” are forgotten in less than a minute.

      Get that person on the phone and raise hell. Remind said staffer that the congressman from X state is going to lose his job over support of this bill. Don’t let them lapse into talking points. Sure you are going to spend some time on hold but outside of a personal appearance, your phone call is the most effective way of getting your message across.

      Regardless of what happens to Lamar Smith personally or professionally, he will forever be known as The Man That Broke The Internet.

12.26.11

Links 26/12/2011: Another GNOME Fork, Linux at Gas Pump

Posted in News Roundup at 12:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

  • Server

    • 2012 Server Roadmap
    • Xen or KVM

      Since little more than half a year, I am in the process of installing a new virtualization Platform. One of the hardest decisions to make was if we should use Xen or go with KVM. We already have Xen in production and I know that it works well. From KVM we expect, that it will be growing faster then Xen and be the right thing on the long run.

  • Kernel Space

    • Android drivers to be included in Linux 3.3 kernel

      Android drivers are returning to the Linux kernel. Kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has retrieved the Android drivers removed from the staging area of Linux 2.6.33 in the spring of 2010 and put them back into his development branch for version 3.3 of the Linux kernel.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Some Mobile GPU Documentation To End The Year

        There was a new documentation drop this week that consisted of data-sheets and other programming documentation for the 2D, 3D, and MPEG engines of a mobile GPU.

      • Why The Radeon Gallium3D Performance Is Down

        After yesterday’s article about the Grinch that stole the Radeon Gallium3D performance, here’s three offending commits since Mesa 7.10 that are causing the open-source Radeon Gallium3D driver to run slower than it should.

      • What’s Up With The S3 Graphics Linux Driver?

        Yesterday when writing about VIA Technologies preparing a new graphics open-source push, it made me curious where the S3 Graphics Linux driver is at today.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE Makes First 4.8 Release Candidate Available, Adds Secret Service

        Today KDE released the first release candidate for its Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team’s focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing. Compared to Beta2, RC1 contains hundreds of fixes. Please give this release another good round of testing to help us release a rock-solid 4.8 in January.

      • My Heroes of KDE, 2011

        I was looking back on this year and thinking about what the real successes have been. There have been many great things, new technology and work behind the scenes to make it all happen.

        But perhaps the greatest thing has been the return of the Commit Digest, so I’ll name the Commit Digest team my personal heroes of KDE for 2011. Every week, they let us know what’s going on in this great community of ours. It’s a hell of a lot of work and they deserve a lot of credit.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • Another GNOME Fork? Can Cinnamon Survive?

        Linux Mint has not adopted the new interface instead going their own route with the MATE fork and the MGSE (Mint GNOME Shell Extensions). Apparently that’s not enough and now Mint Founder Clement Lefebvre has launched a new effort to create a new desktop called Cinnamon.

      • Goodbye GNOME 2, Hello GNOME 2?

        Many Linux users who have been GNOME fans for years find themselves in a sudden quandary. GNOME 3.0 has completely abandoned the desktop experience we’ve come to love during the years. That’s not to say change is bad, it’s just that many folks (even Linus Torvalds) don’t really want to change.

  • Distributions

    • I give up; my search for the perfect Linux rescue distro is over

      When I discovered Linux two years ago, I started looking for what I called “The Perfect Rescue Distro”, a somewhat mythical distribution that fitted into a CD, could mount Windows partitions, play all sorts of video/audio formats, include a productivity suite, decent image-manipulating tools, and burn backups…all in Live mode. Hence, over these two years, I have tested lots of distributions and some of them came really close to the ideal. I felt as if the Holy Grail was between an arm’s reach.

    • Semplice Linux, An Exercise in Simplicity

      Semplice Linux is a very young project that has only recently made its debut on Distrowatch with Release Candidate 1 for their upcoming 2.0 code-named ‘Emily’ getting listed. This means there must be a support structure in place, a website, bug tracker, documentation and user forum.

      The distribution originates from Italy and is based on Debian unstable, using only the Openbox window manager, a handful of applications and a blank background. It will not surprise you then that semplice means simple.

