● 05.20.13

● Links 20/5/2013: First Salifish Smartphone, Mageia 3 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 11:26 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

Kernel Space

• As rich as the Linux OS is, one of its sticking-points is that a lot of companies don’t properly support their products for it. Your Logitech mouse might work just fine under the OS, of course, but it wouldn’t be the company to thank; rather, the support comes from the efforts of developers who share the same passion for the OS as you do. My ASUS Xonar audio card works brilliantly under Linux, but ASUS had nothing to do with it.

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

Distributions

New Releases

• Version 1.10.90 (alpha) of GDBM is available for download at ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gdbm/gdbm-1.10.90.tar.gz

• Strangely it has been a rather quiet month as far as new developments in the GNU toolchain goes.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

• he third official release of, the popular Mandriva fork, Mageia is now available. After months of delays and a mountain of challenges, Patricia Fraser said, “We still can’t believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we’ve been doing it for two and a half years.”

• Like every new release, Mageia 3 comes chocked full ‘o upgrades. Some of these include Linux 3.8.13, Xorg X Server 1.13.4, GCC 4.7.2, KDE 4.10.2, GNOME 3.6, LibreOffice 4.0.2, GIMP 2.8.2, and Firefox 17.05. But a few new surprises await as well.

Debian Family

• Debian GNU/Linux is one of the oldest surviving Linux distributions and will be celebrating its 20th anniversary later this year. The venerable project is home to hundreds of volunteers who maintain over 35,000 software packages. Debian has expanded over the years and currently supports nine hardware architectures, displaying an unusual level of flexibility for a Linux distribution. Debian isn’t just a long lived Linux distro, the project also maintains ports which allow developers and users to experiment with running GNU software on top of alternative kernels, including Hurd and the FreeBSD kernel. This amazing diversity, along with Debian’s reputation for stability, has caused many developers to base their own projects on Debian.

• Dozens of the world’s most popular and widely used open-source projects (including Ubuntu, Linux Mint and KNOPPIX) can trace their ancestry back to Debian. Apart from being one of the largest existing open-source projects Debian is also a social experiment. The project is run as a democracy, a rarity in the open-source world, where developers vote on important changes and are guided by a constitution. For the reasons given above, more so than the anticipated features, the release of a new version of Debian sends ripples through the open-source community. Debian may be a famously conservative project, but everything its developers do affect large portions of the open-source population. I was quite eager to see what Debian 7.0, code name Wheezy, would offer.

• Debian Edu / Skolelinux is an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server, network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of educational software. The project was founded almost 12 years ago, 2001-07-02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity, please donate some money.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Among the topics discussed by the developers at Ubuntu Developer Summit 13.05 were the planned new features for Ubuntu 13.10. The next version of the distribution, code-named “Saucy Salamander”, could include early versions of Ubuntu’s Mir display server and have the Qt-based Unity Next desktop environment for testing. However, the default configuration will continue to include the graphics stack of Ubuntu 12.10 with X11, Compiz and Unity 7. By 2014, Canonical plans to unify the code base for Ubuntu’s smartphone, tablet and PC desktops, based on Mir and Unity Next.

• I don’t think many people have realised that we are on the verge of a technological revolution. The computing world is changing, and this is the first time GNU/Linux is catching the revolution as it begins. Computers are getting smaller and smaller, while phones are getting bigger and bigger. Everybody can see that they about to converge — but in what form? Well, the answer is: GNU/Linux — before anybody else. The ingredients? A great GNU/Linux distribution, a leader with the right vision, and a few very bold, ground-breaking choices. Mix it well: the result is Ubuntu Touch. Let me go through these ingredients.

Flavours and Variants

• The Linux Mint developers have announced a release candidate for the upcoming version of their distribution, Linux Mint 15. The release, which is code-named “Olivia”, is being built on Ubuntu 13.04 and is billed by Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre as “the most ambitious release since the start of the project.”

Devices/Embedded

• Welcome, Willkommen, Bienvenue! To the second article in my Pandora series. As you recall, several weeks back, I received a test unit from Michael Mrozek, of the world’s smallest, most-powerful gaming micro-computer. In the first installment, we talked most about initial impressions, the look & feel, specifications, and a brief taste of the variety of its capabilities, technologies and interfaces.

