03.30.14
Posted in News Roundup at 3:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Wearables
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Every mobile company is desperate to bring a ‘usable’ smartwatch to the market. While companies like Samsung did bring their smartwatches to the market, these devices are still half-baked products which ‘try’ to do a few things. These are no where close to the way smartphones have become a viable alternatives of PCs. These watches are nothing more than a side-kick or assistant to your smartphones. Then came Google, doing what it did with Honeycomb to address the immediate need of a tablet OS. Google announced Android Wear, an OS optimized for smart watches. One would expect that entire industry will embrace it, but that’s not what seem to be happening.
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Google is able to offer something with Android Wear that no other player, big like Apple or small like Pebble, can offer. And that’s why it’ll win…
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Motorola Mobility announced a round-faced Moto 360 smartwatch, based on Google’s new Android Wear platform and due this summer.
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Googled unveiled Android Wear this week and encouraged developers to build apps purpose-built for the wrist. Pocket is among the first companies to rise to the challenge, showing off a prototype version of a software development kit for Android Wear today that will let you save links directly from your watch. The prototype allows developers to integrate Pocket into their own apps so that users can save items with a couple of taps. “Up until now, smartwatches have focused solely on delivering short notifications,” Pocket says. “What’s been missing is the ability to quickly act on that information by saving or sharing it.”
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Android Wear is a version of Android which is optimized for wearable devices such as smartwatches. One of the core components of Android Wear will be Google Now. Just like Google Glass, users will be able to say “Ok Google” to activate the ‘HAL’ and ask questions. Since it will work with Google Now, it will have access to your travel and Amazon orders so you can check status of your flight or package. You will also be able to get generic answers like scores from ongoing machine. Anything that you use Google Now for will be able to use with Android Wearable.
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There is a lot going on on the wearable computing front, and Google is already a player in the race with its Google Glass efforts, but the company has also shared much news this week about Android Wear, a project that extends Android to wearables.
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Google debuted a Google Now-infused Android Wear platform for wearables based on a lightweight version of Android, which will first appear in an LG G Watch.
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One of the key strengths of the Linux kernel is that it is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), an open source license which gives everyone the right to use and even modify the Linux kernel, with the condition that the source code is made available for any publicly released versions.
SHIELD/Tegra
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Mad Catz is teaming up with Ouya to bring it to their micro gaming console M.O.J.O. The Android powered game console that is powered by Tegra from Mad Catz will be available for $199 come this spring.
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Obama
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US Presidents are not allowed to carry cellphones like Blackberry due to security issues. Obama somehow succeeded in keeping his beloved Blackberry. His Blackberry was heavily encrypted, with enhanced security and its usage was limited.
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New Devices
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It was long back when reports surfaced about Motorola working on a 6.3 inches phablet. So if we have forgotten about the device, we cannot be blamed, since not much was known about the device that time. Only thing known was that a 6.3 inches device, dubbed Motorola XPlay will be rolled out by 2014. However, it seems that the device is being prepped up for release this year.
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The Soap project has already surpassed its $80,000 funding goals, and there are still some packages left at discounted prices until the campaign closes Mar. 23 at 10:34 AM EDT. The touchscreen-enabled Soap Touch costs $150, and will retail at $200 when it ships in November. There’s also a non-touchscreen Soap Essentials version, which will go for $80 when it ships in August, but no more discounted versions are available at the $60 funding price. The Soap Essentials is otherwise similar except that it offers less onboard storage.
Developing World
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In 2013, however, the school took the bold step of going digital-only. All pupils — most of who are from the nearby townships — are now required to buy an Android tablet in order to study at Sunward.
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Better known for producing third-world poverty and political mayhem – as well as a world-class rum – the Western Hemisphere’s least developed country has made a surprising entry into the high-tech world with its own Android tablet.
Android-x86
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Android seems to be everywhere these days and that includes the desktop. Yes, a version of Android is being developed as a desktop replacement for Windows. LinuxInsider examines Android-x86 RC 1 and finds that it’s coming along nicely. But can it really replace Windows? The skeptics will say no, but I think it can…eventually.
Huawei
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The backtracking contradicts statements from Huawei’s chief marketing officer, Shao Yang, last week. Yang claimed the firm was following a “dual OS” strategy with Android and Windows Phone on a single handset. It’s not clear if such a handset was ever in development, or whether Yang simply misspoke. Huawei’s change of heart follows reports that Microsoft and Google have both scuppered Intel’s plan for dual-OS tablets and laptops running both Android and Windows Phone.