    • Suicide Linux, Not for the Faint Heart

    • Gentoo Family

      • Oh Gentoo

        Well it’s been a couple of months now since the start of Experiment 2.0 and I’ve had plenty of time to learn about Gentoo, see its strengths and… sit waiting through its weaknesses. I don’t think Gentoo is as bad as everyone makes it out to be, in fact, compared to some other distributions out there, Gentoo doesn’t look bad at all.

    • Red Hat Family

      • IPO Outlook For New Year Uncertain After Rough 2011

        “What happened doesn’t necessarily give confidence in companies that are wanting to go public,” said Manoj George, CEO of outsourcing firm Nair & Co. and CFO of Red Hat (RHT) during its IPO. “I’ve talked to a couple of companies who have the fundamentals to go public, (but) they are looking at 2013 as opposed to 2012.”

      • Analysts’ Weekly Ratings Changes for Red Hat (RHT)

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 16 Live/Install CD

          I used Unetbootin to install the Live/Install CD onto a USB stick. No problems booting into live mode and then installing from the live mode. The installed edition booted just fine. With the exception of some Gnome3 applications not correctly sizing to my netbook screen, the installed applications worked. Yet, I have major issues with this edition.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Canonical shares U1DB technical preview

            When Canonical announced it was stopping its use of CouchDB, it also announced it would also be dropping DesktopCouch, the desktop API for CouchDB, and creating its own solution, U1DB, to fill the gap. The Canonical developers have now announced that a technical preview of U1DB is available and have given more details of its functionality. According to the announcement, U1DB is an API and data model designed to be backed by any database for storage. The API has been created to enable the storage of JSON documents in synchronised databases and to make that process simple.

          • CTL Announces the MB40U Ubuntu Powered Notebook
          • Canonical Focuses on Multi-Monitor Support In Ubuntu

            Just a day after questioning whether multiple monitors are really necessary, I learned the design team at Canonical had purchased not two but six monitors to attach to a single computer. Fortunately, this seeming excess should benefit Ubuntu users — if not me personally — by improving the multi-monitor experience in Ubuntu. Here’s a look at these efforts so far, and how they fit into the larger open source picture.

          • Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0 arrives for Oneiric Ocelot

            The Ubuntu Tweak development team has announced the release of version 0.6.0 of its popular open source application for customising the Ubuntu Linux distribution. With Ubuntu Tweak, users can configure their installations by changing a number of desktop and system options that are not provided with the default Unity environment.

          • What is the best Christmas gift for Ubuntu Linux fans?

            If you are an Ubuntu fan and are wondering what is the perfect gift to suprise your friends this Christmas. Then think no more!! Gift them a CD with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux as a gift. Gifting a distro inevitably requires you to get you hands dirty and if that is what is stopping you from celebrating Christmas, then check out the rest of the post.

          • Ubuntu Powered Display Spotted at a Gas Pump in Colorado

            We have written a number of times Linux being spotted in public. Besides powering displays in Best Buy and HMV Stores in UK, Ubuntu has just been spotted at one of the gas stations in Colorado.

          • Ubuntu 12.04 Development update

            This will be the last development update of 2011, so let’s see where we stand in terms of 12.04. We are 10 weeks into the release cycle and have still 18 weeks to go. There is definitely still a lot left to be done, but the foundations for a great release have been laid already.

          • Linux Deepin Software Centre to be made Available for Ubuntu

            Ubuntu users envious of Chinese Linux distro’s slickly-styled ‘Software Centre’ won’t nee to be green-eyed for too long: it’s coming to Ubuntu.

          • Surprise! Full Circle Magazine #56 – I Come Bearing Gifts

            Surprise! Since everything is in place there’s no point in holding back the issue until next week. You lucky devils get FCM#56 almost a week early!

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Bodhi Linux 1.3.0 Released

              Jeff Hoogland has announced the release of Bodhi Linux 1.3.0. He writes that there are no earth shattering new features in this release there are many minor improvements.

