Intel

Submission + - Intel says Clover Trail won't work with Linux (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by girlmad
girlmad writes: Intel's Clover Trail Atom processor can be seen in various non-descript laptops around IDF and the firm provided a lot of architectural details on the chip, confirming details such as dual-core and a number of power states. However Intel said Clover Trail "is a Windows 8 chip" and that "the chip cannot run Linux".

While Intel's claim that Clover Trail won't run Linux is not quite true — after all it is an x86 instruction set so there is no major reason why the Linux kernel and userland will not run — given that the firm will not support it, device makers are unlikely to produce Linux Clover Trail devices for their own support reasons.
KDE

Submission + - NVIDIA Graphics With KDE-Ubuntu Compete With Windows, Not Unity (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NVIDIA Linux driver across multiple GeForce graphics cards can compete with Microsoft Windows 7 on Ubuntu, but only when using the KDE desktop and not the default Unity/Compiz. It turns out based upon recent desktop environment benchmarking, Ubuntu's Unity desktop is now noticeably slower than GNOME/KDE/Xfce/LXDE with multiple GPUs/drivers. Sam Spilsbury of Canonical/Compiz acknowledges the problem but it may take longer than one Ubuntu cycle to correct.
Linux

Submission + - The Linux Desktop and ISVs/OEMs (gnome.org)

Submitted by olau
olau writes: Michael Meeks who's worked on GNOME and LibreOffice integration for many years, now for SuSE, has some really interesting thoughts on the recent Linux desktop debacle and suggestions for possible strategies. He points out that regarding ISVs, the real issue isn't actually the quality of the tools but the size and attractiveness of the market, and perhaps that a solution could be lower barriers for paying or donating. Regarding OEMs selling hardware with software preinstalled, he points out that while free OS + software sounds good for consumers, it's actually a problem for OEMs on razor thin margins since they lose the cut they get from the preinstallations. A possible countermove could be nailing robustness and hardware diagnostics for good, lowering OEM support costs.
DRM

Submission + - Amazon Blocks Arch Linux Handbook from Kindle Store (thepowerbase.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We've all heard the horror stories of Amazon swindling the user out of their content on the Kindle, but this time they've managed to do it preemptively: by blocking the GFDL licensed Arch Linux Handbook from the Kindle Store.
Programming

Submission + - How Would You Fix the Linux Desktop? (itworld.com) 2

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Slashdot readers are familiar with the Torvalds/de Icaza slugfest over 'the lack of development in Linux desktop initiatives.' The problem with the Linux desktop boils down to this: We need more apps, and that means making it easier for developers to build them, says Brian Proffitt. 'It's easy to point at solutions like the Linux Standard Base, but that dog won't hunt, possibly because it's not in the commercial vendors' interests to create true cross-distro compatibility. United Linux or a similar consortium probably won't work, for the same reasons,' says Proffitt. So, we put it to the Slashdot community: How would you fix the Linux desktop?"
GNOME

Submission + - GNOME 3.6 To Include Major Revisions (wordpress.com)

Submitted by supersloshy
supersloshy writes: The launch of the GNOME 3 desktop environment sparked heated debate and criticism. GNOME developers have been listening to the concerns of its users and it is rolling out several significant changes in GNOME 3.6. The message tray, often called hard to use, was made much more visible in addition to being harder to accidentally trigger. The "lock" screen can now optionally control your music player, the system volume, and display notifications so you don't have to type in a password. GNOME will also support different input sources directly instead of requiring an add-on program. Nautilus, the GNOME file browser, is also getting a major face lift with a new, more compact UI, properly working search features, a "move to" and "copy to" option as an alternative to dragging and dropping, and a new "recent files" section. These changes, among many others including improvements to system settings, will be present in GNOME 3.6 when it is released later this month. Any other additions or changes not currently implemented by the GNOME team can be easily applied with only one click at the GNOME Extensions website.
Linux

Submission + - openSUSE 12.2 is out! (opensuse.org)

Submitted by
jospoortvliet
jospoortvliet writes: "Two months of extra stabilization work have resulted into a stellar release, chock-full of goodies, yet stable as you all like it.