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In a statement to FierceWireless, a Huawei spokesperson said that “Huawei Consumer Business Group adopts an open approach towards mobile operating systems to provide a range of choices for consumers. However, most of our products are based on Android OS, [and] at this stage there are no plans to launch a dual-OS smartphone in the near future.”
Games/Sport
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One of the most venerable achievements of smartphones is making more than 75% smartphone users into gamers. Perhaps keeping this stat in mind, Google has decided to focus on Google Play in their announcements this year. First and foremost is their announcement of the cross platform support for Google Play games, followed by the introduction of tools that will allow users to gift in game items to friends. Rounding up is the integration of the Google Analytics available directly to the Ad Mob interface.
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Ballnux (Microsoft Patent Deals)
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The new HTC One which was announced yesterday is now available with stock Android from Google Play Store. These devices running stock Android are called Google Play Edition devices and they don’t come with the usual bloat-ware or custom UI pushed by the hardware companies.
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The official unveiling of HTC’s “primary flagship for 2014” is still a few days away, but there is no dearth of leaked images about the all new HTC One (M8). After AT&T, Qualcomm is now promoting the HTC M8 smartphone via its official Twitter account as it will feature one of the company’s Snapdragon SoCs.
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Google shook the world today by announcing Android Wear, a version of Android to power wearable computers such as smartwatches. Google has showed that it has mastered the art of partnership; it has not only engaged developers but also made available hardware powered by Android Wear.
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The Russian government has moved from using iPads to Samsung tablets. However, this move is not linked to any sanctions against US-based Apple Inc., the Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov stated on Wednesday.
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Posted in News Roundup at 2:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Programming
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Adoption of Google’s programming language is rapidly gaining on Java and others.
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Hack
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The new open-source programming language, Hack, is described by its Facebook developers as operating “seamlessly with PHP,” adding that it “reconciles the fast development cycle of PHP with the discipline provided by static typing, while adding many features commonly found in other modern programming languages.”
Women
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There are rapidly growing feature set, high commit rates, and code contributions happening across the globe to Apache Hadoop and related Apache Software Foundation projects. However, the number of woman developers, committers, and Project Management Committee (PMC) members in this vast and diversified ecosystem are really diminutive. For the Hadoop project alone, only 5% out of 84 committers are women; and this has been the case for over the past 2 years.
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And when it comes to the open-source software industry, women are even harder to find. A recent study found that 1 out 10 open-source programmers are women (about 10%), and that’s up from 2007, when only 2 out of every 100 were women (about 2%).
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During Grace Hopper 2013 on Open Source Day, we worked on more than 10 open source projects and had more than 250 attendees. Experienced women in tech were there to help teach other women how to do programming for their particular project or to work with them in a mentorship capacity. Each year we find that we fill up in terms of the number of attendees we can handle for the event! And then we have a waiting list. So, if this sounds like something you are excited about doing or you are interested in participating in, sign up for Open Source Day sooner rather than later to make sure that you get a spot.
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“This weekend, GitHub employee Julie Horvath spoke publicly about negative experiences she had at GitHub that contributed to her resignation,” GitHub CEO and co-founder Chris Wanstrath wrote in a blog post on Sunday. “I would like to personally apologize to Julie. It’s certain that there were things we could have done differently.”
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Posted in News Roundup at 2:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Creative Commons and Academia
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In the sharing of ideas, what Rundle, Nowviskie, and I really want—and, I’ll warrant, what most scholars really want—is simply proper attribution.
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Nature Publishing Group — is telling all authors at Duke that they must obtain a waiver of the policy before their accepted articles can be published.
More Reasons to Boycott Elsevier
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It’s easy (if tedious) to find paywalled Open Access articles in Elsevier journals. You go to Robert Kiley’s excellent spreadsheet (curated by Michelle Brook and others) , find publisher = Elsevier , search for the title and go to the journal pages. Here I show how
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For some reason, Elsevier seems to take delight in being hated by the academic world. Its support for the awful Research Works Act back in 2012 led to a massive boycott of the company by researchers. More recently, it has cracked down on academics posting PDFs of their own research. Now Peter Murray-Rust, one of the leading campaigners for open access, has caught Elsevier at it again.
Schools and Textbooks
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Several students complain every year – for good reason – about the exorbitant prices charged for textbooks. If there were any way to reduce this unbelievable cost to students, it should be implemented immediately.