• Now, we will dig deeper. In this article, I will focus on firmware refresh of the test unit, trying to bring the system to a newer edition, as well as dabble in the ins and outs of the Xfce desktop environment. I will leave the gaming-oriented MiniMenu and the Android mod for the third and last part in this would-be trilogy. Follow me.

• THE SINGLE BOARD MICROCONTROLLER Arduino has been revamped to offer WiFi connectivity under Linux, in order to make connecting to complex web services much easier directly from the device.

• Named the Arduino Yún, which apparently is Chinese for “cloud”, the microcontroller claims to be the first of a family of WiFi products combined with a customised version of the Linux operating system (OS) distribution OpenWRT called Linino.

• Designed in collaboration with chip firm Dog Hunter, Linino provides signed packages to ensure the authenticity of the software installed on the device and, according to Arduino, Linino is the most used Linux distribution for embedded devices.

Phones

• Finnish startup Jolla has announced its first smartphone, which shows off its Sailfish OS on a 4.5-inch screen.

Ballnux

• Holy shit! What you, Dedoimedo, you sellout, you hypocrite! Wait, calm down. All is well. There’s a reason why I decided to buy a tablet. One, I can afford it. Two, I really wanted to see what makes the retards get so excited. Three, I had an actual business need for this, but more about that later. Anyhow, this is my very first experience with a tablet. Honestly. I’ve never used one before. So it should be definitely most interesting. I’ve dabbled in Android a bit now and then, and overall, I was not really impressed. The x86 version for netbooks was ok but not magnificent, however, on the other hand, my smartphone experience was, overall, quite frustrating.

• Let’s how a pretentious old git like me managed to cope with this new modern technology. Better yet, why a pretentious old git like me would ever want to buy a device that is operated by touch only. Finally, this is a proper, thorough review of the Samsung tablet, probably of a higher quality, relevance and greater depth than anything else out there, because after all, it’s Dedoimedo writing this stellar review. Avanti.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

• Sony recently added their flagship Android smartphone, the Sony Xperia Z to the Android Open Source Project, and the latest device to be added to ASOP is the Sony Xperia Tablet Z.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open Enterprise mostly writes about “obvious” applications of open source – situations where money can be saved, or control regained, by shifting from proprietary to open code. That battle is more or less won: free software is widely recognised as inherently superior in practically all situations, as its rapid uptake across many markets demonstrates. But there are also some circumstances where it may not be so obvious that open source is the solution, because it’s not always clear what the problem is.

• For example, in the field of economics, there is a well-known paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff entitled, “Growth in a Time of Debt.” The main result is that “median growth rates for countries with public debt over 90 percent of GDP are roughly one percent lower than otherwise; average (mean) growth rates are several percent lower.” Needless to say, this has been seized upon and widely cited by those in favour of austerity.

• The humble browser. Its main purpose, for many years, was to serve up simple HTML documents and provide information on just about any subject you could think of. In the last decade, with broadband taking over from dial-up, and net connections getting ever quicker, websites have increasingly provided applications usually restricted to the desktop.

CMS

• The big news in the tech world that emerged over the weekend is that Yahoo is set to repeat its decade old mistake and acquire Tumblr (Geocities redux) for $1 Billion.

• I’m not a fan of Tumblr, but I am a fan of freedom and WordPress, both of which are apparently now ‘winning’ as a side effect of this deal. While it’s still unclear precisely how Yahoo’s ownership may/may not affect Tumblr, users are already voting with their blogs.

Public Services/Government

• The administration of the Italian city of Bari must increase its use of free and open source software solutions, say local representatives of the Five Star Movement. Switching to open source will be part of the movement’s election programme for the municipal elections in 2014.

Openness/Sharing

Open Hardware

• Joshua Pearce, PhD, is a researcher at Michigan Tech who rearches open source and low-impact solutions to engineering problems. He is also the founder of the Printers For Peace contest, an effort to bring together clever 3D-printed ideas that have loftier aims. You can win one of two 3D printers if you submit a winning project.

Leftovers

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Pakistan’s outgoing ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman, has asked Washington to end drone strikes

• A recent survey suggests that 75% of Pakistanis dislike the USA and it’s mainly because of drones

• Voting figures to have impact on U.S. policy in the region.

• The CIA chief has made an unexpected visit to Israel to meet senior political and military figures to discuss the deteriorating security situation in neighbouring Syria.

• John Brennan, who took up his post two months ago, met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, military chief of staff, Benny Gantz, and Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, according to reports in Israel media.

