Links: KDevelop 4.0.1, GNOME 3...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-24 07:32:48 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-24 07:33:50 UTC
Summary: GNU/Linux news roundup
GNU/Linux
The Playstation 3 slim is not just a gaming console, but also a powerful PC besides the styled layout that the playstation 3 has. Everybody generally use the console for it?s main objective, to perform video games, with out realizing how significantly more the console can offer them . With Linux on Playstation 3 you can do almost everything a computer can do and then some with your Ps3. Not to mention installing Linux system on a Playstation 3 is very effortless. Here are some of the benefits linked with setting up Linux system on a Playstation 3 slim.
This is an old favorite of mine. Here is the problem, switching desktops on a Linux machine with or without compiz is not intuitive. Why? because it is related to some window keys Ctrl+Alt+Right or Left Arrow, it is a secondary menu, or it depends on the mouse being at the corner of the window.
Defragmenting the hard drive. It's hard to believe that even Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft, is still prone to this problem. The NTFS filesystem (used by Windows NT and up) has other quirks, but it seems to slowly get fragmented and requires defragmenting from time to time. This process can take a long time depending on your hardware, and no doubtedly has to happen when you are not using your computer. It's more like a band-aid to the problem, whereas Linux solves the problem up front by not even allowing fragmenting to happen at all. This has been the case since the ext3 filesystem was first used for Linux, and is still the case today with the ext4 filesystem. To quote the Linux System Administrator Guide: "Modern Linux filesystem(s) keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Some filesystems, like ext3, effectively allocate the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. Therefore it is not necessary to worry about fragmentation in a Linux system.". Again, this is brilliant.
So let's look at two of the most common operating systems used today used in datacenters and on server systems. On one hand, Windows and the other Linux.
Windows by nature has more downtime per system, because Microsoft releases patches that require frequent rebooting. Windows patches are scheduled to be released on the second Tuesday of each month, so at a minimum once per month Windows systems will need to reboot. Sometimes, patches are released even more frequently, depending on the severity. Windows just can't activate a majority of software updates without rebooting the entire system.
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Server
- Over two thirds (29 out of 42) of the most reliable hosting companies use Linux (would they use GNU along with it?)
- 14.2% use BSD (FreeBSD to be more precise)
- A little less than 10% use Windows
- 3 out of 42 are a big question mark
The z196 can be configured to include up to 80 specialty engines to further reduce costs and increase performance including the System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) for integrating Java workloads with core business applications, the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) designed to help free-up computing capacity and lower IT costs, and the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) to optimize Linux workloads running on the mainframe, IBM said in its press release.
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Graphics Stack
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Applications
Why do I care about this so much? Because I have music playing whenever I'm using this computer, and when you add up work plus free time, I'm at this computer 8-10 hours per day. Music keeps me sane during multi-hour debug sessions. Music is an integral part of my life, and a music app is an integral part of playing music.
It's very important to me that the programs and tools I use all day are comfortable. Otherwise I become cranky. If you were a carpenter, would you want to use a hammer with a wobbly handle all day? I'm a programmer, and I want to use comfortable computer programs.
Clementine is very comfortable.
A library management system (also known as an integrated library system) is an automated resource planning system which enables a library to operate efficiently, freeing staff from unnecessary tasks. This type of software typically offers functionality such as cataloging, searching, reporting, acquisitions, library circulation and management embodied into a central system.
A student information system (also known as a student management system or school management system) is computer software for educational institutions to manage student data.
We continue our Linuxables series on the Linux text editor. As you might have noticed, this is one of those topics that breed much contempt. If you talk about vi, you must give equal time to emacs. If you talk about Kate, you best talk about Gedit. And that is precisely where we are - Gedit (although we have yet to talk about Kate, that comes next week).
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By default Gedit will be installed on a GNOME desktop.
GSmartControl is a really useful Linux app to check the health of your hard disk drive. GSmartControl is basically a graphical user interface for smartctl, which is a tool for querying and controlling SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data on modern hard disk drives. Only ATA drives including both PATA and SATA are supported for now.
Ear Candy Automatically Fades and Raises Volume Levels in LinuxLinux only: Free utility Ear Candy makes your sound system smarter. If you're listening to music and a Skype call comes in, or you load a YouTube video, Ear Candy gently lowers your music volume to let the other sounds through.
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Proprietary
More than two years after version 1.0 arrived and about one month behind schedule, the Wine Project development team have released version 1.2 of their Windows API implementation. Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is free open source software that allows users to run Windows applications on Linux and Unix by providing its own native replacements for Windows DLLs. According to Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard, Wine 1.2 represents more than 23,000 changes, including over 3,000 bug fixes, and includes a number of improvements and new features.