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College students are no strangers to shelling out hundreds of dollars for textbooks every semester. Even thrifty students find that used books will cost them greatly if they’re lucky enough to be able to get them. Students who are required to have “UConn editions” or “new editions” of books often see their bank accounts dwindle at the beginning of the semester. Often many students forgo purchasing textbooks or prowl around for an illicit online edition.
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USM holds pilot in which students use free ‘open-source’ textbooks put together by their professors
Open Hardware
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Brian Gerkey wanted a common robotic control language. Taking inspiration from the LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Python) open source tools in the 1990s Brian worked to develop ROS, the Robot Operating System. ROS is an open source kit of tools, libraries and programming conventions for programming robots.
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*Open Source is always promising to build a “whole new economy.” There’s a rather well-established open-source economy nowadays that’s neither whole nor new. Why keep saying this? It’s like promising Zen enlightenment without knowing that you still have to chop wood and carry water.
*The genuinely new development in Open Source is an open resistance to open-source by established power players. What’s especially new and different is the bitter, politicized, statehouse and working-class resistance to commercial Big Sharing efforts such as Uber and AirBnB. Distributing access to knowledge isn’t gonna be the problem any more — politics is gonna be the problem.
Electronics
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“When you go to a store and buy an electronic gizmo, does it ever occur to you that you could make one yourself? Or even that it would be FUN to make one yourself?” This is how John Baichtal’s Arduino for Beginners: Essential Skills Every Maker Needs begins, and that same curiosity and ingenuity flows through the entire book.
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Frankovsky
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Facebook’s open-source-hardware champion, Frank Frankovsky, has left the building.
In a personal Facebook post, Frankovsky, who headed up the ambitious Open Compute Project and ran Facebook’s own hardware design, announced that he’s leaving to start his own company.
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03.29.14
Posted in News Roundup at 6:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Tizen
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Patches are continuing to be reviewed and refined for introducing weston-ivi-shell, a reference shell for Wayland’s Weston compositor within the world of In-Vehicle Infotainment systems, primarily for Tizen.
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Like most smartwatches, Samsung’s Tizen Linux-based Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo are primarily companion devices to Bluetooth connected smartphones rather than full-fledged wrist computers. Yet, the Tizen SDK for Wearable released by Samsung yesterday enables a variety of modes on the Gear watches for both standalone and companion scenarios.
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When Samsung announced the Gear 2 and the Gear 2 Neo last month, the news came with the confirmation that the company was dropping Android from both devices. Instead, both smart watches are powered by Tizen. This may not mean all that much for consumers in the short term, but it does impact developers. For you, Samsung has just shared the first version of the Tizen SDK aimed at wearables. This is what you need to grab if you intend to build apps for the company’s two intelligent wristwatches.
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Android may rule the smartphone world, but it might not be top dog when it comes to smartwatches. Sony, for one, has decided not to team up with Google and its Android Wear project. Samsung won’t use it exclusively — it’s already tinkering with Tizen. “You don’t need to use the Android platform as long as you can still interact with it,” noted Tirias Research analyst Jim McGregor.
Flyme
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Renowned Chinese phone manufacturer Meizu has made its entry into the French market with the launch of its flagship smartphone, the Meizu MX3. This phone runs a homegrown fork of Android 4.2, dubbed Flyme OS 3.0, which the company claims to have “improved navigation” and “simple and fluid transitions”.
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Meizu is thinking to take the “Xiaomi route” and allow other phones to run its own version of Android. Called Flyme OS, Meizu’s platform builds on top of the Android core adding quite a few enhancements and tweaks along the way, all of which helped made Meizu phones popular in the first place.
China Mobile
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Verizon Terremark is making its biggest commitment yet to open-source cloud computing.
Today, the company announced it’s joining the Linux Foundation, an organization focused on promoting the growth of Linux, as a Gold member. The news comes several months after the launch of Verizon Cloud, its revamped cloud computing platform.
Jolla
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Jolla made available today its much anticipated v1.0 update of Sailfish, their mobile Linux distribution running on Wayland and powered by Nokia’s former MeeGo code.
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Over the years, the Maxthon browser (formerly known as MyIE2 way back in the day) has spread its reach beyond Windows and into different platforms, including the Mac and three mobile OSes: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Wondering where the love for Linux is at? You don’t need to wonder anymore, because you can now download 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Maxthon for Linux.
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KKEdit is a text editor based on GTK3 for GNOME, currently under development, with several useful features for the average programmer.
