Linux

Submission + - Nvidia Doubles Linux Driver Performance, Slips Steam Release date (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by leppi
leppi writes: Nvidia has announced the steam beta for linux should be out today. They also annouced an increase in performance thanks to Valve and other partner contributions to the driver.

Nvidia said “Steam gaming platform that officially opened to gamers today” while announcing new Linux-optimised version of the R310 drivers for its GeForce graphics chips, including the new GTX 600 series. According to the chip maker, the drivers “double the performance and dramatically reduce game loading times” of Linux games — at least if a test comparing the new code with version 304.51 while running Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 beta is anything to go by.
HP

Submission + - HP becomes a platinum member of the Linux Foundation (engadget.com)

Submitted by who_stole_my_kidneys
who_stole_my_kidneys writes: "Snagging a first-class upgrade might empty out the contents of your wallet, but be glad you're not trying to buy your way to the Linux Foundation's top table. With a strategic investment of $500,000, Hewlett Packard has just become a platinum member of the body, alongside companies like Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung. In exchange for all that cash, HP gets a seat on the Foundation's board of directors and will have a say in how to advance the foundation's aims — and hopefully give Open webOS a gentle push, too."
Linux

Submission + - Facebook joins Linaro Linux-on-ARM effort (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by dgharmon
dgharmon writes: It has been more than two years since Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments formed a non-profit software company called Linaro to help focus the disparate efforts to get Linux running well on ARM processors and system-on-chip designs. A slew of companies, some new to the ARM racket, have joined the Linaro effort – and as of Thursday afternoon, so has social media juggernaut Facebook.
Games

Submission + - Will Star Citizen project fund Linux and Mac ports for CryENGINE 3? (robertsspaceindustries.com) 2

Submitted by
Mr. Jaggers
Mr. Jaggers writes: "Chris Roberts, game designer of Wing Commander fame, has had great success with his new crowd-funded Star Citizen project — so much that the $2m base goal has been smashed with weeks to go on the kickstarter portion of the campaign. Now Chris is floating a list of stretch goals for fans to vote on, with Linux and Mac support both listed as stretch goal candidates. Since Star Citizen is based on the popular CryENGINE 3 game engine, these stretch goals are equivalent to funding Linux and Mac ports of CryENGINE. Chris couldn't make any absolute promises yet, since he doesn't own the engine, but CryENGINE 3 already supports Android so at least there is existing OpenGL ES support to be leveraged towards adding Linux and Mac OpenGL support. If there is enough outpouring of cross-platform support from fans in this poll, Star Citizen could turn out to be the high-profile game that brings a AAA game engine to the growing Mac and Linux gaming communities — analogous to the role played by Wasteland 2 in bringing official Linux support to the Unity 4 engine popular among so many Indie developers."
KDE

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Tries KDE, Likes It So Far (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Linus Torvalds has never been a big fan of Gnome owing its extreme simplicity. Even Gnome 3.x failed to impress the father of the Linux kernel. He has now given KDE a try after a long time. Linus using your software is double edged sword, it cuts both ways especially if Linus doesn't like it, get ready for the harshest, yet the most honest and useful criticism. Interestingly Linus has so far liked KDE and for one simple reason — But ah, the ability to configure things. And I have wobbly windows again. This should make KDE developers a bit happier.
Networking

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is Samba4 a viable alternative to Active Directory?

Submitted by BluPhenix316
BluPhenix316 writes: I'm currently in school for Network Administration. I was discussing Linux with my instructor and he said the problem he has with Linux is he doesn't know of a good alternative to Active Directory. I did some research and from what I've read Samba 4 seems very promising. What are your thoughts?
SuSE

Submission + - openSUSE ARM final less than a week away; RC2 available now (opensuse.org)

Submitted by
Andy Prough
Andy Prough writes: "Jos Poortvliet of the openSUSE team has announced that openSUSE ARM RC2 is available for download and needs testing. The final version is due out on November 6th, and support has been expanded to include the following SoCs: Calxeda Highbank, CuBox, IMX 53, and Samsung Origen. Although Raspberry Pi is not yet supported, the openSUSE team plans to roll out support in the future. User Etam has posted a picture of it working without trouble in chroot on an N900, although Firefox is working "terribly slow" but not crashing."
KDE