            • Bodhi Linux Gets Christmas Update
            • Linux Mint 12 On ASUS Eee PC

              In a previous article, I talked about setting up my Asus Eee computer with eee-control on Ubuntu. Today, this is no longer valid if you’re using Ubuntu 11.10 or Linux Mint 12. Now you must run different software. Not only that, now more than ever disenchanted Ubuntu users are switching to Linux Mint due to the ongoing frustrations presented with the Unity desktop. The great news for folks wanting to switch to Linux Mint is that Ubuntu packages and PPAs work great in Mint. Even better, you have additional Gnome desktop choices made available.

            • Enjoy The Best In Linux With Linux Mint 12

              Linux Mint has been quite a revolutionary distribution, gaining plenty of popularity. In fact, DistroWatch statistics suggest the Linux Mint is now the second most popular distribution in the world, behind Ubuntu (upon which it’s based) and in front of Fedora.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi £16 computer project nears lift-off

      The Raspberry Pi project, which aims to sell tiny £16 Linux-based computers to help kids learn about real computing in schools, has said it is now testing beta versions of the device.

      The project published photos of its first populated beta circuit boards on Thursday, having shown off the naked boards earlier in the month. If electrical and hardware and software testing goes well, Raspberry Pi devices will go on general sale in January.

    • Bare bones Raspberry Pi PC gets ready to launch

      The $25 (£16) machine is being created in the hope that it will inspire a new generation of technology whizz kids.

      The Pi uses an Arm chip similar to that found in mobile phones and is intended to run a version of the Linux open source operating system.

    • $25, Credit Card Size PC Runs Debian, Fedora & Arch; No Ubuntu

      UK-based Raspberry Pi Foundation is working on a credit card size, $25 PC which will redefine computing. The tiny computer runs on Linux. It supports Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux. Initially Ubuntu, as its based on Debian, was supported but it doesn’t at the moment.

    • US: Magneti Marelli system will connect cars to the Cloud

      Magneti Marelli has demonstrated a Linux-based prototype of what it claims is the first open-source infotainment system. The platform was unveiled at the fifth Member Meeting of the GENIVI Alliance in San Jose, California. Other partners of the group, the medium-term aim of which is to connect cars to the Cloud, include BMW, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Intel.

    • 27 top Linux-powered Christmas gifts

      It’s no longer hard to find a Christmas gift that runs Linux, thanks to the popularity of Google’s Android. The Tuxy possibilities go far beyond tablets and smartphones, however, as we highlight in a list of 27 top gift picks for 2011.

    • Populated boards: an update on where we are

      Here’s a little something to warm your festive cockles. These are populated boards from our first run of beta devices. They’re undergoing electrical testing alongside hardware and software testing at the moment, and if all goes well, the Raspberry Pi you’ll be buying in January (or by auction later this month if they all work as they should) will be exactly like one of these.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

  • Ada Initiative highlights challenge to get more women in open source

    The lack of women involved in open source has unfortunately long been a weakness for open source software and its many, varied communities around the globe. In fact, we found out recently just how significant the problem is, with troubling figures as reported by Valerie Aurora with the Ada Initiative that indicate significantly lower representation of women in open source (2%) compared to the overall IT industry (20%).

  • GitHub open sources Janky CI server
  • The problem with open source in 2012

    Rather like cloud computing and green eco-aware initiatives, open source has sometimes suffered from being added as a “label” to projects that (for the most part) remain predominantly focused on licensed sales with only an “element” of open source.

    So is open source ever used a marketing badge to try and evidence some kind of community contribution effort that is actually downplayed internally?

  • Open source: Pretty much right on track

    With the close of the old year, and the advent of the new, it’s very easy to sit back and start reflecting on where open source has been and where it’s going.

