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Open Source

+ - 127 Linux 3.8 released

Submitted by diegocg
diegocg (1680514) writes "Linux kernel 3.8 has been released. This release includes support in Ext4 for embedding very small files in the inode, which greatly improves the performance for these files and saves some disk space. There is also a new Btrfs feature that allows to replace quickly a disk, a new filesystem F2FS optimized for SSDs, support of filesystem mount, UTS, IPC, PID, and network namespaces for unprivileged users, accounting of kernel memory in the memory resource controller, journal checksums in XFS, an improved NUMA policy redesign and, of course, the removal of support for 386 processors. Many small features and new drivers and fixes are also available. Here's the full list of changes."
Open Source

+ - 169 Linux 3.8 released->

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes "Linux Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 3.8. Some of the headline features in this release include metadata integrity checking in the xfs filesystem, the foundation for much improved NUMA scheduling, kernel memory usage accounting and associated usage limits, inline data support for small files in the ext4 filesystem, nearly complete user namespace support, and much more. See the Kernel Newbies 3.8 page for lots of details."
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Ubuntu

+ - 130 Steam For Linux Officially Released, Available In Ubuntu Software Center->

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy (1542989) writes "Valve has officially released Steam for Linux client. Valve is not shying away from using the word Linux on it's home page. With the launch of the official client the company is also offering heavy discounts on games for Linux — over 50 Linux titles are now 50-75% off until Thursday, February 21st at 10 AM PST."
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Games

+ - 200 Valve officially launches Steam for Linux->

Submitted by sl4shd0rk
sl4shd0rk (755837) writes "Valve has finally released Steam for Linux. Although some of the 57 games listed on the Linux Steam site are previously released from the Humble Bundles, there are others which should provide adequate entertainment for anyone bored with the HB games. Among the games listed, many at deep discounts of 50%-75% off, are HalfLife, CounterStrke Source and Serious Sam 3. Hopefully Valve will keep the ports coming as rumor has it that Left 4 Dead had been ported at least for developers."
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Linux

+ - 288 Valve Releases Steam For Linux Client, Celebrates With Week-Long Sale

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Valve on Thursday announced the release of its Steam for Linux client. You can download the client now for free from the Ubuntu Software Center. In typical Steam fashion, the company is celebrating the big day with a sale: over 50 Linux titles are now 50 percent to 75 percent off until 10:00AM PST on Wednesday, February 21. This means you have just under a week to take advantage, and should be plenty of time for Valve to set a new record in Steam for Linux downloads."
Chrome

+ - 148 Inventing the Chromebook - First Version was Based on Firefox->

Submitted by Andy Prough
Andy Prough (2730467) writes "Former Google engineer Jeff Nelson has written a fascinating blog post about how he created "Google OS", the forerunner to Chrome OS. Last August, he finally received a patent for it, but his work began in 2006, and the first versions of the OS were built on Firefox and a "bare-bones Linux distribution" that could execute any Linux program. In fact, when he first started writing the OS, Chrome itself did not exist, and the whole purpose for his work was to create a system that loaded fully — and only — into system RAM. This purpose grew out of his frustration with wait times as he wrote webapps for Google, and found himself waiting 30-45 seconds just to restart a web browser. By moving the entire OS to RAM, he was able to cut the Firefox restart time from 45 seconds to 1 second, and found similar speed increases for other mundane tasks. He built himself a "Chromebook" and used it as his primary development box for over a year. The fact that his boss and Google management originally had no interest in his project makes this story all the better. This blog post is a very interesting read, as it discusses the beginnings of the range of Google webapps that were ultimately created to "replace any and all functionality normally found on a desktop"."
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Cloud

+ - 110 Turbotax.com locks out Linux users->

Submitted by whtmarker
whtmarker (1060730) writes "Despite supporting kindle fire and chromebook http://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/system-requirements_thickbox.jsp, linux users are finding themselves locked out of the turbotax website. Even two weeks ago, there when was an option to continue into the website, despite using linux thus not meeting the minimum requirements for the site. Dozens of linux users are frustrated http://pastebin.com/JhTAnnxA but this illustrates a general problem of cloud services. You can be locked out of your data and denied service on a whim."
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Intel

+ - 182 Intel Supports OpenGL ES 3.0 On Linux Before Windows->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The Khronos Group has published the first products that are officially conformant to OpenGL ES 3.0. On that list is the Intel Ivy Bridge processors with integrated graphics, which support OpenGL ES 3.0 on open-source Linux Mesa. This is the best timing yet for Intel's open-source team to support a new OpenGL standard — the standard is just six months old where as it took years for them to support OpenGL ES 2.0. There's also no OpenGL ES 3.0 Intel Windows driver yet that's conformant. Intel also had a faster turn-around time than NVIDIA and AMD with the only other hardware on the list being Qualcomm and PowerVR hardware. OpenGL ES 3.0 works with Intel Ivy Bridge when using the Linux 3.6 kernel and the soon-to-be-out Mesa 9.1."
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Linux

+ - 110 Linux real-time scheduler SCHED_DEADLINE v7 released->

Submitted by
c1oud
c1oud writes "ReTiS Lab and Evidence Srl have just released SCHED_DEADLINE v7 on LKML.

SCHED_DEADLINE is a new deadline-based real-time task scheduling policy for the Linux kernel with bandwidth isolation (aka "resource reservation") capabilities. It supports global/clustered multiprocessor scheduling through dynamic task migrations.

