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● 11.19.15

● Links 19/11/2015: Linux Kernel 3.2.73 LTS, DockerCon EU

Posted in News Roundup at 2:45 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Printing Kernel, a new approach in 3D printer control.

• The approach of KI, the Printing Kernel, is to provide the Br-Print with a basic, but complete, interface to the O.S., witch is easier to implement with the GUI in a way that whose programmers shall not have to deal with the complexity, facilitating portability and increase reliability. Relying on the top of O.S. ports interfaces, its stability is directly linked with the system reliability. Working on the user space, the KI is friendly to the system in a way that even if it freezes for some reason, your computer shall not halt, so you’ll be able to react to emergencies. But at the same time, even if the GUI freezes, the printing job may finish, such event was already logged in our tests, and showed to us the strength of the kernel.

=> ↺ Numecent Promises New Cloud and Virtualization Features for Linux

• Cloudpaging is already supported for Windows. Now, Numecent has raised $15.5M from several European investors, including Deutsche Telekom, to extend the technology to support the open source Android and Linux platforms.

Desktop

=> ↺ Why the Linux Desktop Should Be Organized By Tasks

• This is not the time for innovation in desktop environments. The memory of the user revolts against KDE, GNOME, and Unity are still too fresh for developers to attempt major changes. Instead, the preference is for tweaks and minor improvements in functionality that nobody is apt to get too upset about. All the same, I think the desktop is long overdue to switch to task-based design.

• Historically, desktops have been organized by applications. This approach was adequate in the early days of personal computing, when the number of applications was small. However, today, it is hopelessly outdated in at least two ways.

Server

=> ↺ China’s supercomputer growth is exploding while the US is losing steam

• It comes as no surprise that Linux is the operating system of choice for supercomputers. What is surprising is that China is now the world’s fastest growing supercomputer power while the US has fallen to its lowest level ever.

=> ↺ Univention Corporate Server 4.1 Linux Integrates Docker, Samba 4, and SSO via SAML

• Univention, through Maren Abatielos, was extremely happy to inform Softpedia earlier today, November 17, about the final release of their Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.1 Linux kernel-based, server-oriented operating system.

=> ↺ Docker Container Security: What’s Next

=> ↺ Docker Container Management comes to Minecraft #Dockercon

=> ↺ Docker Debuts Universal Control Plane Management Service

• Docker is continuing its efforts to dig deeper into the enterprise with the announcement here at DockerCon EU of a new management and deployment service called Docker Universal Control Plane.

• For Docker, the typical entry point into an organization is by way of developers, according to Scott Johnson, senior vice president at Docker Inc. The challenge in some cases has been the operations side of organizations, which has responsibilities for control and compliance over deployment.

=> ↺ Hewlett Packard Enterprise Embraces Docker

• Among the many big name IT vendors that support Docker containers is Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which is now announcing new services and products to support and enable container use.

• In a video interview at the DockerCon EU conference here, Omri Gazitt, vice president of products and services for HP Helion at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, discussed the role that containers play and what Hewlett Packard Enterprise is now doing in the space.

=> ↺ Cray hoists Docker containers into supercomputers

• Everyone loves Docker, including Cray, which today announced the addition of container-based virtualization to its official software stack.

• The supercomputer builder is rolling the technology first to Cray XC customers and in 2016 to Cray S400, CrayXE and Cray XK systems.

=> ↺ Docker Reaches Across Universes at Dockercon EU

• The open-source Docker container project provides tooling that enables application virtualization in a way that is more agile than other traditional approaches.

• The agility of Docker containers is being used by developers in a number of unique and innovative ways to solve challenges big and small. At the Dockercon EU conference in Barcelona, Spain this week, the best and the brightest of those innovative Docker use-cases were on display.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.2.73 LTS Lands with x86 and IPv6 Improvements, Updated Drivers

• Renowned kernel developer and maintainer Ben Hutchings announced on November 17, 2015, the immediate availability of the seventy-third maintenance release of the long-term supported Linux 3.2 kernel series.

=> ↺ Core Technology: Signals

• In the world of Linux system programming, a signal is an event that’s delivered to a process by the kernel. A signal says to the process “something has happened that you might want to respond to”. A few signals are generated as a result of something that the program itself is doing (usually something bad), but most of them originate from sources external to the program itself.

=> ↺ Freescale Makes Significant Investment in Real Time Linux

• Freescale has just announced they are joining the Real Time Linux (RTL) Collaborative Project as a Gold Member. Freescale joins Google, National Instruments, OSADL, and TI with a significant investment because they value the strategic importance of this open source project and the benefits it creates for their customers.

• For years, Freescale has offered full Linux board support packages to their customers which represent a broad range of industries including robotics, telecom, manufacturing, aviation and medical.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ NVIDIA Updates Legacy Drivers For X.Org Server 1.18

• NVIDIA yesterday released the 358.13 Linux graphics driver as the newest mainline driver. This week, however, they’ve also updated their legacy drivers for X.Org Server 1.18.

Applications

=> ↺ ownCloud 8.2 Gets Its First Point Release with Over 100 Improvements

• On November 18, ownCloud announced the immediate availability for download of the first maintenance release of their open-source ownCloud 8.2 self-hosting cloud server solution for GNU/Linux operating systems.

=> ↺ GNU Wget 1.17 Command-Line Download Manager Gets FTPS and HSTS Support

• Giuseppe Scrivano, the maintainer of the open-source GNU wget command-line download manager utility for GNU/Linux and other UNIX operating systems, has announced the release of wget 1.17.

=> ↺ Schedule Tasks Based On Various Conditions With When

• Using “When”, you can set your desktop to perform various tasks depending on certain conditions. For instance, you can synchronize files, perform some cleanup actions, auto import photos from external storage devices and many other tasks (these are examples and require adding commands or scripts to “When”), all based on conditions such as a command exit code or output, a given time interval, file/folder changes and more.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Opera 33 No Longer Starts FFmpeg If Codecs Are Already Loaded

• Opera Software ASA has just revealed that a new stable version of the Opera browser has been released and is now available for download.

