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
- Before Freenode Collapsed Its Staff (the People Who Now Run Libera.Chat) Were Censoring/Silencing Some Free Software Supporters
- We still have this issue in the Free software community
- All We Want to See is Any Form of Accountability in Europe's Largest Institutions
- Because people at the top of institutions should never be above the law!
- Misinformation/Disinformation Disguised as Information About GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL) Usage
- GPL-type licences (reciprocal obligations) remain dominant
- IBM Mass Layoffs This Week Not Limited to North America, Red Hat Staff Terminated
- Do not relocate for a company that sees you as nothing but a number or a "human resource"
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- Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli Targets "Linux" With LLMs, Google News Helps Blame "Linux" for Amazon WorkSpaces Flaws
- Tonight's slopfest
- Gemini Links 07/11/2025: Switzerland, k3s, and Privacy
- Links for the day
- Links 07/11/2025: Software Patents Squashed, Stock Markets Wobble Over Slop Uncertainties
- Links for the day
- A 19th Anniversary and High-Impact Exclusives
- The end of 2025 will be very difficult for EPO management
- The Register MS, Payroll First
- GNU/Linux is a growing platform
- Links 07/11/2025: US Government Shutdown Imperils Critical Functions, Slop in "AI" Clothing Debunked Some More, Bubble's Implosion Ongoing/Imminent According to Experts
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/11/2025: No Goodbyes, Homelab, Mouse Keys / Pointer Keys
- Links for the day
- 12 Years for Justice is Far Too Slow (and More People, Especially Women, Are Hurt)
- Why do police departments and legal systems fail to protect women?
- Freenode and irc.com Are Still Around
- It emulates retro terminals
- We Don't Compete, We Analyse and Report
- Principles are so much better than money and they're something money can never acquire
- Red Hat is Also Laying Off Staff in India
- Red Hat is a dishonest company
- Finding Recent Talks of Richard Stallman
- We already have many pages, documents, and media files. Organising them and helping people find them is the next Big Task.
- Richard Stallman First Speaker at Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress the Weekend After This Coming Weekend
- He'll be speaking over the Net
- Diversity at Red Hat
- Remember to judge corporations by their actions, not some Web pages with words in them
- First the Python Software Foundation (PSF) Attacked Its Most Productive Volunteers. Now It Attacks Its Funding Sources.
- The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) rejected by PSF
- News of Substance About the EPO's Substance Abuse (Cocaine)
- EPO Cocaine Chronicles - link to archived BILD article and photos
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 06, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, November 06, 2025
- On Midlife Crises
- Focus on the sabotage, not politics
- Hallmark of Fake News: "Single-digit" (Percentage) and 1% Isn't the Same Thing
- apparently "rebalancing" is the new layoffs euphemism
- Links 07/11/2025: Patent Trolls Target Germany, Celebrities Visit Ukraine
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and Google News Boosting WebProNews (All Slopfarms)
- Those slopfarms just saturate the Web with misinformation and mindless chaff
- Techrights and Tux Machines at Over 40
- 19 years of Techrights and 21+ years of Tux Machines
- Coming Soon: More Proof of Cocaine Use at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- Stay tuned
- Entering Our 20th Year
- ...and still looking for answers
- Mailing lists vs Discourse forums: open source communities or commodities?
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 06/11/2025: "Component Abuse Challenge", Google Play Store Deemed Too Monopolistic
- Links for the day
- Microsoft and Microsoft GitHub (and Rust @ Microsoft GitHub) the Future of Ubuntu, They Want the Same for Debian
- Ubuntu is not the place to find freedom
- Richard Stallman Was Right About LLM-based Chatbots
- the passing fad, LLM-based chatbots
- IBM Has Not Been Good for IBM's Red Hat (Which Microsoft Also Attempted to Buy)
- GAFAM or GIAFAM are not a force for good
- Taking Back Control Over Technology We Purchase (Study, Modify, Enhance, and More)
- "The war on general-purpose computing continues
- Links 06/11/2025: EFF Wants New Executive Director, Microsoft's Azure Falls Over Again
- Links for the day
- All Set for Tomorrow
- Techrights waves
- The Corporate Media Carries on With Patently Phony and Misleading Narrative About IBM's Mass Layoffs
- Instead of rightly alleging business failure or commercial (leadership's) weakness it is offloading blame to some mindless buzzwords
- IBM Isn't Hiring Based on Age Groups. It Still Hires Based on Salary Expectations.
