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● 01.04.13

● Links 4/1/2013: Bodhi 2.2.0, Semplice Linux 3.0

Posted in News Roundup at 9:29 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Samsung Smart TV Apps Developers Get Linux & Mac OS-Friendly SDK 4.0

=> ↺ Linux Format 167 On Sale Today – Mighty Mint!

=> ↺ Review: Linux Live USB Creator makes it easier to install Linux

• There used to be a time when Microsoft Windows ruled the operating system world. But in recent years, the free and open source Linux operating system has taken a big bite out of Windows’ dominance. But Linux has always had an image problem of seeming too difficult and unwieldy to install and learn, with a steep learning curve attached.

=> ↺ Geek deals: Sub-$300 Dell Vostro 2420 laptop with Ubuntu Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 486

Kernel Space

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Nouveau Driver Remains Much Slower Than NVIDIA’s Official Driver

• While benchmarks this week have shown the Nouveau driver can be faster with the Linux 3.8 kernel, further benchmarks have shown that this reverse-engineered open-source driver for supporting the spectrum of NVIDIA GPUs is still at a significant loss compared to NVIDIA’s official but proprietary Linux graphics driver.

Applications

=> ↺ MyPaint 1.1.0 brings new colour harmony and geometry tools

• The developers of the open source painting application MyPaint have released version 1.1 of their software. MyPaint, which is designed to be used with graphics tablets has been used to create, among other things, the concept art for the Blender Foundation’s Sintel movie project. MyPaint 1.1 includes new colour picking options, including the ability to import palettes from GIMP. New layer blending modes are also included and, with the introduction of basic geometry tools, MyPaint can now be used for more than just freehand drawing.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Spotify Update Brings Linux Users New Features First

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How To Install Atheros Wired Drivers

=> ↺ Asterisk: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition

=> ↺ Options For User Auditing On Linux Platforms

=> ↺ Learning PHP, Part 2: Upload files and use XML or JSON to store and display file information

=> ↺ How to configure postfix as smtp relay for Gmail on Archlinux

=> ↺ Learning PHP, Part 3: Authentication, objects, exceptions, and streaming

=> ↺ My Hostgator e-mail setup: Roundcube webmail plus filtering in cPanel

=> ↺ Is your screen blanking in Xfce despite your xscreensaver settings? I have the fix

Games

=> ↺ Download Free SuperTuxKart .8 Racing Game for Linux

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Usability of Free Software Desktops: a rant from 2002

• In 2001/2002 I wrote for LinuxFormat a two parts tutorial for end users on how to configure Gnu/Linux desktops on limited hardware, that in part summarized what we were then doing in the RULE project. Before the actual tutorials, I had also written down my own, very personal motivations for playing with that kind of tricks. The reason was to clarify, first to myself and then to the editor, what itches I would try to scratch, so that text was never published, and I basically forgot about it. I rediscovered that file, dated September 19th, 2002, only this morning. Reading it again, in these days of Unity, tablets and touchscreens, made me think it may be fun to share it. Remember when it was written, judge by yourself and let me know.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ More Krita 2.7 features

• Recently Boudwijn presented his vacation work on the flipbook and smoothing feature. He wasn’t the only one having fun hacking new Krita features. I’m presenting you some of the new features that I developed in the last few days.

=> ↺ Qt Project Releases Qt 5

• Qt 5 offers developers enhanced productivity, flexibility, and easier cross-platform portability.

Distributions

=> ↺ Semplice 3.0.0 preview

New Releases

=> ↺ Bodhi 2.2.0

=> ↺ Bodhi Linux 2.2.0 ships stable E17 desktop

• The latest version of Bodhi Linux now ships with the stable Enlightenment E17 desktop environment that was released recently. Bodhi Linux 2.2.0 also includes a new kernel option for 32-bit installs and has introduced hybrid ISO images. This release makes the minimal desktop distribution one of the first Linux flavours to ship the stable version of E17.

