01.01.15
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNOME, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 11:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The risk of Microsoft’s interjection into Free/Open Source software (FOSS) persists
Summary: Attempts to put Mono in GNOME still exist (Xamarin behind it) and the openwashing of .NET continues months after the Big Lie
MONO has been a thorn in the side of Free software for nearly a decade, shortly after it had been conceived by a Microsoft fan who used it to promote Microsoft APIs with associated patent risk and lock-in. It wasn’t too shocking to see the Microsoft-tied Novell joining in the ‘fun’. We have spent many years fighting back against Mono, which was an embodiment of Microsoft’s interests and an attempt to assimilate FOSS to Microsoft. The Microsoft proxy now known as Xamarin is still threatening to bring Microsoft APIs to GNOME. We thought GNOME had already salvaged itself from this risk, but the risk persists and it needs to be stopped. It was already defeated before (GNOME was close to becoming Mono-dependent whereupon we wrote many articles to create protests).
The unfortunate thing is that Microsoft bamboozled many journalists into stating that .NET is "open source" (it is not) and a Dice site is trolling again using that same old .NET spin. Do not let the lie be spread so easily. Microsoft’s .NET is proprietary and it still is a patent threat that favours Windows and Microsoft, i.e. proprietary software with back doors.
“It is a propaganda campaign just like “Scroogled” and the goal is to crush software freedom, not just companies like Google.”IDG recently hired a longtime Microsoft booster, Mary Branscombe, letting her spread these lies every week or so. She was openwashing Microsoft the other day as well as several times last month. She used to write in the CBS-owned ZDNet (very poor-quality Microsoft ads disguised as ‘articles’), but now she escapes the boundaries of tabloids and is really doing a lot of damage not only to Free software but to truth itself.
This whole ‘movement’ which tries to ‘sell’ Mono to GNU/Linux, promote the notion that .NET is ‘open’ and Microsoft is wonderfully ethical needs to be crushed. It is a propaganda campaign just like “Scroogled” and the goal is to crush software freedom, not just companies like Google. █
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02.12.14
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux at 12:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Impressions of GNOME 3, GNOME 3.12, Wayland-induced delays, Fedora 20 GNOME, GNOME raves, and a lot of new application releases
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The GNOME Project has announced today, February 5, that development version 3.11.5 of the Mutter-Wayland software is now available for download and testing, bringing various bugfixes and improvements.
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The upcoming and highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is supposed to be released on March 26, 2014. However, it appears that the entire release cycle might be delayed by approximately a week, because of the Wayland 1.5 release.
However, the bad news (for GNOME developers) is that all the GNOME 3.11.x milestones will be delayed as well in order to avoid longer freeze periods. As you might know, GNOME 3.12 will be the first ever release of the controversial GNOME desktop environment to fully support the modern Wayland display server.
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Writing to inform you that the GNOME release team is pondering moving the date for 3.12.0 out by approximately a week, to align the schedule with the Wayland release plans (a 1.4.91 release including all the xdg-shell API we need is planned for April 1). The latter 3.11.x milestones would be shifted as well, to avoid lengthening the freeze period unnecessarily.
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After a few weeks toying around with Fedora 20, I thought it was time to share my findings. Because Gnome 13.10 brought a long list of changes, I opted to download the Gnome Desktop version of Fedora 20. This release brings a vast list of features and updates and here you can see them for yourself.
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I think GNOME is mostly a “love it” or “hate it” kind of desktop these days. The folks who love it defend it passionately while the ones who hate it will deride it with their last breath. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of middle ground in the GNOME Wars.
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I’m writing the following article from the perspective of a normal user that uses Linux (Arch Linux at the moment) exclusively, both at home and work, for over 12 hours daily, with GNOME 3 as the main desktop environment. A users with over ten years experience in open source desktops, years during which I’ve tested any known desktop environment/window manager.
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The GNOME Project has announced a few days ago that Epiphany 3.11.4 web browser is available for download and testing, as part of the recently released GNOME 3.11.5 unstable desktop environment.
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The development team behind GNOME’s default text editor application, Gedit, has announced recently that another milestone of the upcoming Gedit 3.12 release is available for download and testing.
