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Links 2/10/2015: Qubes 3.0, Linux.Wifatch





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop



    • Why your Linux PC isn't vulnerable to the devastating XOR DDoS malware
      Linux isn’t perfectly secure, but there’s no big Linux exploit story here. The real problem is how many poorly configured Linux systems exist in the real world. Linux isn’t a magic bullet that will make a system secure—it has to be locked down properly, too.


    • Google Chromebooks: The most popular classroom computing device
      In Apple's place, Google with its Chromebooks have stepped in. Chromebooks are cheaper, easier to manage, and easy to share between students. The low upfront price is a big factor, but there's far more.

      For example, Google offers programs just for schools, Google Apps for Education Suite; class-specific ChromeOS and Android apps, and Google Play for Education. Chromebooks that come with Google Play for Education range at prices from $199 to $227.


    • Kali Linux: Why Aren’t We Arguing More about Mr Robot?
      In episode 0 of Mr Robot, we’re introduced to our hiro protagonist [Elliot], played by [Rami Malek], a tech at the security firm AllSafe. We are also introduced to the show’s Macbeth, [Tyrell Wellick], played by Martin Wallström]. When these characters are introduced to each other, [Tyrell] notices [Elliot] is using the Gnome desktop on his work computer while [Tyrell] says he’s, “actually on KDE myself. I know [Gnome] is supposed to be better, but you know what they say, old habits, they die hard.”




  • Server



    • Google and NASA are getting a new quantum computer
      The famous Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab is getting some powerful new hardware. A joint project between Google, NASA, and the Universities Space Research Association, the Quantum AI Lab today announced a multiyear agreement to install a D-Wave 2X, a state-of-the-art quantum processor released earlier this year. With over 1,000 qubits, the machine is the most powerful computer of its kind, and will be put to work tackling difficult optimization problems for both Google and NASA.




  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



      • Kubuntu: Plasma 5.4.2 Ready testing! Come join the fun.
        Today we have the latest Plasma 5.4.2 ready for Wily (backports will not be made until this one has been tested and released)


      • The Future of Kontact
        Supplemental to what we reported previously about the work in Randa [1, 2] there was a session on the future of Kontact, KDE’s personal information manager (PIM). Over the years this tool has evolved into a monster making both development as well as usage sometimes tricky. It’s time to cut hydra’s arms.






  • Distributions



  • Devices/Embedded



    • Compact, low power IoT gateway runs Linux on i.MX6
      VIA’s 30mm tall “Artigo A820” IoT gateway runs Linux on an i.MX6 DualLite, and offers optional WiFi and 3G in addition to Fast and GbE Ethernet ports.

      Like last year’s Artigo A900 mini-PC, the Artigo A820 runs Linux on a dual-core, 1GHz Cortex-A9 SoC. This time, however, VIA Technologies has turned to Freescale’s i.MX6 DualLite SoC instead of its own Via Elite E1000.


    • Phones



      • Fairphone launches v2 of it conflict-free, upgradeable smartphone


        There's a company offering a repairable and upgradable smartphone out there and Jack Wallen believe it is just what the world needs. Read on to see if you agree.


      • Android

        • Facebook gives Android a kick in the byte code
          To improve the mobile performance of its social network, Facebook is enhancing Java bytecode on the Android platform with its Redex project, providing a pipeline for optimizing Android DEX (Dalvik Executable) files.


        • 13 of the best Android apps from September
          Coming off the back of the summer holidays always make September a busy month and this year it was no different.

          From useful spam fighting options arriving for Gmail to movie tracking and the launch of a huge repository of online tutorials across a range of subjects.

          We’ve sorted the wheat from the chaff and what follows is the best new and updated apps from September.

          All you need to do is clear a few minutes in your schedule and click your way through the list.


        • Google reveals new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices
          Google's Chromecast streaming media player has proven to be a popular item on Amazon, getting four star ratings and lots of positive comments from Amazon customers. Now Google has announced a brand new Chromecast, and also the new Chromecast Audio device.


        • Hands on: Google Pixel C convertible tablet
          It’s difficult to tell if the new Google Pixel C is a great idea, or an awful one. It feels like a greatest hits list of Windows 8 convertible failures. It’s a clamshell, and the tablet is connected to the keyboard via magnets. But to open it or close it, you have to pull it apart and reconnect it. You can also flip the tablet upright and stick the keyboard to the back of it, though it makes the tablet thicker and heavier than you may like. The entire converting process is messy. Google tries to cover it all up with a beautiful aluminum design and smooth hinges that adjust angle easily. But will it be fun to use every day? I’m not so sure.