The latest release of the world's most powerful and flexible Linux Distribution brings you speed-ups across the board with a faster storage layer in Linux 3.4 and accelerated functions in glibc and Qt, giving a more fluid and responsive desktop. The infrastructure below openSUSE has evolved, bringing in newly matured technologies like GRUB2 and Plymouth and the first steps in the direction of a revised and simplified UNIX file system hierarchy. Users will also notice the added polish to existing features bringing an improved user experience all over. The novel Btrfs file system comes with improved error handling and recovery tools. KDE has improve its stability, GNOME 3.4, developing rapidly, brings smooth scrolling to all applications and features a reworked System Settings and Contacts manager while XFCE has an enhanced application finder.

Download openSUSE 12.2 from any of our mirrors."
Debian

Submission + - AMD64 Now Debian's Most Popular Architecture (thepowerbase.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Bill Allombert announced today via the Debian-devel mailing list that the X86_64 version of Debian has now surpassed all of the other supported architectures by a narrow margin. The most surprising part of this announcement however, and accompanying info-graphics provided on the Debian Popularity Contest page, is that this was not already true.

Thanks to PAE support is Debian kernels dating back to 2010, the i386 architecture had been given life support, finally allowing for systems to break through the 32-bit 4GB memory ceiling. PAE support allows for 64-bit Intel and AMD processors to dedicate the maximum addressable memory to individual applications, while still executing 32-bit code exclusively.
GNOME

Submission + - Torvalds pours scorn on De Icaza's desktop claims (itwire.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linux creator Linus Torvalds has poured scorn on claims made by the co-founder of the GNOME Desktop project, Miguel de Icaza, that he (Torvalds) was in any way to blame for the lack of development in Linux desktop initiatives.
Linux

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Says Linux 4.0 could be out in Three years (internetnews.com) 2

Submitted by darthcamaro
darthcamaro writes: The wait between Linux 2.x and 3.x was a long one but the wait to Linux 4? Well that's will only be a matter of three years according to Linus Torvalds.

"It's just mentally much easier for people to remember the small number," Torvalds said during the LinuxCon conference in San Diego today. "We'll do 4.0 in three years maybe when the sub numbers have grown in the 20's and our feeble brains can't handle it."
Intel

Submission + - Valve Finds Open-Source Drivers To Be Great (phoronix.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Intel's Open-Source Technology Center was given source-code access to Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 game in order to help them fix Linux bugs and to better optimize their graphics driver to this forthcoming Linux native game on the Source Engine. Intel has talked about their Valve Linux development experiences and now they managed to get Left 4 Dead 2 running on their open-source graphics driver. Valve also has grown fond of open-source hardware drivers, "Valve Linux developers have also been happy looking at an open-source graphics driver. Valve Linux developers found it equally thrilling that now when hitting a bottleneck in their game or looking for areas for performance optimizations, they are simply able to look into Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver to understand how an operation is handled by the hardware, tossing some extra debugging statements into the Intel driver to see what's happening, and making other driver tweaks."
GUI

Submission + - The Rise of Skeuomorphic User Interfaces

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The evolution of user interface design in software is a long one and has historically tracked the capabilities of computers of the time. Early computers used batch processing which is mostly unheard of today and consequently had minimal human interaction. The late 60s saw the introduction of command line interfaces which remain popular to this day, mostly with technical users. Arguably, what propelled computer use to what it is today is the introduction of the ubiquitous graphical user interface and although graphical interfaces have evolved, in principle they have remained largely unchanged. The resurgence of Apple saw the rise of skeuomorphic graphical user interfaces which are now starting to appear on Linux. Are skeuomorphic designs making technology accessible to the masses or is it simply a case of an unwillingness to innovate and move forward?
Google

Submission + - Haiku OS Ported To Intel 64-bit Architecture (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BeOS-compatible Haiku OS operating system has been ported to x86_64. As part of the Google Summer of Code, a student made a 64-bit port of the kernel and user-space and it's now working. However, not all of the BeOS apps and drivers are yet working in 64-bit mode.
IT

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How did you become a Linux professional?

Submitted by
ternarybit
ternarybit writes: "By 'Linux professional,' I mean anyone in a paid IT position who uses or administers Linux systems on a daily basis.

