11.27.15

Contents

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

GNU/Linux

• Cool Off: Thermal Throttling, Performance, and Linux

  While Linux distros typically use less system resources, and therefore offer better performance over Windows counterparts (don’t get me wrong, I love my Windows laptop), it’s still wise to monitor your system’s health. Over at Opensource.com, David Both has a neat write up on thermal stress, and offers a few resources for Linux users. These range from a few commands, like sensors-detect and hddtemp, and even the super userful application GKrellM.

• Desktop

  • Neverware’s CloudReady Brings a Chromium-Fueled Chromebook OS to Standard Hardware

    I have been a Chromebook user for a while now. I find their ease of use, simplicity, and reliability something that is unmatched by most standard laptops or desktops. As someone who spends a vast amount of their PC time writing words, Chrome OS makes perfect sense. The added bonus of Chrome OS being powered by the Linux kernel makes it all the better.

    Point in fact… I like the Chrome OS platform so much, I became the proud owner of a Pixel—probably the single most amazing piece of mobile hardware I have ever experienced. But not everyone wants to shell out the cash for such a machine. In fact, some would rather make use of the hardware they already have.

    That’s where the likes of Neverware’s CloudReady comes into play. However, this relatively new platform isn’t just a tinker’s toy. Yes, the claim that CloudReady will turn any hardware into a Chromebook is spot on. However, CloudReady isn’t just for individual users. Neverware is putting this platform to good use for educators, individuals, and even enterprises. That Neverware is taking on the educational system is telling. Primary and secondary school systems across the globe are staring down financial burdens that don’t allow them to purchase new hardware or operating systems. By allowing those same institutions to repurpose aging hardware and turn them into efficient, reliable machines, educators are able to squeeze far more out of less.

  • A64 OLinuXino OSHW Linux Laptop idea becomes more real

    Few weeks ago I blogged about the idea to make OSHW Laptop based on Allwinner A64 64-bit SoC.

    Today we received the first samples of the laptop plastic body.

    The quality of the plastic parts is very good!

    As you can see we have already sourced the plastic body, the battery, LCD display, keyboard, touchpad, speakers, camera, microphone and all fittings.

  • What is the best product for my needs?

    I have a project for work that needs a very secure system. I’m looking at using Linux and am wondering what I need to meet my needs. I am new to Linux but have worked around IT personel for years so obviously know a little bit about it. Let me try to explain what is currently being used, the problems with the current system, and what I need out of the future system below.

  • Learning Linux – Lesson Four: Desktop Environments and Window Managers

    Until now, you’ve learned about the basics of Linux, the difference between a GNU/Linux operating system and the Linux kernel, as well as how a GNU/Linux operating system compares to other popular OSes.

• Server

  • Scale Testing Docker Swarm to 30,000 Containers

    Swarm is the easiest way to run Docker app in production. It lets you take an an app that you’ve built in development and deploy it across a cluster of servers. Recently we took Swarm out beta and released version 1.0. It’s being used by people like O’Reilly for building authoring tools, the Distributed Systems Group at Eurecom for doing scientific research, and Rackspace who built their new container service, Carina, on top of it.

  • Deis Aims to Extend Kubernetes into a Platform

    In just a few short months, Google’s deft move to build an open consortium around its Kubernetes orchestrator has shifted the platform focus away from containers, and onto container orchestrators.

    Perhaps the biggest indicator of that shift came last week at KubeCon in San Francisco, where Deis — now the brightly polished new division of Engine Yard — unveiled a package manager for workloads called Helm.

  • Intel hatches architecture to make high performance computing an enterprise staple

    As for Dell, the company said it launched new Dell Networking H-Series switches and adapters as well as PowerEdge servers based on Omni-Path. Dell said it is holding advisory sessions with customers on optimizing Omni-Path and Intel’s Xeon Phi chips.

  • USA Has a Shrinking Share of the TOP500

    In the bigger picture, China nearly tripled the number of systems on the latest list, while the number of systems in the United States has fallen to the lowest point since the TOP500 list was created in 1993. China is also carving out a bigger share as a manufacturer of high performance computers with multiple Chinese manufacturers becoming more active in this field.

• Kernel Space

  • Career Development Day: Build Your Career with Linux Foundation Training

  • Linux Foundation Scholarship Recipient: Erich Noriega

    The Linux Foundation regularly awards scholarships as part of its Linux Training Scholarship Program. In the five years that the Linux Foundation has hosted this program, it has awarded 34 scholarships totaling more than $100,000 in free training. In conjunction with this program, we are featuring recent scholarship recipients in the hope that their stories will inspire others. In this installment of the series, we talk with Erich Noriega, a recipient in the Sys Admin Superstar category.