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GNOME Maps 3.11.5 introduces much smoother goto animations, avoids an unnecessary zoom-out at end of goto animations, “exact” is displayed instead of “0 km2” if accuracy area is less than 1, makes the gnome-maps executable a real binary, fixes a compiler warning, and updates recent added time on re-visits.
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GNOME Software 3.11.5 introduces a concept of rating confidence for each app, adds a file handler that allows the application to install local packages, allows each plugin to define the dependencies on other plugins, the “Picks” on the overview are now automatically generated, and a star widget is now displayed for each application, in the category panel.
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It’s been some time in the making, with the redesign work started a couple of release cycles ago, but we finally reached a state where it’s usable, and leaps and bounds easier to use than the previous versions.
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GVFS 1.19.5 sets etag::value for FTP, sets infinite timeout for enumerate response for daemon, removes GVfsUriMountInfo, forces openpty(3) on BSD for SFTP, rates limit progress callbacks for daemon, and properly removes socket_dir for gvfsdaemon.
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gThumb 3.3.1 is the first maintenance release of the development 3.x series. It now employs the dark theme, a GtkHeaderBar is now used instead of a toolbar and a menu, adds better support for RAW images, a frame is now displayed around an image in the image viewer, and zoomed images are presented in a better quality.
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Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, KDE at 12:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at some recent developments around lesser-known desktop environments for GNU/Linux, including brand new ones
THE “BIG THREE”, namely GNOME, KDE, and XFCE, are not the only games in town. Now we have Defora [1], Moonlight [2], and Ome [3], not to mention LXLE [4,5] and Enlightenment, which recently released E18 [6-8] and will soon release E19 [9]. There are several other desktop environments that continues to be developed, whereas several perished over the years.
Speaking for myself, I recently switched from KDE to Enlightenment on the desktop where I write articles. Enlightenment is a fantastic desktop environment even for relatively new desktops, especially if memory becomes a constraint and speed can use some significant improvement. There are bugs, sure, as well as ‘missing’ features, but this desktop environment which I used regularly over a decade ago is still very light and powerful. Without it, I would have no choice but to cope with bloat, pretty much like in Microsoft and Apple land.
People who claim that GNU/Linux offers not much of real choice because it’s all about KDE, GNOME and some desktop bundles that are no longer maintained (or have been stale for a decade or two) are simply not looking hard enough. It can be rewarding for everyone to experience many environments on mobile (GNU/)Linux and even on desktops (like Unity); the more, the merrier. This attracts develops because it fosters creativity and self expression. To emancipate ourselves from GUI tyrannies (Apple is the worst in that regard) we need to explore alternatives environments, just as we do in many walks of life. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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If you have not yet found the perfect open-source desktop match for your needs, the desktop environment born out of DeforaOS is yet another option. This desktop environment is built using GTK2 and part of a larger effort to provide “ubiquitous, secure and transparent access to one’s resources” and to work regardless of form factor.
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Moonlight is a project still in its early stages and likely will fade away like the many other third-party desktop environments with limited manpower and scope. Moonlight Desktop is trying to be a lightweight desktop for the Raspberry Pi and other low-powered, low-end, old devices — similar in scope to Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, etc. They really don’t seem to be far along at all right now and are still working towards an appearance for their desktop.
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Originally the developer behind Ome was set out on making his own operating system and was thinking of using LLVM IR for its application binary while making the packages like Android’s APK files. He had posted to the LLVM mailing list last month for feedback on these plans but now today he’s posted a new LLVM mailing list message.
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I have not been a happy user of Ubuntu since the shift to the Unity desktop. Even the Lubuntu version has some bothersome Ubuntu traits attached. Enter the LXLE distro with its Lubuntu-less appearance. It provides a Long Term Support advantage over using Lubuntu and has a larger and more useful default application set. Even on poorly endowed hardware, this distro boots in less than 1 minute.
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The development team behind the Enlightenment project, an open source, powerful, lightweight, and eye-candy desktop environment for the X window system has announced the third maintenance release of the stable Enlightenment 0.18 branch, which includes various fixes and improvements.
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Just one year after the long-time coming official release of Enlightenment 0.17 (E17), Enlightenment 0.18 has been released!
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The freeze for E19 will begin in one month, on 28 Feb 2014. After that point, I am likely to reject most* requests for feature additions, and I will be shifting into release mode.