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If you have attended my FOSDEM talk or seen the slides, you know about the concept of “component metadata” to describe (almost) all software components which make up a Linux system, as well as their public interfaces they provide for users and other software to access. This metadata specification was originally designed as part of the Listaller project for use with the 3rd-party software installer.
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Other than OpenOffice and LibreOffice, the Linux platform lacks any full-featured office suite. Both of these open source office suites have more in common with each other than truly distinguishing features. Both flip-flop in performance, depending on which Microsoft skill they attempt to emulate. Their user interface is strictly classic old school.
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Linux within cars was a big topic at this week’s Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Napa Valley. Besides Intel talking up Tizen IVI, Xen Automotive is the work being done for using Xen virtualization on ARM hardware within automobiles.
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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This code translates Microsoft High-Level Shader Language (HLSL) shaders from legacy Direct3D 9 to OpenGL GL Shading Language (GLSL) shaders.
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Grave is a new open world, procedural survival horror game being developed by Broken Window Studios, Inc. The game has a release target of early 2015 and will feature a fusion between modern horror and classic survival horror gameplay elements. It will be releasing on Windows, Mac and Linux.
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It’s been a while, but the Humble Weekly Sale is here again! This time, it’s called The Humble Weekly Sale: Rhythm Games, which features 3 games plus other 3 games if you pay more than $6!
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The UNIGINE Engine is built by none other than Unigine Corp., the company behind the Heaven DX11 Benchmark software. The technology they develop is getting better all the time, and with their recent expansion on the Linux platform, we’re all too glad to see that major updates have been implemented in the engine.
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We have just updated the released alchemist repository. This is the same content that was pushed to alchemist_beta last Monday
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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I’ve been a sysadmin for a long time, and part of being a sysadmin is doing more than is humanly possible. Sometimes that means writing wicked cool scripts, sometimes it means working late, and sometimes it means learning to say no. Unfortunately, it also sometimes means cutting corners. I confess, I’ve been “that guy” more than once. A good example is SELinux. On more than a few (hundred!) occasions, I’ve simply disabled SELinux, because getting things to work right is often really frustrating and time consuming. The same is true with LVM (Logical Volume Manager). I didn’t get it. I thought it added an unnecessary layer of complexity. I thought it meant another potential point of failure. I thought it was stupid.
I was wrong.
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Posted in News Roundup at 3:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Makulu
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MakuluLinux was already a solidly performing distro, but the latest version, released last month, takes Makulu to the next level of usability and maturity.
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So here’s the summary. Makulu Linux is the distribution a lot of us think we would like to create, if we had the time, energy and especially the talent to do it. I don’t know anyone in the development team, so this is all speculation on my part, but I would say that it is a group of people who just don’t know when to stop — and I mean that as a compliment, and a very good thing.
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Today’s news search turned up quite a bit of data. Red Hat released their quarterly earnings this afternoon and while observers expected good news, some are now reporting not so much. ZDNet.com has two stories of interest today, the first is from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reporting on the Linux Collaboration Summit and the other is Jamie Watson’s hands-on review of Makulu Linux 5 Xfce. He said it was the most fun as one could have with Linux!
Zorin OS
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Zorin OS 8 installs smartly and runs without glitches. It is a solid choice for hassle-free computing, even if you ignore the education bundle. However, educators with access to computer stations in the classroom can benefit from using Zorin’s Education Edition rather than the Core release. Because it offers all the power of Ubuntu without the Unity interface, you can not go wrong with Zorin OS 8.
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If you choose the free version, you will then be offered a choice between the latest release (currently Zorin OS 8.1), which is based on Ubuntu 13.10, or the current Long Term Support (LTS) release (Zorin OS 6.4), which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Furthermore, both the current and LTS releases have three versions: Core, Educational and Gaming. That’s quite a variety of versions to choose from — and there might even be a “Lite” version coming with LXDE!
Pisi
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When it became apparent early in 2012 that for political/financial reasons, Pardus was to be abandoned, a small group of Turkish volunteers came together to preserve the unique features of Pardus. The name of this project is Anka (Turkish for Phoenix). Initially the Anka-Team believed the fork could be named Pardus-Anka. Ultimately this was not possible – hence re-branding to Pisi Linux as a reference to Pardus and its package system PiSi (Pisi is Turkish for kitty).
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“Pisi GNU/Linux is built from scratch but it is a stable base. On top of that, we keep core user applications, such as Firefox, VLC, etc, up to date as much as we can. To ease the use of Pisi GNU/Linux many codecs are preinstalled allowing MP3 & DVD playback, Flash Player support,” reads the official website.
