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Links 13/4/2012: Android on the Wrist, $35 Android ICS Tablet





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • 'Flashback' Mac Malware: One More Reason to Switch to Linux
    Given the vast numbers of Macs that are apparently infected with the Flashback Trojan malware, it's not at all surprising to see that sales of Mac security software are now skyrocketing.


  • Desktop

    • Malaysia Educates the Public About GNU/Linux
      The Government of Malaysia has long used GNU/Linux internally. In their country, many consumers are unaware of GNU/Linux and replace FreeDOS on PCs with illegal copies of that other OS. A program is under way to persuade OEMs and retailers to use GNU/Linux on PCs instead.


    • Google Chrome OS Review: Heading Towards Microsoft Market?


      With an eye on an unseen, distant future the 'pseudo-modern' desktops are adopting the single windowed approach. Whether it be Microsoft's Metro, Ubuntu's Unity or Gnome's new shell, they all think PC is nothing more than a smartphone with a touch screen.

      I am one of those who are not big fans of this approach. The 'pseudo-modern' desktop Uis are focused on smartphone/tablet like devices where you use one window (one app) at a time. What's the point of buying expensive CPUs and GPUs (minimum system requirements for modern operating systems) and 27" multiple monitors when all I can do is run one app at a time?


    • If OSs were Cars
      You are not your car. You can be a hacker and ride a sedan, you can ride a muscle car being a writer and you can go to school in a BMW. For some, the car is important or even has philosophical signifant but for most, the goal is ‘what I’m going with my car’.




  • Server

    • SAP Unveils Ambitious Plans for Database Market
      While HANA and its in-memory capabilities is a key platform for SAP's database strategy, so too is the Sybase database. SAP acquired Sybase in 2010 for $5.8 billion. Sikka said that Sybase is now able to run the entire SAP business suite.






  • Kernel Space



    • Graphics Stack

      • Open-Source ARM Mali Graphics Driver Achieves...
        The open-source ARM Mali graphics driver, known as the the Lima project, has achieved a major milestone.

        Since delivering the exclusive news of the Lima project as an open-source reverse-engineered ARM Mali graphics driver for Linux back in January, there hasn't been too much else to report on about this driver that's still early in its development life. This driver is called Lima since it doesn't have the official blessing of ARM Holdings and right now has been only running simple demos with Limare. The code is available and is running on the KDE Plasma Active Tablet as was talked about and shown at FOSDEM 2012.

        Fortunately this morning I've heard some news from the Lima developers about hitting a major milestone. Joining Luc Verhaegen, the lead developer of the Lima project, have been Ben Brewer (another employee of Codethink) and Connor Abbot have been the latest developers joining the Belgian on this open-source driver project.


      • Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Approaches Stable State


      • Improving Linux DRM For Embedded Systems
        A set of Direct Rendering Manager patches have appeared to ease the development of targeting DRM drivers for embedded systems. There's also two new DRM drivers using this SDRM layer.

        These patches for DRM on embedded systems provide "helpers" to take care of the DRM device and introduce an "SDRM" layer. The helpers can setup the CRTCs, encoders, connectors, and other components as separate devices rather than having the current monolithic design to a DRM driver. This work is based upon some of the Exynos driver patches by Samsung but was written by Sascha Hauer of the German-based Pengutronix.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments

    • Is Ubuntu Unity Faster Than Gnome Panel?
      One of the most active Ubuntu developers Jo-Erlend Schinstad is also a pro-active defender of Ubuntu Unity and HUD. He tries his best to clarify doubts of users and educate them about the features of Ubuntu Unity. Muktware has published quite a lot of his articles on various topics related to Ubuntu. We recently interviewed him to understand his approach towards Ubuntu and its users. He has now posted a video to compare Ubuntu Unity with Gnome Panel, as people seem to keep saying that they are more efficient with Gnome Panel than with Ubuntu Unity.


    • More details emerge about MyUnity 4.0


    • Report: Aura Window Manager, I'm confused.


    • LMDE MATE/Cinnamon 201204 RC Screenshot Tour
      The Release Candidate of the upcoming Linux Mint Debian Edition 201204 operating system has been announced by Clement Lefebvre on April 11th, 2012.

      Linux Mint Debian Edition 201204 RC comes in two editions: the first one features the MATE 1.2 and Cinnamon 1.4 desktop environments, and the second one features the Xfce 4.8 desktop environment.


