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Linux

Submission + - Linux kernel hacking: these days its just another job? (wordpress.com)

Submitted by
00_NOP
00_NOP writes: "Using GitHub's "punchcard" tool we can see when commits go into the kernel and the pattern is pretty clear: it's between 9 and 5 on a weekday. Hardly any work is done at the weekend and not much overnight. So these days building the kernel seems to be just another job."
Amiga

Submission + - Amiga returns with Linux-powered mini PC (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: Commodore has revealed the Amiga mini, a small-form-factor system that runs a custom Linux distro dubbed Commodore OS Vision. A trailer for the OS hardly inspires confidence, and the rest of the system doesn't help. While the Amiga mini features a high-end Intel desktop CPU and modern conveniences like Blu-ray, USB 3.0, and 802.11n Wi-Fi, it's stuck with one of the slowest graphics chips Nvidia makes. Some of the other specifications are head-scratchers, too. The mini comes with a whopping 16GB of RAM but only a terabyte of storage. You'll have to pay extra to get an SSD, which makes the $2500 asking price particularly onerous. The case, Blu-ray drive, and power supply are being made available separately, but at $345, they're hardly a bargain. Add this to the list of nostalgia-baiting remakes that don't live up to their inspiration.
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Wasteland 2 adds Linux support

Submitted by guises
guises writes: Wasteland 2, a Kickstarter project which has already met it's primary funding goal, has added Linux to the list of platforms which will be supported if funding reaches the $1.5 million mark. Currently, they're less than $50,000 from that secondary goal. For those unfamiliar, Wasteland was an acclaimed post-apocalyptic CRPG released in 1988. Fallout was the spiritual successor to Wasteland, being made by the same people who did not have the rights to the Wasteland name.
Linux

Submission + - Why Linux Can't "Sell" on the Desktop (lockergnome.com) 1

Submitted by
VoyagerRadio
VoyagerRadio writes: "Recently I found myself struggling with a question I should easily have been able to answer: Why would anyone want to use Linux as their everyday desktop (or laptop) operating system? It’s a fair question, and asked often of Linux, but I'm finding it to be a question I can no longer answer with the conviction necessary to “sell” the platform. In fact, I kind of feel like a car salesman who realizes he no longer believes in the product he’s been pitching. It's not that I don't find Linux worthy; I simply don't understand how it's every going to succeed on the desktop with voluntary marketing efforts. What do Linux users need to do to replicate the marketing efforts of Apple and Microsoft and other corporate operating system vendors? To me, it seems you don’t sell Linux at all because there isn’t supposed to be one dominant distribution that stands out from the rest. Without a specific product to put on the shelf to sell, what in the world do you focus your efforts on selling? An idea?"
AMD

Submission + - AMD Releases Open-Source Radeon HD 7000 Driver (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AMD has publicly released the open-source code to the Radeon HD 7000 series "Southern Islands" graphics cards for Linux users. This allows users of AMD's latest-generation of Radeon graphics cards to use the open-source Linux driver rather than Catalyst, plus there's also early support for AMD's next-generation Fusion APUs.
GNOME

Submission + - Fedora 16 And GNOME Shell: Tested And Reviewed (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by LordDCLXVI
LordDCLXVI writes: Ubuntu and Mint don't want it; Linus called it an “unholy mess.” While most other distros are passing up or postponing GNOME Shell, Fedora is full steam ahead. Does Red Hat know something the rest of us don't? Or is GNOME 3 really as bad as everyone says? This massive article amounts to a full-blown guide to Fedora 16 “Verne” and complete dissection of GNOME Shell. It begins with an installation guide, with instructions for enabling 3rd party repos, proprietary graphics drivers, Wi-Fi, Flash, Java, multimedia codecs, and 32-bit libs. Next up is a GNOME Shell tear-down, including customization options and methods to “fix” the Shell or mimic GNOME 2. Finally, Fedora is benchmarked against Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7. The author makes a compelling case for why the GNOME Shell is so disastrous for the GNOME project, and just wrong for Fedora. While he adds to the voices criticizing GNOME Shell, he also points out that the extensions can empower distributors to create unique, yet compatible layouts. One of the most fair and constructive critiques of GNOME 3, definitely worth the read, and even makes GNOME 3 worth a second look.
Open Source

Submission + - LibreOffice 3.5.1 Released with Fixes (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Thinkcloud
Thinkcloud writes: Some of the core fixes include don’t crash for empty input data in charts and UI fix on PDF export dialog fdo. On a different note, the several companies have employed paid hackers and the number of TDF hackers has now crossed the threshold of 400 code developers.
Open Source

Submission + - Linux 3.3 Released

Submitted by diegocg
diegocg writes: Linux 3.3 has been released. The changes include the merge of kernel code from the Android project. There is also support for a new architecture (TI C6X), much improved balancing and the ability to restripe between different RAID profiles in Btrfs, and several network improvements: a virtual switch implementation (Open vSwitch) designed for virtualization scenarios, a faster and more scalable alternative to the "bonding" driver, a configurable limit to the transmission queue of the network devices to fight bufferbloat, a network priority control group and per-cgroup TCP buffer limits. There are also many small features and new drivers and fixes. Here's the full changelog
Businesses

Submission + - Kickstarter, Yet another game developer including a bounty for Linux support. (linuxgamingnews.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linux Gaming News reports that that game developer Popflame Studios will be making a GNU/Linux version of their game Heroes of Forevia IF they get double their funding goal of $10,000 with through their Kickstarter Project. I fascinates me how developers ask users of one platform to fund a game for a different one based on the chance it will get ported. Yet, it seems to have worked for Double Fine.
Open Source

Submission + - 'Anonymous OS' Taken Offline Over Security Concerns (securityweek.com) 2

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Slashdot Sister site SourceForge, has removed a controversial Ubuntu-based operating system from its Website due to claims the software is laced with Trojans.