Submission + - KDE Plasma Active: The Mobile Interface That Works (linuxpromagazine.com)

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes: "Bruce Byfield is not a fan of interfaces for mobile devices. At best, he finds them clumsy makeshifts, tolerable only because nothing better is available. The only exception is KDE's Plasma Active, which not only works well on tablets, but, with its recently released version 3.0, remains the only mobile-inspired interface he can tolerate on a workstation..What makes Plasma Active so well-designed?"
Games

Submission + - Valve: Linux has everything they need (ubuntuvibes.com)

Submitted by dartttt
dartttt writes: In a presentation at Ubuntu Developer Summit currently going on in Denmark, Drew Bliss from Valve said that Linux is more viable than Windows 8 for gaming. Windows 8 ships with its own app store and it is not an open platform anymore and Linux has everything they need: good OpenGL, pulseaudio, OpenAL and input support.
Android

Submission + - Microsoft's SmartGlass for Android Reviewed (thepowerbase.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has released their much anticipated SmartGlass application for Android, allowing the Linux-based mobile OS to act as an input device for their Xbox 360 game console.

While the app has its share of annoying problems, it does offer a glimpse into a possible future where consumer electronics are no longer crippled by the artificial barriers of manufacturer or operating system.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Rare photos: gnu crashing a Windows 8 launch event (fsf.org)

Submitted by
Atticus Rex
Atticus Rex writes: "Reporters and security guards at the event weren't sure how to react when they were greeted by a real, live gnu. The gnu — which, on closer inspection, was an activist in a gnu suit — had come for some early trick-or-treating. But instead of candy, she had free software for the eager journalists. The gnu and the Free Software Foundation campaigns team handed out dozens of copies of Trisquel, a fully free GNU/Linux distribution, along with press releases and stickers. Once they got over their confusion, the reporters were happy to see us and hear our message — that Windows 8 is a downgrade, not an upgrade, because it steals users' freedom, security and privacy."
Games

Submission + - A Proposal To Fix The Full-Screen Linux Window Mess

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: The SDL developers Ryan Gordon and Sam Lantinga have proposed a window manager change to work out the full-screen X11 window mess, primarily for games. The proposal is to come up with a _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN_EXCLUSIVE window manager hint that works out the shortcomings of the full-screen hint used currently by most games, _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN. Ryan and Sam have already worked out an initial patch for SDL but they haven't tried hooking it to any window manager yet. Those interested in the details, information is available from this mailing list message. One of the key changes is that software would make the request to the window manager to change the resolution, rather than tapping RandR or XVidMode directly. Martin Gräßlin of KDE was rather wary about the patch and said that games changing the resolution just tend to mess up the desktop.
Linux

Submission + - Serious EXT4 Data Corruption Bug Hits Linux Kernel (phoronix.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An EXT4 file-system data corruption issue has reached the stable Linux kernel. The latest Linux 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 stable kernels have an EXT4 file-system bug described as an apparent serious progressive ext4 data corruption bug. Kernel developers have found and bisected the kernel issue but are still working on a proper fix for the stable Linux kernel. The EXT4 file-system can experience data loss if the file-system is remounted (or the system rebooted) too often.
GNOME

Submission + - OpenGL Becoming A Requirement For The Linux Desktop (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Modern Linux desktops like Ubuntu's Unity and the GNOME Shell have placed a requirement on OpenGL 2.0+ support for handling their compositing window managers and desktop effects. Wayland's Weston also needs OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Now with modern Linux distributions like Ubuntu 12.10, rather than falling back to a 2D unaccelerated desktop if you don't have a sufficient GPU or graphics driver, users are being forced to run LLVMpipe as a CPU-based software rasterizer. LLVMpipe works fine if you are on a new PC with a fast x86-64 CPU, but the OpenGL-based Linux desktops are causing growing pains for ARM hardware, virtual machines, servers, multi-seat computers, and of course all older hardware. LLVMpipe is a Mesa Gallium3D driver that uses LLVM for run-time code generation as an attempt at accelerating graphics faster on the CPU.