  • Why the Operating System is becoming irrelevant

    The operating system used is becoming more irrelevant. Why? Software is slowly becoming more and more homogeneous in nature, and more cross compatible to some extent. People are also using many different devices running many different operating systems already, from phones to tablets to desktops to laptops. The age old argument that “that other operating system is too difficult” is no longer holding up as much as it used to. As we know, Microsoft still has a very high market share (anywhere from the high 80 percent to low 90 percent) in the desktop market. GNU/Linux has a high share in the server market. And on other smaller devices, it’s a large mix of Apple iOS, GNU/Linux/Android, and Windows (Windows being mainly on phones as there isn’t much of a tablet presence yet). On desktops there has been a natural shift to Wintel over the past couple of decades that has allowed Microsoft to lead the user experience with the PC as well as document formats most commonly used today, etc. But, as open source software becomes more and more prevalent, it has accustomed itself to be cross compatible with the proprietary software that already exists, and as such is a viable replacement for the proprietary software. Now that we are becoming more used to using a multitude of different devices and operating systems, moving the desktop from one operating system to another is becoming less of an issue. Users are already becoming familiar with different operating systems and are able to find their way through them easier than ever before.

  • Events

    • XDC 2012: Nuremberg!

      For 2012 we (Egbert Eich, Professor Hopf, and I) will be hosting the annual X conference in Nuremberg!

    • Dreaming of Summer — and WordCamp Milwaukee!

      You have no idea how excited I am that WordCamp is coming to Milwaukee next June 2-3, 2012. A small group of us, led by Scott Offord, have been laying the groundwork for this two-day conference on all things WordPress at Bucketworks. We’re ready to accept visitors.

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Apache confirms new OpenOffice build by 2012

      The Apache Software Foundation has confirmed that a new build of the OpenOffice suite will be out next year, and has warned rogue developers that it – and only it – can use the trademark for the software.

      According to the group, version 3.4 of the software will be out in the first quarter of next year, and will be a developer-focused release that is designed to ensure the entire code base fits with Apache’s licensing terms. There is some third-party code to remove from the OpenOffice base that is incompatible with the Apache licence, although in some cases the original coders have been happy to relicense their source under different terms in order to help the project.

    • Oracle v. Google – Pretrial Conference Held

      A pretrial conference was held in the Oracle v. Google case on Wednesday, December 21, during which Judge Alsup heard oral arguments on some of the motions in limine. (654 [PDF; Text]) The hearing lasted about four and a half hours, but any outcome from the hearing has yet to be reported. It is known that the court heard oral arguments on three of the four motions in limine on which the parties had agreed to have oral arguments. Judge Alsup has yet to determine how much time will be required for the trial.

    • Apache Software Foundation Hits Their Sore Thumb Again

      Claiming ASF is good for everyone including the end user is wrong. Clearly, the end user is a part of the ODF ecosystem, the largest and most important part. While ASF permits modifications to source code to be distributed it does not require source code to be distributed. That has serious implications for end users:

    • Performance improvement in opening ODS documents
    • Redesigned autofilter popup
    • LibreOffice mega Christmas inteview

      Below you find the result of my search. Some parts are technical, some parts really talk about features for users.

  • CMS

    • Somewhat Shameless Self-Promotion: WordPress in Depth
    • New version of Composite C1 CMS released

      Danish software company Composite has released version 3.0 of its .NET-based open source content management system, Composite C1. This is the first major new version since the software was released as open source just over a year ago – version 2.1 was released in March 2011. Previously only available as a commercial product, both open source and commercial products are now available. The functionality is the same, but the commercial version comes with a product warranty, automated upgrades and end-user mail/web-based support. Composite also offers a range of support, training and other commercial services.

    • Google Knol Comes to WordPress

  • Business

  • BSD

    • GhostBSD 2.5: A GNOME-ified FreeBSD 9.0

      If you want to try out FreeBSD 9.0 this holiday but are not turned on by the actual FreeBSD 9.0 install and setup process, nor find the KDE desktop of PC-BSD 9.0 enjoyable, you may want to try out GhostBSD 2.5.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • “Yes We Scan”

        Take a look at the campaign being run by Carl Malamud and John Podesta called “Yes We Scan”. It’s an effort to encourage the US government to make plans to digitize the contents of all national libraries including the Library of Congress. In a letter addressed to President Barack Obama, John Podesta and Carl Malamud point to the economic, scientific and social benefits that would arise from a large scale digitization of America’s cultural riches currently held in the vaults of various national institutions.