=> ↺ Semplice Linux 3.0 provides a lightweight Debian desktop

• The developers of Semplice Linux have released version 3.0.0 of their lightweight distribution. Semplice is based on Debian Sid and uses the Openbox window manager. The distribution also includes Chromium as its default browser, the LightDM login manager, and its own graphical installer, which has been updated. Other updated packages include new versions of the Exaile and GNOME MPlayer media players, Pidgin, and the Guake terminal. For a lightweight office suite, Semplice combines Abiword and Gnumeric.

=> ↺ Snowlinux 4 “Glacier” released!

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Let’s build it all over again… and again

=> ↺ OpenMandriva gets incorporated

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat’s 2013 Will Center on Hybrid Cloud Services–and Support

• It’s the time of year when many writers and analysts are considering what lies ahead for leading technologies in the next 12 months, and Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat’s often-quoted CEO, offered up his views on the matter in a State of the Union blog post in late December. It’s worth reading, and not just for Whitehurst’s views on where Red Hat is going. Among other things, Whitehurst remains adamant that in cloud computing–where Red Hat is placing a big bet on OpenStack and other emerging technologies–hybrid clouds will win.

• “We have an all star customer list that features 80 percent of the global Fortune 500,” notes Whitehurst in his State of the Union post. Not everyone realizes that Red Hat–focused primarily on Linux–has such pull with elite companies. In 2013, though, Red Hat is making a big bet on cloud computing and has already released a preview edition of its OpenStack solution.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Is Ubuntu Phone Doomed To Fail, As CNN Money Story Claims?

• Covert rejects any potential Canonical’s convergence model has where a docked phone can convert a dumb monitor into a full-fledged PC. He gives the example of failed Motorola and equally doomed Windows 8.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone OS – What Are Its Chances?

=> ↺ Canonical targets Ubuntu at smartphones

=> ↺ Ubuntu Phone: Not a moment too soon

• Newly announced Ubuntu Phone operating system looks great — but the cutthroat mobile device market demands more

=> ↺ Do We Really Need Another Smartphone OS?

• Linux giant Canonical said on Wednesday that it would release its own mobile operating system, joining a growing fray that includes Tizen and Firefox — and that’s not to mention the coming relaunch of the BlackBerry OS with version 10.

=> ↺ Will Ubuntu for Mobiles Succeed Where All Else Have Failed?

• Last night, London-based makers of popular Linux OS Ubuntu, Canonical, unleashed a mobile version of Ubuntu which also provides options to dock and give you a desktop experience. Even if it ultimately doesn’t work, this is an important innovation because phone/desktop hybrids are quite possibly where the future of computing lies — one device to rule them all, one device to–oh, you get the idea.

=> ↺ Ubuntu targets Apple’s iOS and Android, threatens to take mobile industry by storm

• Software developer announces mobile operating system that can connect to any screen and keyboard

=> ↺ Ubuntu for Smartphones: What it Means for You

=> ↺ Who Wants a uPhone?

• There’s a new flavor of mobile operating system in town. Ubuntu, the most popular desktop Linux distro, is now a mobile OS as well. Canonical is targeting high-end superphones and budget smartphones for its new release. Its challenge now will be finding a handset maker to sell phones running Ubuntu.

=> ↺ Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux Goes Mobile

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ List of Ubuntu Based Linux Distributions and Live Cd’s

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Mouser – Compact industrial-grade open-source single-board Linux computer (iMX233-OLINUXINO-MINI)

=> ↺ Educational manual for Raspberry Pi released

Phones

=> ↺ Samsung To Sell Open Source Tizen OS Smartphones in 2013

=> ↺ Mobile Linux OSs line up for 2013

=> ↺ Samsung Confirms New Tizen Smartphones in 2013: Linux-Based Alternative to iPhone 5 or Its Own Galaxy S3

=> ↺ Mobile Sesame – Open webOS Escapes Onto Google Hardware

• Largely absent from my roundup of the rogue and rebel mobile operating systems around Wednesday’s announcement that Ubuntu was coming to mobile phones (at some point in the golden future, which is to say Q4 2013 or Q1 2014) was Open webOS.

