06.17.12

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers

GNU/Linux

• Has Commodore Amiga flopped…..Again?

  This and the introduction video which starts as soon as you enter that page looks good and seems to promise a whole lot. To be totally honest I was rather excited. Well about as excited as a computer nut like me can be about yet another operating system

  So after clearing some space on my hard drive (It seems that no matter how big our hard drives are they are always full. Maybe I need to go out more :P). I downloaded the two ISO images totalling 7GB I started to become even more excited. I mean, bigger is better right?

• Here’s how our beloved penguin lands on Mars!

  We all know the incredible versatility of our beloved Linux. To our great pleasure we can find it in the PC of the school of our son, or on the netbook of our secretary, in the terminals of the Internet Café of Madrid but also, for the amazement of many, in the most common security devices or in the more sophisticated satellite receivers. But I am quiet sure that you have never heard of Linux distributions for the space. That’s right! What reaction would you have in discovering that many of the satellites scattered in outer space have entrusted our beloved Linux? Shocked? Then, you have not heard anything! The future of Linux and its philosophy is finally conquering the space my dear.

• Kernel Space

  • 2012 Kernel Summit: Call for Participation

    This year, in order to make the selection process more transparent, we’re trying a new mechanism where we’ll be selecting this year’s attendees from amongst those who submit proposals to attend as described below.

  • Graphics Stack

    • X.Org Applications On Wayland Are Working

      Tiago Vignatti, the former Nokia developer and now Intel Open-Source Technology Center developer contributing to Wayland, has blogged today about X on Wayland. “A rather cool feature on Weston compositor is xwayland, to support X11 native applications on Wayland. It’s a quite important feature because gives the compatibility with the “old” windowing system, so say you have an application written on Motif/Xt or even something more “fancy” like a Web browser all tied with GTK2 and whatever dependency, then you better not bother yourself re-writing it to native Wayland or porting to a modern toolkit — it should just work seamlessly on it. Hence, X on Wayland fits pretty well with our overall transition plan.”

• Applications

  • Comix: A Useful Comic Reader For Linux

    I am not a Comic fan, but sometimes I do read some comics to keep myself entertained. My usual way of reading comic is to go online to find the comic I want and read the strips, one at a time. The problem with this method is that with a slow Internet connection, the loading of each strip (image file) is very slow and often results in an unpleasant reading experience. A better way is to install a comic viewer on your computer so you can download and view the comic strip right on your desktop, without any delay. For Linux, Comix is a useful comic reader that I strongly recommend.

  • 8 Essential Free Graphics Tools

  • Proprietary

    • Opera 12 Adds Themes, Do Not Track, Hardware Acceleration

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • My Linux Webcam Adventure

    • How to Convert RSS Feeds into EPUB files with Calibre

    • How to: Close the terminal without killing the running program

    • Linux Mint: From scratch – Part IV

    • TTYtter – Tweet via The Command Line [Linux]

    • Setting up a network-based, centralized home directory as a service

    • LibreOffice 3.6.0 Beta 1 Released [Ubuntu 12.04 PPA]

    • Develop and enhance your photographs with darktable!

    • Setting up a headless Calibre server

    • Install Compiz On The Unity Desktop On Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin)

    • What are MySQL Temporary Tables?

    • Gnac: Better Know a Package

    • Introduction to MarkDown

    • How to Installing Nginx with PHP5-FastCGI and MySql Support on Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS

    • Easy Way to Show/Hide All Startup Applications in Ubuntu-Based Distro

    • High-Availability Storage With GlusterFS 3.2.x On Ubuntu 12.04 – Automatic File Replication (Mirror) Across Two Storage Servers

    • How to Add Custom gtkmm Widget to Glade

    • Download Nvidia GeForce 302.17 Driver for Linux

    • Weekend Project: Open Source Crowd Mapping with Ushahidi

  • Wine

    • Wine 1.4.1 Fixes Blizzard’s Launcher and Installer

      Alexandre Julliard, the leader of the Wine project, announced yesterday, June 15th, that a new stable version of the famous framework used to run Windows applications on Linux, is available for download.

  • Games

    • Linux games: Lone Survivor

    • Action RPG ‘The Real Texas’ Released for Linux

      The game is a role playing action adventure that plays like a mashup of Zelda: Link to the Past and Ultima VI. You play as Sam, an ordinary Texas rancher on holiday in England who accidentally falls into a blue portal and lands in The Strange Texas.

    • Unigine Engine Is Now Even More Beautiful

      There’s another round of Unigine Engine updates that make this multi-platform game engine even more beautiful and stunning while also adding in some other enticing features.

