04.27.15
Links 27/4/2015: Debian 9 Named, Linux 4.1 Reaches RC
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GNU/Linux
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Desktop
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Stellarium Is the Best Free Astronomic Observatory on Linux
Stellarium, a free, open source planetarium software that displays a realistic and accurate sky in 3D, has been upgraded once more and is now available for download.
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Server
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How I shrunk a Docker image by 98.8% – featuring fanotify
But, thinking at it, do we really need a full consistent base Linux install? Which files do we really need in a given image? I found a radical and pretty efficient approaches with a go binary. It was statically build, almost no external dependency. Resulting image: 6.12MB.
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Kernel Space
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Linux 4.1-rc1
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Linux 4.1-rc1 Kernel Released, Packs In Several New Features
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It Doesn’t Look Like KDBUS Will Make It For Linux 4.1
While Linux 4.1 is bringing many new features and improvements, there’s one addition that’s noticeably absent.
To frequent Phoronix readers, the missing feature is, of course, KDBUS. KDBUS developers had been planning to land it in 2014 but that didn’t pan out and now most likely they’re looking at a H2’2015 arrival for this feature.
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Dell Keyboard Backlight Support In Linux 4.1
Ending out the major pull requests for the Linux 4.1 kernel merge window was the platform-drivers-x86 updates that were sent in on Saturday.
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With Linux 4.1 You Can Play With The Chrome OS Lightbar
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The Many Features Of The Linux 4.1 Kernel
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Intel Bay Trail & Cherry Trail CPUs To Run Faster With Linux 4.1
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KDBUS Still Hasn’t Been Pulled, Might Not Land For Linux 4.1
Linus Torvalds still hasn’t pulled the KDBUS code into the Linux 4.1 kernel and it’s beginning to look like he won’t honor this pull request for the current Linux development cycle.
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Graphics Stack
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The State Of The Lima/Tamil Driver Code
For those wondering about the state of the Lima and Tamil graphics drivers for providing open-source, accelerated support to ARM Mali graphics processors, Luc Verhaegen has written a new blog post after being silent for a while.
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The Difference In Optimizations Between NIR & GLSL
One of the advantages advertised from the get-go for this intermediate representation has been that more optimizations can be shared across drivers and in a better way than the current GLSL IR situation… So what’s the difference? Matt Turner of Intel fortunately committed today the same optimization to both GLSL and NIR, which indirectly does a nice job for demonstrating the difference.
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Applications
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newsFish news client for ownCloud
While I was using my Nexus 7, I missed the convenience of my news client, so I polished up the code a bit and ported it to Qt5/QtQuick2. Due to the excellent cross platform support of Qt, testing was done on the desktop, and it seems like it wouldnt be completely unusable as a desktop application, so, when I post the code to Github later, feel free to build yourself a desktop version!
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Cantor in KDE Applications 15.04
I started the Cantor port to Qt5/KF5 during previous LaKademy and I continued the development along the year. Maybe I had pushed code from 5 different countries since the beginning of this work.
The change for this new technology was successfully completed, and for the moment we don’t notice any feature missed or new critical bug. All the backends and plugins were ported, and some new bugs created during this work were fixed.
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What are good command line HTTP clients?
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts is a very famous quote from Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and scientist. This quote is particularly pertinent to Linux. In my view, one of Linux’s biggest strengths is its synergy. The usefulness of Linux doesn’t derive only from the huge raft of open source (command line) utilities. Instead, it’s the synergy generated by using them together, sometimes in conjunction with larger applications.
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Proprietary
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Instructionals/Technical
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How to install a Debian 8 (Jessie) Minimal Server
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How to run your own speed test server with Speedtest.net Mini
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10 Useful Linux One-Liners for System Administrators
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How To Install HotShots 2.2.0 On Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivatives
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How To Install HotShots 2.2.0 On Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Stellarium 0.13.3 On Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Pale Moon 25.3.2 On Linux Systems
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8 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 15.04 Vivd Vervet
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Distributions
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New Releases
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Q4OS 1.2 final
We are proud to announce the immediate availability of the new Q4OS 1.2 release, codenamed ‘Orion’, supported until 1st May 2020 at least.
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Q4OS 1.2 Arrives with the Trinity Desktop Environment, Based on Debian 8.0 Jessie
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CHROMIXIUM 1.0 – FINAL STABLE VERSION IS OUT NOW!
Chromixium combines the elegant simplicity of the Chromebook with the flexibility and stability of Ubuntu’s Long Term Support release. Chromixium puts the web front and center of the user experience. Web and Chrome apps work straight out of the browser to connect you to all your personal, work and education networks. Sign into Chromium to sync all your apps and bookmarks. When you are offline or when you need more power, you can install any number of applications for work or play, including LibreOffice, Skype, Steam and a whole lot more. Security updates are installed seamlessly and effortlessly in the background and will be supplied until 2019. You can install Chromixium in place of any existing operating system, or alongside Windows or Linux.