=> ↺ Samsung confirms Tizen-based mobes to debut this year

Ballnux

=> ↺ Huawei, LG to showcase quad-core handsets at CES 2013

• China-based handset maker Huawei will introduce the Ascend D2 with HiSilicon’s quad-core processor and a 13-megapixel rear camera at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013.

=> ↺ EXCLUSIVE: Samsung Galaxy S IV leaked press release shots?

Android

=> ↺ HTC CEO admits to marketing failures in 2012 as rivals proved “too strong”

=> ↺ When Android Ate My Best Friends

=> ↺ Linux Foundation Offers Android Development Courses

• The Linux Foundation is interested in teaching Android Application development. Currently Android Development Training section of Linux Foundation training site includes 3 type of course:

• Introduction to Android : This 3 days course will teach you basics of Android Application development. This course will help you to quickly create application for Android that runs on different devices.

=> ↺ Dan Morrill 2013-01-02

• In the before time, in the long long ago (which is to say, 2007), Android had not yet launched; publicly, it was all rumors. We were working harder than you could possibly imagine on the initial announcement on 5 November and the SDK launch a week later.

=> ↺ Does Android Still Qualify as Free Software?

• There is no question that the Android mobile operating system now stands as a true open source success story. When Android began ramping up in 2008, few thought that it would rise to the top of the mobile operating system heap. And the Android SDK (Software Development Kit) has been at the heart of that rise, helping developers build a healthy ecosystem of apps and technologies to drive Android forward.

• Now, though, the latest terms and conditions for the Android SDK include language that some are saying imply that Android no longer qualifies as free software.

=> ↺ Unlocked Huawei Ascend P1 hits Amazon

=> ↺ ARCHOS TV Connect turns HDTV into an Android powered smart TV

=> ↺ ZTE preparing even bigger phablet (images)

• ZTE recently introduced a five-inch, 1080p handset by way of sub-brand Nuba and its Z5, and now we’ve learned that the company has an even larger phablet in the works — although its size is about the only thing that trumps the premium Z5. Known by model number P945, we’re told that the 5.7-inch device packs a 1.2GHz quad-core processor — a few ticks slower than the 1.5GHz Z5 — and more importantly, “just” a 720p display compared to Nuba’s denser full HD screen.

=> ↺ What is Google’s true aim with rumored X Phone?

=> ↺ HTC: Blame our troubles on lack of marketing

=> ↺ Bringing more entertainment to your TV, Las Vegas style

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

=> ↺ E FUN intros new Nextbook tablets with Google Play support

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ One software radio to rule them all

• Could one radio be all you ever need for data, cellular calls, wifi and more? Software defined radio holds that promise. Andrew Back looks at how free software is one of the enablers in helping to put the technology into the hands of consumers.

=> ↺ Microsoft vs. Google Apps: Surprise Winner VMware, Zimbra?

=> ↺ How Open Source Software Blooms: Gource Version Control Visualizations From Google

BSD

=> ↺ FreeBSD 9.1 Has Been Officially Released

• The FreeBSD Foundation, the maker of the FreeBSD open source operating system, proudly announced on the last day of 2012 that the FreeBSD 9.1 release is now officially available.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ On threats to freedom! Richard Stallman – in INT’s ENLIGHTENMENT MINUTES

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ FOSS takes precedence in Italy

• At the end of August I wrote a short post about an important reform that modified the rules for software adoption within the Italian public administration.

=> ↺ Report: NASA open source project slowed by commercial vendor

• A project to move NASA’s content management system to an open-source-based architecture has been slowed down because of a bid protest by a proprietary vendor, according to a report by Frank Konkel in FCW. As part of NASA’s Open Government Plan, the space administration wants to migrate the CMS systems that power 140 web sites, including www.nasa.gov, and 1600 web applications and assets to an open-source-based architecture.

