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● 02.26.12

● Links 26/2/2012: GNOME 3.4 Beta, Mageia 2 Beta

Posted in News Roundup at 11:15 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ What I do

• That may not be enough, but that will have to do. I also have a family — my daughter, now 14, has been giving Linux presentations for two years as well — and a full-time job, so I make no apologies if this does not clear the proverbial high bar set for Collaboration Summit admission.

=> ↺ Top 10 Ways To Make The Best Of An Old PC

• If none of the above tricks are helping, one of the best things you can do is install a new operating system altogether. It’ll definitely shake up your workflow a bit, but with enough commitment, you can use one of the many flavours of Linux to give your computer a major speed boost. If you’re already familiar with Linux, I can’t recommend ArchBang enough, while newbies might be more suited to something like Lubuntu or even Chrome OS.

=> ↺ XPmageddon

• When will the onslaught happen? I think it has been happening every since Vista broke the picture of M$ working for business. Businesses started checking out GNU/Linux and now many large businesses are expanding their staffing with expertise in GNU/Linux. Businesses are increasingly virtualizing clients and servers, making the migration easier. Once the servers are virtual, there’s little holding back the clients. GNU/Linux can make really good thin clients at half the cost of that other OS. Web applications are cross-platform, too. Having seen the cost of migrating from one OS after another from M$, businesses and their accountants do see the value in FLOSS without a lot of unproductive licences. Businesses do see the advantage of increasing in-house expertise instead of sending money to M$.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ XFS File-System Speeded-Up, Cleaned-Up Last Month

• A status report of the XFS file-system for January 2012 has been released. This report outlines some of then notable improvements made to this popular enterprise-grade Linux file-system for the Linux 3.2 and 3.3 kernels.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Wayland Work Towards State Machine For Display Control

• Tiago Vignatti on Friday published initial code seeking comments regarding a state machine for display control on the Wayland Display Server.

• While Wayland is nearing version 1.0, there’s many items left to be addressed with this next-generation display server architecture. One of the big open items is handling of changing mode-setting and other display control settings, i.e. what RandR (the Resize and Rotate extension) is to X.Org. Tiago published some initial “RFC” code for Wayland that implements a state machine for display control.

=> ↺ State Of NVIDIA’s VDPAU, A New Community List

• Now that NVIDIA’s Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) has a public list, will NVIDIA be engaging more with the open-source driver community?

• Aaron Plattner of NVIDIA requested and then had established a VDPAU mailing list under the FreeDesktop.org umbrella. From Bug 44470, “It would be nice to have a list for discussing changes to libvdpau and vdpauinfo. It might also be useful for discussion of VDPAU implementation in Mesa/Gallium, if those guys want to use it for that.”

Applications

=> ↺ EPUBReader

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Book Review: The Linux Command Line

Wine

=> ↺ Wine 1.4.rc5 released

=> ↺ Wine 1.4-rc5 Released

=> ↺ Wine 1.4 Makes It A Step Further In Fermentation

• The Wine 1.4 release has moved along a step further in the fermentation process as they appear for the official debut of Wine 1.4 in the coming weeks.

Games

=> ↺ Indie Royale’s Alpha Bundle bringing new titles to life

=> ↺ How to get Championship Manager 01/02 working on LINUX

• The Championship Manager series from Eidos has always been one of my favourite games for the PC. The best version of the game as far as I’m concerned was the 01/02 season which was the last version from the Championship Manager 3 series.

Desktop Environments

=> ↺ LinuxQuestion Vote Shows Fragmentation of the Desktop

=> ↺ In a Community Survey, Unity Voted as the ‘Most Hated Desktop Environment’

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

=> ↺ AMD Will Properly Support KWin With Catalyst

• For those AMD Catalyst users that were concerned by the recent statements of Martin Gräßlin that KWin will likely end up dropping their GL1 renderer, which would eliminate vintage GPU hardware support as well as Catalyst driver support, fear not.

• While the latest AMD Catalyst driver fully supports up to OpenGL 4, within the KWin compositing window manager for the KDE desktop it defaults to using the OpenGL 1.x renderer. The GL1 renderer is used with the AMD binary blob since using the newer OpenGL 2.x renderer is troublesome for Catalyst. Meanwhile for the NVIDIA binary driver and even the open-source Mesa/Gallium3D drivers, the GL2 renderer works without fault.

