• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

New Commodore AMIGA mini is a modern PC that comes with Linux

Commodore USA has released the new AMIGA mini and the VIC mini, two small form factor PCs with a bit of retro styling, but very new and powerful guts

Forget the Ultrabook — Go With the New Commodore!

Pirate Bay plans to build aerial server drones with $35 Linux computer

Commodore outs Linux-running Amiga Mini desktop

Kernel Space

• The Main DRM Pull Hits The Linux 3.4 Kernel

• Linux Plus Android Equals Easier Multitasking

• Linux creator turned down Apple job offer from Steve Jobs

• TerraBlock supports Linux

• Graphics Stack

  • NVIDIA Releases 295.33; Kepler Gallium3D Soon

  • Gallium3D Compute Infrastructure Is On Approach

    The Gallium3D compute infrastructure, which is the underlying work for supporting OpenCL over this open-source graphics driver architecture, is on approach for landing in the very near future. This has been one damn good day for open-source Linux graphics drivers following the earlier Nouveau surprise announcements.

  • AMD finally release open source Radeon 7000 GPU drivers for Linux

  • Kernel Log: Drivers for new Radeon GPUs

    Soon, the kernel will support several AMD graphics cores that are used in recent Radeon graphics cards and in various upcoming processors. In systems with Intel graphics, using hibernation can cause memory corruption. The development of Linux 3.4 has started.

Applications

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Using ATA Over Ethernet (AoE) On Debian Squeeze (Initiator And Target)

  • Control VLC, Amarok With Mouse Gestures

  • Windows and Linux System Monitoring With PC Monitor

• Wine

  • PlayOnLinux 4.0.16 Supports Origin and Desura

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • Can KDE Survive Without Ubuntu?

    Jonathan Riddell, the KDE developer, recently announced that Canonical stopping funding the Kubuntu project and reassigning him in a new role. Looking at Canonical’s focus on Unity, that’s not a surprising move. I don’t know how Canonical works, but looking at the new challenges they set for themselves with every release, I do think they need all the hands they can get. The result of that hard work is evident – Unity is shaping up really well.

  • Kdenlive Surpasses Fundraising Goals, Might Actually Work With Kubuntu?

Distributions

• Calculate 11.15 Screenshots

• Legacy OS 4 Mini: Light-weight Linux for older PCs

  Have an old computer lying around that you’d like to use for some light web surfing, document editing, and other tasks? I mean like a PC with a 1999-era Intel Pentium III processor? It turns out there’s an OS for that… and it’s not Windows 98.

• Fun With REMnux — And New Malware Analysis Book

  In my last blog about Linux Live Environments, I mentioned REMnux, an environment specifically built for malware analysis. I’d spent a little time with REMnux when it first came out, but decided to take the latest version (3.0) for a test drive.

• New Releases

  • [Bodhi Linux 1.4.0 Released]

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Say hello to Canonical’s new Linux desktop: Ubuntu 12.04 beta review

        Canonical’s next long-term support release of its flagship Linux distribution, Ubuntu 12.04 is in late beta. This next release, due out on April 26th, is in beta now. I’ve been using it for several weeks now and so far, so good.

        Indeed, the new Ubuntu is good enough already that I’ve it on my default Ubuntu system: a 2009-era Gateway DX4710. This PC is powered by a 2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and has 6GBs of RAM and an Intel GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) 3100 for graphics. No, it’s not fast, but unlike Windows 8’s beta, you don’t need a fast computer for Ubuntu.

      • 15 New Photo Wallpapers Chosen for Ubuntu 12.04

        From a pool of thousands, 15 photographic wallpapers have been chosen for inclusion in Ubuntu 12.04.

      • Ubuntu Survey Results Published Part I

      • Canonical Surveys Users

      • Ubuntu 12.04 to be without Wubi installer

      • Ubuntu Continues With Upstart, Releases v1.5

        With Ubuntu remaining uninterested in systemd, the Upstart init system continues to be developed. Released today was Upstart 1.5 with a few new features.

Devices/Embedded

• Raspberry Pi designer hints at future version

  However, while that beefed up version may be available at some point, costs and demand will likely hold it off for a while, the popular mini-computer’s designer said.

• Phones

  • Android

    • Android Goes Orbital With NASA’s ISSLive

      NASA has made great efforts to get the public interested in their various projects and avenues of research using tools such as social media networks and their suite of mobile applications. Unfortunately, those applications have almost exclusively been iPhone exclusive. Of the over 20 mobile applications NASA has released, only a scant have made it over to everyone’s favorite open source mobile operating system.