=> ↺ Protest slows NASA open source project

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s plans to transition to a content management system with open source architecture are on hold for a little while.

=> ↺ Report: NASA open source project slowed by commercial vendor

• A project to move NASA’s content management system to an open-source-based architecture has been slowed down because of a bid protest by a proprietary vendor, according to a report by Frank Konkel in FCW. As part of NASA’s Open Government Plan, the space administration wants to migrate the CMS systems that power 140 web sites, including www.nasa.gov, and 1600 web applications and assets to an open-source-based architecture.

Licensing

=> ↺ 2012: Top Ten FOSS Legal Developments

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Open-sourced, big data knowhow meets auto racing

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ CMD Joins Amicus Brief Asking U.S. Supreme Court to Allow All Americans to Access Public Records

• The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has joined an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the right of all Americans to access public records, regardless of which state they call home.

• Plaintiffs in the case, McBurney v. Young, are challenging a Virginia law prohibiting non-residents of that state from invoking Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. They allege that state law violates the U.S. Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, which prevents a state from treating residents of other states in a discriminatory manner, and the Commerce Clause, which restricts states from impeding interstate commerce.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Software maker faces jail because his product was illegally used

=> ↺ Not with a Bang

• So ends the Federal Trade Commission’s long and contentious investigation into Google. Out of the four serious issues on the table, Google walks away cleanly on one (“search bias”), the FTC gets a clear victory on one (“standards-essential patents”), and Google makes mushy-mouthed “commitments” on the remaining two (“vertical opt-out” and “ad portability”). But the issue on which the FTC let Google walk—“biasing” its search results to favor its own content over competitors’—was far and away the most important. The mood over at the Googleplex has to be pretty good right now.

=> ↺ Google cleared of search results bias after FTC investigation

=> ↺ Google’s FTC Settlement Is An Epic Fail For Microsoft

=> ↺ 30 Years of TCP/IP Dominance Began with a Deadline

• Thirty years ago, something that we could never do today in the networking world, changed our world.

• On January 1st 1983, the ‘old’ Internet (aka ARPANET) shut down connectivity to all hosts running the NCP protocol. That’s right, a total shutoff, a ‘flag’ day where one service just ended. NCP had to die for the modern Internet to be born.

Science

=> ↺ A Martian Dream: Here’s What the Red Planet Would Look Like With Earth-Like Oceans and Life

• What if instead of dust and rocks, our planetary neighbor Mars were a bit more lush? What if it had oceans, an Earth-like atmosphere, and green life coating its land? These are the questions Kevin Gill, a software engineer living in New Hampshire, sought to answer with his project, A Living Mars.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Bolivia Set To Banish Coca-Cola To Mark Mayan End Of Capitalism

• For most Americans, Bolivia is a third world South American country last robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. However this impoverished nation is making headlines due to its Minister of External Affairs recent announcement that the Coca-Cola Company, one of the world’s largest corporations, is to be booted out of there by year’s end.

=> ↺ Can speculators be blamed for rising food prices?

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Obama and torture

• In his first four years in office, Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, worked aggressively to shut down all investigations into CIA torture and other crimes committed in the name of the “war on terrorism.” It intervened in case after case to quash lawsuits seeking to hold accountable those who had illegally abducted and tortured thousands of individuals. It sought dismissal of legal actions seeking to uncover information about these crimes by invoking state secrecy.

=> ↺ Two Swedes Renditioned To The US, Possibly To Death Penalty, In Secrecy And Without Lawyers’ Knowledge

• Mid-November, two Swedish citizens with Somali origins were renditioned from Djibouti to a prison in the United States of America.

