colinneagle writes "This week, the team at Digia rolled out the first alpha release of Qt 5.1, which is slated to have the first round of support for Android and iOS, with full support coming in 5.2. The goal is to make 5.1 completely usable for building complete, shippable apps for both mobile platforms. That means Qt can now be used to build native, smooth applications on Linux, Windows, Android, iOS, MacOS X and even BlackBerry 10, all with an excellent integrated development environment – QtCreator. Coming with version 5.1 is also something called 'Qt Quick Controls' — which is a set of nice, reusable user interface controls. Currently, it is focused on Desktop applications, but is expanding to add touchscreen-specific features. And, importantly, this release also brings 'Qt Sensors' into play. 'Qt Sensors' are pretty much exactly what they sound like — access to hardware sensors on devices where they are available, with built-in motion gesture recognition. Definitely a big plus for Android and iOS applications."

snydeq writes "We need bare-bones Linux distros tailored for virtual machines or at least the option for installs, writes Deep End's Paul Venezia. 'As I prepped a new virtual server template the other day, it occurred to me that we need more virtualization-specific Linux distributions or at least specific VM-only options when performing an install. A few distros take steps in this direction, such as Ubuntu and OEL jeOS (just enough OS), but they're not necessarily tuned for virtual servers. For large installations, the distributions in use are typically highly customized on one side or the other — either built as templates and deployed to VMs, or deployed through the use of silent installers or scripts that install only the bits and pieces required for the job. However, these are all handled as one-offs. They're generally not available or suitable for general use.'"

jrepin writes "Version 0.9.6 of free and open source video editor Kdenlive has been announced. This version adds a Reverse clip option to Clip Jobs that creates a backwards clip.The list of audio/video bitrates can now be customized in custom rendering profiles. New release also fixes several bugs and crashes, including a very annoying bug that caused project files to seem corrupted."

First time accepted submitter jakimfett writes "On April 13th, The Linux Game Tome will be going dark, but there's hope yet. The admin, BobZ, has an update for the community: 'To everyone who is expressing interest in helping to continue The Linux Game Tome: thank you! But don't tell me, tell the community! After this site is shut down, I will walk away from it. I have no plans to be involved in any effort to continue the Linux Game Tome legacy. If you are interested in continuing the legacy, please organize and make it happen.' Following the announcement was an email with some 'Linux Game Tome 3.0' information. In response to the email, I've set up a site that can act as a discussion platform for anyone interested in contributing to the project."

New submitter drachensun writes "Francesco Santini was looking into the possibilities of stand-alone printing with the Solidoodle. He choose the PengPod 700, a tablet that runs a full Linux distribution and turned it into a standalone interface for the SD2. 'So, in summary, I now have a fully-functional touchscreen pronterface installation that can drive the Solidoodle, for a total cost of 110$. No assembly, soldering, firmware modding required. Just a little bit of fiddling with Linux (if required, I can post a step-by-step guide, or prepare an ad-hoc linux image).'"

dartttt writes "Dell has launched a new Ubuntu gaming desktop (first ever?) . Alienware customers can now choose either Windows or Ubuntu when buying a new X51. Ubuntu option is initially available to U.S. customers only and the price starts from $599." Also in Ubuntu news: Canonical announced on Friday the final beta release of Ubuntu 13.04, aka Raring Ringtail (the main release, as well as the growing flock of other *buntus).

DeviceGuru writes "After four years of development, Micromagic Systems has finally completed the Mantis Hexapod Walking Machine (YouTube video), claimed to be the world's largest all-terrain operational hexapod robot. The device stands nearly three meters tall, weighs just under two tons, and is controlled by a PC/104 module stack running embedded Linux."

New submitter dtschmitz highlights the success of the Google Chromebook to underscore what, in his view, is a serious Linux brand image problem. "It's remarkable how Google doesn't mention the word Linux anywhere in their marketing of the Google Chromebook. I mean, it's running the Linux Kernel, so shouldn't it be Google Linux instead of ChromeOS? Why did Google carefully avoid references to Linux? It's all a very carefully crafted, well executed plan of elegant branding and image making. ... The profile of this user is that of someone who really doesn't care anything about the technical underpinnings of a device. They are not sophisticated technophiles by any means. They have a set number of things which they wish to do--recreational surfing, banking, email, an occasional letter, not complicated. ... Google didn't mention Linux because they know it will scare buyers away. That's unfortunate, but true. And we need to come to terms with that fact and work towards improving the 'Linux Inside' brand image.

New submitter Skrapion writes "One month ago, an independent developer submitted patches to the Wayland's Weston compositor which adds support for FreeRDP, an open-source remote desktop protocol. Now, after six revisions, the remote desktop code has been merged into the trunk. While remote desktop has been prototyped in Weston once before by Wayland developer Kristian Høgsberg, this is the first time Wayland/Weston has officially supported the feature. For a summary of why we can expect Wayland's remote desktop to surpass X.Org's network transparency, see Daniel Stone's excellent talk from Linux.conf.au."

An anonymous reader writes "In preparation for the "Steam Box" game console that will make necessary their own Linux-based software platform, Valve developers have started publishing Debian packages for their platform which looks like their first-generation operating system will be derived from Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. So far the packages being published include a new "Plymouth" boot splash screen as the operating system loads, a Steam desktop wallpaper, auto-updating system scripts, and experimental NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers."

