● 04.30.15

● Links 30/4/2015: Debian GNU/Hurd 2015, Microsoft Copies Ubuntu

Posted in News Roundup at 7:58 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Kernel Space

• Daniel Phillips has worked out faster fsync support within Tux3, the promising open-source file-system that continues to be developed outside of the mainline kernel.

• EXT4 maintainer Ted Ts’o previously doubted Tux3 capabilities when it came to a fast and reliable fsync, but Phillips has managed to prove him wrong with the latest async Tux3 fsync code.

Graphics Stack

• The latest Mesa/Gallium3D driver work by AMD’s Marek Olšák is on working out create_context_robustness work for the Gallium3D drivers.

Applications

Proprietary

• A new stable edition of Google Chrome has been released by Google, and it brings a number of important fixes for some security problems that haven’t been detailed just yet.

Instructionals/Technical

Games

• The developers of Terraria have recently commented on a reddit post, and they mentioned Linux is still planned for the game.

• The Arma developers have confirmed that an external team is working on the Linux version, and that it won’t be native.

• For me, I don’t really care what a game uses anymore, as long as it is stable and performs well on reasonable hardware. If it does that, then fab!

• There’s no question that Steam has become an ubiquitous part of PC gaming. Some have hailed it as the savior of PC gaming, while others have seen it as more of a necessary evil. Whether or not you’re a fan, Steam is here to stay. Its massive storefront contains over 4,500 games, and some 125 million people actively use the service. The question we’re trying to answer here is this: How the hell did Steam get to where it is today?

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• As said in the previous post, today, the Kde team released Plasma 5.3 which come with a lot of interesting features.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• The GNOME Project announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the first development release towards GTK+ 3.18, a powerful, cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces, used by default in the GNOME desktop environment.

Distributions

Screenshots/Screencasts

Debian Family

• With this weekend’s release of Debian 8.0 Jessie there wasn’t an adjoining Debian GNU/Hurd release, but today that release has come out.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Canonical has announced that a NetworkManager exploit has been found and fixed for Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS operating systems.

• Canonical has announced and released ubuntu 15.04 vivid vervet on April 23, 2015, it now available to download and install on your PC/laptop. This release brings improvements in usability, the bug fixes, a fresh serving of software updates and adds some interesting new features. Here’s everything you’ll find in the stable release of Ubuntu 15.04 vivid vervet.

• I looked at Ubuntu’s flagship desktop environment, Unity, but most of the technical improvements are rolled into Ubuntu’s other desktop choices as well. These include Matte, GNOME and Kubuntu.

• Remember a couple years back when Canonical was showing us how you could transform your phone into a full-fledged Ubuntu PC? That was a more of a concept, but it’s 2015 and that hasn’t been made possible yet, at least not by Canonical. Microsoft just demoed the same thing with its Windows phone.

• Microsoft’s ploy to transform Windows Phones into full-blown Windows PCs when connected to an external monitor may seem revolutionary, but it’s nothing new. At least not in theory.

Flavours and Variants

• Xubuntu developers informed users today, April 29, that the LTS (Long Term Support) version of the Xubuntu Linux operating system is no longer supported, as it reached end of life (EOL) on April 26, 2015.

Devices/Embedded

• As I mentioned in passing yesterday I have a MIPS Creator CI20. It’s a tiny single board dual core 32 bit MIPS computer. The cost was £55 including tax and delivery.

• Arrow Electronics is adding open-source hardware to its embedded design offerings and it has signed up to Linaro, the organisation which optimises open-source software for ARM processor-based designs.

Phones

Tizen

• Samsung have sent out an email today to Tizen developers informing them that the Global Free Tizen Store in now open as they have expanded their Tizen Store service coverage to include a massive 182 countries, effective April 29, 2015 !!!! This additional countries will only offer free apps at the moment, but we suspect this is a quick way to expand the coverage of the Tizen Store with the least amount of red tape to plough through.

Android

• So much for hopes that TAG Heuer’s first smartwatch will cost less than its conventional counterparts. Jean-Claude Biver, the head of TAG’s parent company LVMH, says that the Android Wear timepiece will cost about $1,400 when it ships in October or November. That’s in the ballpark of lower-end quartz models from the watchmaker’s Formula 1 line, but it makes even the $1,000 steel link Apple Watch seem like a relative bargain. That money will get you more than just a luxurious brand name, however. Biver estimates that the TAG Heuer device will last 40 hours on battery, so you won’t have to panic if you forget to top it up one day. This is just a friendly reminder that watch prices at this level are dictated more by the design than what’s inside — a nice steel watch won’t come cheap.

• Razer is taking pre-orders for its $100 “Forge TV” Android TV gaming player, with options including a gaming controller, keyboard, and PC streaming service.