=> ↺ Lawmakers say CIA may have misled filmmakers

• Lawmakers accused the CIA of misleading the makers of the Osama bin Laden raid film “Zero Dark Thirty” by allegedly telling them that harsh interrogation methods helped track down the terrorist mastermind.

=> ↺ CIA being sued over domestic spying collaboration with NYPD

• The CIA is being sued for withholding information about its cooperation on domestic spying as part of the New York Police Department’s counter-terrorism surveillance program.

=> ↺ NGO Head: CIA Shares Blame for Murdered Health Workers

• Two days after gunmen killed seven of his employees, the head of a Pakistani aid organization blamed their deaths not only on the militants who pulled the trigger, but also on America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

=> ↺ The CIA Man and the Malayan Emergency

=> ↺ The secrecy veiling Obama’s drone war

=> ↺ US waiting for blowback after drone killing of Pakistani ally

• A US drone attack killed an important senior militant commander in Pakistan on Thursday. The Taliban leader was on good terms with the Pakistan military, which makes his death a contentious issue.

=> ↺ Under Obama, Drone Strikes On The Rise. But Transparency? Not So Much

• It is time for President Barack Obama to reconnect with his inner Constitutional scholar and release all internal documents that could illuminate his legal rationale for the killing of an American citizen suspected, but never convicted, of terrorism.

=> ↺ Amid deadly demonstrations, focus on India police

• For the safety of journalists and other people on the streets protesting injustice, Indian police must begin in earnest to address how they respond to demonstrations. One journalist died covering protests that have been taking place across the country following the gang rape of a 23-year old female medical student on a Delhi bus on December 16. The government’s response to these protests, in which more than 100 people have been injured, has raised eyebrows across the world.

=> ↺ National Security Brief: Will The Drone War End?

=> ↺ Does spying on Americans protect the US?

• We examine the extent of the government’s secret, unlawful surveillance on Americans in the name of national security.

=> ↺ Torture May Have Slowed Hunt For Bin Laden, Not Hastened It

• Torture apologists are reaching precisely the wrong conclusion from the back-story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, say experienced interrogators and intelligence professionals.

• Defenders of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies have claimed vindication from reports that bin Laden was tracked down in small part due to information received from brutalized detainees some six to eight years ago.

=> ↺ On the CIA’s Evolving Thoughts About ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

=> ↺ Misplaced Secrecy on Targeted Killings

=> ↺ Government Violence: The Missing Link in the Gun Control Debate

• Violence has become our government’s calling card, starting at the top and trickling down, from President Obama’s “kill list,” which relies on drones to target insurgents, to the more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by heavily armed, black-garbed commandos and the increasingly rapid militarization of local police forces across the country. We even export violence worldwide, with one of this country’s most profitable exports being weapons.

=> ↺ Yemeni tribesmen protest against drone strikes

• Dozens of armed tribesmen took to the streets in southern Yemen on Friday to protest against drone strikes that they say have killed innocent civilians and increased anger against the United States.

=> ↺ California county postpones January drone hearing

• California county officials have decided yet again to postpone discussion about a request by county law enforcement to purchase a drone.

=> ↺ Homeland Security Quietly Runs “Loan-a-Drone” Program for Local Law Enforcement

=> ↺ Sherry says drone campaign counterproductive

=> ↺ Drone attacks making a huge mess in the War on Terror

• The most recent drone kill of a high-ranking Taliban leader in Pakistan remind Americans just how messy the ‘War on Terror’ has become.

• Maulvi Nazir Wazir can now be crossed of Barack Obama’s kill list, along with several of Wazir’s deputies who were not specifically targeted in the Presidential Assassination Program but were killed, becomming “collateral damage.”

Finance

=> ↺ Swiss bank Wegelin to close after US tax evasion fine

• Switzerland’s oldest bank is to close permanently after pleading guilty in a New York court to helping Americans evade their taxes.