  • Programming

    • ISO updates C standard

      The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published the new specifications for the C programming language. The standard is known unofficially as C1X and was published officially as ISO/IEC 9899:2011. It provides greater compatibility with the C++ language and adds new features to C (as indicated in the draft).

Leftovers

  • How vendor specific should uni be?

    In our current higher education world, many are unable to find work after university because their degree just wasn’t applied enough.

    But the Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT), at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, might be going too far by adding a VMware module to its Bachelor of IT degree.

    Last week, Computerworld reported that in collaboration with VMware, IBM, NetApp and BlueBerryIT, NMIT has embedded a VMware IT Academy curriculum module in its third-year networking.

  • How to annoy fanboys

    Well, hopefully this blissful piece of article has taught you some useful tips that should bring you much rejoicing. Remember, you must exercise flexibility with your ideas and never falter, even when faced with ultimate zeal. It is important to innovate, have a backup plan ready, as well as be persistent and consistent in your trolling. Do not laugh, break down or show compassion. And you must never give up. It’s all for the greater good. With your help, one day, we might live in the world where fanboyism is restricted to Star Wars versus Star Trek. Now, there’s a tricky topic.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Why Oil Prices Are Killing the Economy

      Oil prices emerged from their spider hole over two and half years ago. Having fallen from the towering heights of $148 a barrel in the summer of 2008, the early months of 2009 saw a return to prices in the $30s. Interestingly, during that great oil crash, the price of West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil (WTIC) spent only 20 trading sessions below $40. That is the exact price that most analysts only three years prior believed oil could never sustain as the world would pump “like crazy” should prices ever reach such “impossibly high levels.”

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • DOJ Rejects ALEC-Inspired Voter ID Bill in South Carolina

      The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected South Carolina’s voter ID law, which was inspired by an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model, as discriminatory against people of color.

      Fourteen states passed restrictive voting measures over the past year, many of them (including South Carolina) using the ALEC model Voter ID Act as a template. According to a report issued this month by the NAACP, 25% of African Americans (over 6.2 million African-American voters) and 16% of Latinos (over 2.96 million Latino voters) do not possess state-issued photo IDs, and as many as 5 million Americans, many of them people of color, would be ineligible to vote under the new restrictions.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Namecheap CEO: SOPA Is Like Detonating Nuclear Bomb On The Internet

      Namecheap, one of the top domain registrars, has come out opposing SOPA, the dangerous bill aimed to destroy the Internet by Hollywood. Namecheap CEO, Richard Kirkendall, has released an encouraging statement “While we at Namecheap firmly believe in intellectual rights, SOPA is like detonating a nuclear bomb on the internet when only a surgical strike is necessary. This legislation has the potential to harm the way everyone uses the Internet and to undermine the system itself. At Namecheap, we believe having a free and open Internet is the only option that will continue the legacy of innovation and openess that stands for everything we all value in our modern society.”

  • DRM

    • My fight with AA

      But .AA is a proprietary file format, which contains Digital Rights Management, and is only supported on Mac and Windows. Googling “converting AA to MP3″ yielded a flood of Windows results; “Linux converting AA to MP3″ was more on point, but hardly more productive. It seems there are only three ways to convert AA to MP3, and all of them require Windows

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • The Great Piracy Circle Jerk

        Today I needed to get a mp3 file for a certain band fast, no it wasn’t Norma Jean. The file I needed was actually released royalty free via Creative Commons license so I am allowed to download and distribute for free. I found a torrent tracker that hosted the album the mp3 was in so I downloaded the .torrent file and proceeded to open. Upon doing so, I learned that my distro of linux doesn’t have a pre-installed torrent software so I headed over to download.com. I was sad to learn they didn’t have a linux version of uTorrent, but I saw something else. It was right in front of my face. The #1 site to get the tools to download torrents, rip DVD’s, and all sorts of other illegal activities is owned by C|Net. C|Net is a large geek based media company and their parent company is none other than CBS Interactive / Viacom. Viacom, along with CBS, is the top sponsor of SOPA and has had thousands of lawsuits filed on their behalf over movies and music piracy.