        • Google announces the LG Nexus 5X and Huawei Nexus 6P; pre-orders start today
          Google has officially taken the wraps off its new flagship smartphone lineup. In keeping with the current smartphone release trends, Google is announcing two devices today: the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. The 5X is made by LG, and the 6P is made by Huawei. The Nexus 5X starts at $379, and the 6P starts at $499, and both phones will ship later this month. Pricing for other territories is starting to dribble in—the Nexus 5X and 6P will begin at €£339 and €£449 respectively in the UK—but we'll update the article with more complete information as it's made available.


        • Google announces the new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio
          The new Chromecast has a disk-like design, a departure from the original's dongle construction. Its improved internals should also make streaming easier and faster. Now featuring three antennas, it supports 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi for faster connectivity and heavier formats like 1080p. While the new Chromecast handles video and game streaming, the Chromecast Audio device will handle streaming music or podcasts. The new Chromecast plugs into a device with HDMI; Audio uses both optical and headphone jacks to plug into speakers.


        • Huawei’s first Android Wear watch is a beautiful yet basic timepiece
          Huawei isn't exactly the first company that comes to mind when you think of stylish connected devices. The Chinese manufacturer has delved into wearables with its TalkBand series, but those were slow to come to the US and their fitness tracker-meets-Bluetooth-headset capabilities were peculiar. Now Huawei wants to test the waters of Google's wearable OS with its new smartwatch, simply dubbed the Huawei Watch, and it's a solid first attempt at Android Wear.










Free Software/Open Source



  • Apache Foundation retains informal vibe to manage $1m of open-source projects
    The Apache open-source community gathered at its annual conference in Europe this week to collaborate on new projects to drive the future of the web and cloud ecosystems, with a handful of new projects under incubation.


  • Seize the opportunity to explain open source
    Kids have an insatiable appetite for knowledge. I would estimate that all of us with children have had them go through a phase of asking "Why?" constantly. In truth, it often comes at the most inconvenient moment for a parent; like when the world is literally going to explode unless your child puts down the green marker pen, and instead of doing it, they just look up at you and ask "Why?" I was no different. I went through the "Why?" phase. My daughter has been through it and my nephew is going through it right now.


  • AWS launches a managed Elasticsearch service
  • Amazon launches managed Elasticsearch service
  • AWS debuts Elasticsearch Search, its distributed search and analytics engine
  • Amazon flings open source Elasticsearch at Big Data's cloud
  • New Amazon Elasticsearch service eases setup, with exceptions


  • Amazon Adds Open Source Elasticsearch Platform to AWS Cloud
    Elasticsearch is a Java-based open source framework for searching textual documents on a massive scale. It is designed to be highly scalable and compatible with cluster-based distributed-computing infrastructure.


  • IBM and EMC team up: There’s no “I” in open source
    Sometimes when you are distracting the signal from the noise, you get an exclusive. Today theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, got the full story on the EMC and IBM partnership to work in an open-source environment to make Hadoop more accessible to the enterprise.


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • Firefox Is Much Better than Any Other Browser and Here's Why
        We often read about comparative tests between browsers and we see that Google Chrome or Opera are extremely fast, or that some other browser gets really good scores in rendering, and so on. The truth is that none of that really matters when you are using browsers in the real world, and in the real world Firefox shines and it's head and shoulders above everything else.






  • SaaS/Big Data



    • The return of TryStack, life as a PTL, and more OpenStack news
      Interested in keeping track of what's happening in the open source cloud?


    • A Brief Comparison of Mesos and Kubernetes
      The recent announcement of Mesos on Windows means developers and organizations that work between Linux and Windows platforms may use their own tools without requiring heavy resource management. Those working with the Google Cloud Engine may prefer working with Kubernetes, while people accustomed to Microsoft Azure may enjoy the Mesosphere workflow pipeline. Each has their own strengths and shortcomings, though the gap between stack management services lessens as more technology is brought to other platforms.


    • MapR Technologies Unveils In-Hadoop Document Database
      MapR integrates Web-scale enterprise storage and real-time database management and adds native JSON support to MapR-DB, its NoSQL database.




  • Databases



    • Pivotal Aims at Oracle Database Business with Open Source Tech
      Software company Pivotal is taking on Oracle’s traditional database business with its latest effort to advance open source. The company is contributing both HAWQ advanced SQL on Hortonworks’ Hadoop analytics and MADlib machine learning technologies to The Apache Software Foundation (ASF).




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS



    • If Drupal were a band it would be Rush
      Getting my clients' developers and sysadmins to stick to all of the documented processes I've set up for them.

      I have years of experience implementing Drupal-based solutions, so I have a rather solid understanding of what works and what doesn't. But some folks without any experience with Drupal try to shoehorn it into incompatible environments. I do my best to explain all of this and why to ensure that, when I'm gone, folks can take all of my wiki documentation and run with it (use it and update it as necessary).




  • Business





    • Semi-Open Source





  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • What do you have to say? Share it at LibrePlanet 2016
      LibrePlanet 2016 is coming! Next year's conference will be held **March 19-20, 2016 in the Boston area**. The call for proposals is open now, until November 16th. General registration and exhibitor registration will open later in October.