    • Sony Caters to Open Source Community with Android Code

      Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Android is open source and built on Linux. Fortunately for Android enthusiasts and independent developers, however, Sony has made life a little easier by releasing the open source archive for the Xperia S device. Of course, there are some catches. Read on for what this announcement means for the juncture of Android and free software.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Acer Iconia Tab A510 with Tegra 3, Android 4.0 arriving in the US and Canada for $450

Organizational Adoption of Open Source Software

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• LibreOffice on track for cloud service next month

  The Document Foundation (TDF), which produces the leading open source office software suite LibreOffice, is on schedule for the release of a cloud version of its software next month.

  The team released the last update to its 3.4 build on Thursday and is now focused on developing version 3.5 further, but the group is now also ready to go live for cloud services in April. That said, the team reserves the right to hold off on launch until the last few software fixes come in, TDF spokesman Italo Vignoli told The Register.

Project Releases

• GNU Parallel 20120322 (‘#518696′) released

Public Services/Government

• Iceland’s public sector IT moves towards open source

  OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE is finding favour on the Icelandic government scene with the announcement that all of its public administration organisations will adopt it.

• Iceland swaps Windows for Linux in open-source push

  Iceland’s push to move its public sector to open-source software has made some headway, with most of the shift seeing Windows swapped for Linux.

Security

• The big leak: Microsoft’s epic security fail

  Some words just seem to go together: “bread” and “butter”; “trial” and “error”; “Microsoft” and “security breach.” The MS12-020 Remote Desktop Protocol vulnerability revealed last week shows once again that when it comes to data security, Microsoft is its own worst enemy and any “secure” system can be compromised.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Universal USB Installer supports four more Linux distros

The busy folks at Pen Drive Linux have updated their handy Universal USB Installer tool to support four more distros. Which means it can now convert live CDs of Deepin Linux, LinHES Linux, Trisquel Linux and Satux Linux to run on USB keys.

Dell Surveys Customers on GNU/Linux

Carla Schroder: Whoever controls technology controls society

CS: My first PC was an Apple LC II back around 1993. Then I got hold of a Windows 3.1/ DOS 5 PC. I spent most of my time in DOS because Windows was barely functional. I learned about Linux from a local computer magazine, Computerbits, and installed my first Red Hat around 1995. From 3.5” diskettes!

Apple was very different then, they actually encouraged users to get under the hood and learn about the system, and you could get detailed manuals. They didn’t evolve into shiny, unfriendly closed boxes until later.

Desktop

• 2012 Will be The Year of The GNU/Linux Desktop

  The GNU/Linux desktop has been around and growing for a while now but 2012 will be special:

  * Android/Linux and GNU/Linux are getting together on ARM,
  * Many OEMs are now producing desktop/notebook machines with GNU/Linux, including some old and new styles,
  * thin clients, which love GNU/Linux, are now respectable (growth 20% p.a.)…, and
  * Android/Linux is invading the desktop space on ARM and x86.

• How Linux Can Bring Life To Your Old PC

Audiocasts/Shows

• Linux Outlaws 256 – The Beards are Coming!!!

Kernel Space

• What’s New in Linux 3.3?

• Greg KH Readies for Collaboration Summit, Talks Raspberry Pi

  Linux kernel maintainer and Linux Foundation Fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman will be moderating the highly-anticipated Linux kernel panel at the Collaboration Summit in a couple short weeks. He was generous enough to take a few moments recently to answer some questions about what we might hear from the Linux kernel panel, as well as some details on his recent work and projects. Oh, and we couldn’t resist asking him about the new Raspberry Pi.

• Linux Kernel May Gain VMUFAT File-System Support

• Graphics Stack

  • AMD Publishes Open-Source HD 7000, Trinity Code

  • An Updated Look At Radeon Gallium3D 2D Color Tiling

  • Intel Publishes More Haswell Graphics Driver Code

  • An Extremely Large Patch Hits The X.Org Server

  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 “Kepler” On Linux?

    NVIDIA has finally introduced their first Kepler-based graphics card: the GeForce GTX 680. The new Kepler graphics architecture is an exciting successor to Fermi, but how well does this new graphics processor work under Linux? Here’s a glimpse in what to expect for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 series on Linux.

    First of all, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 is designed to compete with AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 Southern Islands graphics card. The GTX 680 has a 28nm GK104 Kepler GPU with 1536 CUDA cores, 128 texture units, 1006MHz core clock, PCI Express 3.0 support and initially there’s just 2GB of GDDR5 video memory on a 256-bit bus. The GeForce GTX 680 has a 195 Watt TDP and carries a $500 USD price-tag.