• The first stable build of the Opera 33.x branch was launched on October 27, but developers don’t abandon a particular branch after it is made available, even if most of the effect goes into the other builds that are being worked on.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Unbricking APM Mustang

=> ↺ Fedora 23 – error with win qemu and virtualbox.

=> ↺ How to install openSUSE Leap on a server with LAMP stack

=> ↺ Create a Firefox add-on for fun and profit

=> ↺ Use Fedora 23 Cloud image in Red Hat OpenStack

=> ↺ How to install TYPO3 7 on Nginx (LEMP) on Ubuntu 15.10

=> ↺ guv: Automatic scaling of Heroku workers

=> ↺ How to customise your Linux desktop: Xfce

• I think that’s really nice (duh, I made it). You might not agree, but that is exactly why I have spent all this time explaining Xfce desktop configuration and customization. To encourage you to try it yourself, and make something that fits your needs and your visual and functional preferences. Go for it!

=> ↺ How To Install Skype 4.3 In Ubuntu 15.10

=> ↺ How To Install Moodle 3.0 In CentOS 7

=> ↺ Setup NFS Server On openSUSE 42.1

=> ↺ Translating Between RDO/RHOS and Upstream OpenStack releases

=> ↺ Finding Recent Files

=> ↺ How to Find and Kill Running Processes in Linux

=> ↺ How to install and configure AutoMySQLBackup

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine Is Now Under A Code Freeze For Wine 1.8

• It was announced today via WWN 402 that last week’s Wine 1.7.55 is the last development freeze with now going into a code freeze for version 1.8.

• Wine 1.8 will likely be released by year’s end and until then will be weekly release candidates to ensure sufficient test coverage, as noted by the World Wine News.

Games

=> ↺ GOL’s Linux & SteamOS Gamer Survey Results For November

• Bit of a drop this month, mainly as I haven’t advertised it as much as usual, but still a decent amount compared with other months in general. If anyone has any thoughts on how to better advertise it on GOL and the wider community please let us know.

=> ↺ Alienware Steam Machine reviews: Is it worth buying?

=> ↺ Alienware Steam Machine (2015) review

=> ↺ Alienware Steam Machine Review: PC Gaming With Console Comforts

=> ↺ Review: Alienware Steam Machine

=> ↺ Alienware Steam Machine

=> ↺ Rocket League Linux Port Is Being Worked On Still, Developers Are Listening

=> ↺ Feral Interactive Are Teasing Yet Another SteamOS & Linux Game

• Feral Interactive are pushing the boat out once more, and they have another clue ready for an unannounced port.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Library versioning

• KDE Frameworks (and, in the past, kdelibs) approached this by defining some arbitrarily high minor version (typically 90+) to indicate pre-releases for the next major release. So the pre-release Frameworks were numbered like 4.90.1.

• So where is all of this going? Well, CMake provides a helpful function to write package version information files that allow find_package() calls to only find compatible versions. So if you use the SameMajorVersion scheme, find_package(Foo 4.3) will find Foo 4.3.0 and Foo 4.5.2, but not Foo 4.2.5 or Foo 5.1.1. However, if project Foo uses the “high minor = next version prerelease” scheme, it will also find Foo 4.90.1, which is not compatible with Foo 4.3.

=> ↺ Wireshark 2.0 Open-Source Network Protocol Analyzer Officially Released with New GUI

=> ↺ Wireshark 2.0 Released, UI Rewritten In Qt5

• Wireshark, the well known open-source network packet analyzer, has finally reached version 2.0!

• While its user interface was originally written for GTK+, Wireshark 2.0 marks the point that it’s been rewritten in Qt! It’s been more than two years of work and now this Qt version of Wireshark is out there after going through several development releases.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME Shell Browser Plugin Crash in Mozilla Firefox Patched for GNOME 3.18

• The GNOME developers have announced the general availability of a new maintenance release for the GNOME Shell component of the stable GNOME 3.18 desktop environment.

Distributions

New Releases

=> ↺ Black Lab Linux 7.0 Launches with Xfce 4.12 and Lots of Improvements

• Black Lab Linux 7.0, a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that’s using Xfce as the default desktop environment has been released and is now available for purchase and download.

=> ↺ Puppy Linux 6.3 “Slacko” Comes to Play, Based on Slackware 14.1 and Linux Kernel 4.1

• Barry Kauler, the creator of the Puppy Linux computer operating system, has had the great pleasure of announcing today, November 17, the release and immediate availability for download of Puppy Linux 6.3 “Slacko.”

Screenshots/Screencasts

=> ↺ Puppy Linux 6.3 Screenshot Tour

=> ↺ Astra Linux Common Edition Live 20150731 Screenshot Tour

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17.3 Beta Screenshot Tour

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat’s CFO says 4 changes to the US tax code would drive rapid growth

• Among his suggestions is a “significant” lowering of US tax rates for businesses. Calderoni says this would free up resources and lead to more investment dollars and improved corporate expansion.

=> ↺ CSC Cloud Tech Built on Red Hat OpenShift Gets FedRAMP Certification; Paul Smith Comments

• About Executive Mosaic: Founded in 2002, Executive Mosaic is a leadership organization and media company. It provides its members an opportunity to learn from peer business executives and government thought leaders while providing an interactive forum to develop key business and partnering relationships. Executive Mosaic offers highly coveted executive events, breaking business news on the Government Contracting industry, and delivers robust and reliable content through seven influential websites and four consequential E-newswires.