  • Graphics Stack

    • Imagination Is Still Struggling To Find Open-Source Developer(s) For Graphics

    • [ANNOUNCE] xf86-video-amdgpu 1.0.0

  • Benchmarks

    • Btrfs RAID Benchmarks With The Linux 4.4 Kernel On Samsung 850 SSDs

      The latest Linux disk testing fun at Phoronix has been stressing two Samsung 850 EVO solid-state drives on the Linux 4.4 kernel when using the native RAID capabilities built into the Btrfs file-system.

• Applications

  • Calibre 2.45.0 Lets Users Generate Covers with Book Metadata, Fixes 10 Bugs

    A few minutes ago, Calibre developer Kovid Goyal announced the release of the Calibre 2.45.0 open-source ebook library management software for all supported operating systems, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

  • Evernote Linux Client `NixNote` 2 Beta 5 Available For Download

    NixNote is an unofficial Evernote client for Linux which was initially called NeverNote. The application was written in Java until NixNote 2, which is a complete rewrite in C++ using the Qt framework, having better performance and a reduced memory footprint as main goals. The application continues to use Java for encrypting and decrypting text, but that’s optional.

  • Wirelessly Transfer Photos From Nikon/Sony/Canon Cameras To Your Computer With Airnef

    The application should work with all Nikon cameras that have built-in WiFi interfaces as well as external Nikon WiFi adapters WU-1a and WU-1b. Other external WiFi adapters, like WT-4A and WT-5A, may work, but were not tested.

    Canon cameras are also supported and with the latest version, the application got support for Sony cameras as well.

    Besides downloading the photos and images you’ve already taken, the application also comes with a real-time download mode, which allows transferring images to your computer as you shoot them, as long as your camera supports this.

    For cameras that don’t support real-time WiFi shooting, a staged-real-time feature can be used, which automatically transfers the photos as soon as you turn the WiFi off – a process which can be repeated (turn WiFi off, shoot some photos, then turn the WiFi off to get the photos transferred to your computer) without any user input on the computer.

  • Proprietary

    • Latest Vivaldi Web Browser Snapshot Fixes Tab Title Cropping, Windows XP Support

      The developers of the cross-platform and proprietary Vivaldi web browser have announced today, November 25, 2015, the immediate availability for download and testing of a new snapshot.

    • Opera 35 Web Browser Now Features Frame Color Awareness, Search Hints

      Opera Software, through Kornelia Mielczarczyk, has announced the third update to the Opera 35.0 web browser, which is now in the developer channel for all supported operating systems, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Install GIMP 2.8.16 In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint Via PPA

    • Handling video files produced for a MOOC on Windows with git and git-annex

    • How To Install Webmin On openSUSE 42.1

    • Install Oracle VirtualBox And Manage It Using phpVirtualBox On Ubuntu 15.10 Headless Server

    • How to integrate Alfresco with ONLYOFFICE Online Editor on Ubuntu 14.04

    • How to remove trailing whitespaces in a file on Linux

    • How to customise your Linux desktop: Cinnamon

      Wow, that is a lot of configuration and customization – and as with the previous desktops, I really haven’t dug very deeply into it. I hope that this post provides enough information to get started with, and enough motivation to make you really want to dig into it.

    • How to Control Hardware With the Raspberry Pi Using WiringPi

    • 11 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 15.10

    • How to access Dropbox from the command line in Linux

    • How to Install and configure Redis on Ubuntu 14.04

    • A Deep Dive into the SIGTTIN / SIGTTOU Terminal Access Control Mechanism in Linux

    • Layout According to Scribus (II): Using Styles to Improve your Workflow

    • How to run a mail server

    • Execute multiple programs and redirect their outputs (Linux)

    • Finding the Offending Directories

  • Games

    • Hatred, One of the Most Violent Games Ever Made, Is Coming to Linux

      Hatred is one of the most controversial games that have been published on Steam, and it looks like it’s also coming to the Linux platforms sometime in the near future.

    • Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh tested on Linux, very freaky

    • Hollow Knight looks like exactly the type of action platformer I would play on Linux

    • 0 A.D. Alpha 19 Syllepsis Released

      0 A.D. Alpha 19 features new victory modes, a ceasefire game mode, attack coordination, new animals, SDL2 by default for the Linux build, and a variety of other enhancements.

    • 0 A.D. Alpha 19 Syllepsis Free RTS Game Released for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows

    • Dying Light’s DLC The Following will be on Linux, price set to rise soon

      I have it straight from the developer that Dying Light’s DLC The Following will be on Linux, after I saw reports and speculation that it wouldn’t be. The price is also set to rise, so you may want to pickup the season pass soon due to how big it is.