12.23.11

Links 23/12/2011: Daiwa (Bank) Selects GNU/Linux, Thunderbird 9.0

Posted in News Roundup at 7:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • NEVEX’S Flint: More User Interaction, Linux Support in 2012

    Here’s an update on NEVEX Virtual Technologies, the start-up application performance solution provider that recently launched its signature CacheWorks platform. According to NEVEX Product Manager Andrew Flint, the company is planning to support Linux and VMware ESX environments and add new dashboards for increased user interaction in 2012.

  • Server

    • Linux Virtualization and Tired Open Source Myths

      The more things change, the more they stay the same. That is certainly true of anti-open source virtualization FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Linux virtualization is robust and enterprise-worthy, and is evolving rapidly. It is a threat to the established giants of virtualization.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Distributions

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 12.04 ‘Precise Pangolin’ to Feature Power Management Improvements

            Ubuntu’s declining popularity was a hot topic on the Internet recently, with a number of sites using Distrowatch’s annual web rankings to ring alarm bells for the popular Linux distro. But there were those who looked askance at these reports — and quite rightly so, accusing them of grossly exaggerating the extent of Ubuntu’s alleged decline. Whatever be the true extent of its decline, the fact is Ubuntu is still a very popular Linux distro and Canonical will have another chance of redeeming itself with Precise Pangolin in a few months’ time.

          • Ubuntu Running On NOOK Tablet
          • Linaro brings Ice Cream Sandwich & Oneiric Ocelot together on ARM boards

            Open-source software engineering group Linaro has pushed out a build of Android Ice Cream Sandwich for low-cost development boards from Samsung and ST-Ericsson. The build supports hardware acceleration for Systems on a Chip utililzing ARM’s Mali-400 graphics processor.

          • Ubuntu 11.10: Unity comes of age

            Has Canonical’s controversial new desktop interface improved enough to not only be an amiable desktop for Ubuntu, but to fend off the competition from Windows 8?

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Minted

              Yesterday I installed Linux Mint 12, almost officially the world’s most popular Linux distro, made easy for simpletons such as myself. I was swayed by ZDNet contributor Jamie Watson, as he has detailed the progress of Linux Mint 12 thoroughly.

              It’s kind of based on Ubuntu 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’, with the main distinction being the inclusion of GNOME 3 and the beautifully crafted bridging of old and new features using Mint GNOME Shell Extensions. As they say themselves “It’s a brand new desktop but with traditional components.”

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Phones

      • Switched On: Open source, open issues for webOS

        HP’s decision to contribute webOS to the open source community represents, at the very least, a detour from the company’s plans to “double down” on the operating system acquired from Palm, Inc. The good news for fans of the OS is that HP will continue to invest in the software’s development, albeit probably not at the unsustainable rate at which it was going it alone.

      • Android

Free Software/Open Source

  • Twitter Releases Whisper Systems’ TextSecure Android Code Under Open Source Licence
  • Twitter makes TextSecure Android security technology open source
  • LinkedIn open sources code from IndexTank acquisition

    Solid engineering talent is such a prized resource nowadays that many tech firms have taken to doing acqui-hires, which is the practice of buying a company for its employees rather than for its products or technology. But it’s not just startup founders and programmers who are benefiting from this trend — the open source community has been a winner as well.

  • LinkedIn Open Sources Search Engine

    Joining its fellow social-networking companies in the public release of internal code, LinkedIn has opened sourced software obtained in October with its acquisition of the IndexTank search-engine software provider.

    “We are looking forward to seeing IndexTank thrive as an open-source project,” wrote LinkedIn director of engineering, and former CEO of IndexTank, Diego Basch, in a blog post announcing the release.

  • The Open-Sankor IWB Open Source Software

    Sankor program team will be at the British Educational Training and Technology Show (BETT) in London from January 11 to 14, 2012 to present Open-Sankor IWB Open Source software dedicated to universal interactive education and, concurrently, to open and free digital learning resource creation and sharing throughout an international ecosystem of connected teachers.