GNOME Desktop

=> ↺ GNOME 3.4 Beta 1 Released

• The GNOME Project announced a few minutes ago, February 24th, the immediate availability for download and testing of the first Beta release of the upcoming GNOME 3.4 desktop environment, which brings assorted improvements and features.

Distributions

=> ↺ Review: Archbang Linux

• Two years ago I reviewed Arch Linux. My conclusion at the time – great if you have to control every aspect of your system, but it’s not for me. I later used it on my Pogo Plug to set up a file and print server and it definitely has its merits. I know, generally speaking, that one of the best parts of using Arch is getting access to the latest software before anyone else. So I decided to take a look at a few Arch derivatives that take the work out of getting Arch installed while still having the benefits of Arch’s early access.

• Today I’ll be looking at Archbang. Archbang takes the foundations of Arch (early access to software and rolling release) and the visual aesthetic of Crunchbang (using Openbox). I enjoyed having Crunchbang on my laptop for a few years. Eventually I scrapped it in favor of something easier for my wife to use, but there’s definitely something nice to the Openbox look. As usual for my Linux reviews, I’m going to look at how the distro’s installation process works, their UI design philosophy, updating/installing packages, and how it compares to other distros I’ve tried. So, let’s get started!

New Releases

=> ↺ Ultimate Edition 3.0.1 Has Been Released

=> ↺ Ultimate Edition 3.0.1

• Ultimate Edition 3.0.1? Wow, where to begin. I tried to keep this under wraps, this is what Ultimate Edition 3.0 should have been. I have taken the time to rebuild it from the ground up 100% by me, mass changes between what 3.0 and what 3.0.1 is.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Mageia 2 first beta version has been released

• Originated in France and forked from Mandriva, The Mageia is now independent and community based project for developing a Linux based Operating System. Anne Nicolas said the released of first beta version of Mageia 2. The main new features of it are stable glibc 2.14.1, Linux Kernel 3.2.6, KDE 4.8.0, GNOME 3.3 [3.4 will be in final release], PCmanFM 0.0.10, Amarok 2.5, Cantata 0.3.0 music player etc.

Red Hat Family

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora Scientific, an interview with Amit Saha

• Fedora Scientific Spin brings together the open source scientific and numerical tools used in research along with the goodness of the Fedora KDE desktop. Thus, simply put Fedora scientific is a Fedora Linux flavour custom made for users whose work and play involves scientific and numerical computing.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu for Android: more details and prototype hands-on (video)

=> ↺ Ubuntu for Android: more details and prototype hands-on (video)

=> ↺ More Information About Ubuntu For Android [Video]

=> ↺ Let’s Customize Ubuntu

• One of the forefront advantages of Linux (Ubuntu) over proprietary operating systems is its ability to be customized and of course many other reasons. And with the latest versions of Ubuntu starting from Ubuntu 11.04 this seems to have gone since it is difficult to change your font, theme, Unity behavior etc. using default options. However, with open source you have the community rallying together to produce many excellent applications to customize Ubuntu. This article is the first of three to describe three such applications which are Ubuntu Tweak (0.6.x), Gnome Tweak Tool and MyUnity (3.0). In this article, I’ll also describe a review system with which I will compare the three applications in a fair manner.

=> ↺ What Is Ubuntu Doing At Mobile World Congress?

• Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has mastered the art of creating hype. If one may recall Canonical succeeded in creating buzz around Ubuntu with its TV offering at CES 2012. Even if the project is in the making and won’t make a dent in the market as a product unless some popular TV makers such as Samsung put it on their devices, Canonical succeeded at something. The company succeeded at main tech sites to take notice of it and talk about it. Through TV, Ubuntu became the talk of the town during CES 2012.

=> ↺ Ubuntu on Android, won’t work for me, 3 serious considerations!

• Ubuntu on Android! So you are guessing that your Android smartphone will have a dual boot or you will be able to boot Ubuntu on your Android phone? Certainly none of that is possible as yet. Ubuntu for Android is simply full-fledged Ubuntu hidden in your Android phone that that remains inoperative until docked. Once your smartphone is plugged into the dock connected to a moniter the OS (ubuntu) surfaces and starts making use of peripherals such as mouse and keyboard. All of that sounds interesting however neither it is new or useful. Let’s find how!