• RUSSIA has named the alleged CIA station chief in Moscow, following its decision to expel a US diplomat accused of trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer as a spy.

• CIA director John Brennan made an unannounced visit to Israel to discuss the situation in Syria.

• Brennan and Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, in their meeting Friday reportedly compared intelligence assessments on Syria and its two-year civil war. They also talked about Israel’s intent to continue striking shipments of advanced weapons destined for Hezbollah from Iran via Syria.

• Kurosh Ahmadi was hanged for providing information about Iran to CIA officers, Fars said.

• Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.

• In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region’s main city, Goma.

• An apparent US drone attack has killed four suspected Al-Qaida militants in southern Yemen and destroyed an explosives-packed truck, tribal sources said on Saturday.

• They occurred on Friday night in Al-Mahfad region in Abyan province, the sources said.

• The truck was carrying grenades and explosive belts, and the attack destroyed the weapons and killed the vehicle’s four occupants, “members of Al-Qaida,” one of the sources said.

• A former US assassination drone pilot says he quit the force after feeling “numb” about seeing a child and other civilians blown away in his remote bombing of targets in Afghanistan and realizing he has unconsciously developed a desire to kill.

• President to push legal case for targeted drone strikes and outline position on Guantánamo detention camp, reports say

• President Barack Obama will discuss his counterterrorism strategy Thursday, revealing to the American public his plans for unmanned drones and Guantanamo Bay, the White House said Sunday.

• During his speech at the National Defense University in Washington, the president will discuss “our broad counter-terrorism policy, including our military, diplomatic, intelligence and legal efforts,” a White House official told AFP.

• France is in talks with the United States and Israel to buy intelligence-gathering drones to build up a modern fleet, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Sunday.

• France’s existing hardware is outdated and its military intervention in Mali this year has exposed its shortage of surveillance drones suitable for modern warfare. The United States provided French commanders with intelligence from its drones based in Niger

• Over the last eight years Israel has exported $4.6 billion worth of unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a study by the business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

• JAMAAT-e-Islami Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan has asked Mian Nawaz Sharif to have courage on the basis of his public mandate and adopt a bold stance in accordance with the nation’s aspirations.

• He said that Washington’s statement to continue drone attacks was a challenge to the newly elected rulers.

• More than 30 students and staff from a ministerial training college have protested outside a factory which makes engines for unmanned flying bombs. The group from The Queen’s Foundation gathered at the Shenstone UAV Engine Factory on Friday 10th May to warn the military that the use of their drones to terrify and kill people in Pakistan is creating a surge in support for the Taliban.

• Drones are everywhere. They are blasting suspected al-Qaida militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. They are menacing China. They are being shot down in Israel. They are hovering outside of homes in America and spying on their residents. And they are forcing us to rethink some basic legal principles—for good reason, because drones are making the old ones obsolete.

Cablegate

• WikiLeaks founder uses subject access request to access British agency chatter, which allegedly calls extradition ‘a fit-up’

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed internal correspondence from the government’s eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, which included speculation that a Swedish arrest warrant issued after rape allegations first surfaced was a stitch-up.

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has poignantly stated that the very sovereignty of Latin American and Caribbean nations has been compromised by a reliance on US-based telecommunications.

• The cost of policing the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange takes refuge inside has now risen to £3.3million, Scotland Yard has disclosed.

• He is hiding from the British authorities who want to extradite him to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations. A policeman on duty outside the embassy said in a joke he was worried Assange would sneak out of the embassy in ostrich suit one day.

• Milestone Supreme Court Decision for WikiLeaks Case in Iceland — Today’s [April 24th] decision marked the most important victory to date against the unlawful and arbitrary economic blockade erected by US companies against WikiLeaks.

• Authorities at GCHQ, the government eavesdropping agency, are facing embarrassing revelations about internal correspondence in which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is discussed, apparently including speculation that he is being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape allegations.

• The records were revealed by Assange himself in a Sunday night interview with Spanish television programme Salvados in which he explained that an official request for information gave him access to instant messages that remained unclassified by GCHQ.

• WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange has launched a new party ahead of the federal election in Australia on September 14. From the Ecuadorian embassy in London—where he remains under siege by the British authorities, who are denying his democratic right to accept political asylum in the South American state—Assange is heading a slate of Senate candidates for Victoria, New South Wales, and Western Australia.