      Among the work that the Unigine Engine now has upstream is improved clouds, hardware support of a custom mouse cursor for Linux/MacOSX/Windows, improved performance of Direct3D 11.0 shaders, removed Direct3D 10 support, removing support for OpenGL ES and default shaders (simplified shaders remain supported), removed support for impostors, and orthographic project support for widget manipulators. The improved clouds come via volumetric clouds turbulence and Z-axis noise mask transformation for higher-detailed swirly volumetric clouds. The Direct3D 10 renderer was removed from the Unigine Engine since they replaced it with another Direct3D 11 renderer that complies with the Direct3D 9 feature-level, this will be used for older graphics cards and next-generation ARM mobile devices.

    • 0 A.D. raises the game for open-source RTS

      Open-source RTS games aren’t generally known for having quality graphics, even when finished, so you probably wouldn’t expect too much from an alpha build. Which is why 0 A.D. is a real surprise, thanks to visuals that are more impressive than many commercial products.

    • Humble Indie Bundle is the single greatest thing to happen to Linux in years

      I’ve been a full-time Ubuntu user for about five years and I don’t own any consoles. If you approached me three or four years ago and asked which games I played, you might have received a rather defensive reply. High quality games were few and far between, that is, until May 2010 when things changed forever…

    • LIMBO | Friday Game

      When LIMBO became a part of the Linux gaming world through the latest Humble Indie Bundle, I knew I should take the journey right away. This game has won over 90 awards, and many gamers of all platforms consider it to be the best indie game ever. Time to have a more extensive look on this unique platform game…

• Desktop Environments

  • Linux Login Managers

  • Awesome Window Manager

    If you are looking for an Awesome window manager for your desktop, you found it! This window manager remains simple but offers flexible configuration as well.

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • rekonq 1.0 Tech Preview

      yes, it’s that time again… while some of us are working hard to renew our website, actually in maintenaince mode, my attention is completely devoted to our new piece of code: the upcoming 1.0 release! I was a bit reluctant, at the beginning, to move to the fatidical 1.0 release (in my original plans, that was for when rekonq will become an official slackware package…). But if I consider what we did since that day in December, 2008… well… we probably are ready for another step. Moreover the summer plans are for a complete code “review” that will drastically change what we have now and will prepare to the future fights… so, yes! Next will really 1.0! It’s just a number, after all.

    • KDE Activities: A Personal Case Study

      Activities are both KDE’s most talked-about and least understood features. Whenever I enthuse over them, I am invariably greeted with so much bafflement that I suspect that they are also KDE’s least used features. So, for those who keep asking, “What’s the point?” I thought I’d give a detailed description of how I use them.

      The typical desktop environment is built around applications, and designed for general purposes. By contrast, KDE Activities are task-oriented, and each one is customized for its specific task, and can have its own layout, widgets, icons, and startup applications. The result is an extension of the concept of virtual desktops (although, somewhat confusingly, each Activity has its own virtual desktops, and you can set up virtual desktops on a single Activity to act like Activities within Activities).

  • GNOME Desktop

    • Antidevelopment

      When I asked several people why they liked GNOME3 or GNOME-Shell, the most common answer was “the extensions system that allows you to customize your desktop.” GNOME3 simply wouldn’t be popular without the extensions system that allows developers to write and publish desktop extensions.

      Customization is at the heart of every Linux desktop. A long time ago, when GNOME2.0 was the standard, customization was openly allowed on Linux systems, and everyone used that freedom in different ways. Everyone tweaked their desktop differently, and made it feel like $HOME in different ways.

    • A Review Of MATE – Is It A True Gnome 2 Replica? [Linux]

      It’s already been well over a year since the initial release of Gnome 3, and the world of Linux desktop environments has dramatically changed since then. Gnome 3 was born, Gnome 2 was essentially thrown to the side, Gnome 3 was forked to create Cinnamon, and so on.

    • Gnome Developers are Working on a New Software Center

      One of these changes is the new interface for system updates which will make the update process lot more simpler and intuitive.

    • Gnome-Shell Extensions auto-updates arrive in 3.6

    • Emerillon – An “Open” Window to the World

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • LPS 1.3.5

  • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

    • Mandriva Linux 2012 Tech Preview Released

      Per Øyvind Karlsen announced a few days ago the immediate availability for download and testing of the Tech Preview (TP) release of the upcoming Mandriva 2012 Linux operating system.

  • Gentoo Family

    • Sabayon 9 Gnome Screenshots

    • Sabayon 9 Review

      Sabayon 9 has just been released not too long ago and features many upgrades since the previous version. It is available in three desktop verisons, Gnome 3.2.3, XFCE 4.10 and KDE 4.8.3.. This review will be taking a look at the Gnome desktop edition of Sabayon Linux 9.