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Linux Mint 12 Gnome Review

• This release brings big changes to Linux Mint so be ready for something different. The DVD version offers users the ability to choose between the new Gnome 3 interface with the Mint Gnome shell extensions, Gnome classic, or the new MATE desktop.

• Linux Mint 12 is extremely user-friendly as always, and offers all the hardware recognition and easy driver setup advantages that new Linux users will enjoy. Novice users may however be frustrated with the customization options temporarily, but that will surely develop further in upcoming releases.

=> ↺ Zorin Is a Linux OS That Looks and Behaves Like Windows 7

• Zorin Is a Linux OS That Looks and Behaves Like Windows 7If you’re building a computer for a relative or friend and wish to avoid the cost of Windows 7 you might look into Zorin—the Linux OS’ elements such as the taskbar, file system, start menu, and desktop all work just like in Windows. This combined with Zorin having the WINE Windows Emulator preinstalled means that the end user can install Windows programs easily.

=> ↺ Review: Dream Studio 11.10 – Just another *buntu Clone

• Decided to take a look at Dream Studio 11.10 which was recently released. Dream Studio is always a little late when updating their distribution. It is based on Ubuntu 11.10 and from what I see pretty well the same thing except for maybe the background image and some added programs.

=> ↺ Dream Studio 11.10 Is Based on Ubuntu 11.10

• Dick MacInnis proudly announced earlier today, February 24th, the immediate availability for download of the Dream Studio 11.10 operating system.

• Being based on the Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system, the brand-new Dream Studio 11.10 distribution has lots of new features and a beautified Unity-based desktop.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ $25 computer ‘Raspberry Pi’ readies for launch

• An ultra-cheap computer with made-in-Canada software is launching next week with the goal of rekindling children’s interest in computer programming.

Phones

Android

=> ↺ Acer to debut Liquid Glow handset at Mobile World Congress 2012, destined for UK this summer

=> ↺ Android: Coming Soon to a Desktop Near You?

=> ↺ uTorrent Native Android Client On The Way

• The uTorrent development team is working on a native Android BitTorrent client for smartphones and tablet computers. This will be the first uTorrent client for a mobile operating system, and most likely the only one. While development of uTorrent Android product is in progress, no ETA has been given for the first release.

=> ↺ Can an Android phone run without Google?

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

=> ↺ Google may enter tablet market with 7-inch design

• Wondering when Google is going to jump into the tablet fray? It may happen later this year, a DisplaySearch analyst told CNET.

• The Google-branded tablet will have a 1280×800 resolution 7-inch display, according to Richard Shim, an analyst with DisplaySearch. Production is slated for April. The initial production run is between 1.5 million to 2 million units, according to Shim.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Policies not encouraging enough, open source software difficult to grow

• Quang said that the biggest problem now is the lack of the legal framework on information technology (IT) services, including the regulations on the norms relating to open source software.

• “In the world, open source software can live well not on the licenses, but on the services. However, in Vietnam, there has been no regulation on the norms of INT services in general and open source software in particular,” Quang said.

=> ↺ Integrating Open Source Monitoring with Monitis

=> ↺ Open source code has fewer mistakes

=> ↺ Superiority of FLOSS

Events

=> ↺ Tizen Conference Announced

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla Marketplace To Open Its Virtual App Doors

• Mozilla also claimed that it intends to make the store completely “people centric” so that it can provide both the developers community and regular users more choice, freedom as well as opportunity when searching for applications meant for multiple OS platforms – all under one virtual roof.

=> ↺ Why Mozilla And Canonical Should Join Forces

• Where do I begin? This idea entered my head the same day that Canonical announced Ubuntu For Android. That same day, information leaked about a desktop-capable Android, most likely Android 5.0 Jelly Bean. The appeal of tethering Ubuntu to a monitor, keyboard and mouse–from an Android phone– is tremendous. The appeal of attaching an Android phone to a monitor and gaining desktop functionality while only having to use one OS is much greater, I’m afraid…

Funding

=> ↺ Collabora and Fluendo Invest in GStreamer Open Source Multimedia Framework

• Collabora Ltd. and Fluendo S.A., two world leaders in open source multimedia, will invest in promoting the GStreamer multimedia framework through the creation of a cross platform software development kit (SDK), targeting desktop and server platforms like Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, and very soon to include leading mobile platforms, such as Android.