    • Top 3 Open Source Pinball Games

      The first flipper pinball machine was released 68 years and 1 month ago and yet there is only a handful of open source, cross-platform pinball video games available! Oh well, let’s take them for a spin, shall we?

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • digiKam Recipes 4.9.7 Released

      A new release of digiKam Recipes is ready for your perusal. This version features the new Use Exposure Indicators recipe along with the updated Find the Shutter Count Value with digiKam recipe. Astute readers will also notice the new cover. That’s all there is to it this time around.

    • Marble Maps forking for SailfishOS

      Marble, the swiss army knife for maps and globes, developed in the KDE community, this year has got an app variant added that is concentrating on maps and that is designed for today’s typical mobile devices with touch UI, called Marble Maps. It currently is in Beta state. Read “Announcing Marble Maps for Android Open Beta” for more info.

    • Plasma 5.5 Release Party in Heidelberg

    • A clockwork carrot

      This weekend I had the opportunity to travel to the yearly LiMux sprint to spend some time with my fellow kubuntu devs and talk about the potential issues we’re facing with the CI system and improving the Debian CI system to be more robust.

      [...]

      As usual, the LiMux folks are a great bunch to hang out with, and I happened to notice something on the wall of their office while lunching with them. It was a clock. Not just a regular clock though, a timey wimey clock. I’ll let a picture do more of the talking here :

    • Game Art Quest Kickstarter!

    • Krita 2.9 Animation Edition beta

    • Krita 2.9 Animation Edition Beta released!

    • Interview with Christopher Stewart

    • KDE Plasma 5.5 Windows 8 Metro-Inspired Theme Looks Interesting

      KDE developer Kai Uwe has just published a lengthy article where he talks about developing a Windows 8-inspired theme for the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.5 desktop environment.

    • KDE Developer Working On Windows 8 Inspired Look

      Kai Uwe has been working on some experimental hacks to resemble Windows 8, although Microsoft’s default interface has changed with Windows 10. He’s calling this work “U-Bahn” (the German equivalent of a Metro subsystem system) in reference to Microsoft at the time calling it Metro. This was just some brief hacking and he’s not planning to see this U-Bahn project through to the end.

    • Pursuing Awesomeness

      While applets can be installed through “Get Hot New Stuff” and distribution repositories, there’s also the classic .plasmoid file. A feature suggested by one of my colleagues – fresh KDE Plasma user – was to drag .plasmoid files onto the desktop or panel and have them installed. After Marco Martin implemented the neccessary KPackage plumbing this is now possible.

    • screen config victory!

      The real kwin_wayland will use the exact same library, on the server as we do in our tests, but instead of using “virtual screens”, it does actually interact with the hardware, for example through libdrm on more sensible system or through libhybris on ones less so.

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • Going beyond GNOME Terminal

      Now at work I use a Laptop, hooked up to 2 x 21.5 inch screens, basically the standard for our line of work. Now 3 physical screens are nice, but room is still limited when you take into account an email client, mysql client, several browsers and office software open at the same time. Now I could use workspaces, qhich I do time to time, but it generally breaks the work flow for me.

    • Could I possibly ask the Board for help?

      The GNOME Foundation exists to further the mission of the GNOME project.

    • Attending the Web Engines Hackfest

      It’s certainly been a while since I attended this event for the last time, 2 years ago, when it was a WebKitGTK+ only oriented hackfest, so I guess it was a matter of time it happened again…

      It will be different for me this time, though, as now my main focus won’t be on accessibility (yet I’m happy to help with that, too), but on fixing a few issues related to the WebKit2GTK+ API layer that I found while working on our platform (Endless OS), mostly related to its implementation of accelerated compositing.

    • Ways to help the Board help you

      Like many of us, the Directors receive more than their fair share of email. In order for your request to be considered, the Directors have to be able to quickly and easily understand what it is you want, why you are requesting it, and how it would benefit the GNOME Foundation. Below are some thoughts on how to increase the likelihood your request will be considered promptly.

    • Cinnamon 2.8.6 Desktop Environment Is Out for Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa”

      The developers behind the popular Cinnamon open-source desktop environment, a fork of the GNOME Shell user interface of the acclaimed GNOME 3 desktop environment, have released a new maintenance build for the Cinnamon 2.8 series.

    • GNOME’s Tracker Semantic Data Storage Tool Now Offers Better UID Detection

      Today, November 26, the GNOME developers behind the Tracker open-source semantic data store software, which is responsible for indexing various sources needed for the search engine of the GNOME desktop environment, announced two new releases.

