● 09.15.11

● Links 15/9/2011: GNOME 3.2 Preview, Rudolf Elmer Interview

Posted in News Roundup at 6:13 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

Games

Desktop Environments

• The last few years of development on the free desktop have been instructive. First, KDE stumbled and recovered with the KDE 4 series. Then, this year, GNOME and Ubuntu introduced radically new desktops. In each case, user complaints immediately poured in. Although both GNOME and Ubuntu seem determined to ignore these complaints and continue on their course, I keep wondering: could the disastrous receptions have been avoided?

• When I installed LXDE from the Debian repository, it started right up, and its Start Menu had the usual default categories (Accessories, Games, Internet, Office, and so on). And most of my applications were in the correct categories. But a few were missing, such as Claws (my email client), and I wanted to create some new categories. No problem; I expect to do this with any new system.

GNOME Desktop

• Gnome 3.2 is going to get:

• * A matching GDM welcome screen. * Integrated chat- no need to launch Empathy. * More natural workspace switcher behaviour. * Device hot plugging work nicely with the shell. * More obvious waiting messages.

Distributions

New Releases

• Dyne:bolic is one of the ever increasing list of GNU/Linux distributions we recommend because of their strong commitment to user freedom. After five years of development, a new release is available.

Red Hat Family

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Canonical recently released the first beta of Ubuntu 11.10, Code named Oneiric Ocelot. Ubuntu has ditched Gnome Shell completely and stepped up its committment to the Unity Desktop. As the final release approaches, just one month from today, we spin up this beta and take a first look at the distro that Mark Shuttleworh called, “part daydream, part discipline.”

• With more and more of one’s personal and professional lives being on the computer, encrypting and properly securing those computers — particularly mobile devices — is incredibly important. Sadly, it’s not often thought about until it’s too late. It has become relatively easy to protect your personal data on Ubuntu Linux with home directory encryption support being just a checkbox-away within the installer or even full-disk LVM encryption when using Ubuntu’s alternate installer. Previous tests of Ubuntu disk encryption performance have shown there is some penalty in disk-centric workloads, but the benefits are certainly worth it. In this article is a look at the Ubuntu home encryption performance under Ubuntu 11.10 with both old and new laptops.

• “Our goal with Unity is unprecedented ease of use, visual style and performance on the Linux desktop,” Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth wrote in his blog last month.

• That statement can also stand as a summary of the goals for Ubuntu 11.10 (better known as Oneiric Ocelot). Judging from the beta released last week, Ocelot promises to be a release that, so far as users are concerned, is less about innovation than about perfecting interfaces — mainly the Unity desktop, but also one or two other applications.

Flavours and Variants

Devices/Embedded

• Imagine that you are in a store. You have two new netbook/tablet convertibles in front of you. One of them is $250.00 and runs Ubuntu Linux. The other is $350.00. They are both dual core ARM systems with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and 64GB SSDs. On top of that, they can both run Metro applications, and have cloud synchronization features that are free of charge for starter storage amounts and pay to expand. Besides price, the Ubuntu machine has two other things that it can offer. It has a different interface, and it has an extra application store with thousands of free and libre applications. This is a very real possibility in the future.

Phones

Android

Free Software/Open Source

Events

• Expanding Linux Venues In the South (or ELVIS): A FOSS event fit for The King, this one would be held in Memphis, as close to Graceland as possible. Everyone would be required to wear blue suede shoes. We could have Elvis impersonators demonstrating various Linux distros and FOSS programs. Shoot, we could have Linus impersonators doing the same thing. And Stallman impersonators doing the same thing. And Jon ‘maddog’ Hall impersonators . . . you get the idea. This is definitely something worth planning, and I’m so far from Memphis. Is someone closer that could take the reins?

CMS

• I never really “trusted” Facebook or Google+. That is to say, I never expected them to respect my privacy or keep my secrets. I’m not too secretive online anyway, and what I do have to hide, I just don’t post. But it is very clear that there is a great deal of corruption inherent in a business model which is based on concentrating the personal data from millions of users and selling that data to advertisers. At the very least, there must be a free alternative. But for that alternative to be viable, we need to use it. Identica has been around for some time now (and I use it — I’m “digitante”), and Diaspora is (after a long hard start) finally getting some wind under its wings. I’ve used it, and it’s Good Enough. In fact, you’ll find it’s pretty similar to what Facebook or Google+ offers, although there are still some rough spots.

Leftovers

• To mark the one year anniversary of the creation of OpenIndiana, there’s a new OpenIndiana release. OpenIndiana 151a is this new release that is timed one year after this OpenSolaris fork arrived following the fallout from Oracle killing off OpenSolaris and Solaris development in the open.

Finance

• In his first interview since being released from jail, Rudolf Elmer stated to India Today that: - the investigation against him is still ongoing, and that he could not make any detailed statements because he would be arrested again. - the CDs he handed over to Julian Assange in the Frontline Club were empty. He also said that it was only a symbolic handover, because it was a public place, and because the police could have intervened. He also said that Assange would not have come, had there not been information. - that he would not have been released from prison had any data been published.

• Let’s start with the stated budget hole of $775 million. Even that figure is iffy. The fact is, we know that a multi-hundred-million-dollar structural year-end surplus is built into the budget left over from David Miller’s cost containment, the well-performing property market and prudent financial management by unelected city managers. This money, about $300 million, is not included in the $775 million and obviously dramatically shrinks the budget hole.

• It’s true that Toronto has some fiscal challenges, but they’re not due to excessive spending, which has increased by 3 to 4 per cent over the last decade, less than that of the provincial and federal budgets over the same period. It’s also in line with population growth of 2 to 3 per cent, which drives the need for more services.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• Copyright assignment is a topic that has received a fair bit of publicity ever since the head of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, started pushing the idea of developers surrendering their rights to his company when they contributed code.

• Shuttleworth argues that without the freedom to do what he likes with the code – and that includes the possibility of locking it up and making it proprietary – he will be unable to make progress on Ubuntu, the GNU/Linux distribution that has soared to the top of the distro charts.

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