=> ↺ Wipro Collaborates with Red Hat to Certify VEVATO™ Framework on Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform

=> ↺ Vetr Inc. Downgrades Red Hat to Hold (RHT)

• In other Red Hat news, EVP Michael Cunningham sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 6th

=> ↺ Red Hat Cut to “Hold” at Vetr Inc. (RHT) – Dakota Financial News

=> ↺ Systemd 228 Ships New Features

• Systemd 228 makes available several new properties, a few new switches, transient service changes, support for UTC timestamps, temporary file changes, new system.conf settings, drops use of /etc/mtab, removes support for .snapshot unit types, and various other changes.

=> ↺ systemd: Masking units

=> ↺ Red Hat’s Software Collections 2.1 and Developer Toolset 4 Bring GCC 5.2, GDB 7.10

=> ↺ Red Hat Releases Ansible Tower 2.4

• Ansible Tower 2.4 helps DevOps teams manage systems and optimize deployments by adding control, security and delegation capabilities to the simple, agentless, and powerful Ansible open source automation tool.

=> ↺ Red Hat Expands Routes to Market for Red Hat Storage Portfolio

=> ↺ ​Red Hat loves containers in RHEL 7.2

• The latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux includes major improvements to security, networking, system administration and, oh yes, containers. Lots and lots of new container goodness.

=> ↺ systemd 228 Arrives for GNU/Linux Systems with Over 20 Improvements

Fedora

=> ↺ First Fedora Bug Report

• After generating my gpg key on Fedora 23 I ran in to an issue using the key to sign my email. When I went to Evolution to select the key it was not in the list. To create the key I used the command line ‘gpg –gen-key’ I then went to look in Seahorse to see if the key was there and found that the key was only under ‘Show Any’ and ‘Show Trusted’ views. It was not listed under ‘Show Personal’.

=> ↺ Python 3 Porting FAD: “We’ve done a lot of things…”

=> ↺ Fedora CommOps – What I’m working on

• My role in the Community Blog is primarily as a content contributor and partly as an administrator of the WordPress panel. The most recent pieces I contributed to the CommBlog were things like an interview with Python maintainer Matej Stuchlik about the Python 3 Fedora Activity Day, news about the Fedora Magazine breaking view records, an announcement about the Fedora Developer Portal, and the introductory article to the CommBlog. I also helped establish basic guidelines for contributors looking into writing an article. Nonetheless, this is fully a group effort between members of the CommOps team, and these are created with collaboration and guidance of others in the team.

=> ↺ Fedora 21 End Of Life on December 1st

• With the recent release of Fedora 23, Fedora 21 will officially enter End Of Life (EOL) status on December 1st, 2015. After December 1st, all packages in the Fedora 21 repositories will no longer receive security, bugfix or enhancement updates, and no new packages will be added to the Fedora 21 collection.

=> ↺ Fedora 23 Xfce review

• A default installation of Fedora desktop has a very good security profile: FirewallD and SELinux, an application firewall, are active. So if you configure full disk encryption, your Fedora-powered machine should have a pretty good physical and network security posture. One tool that should have been installed, is the firewall-applet, a component of FirewallD that resides in the systray. Figure 15 shows the entries in the applet’s menu after installing it on my test system.

=> ↺ Packt is offering SELinux System Administration for free in their Free Learning initiative.

=> ↺ Claim a free SELinux System Administration ebook from Packt

=> ↺ G11n team ends Fedora Activity Day on high note

• On November 1st – 3rd, 2015, the Fedora Globalization (G11n) team held their Fedora Activity Day (FAD) in the Red Hat office in Tokyo, Japan. A Fedora Activity Day is a mini-conference where contributors get together to work on major tasks related to Fedora. The G11n team met with objectives of working on Fedora 24 development plans, brainstorming on a Fedora globalization workflow, and deciding strategy for different Fedora products.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch OTA-9 Will be Released Next Year, on January 20, 2016

• Just a few minutes ago, Canonical’s Łukasz Zemczak send an email to the Ubuntu Touch mailing list to inform developers and Ubuntu Phone users alike about the release schedule of the next major update of the Ubuntu for phones mobile OS.

=> ↺ LXCFS Vulnerabilities Fixed in Ubuntu 15.10 and Ubuntu 15.04

• A couple of LXCFS vulnerabilities have been found and repaired in the Ubuntu 15.10 and Ubuntu 15.04 operating systems.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Will Soon be Rebased on Linux Kernel 4.3

=> ↺ Ubuntu Online Summit 2015 Was the Most Attended UOS Event of All Times

=> ↺ Announcing the Ubuntu Community Appreciation Day on November 20, 2015

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.10 to Have Unity 8, Mir, and Snappy Personal as Default

=> ↺ Major Telegram Update Arrives for Ubuntu Phones

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch Could Get WiFi Display Support to Help Turn the Phone into a PC More Easily

=> ↺ Ubuntu MATE: Giving Raspbian a Run for Its Money

• When most people think about working with or trying out the Raspberry Pi, they are usually envisioning using Raspbian. This isn’t by default, but rather because Raspbian is the only OS available for the Raspberry Pi that comes equipped with the tools that we all hear about such as Scratch, Sonic Pi, and support for using the GPIO pins. That’s all changed now with the latest release of Ubuntu MATE for the Raspberry Pi 2.

=> ↺ Canonical Announces OpenStack Autopilot Tool for Major Cloud Cost Savings

• Today, November 17, Canonical, the company behind the world’s most popular free operating system, Ubuntu Linux, has had the great pleasure of announcing the general availability of its OpenStack Autopilot tool.

=> ↺ Canonical Releases OpenStack Autopilot Open Source Cloud Management

=> ↺ Linux Smartphones with Open Source Ubuntu OS Go on Sale Sale in Russia

• Ubuntu Linux fans in Russia have a new way to run Canonical’s open source operating system this week following the announcement that BQ Aquaris smartphones have gone on sale in the Russian market.