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Instructionals
Retouching your photos in digiKam is radically different from how it works in Aperture. In digiKam, you first have to open the image Editor. In the image Editor, you can select from the top menu the different manipulations that you apply to your photo. You pick one manipulation that you want to do and on the right side of the window, the controls for this particular manipulation appear. Here you can adjust the settings. For some tools, the changes are displayed straight away, for the more computing extensive tools you have to press the “try” button to see the effect. DigiKam has made it easy to check what the effect of the adjustment is going to be: there are four split screens available and there is a mouse over option available that shows the original or the adjusted photo depending on where your mouse is. You can select the behaviour of the Image Editor on the bottom right corner. In that same corner, you also find the apply button, which probably does not need any explanation!
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
I’m happy to announce the availability of our first patch level release for KDevelop 4.
Well, here comes a good one I think. As I was talking to some people on the KDE IRC channel yesterday, there was a comment made about a possible way to orient new KDE users on how to use the desktop. However, I believe that users should be left clues to discover their desktop on their own. There should not be an intro popup or anything like that. Ponder about this for a moment.
Today, the KOffice team presents a contest to create great KPresenter slide templates, offering t-shirts for the winners and of course inclusion in the next KPresenter releases for all good submissions. Read on for information on the contest!
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GNOME Desktop
This September, a new desktop will be unveiled to the world in the form of GNOME 3. This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop. It's different, it's intuitive, and it follows the current evolution of what the desktop should be. But best of all, it's all about Linux.
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I have owned a Victorinox USB flash drive for several years now - long enough that it is only a 512MB unit, and it was considered "typical" at the time that I got it. I recently decided it was time to get a new one with a capacity more typical by today's standards. My basic selection criteria was very simple - besides the capacity, it must not have any knife or scissors which would cause me problems when taking it in my backpack on commercial flights.
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Reviews
Parted Magic is a Slackware-based Linux distro which is made for the sole purpose of partitioning hard disks. Parted Magic comes with tools like GParted, TestDisk, fdisk etc. The latest release, Parted Magic 0.5 was released yesterday and it includes Linux kernel 2.6.34.1, GParted 0.6.1 etc.
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New Releases
After several years of development, German T2 creator Rene Rebe has announced the release of version 8.0 of his cross compiling Linux distribution System Development Environment (SDE), T2 SDE. According to Rebe, the latest release includes more than 10,000 Subversion revisions, hundreds of new packages, performance improvements and several new features.
The Sabayon Linux team has now released two new flavours of the Gentoo-based Linux distro packed with alternative desktop environments for those who prefer them or have slower computers. The Sabayon 5.3 XFCE and Sabayon 5.3 LXDE ‘spins’ are more experimental in nature than the regular release though they are considered stable enough for regular use. This is just the first step, more spins are planned, and these two will continue to evolve until they reach a more mature state.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
Flavours and Variants
Some love Gnome, others love KDE, for me it’s XFCE all the way. When I jumped on the Ubuntu bandwagon several years ago it was only natural that I’d use Xubuntu.
If you’re looking for a great KDE distribution built on Ubuntu packages, Linux Mint KDE is the one to get. Forget Kubuntu, Mint does everything it does and more. In fact, it’s everything Kubuntu used to be. By itself, Mint’s KDE edition shines with custom tools, a customized appearance, and attention to detail at just about every turn. Distributions like this one make it harder for me to choose a single distro to stick with, as there are many great ones out there to try out.
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Overall: 5/5 (Great!)
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Phones
I caught an excellent presentation by Aaron Williamson from the Software Freedom Law center here at OSCON yesterday examining why smartphones built on open source software aren’t as open as they possibly could be. What Williams talked about was often eye opening, though there were a few points I found myself disagreeing with him on.
He started the presentation by talking about Motorola’s Droid X and the controversy that was stirred up when hacking enthusiasts discovered that Motorola had implemented an encrypted boot loader that forced the device to boot into a “recovery” mode in the event a custom ROM was detected on the device. While this was shocking (and even infuriating) to some, The only thing setting Motorola apart from the other Android OEMS in this case is that they’re actually enforcing the restrictions mandated by the OS maker.
Mobile photography could get a shot in the arm thanks to the combined efforts of Stanford University researchers and Nokia Research, who have pushed a new open-source digital photography platform out the door. FCam – or “Frankencamera” – is initially available for the Nokia N900, and unlocks high-end functionality like RAW image capture, full manual controls and low-light imagery through combining multiple shots of varying ISO and exposure settings.
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Android
In two reports filed from this week's OSCON conference, The Register says that Google will open Android's internal development kit to contributors, and that Linux maintainers are holding tough in negotiating with the search giant regarding Android's readmission to the kernel. Meanwhile, Linux 2.6.35 RC6 was released, featuring enhancements to network scalability, memory management, and sleep-wait detection.