      Sabayon is based on Gentoo Hardened edition which is focused on keeping security tight and keeping your PC secure from any possible holes found in the distribution and it’s available in both 32 and 64 bit versions.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Fedora

      • Kororaa 15 support ending

        With the release of Fedora 17, version 15 will be unsupported from the end of June 2012. The Kororaa 15 ISO images will soon be removed from SourceForge mirrors, however the package repository will remain available for the next few weeks.

  • Debian Family

    • Tails 0.12 is out

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • How Would You Use Ubuntu TV? Canonical Wants to Know

          Ever wish you could help design the TV of the future? If so, you’re in luck: Canonical developers are currently soliciting the open source community’s feedback to help plan features for Ubuntu TV. Here’s what they want to know, and how you can have your say.

          First introduced back in January of 2012, Ubuntu TV is an ambitious project. It’s also one that, for the moment, remains pretty open ended, in the sense that its specifics have yet to be nailed down.

        • Another look at Ubuntu and the Enterprise

        • Canonical announces Ubuntu Apps Showdown

          Developers will have from June 18 until July 9 – a total of three weeks – to create an app using Canonical’s Quickly development tool, which combines Python and GTK into a single Ubuntu-centric package.

        • Canonical Presents Ubuntu App Showdown Contest

          Canonical proudly announced on June 14th that they prepared a new and exciting contest for developers who want to create an app, from scratch, for the Ubuntu platform.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Zorin OS 6 Lite: Windows replacement for low-end computers

            Zorin OS is an operating system targeted to new converts from Windows to Linux. It eases up the transition, because gives the user a familiar interface.

            As I wrote before, Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu and, until version 6, on GNOME 2 functionality. It means system resource requirements are quite high.

• Devices/Embedded

  • A free Raspberry Pi for every child is a bad idea, says its designer

    Since its launch in February, commentators have called for Raspberry Pi, the wildly popular £16 Linux computer, to be used to reinvigorate ICT teaching in schools and get pupils interested in programming in much the same way the BBC Micro did in the 1980s.

  • Raspberry Pi review

    THE RASPBERRY PI has been one of the most eagerly anticipated devices of the year. It’s a low-cost machine that allows students to get to grips with programming, and has also sparked a huge amount of interest from computer technology enthusiasts.

  • ARM board for Arduino shields

    The great success of the Arduino microcontroller platform is, among other things, based on its wealth of shields for different purposes – an advantage that is not available on many other platforms. The Rascal Micro promises to be very compatible with existing shields but offers much greater performance due to its ARM processor (AT91SAM9G20). The board also comes with a LAN interface and a web server, allowing the data that is collected with a shield to be sent through a network or displayed on the web with ease. Controls can also be integrated and operated this way.

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Ice Cream Sandwich named best platform experience by Parsons

      • Toshiba has your back for dads, grads, and more

      • Toshiba Excite 13 review

      • Max Payne Mobile for Android on Tegra 3 hands-on

      • Orange San Diego reviewed: Smooth surfing, clunky interface

      • Apple, Samsung again swallow all the smartphone profits

      • Verizon confirms Android 4.0 for Droid Razr on the way

Free Software/Open Source

• US-CERT Shows the Value of FLOSS

  A US-CERT notice of vulnerability to many systems running many OS on Intel 64-bit processors shows the value of FLOSS:

  * for years Wintel systems were vulnerable to privilege escalation attacks due to a flaw in Intel 64-bit CPUs,
  * notified in early May of the flaw, M$ took a month to push out an update compensating for the flaw, and
  * Debian took 2 days to fix the flaw.

• Advanced manufacturing re-tools with open source (bit by bit)

  Open source software and open source best-practices have become truly ubiquitous in the business world. Software used to be the new frontier, but open source software can be found leading up to the frontier, at the frontier, and beyond. My experience at CGI America 2012 (a US-focused subgroup of the Clinton Global Initiative) confirmed this.

• Design without debt: Five tools for designers on a budget

• Ringmark now fully open sourced

  The Ringmark performance tests are now fully open source according to a post by Facebook’s Matt Kelly. Ringmark is designed to test mobile browsers for functionality and performance and then classifies the browser in one of three rings. Previously, Facebook had open sourced the tests of Ringmark and contributed them to the W3C, but had not open sourced the server-side code which helped run the test.

• Web Browsers

  • Chrome

    • Chrome vs. Firefox for Ubuntu

      According to the independent web analytics firm, StatCounter Chrome has excelled as the world most popular browser with the highest browser usage share for the month of May 2012. But does that apply to Linux platform too? Is Chrome the best browser for Linux? The post compares the widely popular Mozilla Firefox browser version 4 with relatively new Google’s Chrome version 16, distinctly for Ubuntu!

