• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Master Linux Now! 2012 – On Sale Now

Audiocasts/Shows

• The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 447

Kernel Space

• PCI-E ASPM Change For The Linux 3.4 Kernel

  First of all, this was the last pull request where Jesse Barnes of Intel is handling the role as maintainer of the Linux PCI sub-system. Jesse has announced he’s handing off the PCI maintainer role to Bjorn Helgaas, a software engineer at Google. “He’s been a core PCI and Linux contributor for some time now, and has kindly volunteered to take over. I just don’t feel I have the time for PCI review and work that it deserves lately (I’ve taken on some other projects), and haven’t been as responsive lately as I’d like, so I approached Bjorn asking if he’d like to manage things. He’s going to give it a try, and I’m confident he’ll do at least as well as I have in keeping the tree managed, patches flowing, and keeping things stable.”

• HP says it will commit to Linux as mission critical market share rises

  HP, which has a long history of developing and maintaining its own UNIX operating systems such as HP-UX and VMS, now sees Linux and Microsoft Windows gaining market share in the mission critical market. HP said it will commit code to the Linux kernel, working with Red Hat as its mission critical Linux distribution, and added that it wants to work with the open source community rather than just do its own thing.

• Graphics Stack

  • Radeon Gallium3D Still Long Shot From Catalyst

  • Setting Up A Xen Graphics Card Pass-Through

  • Linux 3.4 will support GeForce GTX 680 and Southern Islands GPUs

    About eight hours after the introduction of the GeForce GTX 680, rudimentary support for this NVIDIA graphics card has been added to the Nouveau DRM/KMS driver in the Linux main development branch. At the beginning of the week, the developers began to prepare this branch for Linux kernel version 3.4, the release of which is expected at the end of May. With version 3.4, Nouveau will also cease to be rated as a staging driver.

  • AMD releases open source Linux driver to support Southern Islands GPUs

    AMD said it will complement its closed source Catalyst drivers with open source versions for Linux users. Although the firm’s open source efforts lag considerably behind its Catalyst drivers, AMD’s Alex Deucher announced that the firm’s latest open source driver release supports its Southern Islands GPUs found in Radeon HD 7000 series graphics cards.

Applications

• Five easy-to-use Linux encryption tools

• Plain and simple, Linux needs applications

  We dance around the topic of what the Linux desktop needs to succeed all the time, and usually it comes down to this argument: the Linux desktop needs to have a better design. That is the core thread of almost every argument I hear lately.

  For example, it was the first topic listed by Canonical’s Jonathan Riddell, who (up until recently) was Canonical’s lead developer of Kubuntu, the company’s KDE-flavored release when he stepped through a list of answers to the question “So how can KDE remain relevant?”

• Darktable- An open source photography workflow application and RAW developer

• FreeFileSync: Free Folder Comparison and Synchronization Tool | PPA Ubuntu

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Getting the integrated fingerprint reader on my laptop to work in Linux

  • The F4 trick in Gnumeric

  • How to dual-boot BackTrack 5 R2 and Windows 7 alongside each other

  • 10 Funny And Useless Linux Command

  • Programmer’s friend – the editor: Part 2 – emacs

  • How to Quickly Resize, Convert & Modify Images from the Linux Terminal

  • Almost There! Adding Methods to Our Classes

  • How To Configure PureFTPd To Accept TLS Sessions On CentOS 6.2

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • forums, bodega client code, partners

    We were contacted by Matthias Lee, owner of opentablets.org, a couple weeks back. Since then, they have put together forums for Vivaldi and have started posting news and information about our efforts.

    I know some of you will ask “What about forums.kde.org?” Plasma Active forums and related KDE discussions will continue there, while opentablets.org will focus on our specific tablet (and other) future products. This is the beauty of open participation: everyone gets to add their own flavour.

    We’re really excited about opentablets.org as it is one more piece of the community support and interaction puzzle being filled in by the community itself.