Interest levels in syncing music collections have notched up a bit of late with the introduction of a plethora of new Android-based super phones. That is, unless you happen to be one of those owners with a large quantity of digital music encumbered by digital rights management (DRM) better known as copy protection. In that case, you might want to do some research into converting said digital files into a more portable format. Meanwhile, for the rest, with media ready to load up on a new cool phone, we'll take a look at Linux options.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Silent Layoffs (PIPs) Have Allegedly Accelerated Since IBM's Stock Cratered
- "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- Being Pro-Slop is Death Knell to One's Credibility
- It's not hard to see Ubuntu users resisting and antagonising this
- The Slop Bubble is Killing the Planet, Not Just the Economy
- The chatbot/LLM speculation bubble not only causes a health crisis, a mental health epidemic, and climate change; it's also crashing the economy on several levels
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- Daniel Pocock in Mainstream Media Again
- AFR wrote an article today. It is about Pocock and another contender.
- Millions of Daily Requests
- 4.5+ million requests in 4 days
- In statCounter, a Lot of "Unknown" Turns Out to be GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has more than doubled
- 3,500 Active Gemini Capsules Soon
- How much longer before 3,500+ active? A month?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: European Eclipse, Writing About Writing, and Comments on Formatting Gopher Posts
- Links for the day
- Stigma of Being Laid Off by Microsoft
- One might call this the "curse" of having worked for Microsoft
- Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It's Turning Out to be a Total Disaster
- RIP, Fedora?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: Beach Day, CAs, and Plaintext
- Links for the day
- Sweden Needs GNU/Linux and Free Software, Not GAFAM
- home of IKEA and ABBA
- Maintenance Today
- Preparing for more mass-publication activities
- Links 26/07/2026: "Zelenskyy Says Russia Wants To Bring North Korean Troops Into Ukraine", Muslim Van Ramming Attack on Berlin Pride
- Links for the day
- Centrica fraud exposed: worse than Palestine Action 'terrorists' with cardboard placards
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 26/07/2026: "Nate Silver Discovers the Educated Poor" and "India’s “Cockroach” Protest Movement Faces State Repression"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IBM Hammers a CoI Into a CoCed Fedora, RIP Fedora?
- Also in the "Fedora is dead" dept. today
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Zoo, MUD, Literature, EMF Camp, and e-ID
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Solution of No Choice: A Shortlist of One
- deployment of the "shortlist of one" by Campinos
- Wife of Dan Williams Has Explained Mental Factors Leading to His Death
- "We need to be open and honest about mental health," his wife pleads
- Several New Series Coming Soon
- we'll publish 8 series in tandem, in parallel
- Insolvency as the New Norm in the United States' Economy
- this is vastly worse than then 2008 subprime mortgage crisis
- IBM's CEO Might 'Retire' or 'Step Down' by Christmas
- PIP the CEO
- Misleading Articles About YouTube and Google Financial Performance
- The future of Google is self-serving monopolisation and destruction of the Web
- Microsoft Cannot Survive the Fall of Windows
- It has amassed way too much debt
- Links 25/07/2026: Hong Kong Squashing Criticism/Dissent, Mirror Caught Breaking Into Voicemail
- Links for the day
- PIPs Are Shrinking IBM and "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- IBM is going down the drain
- IBM is Killing the Fedora Community, Replacing It With LLM Slop From IBM Staff
- Krishna buys companies only to gut them. They've all learned this from experience.
- Give Me Your "Dumbest" (Devices)
- Why can't people accept that a "modern "smart" "phone" isn't necessary to check the time (overkill) and playing social control media "on the go" is far from necessary?
- Earlier This Year Dan Williams Prepared for Scenario Where Linus Torvalds Dies
- He had only just started a job at NVIDIA
- Links 25/07/2026: Data Breaches Abundant and Attribution Imperiled in the Age of Slop Hype
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Poetry and Plaintext Pages
- Links for the day
- What is Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- In many cases, the acronym became a misnomer
- IBM PIPs Continue Until Morale Improves, Silent or Quiet Firings at IBM Explained
- IBM is a dying company
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 24, 2026
- Gemini Links 24/07/2026: Animal Friendship, Squirrels, and Lagrange
- Links for the day
- Links 24/07/2026: IOC Drops Russia Ban, New Internationalist Raises Money
- Links for the day
- Poor Piece From Valnet: Microsoft Keeps Sabotaging GNU/Linux, So You Should Quit Using GNU/Linux
- Really awful take
- We Need More Encryption, Not Less of It
- Use Free software and use encryption to ensure sources are fully protected
- At 3PM on a Friday The Register MS Collects Some 'Pyramid Scheme' Money From Communist China (ZTE)
- This won't age well for The Register MS
- Car Companies Fail Because They Don't Manufacture What Costumers Actually Want
- They try to impose their dumb vision on purchasers
- What Freedom Does Not Mean
- Tell Warren Buffett to go skiing; he'll soon understand how much freedom he truly has
- Linuxiac is Plagiarism
- We won't link to it, we're done [...] If you wish to support journalism about GNU/Linux, do not visit or link to slop
- Verizon is Over 200 Billion Dollars in Debt (US Telecoms Collapsing, Wrapping Up the Failure in "Hey Hi" Clothing)
- They will tell us this is "innovation", not a failure, and that only "Luddites" would oppose this
- You've Been Conned If You Ever Believed That MElon (MUSK, Elon) Was a Trillionaire
- Connected to corrupt officials
- The People Who Tried to 'Cancel' (or Deplatform/Censor) Daniel Pocock Are Annoyed That He's Mentioned in Dozens of Press Articles
- If Pocock's words did not matter, there would not be such a huge effort to silence him
- Cybershow Explains Why Only Sociopaths Gravitate Towards Leadership Position in 'Tech'
- The general thesis is a familiar one
- Speeding Up 'Down Under': Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania...