    • Orca Screen Reader Prepares for GNOME 3.20, Improves Twitter Timeline Reading

      We’ve mentioned in previous GNOME-related articles written right here on Softpedia that the GNOME developers are working around the clock these days to unleash the second development milestone towards the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment.

• Distributions

  • Studio 13.37 v2.3 released!

    Slick, stylish, and modern, with advanced technologies under the hood like a realtime kernel and automatic system tuning at boot, Studio 13.37 pushes the limits of what a Linux-based pro audio studio can do.

  • This Week in Solus #11

  • LabxNow adds 150K custom images

    When we came across LabxNow earlier we visioned it as a better alternative to Koding. However, it seems that the team has stronger ideas in mind. LabxNow has become in the cloud what Distroshare intended to become for your local hardware. In a recent communication, the team updated us of their new features to create custom projects (or generate from templates). There are 150K (you read it right) images to choose from when you are setting up a customer project environment.

  • New Releases

    • KNOPPIX 7.6.0 Screencast and Screenshots

    • KNOPPIX 7.6.0 / ADRIANE 1.7 Release

    • How to Install and configure Redis on Ubuntu 14.04

  • Ballnux/SUSE

    • Exclusive Interview with SUSE President Nils Brauckmann

      SUSE is one of the trinities of the Linux world which comprises Canonical, Red Hat and SUSE. As a top contributor to many open source projects, SUSE is also one of the champions of the open source world:. I sat down with Nils Brauckmann, the President and General Manager of SUSE, at SUSECon 2015 to talk about SUSE, its strengths, and its plans for the future.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat OpenShift 3.1 Opens the Door for Both .NET and JBoss Middleware

      With OpenShift version 3.0, the PaaS platform began an entirely new journey for Red Hat, by integrating with the Kubernetes orchestrator. It’s through the expansion of this relationship, Badani said, that version 3.1 is making Gluster volumes accessible through Kubernetes as storage abstractions.

    • Red Hat Rating Lowered to Hold at Zacks Investment Research (RHT)

      Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) was downgraded by Zacks Investment Research from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report issued on Tuesday, Marketbeat.com reports.

    • Announcing the general availability of Oracle Linux 7.2

      We’re happy to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 2, the second update release for Oracle Linux 7. You can find the individual RPM packages on the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and the Oracle Linux Yum Server and ISO installation images are available for download from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.

    • Oracle Linux 7.2 Officially Released with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 3.18.13

      Oracle has announced the release and general availability of the Oracle Enterprise Linux 7.2 operating system based on the freely distributed sources of the acclaimed Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) OS.

    • Red Hat, Linux Container Innovation Announce Latest Version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

      Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 continues Red Hat’s goal of redefining the enterprise operating system by providing a trusted path towards the future of information technology without compromising the needs of the modern enterprise.

    • Red Hat Upgraded at Vetr Inc. (RHT)

    • Fedora

      • FESCo Elections: Interview with Germano Massullo (Caterpillar / germano)

        I am a Fedora user since 2009.

        I co-maintain various packages: BOINC, darktable, LemonPOS and ownCloud client package.

        I do tests of Fedora pre-releases in order to have the most stable releases and I am proudly involved in the bug reporting process because I think that the best help you can provide to developers, is helping them finding issues in their software.

      • Elections: Nominations Filed, Campaign Period, Candidate Interviews Coming Soon

        The Fedora Elections cycle for November/December 2015 is currently in progress and the Nomination period just ended on Tuesday. Here is a quick visualization for numbers of vacant seats versus the number of nominations received.

  • Debian Family

    • Debian’s APT 1.1 Accepted Into Unstable

      It’s been over a year and a half since APT 1.0 was released by the Debian development community while today APT 1.1 has reached the unstable community.

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • OTA-9 Update for Ubuntu Touch Has a Lot of Features Planned

          The work on the upcoming OTA-9 update continues, and it looks like things are on track. Ubuntu Touch will receive a new major upgrade in a couple of months.

        • Ubuntu Touch OTA-9 Receives New Gallery, Web Browser, and Media Scanner Apps

          In the last minutes of November 26, Canonical’s Łukasz Zemczak sent in his daily report to inform us all about the latest work done by the Ubuntu Touch developers in preparation for the OTA-9 update.

        • Ubuntu with Mir Desktop to Have Full Support for Multi-Monitor Display

          One of the difficult problems that the Ubuntu developers need to solve is multi-monitor support for the Unity 8 desktop environment, and it looks like it’s already under way.