• GNOME Desktop

  • I don’t need sex, gnome 3 fu*ked me in the brain

    I am not just another gnome 3 hater in the most fashionable and popular way. That’s, though I don’t like the way it defies the traditional workflow, the biggest problem for me, is something else. It’s the shoddy quality of the software, even after one year of its initial release.

    Forget the usability, still the gripes are many, ranging from its integration into the system to how it talks with various other core components such as graphics, desktop effects, and the overall stability.

  • Review: Cinnamon 1.4

    This was actually going to be a preview of SolusOS, both because I wanted to do it and because a commenter had requested it. Unfortunately, MultiSystem refused to write SolusOS to the USB, while SolusOS was unbootable after being written to the USB by UnetBootin. Hence, I could not try it out. Instead, I am trying out Cinnamon 1.4.

Distributions

• Gimme A Light Linux from Vector (7.0)

• VectorLinux 7.0 Light Edition Officially Released

• New Releases

  • Bodhi Linux 1.4.0 Released

  • Announcement: RapidDisk (rxdsk) 2.0.1b Stable release

• Red Hat Family

  • Lighthorse Networks Announces Network Forensics Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

  • Oracle 11g certified for Oracle Linux and Red Hat

    Oracle has announced that it is making supported versions of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1 (R1) available on Oracle Linux 6; currently, this is only for Oracle Linux 6 with the company’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. Oracle Linux 6 is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Oracle’s own kernel added.

  • Red Hat Inc. Fourth Quarter Earnings Sneak Peek

  • Execs cite talent, incentives for growth

    Fidelity’s Scot Blessington, Quintiles’ Steve Brechbiel, ABB’s (NYSE: ABB) Gary Rackliffe and Red Hat’s (NYSE: RHT) Craig Youst all praised the area’s talent pool of educated workers as a major factor in their company’s decision to expand in the market.

  • Scientific Linux, the Great Distro With the Wrong Name

    Scientific Linux is an unknown gem, one of the best Red Hat Enterprise Linux clones. The name works against it because it’s not for scientists; rather it’s maintained by science organizations. Let’s kick the tires on the latest release and see what makes it special.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Development Update

      • The New Wallpapers of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

        Iain Farrell, project manager at Canonical’s Design Team uploaded today the new wallpapers for the up-coming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system.

        The wallpapers are not yet officially uploaded in the current development release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but we have the originals and there are 16 new beautiful photos.

        Without any further introduction, we’ll present below the photos that were already approved for the final version of Precise Pangolin.

      • A first look at Ubuntu 12.04 (Gallery)

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Xubuntu 12.04 Beta Screenshots

        • Comice OS 4 – available now

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Android

    • Sony colorfully reveals Android 4.0 schedule for tablets

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Wishtel Ira tablet takes on Aakash with Rs 4,000 price

    It is planning to release two variants of its tablets in the country. While one variant will be running on Android 2.2, the other variant will have Linux Sugar OS on-board. The Linux variant of the tablet will also have the native Hindi language support.

Akamai open sources Mobitest benchmarking tool

Akamai Chief Product Architect Guy Podjarny has announced that the company’s Mobitest tool is now available as open source. Mobitest is a testing agent for benchmarking the performance of mobile web pages, originally created by Blaze. Blaze was acquired by the Massachusetts-based content delivery network and cloud services provider in February of this year.

CocosBuilder development tool open sourced

GlobalSign Launches Open Source PHP Library for Fully Automated SSL Secure Site Activation

Major decisions under new HP CEO Meg Whitman

HP says that instead of selling its webOS mobile system or killing it off, it’s making it available as open-source software that anyone can use and modify freely. The company is hoping more mobile apps will be developed under webOS by offering it to the open-source community.