=> ↺ Intel Graphics Installer Brings Support for Ubuntu 15.10, Support for 14.04 Dropped

• The Intel Graphics Installer for Linux, a tool that allows users to easily install the latest graphics and video drivers for their Intel graphics hardware, is now at version 1.2.1 and is ready for download.

=> ↺ Here’s What’s New In Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 for Ubuntu Phones

• While many of us are still waiting to receive the Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 software update on our Ubuntu Phone devices, the developers have just published the entire changelog with all the juicy details.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Ubuntu Studio Is a Treasure Trove for Creative Types

• Ubuntu Studio 15.10 is a solid gateway for artistic enthusiasts and professional users coming into the Linux world. It caters more to graphic and audio specialties, but authors and publication makers have a reliable Linux OS to add the needed tools to round out the creativity hub.

• Ubuntu Studio is a proven Linux distro that is closely aligned with one of the more successful Ubuntu spin-off releases. Even as a computing platform for noncreative users, Ubuntu Studio can be a good choice.

=> ↺ Ubuntu MATE Developers Are Preparing Something Special for 16.04 LTS

• The Ubuntu MATE developers usually post details about donations from the previous month, and regardless of what people might think, it’s actually a very interesting read. The same is true for the month of October.

• The Ubuntu MATE devs have started a very nice public trend of publishing everything they are doing with the money they receive from donations. Other projects have similar transparency procedures, but that’s not all. In the case of Ubuntu MATE, we also see that a slice of those funds is going to other teams and developers.

=> ↺ Here’s An Early Linux 4.4 Kernel Spin To Play Around With On Ubuntu

• Now that Linux 4.4-rc1 was released this weekend as the first development release towards Linux 4.4 with its many new features, I’m onto benchmarking it at Phoronix for articles looking at the Nouveau Kepler re-clocking changes, Radeon/Intel graphics performance too, file-system tests, and more.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa” Cinnamon Edition Beta Officially Released with Cinnamon 2.8

• Just a few moments ago, the Linux Mint developers announced the official release and immediate availability for download of the Beta builds of Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa” Cinnamon and MATE editions.

=> ↺ Bodhi Linux 3.1.1 Is a Minor Update That Fixes a Wireless Connection Issue

• Earlier today, November 18, Jeff Hoogland, the creator of the Bodhi Linux project, announced the general availability of the first maintenance release for the stable Bodhi Linux 3.1 operating system.

=> ↺ Ubuntu GNOME: the typical part of the family

• If you like GNOME3, you will find that Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 is a good and reliable system for you. Apart from small performance issues in the browser, I had nothing major to report in the “problems” area.

• Basically, as soon as you say “Ubuntu”, you are already in the area of well-tested and problem-free all-rounders, especially if the distribution is officially supported by Canonical, the company behind this family of Linux operating systems. Any part of that family is the tool that you can start using out of the box, adding necessary components as and when they are necessary. For the most of us, the choice between the parts of the family is merely a choice of visual design of components and workflows.

=> ↺ Linux Mint 17.3 Beta “Rosa” MATE Edition Is Out and Ready for Testing

• The MATE edition of Linux Mint 17.3 Beta “Rosa” was released along with the Cinnamon one and it’s one of the two main flavors of the Linux Mint distribution. There are also Xfce and KDE versions, not to mention edition that are based on Debian, but those are not the main focus of the team.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Rugged SODIMM-style COM and SBC run Linux on i.MX7

• CompuLab announced a rugged COM and SBC dev kit based on a Freescale i.MX7 SoC, with up to 2GB RAM and 32GB eMMC, plus WiFi, BT, dual GbE ports, and PCIe.

• CompuLab bills the CL-SOM-iMX7 as the world’s first computer-on-module supporting the Freescale i.MX7 system-on-chip. In September, Toradex announced plans to offer two Linux-ready Colibri branded COMs based on the SoC in early 2016, but offered few details. Although CompuLab’s CL-SOM-iMX7 won’t ship until January, we’ll give it the nod for being first, thanks to its full documentation.

=> ↺ Nano-ITX based mini-PC taps 5th Gen Core, packs dual GbE

• Aaeon’s fanless, Linux-friendly “Nano-001N” mini-PC is built around a Nano-ITX board with a 5th Gen. Core processor, M.2 storage, and dual DP and GbE ports.

• The “entry level” Nano-001N, which is billed as Aaeon’s first embedded box PC based on a 120 x 120mm Nano-ITX form factor board, is designed for indoor applications like vending machines, kiosks, and digital signage. The fanless computer is similar to Intel’s NUC, but more feature-rich, says the Asus subsidiary.

=> ↺ Open source OpenWRT router has automatic updates

• CZ.NIC has found Indiegogo success with an open source, OpenWRT “Turris Omnia” router with crypto security, automatic updates, and NAS and server functions.

• CZ.NIC, a non-profit organization that runs the .CZ top level domain of the Czech Republic, released its first open source hardware and software router design called Turris in 2014, offering systems to interested hackers on an invitation-only basis. Now, it is expanding to a larger base via Indiegogo with a new Turris Omnia design touted for its high performance, security, automatic updates, and multiple servers.

=> ↺ Rugged 3.5-inch SBC runs Linux on Bay Trail, is loaded with I/O

• Arbor Technologies unveiled the “EmCORE-i230G,” a 3.5-inch form factor SBC featuring Intel Atom E3800 CPUs, a wide array of I/O, and -40 to 85°C operation.