    • Chicago GNU/Linux talk on Guix retrospective
      Friends... friends! I gave a talk on Guix last night in Chicago, and it went amazingly well. That feels like an undersell actually; it went remarkably well. There were 25 people, and apparently there was quite the waitlist, but I was really happy with the set of people who were in the room. I haven't talked about Guix in front of an audience before and I was afraid it would be a dud, but it's hard to explain the reaction I got. It felt like there was a general consensus in the room: Guix is taking the right approach to things.




  • Public Services/Government



    • EC to increase open source for software development
      The European Commission aims to primarily use open source tools for developing software that is distributed publicly, shows an overview on open source adoption that was presented last week by the EC’s Directorate General of Informatics (DIGIT) at a conference in Tampere (Finland). Already much of the EC’s own software is developed using open source. However, over the next 3 years, DIGIT will push to make ‘open source first’ the target for all the new EC software development projects.




  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • Most Popular Programming Languages In The IT industry
      Programmers are always in high demand these days for jobs, especially if they have fluency in coding language. Learning programming in various languages for engineers is a no-brainer, but some basic understanding of the languages can be invaluable to anyone, even if you’re not looking forward to becoming a master coder.


    • PHPUnit 5.0


    • PHP version 5.5.30 and 5.6.14
      RPM of PHP version 5.6.14 are available in remi repository for Fedora ≥ 21 and remi-php56 repository for Fedora ≤ 20 and Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS).






Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM 'Value' Fell 20%, The Executives Took Bonuses and Bonus Hikes
IBM is paying more and more money to the executives
More Information on IBM Red Hat Layoffs in April 2026, Hundreds of Skilled GNU/Linux Engineers Laid Off (300+ Simultaneously)
How long can the corporate media ignore IBM layoffs for?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 41 Out of 200: More Misuse of UK-GDPR (for US Citizens), More Copy-Pasting for Garrett and Graveley, Alleging That Publishing Unflattering Information is a 'Privacy' Issue
No wonder his own colleagues thought poorly of him (the junior barrister)
Dr. Andy Farnell Blasts Misuse of the Term "AI" to Describe Plagiarism, Plunder, and Misinformation
Dr. Stallman wrote about it back in the early 1980s
A Sign of Progress?
We'll solve war hunger and colonise Mars soon, according to men who never graduated from College
The Slop Delusion: This Morning We Broke Story on Red Hat Layoffs in Two Posts, Google is Already Plagiarising Them With Slop and Getting the Basic Facts Wrong
Google does not have "AI"; it has slop, which means it scrapes other people's work, then imitates it poorly
April 15: Richard Stallman to Speak at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas
Next Wednesday in the afternoon Dr. Stallman will speak in a US college for the second time this year and for the second time in nearly 8 years
 