Open source – customer choice

Open source software is available for free, along with its source code, and it has developed its own substantial following since the early days of computing. The best known implementations are in infrastructure areas, with the well-known Linux, Java, and PHP packages. Recently, it has gained added attention due to its central role in cloud IT, and through the growing Linux-based Android ecosystem. There are many open source programs available, and there is major support from companies such as IBM and Red Hat. Well known applications include the Mozilla web browser, LibreOffice, Pentaho, WordPress, Moodle, Drupal, and SugarCRM ; but these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Open Source: OS Quality Often Trumps Proprietary Alternatives

A decade ago most enterprises avoided Open Source software, but things have changed. Right now Open Source use at enterprises stands at higher than 75 percent, and Gartner predicts that in just five years that 99 percent of enterprises will have adopted some amount of Open Source software. So rather than Open Source being considered as a marginalized alternative to commercial software, Open Source is increasingly becoming the mainstream option.

Google Wave Still Shutting Down April 30

Is BYOD the precursor to the open source desktop?

Users are taking control, and there’s no stopping them from bringing their own network-connected devices to the office. Today, every phone, every e-book reader, every tablet is a gateway to a world of networked computing. Even if you tried to prevent your employees from bringing them into the building, only military-grade security could stop them.

The BYOD (bring your own device) trend is variously viewed as “a world of pain for IT,” a security challenge that’s solvable, and something to be tolerated with grim resignation. And there’s a growing industry of companies who want to help you stop it, cripple it, or control it.

Events

• Open source has a cyber security posse heading to POSSCON

  One of my favorite projects I have the good fortune to be contributing to was created by the US Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (that’s DHS S&T in Beltway lingo, the equivalent of the R&D arm of the agency for the rest of us mere mortals) It’s called the HOST program (Homeland Open Security Technology).

• The Cloud, KVM and NYSE Star at Our Upcoming Enterprise End User Summit

Web Browsers

• Why is Firefox – and Open Source – a Disaster in China?

  Like many people, I’ve been tracking the steady ascent of Google Chrome – and corresponding decline of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – for some time now. Just recently, yet another milestone has been reached, apparently:

  Google’s Chrome narrowly became the world’s top internet browser for the first time on Sunday 18 March 2012, according to StatCounter, the independent website analytics company.

  As the accompanying graph indicates, there are some very interesting patterns to be observed.

• Mozilla

  • Firefox to get new home page and tabs in three months

    Mozilla has announced the arrival of the latest development version of Firefox 13 in the Aurora channel. This in-development version will arrive as the production version of Firefox in approximately twelve weeks. The development version includes a redesigned home page, changed “new tab” behaviour, and auto-completion in the browser address bar.

SaaS/Big Data

• OpenNebula: Open Source Cloud Setup

• AWS partners with open-source private cloud provider Eucalyptus

• Eventbrite: Hadoop isn’t for everybody

• MapR and Talend Partner on Open Source Big Data Solution

  Software features are good, but certification that they actually work is even better — particularly in the open source channel, where users don’t always enjoy the same kind of warranties that are common in the proprietary ecosystem. In this respect, the world of open source Big Data management became a little more stable with the recent announcement that MapR’s distribution of Apache Hadoop has been certified for Talend Open Studio for Big Data. Here’s the scoop.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• LibreOffice 3.4.6 Released

• LibreOffice 3.4.6 fixes “potential security problem”

• OpenJDK bug database plans changed

• Social Media JSR 357 rejected by Java Community Process

CMS

• Drupal Open Source is Built on Passion (and soon Symfony)

• Drupal Bringing Open Source CMS To The Masses

  Open source is a fantastic element of the software ecosystem and recent studies have shown that it’s on par with traditional proprietary software. Drupal is one of the ring leaders in the open source movement by providing expansive, yet simple tools for Web site content management systems. It’s even so popular that it’s used for the White House’s Web site.

Business

• Does your business benefit from open source?

  Free and open source software has touched all our lives whether we know it or not. Often misunderstood and treated with suspicion, many businesses take advantage of the benefits of it without acknowledging the community that powers it.

  Before going any further, free software is not about price, rather an ideology that advocates that software has most utility when there are no barriers to its ability to be used, improved and studied at the source code level.