• Like many other single-board computers targeting applications such as outdoor kiosks or industrial signage, Arbor’s EmCORE-i230G leverages the high-speed processing and graphics performance of Intel’s E3800 processors, along with their low power consumption. The board’s 3.5-inch form-factor remains one of the most popular SBC formats for embedded and industrial applications, alongside the ever popular Mini-ITX. Other recent Bay Trail-based SBCs in 3.5-inch format have included Aaeon’s GENE-BT06, ADL’s ADLE3800HD, Axiomtek’s CAPA840 and CAPA848, Nexcom’s EBC 355, and the WinSystems SBC35-CC405.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ T-Money and Cashbee Payment Apps Now Available for Gear S2 in Korea

=> ↺ Samsung Z3 Smartphone Ranked as Fourth Most Trending Phone in the World

• According to some Industry sources the Samsung Z3 smartphone is currently ranking as fourth most trending phones in the world. The ranking is compiled by various press sources which gather consumer search inquiries and news, and select the top 10 trending smartphones of the week. The Z3 went on sale in India only 3 weeks ago priced at Rs 8,499 ($130), so this is a significant achievement for a largely unknown Operating System (OS).

Android

=> ↺ With StageLight, Android finally gets a serious music editing app

• Stagelight initially launched as a Windows audio editing app that could be used by everyone from casual music makers to professionals, an alternative to GarageBand for those without a Mac. It provides an easy interface to create or mix tracks, and even offers original sound libraries (for a fee) from popular artists such as Linkin Park and Timbaland, both of whom are part owners. You can import audio you’ve recorded and pretty quickly test different beats and sounds from those libraries within the Stagelight platform. Therefore, the move to Android was a natural next step that was previously held back by the last few versions of the OS not being ideal for recording, according to Open Labs founder Cliff Mountain.

=> ↺ Google Search starts indexing and letting users stream Android apps without matching web content

=> ↺ How to add a lock screen message in Android Marshmallow: Customise your Android M lock screen with a personal message

=> ↺ Best Android Phones: Holiday 2015

• As we hit the middle of November, the holiday shopping season is starting up. As we have for the past several years, this year we are putting together a series of holiday guides with recommendations for various product categories and some quick links to those products. These holiday guides also act as a way for us to look over all the devices that have been released in a given year to see which still hold up.

=> ↺ ​Yes, Walmart is selling a $10 Android smartphone – but with a catch

• Why settle for a feature phone either as primary or backup handset when you can buy a new smartphone for $10?

• Buyers can’t expect too much from a $10 smartphone and that’s pretty much what they will get if they take up an offer from US retail giant Walmart for two LG-made handsets.

=> ↺ Leaping Tiger, The Matchmaking App For Gamers, Finally Arrives On Android

=> ↺ Google Lowers Minimum Price For Android Apps And In-App Purchases In 17 Countries

• The price cuts are taking effect in 17 countries including Brazil, Vietnam, Russia, Indonesia and Turkey. The new lower options are exactly that — optional — but Google believes that pricing content lower could make it more appealing to users in some cases, and thus actually drive higher revenue and return for developers.

=> ↺ Google Cuts Android App Pricing To Increase Inventory

=> ↺ Incredible free app makes older Android phones feel like new high-end flagships

• If you’re a hardcore gadget fan, you likely upgrade your smartphone once a year as new flagship phones come out. No, there’s nothing wrong with the phone you had been using, but all of those exciting new features are just too good to pass up. Most smartphone users don’t upgrade quite as often, however. Using the same phone for two, even three years is far more common than upgrading every year, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that — smartphones can be an expensive habit.

=> ↺ Android and iOS dominate smartphone market with 98pc share

• The impending release of Windows 10 for smartphones was not enough to convince consumers to stick with the brand, the report found, after the brand’s market share fell from 3pc in the third financial quarter of 2014 to 1.7pc in the same period this year.

=> ↺ Android 5.1.1 Lollipop Update For Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo: Here’s How You Can Install It

=> ↺ Android Influencer: Joaquim Verges on making the official Twitter app better for Android

=> ↺ Here’s the Next Battle in the iOS Versus Android War

=> ↺ How to uninstall apps in Android Marshmallow: Three easy ways to delete apps in Android M, including how to delete apps from home screen

=> ↺ Android apps may not be coming to Windows 10 Mobile

=> ↺ Microsoft’s plan to port Android apps to Windows proves too complex

=> ↺ Microsoft Android App Porting Reportedly Delayed

=> ↺ Android History Interview: Cyanogen’s Steve Kondik

=> ↺ Microsoft’s Trojan Horse To Undermine Android

=> ↺ Is Samsung flipping mad? New Android clamshell phone leaks

=> ↺ HTC One M8 Update: Install Android 5.1.1 Lollipop Update via Candy5 Custom ROM

=> ↺ Oppo starts offering near-stock Android to appeal outside of China

=> ↺ Six nifty and quite useful open-source Android apps that can be found on F-Droid

• Last week, we showed you some open-source alternatives to Google’s own set of Android apps. Found on F-Droid, one of the popular third-party app repositories for Android, these allow you to substitute some of the stock Google apps on your phone with open-source substitutes.

• We usually associate Android with Google, and that’s perfectly fine. Android is an open source OS that can be freely modified and used by just anyone willing to do so, but having the proprietary Google apps and services, the pushing force behind the OS, is a trickier business. Manufacturers need to pay Google before they can be use its “Gapps” (publicly accepted acronym for “Google’s apps and services”) package.

=> ↺ Meet the $90 Android phone with bigger battery than iPhone 6s

• Hardware specs certainly aren’t everything but it’s still incredibly impressive how some Chinese vendors are able to sell devices with fairly high-end hardware at dirt-cheap prices. The latest example comes to us via GizChina, which informs us that there’s a new device out there called the UMi Rome that features a bigger battery and more RAM than the iPhone 6s and costs a mere $90.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ 14 amazing open source gifts for the holidays

• Here it is the annual Opensource.com holiday gift guide. Our collection of gifts is sure to get kids, adults, and hobbyists geared up and ready for hours of fun coding and creating. We’ve got 3D printers, Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, gadgets, robotics, and more!

=> ↺ Plotly to open source its dataviz code

• Data visualization platform Plotly is open-sourcing its powerful JavaScript library, which supports three dozen different types of graphics including maps, box plots and density plots as well as more common offerings like as bar and line charts. The code is scheduled to be posted on GitHub at https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js today.