  • Events

    • 4th international FOSS conference from Dec 27
    • International meet on free software next week

      The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (Icfoss) will organise the Fourth International Foss Conference, Kerala (Fossk4, http://fossk.in/4) from December 27 to 29.

      The event is being organised by the Icfoss and supported by the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), Delhi; the Computer Society of India; and the Institutions of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Thunderbird 9.0 Arrives, Via Mozilla’s Rapid Release Cycle

        Mozilla has delivered the latest version 9.0 of its Thunderbird email and news client, a free and open source application that Windows, Mac and Linux users can take advantage of. You can get version 9.0 now, at this download site. Not everyone realizes that just as Mozilla has moved to a rapid release cycle for the Firefox browser, Thunderbird is being update much more rapidly than ever as well. Here are some of the enhancements in the latest version of Thunderbird.

      • Mozilla Releases Firefox 9.0 Into The Wild

        Mozilla has readied the 9.0 version of the Firefox browser for public download. In line with the product release, Mozilla confirms that an existing agreement with Google has been extended for at least three years to keep the search giant’s technology closely tied to the browser.

  • SaaS

    • Ex-Google Man Sells Search Genius to Rest of World

      Srivas and crew are selling a product based on Hadoop, an open source incarnation of Google’s GFS and MapReduce platforms. But unlike its competitors, MapR is offering something that’s very different from the open source Hadoop project. The company spent two years rewriting Hadoop behind closed doors, eliminating what Srivas sees as major flaws in the platform.

    • OwnCloud Emerges As Open Source Competitor to Dropbox, Box.net

      If you’ve used popular cloud-based services for storing and sharing files, such as Dropbox and Box.net, you’re probably familiar with how convenient they are, and how much they provide for free. In the past few days, though, an open source competitor to them, dubbed OwnCloud, has been getting a lot of attention. It’s a Linux-based way to set up your own cloud computing instance, which means you don’t have to have your files sitting on servers that you don’t choose, governed by people you don’t know.

    • Hadoop challenger works to add developers

      LexisNexis has worked for more than a decade to develop a large scale system for Big Data manipulation, and it believes that it has produced something that’s better and more mature than the better known Hadoop technology.

    • New Relic Joins OpenStack Community to Provide Proven Application Performance Management for Organizations Leveraging Open Source Cloud

      New Relic, Inc., the SaaS-based cloud application performance management provider, today announced that it has joined the OpenStack(TM) community, a global collaboration of developers and technologists producing the open standard cloud-computing platform for both public and private clouds. Organizations deploying web applications on OpenStack can use New Relic to automatically monitor web apps in production and proactively identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • VirtualBox 4.1.8 brings fixes for 3D support

      VirtualBox logo The VirtualBox development team has released the fourth maintenance update to the 4.1.x branch of its open source desktop virtualisation application for x86 hardware. As a maintenance update, VirtualBox 4.1.8 has no new features but does include changes that improve overall stability while also addressing several bugs found in the previous versions.

    • Disgruntled employee? Oracle doesn’t seem to care about Solaris 11 code leak
    • Oracle Revs Up Solaris Studio 12.3

      Software developers offered new code analysis tools and extra speed via advanced compiler technology

    • Non-profit launches new OpenOffice.org fork

      A few days after the Apache Software Foundation reiterated its claim on the OpenOffice.org trademark, another non-profit in Germany has decided to flaunt the ASF and the Apache OpenOffice.org incubation process by releasing a new version of the popular open source office suite: White Label Office 3.3.1.

      The new office suite, now available for download, appears to be a direct slap in the face of the ASF by the German non-profit Team OpenOffice.org e.V., which has proclaimed its mission to keep OpenOffice.org development alive.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • UK Government Open Standards: The Great Betrayal of 2012

      And if you want any further proof that the UK Cabinet Office has given up trying to defend UK interests, and totally capitulated to the pressure of proprietary software companies

    • Govt CIO acts on open source omission

      The Australian Government’s acting CIO has stepped in to ensure open source software is considered as part of one of the largest software tenders currently on offer in Canberra.