Over the past five years, I've developed an affection for Linux, and use it every day as a freelance IT consultant. I've built a breadth of somewhat intermediate skills, using several distros for everything from everyday desktop use, to building servers from scratch, to performing data recovery. I'm interested in taking my skills to the next level—and making a career out of it—but I'm not sure how best to appeal to prospective employers, or even what to specialize in (I refuse to believe the only option is "sysadmin," though I'm certainly not opposed to that).

Most specifically, I'm interested in what practical steps I can take to build meaningful skills that an employer can verify, and will find valuable. So, what do you do, and how did you get there? How did you conquer the catch-22 of needing experience to get the position that gives you the experience to get the position? Did you get certified, devour books and manpages, apprentice under an expert, some combination of the above, or something else entirely?"
Android

Submission + - Can Android Revolutionize Spacecraft Design? (thepowerbase.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NASA’s Ames Research Center is working on a new project designed to drastically cut the cost of launching and operating small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The project, known as PhoneSat, will see the Android powered Nexus One and Nexus S phones command their very own small scale spacecraft this year in a first of its kind research mission.

Is Android ready for space? Will this be a fruitless experiment, or the shape of things to come?
Linux

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best distro for a dynamic file server? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I'm in charge of developing for my workplace a particular sort of "dynamic" file server for handling scientific data. We have all the hardware in place, but can't figure out what *nix distro would work best. Can the great minds at Slashdot pool their resources and divine an answer?

Some background:
We have sensor units scattered across a couple square miles of undeveloped land, which each collect ~500 gigs of data per 24h. When these drives come back from the field each day, they'll be plugged into a server featuring a dozen removable drive sleds. We need to present the contents of these drives as one unified tree (shared out via samba), and the best way to go about that appears to be a unioning file system. There's also requirement that the server has to boot in 30 seconds or less off a mechanical hard drive.

We've been looking around, but are having trouble finding info for this seemingly simple situation. Can we get FreeNAS to do this? Do we try Greyhole? Is there a distro that can run unionfs/aufs/mhddfs out-of-the-box without messing with manual recompiling? Why is documentation for *nix always so bad?

(posting as AC due to silly workplace security policies)
Linux

Submission + - Arch Linux For Newbies? Manjaro is here! (muktware.com) 2

Submitted by Penurious Penguin
Penurious Penguin writes: Well within the top ten Linux distros, Arch Linux has a strong following for sure. But with an installation process requiring a little more involvement than the average distro, not every prospective user is ready to embrace the Arch Way, and understandably so. This is where Manjaro steps in. With a 100% compatibility with Arch, uncompromising adherence to principia KISS and a pre-configured Xfce, — or alternatively available GNOME & KDE — those who've been hesitating to explore Arch now have a few less excuses.

And a little side-note for those still bitter about the lack of package-signing: You'll be glad to know that Arch fully implemented package-signing in June of 2012.
GNOME

Submission + - GNOME-Designer McCann: "More optimistic about GNOME than in a long time" (derstandard.at)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an extensive interview with derStandard.at GNOME designer Jon McCann shares his thoughts about all the criticism GNOME3 currently faces and why he doesn't think at all that GNOME is in a crisis. He also talks about the current plans for GNOME OS and explains why he thinks that Linux distributions should rethink their purpose.
Linux

Submission + - Polish MP returns iPad quoting lack of control (fwioo.pl)

Submitted by
rysiek
rysiek writes: "Polish MP and spokesperson for one of Polish political parties Dariusz Joski returned his state-issued iPad citing lack of control (Google-translated). Polish Free and Open Source Software Foundation (of Anti-ACTA fame) offered (free of charge, of course) to help him choose, install and configure Linux on his laptop, including setting-up disk encryption.

We are still waiting for an answer from the MP."
Linux

Submission + - KMSCON Project Seeks to Replace Linux Virtual Terminal (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Phoronix reports on the progress of kmscon, David Herrmann's virtual console project that aims to supersede the Linux kernel's virtual terminal. kmscon takes advantage of modern Linux features such as kernel mode setting, direct rendering, and udev to provide hardware-accelerated rendering, full internationalization, monitor hot-plugging, and proper multi-seat support. A recent blog post by Herrmann addresses some of his frequently heard questions and criticisms about the kmscon project.

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