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01.25.14
Posted in GNOME at 3:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News about GNOME desktop and desktops that are derived from it
GNOME Desktop/Shell
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Most Linux distros bundle GNOME desktop environment (DE) with even minor version numbers (3.8.x, 3.10.x). Like Fedora was released with GNOME 3.10.3. The version 3.11.2 was available in November but it was not bundled .The reason behind it is that GNOME takes a different approach to their software releases. The odd minor versions (3.9, 3.11) of GNOME are development versions of the subsequent even versions (3.10, 3.12). So the .11 version is roughly an alpha version of the .12 branch.
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For a while it looked like Ubuntu 14.04 would stick to a GNOME 3.8 world, for the GNOME packages it ships in Ubuntu Linux as newer packages are partially held back by Ubuntu dependencies for their Unity desktop. Previously blocking the GNOME 3.10 update in Ubuntu was the GNOME Control Center, which ended up being forked by Canonical until their own Ubuntu System Settings can be developed.
Alternatives
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Surely users must be ready for a change from the default Gnome Shell theme by now. I have sampled some of the available Gnome Shell themes on Fedora 20 and now you can see them for yourself. A new shell theme will not change your entire desktop, but it will provide a new look for the activities overview window, and the Gnome indicator applet panel.
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I get a lot of queries regarding the difference(s) between the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments. And of course such queries tend to come from those new to Linux and Free Software.
For the benefit of those class of users, this very brief article summarizes the key difference between these two desktop environments. Nothing technical, just basic stuff that will help those users to better understand what their options are. And because a picture is worth more than a thousand words, there are a couple of galleries to complete the picture.
Applications
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GNOME has finally updated the look and feel of their text editor, gedit. The app has been redesigned to match the newer GNOME 3 interface guidelines.
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The GNOME Project has also announced today that a new development release of the Epiphany 3.12 web browser for the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is now available for download and testing.
Epiphany 3.11.3 adds HTTPS (secure HTTP) support for both the DuckDuckGo and Google search engines, improves the looks of the location bar and the downloads bar, improves filename suggestion for downloads, and cleans up the style of the about: pages.
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Dconf 0.19.3 introduces various improvements in the test coverage area, adds a proper DCONF_ERROR error domain, suppress the GLib deprecation warnings during the build process, correctly handles writability changes in GSettings, displays warnings about missing files only once per source, and it will link to -ldl only if it is required.
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The GNOME Project has released the fourth development release towards the Eye of GNOME 3.12 application, which will be the default image viewer for the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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GVFS 1.19.4 introduces pull support for gPhoto2 and implements truncate and seek support for output streams for the DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol.
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The GNOME Project has announced a new development version towards GNOME PackageKit 3.12, a graphical user interface (GUI) for the powerful PackageKit software, which will be used in the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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The GNOME development team behind the Glib project, a library used in the GNOME desktop environment, has announced the immediate availability for download of Glib 2.39.3, which introduces lots of fixes.
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Dubbed Spoilers, the third development version of the upcoming GNOME Documents 3.12 software, the main document viewer of the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, has been made available for testing.
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The GNOME Project has announced that a second development release towards the upcoming GNOME Weather 3.12 application that will be available in the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is available for testing.
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01.14.14
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux at 12:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Back are the claims that we need just one “universal” GNU/Linux
GNOME is a very active project that involves hundreds if even thousands of developers (GNOME is a set of applications, not just a desktop environment/shell). The project’s Bugzilla statistics (not for 2013 alone) reveal about 46,000 open bug reports [1]. In 2013 many bugs are carried on from prior years (including duplicates) and resources for managing them are pooled because several environments are derived from GNOME and they share code (bug fixes can be pushed upstream). Now that 3.11.3 is available for testing [2] and bugs are being squashed [3], new features are added [4], and the underlying framework improves [5] we can expect a good, diverse future for the GNOME family (with about half a dozen branches/forks). Allan Day, a GNOME designer, recently gave an interview [6] and to quote the interviewer, Day’s “design workflow is also wonderfully straightforward and helps to address the concern that good design work can’t be done on Linux.”