• Devices/Embedded

  • And now for the R75 computer

  • A computer for just £4 – Raspberry Pi unveils its cheapest model yet

  • Raspberry releases amazingly cheap Pi Zero computer

  • You Can Now Get a Computer for the Price of a (Very Fancy) Coffee

  • Pi Zero: A full Raspberry Pi for just £4

  • Raspberry Pi Zero: The smallest, cheapest microcomputer yet

  • The Pi Zero costs only $5.

  • Raspberry Pi Zero Starter Pack Now Available From Adafruit For $60

  • Raspberry Pi Zero, free for Magpi subscribers

  • The $5 Raspberry Pi Zero

  • $5 computer launched

  • Raspberry Pi’s $5 Computer

  • Raspberry Pi Zero, the $5 PC

  • Raspberry Pi Launches the Zero, a $5 Computer

  • Raspberry Pi Introduces $5 Computer

  • CHIP computer drops price to $8, Raspberry Pi Zero immediately steals its thunder

  • Raspberry Pi Zero Flies Under Radar With $5 Price Tag

  • Raspberry Pi Zero Lists For Just $5

  • The Raspberry Pi Zero is a $5 computer on the front of a magazine

  • Raspberry Pi shrinks to Pi Zero

  • Pick Up A Raspberry Pi Zero For $5 And Begin Tinkering

  • Even at £15 Pi Zero is a great product

  • Meet Raspberry Pi Zero, miniature computer that costs $5

  • And now for the $5 computer

  • Raspberry Pi Zeros in on size and cost

  • Raspberry Pi Zero Costs Just $5, Outperforms First Raspberry Pi

  • Raspberry Pi Computer Will Cost You Only $5

  • Raspberry Pi Zero, the World’s First 5$ Computer

  • The $5 computer that can change the world

  • Raspberry Pi Releases The $5 Zero Computer

  • Raspberry Pi Heaven: Now You Can Get a Microprocessor for Only $5

  • New Raspberry Pi Zero is remarkably cheap

  • Meet Raspberry Pi Zero, a $5 tiny computer

  • What is Raspberry Pi Zero? All you need to know about the $5 computer

  • Raspberry Pi Zero: a computer for ₹400

  • Raspberry Pi Introduces a $5 Computer

  • Pi Zero: The Computer That Costs $5

  • The Raspberry Pi Zero is a tiny computer that costs $5

  • Raspberry Pi zero: ‘World’s tiniest computer’ built in UK goes on sale – for just £4

  • Raspberry Pi Zero $5 computer unveiled

  • This computer is so cheap it’s being given away free with a magazine

  • Raspberry Pi Zero: What You Can Do With This $5 Computer

  • The latest Raspberry Pi computer is so cheap it comes free with a magazine

  • Meet Raspberry Pi Zero: The $5 computer is here

  • $5 Raspberry Pi Zero keeps it simple

  • Video: Raspberry Pi Zero

  • More Raspberry Pi, Exterminating LibreOffice & More…

    Pi Zero for $5: Our friends at Phoronix reported this week about the Pi Zero, the latest Raspberry Pi board, costing a grand total of $5 American.

    From the article: “The Raspberry Pi Zero features a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC that is clocked at 1.0GHz for its ARM11 core, there’s 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM, micro-SD card slot, mini HDMI socket, micro USB sockets, 40-pin GPIO header, and its all on a form factor of just 65 x 30 x 5mm. The Pi Zero is available today in the US and UK for just $5 USD.” You can find out more about the Raspberry Pi Zero via the launch announcement at RaspberryPi.org.

  • [Pi Zero] Black Piday Giveaway!

  • Pi Zero – The New Raspberry Pi Board

  • The Nvidia Jetson TX1: It’s Not For Everybody, But It Is Very Cool

  • Latest MIPS-based Creator SBC Reflects Shift to IoT and Sensors

  • This crowdfunded router updates its own security

    It’s really, really, really hard to make a router sound exciting, but the folks behind the Turris Omnia are betting the device’s focus on keeping your sensitive data secure might grab you. The manufacturer’s IndieGogo campaign still has 45 days to go, but it’s already proved incredibly popular: over a thousand backers have pledged some $274,598 as of this writing. That’s 275 percent higher than the threshold for funding the project. The router itself runs Turris’ open source operating system (based on the OpenWRT project) which auto updates as soon as any type of vulnerability is discovered by its cadre of developers.