This is a major release, and the RFC tag has been now removed. It seems also that the interest from the industry is growing."
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GNU is Not Unix

+ - 231 GNU Hurd To Develop SATA, USB, Audio Support->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Hurd, the GNU micro-kernel project that was founded by Richard Stallman in 1983, may finally be catching up with Linux on the desktop... Plans were shared by its developers to finally bring in some modern functionality by working on support for Serial ATA drives, USB support, and sound cards. There's also ambitions to provide x86_64 CPU architecture support. GNU Hurd developers will be doing an unofficial Debian GNU/Hurd "Wheezy" release this year but they hope for the Debian "Jessie" release their micro-kernel in Debian will make it as part of some official CDs."
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Linux

+ - 173 The Linux Foundation Secure Boot Pre-bootloader Released->

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec (2231454) writes "The Linux Foundation’s UEFI Secure Boot pre-bootloader for independent Linux distros and software developers has finally been released. Announcing the release of the secure boot system James Bottomley noted that the signed pre-bootloader was delivered by Microsoft on February 6th. Bottomley has released two validated files PreLoader.efi and HashTool.efi. Bottomley has also created a bootable mini-USB image that provides “an EFI shell where the kernel should be and uses Gummiboot to boot.” Just last week the pre-bootloader had to be rewritten to accommodate booting of all version of Linux"
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Linux

+ - 141 Moving Linux Console to the Userspace-> 2

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa (887896) writes "David Herrmann has provided an update on his ambitious initiative to kill of the Linux kernel console. Herrmann has long been working on making the Linux kernel CONFIG_VT option unnecessary for providing a Linux console by punting it off to user-space. The Linux kernel VT console hasn't been changed much in the past two decades and Herrmann is hoping to see it replaced with a user-space solution he's been developing that would allow for multi-seat support, a hardware-accelerated console, full internalization, and other features."
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Ubuntu

+ - 204 Ask Slashdot: Is there honestly a reason to use Ubuntu anymore? 6

Submitted by Trilkin
Trilkin (2042026) writes "I recently installed Linux Mint on my (non-technically savvy) grandmother's netbook and she's responded very well to it. I'm considering doing the same for her desktop, but my question is this: being that Mint is a fork of Ubuntu, is there any real compelling reason to actually use Ubuntu anymore? It seems so much more bloated. I'm aware that, under the surface, it's basically just a fork of Debian and Linux overall is a OS that can be tinkered with to be the exact environment you need. As an out-of-the-box desktop distribution, though, from my own testing, Ubuntu seems to be the weaker of the two thanks to its continuously growing amount of bloat in order to push its paid-for services. Is there really any real reason to use it over Mint? Outside of the paid-for services, is there anything it offers out of the box that Mint simply doesn't?"
Microsoft

+ - 112 What Role Does Linux Play in Microsoft's End of the Dell Deal?->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "It's not lost on Microsoft that cloud computing is emerging as a major trend, and that and other trends are likely to prompt increased server purchasing over the next decade. If Microsoft has anything to say to Dell about allowable platforms, it will be on the topic of Linux on servers. Dell has positioned itself to become a bigger player in the cloud, and in services. From that perspective, especially in a virtualized technology world, the company can't leave Linux behind. Was that Microsoft's prompt for dropping $2 billion?"
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Ubuntu

+ - 121 Ubuntu Smartphone Shipping in October->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Smartphones running the open source Ubuntu operating system will be available to customers beginning in October 2013, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth told CIO Journal. Ubuntu will be available on a full range of devices, including desktop and tablet computers, potentially providing corporate IT executives a way to reduce the number of devices they purchase and manage, and would allow users to access all manner of corporate data through a single, pocket-sized device. “You can share Windows apps to the phone desktop,” said Mr. Shuttleworth during a meeting in New York Tuesday."
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Microsoft

+ - 181 Microsoft may be seeking protection from Linux with Dell loan ->

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg (971356) writes "Microsoft's $2 billion loan to Dell is a sign that the software maker wants to influence hardware designs in a post-PC world while protecting itself from the growing influence of Linux-based operating systems in mobile devices and servers, according to analysts. Michael Dell and equity firm Silver Lake on Tuesday announced a buyout of computer maker Dell in a deal valued at about $24.4 billion. The transaction includes the loan from Microsoft, which in a statement said it views the deal as a commitment to the "long term success of the entire PC ecosystem." As the world's third-largest PC maker, Dell is important to the success of Microsoft's server and PC software. Even though Microsoft's loan does not represent a big part of the total value of the transaction, the software maker does not throw around money lightly and its participation in the deal might be an attempt by the software maker to influence hardware designs in the post-PC world of touch laptops, tablets and smartphones, analysts said. It may also be an attempt to secure the partnership and to stop the PC maker from looking toward alternative operating systems like Linux, analysts said. Dell offers Linux servers and in late November introduced a thin and light XPS 13 laptop with a Linux-based Ubuntu OS, also code-named Project Sputnik. Major PC makers in recent months have also introduced laptops with Chrome OS."
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Open Source

+ - 177 Tim O'Reilly steps into the comments to debate Open Government and Linux ->

Submitted by
PatrickRIot
PatrickRIot writes "Aeon Magazine ran this longform crtique of Open Source politics last week.
"Open Sesame: ‘Openness’ is the new magic word in politics – but should governments really be run like Wikipedia?"

It referenced Tim O'Reilly and the man himself has stepped in at the bottom of the page for a detailed and lengthy rejoinder.

'I'm a bit surprised to learn that my ideas of "government as a platform" are descended from Eric Raymond's ideas about Linux, since: a) Eric is a noted libertarian with disdain for government b) Eric's focus on Linux was on its software development methodology. From the start, I was the open source activist focused on the power of platforms, arguing the role for the architecture of Unix and the Internet in powering the open source movement. (continues)'"
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