GNOME is a simple environment to use. Some try to simplify it further to improve the overall experience (same thing Android backers are doing on phones, desktops, and tablets). GNOME cannot be treated a one-size-fits-all solution because it runs on many different types of devices. It is possibly even simpler to use than Mac OS X and Windows (depending on how they are judged). The GNOME Activity Journal, an important component that simplifies operations and logging, is now approaching version 1.0 [7] (stable) and one pundit asserts [8] that GNOME is the “key to Linux desktop unification”. He makes the common mistake of assuming that lack of diversity would be pleasing to more users and attract more people to GNU/Linux. It’s not so-called ‘fragmentation’ that weakens GNU/Linux on the desktop (in terms of adoption). People typically fail to explore GNU/Linux due to biased information in the corporate media, or complete lack of information. There are other aspects too, including anti-competitive practices.
Uniformity is important within a particular desktop environment (that’s what developer guidelines are for), but it’s not the same across desktop environments, which can vary in order to accommodate the requirements of different types of users (e.g. advanced users as opposed to beginners). Beware those who try to convince everyone in the Free Desktop world that having one “universal” GNU/Linux distribution (with one kernel, one desktop environment, one set of application) is what’s needed. What makes GNU/Linux strong and attractive to developers is diversity, not authority. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Earlier this week Andre Klapper shared the annual GNOME Bugzilla statistics for 2013. The GNOME project ended out 2013 with 46,130 open bug reports, compared to 43k bug reports at the end of 2012 or 44k bug reports at the end of 2011. Of the 46k bug reports open at the end of 2013, 25k of them were opened in 2013 while 22k were closed in 2013.
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The third development release towards the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment has been made available for download, bringing many updated core applications, libraries, and updated translations.
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These improvements landed for the GTK+ 3.11 development series and will form the basis of the GTK+ 3.12 stable release in March. Overall GNOME 3.12 is shaping up to be an interesting GNOME update with GNOME Shell and Mutter improvements, greater Facebook integration, the GNOME Terminal finally has text rewrap on resizing, and there will be much better support for Wayland.
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Part of the reason GNOME is such a successful project is the focus and dedication of its members. I’ve interviewed a few of them and common strands always emerge — ideas like GNOME as an operating system, GNOME staying out of the user’s way, and GNOME as a way to enhance Linux. Allan, a designer for the project, touches on a lot of these points. His design workflow is also wonderfully straightforward and helps to address the concern that good design work can’t be done on Linux.
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The Zeigeist framework that is responsible for much of the logging responsibilities in the GNOME world and powers the GNOME Activity Journal is finally nearing version 1.0. The 1.0 milestone comes after landing a number of improvements recently and after nearly a half-decade of development work.
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One of the greatest differences between an open source operating systems and those that maintain a proprietary code structure is the flexibility in customizing each one.
While Windows and OS X offer a set-in-stone desktop environment, Linux enjoys a robust number of desktop environments from which to choose from – including the highly popular GNOME. Some may even argue that having a limited number of desktop environments would allow those distributions to hone in on gaining a larger market share. And perhaps that’s true, though I believe that most Linux enthusiasts chose Linux because of its diversity. In this article, I’ll look at where GNOME came from, where it is now and the end goal I think it’ll reach within the next couple of years.
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01.03.14
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, Red Hat at 12:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Binary blobs like AMD’s Catalyst driver are being marginalised by Fedora, which is also starting to introduce Wayland in GNOME-based distributions
THE previous post dealt with the state of Wayland in KDE. Well, it’s not just KDE which moves in this direction. The main patron of GNOME, namely Red Hat, is leaving proprietary graphics drivers behind [1,2] (the less, the merrier) and also moving to a more manageable graphics stack. Fedora is improving GNOME 3 and the GNOME Shell [3,4], which it now tied more closely to Wayland [5]. This is significant. With other work which aims to improve the desktop experience (e.g. Systemd [6]) we are bound to see many projects following, and not just direct Fedora derivatives like Korora [7]. The Fedora project is probably the biggest driver of GNU/Linux development, rivalled only by Debian, which still isn’t leaning towards Systemd [8,9]. What Fedora does affects not only RHEL, but also the world’s most used server operating system (close to Debian), CentOS [10].