=> ↺ Hiring Open Source Maintainers is Key to Stable Software Supply Chain

• Samsung is on a multi-year journey to become both a better consumer of open source, and a better contributor and leader in the projects that end up in our products. The reasons for doing so are quite clear to us: While it’s easy to use code that’s made freely available, it’s risky and potentially quite expensive to rely upon it long-term, unless you are proactively working within the community.

• The reason it’s potentially risky is actually the flip side of two of the biggest benefits of open source: development moves extremely fast, and a vibrant developer community leads to more diverse contributions. The result of this combination is that the APIs and the features you depend upon today could be entirely different tomorrow, depending upon the will of the contributor community.

=> ↺ Open source projects rely on donated time—what motivates participants?

• The study’s authors collected data from approximately a thousand R contributors who responded to a questionnaire distributed via e-mail. The respondents were asked about what drove them to participate in the project, with possible answers including taking pleasure in applying their skills and feeling a sense of responsibility toward the scientific community. They were also asked about extrinsic motivators, such as the potential that their work could help with academic advancement. Additionally, the surveys included questions about the characteristics of the software development work (e.g. repetitive, technical, social) and the demographics of participants.

=> ↺ Implementing open source requires tough staffing, IT calls

=> ↺ Import old email archives into Gmail using these open source tools from Google

• If you want to try these open source tools yourself, you can download them at Github (mail-importer and import-mailbox-to-gmail). Unfortunately, mail-importer appears to only support Thunderbird at this time. If you used a different client, you will need to wait for a future update. If you are savvy enough, maybe you can tweak the source to make it work. I have a large Lotus Notes archive saved — I won’t hold my breath on that one being anyone’s priority.

=> ↺ Celebrate GIS Day 2015 with 3 open source alternatives to Google Maps API

• If you’re looking to get started with web mapping, here are three libraries which are worth checking out.

=> ↺ Stickers

• Basically, stickers are a great way to promote open source projects. Also – fun! For more “Rules of sticker club” go HERE.

Events

=> ↺ LinuxCon Europe – Day 1

• The conference was opened by the LinuxFoundation’s Executive Jim Zemlin. He thanked the FSF for their 30 years of work. I was a little surprised to hear that, given the differences between OpenSource and Free Software. He continued by mentioning the 5 Billion Dollar report which calculates how much “value” the projects hosted at Linux Foundation have generated over the last five years. He said that a typical product contains 80%, 90%, or even more Free and Open Source Software. He also extended the list of projects by the Real Time Collaborative project which, as far as I understood, effectively means to hire Thomas Gleisxner to work on the Real Time Linux patches.

Databases

=> ↺ SQL CRUD: what’s good and what’s crud?

CMS

=> ↺ Setting up a Digital Ocean remotely hosted WordPress blog

• After considering our options, we decided to try using a Digital Ocean “Droplet” to host a WordPress blog. Here, I want to tell you how that went, and give a few pointers. This might be a good idea for some of you. And, I’ll explain what the heck Digital Ocean is in case you don’t know.

Education

=> ↺ RoboTutor team using open source tools to address short supply of teachers, schools

• Where were these Carnegie Mellon University researchers when Sister Thomas Catherine was frightening me and other good little Catholic school 3rd graders back in the day?

• CMU today informed us that a team of its researchers is taking aim at the $10 million grand prize of the $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE competition, the goal of which is to empower children to take control of their own learning via tablet computers, software and the like. The competition was announced about a year ago.

BSD

=> ↺ LLVM’s Clang Lands More CUDA Improvements

• Just days after writing about GPUCC as Google’s open-source CUDA compiler built atop LLVM and how to compile CUDA code with LLVM, more improvements have landed.

• There’s now support for CUDA compilation by default as one of the most prominent changes today. “Currently clang requires several additional command line options in order to enable new features needed during CUDA compilation. This patch makes these options default.” That change was done by Artem Belevich at Google.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GCC 5.2 Compiler Benchmarks With ARM Cortex-A57 A Mixed Bag

• In this article are some benchmarks using the Jetson TX1 when running open-source tests using the stock GCC 4.8.4 compiler and then trying out GCC 4.9.3 and GCC 5.2.1. The same compiler flags were used each time when building the benchmarks under each of the different compilers using the automated Phoronix Test Suite. GCC 4.9 and GCC 5.2 were obtained from the Ubuntu Toolchain PPA. All tests are built on the Jetson TX1 without any cross-compilation or other steps.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Open source EcoGIS lets towns reduce CO₂ emission

• The EcoGIS solution was made available as open source at the SFScon free software conference, which took place in Bozen/Bolzano last week. The software licensed under the AGPL.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Farmers need better software

• The Open Food Network is a free, open source, scalable e-commerce marketplace and logistics platform that enables communities and producers to connect, trade, and coordinate the movement of food. It was founded by Serenity Hill and Kirsten Larsen, and besides being a network of consumers and producers, Open Food Network is built on free and open source software and released under AGPL license. Plus, anyone can contribute to the project on GitHub.

=> ↺ These Biohackers Are Creating Open-Source Insulin

• The 370 million people worldwide with diabetes rely on injections of insulin to regulate the amount of sugar in their blood, since their bodies can’t make the hormone themselves. Since there are no generic versions available in the United States, insulin is very expensive—that cost was likely a large proportion of the $176 billion in medical expenditures incurred by diabetes patients in 2012 alone. Now a team of biohackers with Counter Culture Labs, a community lab in Oakland, California, wants to pave the way towards generic insulin, and they’ve started a crowdfunding page for their project.