• WikiLeaks reveal that Union carbide wanted US to persuade GOI for Cooley Loan funds. “BV Salenius, Managing Director of Union Carbide (India) Limited, has called requesting 10 or 15 minutes with Kenneth Rush. He wants to ask him to persuade the Government of India (meaning Finance Minister Chavan) to permit American concerens to borrow Cooley Loan Funds. Salenius has a ferteliser plant in mind. As you are aware, the Government of India has generally not approved new Cooley Loans over the past year and a half. Cooley Loan Financing is much more attractive to Union carbide that that from the Indian banks. They are nationalised and can require their loans to be turned into equity.”

• After the media caught wind that the Department of Justice had covertly gathered over two months’ worth of emails and phone records from the Associated Press, President Obama issued an apology to the irate reporters in the form of the Free Flow of Information Act.

• Julian Assange had been using that term for a time, but economic censorship is as close to the mark as any. If you want to shut someone up, deprive them of funding, cut off the supply, hope they go quietly into the night, hopefully without breaking too many things on the way. The whistleblowing conduit has, since its document releasing bonanzas of 2010, been blockaded. Opponents of WikiLeaks have been attempting to blackball not merely the outfit but its operations in every conceivable way.

• Tiny Iceland has a history of facing down larger adversaries (in 1976 it ‘won’ the Cod Wars against the UK; in 2011 it sent US agents packing for not obeying protocol). But now it will face renewed scrutiny from two of the world’s most powerful agencies: the FBI and the Rightsholders.

Finance

• With Bitcoin all the rage and startups popping up left and right, it’s hard to know who’s an expert in the virtual currency and who just has an opinion. Most people would put Jeff Garzik in the former camp.

• There’s no shortage of food, no shortage of wealth to solve social crises. The problem is a system that enriches a few and starves the many. We hear day in day out about the massive poverty and hunger that exists in the world. NGO’s and various non-profits have been around for decades appealing for assistance in feeding the world’s poor. Some experts think it is simply an overpopulation problem and it is the poor that are to blame; if only they’d have fewer children, they advise. It is not too many people that are the problem. It is not the lack of medical knowledge or technical expertise that leads to staggering infant and adult death rates in some parts of the world. It is the lack of social infrastructure and the political will needed to provide it.

• - Broadcaster and former footballer John Fashanu on list

• - Trade adviser Alpesh Patel also named on leaked database

• - It also includes Goldman Sachs and Coutts, The Queen’s bank

• - Data has been leaked in tranches by a whistleblower since 2009

• - HMRC keen to clamp down on wealth sheltered in tax havens

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy today released the results of a year-long investigation: “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.”

• The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how state/regional “fusion center” personnel monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012. Personnel engaged in this activity at fusion centers include employees of municipal, county and federal counter terrorism/homeland security entities. Such entities include local police departments, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (including U.S. DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration).

• Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a nationwide “counter terrorism” apparatus emerged. Components of this apparatus include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (U.S. DHS), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), ODNI’s “National Counterterrorism Center” (NCTC), and state/regional “fusion centers.”

• “Fusion centers,” by and large, are staffed with personnel working in “counter terrorism”/ “homeland security” units of municipal, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement/”public safety”/”counter terrorism” agencies. To a large degree, the “counter terrorism” operations of municipal, county, state and tribal agencies engaged in “fusion centers” are financed through a number of U.S. DHS grant programs.

Privacy

• Amid growing concern over the use of drones by police and government officials for surveillance, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to limit the use of unmanned surveillance “eyes in the sky” aircraft.

• When Charlottesville passed a resolution against drones in February of this year, I heard from people all over the country again. Since that time, to my knowledge, one little town in Minnesota called St. Bonifacius has passed something, while dozens and dozens have tried and failed. The problem seems to be that drones can have good uses as well as bad. Of course, that’s grounds for halting the lawless and reckless spread of drones until we can figure out any ways in which their good use can be compatible with our Constitutional rights. But that would make too much sense. When there’s money to be made, technology to be played with, and terrorists to destroy our freedoms if we don’t hurry up and destroy them first, the American way is full steam ahead. But I actually think I might have at least a partial answer this time.

• [...]

• …drones armed with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, has jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. On another occasion, Smith was challenged to publish an issue of the BMJ exclusively comprising papers that had failed peer review and see if anybody noticed. He replied, “How do you know I haven’t already done it?”

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

----------

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.