    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Calligra 2.4.0 released
        After a long developmental period, Calligra 2.4.0, the first stable version of Calligra, has been released. Calligra is a Qt-based graphic and office suite forked from KOffice in 2010. Note: In some quarters, Calligra is said to be a continuation of KOffice, rather than a fork.


      • The First Version of Calligra Released


      • The Impact Of KDE On 3D Gaming
        Being discussed following the Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops Impact Performance, Power Consumption was the impact that KDE's KWin compositing window manager (and others that don't redirect fullscreen windows by default) has on the OpenGL gaming performance.

        Depending upon the driver it can potentially cause a hit as shown in Wednesday's comparison of Unity, Unity 2D, GNOME Shell, KDE, Xfce, LXDE, and Openbox. All of the desktop environments were tested in their "out of the box" / stock configurations on Ubuntu 12.04. The KDE aspect is being discussed in this forum thread where the usual items are brought up.






  • Distributions

    • ROSA Desktop 2012 beta review


    • Student stiffs penetration tool BackTrack Linux with 0-day
      A student has discovered a critical vulnerability in BackTrack, a flavour of Linux that's a favourite among security pros.

      The previously undiscovered (hence zero-day) privilege escalation bug in the network penetration-testing distro was discovered during an ethical hacking class organised by the InfoSec Institute.

      Jack Koziol, security programme manager at the institute, explained that the bug in Backtrack 5 R2 (the latest version) allowed the student to overwrite settings to gain a root shell. The flaw was found in wicd (the Wireless Interface Connection Daemon), which has not been tested for "potential remote exploitation vectors" according to Koziol.


    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mageia 2 Default Wallpapers Chosen
        Last fall Mageia put out the call for artists to participate in their Mageia 2 artwork contest. It's been eight long months, but the choices have now been made. The new Mageia 2 default and alternative backgrounds have been chosen.

        Submitted by Luiz Fernando, the winning image is a lovely deep blue base with wisps of royal blue cutting across the primary focal lines.




    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family





  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



  • Expert witness says most popular Hotfile downloads are open source apps
    Hotfile is determined to outlast Hollywood’s ongoing crusade against file locker services. The company is defending itself against an aggressive litigation campaign that movie studios first brought against it over a year ago. Hotfile’s case may be bolstered by a recent report which shows that the two most widely-downloaded files distributed through the popular file locker service are open source software applications.

    Charges against Hotfile that alleged direct copyright infringement were thrown out last year by a federal court judge. The remaining charges allege that the company is liable for inducing its users to infringe copyright. The answer to that question will hinge on whether the courts find that Hotfile has substantial non-infringing uses.


  • The Benefits of an Open Market, Revisited
    Overall as I developer, I find the ability to instantly push out updates highly desirable. As a consumer I appreciate the fact that submissions are tested and verified to at least technically work and not crash. Is there a perfect system? Not that I know of. What is the perfect system? I don’t know. If there was a way for developers to be able to reach their users quickly with bugfixes and even new features that allow for consumers to not have to wade through extremely low quality and exact duplicate apps, then I would be one happy developer.


  • Open Source Technologies: Saving and Improving Lives
    The thought of ‘open source’ need not always conjure up images of socially removed geeks slamming away at their keyboards.

    There have been instances of the open source ideology saving and improving lives, and this article explores a couple of examples on that aspect.


  • PhoneGap 1.6 Released!
    We are happy to announce the release of PhoneGap 1.6! The PhoneGap/Apache Cordova Community has worked hard to fix many bugs (including the nasty local storage bug caused by the iOS 5.1 update) and added some new features.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS



  • Databases

    • Oracle previews MySQL 5.6
      Offering a glimpse of the new features some database administrators will be working with before too long, Oracle has posted a preview version of the next MySQL relational database management system.

      The Development Milestone Release (DMR) for MySQL 5.6 comes with a number of new and still experimental features for the open source database system, including improved replication and the ability to bypass the SQL framework for faster data access.


    • Firebird SQL Project Newsletter, Issue 3


    • 10gen announces MongoDB Hadoop Connector
      10gen, the company behind MongoDB, has announced the general availability of a connector for its open source NoSQL database and Apache Hadoop, the MapReduce framework and distributed computing platform. According to its developers, version 1.0 of the connector is the "culmination of over a year of work to bring our users a solid integration layer between their MongoDB deployments and Hadoop clusters for data processing".