  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla Launches Ignite Competition, Featuring Cash Prizes

      This week, the Obama administration unveiled US Ignite, “an initiative to promote US leadership in developing applications and services for ultra-fast broadband and software-defined networks.” The initiative is described as an incubator ecosystem that will hook people up with novel technology ideas with fast networks, advanced infrastructure and more. Mozilla is backing the US effort, but–in conjunction with the National Science Foundation–has its own Ignite effort. Here are details on it, and the cash prizes that go along with the program.

    • Mozilla and the National Science Foundation launch open innovation challenge

• SaaS

  • Dell’s Big Data Move: Apache Hadoop Meets Pentaho Analytics

    Where is Dell heading in the big data, business intelligence and analytics software markets? The answer involves Apache Hadoop and Pentaho — an open source software company that seems to be gaining more business momentum. Here’s the update.

  • NASA Ditching Open Source OpenStack? Not So Fast

    The open source OpenStack cloud platform was launched by NASA in partnership with Rackspace back in 2010. It’s an effort that now has over 180 participating companies, including AT&T, Dell, HP, Cisco and IBM.

  • An Overview of Apache’s Hadoop

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice

• Funding

  • Google gives $300,000 to OSU Open Source Lab

    Google has made a $300,000 donation to the Oregon State University Open Source Lab, increasing its cumulative support of academia’s premiere open source development and hosting operation to nearly $1.9 million.

    The new funds will continue Google’s support of the lab’s effort to provide hosting services used by many of today’s most recognized open source projects and communities.

    Open source creates software licensing and distribution designed to be used and improved by developers around the world. Anyone can copy the source code and modify it.

  • Engine Yard sponsors PHP framework Lithium

• Project Releases

  • GNU Health 1.6 series released

  • GNUmed 1.2 series released

    I am glad to be able to announce the immediate availabilit of the GNUmed 1.2.0 Feature Release.

  • PacketFence 3.4 has landed with Debian support

  • m23 12.3 rock supports Ubuntu 12.04 LTS!

• Licensing

  • GPL and free software licensing: What’s in it for business?

    For a variety of reasons business is often seen as antipathetic to copyleft licensing. The GPL – the GNU General Public License – the most popular copyleft licence, sometimes gets a hostile press, often for reasons that don’t reflect its real and positive effects.

    Arguments about the pros and cons of copyleft and permissive licensing go back a long way. A permissive licence is as it says, and allows the user to copy, repackage, sell, or change the code in any way the user likes, as long as some form of attribution is given.

    A copyleft licence, such as the GPL, gives similar rights but ensures reciprocity by obliging those who distribute the code to pass on the same rights to others, unimpaired, which by definition includes giving access to the source code and to any changes that have been made to it.

Leftovers

• Security

  • New Grad Looking For a Job? Pentagon Contractors Post Openings For Black-Hat Hackers

• Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Police Raid Anti-Fracking Encampment in Pennsylvania

    According to Democracy Now!, police and private security forces raided a protest encampment of anti-fracking activists in Pennsylvania this week. For two weeks, neighbors and other concerned citizens had been helping to stave off the
    eviction of more than 30 families in the Riverdale Mobile Home Park in Jersey
    Shore, Pennsylvania, after residents were told they had to vacate the property and move their homes after the land was sold to the giant private water
    corporation Aqua America. The company plans to pump up to three million of gallons of water a day from the nearby river to funnel through a pipeline to other parts of the state to be used in industrial drilling for shale gas, through controversial hydraulic
    fracturing or “fracking.”

• Privacy

  • Online Activities To Be Recorded By UK ISPs

  • Theresa May’s Internet History

    Dear Home Office,

    Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I hereby request the following information from and regarding the Rt Hon Theresa May MP (Con), Secretary of State for the Home Department (the “Home Secretary”):

    1) The projected cost to the taxpayer (calculated or estimated – whichever is available) of implementing the Government’s proposed new legislation regarding extending the use of communications data by the police and security services.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • Comcast refuses IP lookups, calls anti-piracy case a ‘shake down’

      Comcast may be complicating the lives of copyright holders everywhere by rejecting recent requests made to link subscriber information to IP addresses. In an ongoing legal kerfuffle with AF Holdings, adult film publisher and plaintiff, Comcast requested an Illinois district court dismiss the piles of subpoenas it has received.

    • Comcast Protests “Shake Down” of Alleged BitTorrent Pirates
      

      Comcast has run out of patience with the avalanche of BitTorrent lawsuits in the United States. The ISP is now refusing to comply with court-ordered subpoenas, arguing that they are intended to “shake down” subscribers by coercing them to pay settlements. Copyright holders have responded furiously to Comcast’s new stance, claiming that the ISP is denying copyright holders the opportunity to protect their works.