So much for Linux being good for old compuers?
Linux

Submission + - Team Fortress 2 Beta patch adds files refering to Linux support (teamfortress.com)

Submitted by spacenet
spacenet writes: Valve has quietly released an update to the beta version of its popular online FPS Team Fortress 2. Among the modified files are some Linux-related files including a hardware driver compatibility list, optimal graphics settings, and a shell script launcher (previously only for OSX, now with a case for Linux as well). Valve has not updated their TF2 beta changelog, but has acknowledged the update in a forum post.
Linux

Submission + - Wayland 1.0 Released, Not Yet Ready To Replace X11 (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After being talked about for four years, Wayland 1.0 was released today. The Wayland 1.0 release doesn't mark it yet as being ready for Linux desktop usage but just being API/protocol stable for future expansion. Wayland will now maintain backwards compatibility going forward, but how much longer will it take to replace X11 on the Linux desktop? Quite a while seems likely.
Windows

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Secure Windows Laptop for your kid, when clueless about Windows? 1

Submitted by madsdyd
madsdyd writes: I am a long time user of Linux (1997) and have not been using Windows since 1998. All PCs at home (mine, wife, kids) runs Linux. I work professionally as a software developer with Linux, but the Windows installs at my workplace are quite limited, so my current/working knowledge of Windows is almost nil.

At home we have all been happy with this arrangements, and the kids have been using their nintendos, ps2/3's and mobile phones up until now. However, my oldest kid (12) now wants to play World of Warcraft and League of Legends with his friends.

I have spent more hours than I like to admit getting this to work with Wine, with limited success — seems to always fail at the last moment. I considered an Apple machine, but they seem to be quite expensive.

So, I am going to bite the bullet, and install Windows 7 on a spare Lenove T400 laptop, which I estimate will be able to run both Windows 7 and the games in question.

Getting Windows 7 from a shop is surprisingly expensive, but I have found a place where they sell used software (legally) and can live with that one-time cost. However, I understand that I need to protect the Windows installation against viruses and malware and whatnot. The problem is, I have no clue how. One shop wants to sell me a subscription based solution from Norton, but this cost will take a huge dip into my kids monthly allowance — he is required to cover the costs of playing himself, so given that playing WoW is not exactly free, this is a non-trivial expense for him. On the other hand, he has plenty of time, so I guess he could use that time to learn something, and protecting his system at the same time.

So, my questions are sometihng like this: how do other Slashdotters provide Windows installations for their kids? What kind of protection is needed? Are there any open source/free protection systems that can be used? Should the security issues be ignored, and instead dump the Windows install to an external disk, and restore every two weeks? Is there a "Windows for Linux users" guide somewhere? What should we do, given that we need to keep the cost low and preferably the steps simple enough for a 12 year old kid to perform?
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Is Ubuntu Development Becoming Less Open? (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: While the larger Ubuntu community was busy downloading, installing and enjoying the latest edition of Ubuntu yesterday, a post by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth rustled some feathers. He gave indications that from now onwards only selected members of the community will be involved in some development and it will be announced publicly only after completion. Unlike other open source projects where all development happens in open manner. There as some criticism of this move and Shuttleworth ate his words and responded that they are actually opening up those projects where were being developed internally by Canonical employees instead of closing currently open projects. He also attacked Red Hat, as usual. This attitude or Shuttleworth is causing much discomfort for the entire Linux community. Is Canonical doing something wrong?
Linux

Submission + - Reiser4 File-System Still In Development (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reiser4 still hasn't been merged into the mainline Linux kernel, but it's still being worked on by a small group of developers following Hans Reiser being convicted for murdering his wife. Reiser4 was updated in September on SourceForge to work with the Linux 3.5 kernel and has been benchmarked against EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and ReiserFS. Reiser4 loses out in most of the Linux file-system performance tests, has much stigma due to Hans Reiser, and Btrfs is surpassing it feature-wise, so does it have any future in Linux ahead?
Linux

Submission + - Raspberry Pi Model B Upgraded To 512MB RAM (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Good (and bad) news for Raspberry Pi lovers, the Model B has been upgraded to 512MB RAM from 256MB. Bad news is for those who already got their Model B shipments because all those who have outstanding orderes with either distributors will get the *upgraded* version of the device, means with 512MB RAM instead of 256MB. The upgraded devices should be arriving to customers from today onwards. Raspberry Pi team will be pushing a firmware upgrade soon so these news devices can detect and use the additional RAM.

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