- It is not about the skills available, it's about the expected cost of labour
- Estimating the Scale of IBM's Mass Layoffs This Week
- there is no denying that the IBM layoffs are vast
- Telling Our Story as Victims of Online Abuse
- This post will not mention any names
- Claim That EPO Quotas Brought Corruption and Mischief to Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- Nowadays corruption is the norm at the EPO and there is even rampant substance abuse among the people who run the Office
- Rust's "Memory Safety" Talking Point Ought to be Discarded in Light of Fil-C
- new memory-safe C/C++ compiler
- Claim That IBM Has Another 8 Days to Lay Off 'Expensive' Staff
- The consensus in comments we see is, IBM is a terrible place to work in, treatment of its workers is appalling, it's utterly foolish to relocate in an effort to retain a job at IBM, and it's foolish to join the company in the first place
- Science Demands Facts, Not Dogma
- Saying that restricted hardware is not secure hardware should be common sense
- Site Anniversary is Tomorrow
- The celebrations might delay our EPO series somewhat
- Launching Techrights Search
- New search interface and locally hosted back end
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 05, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, November 05, 2025
- Slopwatch: linuxbsdos.com, Linux Journal, LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and WebProNews
- Either Google doesn't care about the integrity of Google News or it deems slop to be acceptable
- Gemini Links 05/11/2025: Affirmation, GnuPG, and While Loops
- Links for the day
- Links 05/11/2025: Economic Trouble in France and US Bombing All Over the World Without Declaration of War or Congress Approving
- Links for the day
- IBM May Well Be Laying Off Over 13,500 and Up to 27,000 Staff This Week When It Says "Single-Digit Percentage of Our Global Workforce"
- It's not yet possible to know how many people IBM gets rid of
- Red Hat Staff Also Impacted by Latest IBM Layoffs With Focus on North America and Software, Infrastructure
- After the bluewashing never expect to see news about "Red Hat layoffs", just as "Tivoli layoffs" aren't to be expected
- Early Unverified Figures About Scale of Latest IBM Layoffs
- the real scale of the RAs will remain elusive
- Coming Soon: Part 4 About the EPO's Substance Abuse (Breaking Laws to Fake 'Production' and Profiting From Unlawful Monopolies)
- Notice how quiet the EPO's management has been lately
- How Techrights Search Works
- Hopefully bots won't use it
- For the Record: We Never Named Staff of the Law Firm That's Attacking Us, Except the One the Firm is Named After!
- Just to affirm and be sure, I've used our new search facility
- Techrights Became a Lot More Productive as a Result of Attacks on It
- By default, it's safe to assume anything on the Web is garbage, especially in social control media
- Unverified Rumours: IBM Cuts Will Continue Another ~10 Days, Managers Will Invite Those Impacted for 1-on-1 Meetings
- Right now IBM likes diversity because with adoption of low-paid demographies it gets to pay workers less for the same work
- Links 05/11/2025: Medicare Privatisation and "Breaker Box Economy"
- Links for the day
- Techrights Search Will Come Early
- Maybe tomorrow
- It Seems Like GNOME/IBM Don't Like Women and When Budget is Limited Only Women Take the Fall
- Seems like a very patriarchal, GAFAM-controlled Foundation
- "Last Day" as in "IBM Sacked Me" (Cruel Euphemisms)
- "The entire design and research technical leadership at IBM was laid off in the past year, including this round"
- analytics.usa.gov: Vista 11 Scarcely Used, GNU/Linux Increasingly Dominant (Microsoft Loses "Goodwill", Depletes Cash Equivalents, and Debt Soars)
- "Total current assets" fell by more than 2 billion dollars in the past 3 months
- Shadow Crew and Ads Disguised as Articles
- That The Register MS runs articles that are paid-for fluff isn't unprecedented
- Vista 11 "Market Share" Has Fallen This Month, Based on statCounter
- The US government's own data shows the same thing this month
- This is How Mainstream Media, Boosted or Parroted by Slopfarms, Spins IBM's Commercial Failure and Mass Layoffs as "AI"
- Some say "software focus", but most just resort to buzzwords and blame-shifting hype
- Resisting Misogynists
- Rianne has already added close to 100,000 pages to this site
- Starting November on a Strong Note
- All in all, this month started well for us as we have good, accurate publications with considerable impact
- Fake Retirements Help IBM Keep the Layoff Figures Down
- Yesterday we read that it was quite cruel how IBM (or Red Hat) compelled staff to pretend to be happily leaving or "retiring" when the reality was, they had been pushed out with some "package"
- Cocaine at the European Patent Office Now a Subject in YouTube, Media Will Revisit the Topic
- "The Cocaine Patent Office" is no joking matter
- Gemini Links 05/11/2025: "Wuthering Heights" and "Winter is Coming"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 04, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, November 04, 2025
- 2 Days Until Site Anniversary Party, Search Likely to Launch Same Day
- We're now just two days away from the nineteenth anniversary of the site
- Not Only Mass Layoffs at IBM But Complete Shutdowns "Amid A.I. Boom"
- apparently about 10,000 layoffs, not counting those who got pushed out by PIPs and other means