  • Nouveau Project Has Huge Surprises Today

    This morning I wrote about the launch of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 as the first-to-ship NVIDIA GPU based upon their brand new Kepler architecture. At the start of the morning it looked to be the usual NVIDIA launch: binary driver support should be in place with an official driver update due out at any time and it would mark the start of the usual Nouveau driver game of reverse-engineering the support in the coming months. With Fermi and past NVIDIA generations there’s never been same-day open-source Nouveau support in any form, but it’s generally taken months to get the display to light-up with KMS.

Applications

• Why Vim?

  People ask me why on Earth would I subject myself to such dreadful text editor as vim. With it’s weird mode system, nonstandard keyboard shortcuts and all kinds of strange quirks it is not what you would call a user-friendly piece of software. Most users new to this particular editor hit a brick wall at step one: entering text. When you open vim and try to type into it will do strange things. It will mostly beep at you, or display some messages in the status bar but not type. Unless of course you happen to hit a vovel lie a or i or o, in which case it will suddenly come alive and let you type.

• GloboNote: A Sticky Notes Tool on Steroids

  At first sight, GloboNote looks like yet another sticky notes tool. But this unassuming application has a few clever tricks up its sleeve. For starters, GloboNotes offers a handful of text formatting options, including bold, italics, and underlined. The utility allows you to organize notes into groups, and you can display and hide all notes belonging to a specific group in one go. GloboNotes also sports the ability to perform simple calculations directly in notes: type a calculation (e.g., 3+2=) and press F2 to view the result.

• Pacman Package Manager

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How To Set Up Apache2 With mod_fcgid And PHP5 On Debian Squeeze

  • Using ATA Over Ethernet (AoE) On Debian Squeeze (Initiator And Target)

  • Work the Shell – What Day Is That Date in the Past?

  • How to disable Nepomuk, Strigi and Akonadi in KDE4

• Wine

  • PlayOnLinux 4.0.16 now can start exe from terminal, support for Desura and more

• Games

  • CraftStudio, New Real Time Collaborative Game Making Tool for Linux

    CraftStudio is an upcoming collaborative gaming making tool for Linux, featuring Minecraft style blocky graphics.

  • Free and Open Source Puzzle Game ‘Me and My Shadow’ is Quite Challenging

  • Report article Enemy In Sight!

    Our team is working on polishing the game for an alpha release now. I’ve been working on adding info to the HUD as well as giving players a few more options while out in space. Rusty has made an incredible “asteroid belt” themed mission for us.

  • A Linux Game That’s Still Not Selling Well

    While the new Humble Bundle is already pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars, there’s a new Source Engine game coming to Linux, and Wasteland 2 is likely coming to Linux, as just some of the recent Linux gaming achievements, there’s still not a surplus of Linux-native games. Even without there being excessive amounts of Linux-native games, not all of the titles that do come are destined to sell well.

    Last month I wrote about the Tomes of Mephistopheles reaching an alpha state, which is a game being developed by Kot In Action — the same studio behind the popular Steel Storm series. Tomes of Mephistopheles is powered by the DarkPlaces engine, which is a great game engine for being free and open-source, and that alpha access to this Kot In Action title is available for a $10 USD pre-order.

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • KDevelop 4.3 Brings Support for Basic C++11

    After nine long months of hard work, the KDevelop team proudly announced last evening, March 20th, the immediate availability for download of the KDevelop 4.3 software, which comes with improved performance, lots of new features and assorted bug fixes.

  • KDevelop 4.3 arrives with KDE Projects integration

  • KDE vs Unity: Is KDE Better Than Unity?

    I have been using KDE under openSUSE for a while now, and for the first time in my life started to love KDE. Last night I went on a test driver and installed couple of KDE centric distributions including Mageia and Mandriva just for the sake of comparison.

    These two distributions showed what wonders can be done with KDE, if integrated well. The moment I booted into Kubuntu, I realised why Kubuntu is so low in Distrowatch (at 27). This is ironic because the 26 spots are dominated by KDE centric distros such as Mageia, PCLinuxOS, Chakra, Mandriva, etc.

• GNOME Desktop

  • GNOME Classic in Ubuntu 12.04: It’s Like Nothing Ever Changed

    Come April 26th and the release of Ubuntu 12.04 a vast number of Ubuntu users will be getting their first taste of the Unity desktop since its basic beginnings as the Ubuntu Netbook Remix in the last LTS.

Distributions

• CorePlus 4.4 Screen Shots

• New Releases

  • Vector Linux 7.0 Light released.