• Razer announced its Razer Forge TV back at CES in January, where it won eight awards including Engadget’s People’s Choice award for Best of CES 2015. Razer opened pre-sales for the Android TV compatible Forge TV on Amazon.com earlier this month, and has now opened direct pre-orders from its website, with shipments due May 5.

• The LG G4 is the latest flagship phone from the Korean manufacturer and a device that has a lot to live up to. Not only have the likes of the iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 raised the smartphone stakes over the past 12 months, but it’s predecessor, the LG G3, was crowned TrustedReviews 2014 Phone of the Year.

Free Software/Open Source

• Google is life. Well, not really, but for some people it kind of is. For many of us, a Gmail account became a gateway to an entire Google lifestyle. One password logs us into numerous services, which is super convenient, but also quite scary. Over time, it is easy to let your guard down and fall for phishing sites that pretend to be a legit Google login. If your Google credentials are intercepted, you are going to have a bad time.

• British luxury retailer Fortnum and Mason has seen 20 percent more customers check out online thanks to its brand new open source website.

• The renowned store in London’s Piccadilly has completely replaced its existing e-commerce platform, opting for the open-source, and lesser known Spree Commerce platform to avoid vendor lock-in.

• The new site has already improved usability, contributing to a 15 percent customer conversion rate, a ten percent on-site search conversion rate and its former 20 percent basket abandon rate reduced to zero, the retailer revealed.

Web Browsers

Chrome

Databases

• Besides being powered by more powerful server hardware, also delivering faster response times to Phoronix and OpenBenchmarking.org is thanks to MariaDB.

CMS

• When you’re publishing anything online, the way you lay out your content can be as important as the content itself. A good layout can help readers better interact and consume that content.

• Users of content management systems like Drupal have a number of options that allow them to create very attractive, very usable layouts. That’s one factor that drew Murray Woodman to Drupal. He co-founded Morpht, a Drupal-based web development shop in Sydney, Australia. He found that Drupal 6 provided a level of freedom and productivity, and hasn’t looked back.

• In everyday life, I’m a web developer. Or, to be precise, I run a business that develops websites for a wide range of clients, from small businesses to large organizations. Every one of these sites comes with a CMS of some sort. Which CMS we use to develop the sites depends on a lot of factors, including what the client wants, the size of the website, and the required functionality. In this article, I’ll cover the lessons learned when we developed our open source Bolt content management system.

Openness/Sharing

• The idea behind Charleston Open Source isn’t about competition for technology talent, even though the employers involved in it might be looking for workers with similar skills and backgrounds.

Open Hardware

• Whether these newly-established ‘communities’ and their members are working together to solve a problem with the end-goal of 3D printing the solution or are simply just sharing open source files from across the world, the conversations would have likely never happened if it wasn’t for the increase in accessibility to 3D printers.

Standards/Consortia

• The United Kingdom government has commissioned a study of the feasibility of UK banks giving customers the ability to share their transactional data with third parties via an open standard API. First mentioned alongside the autumn statement back in December, the chancellor has now outlined plans for a mandatory open banking API standard during the recent budget in March.

Leftovers

Security

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Vessels have the right of freedom of navigation through straits, on “innocent passage” under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. As it sounds, that amounts to a right to pass straight through on normal business. Territorial waters do not affect innocent passage. The coastal state has the right to establish sea lanes for maritime safety purposes.

• So whether the Marshall Islands flagged Maersk Tigris was in Iranian territorial waters is not relevant to its right to pass through. If, as Iranian sources have indicated, it really was impounded for commercial debt, then that would have to be in territorial waters. But for that the crew could not be detained, and the debt would have to be immediately stated and the ship released if paid. Iran is not acting as though this really is for debt.

• [...]

• I was sorry for the two American hostages who were killdied in a drone strike, but sickened that given all the hundreds of innocent women and children he has murdered in drone strikes, Obama finally got all sackcloth and ashes over two American men.

Censorship

• The Popcorn Time blocks represent the first time Section 97A orders have been used to block access to a new type of sites, namely sites that distribute software and do not link to infringing content.

Civil Rights

• Rightwing nationalist Viktor Orbán threatens to defy EU law and launches anti-immigration manifesto calling for internment camps for illegal immigrants

• The National Rifle Association used riots in Baltimore to promote controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense laws by citing an article from conservative website Breitbart.com that claimed such laws “are an antidote for brazen in-your-face attacks on city streets.”

Internet/Net Neutrality

• BT has coughed to a crappy glitch with its Home Hub 3A router that is blocking some VPN connections.

• However, the one-time state monopoly appears to have taken a long time to acknowledge customer gripes, which have been piling up for weeks.

• BT said it had taken a while to respond to individual complaints because it was essentially compiling a dossier so it could pinpoint the technical blunder.

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