06.02.12

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Linux Can Take Over If It Sticks To What It Does Best. Appliances

  Everyone is always so fixated on desktop Linux and why it can’t get decent numbers in the desktop market.

  The answer is obvious. You can’t come late into the game when someone has a huge installed base and expect to win based on free over easy.

  Because that what the desktop battle is (not really a battle, by the way). It’s low cost versus “here, let me do that for you” that MS provides it’s already huge pre-installed base.

  You will never win that battle and to prove it, Linux can’t even get a firm foot in the door.

• Four ways a business can immediately benefit from Linux

  There are far too many small to mid-sized businesses still relying exclusively on proprietary software and costly hardware solutions to drive antiquated technology.

• Desktop

  • Google Chromebox: Not An Apple Mac Mini

• Server

  • Linux Server Revenues Growing Faster Than Windows, Hit $2.4 Billion in 1Q12

    According to IDC, Linux servers generated $2.4 billion in revenue for vendors in the first quarter of 2012. That’s a 16.0 percent growth rate, which is better than the 1.3 percent revenue growth rate for Windows servers.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • tllts ep #457

• Kernel Space

  • Graphics Stack

    • AMD admits it has to work on improving Linux OpenCL support

      AMD’s considerable effort in releasing its Llano and Trinity accelerated processor units (APUs) has been offset by stumbling support from applications for its GPGPU architecture. Now AMD has admitted that it needs to beef up support for Linux.

• Applications

  • Grive: Free and Open Source Google Drive Client for Linux

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • The Perfect Desktop – Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

    • Start your Linux terminal with a running train

    • ERROR: database disk image is malformed in Fedora 17

    • Download and Organize Photos with Fotobasher

    • First monitor calibration using ColorHug

    • How to upgrade to Fedora 17

    • How to Install Enlightenment Desktop on Ubuntu-Based Distribusion

    • Using The New GIMP Cage Transform Tool

    • Virtual Hosting With PureFTPd And MySQL (Incl. Quota And Bandwidth Management) On Debian Squeeze

    • Calculating Day of the Week

    • Secure Linux: Part 1. SELinux – history of its development, architecture and operating principles

    • How to Install LEMP Server In Ubuntu Precise 12.04

    • How to Install and Configure Proxy Server with Squid3 on Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS

    • HOWTO: Give Network Manager Sufficient Privileges

    • Install Cinnamon 1.4 on Fedora 17

    • The Perfect Desktop – Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

    • Fedora 17 Brings Stability and Some New Features

    • Linux system debugging super tutorial

      In the last two years, I have introduced you to a number of so-called super-duper system administration tools. We learned how to properly analyze a range of problems by carefully studying symptoms and then isolating and fixing the root cause. We learned about strace and lsof, both immensely powerful tools. We focused on system profiling and auditing. We also worshiped the omnipotent GNU Debugger (gdb). Now it is time to combine the powers of all these into one mega tutorial.

  • Games

    • ‘Lilly Looking Through’ Adventure Game is Just Beautiful

      Lilly Looking Through is a new adventure game for Linux by Geeta Games. The game has absolutely beautiful art, pleasant animations and a totally great soundtrack.

    • Tiny & Big in: Grandpa’s Leftovers Now Available for Pre-order

      Black Pants Studio’s action platformer game Tiny & Big in : Grandpa’s Leftovers can be now pre-ordered for $12.99 (Windows, Mac, Linux).

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • Meet Blue Systems—Akademy 2012 Platinum Sponsor

      This year we have Blue Systems as a Platinum sponsor of Akademy 2012 Tallinn. Recently, they made news by offering continous support for Jonathan Riddell, lead developer of Kubuntu, the KDE distribution that they would like to become one of the best on DistroWatch.

    • Akademy 2012 Call for Volunteers

  • GNOME Desktop

    • 5 Nice GNOME 3.4 Themes [Ubuntu PPA Available]

    • GNOME gets a fancy cloud video viewer!

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • Parted Magic 2012_05_30

    • Parted Magic 2012_05_30 Has Been Released

    • Alpine 2.4.3 released

    • Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0-preview-053012 Release – May 31, 2012

    • VectorLinux 7.0 SOHO Edition

      The final release of VectorLinux 7.0 SOHO is now available. This release is built on the 7.0 GOLD release featuring the recently released KDE4.8.3 desktop experience. VectorLinux is the fastest Linux desktop in it’s class bar none. We have spared no expense to bring the KDE4 desktop to the Linux community in a unique fashion that is best tried to see KDE4 at its most awesome potential. With the custom artwork, visual tweaks and a little Vector magic, behold SOHO as you have never seen it before.

    • SolusOS 1.1 Released

      The SolusOS team is pleased to announce the release of SolusOS 1.1. This release brings greater hardware support and newer application versions, as well as support for hybrid GPU’s, such as the NVIDIA Optimus. A new 3.3.6 kernel is at its core with the BFS patch, alongide the Gnome 2.30 Desktop Environment. Many new application versions are present.