=> ↺ OpenCar wants to open source in-vehicle infotainment

• The OpenCar suite of offerings come together to work in a way similar to the software developer kits (SDK) offered for various tech and platforms. Everything from Web-based applications like WordPress to gadgets like the Apple Watch have developer kits associated with them so that third-party programmers can build software to work with them. In many ways, what OpenCar is offering is the platform for an SDK for in-car infotainment. Automakers still have to sign on and make their software compatible, but in return they can open their vehicle infotainment to outside developers without compromising its integrity or their control of the experience, branding, and legalities.

=> ↺ How will the children of the future learn about science?

• As our understanding of the world expands, it is important to ensure that that knowledge is equally accessible by all members of our society. This is vital to the progress of humanity. This philosophy, which is shared by the open source software movement, is not new; it has been around since the 1600s when the first academic journals were published for public reading. The Jupyter Notebook hints at what the academic journals of tomorrow will look like and paints a promising picture. They will be interactive, visualization-focused, user-friendly, and include code and data as first-class citizens. I believe that these unique characteristics will go a long way toward bridging the gap of understanding between the scientific community and the general public through both narrative and code—a gap that, when bridged, will have a significant impact on our society.

Open Data

=> ↺ EC brings pan-European open data together on European Data Portal

• On November 16, the European Commission launched the European Data Portal, which will serve as a central gateway to data published by administrations in countries across Europe, from the EU and beyond. Currently over 240,000 datasets from 34 European countries can be accessed through thirteen different categories and a multi-language search function.

=> ↺ Greek geodata project extends open data platform

• The Greek government’s open geodata platform (geodata.gov.gr) is making available as open source several tools and extensions to CKAN, a commonly used data management system. The development of reusable tools to help publish and discover open geospatial data is one of the goals of the PublicaMundi project that built Greece’s geodata platform.

Open Hardware

=> ↺ Betty Hacker embeds open hardware electronics into cakes

• The code I used can be found below.

Programming

=> ↺ You might want to hug this book: a review of ‘Git for Teams’

• Git has a bit of a reputation as being difficult to learn and even more difficult to master. Because it’s such a powerful and flexible tool, it is easy for users to make hard-to-correct mistakes. When working with others, it becomes even easier to get out of sorts. Git for Teams aims to solve that problem by not only teaching the reader how to use Git, but how to use teams.

Leftovers

Security

=> ↺ Security advisories for Wednesday

=> ↺ Linux.Encoder.1 Ransomware Has an Older Brother, Just as Dumb

• Malware analysts from Bitdefender have come across an older version of the Linux.Encoder.1 ransomware, which they’ve manage to decrypt with the help of some voodoo magic.

=> ↺ Proofpoint Joins Open Information Security Foundation, Reinforces Open Source Commitment

• The OISF formed in 2009 to develop Suricata, an open source IDS engine that functions as an intrusion detection system, intrusion prevention system and network security monitoring solution. Proofpoint provides the only Suricata-focused ruleset and maintains the quality assurance and distribution infrastructure for the Proofpoint ET Open IPS/IDS ruleset. More than 20,000 organizations and individuals rely on the ruleset, which is distributed daily at no cost and is known for providing one of the world’s top sources for threat intelligence on major malware detection and prevention.

=> ↺ Canonical Patches Nvidia Graphics Drivers Vulnerability in All Supported Ubuntu OSes

=> ↺ Important Xen Security Update Patched in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and CentOS 5

• Red Hat has published a new security advisory for its long-term supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x series of operating systems, informing users about an important update to the Xen packages.

=> ↺ Debian Devs Patch Critical Libpng Bugs in Debian GNU/Linux 6 LTS

• A libpng update has been released by the Debian Project for the long-term supported Debian GNU/Linux 6 LTS series of operating systems, fixing three critical issues discovered recently in the open-source C library.

=> ↺ GNOME Developers Fix Famous Cat-Related Lock Screen Bypass Issue in GDM

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ 2015 shatters the temperature record as global warming speeds back up

• With just a month and a half left in 2015, it’s clear this year will be by far the hottest on record, easily beating the previous record set just last year. The temporary slowdown in the warming of global surface temperatures (also misnamed the “pause”) has ended, as each of the past four years has been hotter than the one before.

• El Niño is one reason 2015 has been such an incredibly hot year. During El Niño events, hot water is transported from the deep ocean layers to the surface. Over the past 15 years, we’ve experienced more La Niñas than El Niños, which helped temporarily slow the warming of global surface temperatures.

=> ↺ I’m a nuclear armageddon survivor: Ask me anything

• Press events are usually decadent affairs of food, drink, and well-dressed executives in up-market hotels. Not this one. A small number of journalists including your correspondent were dumped at dusk in a wet field in the Essex countryside, given blue boilersuits and a small knapsack containing bottle-tops and leaflets, and told to await developments. As most press events don’t ask for disclosure of any medical conditions, nor involve signing a waiver against accidents, those developments were unlikely to be pleasant.

=> ↺ The Koch intelligence agency

• The political network helmed by Charles and David Koch has quietly built a secretive operation that conducts surveillance and intelligence gathering on its liberal opponents, viewing it as a key strategic tool in its efforts to reshape American public life.

• The operation, which is little-known even within the Koch network, gathers what Koch insiders refer to as “competitive intelligence” that is used to try to thwart liberal groups and activists, and to identify potential threats to the expansive network.

• Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-koch-brothers-intelligence-agency-215943#ixzz3rrzL8oiR

Finance

=> ↺ House Democrats call TPP ‘too big’ to pass Congress

• A half dozen House Democrats asserted on Wednesday that opposition is growing for a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade agreement as the White House ramps up efforts to build support for the deal.

• The six Democrats — Reps. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Mark Pocan (Wis.) and Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) — said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal is “too big” to pass Congress and must be scrapped.

• The Democrats, who have long opposed the expansive deal, said the more than 5,000-page agreement, which they carted out in front of the Capitol by hand truck for a press conference, is a big giveaway to multi-national corporations and will have devastating effects on the U.S. economy, jobs and wages.

