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
- IBM: We Can't Make 'AI' (Voice Recognition) Do the Work of a McDonald's Teenager, So Let's Try the Same on Saudi Planes
- IBM is lost. It's truly lost.
- The General Public License (GPL) Inspired the Web's Original Openness/Freedom, According to Tim Berners-Lee
- "During the preceding year I had been trying to get CERN to release the intellectual property rights to the Web code under the General Public License (GPL) so that others could use it."
- The Real Problem With Rust is Not "Wokeness" (It Never Was)
- Don't feed the trolls who attack "Rust People" on political grounds
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- Why?
- Why write articles?
- Microsoft-Connected Publisher Spinning XBox's Death Spiral (It's Dying Fast) as a Strength and Something Deliberate
- "Microsoft’s big gaming pivot"
- Slop is Rare by Now
- A year ago slop was so abundant that we did a whole series about it, and it was daily
- Links 21/12/2025: U.S. Strikes in Syria, "Epstein Files Photos Disappear From Government Website"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Labrador Retriever of Lagrange's Developer Dies From Cancer, Political Philosophy, and "Getting to Inbox Zero"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft is Becoming Irrelevant: The Case of Georgia
- Not Georgia Tech
- Sirius Open Source is Now Imminently Dead (Struck Off)
- compulsory strike-off
- Dr. Richard Stallman, Invited by LibreTech Collective, is Giving a Public Talk in Georgia Tech Next Month (Scheller College of Business)
- They can probably squeeze about 400 people into this room
- 25 Years of Activism for GNU/Linux
- My passion for GNU/Linux brought a lot of contentment
- Africa, Where Microsoft Used De Facto Slaves to Pretend to be "AI", Chatbots Usage is 0.2% of Measured Online Traffic
- Judging by recent trends in Africa, many "Windows PCs" are being converted into GNU/Linux computers
- New Drone Footage Shows IBM is Dead (Parts of It)
- The people who participated in IBM when IBM actually mattered probably have boasting rights, unlike people who work for IBM today
- Michael Larabel Adds Slop Category to Phoronix, Quickly Realises That It's Worthless
- Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)
- After 35 Years the World Wide Web, HTML, and HTTP Are Proprietary
- HTTP/2 added a lot of complexity (it's just a Google protocol, based on SPDY originally), many image formats are proprietary and patented, HTML got 'replaced' by Java-Scripts [sic], and many URLs (the URL system was created in the early 90s) are just long strings for proprietary 'webapps'
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 20, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, December 20, 2025
- The Register MS Has Lowered Its Standards Considerably
- Incidentally, we've only just noticed that "US editor for The Register since July 2025" has not been active for 4 weeks already
- Scamfarms, Spamfarms, and Slopfarms in "Linux" Clothing
- Today, Linux searches in Google News produced no slop at all. That's an improvement.
- Did Bill Gates Lobby to Blur the Face of the Young Woman He Openly Braces (and Who Isn't His Wife)?
- "This photo of of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with a woman whose face is blurred out is just one of 68 more photos and documents released today."
- Links 20/12/2025: Microsoft Ruins Televisions, 'Epstein Files' Deeply Sanitised (to Protect Particular Culprits)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 20/12/2025: Merry Christmas 2025 and Running a Factorio Headless Server on FreeBSD with the Linuxulato
- Links for the day
- With 10 Days Left, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Already Raised Close to $300,000 This Winter
- they're besieged by despicable corporations and very despicable people
- 2025 in Numbers
- What was very good about this year is that we truly got "into the rhythm" of publishing
- More Microsoft Layoffs Coming Soon
- When I spoke about Microsoft layoffs (routinely) I got very viciously attacked by Microsoft boosters
- My Humble Assessment of the Future of Red Hat, A Company That IBM is Flushing Down the Loo
- GNU/Linux will be OK without Red Hat, but shaping the future of it matters because we don't want companies like Valve (DRM) to set the agenda
- Probably the Least Useful Gadgets, Ever
- as if a "smart" thing worn on the wrist is the "new Rolex"
- Former Manager at IBM Research (Yorktown) Says Why IBM is Doomed and the Anonymous Tipline (Speak Up) is a Trap
- IBM isn't willing to change or to address internal issues
- Links 20/12/2025: Fentanylware Becomes CheeTok and "Why Roomba Died"
- Links for the day
- Linux Foundation: Richard Stallman Developed Only a Software Licence
- We already criticised this report several times last night