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Screenshots/Screencasts
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PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family
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Mageia 5 RC is Out: A Quick Test Drive
The general experience was that of working with the same system I have (Mageia 4). No crashes, no weird slow-downs, no problems with multiple wallpapers, as Megatotoro reports here Plasma 5 is showing… aside from the missing IME, I felt like at home.
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Red Hat Family
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Fedora
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Fedora-Based Qubes OS 3.0 Release Candidate 1 Linux Distro Now Available for Testing
Joanna Rutkowska announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the first Release Candidate version of the forthcoming Qubes OS 3.0 computer operating system based on the Fedora Linux distribution.
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Debian Family
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More Debian GNU/Linux
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Debian 8 “Jessie” released (GNU/Linux-based operating system)
After nearly two years of development, Debian 8 “Jessie” is ready for download. It’s an open source GNU/Linux operating system designed for use on a wide range of hardware and developed by thousands of volunteers.
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Debian 8.0 Jessie Released
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Debian 8 ‘Jessie’ is here — download the Linux distro now!
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New Debian release Jessie has systemd as default
The Debian GNU/Linux project has released version 8.0 of its distribution, known as Jessie.
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[Dng] acpi and systemd
Debian is dropping acpi and acpi-support-base from the default install because they conflict with systemd.
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Debian 8 Jessie Is an LTS Release, Supported for the Next 5 Years
The Debian Project had the pleasure of announcing the general availability of the Debian GNU/Linux 8.0.0 (codename Jessie) computer operating system on April 25, 2015, which will be an LTS (Long Term Support) version supported with security patches and software updates until year 2020.
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Debian 8.0 Jessie Has Been Released Today
Debian 8.0 Jessie includes GNOME 3.14, KDE 4.11 and XFCE 4.10, systemd replacing sysvinit as the default init service manager, OpenJDK 7 as the default Java runtime, LibreOffice 4.3, Calligra 2.8, GNUcash 2.6, Gnumeric 1.12, Abiword 3.0, Evolution 3.12 and runs with Kernel 3.16.
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Debian 9.0 (Stretch) Already Planned, First Point Release for Debian 8.0 in a Month
A new stable Debian release has been made available to the community, and the developers are already talking about the first point release for the 8.0 branch, which should arrive in about a month.
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Debian 9.0 Is Codenamed Stretch
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Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 Will Be Named Stretch
On April 26, the Debian Release Team, through Niels Thykier, announced that the next major release of the acclaimed Debian GNU/Linux computer operating system will be named Stretch.
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Debian 8 Jessie Cinnamon Live CD Screenshot Tour
As you might know, the Debian GNU/Linux 8.0 (Jessie) operating system has been announced on April 25, 2015, and it is the first ever release to include optional Cinnamon and MATE desktop environments that users can test via Live CDs.
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Derivatives
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First Jessie based Debian Edu beta release
Hi,
the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is pleased to announce the first *beta* release of Debian Edu “Jessie” 8.0+edu0~b1, which for the first time is composed entirely of packages from the current Debian stable release, Debian 8 “Jessie”.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Ubuntu 15.04 Users Can Switch Off Systemd and Use Upstart
According to the official release notes of the Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) operating system released by Canonical on April 23, 2015, this is the first ever version of Ubuntu to ship with the controversial systemd init system by default.
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Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet Now Available: Most Tweaks Under The Hood
Canonical’s Ubuntu 15.04, also known as Vivid Vervet, has been recently launched and it comes with the notorious systemd project.
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Ubuntu 15.04 OS Latest Update Install – Vivid Vervet With Top Improvements
A new version of Ubuntu OS was released a few days ago and its developers announced that the platform has new capabilities: cloud storage and Internet of things and the desktop component has the Ubuntu Make developer tools suite.
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Top Features of Ubuntu MATE 15.04, Latest Member of the Ubuntu Family
Ubuntu MATE 15.04 is the first edition of this operating as an official member of the Ubuntu family, but it’s been around for longer than just a development cycle. Users might appreciate if we pointed out some of the cool features that have been added in the Vivid branch.
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Change a Ton of Unity Features in Ubuntu 15.04 with Unsettings
Unsettings is a graphical configuration program that can be used to change a large number of Unity settings. A new update has been released and now Ubuntu 15.04 is also supported.
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Devices/Embedded
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Phones
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Android
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Quad-core ARM TV-PC dual boots Android and Ubuntu
Ugoos launched a $179 “UT3S” TV-PC that dual boots Android 4.4 and Ubuntu 14.10 on a 1.8GHz quad-core Cortex-A17 Rockchip RK3288, and supports 4Kx2K video.