Privacy

=> ↺ Don’t Blame Encryption for ISIS Attacks

• Let’s start with what we don’t know. No firm details have been released about how the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris last Friday communicated.

• All the same, some media outlets, politicians, and security leaders in Europe and the U.S. are now suggesting that the tragic events show how encryption technology has lately made it easier for terrorists to evade the authorities.

• Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan complained about that at an event at the Center for Strategic & International Studies on Monday. “There are a lot of technological capabilities that are available right now that make it exceptionally difficult, both technically as well as legally, for intelligence security services to have insight that they need,” he said.

• There is also much chatter about the possibility that the Paris attackers used Sony’s Playstation gaming network to communicate because it offers a very high level of protection against eavesdropping. This is based on a false assertion—now retracted—that a Playstation 4 console was among the items seized in a series of raids this weekend in France and Belgium. (Belgium’s interior minister did say last week that it was “very, very difficult” for intelligence agencies to “decrypt” communications made through Playstations, but he didn’t back up his claim.)

=> ↺ EU centre-right group using Paris tragedy to try to kill data protection directive

• Since the Paris attacks politicians, police and intelligence agencies have pushed for more mass surveillance. And now, it seems they are also trying to undermine the new EU framework for data protection.

• The EU data protection directive has been under massive fire from special interests and member states in the council. But the European Parliament has been firm in insisting on a clear and meaningful framework to protect citizens private data.

=> ↺ FBI Paid Carnegie Mellon $1M to Crack User IDs, Claims Tor

• The Tor Project last week claimed the FBI paid Carnegie Mellon University $1 million to crack the anonymity of Tor users.

=> ↺ U.S. Mass Surveillance Has No Record of Thwarting Large Terror Attacks, Regardless of Snowden Leaks

• Despite the intelligence community’s attempts to blame NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the tragic attacks in Paris on Friday, the NSA’s mass surveillance programs do not have a track record — before or after Snowden — of identifying or thwarting actual large-scale terrorist plots.

• CIA Director John Brennan asserted on Monday that “many of these terrorist operations are uncovered and thwarted before they’re able to be carried out,” and lamented the post-Snowden “handwringing” that has made that job more difficult.

• But the reason there haven’t been any large-scale terror attacks by ISIS in the U.S. is not because they were averted by the intelligence community, but because — with the possible exception of one that was foiled by local police — none were actually planned.

=> ↺ Study finds no increase in jihadists’ use of encryption since Snowden leaks

• Is Edward Snowden to blame, even indirectly, for the Paris attacks that left 129 dead and hundreds others injured?

• Ask surveillance hawks, and you’ll likely get an emphatic “Yes!” The rising popularity of encrypted communications following Snowden’s 2013 leak of gigabytes of secret NSA documents has made terrorists far more difficult to identify, they say. Without Snowden, the attackers would still be out in the open.

=> ↺ Syrian passports found at Paris attacks scene were fakes made in Turkey

• EU commission chief says EU does not need to review migration policy in light of fears that militants posing as refugees launched attacks

=> ↺ NYT Quietly Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Attacks

• Questions about how the terrorists behind Friday’s attacks in Paris managed to evade electronic surveillance have fueled worrisome speculation in Europe and in the U.S. from intelligence experts, lawmakers and the press — including the New York Times, which on Sunday quietly pulled from its website a story alleging the attackers used encrypted technology.

• On Sunday, the Times published a story citing unidentified “European officials” who told the outlet the attackers coordinated their assault on the French capital via unspecified “encryption technology.”

• “The attackers are believed to have communicated using encryption technology, according to European officials who had been briefed on the investigation but were not authorized to speak publicly,” the article, which has since been removed, stated.

=> ↺ After Endless Demonization Of Encryption, Police Find Paris Attackers Coordinated Via Unencrypted SMS

• In the wake of the tragic events in Paris last week encryption has continued to be a useful bogeyman for those with a voracious appetite for surveillance expansion. Like clockwork, numerous reports were quickly circulated suggesting that the terrorists used incredibly sophisticated encryption techniques, despite no evidence by investigators that this was the case. These reports varied in the amount of hallucination involved, the New York Times even having to pull one such report offline. Other claims the attackers had used encrypted Playstation 4 communications also wound up being bunk.

• Yet pushed by their sources in the government, the media quickly became a sound wall of noise suggesting that encryption was hampering the government’s ability to stop these kinds of attacks. NBC was particularly breathless this week over the idea that ISIS was now running a 24 hour help desk aimed at helping its less technically proficient members understand encryption (even cults help each other use technology, who knew?). All of the reports had one central, underlying drum beat implication: Edward Snowden and encryption have made us less safe, and if you disagree the blood is on your hands.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ What Americans thought of Jewish refugees on the eve of World War II

• The results of the poll illustrated above by the useful Twitter account @HistOpinion were published in the pages of Fortune magazine in July 1938. Fewer than 5 percent of Americans surveyed at the time believed that the United States should raise its immigration quotas or encourage political refugees fleeing fascist states in Europe — the vast majority of whom were Jewish — to voyage across the Atlantic. Two-thirds of the respondents agreed with the proposition that “we should try to keep them out.”

=> ↺ ​’Offensive and hysterical’: Obama lashes Republicans over Syrian refugees

• President says Congress lawmakers and state governors are doing Islamic State’s work…

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Elsevier Says Downloading And Content-Mining Licensed Copies Of Research Papers ‘Could Be Considered’ Stealing

• Elsevier has pretty much established itself as the most hated company in the world of academic publishing, a fact demonstrated most recently when all the editors and editorial board resigned from one of its top journals to set up their own, open access rival. A blog post by the statistician Chris H.J. Hartgerink shows that Elsevier is still an innovator when it comes to making life hard for academics. Hartgerink’s work at Tilburg University in the Netherlands concerns detecting potentially problematic research that might involve data fabrication — obviously an important issue for the academic world.

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