=> ↺ Microsoft’s 2012 stock price increase added $7 billion to Gates’ net worth

• Bill Gates has more money than almost anyone else in the world. That’s not news. What is news is the the fact that the founder and Chairman of Microsoft actually increased his net worth in 2012 and pushed his good friend Warren Buffet out of the second place spot on a constantly updated list of billionaires.

=> ↺ Gore Went to Bat for Al Jazeera, and Himself

• Al Gore’s Current TV was never popular with viewers, but it was a hit where it counted: with cable and satellite providers. When he co-founded the channel in 2005, Mr. Gore managed to get the channel piped into tens of millions of households — a huge number for an untested network — through a combination of personal lobbying and arm-twisting of industry giants.

=> ↺ Quote Of The Year. And The Next.

• Increasing wealth makes us destroy ancient multi-generational family structures (re: the nuclear family, re: old-age homes), societal community structures (who knows their neighbors, and engages in meaningful activity with them?), and the very planet that has provided the means for increasing our wealth (and our population!).

=> ↺ Corporations in Illinois: What Have You Got to Hide?

• Tax fairness has become a centerpiece of national debate, from the president’s reelection to the recent deal surrounding the so-called fiscal cliff. In Illinois, taxpayers want to make sure corporations in the State are paying their fair share as well. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the federal corporate tax rate from 1952-63 — a period of prosperity and a significant rise in the middle class — was 52 percent. Today it’s 35 percent. By working loopholes and exceptions many corporations are able to reduce their effective tax rate to as low as zero. As it stands corporations doing business in Illinois do not have to disclose to the public what taxes, if any, they contribute to the state.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Why Did Obama Sign The 2013 NDAA After Threatening A Veto?

=> ↺ NDAA Signed Into Law By Obama Despite Guantanamo Veto Threat, Indefinite Detention Provisions

• President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 on Wednesday, despite his own threat to veto it over prohibitions on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

=> 2013 NDAA Now Law, Biden’s Awkward Swearing-In Jokes, and More ↺ Controversial 2013 NDAA Now Law, Biden’s Awkward Swearing-In Jokes, and More

• Video of the Day: Crazy Uncle Joe is back! Gaffe-prone Vice President Joe Biden sure knows how to tell some pretty awesomely awkward jokes, as was evident during a mock swearing-in of new senators. Among his more eyebrow raising ones: telling Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., to “spread your legs, you’re gonna be frisked.”

=> ↺ Book Review: The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law by Jenny Martinez

• The verdict of history depends on who writes it, and the lessons of history depend on who reads it. Contemporary readers will look for the lessons of a 19th century international human rights initiative that involved treaties, international courts, and criminal prosecutions for crimes against humanity, all driven by the human-rights policy and the vast naval power of one pre-eminent state. Professor Jenny Martinez’ excellent book, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law, presents the story of Great Britain’s partly successful effort to suppress the Atlantic slave trade while abiding by the limits imposed by international law as it then stood. This brief review will quickly recap some leading features of Professor Martinez’ story and then address one of the lessons she suggests can be drawn.

=> ↺ Quote of the Day: American Law Allows the Government to Engage in Unconstitutional Behavior Without Explaining Why

DRM

=> ↺ Examining Sony’s Internet-free method for blocking used game sales

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ DMCA Nonsense: Your Default Login Page Is A Ripoff Of Our Default Login Page!

• No matter how brazenly people abuse the DMCA takedown process, and no matter how ridiculous the notices get, it seems like there’s always someone waiting to do something even stupider. This latest incident, submitted by Anonymous American, is a serious contender for the crown dunce cap: a DMCA takedown over a login page.

=> ↺ What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2013?

=> ↺ Pirate “Kopimism” Recognized as an Official Word By Sweden

• Last year Sweden found itself with a new religion when the Church of Kopimism was officially recognized by authorities there. Now, just a year later, there has been another great achievement for the somewhat discordant Kopimism movement. In a list just published by the body responsible for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language, ‘kopimism’ has been officially accepted as a brand new word.

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