      The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) has counselled the Parliamentary Services Department (DPS) over its compliance with the Government’s Open Source Policy after the DPS released a request for tender (DPS11097) to revamp its integrated library system (ILS).

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • Mapping rivers, streets and trash bins

        The idea is to create a free and open source map of the neighbourhood that everyone can use and share. We make use of the open source OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, and the first step is to figure out how much of the neighbourhood is already mapped. After this, mapping activity (who goes to which street and what kind of data to collect) can be planned out. Then comes the fun part of exploring little alleyways, noting down details of shops, street-names, speed-breakers, trees and even trash bins. After that we discuss interesting observations and upload the collected data back to the OSM website. Once the hard work is done we celebrate the free open source map of the neighbourhood!

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Censorship

    • Has Apple gone too far?

      Apparently, Apple not only claims the right to censor what’s available for download onto your iOS devices, but they also reserve the ability to pull it totally off of your device if it slips past their reviewers in the first place. This means no more Quickpick in the Appstore, on iCloud, or on your iPhone. I’ll let that sink in for a minute…

  • Civil Rights

Links 23/12/2011: Amarok 2.5, KDE SC 4.8 Release Candidate

Posted in News Roundup at 5:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Nine Open Source Discoveries I Made in 2011

    When writing about free and open source software, sometimes I seem to spend all my time complaining. So, after last week, when I described 2011 as a whole as a disappointment, I thought I should add some balance by mentioning some of the free software-related discoveries that delighted me during the past year.

    Many of these discoveries were not new in 2011, although several came into their own during the year. However, until the last twelve months, they were new to me. All are worth mentioning, just in case you’ve missed them:

  • Reinventing the open source wheel

    One of the greatest strengths of open source software development has been the notion that as an OSS developer, you can pretty much just pick and choose from the thousands of OSS projects out there to enrich your own project.

    (There are caveats to this idea, of course, the most obvious being license incompatibility. But, the general principle still holds.)

    But anecdotal evidence in the open source community seems to be demonstrating that the very opposite is occurring: new projects are often reinventing the wheel in their code, rather than partnering with someone else’s project.

  • Open Source Apps: the Monster List

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Project Releases

    • Ceylon Achieves Milestone 1

      Milestone 1 of Ceylon includes a reasonably complete and stable specification and a complete command line toolset (compiler, runtime, documentation compiler). A compatible release of the team’s Eclipse-based IDE is coming soon.

  • Licensing

    • VLC engine relicensed to LGPL

      As announced in a previous press release, VideoLAN and VLC developers have achieved the process of changing the license of the VLC engine to LGPL. The École Centrale Paris shares its happiness about this change.

  • Open Hardware

    • Arduino-Open Hardware and IDE Combo

      This article is a bit different from my usual column in two ways. First, it’s starting with a hardware and software combo—something I’ve not done before. Second, the projects are linked to each other and come recommended to me by Perth LUG member, Simon Newton.

Leftovers

  • Adobe’s Cloudware Announcement Stirs Pricing and Privacy Concerns

  • Security

  • Finance

    • A Christmas Message From America’s Rich

      It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

      True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • A New Lowe in Advertiser Cowardice

      The national hardware chain Lowe’s pulled its advertising from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim–explaining that the question of whether Muslims can be presented as regular human beings is a “hotly contested debate.”

      All-American Muslim is a reality show described by TLC, the cable channel that airs it, as “a look at life in Dearborn, Michigan–home to the largest mosque in the United States–through the lens of five Muslim American families…an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community.”

  • Civil Rights

    • SOPA Broken Even Before Being Passed

      The way some congressmen are desperate to pass dangerous SOPA, ignoring all the warning being given by IT experts, shows how much money speaks when it comes to passing laws. SOPA is nothing short of a measure to break the Internet just to entertain the entertainment industry which is failing to keep up with the technological evolution.

  • Copyrights

    • Anti-piracy laws will smash internet, US constitution – legal eagles

      Legal experts are warning that the proposed PROTECT IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation, currently working their way through Congress, will damage the world’s DNS system, cripple attempts to get better online security and violate free speech rights in the US constitution.

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