BSD

=> ↺ DragonflyBSD Developing The HAMMER2 File-System

• While it’s not part of this week’s DragonflyBSD 3.0 release, Matthew Dillon is currently designing the HAMMER2 file-system to succeed his original HAMMER creation in Dragonfly.

• The HAMMER2 file-system has been under-development already, but Dillon doesn’t expect for anything usable prior to July. While it may be usable this summer, he doesn’t believe it will be until “well into 2013″ when “the whole mess is implemented and even later before the clustering is 100% stable.” This is the only project Matthew Dillon is said to be working on this year.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Drug Developer Pursues an Open-Source Approach in Designing Clinical Trials

• Biopharma leaders have long needed greater transparency in the industry, though usually in the context of activity by government regulators and necessarily by companies themselves. Now, two industry veterans are testing the value of offering such transparency through an open innovation model for drug development.

Programming

=> ↺ Open source Eclipse plugin for download library source code automatically

Leftovers

=> ↺ Apple: Due Diligence versus Fraud

• Lately, Apple has been suing the world over smart thingies like smart phones and tablets that they consider to be their technology. “He who lives by the sword shall die by it” comes true again as a monitor manufacturer claims, in a US court, that “iPad” was acquired by Apple fraudulently. Proview, a Chinese business, sold the “iPad” trademark to a front set up by Apple in 2009. Proview has had mixed results in blocking use of “iPad” in China and now has swung its axe at the root of the tree.

• I am not a lawyer, but balanced between the necessity of any business to do due diligence before a transaction and the duty of a participant in a transaction to be open about material facts affecting the value of a transaction is a wide range of opinion. Usually the onus is on the seller but if Apple disguised itself for the purpose of buying a trademark cheaply I can see an argument. It will be fun to watch.

=> ↺ M$’s Empire – Structural Failure is Imminent

• Complicating the situation is that Android/Linux tablets are continuing to sell well and indeed, smart phones are emerging that are large enough to compete as tablets. M$ is under a lot of pressure to supply their office suite to iPad while the blush is on the rose. Waiting may build demand for Android/Linux tablets with M$’s office suite and M$ certainly doesn’t want that to happen.

Security

=> ↺ Schneier: government, big data pose bigger ‘Net threat than criminals

• As Bruce Schneier spent the past decade watching the growing rash of phishers, malware attacks, and identity theft, a new Internet threat has emerged that poses even greater risks, the security expert said.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Got BTU? Accounting for America’s Energy and GDP

• There are complexities associated with the calculation of US energy expenditures against its GDP. The above chart only records domestic consumption of energy. But you see, the United States is a country that does not bear the full cost of the externalities associated with its total consumption of goods.

Finance

=> ↺ Analysis: Goldman’s top brass gun for cash bonuses

• While Wall Street slashes pay and freezes cash awards, Goldman Sachs Group’s top five executives may reap special bonuses of $10.5 million apiece if the firm hits historically easy profit targets over the next two years.

• Many companies have long-term incentive plans, but Goldman’s program is notable for dangling hefty cash payouts at a time when banks are tilting toward deferred-stock awards.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Heartland Institute: Hoist With its Own Petard

• It was not a happy Valentine’s Day for the Heartland Institute’s climate change denial campaigns. First, Heartland’s plans for a $75,000 K-12 reeducation curriculum to turn America’s children into climate change deniers was leaked to the DeSmog Blog along with Heartland’s fundraising plan, which reveals support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation and a “free Koch summer intern.”

• Then, the story jumped to the New York Times, which raised serious questions about whether the group has undertaken partisan political activities, a possible violation of federal tax law governing nonprofit groups. The fundraising plan outlines “Operation Angry Badger,” a proposal to spend $612,000 to influence the outcome of recall elections in Wisconsin.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Hollywood still doesn’t get it

• The point is that the entertainment industry seems to be unable to listen to their best customers. They want the world to play by their rules, but every enterpreneur knows that’s a very bad business model. Studies prove that the entertainment industry can survive and even make money, but they simply have to start to use their brains (“BREIN” means “BRAIN” in Dutch).

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