Black Lab
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“Today we are pleased to announce the beta 2 release of Black Lab Linux 5. This will be the last Beta for Black Lab Linux 5 until the final release. While it contains all the functionality that will be released in the gold release in May, right now we are working on stability. With that, lets go over what has changed with Black Lab Linux 5,” reads the official announcement.
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So what changes have been made? There have been quite a few changes to these distributions in terms of updates and functionality. First, we have focused more on the desktop computing spectrum. While we will continue to offer Black Lab Linux + Server Extensions Pak on our server hardware and the Server Extensions Pak as an additional download, we have decided to stick with what we do the best. Which is the desktop systems. We have heard from customers and users that those are the best releases we do, and while we arent totally lost on the server, we feel we have alot of contributions on the desktop.
OpenMandriva
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The first Beta version of OpenMandriva Lx 2014, a fully-featured Linux desktop and server sponsored by the OpenMandriva Association, has been released and can now be tested by users.
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The 2014.0 beta is a fantastic sneak-peek at what will become the final release of OpenMandriva Lx 2014.0. That being said, it is a beta, and as such you may encounter issues that prevent you from using the system normally.
Mageia
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When I bought the ZaReason Strata Laptop, I asked them to pre-load Mageia 4 to it. However, I knew that I was going to add more distros to the hard drive as soon as I can, to make it feel like the pentaboot HP Pavilion that died on me.
To begin, I wiped the original install and re-installed Mageia. Then, I tried to put PCLinuxOS into the hard drive, but the distro had problems with the display. As I could not achieve a decent display, I decided to do some research and try with PCLinuxOS later.
Misc.
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Simplicity Linux, a Linux distribution based on Puppy that uses the LXDE desktop, is now at version 14.4 Beta and brings a buckload of changes and improvements.
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Robert Shingledecker has announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the Tiny Core 5.3 RC1 Linux operating system, one of the smallest full operating systems in the world.
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“‘Symbiosis’ is a special version of antiX developed in full collaboration with the Mepis Community and using the best tools and talents from each distro. It is a mid-weight OS designed to combine an elegant and efficient desktop with simple configuration, high stability, solid performance and medium-sized footprint.”
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With last weekend marking an update to the most commonly used Wayland Live CD, I decided to try it out and the different desktop environments that it ships using all the latest code, including the latest development code of Wayland/Weston and the various tool-kits.
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The new installer had to be fixed, due to some, small changes between system base of Sparky and LMDE. The network connection did not work after installation the live system on a hard drive (Base Edition 3.3 only).
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BBQLinux is an user-friendly Linux distribution made for Android Developers and for enthusiasts who want to test a bit of Arch Linux. It has everything on board to build AOSP or AOSP-based Distributions like OmniROM or CyanogenMod. It’s based on Arch Linux and uses Rolling Release system. BBQLinux uses Arch repositories so its a direct Arch derivative, for example Manjaro is based on Arch but uses their own repositories.
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Absolutely everything in it works with Linux, with the caveat that at least for the moment, you have to create a one-line file to get the wireless networking. All of the auxiliary functions work as well, such as Suspend/Resume and the Fn-keys for Sleep, Display Brightness up/down/off, and Volume up/down/off (mute).
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While perusing the news this evening I saw a review on NixOS 13.10 by Jesse Smith. Sandra Henry-Stocker wrote a tutorial on “networking basics for the beginner.” LinuxInsider’s blog safari targeted buzz on “Linux for the senior set” and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports OpenStack’s top operating system is Ubuntu. Finally, a new Debian Project News was posted.
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Linux Lite was created to dispel myths that a linux based operating system is hard to use.
We’re passionate about informing people that there are alternatives to proprietary operating systems.
The free software and open source world is a place from which you can take, but you must give back. This is a chance for people on our team to give something back.
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Tor-ramdisk, a tor server distro, was recently updated. Linux kernel, tor binary was updated and haveged was used as entropy generator.
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FatDogArm, a relatively new distro was released recently for ARM based computers. It is a small operating system targeted for desktop-style operations. FatDogArm achieved a new milestone with its first beta release. The distribution is quite small in size (less than 300MB). The logic behind the FatDog name is explained on the FatDog64′s site
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The distribution is published by Linpus Technologies, Inc., a Linux/Android software solutions outfit based in Taiwan. This is about the only Linux provider that does not have a defined release schedule. Whether that’s a good or bad practice is not something I’m going to address here.
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