  • Phones

    • Tizen

      • Samsung hits record high TV sales as everyone else struggles

        It’s hard out there for most TV manufacturers, but Samsung seems to be doing just fine. In fact, it set a new record for TV sales last month, hitting $1 billion in North America over the course of October, which Samsung says is a new monthly high for the market. Samsung has reached that record by becoming the dominant TV seller in North America, representing around 35 percent of the US market and around 28 percent of the Canadian market, according to figures it cites from NPD.

      • Tizen App Challenge 2015 Launched in India

        A Tizen Developer Challenge has just been launched for application / game devs (Including students) based in India, submit your apps and start winning PRIZES. In order to qualify you need to create a new app or port your existing Android app to the Tizen mobile platform, and submit them to the Tizen Store. You are able to submit as many apps as you like

    • Android

      • The Great Android Holiday Giveaway – 25 Devices To Be Won – International Contest

      • The woes of Android updates, and how to fix the process

        More than a month ago, Google announced the coming update for the 6th major iteration of its platform… Marshmallow. Of the anticipated updates, the Nexus line of devices would be the first to receive the gooey goodness that promised to bring the most significant updates to some critical Android components (think Now On Tap and app permissions).

      • Huawei unwraps 6-inch Mate 8 flagship phablet – running Android Marshmallow

        China’s Huawei has announced its flagship Mate 8 phablet, which will be the first new handset other than Google’s latest Nexus duo to ship with Android Marshmallow.

        The company took the wraps off the Mate 8 today in Shanghai, China, where the 6-inch display smartphone will be available ahead of a global rollout scheduled for the first quarter of 2016. Huawei intends to unveil the flagship for these markets at CES 2016.

      • Where’s My Marshmallow? When Will You Be Getting The Android Marshmallow Update?

      • How to get the best Black Friday deals on your Android phone

      • Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update Status For Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Sony Smartphones

      • Top 10 Best Android Wear Apps and Faces Monthly – November 2015 Edition

      • Nokia C1 Leak Tips Launch With Android and Windows 10 Mobile Variants

      • Android on Windows is disruptive because neither Microsoft nor Google can stop it

      • The best Android tablets

        You’re on the hunt for the best Android tablet out there, and we’re going to help you out. Whether you’re looking for something slim and compact, or a big-screen beauty bordering on laptop replacement, we’re rounding up the best of the best.

Free Software/Open Source

• Events

  • Video: OpenHPC Community Launches at SC15

    In this video from SC15, Karl Schulz from Intel and Michael Miller from SUSE describe the all-new OpenHPC Community.

  • Linux-Stammtisch Munich

    For all Ceph interested people in Germany, especially Bavaria: There will be a Linux-Stammtisch next week on 24.11.2015 in Munich. I will present about “Ceph – Overview, Experiences and Outlook”. If you are interested, the meeting starts at 19:00 (CET) at the Paulaner Bräuhaus. You find more information and can register here.

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Automated Scanning of Firefox Extensions is Security Theater (And Here’s Code to Prove It)

      The switch to WebExtensions, which includes the discontinuation of XUL/XPCOM-based extensions, will require most Firefox extensions, including Zotero, which I work on, to be largely rewritten. However, that change is still many months away, and many aspects of it remain unclear (including how much of the functionality in Zotero’s Firefox extension will be possible at all). In this post I’m going to focus on extension signing, which is scheduled to be enforced in Firefox 43, due out December 15. (Enforcement was originally planned for September but was pushed back.)

    • Decentraleyes for Firefox loads CDN resources locally

      You can learn a lot about a site when you monitor its network connections when you connect your browser to it.

      You may see connections to third-party sites, ads, web analytics scripts and a lot more just from that.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice getting ready for the next 1,000 hackers

    The extraordinary growth of LibreOffice developer’s community, with a monthly average of over 16 new hackers contributing to the code since September 2010, is the result of a global mentoring effort by some of the project founders. After five years and 1,000 new developers, though, the complexity has changed, and the project needs to invest on mentoring a new generation of coders.

• Education

  • Open Education Global Conference 2016 to focus on Convergence through Collaboration

    The 2016 edition of the Open Education Global Conference is to take place in Cracow (Poland) on 12-14 April 2016. This conference is organised annually by the Open Education Global consortium, a non-profit global organisation that promotes education through openness.

• Funding

  • How to Charge for your Open Source

    Remember: Open Source != Free Software. The source may be viewable on GitHub but that doesn’t mean anyone can use it for any purpose. There’s no reason you can’t make your source code accessible but also charge to use it. As long as you are the owner of the code, you have the right to license it however you want.

• FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Unwrap our 2015 Ethical Tech Giving Guide

    Electronics are popular gifts for the holidays, but people often overlook the restrictions that manufacturers slip under the wrapping paper. From remote deletion of files to harsh rules about copying and sharing, some gifts take more than they give.