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Free Software/Open Source
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What is open source? Licensing, history, and more
Another example of open source: You wouldn’t buy a car with the hood welded shut, so why do we buy proprietary software? If you can’t see what’s going on and see what’s happening under the hood then you’re stuck with the car exactly the way it is and that might not be so great. While some people are fine with that, computer geeks shouldn’t be. We should want to get in there and tinker with it.
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AMD FP3 Motherboard Ported To Coreboot
Another AMD motherboard has been ported to work under Coreboot.
Sage Electronic Engineering, a company that does a lot of Coreboot work for AMD and other firms, has ported the AMD Lamar reference board for Coreboot. AMD Lamar is a consumer reference board used for AMD Kaveri APUs of the FP3 socket.
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Events
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A Rousing Start for LinuxFest Northwest
With around 2,000 registrants, this year’s LFNW seems to be the largest in its history. This not only bodes well for the widespread popularity and acceptance of FOSS in general, but it also bodes well for one of the longest-running FOSS shows here in the Pacific Northwest.
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CMS
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An open source, e-commerce friendly CMS
Developers Peter Ivanov, Alex Raikov, and I came up with the idea for Microweber about five years ago, when we were all having problems building sites with the existing solutions.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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GCC 5.2 Will Come In Two To Three Months
GCC 5 was formally released this week with under their new versioning scheme the initial stable release being GCC 5.1. GCC 6.0 is now in development as the next major release due out in about one year’s time while the next GCC 5 point release will be GCC 5.2.
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GCC 5.1.1 Status Report (2015-04-22)
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Leftovers
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Poll: SNP increase lead over Labour
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Security
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Google Provides Detailed Analysis of GitHub Attack Traffic
It wasn’t until March 26 that the attackers actually began targeting two separate resources on GitHub, one of which housed content from GreatFire.org, a censorship monitoring organization in China. The other resource was Chinese language content from the New York Times. The attack on those resources lasted until April 7 and Provos said that the attack wouldn’t have been possible if all of the Web’s links were encrypted.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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University offering free online course to demolish climate denial
The course coordinator is John Cook, University of Queensland Global Change Institute climate communication fellow, and founder of the climate science myth debunking website Skeptical Science. Cook’s research has primarily focused on the psychology of climate science denial.
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Finance
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Charles Gladden: Homeless man employed at US Senate building earns just $360 a week
Like many of the people who work in menial jobs in the US Senate, Charles Gladden works long, hard hours for very modest pay. Unlike probably everyone else, Mr Gladden is homeless.
The 63-year-old sweeps and mops, cleans dishes and carries laundry, for take-home pay of around $360 a week. He says he gives most to his children and grandchildren and spends most of his nights at the McPherson Square Metro Station, less than half-a-mile from the White House.
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Privacy
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Here’s how you can see and delete your entire Google search history
The list does not stop at Google’s search engine function. It also includes documentation of searches within users’ email accounts and addresses that may have been typed into Google Maps. The range of personal information available has given rise to concerns over the databases’ potential vulnerability.
Google has said the company is aware of the dangers associated with storing an extensive amount of personal information on home computers and warns users with a message before they download their entire search archive, asking users to “please read this carefully, it’s not the usual yada yada,” normally seen in warning messages.
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But just because a user deletes his or her search history, that does not mean that it disappears completely.
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Civil Rights
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The Gordon and Dougie Show
Douglas Alexander not only facilitated the use of Diego Garcia for torture and extraordinary rendition, in an act of extreme hypocrisy the evil little shit also declared a “marine conservation area” around it. In the 1960’s Britain forcibly deported the entire population of the islands to make way for the US Air Base. Faced with a continual political and legal fight for them to return, Alexander sought to make it impossible with his “marine conservation area”. There is nobody who better represents Scottish Labour’s loss of its soul than Alexander. If Mhairi beats him I shall be extremely happy.
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7 whistle-blowers facing more jail time than David Petraeus
The administration of President Barack Obama once promised to be “the most transparent administration” of all time. Instead, Obama’s Department of Justice has led the most targeted campaign against whistleblowers of any president ever, charging more government employees under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined—almost all of whom sit in prison serving sentences up to 30 years.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Farmers Unable to Repair Tractors Because Copyright: Never a Side Effect, But Core Intention of Law
Stories are starting to appear about farmers unable to repair tractors and car aficionados unable to tinker with cars because of copyright legislation. That’s not a side effect. It was the whole idea of the law.
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Leaked Piracy Report Details Fascinating Camcording Investigations
A top-secret presentation made by the Federation Against Copyright Theft to Sony Pictures shines light on the complex investigations carried out by the anti-piracy group. The document reveals suspects being filmed in cinemas, tracked using Facebook friends, and their connections to release groups mapped in intriguing diagrams.
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