  • Zorin OS 6 Lite Released

    The Zorin OS team has announced the release of Zorin OS 6 Lite. This release is based on Lubuntu 11.10 and uses the LXDE desktop environment to provide one of the fastest and most feature-packed interfaces for low-spec machines.

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

  • Open Source: Using Mageia 1 for Six Months Now

    Back in the Fall of 2011, September 4th to be exact, I decided it was time to migrate from the sinking ship of Mandriva to the new Mageia distribution which is based on the best of Mandriva while leaving the chaff of Mandriva behind. It is now six months later and I am ready to report on my experience so far. To sum up this article in a sentence, “Mageia works and works well.” If you just want the summary, that is it, you can stop reading here. If you want more, read on. I will start with what I haven’t liked since that is my shorter list.

• Gentoo Family

  • Gentoo spotted on space station.

  • Gentoo Linux 12 review

    Gentoo isn’t the highest profile Linux distribution. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore it

• Red Hat Family

  • Fedora

    • What Follows a Fedora Linux Miracle ?

      Though we’re still a few month away from the May release date for Fedora 17 – aka ‘The Beefy Miracle’ – the Fedora community is now turning its attention to naming Fedora 18.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu User Survey: The Results Are In (Partially)

        We may never know every detail about Ubuntu’s user base. But some of its characteristics became a little clearer this week as Canonical’s Gerry Carr began releasing the results of the company’s recent survey of people running Ubuntu, the Linux distribution. Don’t get too excited just yet, as we’ll have to wait a few more days for the full survey findings. But if you’re interested in what’s been learned so far, keep reading…

      • The Smart Login Manager Of Ubuntu

      • Proposal to disable Wubi Installs from 12.04 (but maintain the separate .exe)

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Bodhi Linux, the Beautiful Configurable Lightweight Linux

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Android

    • Year 2012 Will See More Android 4.0 Phones

      The plight of developers will soon come to an end as the industry will see more Android 4.0 phones launched in 2012.

      According to Digitimes, “The supply of smartphones running on Android 4.0 will increase substantially starting the second quarter of 2012, with mid-range to high-end models coming from brand vendors including HTC, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Mobile Communications, while China-based handset makers may launch models based on Qualcomm’s 7227a solution and MediaTek’s MT6565 platform for the entry-level segment, according to industry sources.”

    • Sony Releases Source Code Of Xperia S

      Sony has released the source code for the Sony Xperia S phones. This is Sony’s flagship device (no more Erricson) which runs on 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Dual Core processor. This is the first time the company has released source code for a product built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 platform. The code is targeted at inividual enthusiasts and projects like CyanogenMod to be able to take full advantage of the hardware by creating custom ROMs.

    • Sony Starts Shipping Xperia S, Globally

      Sony has announced that they have started shipping their flagship Android phone Xperia S. The phone will be available globally. The phone is powered by a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Dual Core processor and runs Android 2.3.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Zync Releases Rs 8,999 ICS Tablet For India

    India is the next big Android market. Another Indian-based company Zync has launched a Rs 8,999 (US$ 178) tablet ‘Zync Z-990′ for the Indian market.

Direct from the Source: Some Good Interviews with FOSS Leaders

It’s always good to hear from the movers and shakers in the open source community, and in addition to a number of recent interviews on timely open source topics here on OStatic, a number of compelling interviews with FOSS leaders have appeared on other sites. If you’re looking for some great input from the bleeding edge, check out this collection of interviews worth reading.

Announcing the Sixth Annual Future of Open Source Survey

Black Duck Software and North Bridge Venture Partners, in partnership with 451 Research, yesterday announced a collaboration to conduct the sixth annual Future of Open Source Survey.

The survey, an annual bellwether of the state of the open source industry, is supported by more than 20 open source software (OSS) industry leaders and is open to participation from the entire open source community.

Events

• Snake charmers unite at PyCon 2012

Web Browsers

• Chrome

  • Chrome: The people’s Web browser choice

    Yes. It’s true. For one day, March 18th, 2012, Chrome, and not Internet Explorer (IE), was the most popular Web browser in the world. It won’t be the last day. While the start of the work week put IE comfortably back on top. When users aren’t chained to their desks, they’re choosing to use Google’s speedy Chrome.

    StatCounter, the Web-site analytics company research arm StatCounter Global Stats found that Chrome was the number one browser in the world that day. StatCounter data comes fron over 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) to the StatCounter network of more than three million websites

• Mozilla

  • For a Speedy Boot, Try Firefox-Based xPUD Linux

    Enter Linux in general–which is typically much faster, particularly on older hardware–and xPUD in particular, an Ubuntu-based distro built around Firefox that’s lightweight and made for speed.