Three Years Ago We Disconnected From the United States, Now France Does the Same
Maybe in the coming months France will recruit loads of UNIX/Linux specialists
While Thousands of EPO Workers Are on Strike the President of the EPO, Who Bribes His Voters, Gives Himself Millions of Euros and 5,000 Euros Per Month in Housing Allowance
Campinos is immune, inherently corrupt, and habitual briber of his 'voters'
IBM and Red Hat Whistleblowers Versus a Dying Fourth Estate (Journalism Seems to Have Died as Silently as IBM RAs Go)
What a crazy world we live in!
Slopfarms We Forget About Because They Silently Die
The hard reality (for slobs and sloppers) is, slopfarms have no future
Gemini Links 10/04/2026: Flexiveganism, What Happened to Twitter, and Algorithm Fetishes
Links for the day
Links 10/04/2026: Indonesia's Social Control Media Bans Extend to Google YouTube, "I.M.F. Says Iran War Will Drag Global Growth Lower"
Links for the day
Media Blackout Regarding Mass Layoffs at Red Hat
To be very clear, what happened is certainly real
SLAPP Censorship - Part 42 Out of 200: Getting the Very Basic Technical Concepts Very Wrong, or Where Miscomprehension Begets "Plausible Deniability"
It's difficult to argue with people over things that they do not even understand
This Coming Weekend and Next Week We'll Cover EPO Scandals a Lot, There Are Still Perpetual Strikes That the Media Intentionally Avoids Covering
Expect our focus on EPO corruption to grow again
Raw: Extensive Evidence of Red Hat's Mass Layoffs in China (IBM Meets Geopolitics)
This has nothing to do with workers' performance
We'll Never Ever Do Social Control Media, Nate Silver's Article Helps Explain Why
If you want to research and publish, stay away from it
Links 10/04/2026: Pseudoscience and "Amazon Pulls Support for Perfectly Fine Older Kindles" and More Attacks on American Journalism
Links for the day
"IBM is Constantly Laying Off People" (Not Just in Red Hat)
IBM as a company is collapsing
Many Layoffs at IBM Red Hat, as the Rumours Said
Red Hat mass layoffs [...] "this was a difficult decision to make."
Microsoft, Drowning in Net Debt, Will Make Many More Cuts
The company is a net negative to society
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 09, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, April 09, 2026
Gemini Links 10/04/2026: Cycling, Slop, and Software to Keep Photos Organised
Links for the day
Henry Abbott (TrueHoop) Says Microsoft Taken Public by Alvin Bernard "Buzzy" Krongard (in New Interview About Jeffrey Epstein)
He has claimed that the man who took Microsoft public was a banker and also connected to the CIA (former Executive Director)
Quick Roundup of "Linux" Slop
Today we saw a slopfarm again in Google News
Links 09/04/2026: Microsoft Attacking VeraCrypt and "Canada’s New Surveillance Law"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/04/2026: Shopping, LLMs That Ruin the Net, and Moving to GNU/Linux
Links for the day
Links 09/04/2026: TikTok Sets Up Another Outpost in Finland (EU), "Trump Attacks On Public Media Blocked by Judge"
Links for the day
Microsoft's DevDiv Executive Has Quit (Is GitHub on the Chopping Block?)
CodePlex all over again?
Chatbots (or LLMs) Are Killing Us, and We Ought to Talk About It
We need to talk (to each other, not to bots)
Microsoft Also Fires Senior Executives
Microsoft is a very feeble company pretending to be a giant
Microsoft Windows in Ireland: From 90% to Just 16%
When it comes to Ireland's Web usage, not much of it is from Windows anymore
SLAPP Censorship - Part 40 Out of 200: Putting Forth Frivolous Claim Only a Few Days Before Running Out of Time (12 Months)
my response to a frivolous claim from Graveley
IBM Layoffs by Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) and More Evidence of Layoffs at HashiCorp After IBM Took Over
Notice how the media does not cover IBM layoffs
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 08, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 08, 2026
Gemini Links 09/04/2026: On the Radio, Boogie Notes, Slop in Search Engines and USENET
Links for the day
Countries Where Windows is Measured Below 1%
Windows' monoculture is going away
SLAPP Censorship - Part 39 Out of 200: Recycled Text for Garrett and Graveley (Buy One, Get One Free?)
perhaps thousands of pounds per hour
Microsoft Azure is Now “Perpetually on Life Support”, Even Microsoft Sites Express Concerns
Less than a decade ago Microsoft-connected sites kept saying that AWS was doomed and Microsoft would replace AWS with Azure
IBM's Fedora Project Sees Sharp Increase (Over 25%) in Code of Conduct Complaints, i.e. Censorship Demands
Remember that IBM lawyered up against its own community in an effort to shut down a site critical of it
Malicious Bots
Tackling corruption in the world is never easy
Slopfarms Marginalised, Some Suspend Operations
some people who become lazy and prompt LLMs are just signalling that they throw in the towel
Gemini Links 08/04/2026: "Managing Dotfiles with GNU Stow" and "Observations on Blocking Various Webbots"
Links for the day
Links 08/04/2026: GAFAM "Abandons Multi-Billion Dollar Data Centres in US as Investors Demand Energy, Water Usage"; Artemis II Astronauts Updates
Links for the day
Links 08/04/2026: Dems Call for 25th Amendment Remedy, Bill Epsteingate Summoned in Jeffrey Epstein Investigation
Links for the day
A Lot of Law Firms Are Collapsing
There has been a lot of discussion about this lately
IBM Red Hat Profited From 5+ Weeks of War in Iran
remember that IBM's current CEO comes from a military family (on both sides)
Associated Press Failed Financially, Now It's Offloading What's Left to Slop (How Sites Die 'Cheaply')
LLMs are not intelligent or any form of intelligence, they are just falsely marketed as such
Microsoft Shares Down 35% in 5 Months, Executives Leave Microsoft
Many people leave (or flee) Microsoft because, seeing what goes on insider, they know what's coming
Are Some Obscure or Chinese Operating Systems (Like Huawei's) Taking Over in "Unknown" Clothing?
statCounter still cannot detect many operating systems
SLAPP Censorship - Part 38 Out of 200: Advertisement or £10,000+ Classified Ad in the Form of Court Filing in Another Continent
Graveley fancies himself some world-renown something
Software Freedom is Closely Connected to Privacy
privacy can be a matter of life and death
What Communities Mean and Look Like (If They're Effective and Focused)
Last week we wrote about this in the context of distros and alleged "inclusion"
April 2026 FSF LibreLocal Concludes in Atlanta
Happy Hacking
Gemini Links 08/04/2026: GPG Symmetric Encryption and Slop in USENET
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 07, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 07, 2026