In his typical fashion of replacing perfectly working software with useless broken-by-design crap, our dearest Lennart has decided that the time has come for systemd to gain an email program. He determined that the GNU libc was insufficient for the task of a dbus-enabled cpu hogging email client, leading to the new systemd libc: " Technically, this move makes perfectly sense, too. We are sick of supporting unstable glibc APIs and ABIs, and we believe that we greatly benefit from the fact that we now finally have everything the OS userspace consists of in one single repository. Of course, this new libc is not available to Ubuntu and other Linux distributions that have not yet adopted systemd. However, after deliberately choosing a home-grown display server (Wayland) over the generally accepted one (Mir) we decided creating an incompatible libc would be the best approach to create a strong platform following a strict release cadence."

On the bright side "We also renamed the API call creat() to create()..."

An anonymous reader writes "Weeks after Canonical announced Mir, Wayland's display server protocol and Weston compositor have been forked. A contributor to Wayland found differing views with the project over desktop eye candy and other technical decisions to the X11 successor, which resulted in forming the Northfield and Norwood projects. The developer, Scott Moreau, has been outted from the project but has provided a lengthy explanation why the fork was needed to advance the Linux desktop."

sfcrazy writes "ZFS on Linux has reached what Brian Behlendorf calls an important milestone with the official 0.6.1 release. Version 0.6.1 not only brings the usual bug fixes but also introduces a new property called 'snapdev.' Brian explains, 'The snapdev property was introduced to control the visibility of zvol snapshot devices and may be set to either visible or hidden. When set to hidden, which is the default, zvol snapshot devices will not be created under /dev/. To gain access to these devices the property must be set to visible. This behavior is analogous to the existing snapdir property.'"

netbuzz writes "A federal judge in Texas, presiding over a district notorious for favoring patent trolls, has summarily dismissed all claims relating to a case brought by Uniloc USA against Rackspace for [Linux] allegedly infringing upon [Uniloc's] patents. Red Hat defended Rackspace in the matter and issued a press release saying: 'In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc's claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter.'" You can't patent floating point math after all.

An anonymous reader writes "The E17 Enlightenment project has released a new version of its Terminology terminal emulator. With Terminology 0.3 comes several fancy features, including the ability to preview video files, images, and PDF files from within the terminal. There's new escape sequences, inline video playback, and other features to this terminal emulator that's only built on EFL and libc."

kthreadd writes "Version 3.8 of the GTK+ GUI framework has been released. A new feature in GTK+ 3.8 is support for Wayland 1.0, the display server that will replace X on free desktops. Among the other new features are improved support for theming, fixes to geometry management and improved accessibility. There is also better support for touch, as part of an ongoing effort in making GTK+ touch-aware."

sl4shd0rk writes "Hispalinux, which represents Spanish Open Source developers and users, has filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission. 14 pages of grief cited Windows 8 as an 'obstruction mechanism' calling UEFI Secure Boot a 'de facto technological jail for computer booting systems... making Microsoft's Windows platform less neutral than ever.' On March 6 of 2012 the Commission fined Microsoft 561 million Euros for failing to offer users a choice of web browser, and there was also a 2004 ruling which found the company had abused its market position by tying Windows Media Player to Windows itself. Relations appear to remain more tense towards Windows in Europe, so there may be some hope of making UEFI more Linux-friendly. UEFI has been implicated in the death of Samsung laptops running Linux."

First time accepted submitter Sodki writes "The Linux Game Tome, one of the most important websites related to video gaming in GNU/Linux, will shut down on the 13th of April, according to a news post published on the website. The decision was made due to the 'lack both the time and the ambition to do what is necessary to keep the site afloat,' which has resulted in 'spam clogging the forums, lack of updates and increasing brokenness of the site.' This might not be the end, though. The maintainers of The Linux Game Tome will make available a dump of the games database, so that anyone interested can cook up a new and updated version of the website, and a worthwhile effort will be considered for a transfer of ownership of the domain. The current source code of the website, which is from 1999, will not be available because 'it is not fit for human consumption.'" It certainly had a good run; I remember poking around the Linux Game Tome as a teenager in the misty past (and it's where I discovered Freeciv, Warzone 2100, and lbreakout2). Are there any alternatives already operating (unfortunately, Freecode doesn't seem popular with game authors)? Or: Which one of you is going to write the Linux Game Tome 3.0?

Rambo Tribble writes "This new, third edition of Sobell's book brings enhancements that add to the text's value as both a learning tool and a reference. This has always been a foundation book for those wanting a professional level of familiarity with Linux. The addition of chapters to introduce the Python language and MySQL database serves to offer the reader practical insights into additional Linux-related technologies." Read below for the rest of Rambo's review.

jrepin writes "On day two of the 2013 Embedded Linux Conference, Robert Rose of SpaceX spoke about the 'Lessons Learned Developing Software for Space Vehicles.' In his talk, he discussed how SpaceX develops its Linux-based software for a wide variety of tasks needed to put spacecraft into orbit—and eventually beyond. Linux runs everywhere at SpaceX, he said, on everything from desktops to spacecraft."