  • GIMP is 20 Years Old, What’s Next?

• Public Services/Government

  • French public sector still a large user of Free Software (PAC)

    The French administration is still a large enabler of Free Software in France. According to a survey published by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC , CXP group), a French consulting company, the public sector is seen as an opportunity for Free Software for 71% of the more than 100 companies surveyed in this study, mostly members of the Conseil National du Logiciel Libre and Syntec Numérique, an association of IT companies.

  • Denmark’s Second Largest City, Aarhus, Dropping Microsoft’s Products for Open Source

    Aarhus is Denmark’s second largest city, and the administration is preparing for the use of open IT standards in an effort to rid itself of the grip of proprietary software.

    There is a movement going on across the European Union, and authorities are starting to notice that open source software is a real option and that it needs to be considered for the future, especially since it can also bring substantially lower costs.

  • Italian agency design guide for public web sites

    Italy’s Agency for the Digitalization of the Public Sector (AGID), has published a guideline on the creation and design of web sites, aiming to create a consistent visual identity for public administration web sites. The guide is based on international experiences, including that of the UK and US governments, the agency announced on Digital Italy Day on 21 November. The manual explains the design principles and details the fundamental tools for creating modern eGovernment sites, AGID writes. The guidelines will be updated regularly, the agency said, adding that it hopes to build a community of contributing web site designers and developers. These are invited to contribute code, report bugs and suggest ways to improve the design of eGovernment platforms.

  • Bulgaria publishes IT training manuals

    The more than 1,300 pages have been authored and compiled by academics and IT firms. The first set of documents published on 25 November deal with business intelligence solutions, software architecture, database management, IT security, IT systems administration, web site administration and Java software development.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Open Hardware

    • [Community] +++ last and final production batch GTA04A5 can be ordered now +++

      Letux 2804 we have collected a handful of used Neo Freerunner devices
      where we can replace the motherboard and thanks to Ch. Pulster
      we also got ~40 sets of plastic parts to build new Freerunner
      cases. We also have enough spare displays so that we can
      build “virtually new” devices from them.

    • Tiny open-source gadget simulates replacement Amex cards, disables chip-&-PIN

    • Defeating Chip and PIN With Bits of Wire

    • MagSpoof device ‘capable of predicting Amex credit card numbers’

    • $10 hacker tool can guess and steal your American Express credit card number along with its pin

    • [Video] Hacker Reveals RM42 Tool That Let’s You Guess And Steal Credit Card Numbers

    • This Tiny Device Can Wirelessly Spoof Magnetic Stripe Readers

    • $10 Gadget Claimed to Predict, Steal Credentials of American Express Cards

    • DRAM’s Damning Defects—and How They Cripple Computers

      An investigation into dynamic random-access memory chip failure reveals surprising hardware vulnerabilities

• Programming

  • Divide and Conquer

    With this challenge and Tomaz feedbacks and some tips from the internet, I could learn much more about Qt programming, OOP and about my limits.

  • PHP 7.0 Final Didn’t Make It Out Today, PHP 7 RC8 Released

    The release of PHP 7 was delayed earlier this month when they decided to do another release candidate. PHP 7.0 final was expected today, but now it’s been pushed out once more with the need for an RC8.

  • 3 New Python Markdown extensions

Leftovers

• What I Learned from Blowing An Interview

  Likewise, blogging or writing books about software development is necessarily removed from software development. Patterns, architectures, idioms, and algorithms are potential value. It’s only by applying the ideas that we realize the value. The same goes for creating infrastructure like operating systems, text editors, programming languages, frameworks, and libraries.

• How Deduplication Has Evolved to Handle the Deluge of Data

• Hardware

  • More than a billion PCs are over three years old, and there’s little reason to replace them

    And right there is the problem facing the PC industry. You’re replacing a tool with another tool that does the same thing. Much like a light bulb or a hammer. It’s why we’re seeing a proliferation of “smart” devices – smart light bulbs, smart thermostats, smart smoke detectors, smart refrigerators – because without that new “smart” twist people just aren’t replacing their light bulbs, thermostats, smoke detectors, or refrigerators until the day they release the magic smoke and stop working.

• Security

  • Open Source Security Process Part 3: Are Today’s Open Source Security Practices Robust Enough in the Cloud Era?

  • Open Source Security Process Part 4: Xen Project’s Policy for Responsible Disclosure with Maximum Fairness and Transparency

  • Thanksgiving day security updates

    Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it, from all of us here at LWN.