    • MariaDB 5.5.23 arrives with performance improvements
      Version 5.5.23 of MariaDB, a drop-in replacement for MySQL, has been published by the developers at Monty Program. The first stable release in the 5.5 series of the open source database includes performance improvements and "a few added features" over MySQL 5.5.23, which it is based upon.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • How LibreOffice Writer Tops MS Word: 12 Features
      When reviewers look at LibreOffice and its ancestor OpenOffice.org, they inevitably assume that it’s inferior to Microsoft Office. At the very most, they may grudgingly find it acceptable for undemanding users.

      However, when you examine LibreOffice and MS Office without assumptions, the comparison changes dramatically. That's especially true when looking at the word processors, LibreOffice's Writer and MS Office's Word.

      For one thing, features frequently have different names in Writer and Word. Although LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org have a history of conforming to MS Office's name-choices -- for example, in the spreadsheets, data pilots were recently renamed pivot tables to match Excel's usage -- holdouts remain. For example, the equivalent of Word's AutoSummary in Writer remains AutoAbstract.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Who Cares About Software Freedom?
      Well it's been a disconcerting kind of week here in the Linux blogosphere, not least because of all the darn construction going on down at the Google+ Grill.

      First it was the hammering giving Linux Girl a headache. Then, on Wednesday, she walked in after lunch and could barely recognize the place. What is this interface sorcery, she wants to know?

      Then, of course, there was the retirement of Linux Girl's old friend, Maverick Meerkat, in the past few days as well. Alas, dear distro -- we hardly knew ye!




  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming





Leftovers



  • Security



    • New ZeuS-based Trojan leeches cash from cloud-based payrolls


    • End of Windows XP support era signals beginning of security nightmare
      Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will end support for the Windows XP operating system in two years signals the end of an era for the company, and potentially the beginning of a nightmare for everyone else.

      When Microsoft cuts the chord on XP in two years it will effectively leave millions of existing Windows-based computers vulnerable to continued and undeterred cyberattacks, many of which hold the potential to find their way into consumer, enterprise and even industrial systems running the latest software.






  • Finance



  • Copyrights

    • Illegal Copying is not Theft
      Under US law, violation of copyright is not a crime unless commercial use is made of the copy or the value is more than $1K. Even when it is a crime, illegal copying is limited to 1, 5 or 10 years for different levels of severity and this guy was likely in the 1 year category.






Recent Techrights' Posts

UEFI "Secure Boot Doesn’t Play Nice at the Moment"
UEFI "Secure Boot" does not improve security. It's an artificial obstacle in service of monopoly.
If You Want to "make your 'Windows PC' lean, mean, and fast" You Will Install GNU/Linux or Some BSD
That kind of article says a lot about IDG
 