- As things stand, the best we can do is let people retrieve pages within less than 0.1 seconds since a request is received
- Google's Debt Trebled in Only 9 Months and It's Not Even the Full Picture (There's Secret Debt, Too)
- No wonder there are so many layoffs and workers try to unionise
- Links 24/07/2026: Mass Layoffs at Patreon, Netflix Deemed Bad for People's Brains
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Layoffs in India
- it's about cost-cutting
- Deregulation is Blowing Up the Economy, Which Has Become a Multi-Level Scheme or Pyramid Scheme
- Why did only Japanese media call out the BS; is that so hard to figure out and properly report on?
- Google Spreads Misinformation, Google's Slop Makes Stuff Up and Calls That "Intelligence"
- Google very well understands (and even publicly admits so, albeit only for legal reasons) that the slop does not work
- Daniel Pocock Proves Wikipedia is for Rich People or People Who Work for Very Rich People (the True Owners of Wikipedia)
- It's for billionaires and their faithful boot lickers
- GNOME: Your Personal Opinions Must Overlap GAFAM's (Otherwise Those Opinions Are Impermissible)
- Get well soon, GNOME
- Making Excuses for Stressful, Unrewarding, and Immoral Jobs
- excuses for difficult and/or barely-rewarding jobs. [...] People in tech must not be evaluated (or have their "worth" assessed) based on remuneration
- US is Insolvent, GAFAM is Buying Time by Hiding (Not Disclosing) Its True Debt Which Explains Never-ending Layoffs (Unrelated to Slop or "Efficiency Drives")
- Five Tech Giants are Hiding $1.65tn in AI Debt, Using the Trick that Toppled Enron
- Almost 5 Years Without Social Control Media ('Mind Prison')
- Life is too short to be stuck inside a skinnerbox
- Linux Must be About People (Humans), Not Bribery From Slop Companies Trillions of Dollars in Debt and in Pursuit of Positive Press
- We've lost Williams
- John Dvorak Understood That "MSM" Was a Vehicle of Censorship
- Independent publishing, which obviates the need to censor (influenced by existing advertisers or lookout for prospective advertisers), is the only credibly thing out there
- To Understand Why Linus Torvalds Became a Boot-Licking Booster of Slop Look at Another Operative of 'Linux' Foundation, the "Mentor" of Clickfraud SPAMnil (According to SPAMnil Himself)
- it seems like SJVN does not give a full disclosure
- Blaming "Computers" Instead of Blaming Microsoft
- Blaming Microsoft is "hate"
- "Online We Are All Refugees" and Slop Pushers Are the Oppressors
- They basically resort to nationalism and racism to distract from their commercial failure and fraud (pyramid scheme)
- PIP Apocalypse (PIPocalypse) at IBM, CEO Promotes Vapouware (Lying to Shareholders)
- Companies get to shrink while lying about it to the public, even to shareholders
- GNU/Linux Soaring in Antigua And Barbuda
- GNU/Linux is internationally approaching 8%
- Calling Out the Worst Culprits in "Linux" Slop (Slopfarms That Manipulate Information and Engage in Plagiarism)
- Once they're gone (offline), the slopfarms cannot carry on for much longer
- Defying Discrimination
- Rianne's birthday is exactly a month away
- Dan Williams Represented Real Diversity in Linux
- Williams probably understood based on personal experience what it was like to be marginalised and discriminated against
- The First Point About Software Freedom is, You Must Understand What It Really Means (Not "Open Source")
- Forty Three Years of Commitment to Software Freedom [...] Educating people about what Software Freedom actually means
- Gemini Links 24/07/2026: Recovering From Broken Shoulders, Loss of Passion, and "True Hacker Versus Growth Hacker"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 23, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 23, 2026