  • Gentoo Family

    • FLOSS Weekly 212

  • Red Hat Family

    • Fedora

      • `Fedora Utils` Adds Fedora 17 Support

        Fedora Utils is a tool to tweak Fedora and easily install packages which are not available in the main Fedora repositories.

      • Fedora 17 – Install Codecs, Drivers and Fonts in under 5 minutes!

      • Fedora 17 Enterprise Preview

        Fedora Linux is a high-quality community-supported distribution, and a showcase for new technologies. SELinux, Systemd, PulseAudio, new kernels, new Gnome and KDE releases – if it’s bleeding-edge chances are you will find it in Fedora. Some call Fedora a testbed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a characterization that the nice RH folks don’t always agree with. Regardless of what you call it, new features appear first in Fedora, get pummeled by users, and then work their way into RHEL. It’s a great way to get an early look and start testing new goodies.

      • Detailed Fedora 17 Review

        I must admit that Fedora was the first GNU/Linux distribution that introduced me to this world. We used it as the default OS in Linux For You magazine where I worked as a writer and editor. Fedora was also the first GNU/Linux OS that I installed on my PC. I moved to PCLinuxOS, then Mandriva, then Debian and then to Ubuntu. These days I multiboot between Ubuntu, openSUSE and some random OS. I stayed away from Fedora due to RPM Hell. I still remember being burnt by it in Fedora 14. But things have changed dramatically. Fedora is now extremely useful for novice users. I build confidence in Fedora with version 16 and planned to revisit it as 17 hits the Internet. I confess, I never used Fedora as my primary OS, outside my work at LFY.

      • Fedora 17 Brings Stability and Some New Features

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 12.04 (“Precise Pangolin”)

        • Canonical Provides Easy Access to Linux Games for Ubuntu Users

          Developers who would like to learn more about adding their games to the Ubuntu Software Center can also get information through Canonical.

        • Ubuntu’s HUD: Heuristic Universal Discovery

          Like it or not, these sort of fresh ideas are the only thing pushing the Linux desktop forward these days. Gnome wants to take a step backward and try to ‘bling’ its way into your heart. KDE, no matter how excellent it is, lives on tried-and-true desktop idioms and only pushes forward in aesthetics. Unity, as much as you force yourself to believe that it’s uncool, is really innovating and with each release becomes more and more compelling to the nay’ sayers.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Linux Mint 13 OEM released!

            Reminder: OEM images are for computer vendors and manufacturers. They allow Linux Mint to be “pre-installed” on a machine which is then used by another person than the one who performed the installation. After an OEM installation, the computer is set in such a way that the next reboot features a small setup screen where the new user/customer has the ability to choose his/her username, password, keyboard layout and locale.

          • Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon Review

            After a very successful launch of Linux Mint 12, we’re taking a look at the newest edition of Linux Mint to see what’s new with this edition.

          • This Week in Linux

            Linux Mint is getting difficult to keep up with these days. They officially have 38 different variants of their popular operating system (well, maybe not quite 38) and now they are getting their distro factory installed on another some of those little tiny PCs. Apparently, that little nugget was tucked away in a regular progress report. Today, the Mint guys released their OEM version.

          • A Bodhi Linux 2.0.0 Beginning

            The Bodhi team and I are happy to announce the first pre-release (Read: Not suitable for daily usage machines) of our next major release Bodhi Linux 2.0.0! This release is considered alpha quality and is intended to allow our community to help test this release before it becomes our “stable” version.

Free Software/Open Source

• An open source analogy: Open source is like sharing a recipe

• Should Apple Open up, and What Does Liberty Have to Do With It

  Electronic Frontier Foundation just posted an article discussing “Apple’s Crystal Prison and The Future of Open Platforms” in which they characterize Apple’s and Microsoft’s restrictive policies as affronts on users freedom, and call on Apple to lead the way by aligning with Steve Wozniak’s call for Apple to open up.

• Web Browsers

  • Chrome

    • Chrome Extensions for Privacy & Ad, Tracking, webbugs and other sneaky things blocking

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice Has Found its Rhythm

    This week, Susan covered The Document Foundation’s release of the latest version of the LibreOffice open source office productivity suite. The release announcement claims that the suite offers as much as 100 percent better performance than previous versions, and some early reports from users are confirming that. Meanwhile, there are strong signs that the Linux community is embracing LibreOffice, and that Windows users make up the majority of new downloads for Apache OpenOffice.

• CMS

  • One on One with a Joomla student coder

• Licensing

  • Enforcing the GPL – Kernel hackers join the fight

Leftovers

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • New Zealand judge orders US to hand over Megaupload documents

      Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants scored a significant victory on Tuesday when a New Zealand judge ordered the United States government to hand over evidence the defense will need to prepare for an upcoming extradition hearing. He rejected the government’s argument that the defendants should make do with the information about its case the government itself chose to introduce in court.