We Are Sad to Hear the Story of Jonathan Riddell, Champion of KDE and GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
I have enormous respect for Jonathan and everything he has done
Talking About the Problem vs Talking to the Problem
Wanting an audience is never a good excuse for compromising one's values and principles
Focusing on Patents
The reason we cover the EPO so much is that it's close to home
"Secure Boot Violation": The 'Joys' of Fake Security Gone Wrong
Not everyone reboots every day
Links 15/09/2025: Russia Invades Romanian Airspace, Penske Media Sues Google Over LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 15/09/2025: Bitcoin ATMs Scam and "Conservative Cryptography" (Backdoors Fantasies)
Links for the day
EPO Imitates Microsoft: "Three Days or More Per Week" Inside the Office to Get a Desk to Work on; "the Office Breaches Its Promise Towards Staff and Acts in Breach of Its Duty of Care"
The EPO serves no actual function in Europe
Links 15/09/2025: Political Affairs, Censorship, and Copyrights
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Music Genres, Invisible Networks, and Akademy 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 14, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 14, 2025
Satya's Plan B: Try to Hide the Massive Extent/Scale/Scope of Microsoft Layoffs
fewer people buy Microsoft
Red Hat News About De Facto Mass Layoffs (Bluewashing) Gone From Reddit (Censored by Gatekeepers), Still Online in The Register
With RTOs, PIPs, relocation etc. expect IBM to "shed off" many Red Hatters
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH, Music, and Reddit
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Infested With Slop (About Half of the Results for "Linux" Today)
This is the sort of junk one finds when looking for "Linux" in Google News these days
Links 14/09/2025: Ricky Hatton Dies and McDonald's Declares War on Tipping Culture
Links for the day
Links 14/09/2025: Disasters for CEOs Obsessed With Slop and Slop Companies School Like Fish
Links for the day
"Bad Shim Signature" (Microsoft 'Secure' Boot)
"Fresh install not booting"
What Microsoft Garrett and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar tactics, different "wings"
Links 14/09/2025: US "Economy Sagging", "Michigan Economy Wobbles From Tariffs"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: Minimalist Snippet Manager and Omarchy Linux
Links for the day
The Face of the Digital Far Right: Microsoft Lunduke
Microsoft Lunduke is an online extremist that belongs to and panders to the far right
20 Years Later and Academia Isn't the Same
"I never dreamed of being a professor"
'Cancel Culture' by the Right: Microsoft Lunduke Contacts People's Employers Trying to Get Them Fired
Microsoft Lunduke panders to extremists online
"Bad Shim Signature"; So 'Secure' That It Overrides Users' Preferences and Turns Itself Back on (Coercive Measure)
This was a few hours ago
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 13, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 13, 2025
Microsoft is Rapidly Dropped From Web Servers, Shows Survey
Microsoft lost about 8% "market share" in just 3 months
Many GNU/Linux Users Report MOK (Machine Owner Key) Issues in Recent Days
many people don't report this online and never post in Reddit
We Covered UEFI 'Secure Boot' Scandals. The World Listened.
To hell with UEFI 'secure boot'
Links 13/09/2025: Escalations in East Europe and POTUS’ Health Cover-Up
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/09/2025: Lagrange Turns 5 and Lagrange 1.19.2 Released
Links for the day
Microsoft Inside Your Linux: "Security vulnerability that allowed an attacker to bypass UEFI Secure Boot."
2 hours ago
A New Low for "Linux Journal": Promoting MICROSOFT WINDOWS Using LLM Slop
They've just jumped the shark entirely
Fake News With Fake Numbers About Microsoft
"This is what happens when the world's economy is governed by sick old men"
Slopwatch: "Google News" is Fast Becoming a Mashup of Slopfarms, Linux Journal ("LJ") is a Dump of LLM Slop
Well done, Google News. Google itself can flourish as a slopfarm mashup.
Torturing Users Who Just Want to Run GNU/Linux on Their Own PC
"Linux does not want to install"
The Register MS Still Takes Money to Hype Up "AI" in Articles by Microsoft Resellers With the Term "AI" 30+ Times in Them
Notice how many times they mention "AI"
The Apache Logo News is VERY Old, Racists and 'Anti-Woke' Bigots Look for Something to Incite Other Bigots With
Nothing to see here, move along
Linux Mint 9/11: "4th One Today..." (in Reddit)
Remember that not everyone having an issue reports it to social control media like Reddit
Nepal Will Fall Without a Single Shot Fired, Thanks to Social Control Media
Or very few shots (by the authorities)
European Corruption in the European Patent Office (EPO) Targets Culture
"In reality, the project includes a new “legal instrument” shifting administrative burden and liability on EPO staff while creating new uncertainty and externalising Amicale activities."
European Authorities, Already Bribed and Infiltrated by Microsoft, Won't Help You Find BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi
Because they're paid by Microsoft and are Microsoft 'addicts' themselves
UEFI Secure Boot Failing, as Expected for Nearly 15 Years Already (Techrights Said This Since 2012)
in the media
Debian 9/11
people report this issue
Gemini and Web Links 13/09/2025: MElon's Slop Grift and "Autonomous Trains"
Links for the day
Moving From Content Management Systems (CMSs) to Static Site Generators (SSGs) Saves You Time, Makes You a Lot More Productive
try to reduce the cost (financial and computational) of running your site
Pursuing Peace Through Violence
You cannot "see" a person's mind, until the mouth opens
Leak: European Patent Office (EPO) is Now Attacking Amicale Clubs
corruption has become the norm and scientists are robbed of any dignity
Can We Please Stop Celebrating Shooters?
"An important point to hammer on is that CoCs were never intended for uniform or symmetric application"
Oracle Fraud (or Defrauding Shareholders)
"the obvious [lie] is that watts are (wasted) electricity [and] and FLOPS are computing capacity"
Geminispace is Growing Faster in 2025 Than It Did in 2024
What matters is that corporations haven't ruined it and LLM slop is extremely rare
Links 13/09/2025: China Punishes for 'Negative' Posts, US Police Unable to Find Shooter
Links for the day
Who's the Mystery Financier of SLAPP Against Techrights and Is That a Millionaire/Billionaire?
Whose idea was it to fund meritless lawsuits against my wife and I?
Slopwatch: Slow Slop Day
This distracts from or may take traffic away from the original articles, actually written by actual people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 12, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 12, 2025