- Impulsive Writing, Quotas, and Keeping Things as Concise as Feasible
- A 10-word sentence being read by a million people can have the same impact or magnitude (exposure-wise) as a million-word book being read by just 10 people
- Gemini Links 20/12/2025: Christmas Songs, Storms, and Old Web
- Links for the day
- Coming to Grips With a Lack of Future at IBM
- Red Hat's future doesn't look bright under the auspices as they seem right now
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 19, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, December 19, 2025
- Links 20/12/2025: Media Layoffs, a Third of Online Traffic is Bots
- Links for the day
- Barbados: Significant Gains for GNU/Linux
- over 5% if one counts ChromeOS as well
- Very Shallow LLM Slop for IBM Disguised as Journalism About a "Plan to Train 5 Million Learners in India by 2030" (Unverified Figures With Very Distant Future Date/Year)
- The Web has become somewhat of a laughing stock
- 'Linux' Foundation: The Foundation Has Almost Nothing to Do With Linux, It Just Misuses the Name "Linux"
- Only a tiny portion of the Foundation's budget actually goes to Linux
- Austria vs GAFAM
- another win against GAFAM
- Microsoft Has Purchased Another Linux Foundation Seat
- From the latest (new) report
- No Electronics, No Clocks, No Phones
- We're meant to think that more gadgets will make life easier
- Gemini Links 19/12/2025: Great Website Rebuild of 2025 and Running OpenBSD in a Hostile Environment
- Links for the day
- Google News Helps Slopfarms (What's Left of Them)
- Lately we've noticed that nothing in the RSS feeds we follow is burping out slop
- Links 19/12/2025: Privacy International's Reports and Russian Assets in EU
- Links for the day
- Today, The Register MS is Parroting Marketing Spam for Ponzi Scheme ("AI") in Exchange for Money
- The Register MS should be held accountable when the bubble pops
- Red Hat Senior Engineering Manager Leaves (or Gets Pushed Out by IBM) After Nearly 20 Years at the Company
- The recent massive wave of IBM layoffs impacted Red Hat and so will the next (impending, Q1) wave
- Why We Got Told by Insiders That Almost Everyone at EPO Reads Techrights and Many at IBM Track IBM RAs Via Techrights
- In a nutshell, we cover topics almost no other site dares touch
- IBM Research Shutting Down Labs, Lots of Workers Laid Off (Even Days Before Christmas in Devout Catholic Country)
- Heartless, soulless company
- Links 19/12/2025: Windows TCO in NHS, "Locked Out of Apple Account Due to Gift Card"
- Links for the day
- Nearly Three Months Have Passed Since EPO Cocainegate and the EPO's Management Still Refuses to Talk About It
- But it's clearly aware of it
- Richard Stallman Explains Why Software Patents Are Really Bad and Very Much Unnecessary
- "The relationship between patents and products varies between the fields"
- The Copycats of the FSF Have Serious Problems
- If you care about Software Freedom, then support the real thing
- Once Again, Just in Time for Christmas, UEFI and Its Boot System Turn Out to be a Giant Bug Door (Also a Microsoft Remote Kill Switch)
- This industry - even academia - has been deeply compromised
- In Activism and Journalism, If You're Ineffective They Ignore You, When You Become Effective They Stalk and Harass You, Failing That They Threaten You
- "the Wikileaks effect"
- Google Has Begun Linking to commandlinux.com in Google News, But It Seems to be a Slopfarm
- This is not innovation, it's sloppiness, laziness, and a modern form of plagiarism
- Microsoft Reportedly Tries to Cause Top-Level Managers to Resign If they Don't Participate in the Ponzi Scheme
- Apparently even executives who don't play along are given marching orders
- Microsoft, Over 120 Billion Dollars in Debt, Prepares Next Round of Mass Layoffs (After Christmas)
- Microsoft is not managing to pay back its debt
- Links 19/12/2025: Scam Altman Humiliates Self in Public, Climate Alarm Sounded, Egyptian Economist Convicted Over "Social Control Media Posts Critical of the Government"
- Links for the day
- You Can Get Work Done With Lean Software
- obviously!
- "The War on Privacy" is Real
- "He Built a Privacy Tool. Now He’s Going to Prison."
- The Cost of Being Influential
- The "tech world" and its monopoly enforcer (patent system) are sleepwalking into autocracy
- More Shutdowns and Layoffs at IBM
- if someone covers correct but suppressed information, then people will make an effort to find it
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 18, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, December 18, 2025
- EPO Violates Laws to Profit More From Invalid Patents, Then Cuts the Budget Allocated to Staff
- taking away what was already promised to staff
- Only a Few Examples of LLM Slop Found, Mostly via Google News
- Is it fair to say that sites learned LLM slop does not offer any real value?