• Semi-Open Source

  • Ovum Recognizes BonitaSoft in Business Process Management Report

  • Open Source Server NGINX Makes LeaseWeb its Preferred Infrastructure Partner

Funding

• Nonprofit open source organizations booming

  The Linux Foundation has received the most revenue amongst all of the free software and open source non-profits and directly pays its leader the most, but the highest compensation of any sort is still being received by Mozilla Foundation Chair Mitchell Baker, along with her CTO Colleague Brendan Etch.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU in Google Summer of Code

  Volunteer for The GNU Project by participating in the Google Summer of Code! More information is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/

• Glibc 2.15 released with optimisations and new locales

  The glibc developers have announced the release of version 2.15 of the GNU C Library. The new version fixes a significant number of bugs and adds two new Linux interfaces (process_vm_readv and process_vm_writev). The biggest improvements come in the area of optimisation, however, with many operations being improved throughout the code. This release also adds four new locales, including support for the Native American Unami language, which, according to Wikipedia, is extinct.

Public Services/Government

• Iceland’s public administration and schools moving towards open source

• All of Iceland’s public administrations moving towards open source

• Iceland goes open source in a big way

• Iceland latest to make big noises about open source

• Icelandic Government Moves Towards Open Source

Openness/Sharing

• DRONE: an open source Bluetooth controller for smartphones and tablets

  While using a touchscreen to game isn’t a problem for most people, there are still gamers out there who can’t stand the thought of playing games without an actual gamepad. Well, unfortunately there aren’t a lot of options out there for such purposes. This is where The Evolution Team’s DRONE comes in. Called an open source Bluetooth controller, it is a gamepad designed to work with your smartphones and tablets.

• Kickstarter: Magical Open Source Bluetooth game controller

• iRobot and Willow Garage Debate Closed vs. Open Source Robotics at Cocktail Party

  In this guest post, Frank Tobe, a robotics analyst and publisher of The Robot Report, describes a recent debate between two prominent robotics executives and their opposing views on how to nurture profitable robotics businesses.

• High Tech Cows & Open Source Farm Equipment: Yes, The Economics Of Farming Is Relevant

  I frequently get asked why I spend so much time talking about the entertainment industry here on Techdirt, and one of the points I make is that I think what’s happened to the entertainment industry over the last decade and a half is really a leading indicator of the type of disruptive change that has already started to impact, or will soon be impacting, nearly every industry imaginable. As such, by understanding what’s happening and how not to respond, perhaps we can help lots of other industries move more smoothly into the future. So I’m always interested and intrigued by parallels in totally unexpected industries. Just recently, the good folks over at NPR’s Planet Money put together a fascinating episode about modern farm economics (and host Adam Davidson also wrote a NY Times piece on the same subject). While it mainly focuses on Claudia, the high-tech cow, it also has some key economic points that will likely sound familiar to regular readers (unfortunately, these key economic points are only in the audio version of the podcast, and were left out of the transcript).

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Cantor Quietly Acknowledges Failing to Report ALEC Gift

  In February, Common Cause wrote to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, asking for an explanation about an apparently unreported $1,350 gift from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 2009. Cantor’s office immediately responded, claiming our inquiry was without foundation, but last week his office quietly amended his financial disclosures to include the gift from ALEC.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Trademarks

  • THQ seeking ’1666′ trademark

    California-based publisher files application with United States Patent & Trademark Office for “video game software.”

• Copyrights

  • Copyright isn’t dead just because we’re not willing to let it regulate us

    The first time I ever heard someone declare the death of copyright, it wasn’t a dreadlocked GNU/Linux hacker or a cyberpunk in mirror shades: it was a music executive, circa 1999, responding to the launch of Napster.

    I thought he was wrong then and I think he’s wrong now — as is everyone else who’s declared copyright to be dead.

    The problem is in the name: copyright. The Statute of Anne and other early copyright rules concerned themselves with verbatim copying because copying was the only industrial activity associated with creative expression at the time. There were lots of crafts associated with culture, of course, – performing music, plays and dance, painting pictures, and so on – but these weren’t industrial activities.

• 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.