Watch closely what Fedora is doing because what Red Hat decides on typically becomes a de facto standard for the rest of us. The good news is, the graphics stack in Linux seems to be repelling blobs (with root privileges), which are the most likely component to ever act as a backdoor (unless it already exists). █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Fedora 20, the newest version of the Linux-based operating system affiliated with Red Hat (RHT), has been out only for a few weeks. But it is already creating challenges for Linux users with AMD graphics hardware, which is not supported in some cases on the new release. It’s a reminder of the way that dependence on proprietary device drivers can drastically hinder open source adoption.
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Fedora 20 delivers a sleek new software manager for the Gnome Shell that is perfectly user-friendly. This new software manager also takes advantage of the header bars introduced with Gnome 3.10. I have taken an extensive look at the re-designed Gnome Software Manager, and now its time to show off the goods.
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If you’re a fan of GNOME 3 and the GNOME Shell, Fedora 20 will be a welcome update. This release sees an upgrade for Fedora’s default GNOME spin, bringing the desktop to GNOME 3.10.
Fedora’s live desktop CD has used GNOME by default for many years now. Once upon a time that was completely unremarkable. However, since Ubuntu now has Unity, OpenSUSE pours its effort into KDE and Mint has worked hard to divorce Cinnamon 2.0 from GNOME 3, Fedora is, well, just about all GNOME has left these days.
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While an X.Org Server is still used by default on Fedora 20 “Heisenbug”, Wayland has become a viable option for early adopters and developers wishing to work on Wayland software compatibility and/or testing. All the packages are needed on a Fedora 20 installation to launch a GNOME Wayland session and begin working, including support for XWayland in order to run X11-dependent games and applications.
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Open-source developers this week achieved a pleasant late Christmas present for Fedora users of having a working system with using the in-development Linux kernel DBus implementation (KDBUS) paired with the latest systemd code can now yield a booting system.
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The CentOS community developers focused on their rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 have already begun playing with the RHEL7 Beta source packages to form CentOS 7.0.
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12.27.13
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu at 4:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Ubuntu GNOME is getting harder to maintain and alternatives emerge which are independent from Canonical
Softpedia’s latest updates on GNOME Desktop development [1-4] show that GNOME is anything but dormant. As Phoronix shows, Fedora is all about GNOME (Red Hat’s default), whereas Ubuntu neglects GNOME as well as other widely-used packages. “Mir Is Still Overwhelmingly A Canonical-Only Affair,” says the headline of one very recent article from Phoronix. Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS Alpha 1 is out [5] and it is still using X.org [6]. Ubuntu, in terms of performance, does not vary widely from Red Hat [7] and Debian [8], it’s just doing its marketing better [9,10]. For those who are fed up with the hype, or those who look for upstream proponents, there’s always Kubuntu to turn to [11] if not the latest Mint Linux [12,13,14] (it has a KDE version) and older stable versions [15,16]. One can easily sense some bit of hostility towards Canonical at Phoronix these days, but it is cleverly disguised and perhaps it is even justified. The FSF has made its lack of support for Ubuntu well known (unlike Torvalds) and in his recent talks Stallman openly urges people not to use Ubuntu.
Ubuntu has been good in many ways, but if someone is eager to move to GNU/Linux, then perhaps it’s better to name or recommend another distribution. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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The GNOME Project has announced recently that a new development release towards the Epiphany 3.12 web browser that will be part of the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is now available for download and testing.
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Allan Day, a GNOME designer, posted a few days ago on his blog a very long article about what was coming next in the Nautilus (now known as Files) file manager for the GNOME desktop environment.
What you will read in this article is a short summary of the new design features that will be implemented in upcoming releases of Nautilus, which will be part of the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS Alpha 1 (Trusty Tahr) has been released and is now available for download and testing. We prepared a screenshot tour to get a sneak peek at the new operating system.
The best news for the fans of Ubuntu GNOME is that the 14.04 will include a number of GNOME applications from the 3.10 stack.
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Last week when Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta 1 was released I was already running RHEL7 benchmarks looking at the performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 over RHEL 6.5. In this article for some extra benchmarks to put out over the weekend is a quick comparison of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in its current development state against Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta 1.
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One of most noteworthy open-source stories of 2013 was the audacious attempt by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux, to crowdfund $32 million in 30 days to fund a next-generation Linux phone.