  • Thunderbird 11 Officially Lands in Ubuntu 11.10

    One week after Firefox 11 officially landed in Ubuntu 11.10 last week, a few hours ago (March 21st) Canonical announced that the Mozilla Thunderbird 11.0 email client is now available on the official software repositories of the Oneiric Ocelot operating system.

SaaS

• VMware Worried About Rackspace, OpenStack Cloud Gains?

  VMware vs. OpenStack: Plenty of pundits are debating the merits of each platform for cloud computing. Now for a twist: Within the cloud storage market, the recent hot rumor involves VMware (VMW) potentially buying Rackspace (RAX) in order to disrupt potential competition from OpenStack, the open source cloud platform. Here’s a reality check from The VAR Guy.

• Dell teams up with Canonical to put OpenStack in the cloud

  OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solutions with Ubuntu are to be offered by Dell to UK, German, and Chinese companies

• Dell delivers one-stop cloud computing service based on OpenStack

• Dell gets more open saucy

• Eucalyptus Doubles Down on its Amazon Bet

  Born as a research project in the computer science department at UCSB, Eucalyptus the company was founded in January of 2009. Originally intended to replicate a subset of the Amazon cloud’s featureset in software that could be run locally, one of the project’s primary differentiators was its compatibility with the Amazon API. Importantly, however, this support was unofficial: Amazon neither supported nor legally blessed this feature. Which meant that its appeal was throttled by the uncertainty of Eucalyptus’ legal footing. More than one large vendor has privately characterized the Amazon API as a “non-starter” because their legal departments could not be assured of Amazon’s intent with respect to the intellectual property issues involved.

CMS

• Drupal Usability Test Conclusions: A Missing Conceptual Foundation

  Earlier this year we announced that we would be conducting a Drupal usability study that we would live stream so viewers could watch as participants worked with Drupal 7. Becky Gessler and I are excited to announce our analysis of the results that we will also present at DrupalCon Denver to the Drupal community in a “core conversation” session with Jen Lampton called “User eXperience for Open Source: How to Galvanize a Community.”

• Drupal’s Plan for Open Source CMS Success

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU Hurd/ news/ 2011-q4

  This quarter, Ludovic Courtès contributed a continuously-built Nix-based QEMU image, raising the count of GNU/Hurd distributions to three: Debian GNU/Hurd, Arch Hurd, and now Nix. His build is still pretty basic, but a step into the right direction: continuous integration is a great facility for automated testing.

• GNU Hurd/ news/ 2012-03-21

  The Google Summer of Code 2012 is on! If you’re a student, consider applying for a GNU Hurd project — details to be found on our GSoC page.

• The GNU C library 2.15 release!

• GCC 4.7.0 released to mark the 25 years of GNU Compiler Collection

  The GCC development team is celebrating the 25th year of the GNU Compiler Collection, a collection initiated by the first public release of GCC (GNU C Compiler) in 1987 by Richard Stallman. Over the years the GNU Compiler Collection, renamed as other languages joined the toolchain, shaped how developers acquired the tools of their trade and provided a platform for new compiler developments. As part of the celebration, the developers have released GCC 4.7.0, a major release of the compiler collection that brings with it new functionality.

• Happy Birthday GCC!

• GCC Turns 25 Years Old, GCC 4.7 Released

Licensing

• Enforcing the GPL with Judo moves

  “In judo, the goal is to use the momentum of the person attacking you to defend yourself, and that is exactly what copyleft does”

Standards/Consortia

• Open APIs: The Fifth Pillar of Modern IT Openness

  Last year, I wrote about the key pillars of openness in today’s enterprise IT industry, highlighting open source software, real open standards, open clouds, and open data as the ‘Four Pillars of Modern IT Openness.’

  More recently, I wrote about what I now consider to be the fifth pillar, which is open application programming interfaces (APIs). Of course, when we talk about ‘open’ anything — open source, open standards, open clouds, open APIs — there tends to be debate about what is really open, how we should define open and who should or should not be able to carry the phrase. My focus on open APIs and on APIs in general generated some good discussion, as well as some pushback (Jim comment on LI, regarding the value of APIs compared to open source software, which APIs are open, and how open is open enough?

Finance

• Goldman loses bid to end lawsuit over risky CDO

  Goldman Sachs Group Inc lost its bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of defrauding investors by selling risky debt linked to subprime mortgages that it planned to bet against.

  The decision by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York keeps alive a hedge fund’s claims over a $2 billion offering of collateralized debt obligations, amid intense scrutiny over Goldman’s activities before and after the 2008 financial crisis.

ACTA

• ACTA in the Civil Liberties Committee 26.3.12