  • Kernel security: beyond bug fixing

    As kernel security maintainer James Morris noted in the introduction to a 2015 Kernel Summit session, a lot of progress has been made with regard to kernel security in the last 10-15 years. That said, there are lot of things we could be doing better, and one could make the case that we have fallen behind the state of the art in a number of areas, including self-protection and hardening. On that note, he stepped aside and let Kees Cook give the group the bad news about what needs to be done to improve the kernel’s security.

  • Dpkg Vulnerability Closed in All Ubuntu OSes

    Canonical has revealed information in a security notice about a dpkg vulnerability that has been identified and fixed in Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

• Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • A Winter’s Tale: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

    A Turkish jet shoots down a Russian jet. Parliament votes to send RAF jets into the mix. What could possibly go wrong?

    Unfortunately, things do go wrong. Cameron’s 70,000 “moderate rebels” prove either non-existent or crazed pro-Saudi Wahabbists. Mostly they are the very jihadists Russia is attacking, but we are supporting. In the fog of war, another Russian plane is downed. A Russian pilot downs a British jet. With politicians on all sides afloat on the sea of militarist rhetoric, within 24 hours it has spiralled hopelessly out of control.

  • Cameron Overreaches With “70,000” Claim Nobody Believes

    Cameron is in serious trouble at Westminster after overreaching himself by the claim that there are 70,000 “moderate rebels” willing to take up the ground war with Isis. Quite literally not one single MP believes him. There are those who believe the lie is justified. But even they know it is a lie.

    There is a very interesting parallel here with the claims over Iraqi WMD. The 70,000 figure has again been approved by the Joint Intelligence Committee, with a strong push from MI6. But exactly as with Iraqi WMD, there were strong objections from the less “political” Defence Intelligence, and caveats inserted.

• Finance

  • China may invest $1 trillion overseas in next 5 years

    Continuing the carrot and stick approach to international trade, Premier Li Keqiang told poorer European nations that China would likely invest in their countries and import their products if they promised to buy Chinese products

• PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • The Guardian’s Anti Corbyn Campaign Plumbs New Depths

    Yet astonishingly the Guardian ran three whole articles entirely about the McDonnell gaffe. You could read every single word of these three articles and not learn the basic information provided in each of the three Blue Tory papers above. The utterly disgraceful Jonathan Jones, John Crace and Tom Phillips all managed to produce articles which utterly omit what McDonnell actually said and why he said it, to contrive to give the impression that McDonnell was quoting Mao straight and with approval.

    [...]

    UPDATE: This is absolutely beyond parody. The Guardian have just published a FOURTH article on this subject, by Roy Greenslade, which still fails to say that McDonnell was referring to Osborne’s disposal of British assets to the Chinese state. Instead Greenslade cuts and pastes the most damning comments he can find in the Tory media. Not of course including any of the Tory media quotes given above which, unlike the Guardian, tell you what McDonnell was saying.

    When do you think the fifth Guardian article is coming?

• Privacy

  • Teardown shows Nest Cam is “always-on” even when you think it’s off

    It turns out your home security camera may see more of your home than you thought it did. In a teardown of the Nest Cam, a team at ABI Research found that even when “off,” the camera draws nearly the same amount of power as when it’s fully powered on, meaning it’s functional and running even when the indicator light claims otherwise.

  • Tor Project appeals for help to carry on, expand anti-spying network

    The Tor anonymous browsing project has asked for donations to improve the network and invest in educational projects.

    The Tor Project is a non-profit scheme which runs Tor. Otherwise known as The Onion Router, the system allows users to enter areas of the Internet which remain unindexed by common search engines.

    The node-and-relay layout also skewers the original IP of the user, improving anonymity and thwarting surveillance efforts.

  • Glenn Greenwald: Why the CIA is smearing Edward Snowden after the Paris attacks

    Decent people see tragedy and barbarism when viewing a terrorism attack. American politicians and intelligence officials see something else: opportunity.

    Bodies were still lying in the streets of Paris when CIA operatives began exploiting the resulting fear and anger to advance long-standing political agendas. They and their congressional allies instantly attempted to heap blame for the atrocity not on Islamic State but on several preexisting adversaries: Internet encryption, Silicon Valley’s privacy policies and Edward Snowden.

    [...]

    The CIA’s blame-shifting game, aside from being self-serving, was deceitful in the extreme. To begin with, there still is no evidence that the perpetrators in Paris used the Internet to plot their attacks, let alone used encryption technology.

    CIA officials simply made that up. It is at least equally likely that the attackers formulated their plans in face-to-face meetings. The central premise of the CIA’s campaign — encryption enabled the attackers to evade our detection — is baseless.