It’s an effort that did not reach its target. In a video interview with eWEEK, Shuttleworth described the Ubuntu Edge campaign as a “glorious defeat,” but it’s not the end of the road for Ubuntu’s phone efforts.
Though Shuttleworth was unable to raise $32 million in 30 days, the Ubuntu Edge campaign was able to raise $12.8 million, which is a non-trivial amount for a crowdfunding effort of any type. He pledged that his company was continuing to push forward in its efforts to build the best converged operating system for developers.
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Ubuntu’s tablet may dominate the field in 2014. Plus: A SteamOS install guide, and a screenshot tour of Fedora 20 MATE
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KDE is a vibrant, innovative, advanced, modern looking and full-featured desktop environment. This edition features all the improvements from the latest Linux Mint release on top of KDE 4.11.
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This is the second review that I’m doing at the moment. Linux Mint 16 “Petra” came out in MATE and Cinnamon guises recently, so as a fan of Linux Mint, I’ll be reviewing those now. I tried each edition separately on a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what each is like.
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The most significant improvements in Petra are being backported to Maya.
Among other things, this gives Linux Mint 13 LTS users access to the following packages:
MDM 1.4
Cinnamon 2.0
MATE 1.6
The latest versions of mintwelcome, mintstick, mintnanny, mintupload, mintupdate, mintinstall, mintsystem, mintmenu and mintdesktop.
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Linux Mint 13 “Maya” users can now avail Cinnamon 2.0 goodness. Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) users will receive a major upgrade known as Update Pack 8, in January 2014.
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12.08.13
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux at 12:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The power of deviation as demonstrated by Linux Mint and Linux Deepin, two of the more widely used derivatives of Ubuntu
Linux Mint 16 OEM is finally out [1,2] and it also takes Cinnamon further [3]. Following this celebrated release [4,5] it has been dissected [6] and reviewed [7], sometimes in conjunction with other distributions [8].
“Linux Deepin has something called the Depth Desktop Environment, yet another alteration of GNOME.”Little is being said about Linux Deepin, which is a Chinese derivative of Ubuntu with a lot of potential. Now that China is moving towards independence from Microsoft and other US companies complicit in NSA surveillance we should really pay a lot more attention to Linux Deepin, which is also being dissected [9] and its community expanded on the face of it [10]. Linux Deepin has something called the Depth Desktop Environment (or Deepin Desktop Environment), yet another alteration of GNOME.
Of course there are other independent derivatives of Ubuntu — ones that use Enlightenment, KDE, etc. Those too are needed to ensure diversity and suitability to more potential audiences. █
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In recent years, the Linux Mint open-source operating system has emerged to become one of the most popular Linux distributions. Linux Mint was founded by developer Clement Lefebvre in 2006, with the goal of being a user-friendly desktop version of Linux. Lefebvre officially released Linux Mint 16, code-named Petra, Nov. 30 with the goal of improving the Linux desktop experience. Linux Mint 16 is based on the Ubuntu 13.10 Linux distribution at its core, with a number of key additions and improvements. While Ubuntu has focused on the development of its own Unity desktop Linux environment, Linux Mint has its own desktop creation, known as Cinnamon. Among the highlights of the Linux Mint 16 release is the latest generation of the Cinnamon desktop. Linux Mint is also available with other desktop environments, including MATE, which is a fork of the GNOME 2.x desktop. The new desktop environments included in Linux Mint 16 aim to offer improved performance and usability to Linux users. Among the new features that Linux Mint 16 provides are new USB formatting and imaging tools that enable users to easily create bootable USB sticks. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some of the new features in Linux Mint 16.
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Clement Lefebvre proudly announced a few minutes ago that the final bits of the highly anticipated Linux Mint 16 operating system were available for download.
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Linux Mint 16 “Petra”, based on Ubuntu 13.10, was released recently and is available as usual in two editions: MATE and Cinnamon. Let’s take a look at what’s new.
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This past week the final release candidate (RC) for Linux Min 16 debuted, with both Cinnamon and MATE desktop editions.
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Linux Deepin 2013 has been released with various improvements and enhancements as well as two new applications: Deepin Terminal and Deepin Game Center.
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It is a Chinese distribution and one of the very few Linux distributions that’s actually bringing something new to the table: From custom apps to a new desktop environment built atop GNOME 3 technologies called the Depth Desktop Environment.
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