Dubbed “Anonymous-OS”, the operating system was downloaded from SourceForge nearly 40,000 times before it was taken down. Affiliates of the Anonymous collective however have been crying foul. One of the more popular Anonymous Twitter accounts, AnonOps, declared Wednesday that the so-called AnonOS was fake and “wrapped in Trojans.” Another account, YourAnonNews, warned users they “can’t vouch for it.”
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Linux File System Testing -- Analyzing the Fsck Test Results (enterprisestorageforum.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This article analyzes the results of Enterprise Storage Forum's Linux fsck test that were posted last month (http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/linux-file-system-fsck-testing----the-results-are-in.html). Red Hat's Ric Wheeler and lead xfs developer David Chinner also weigh in on what the results mean.
Debian

Submission + - Debian 5.0.10 released (linuxstall.com)

Submitted by
Chankey Pathak
Chankey Pathak writes: "A few hours ago Debian team announced the 10th and final update of Debian 5.0 (Lenny). This update has removed all the security problems which were there in the oldstable release. Debian 5.0 was released on Feb 14th, 2009, and this is going to be last update for it."
GNOME

Submission + - Data breach flaw found in gnome-terminal, xfce terminal and terminator (climagic.org)

Submitted by suso
suso writes: A design flaw in the VTE library was published this week. The VTE library provides the terminal widget and manages the scrollback buffer in many popular terminal emulators including gnome-terminal, xfce4-terminal, terminator and guake. Due to this flaw, your scrollback buffer ends up on your /tmp filesystem over time and can be viewed by anyone who gets ahold of your hard drive. Including data passed back through an SSH connection. A demonstration video was also made to make the problem more obvious. Anyone using these terminals or others based on libVTE should be aware of this issue as it even writes data passed back through an SSH connection to your local disk. Instructions are also included for how to properly deal with the leaked data on your hard drive. You are either encouraged to switch terminals and/or start using tmpfs for your /tmp partition until the library is fixed.
Open Source

Submission + - Wine 1.4 released (winehq.org)

Submitted by austin987
austin987 writes: The Wine team is proud to announce that the stable release Wine 1.4
is now available.

This release represents 20 months of development effort and over
16,000 individual changes. The main highlights are the new DIB
graphics engine, a redesigned audio stack, and full support for
bidirectional text and character shaping.

It also contains a lot of improvements across the board, as well as
support for many new applications, notably Microsoft Office 2010. See
the release notes below for a summary of the major changes.

This release is dedicated to the memory of Gé (Greg) van Geldorp, who
passed away in May 2011. Greg single-handedly designed, built, and
maintained the Wine Testbot, which has become a cornerstone of our
development process. The high quality of this release owes a lot to
his work. He is greatly missed by us all.
Linux

Submission + - Will labor productivity slowdown spur hiring binge? (itworld.com)

Submitted by bdking
bdking writes: Some new numbers from the U.S. Labor Department indicate that the ground is being set for companies to start hiring more workers because current employees are hitting the limits of their productivity. And with increased IT needs often accompanying a workforce expansion, this presumably would bode well for tech professionals.
Linux

Submission + - Linux From Scratch 7.1 published (h-online.com) 1

Submitted by Thinkcloud
Thinkcloud writes: The Linux From Scratch (LFS) project has published version 7.1 of its manual for building a custom Linux installation. The new release of the step-by-step instructions is 345 pages long and uses more up-to-date components than previous versions – for example, the 3.2.6 Linux kernel and version 4.6.2 of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). The update also includes fixes to bootscripts and corrections to the text, as well as updates to 20 packages.
Ubuntu

Submission + - To Win Desktop, Canonical Changes the Rules (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "For how long now, has Linux been trying to be a commercial success on the desktop? A long time. 'And yet, here we are in 2012 and the one vendor that is trying to give Linux fans — and the rest of the user community — exactly what they want gets smacked around for it,' writes blogger Brian Proffitt. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to be critical of Canonical, but trying to win the war for the desktop isn't one of them."
Cloud

Submission + - Gate One Brings Text-mode Surfing to the Web, Quake-Style (liftoffsoftware.com)

Submitted by
Riskable
Riskable writes: "As a follow-up to my previous Slashdot story, Gate One is now out of beta. Packages can be downloaded here. There's also a live demo: Press the ESC key on this page to have a terminal running lynx drop into view, Quake-style! I've also posted a video overview and the documentation can be found here. Some pertinent changes since the beta: Added the ability display images inline within terminals (screenshot), key-based SSH authentication, a WebSockets authentication API (for secure embedding), dramatically improved terminal emulation, an overhauled bookmark manager, support for international keyboard layouts, and a web-based log viewer that lets you export logs to self-contained HTML playback files (example)."

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