Download Shim

Secure Boot bootloader for distributions available now

Download Here:

http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/shim-signed/

Linux (slowly) comes to Windows 8 PCs with UEFI secure boot

One of the largest underlying changes to Windows 8 is the long-overdue shift from BIOS to UEFI. UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is superior to BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) in almost every way, except for one: At the moment, UEFI prevents Linux distributions from being installed on Windows 8 machines.
UEFI, in essence, is a light-weight operating system that your computer loads at boot time. (See: Demystifying UEFI, the long-overdue BIOS replacement.) Because it’s an operating system, UEFI has full access to your hardware, and it can be programmed to do just about anything (thus the Extensible part of its acronym). UEFI interfaces can be mouse-driven (pictured below), and can perform complex tasks such as surfing the web or backing up your hard drives.
The UEFI specification itself also introduces a few new features to improve performance, flexibility, and security. The feature that has received by far the most attention is secure boot, as it can be used by PC OEMs to prevent other operating systems being installed on their hardware. Dell, if it so wishes, could build a PC that only runs Windows. On the flip side, Apple could stop Windows from being installed on its hardware.
Ostensibly, secure boot isn’t meant to be used maliciously, though: Its primary purpose is to prevent a malware-infected PC from booting, thus protecting the user from possible data theft or worse. Secure boot works by means of cryptographic signing: A chip on the motherboard stores the cryptographic hash/key of important operating system files and drivers, and during boot-up those files are checked — if their hashes have changed, they’re assumed to be compromised, and the boot process stops. If you try to boot Linux, secure boot detects the altered hashes and halts boot. While Linux obviously isn’t malware, secure boot doesn’t know that.
The solution, of course, is to add the Linux file/driver hashes to the secure boot chip — but to do that, you need a secret password. In the case of Windows 8 machines (i.e. official OEM machines bearing the Windows 8 logo), only Microsoft and the OEM know the password. If the key was public, then malware authors would be able to add their own hashes, and thus the system would be worthless.
Where does this leave Linux? One solution is to simply disable secure boot. Some OEM machines allow you to do this, while some (most notably the ARM-powered Windows RT devices) don’t. This is a bit of an unfair compromise, though, as it leaves your computer vulnerable to malware and rootkit infection. Another option would be for Linux distributors, such as Red Hat and Canonical, to collaborate with Microsoft to get their distros added to the secure boot system. It doesn’t seem like there has been much movement in that area, though.
The currently favored solution is a workaround: a pre-bootloader signed by Microsoft (so it passes secure boot) that can then be used to load a normal Linux bootloader without further signature checking. One Linux developer, Matthew Garrett, has managed to get Microsoft to sign a pre-bootloader called Shim. You can download it today and use it to boot Linux on your Windows 8 machine. Shim should soon find its way into SUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, and other major Linux distros. The Linux Foundation is developing an “official” workaround, but as of November it still hadn’t received Microsoft’s blessing.

Source:http://www.extremetech.com/computing/144204-linux-slowly-comes-to-windows-8-pcs-with-uefi-secure-boot

Linux tablet ?

The year of the Linux tablet is, like the year of the Linux desktop, destined never to arrive.
That doesn't mean we won't see Linux on a tablet, but you'll see Linux on a tablet the way you see it on the desktop - clinging to a tiny percentage of the market.

There is of course Android, which does use a Linux kernel somewhere under all that Java, but when Canonical or Red Hat talk about building Linux tablets, obviously Android is not what they have in mind.

For most, the dream of a Linux tablet means running a distro like Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora on some sort of tablet hardware.
Indeed, intrepid users have already hacked Linux onto Android tablets. But the first shipping Linux tablet looks like it will be the $99 "PengPod," a Frankentablet that will run both Android and Linux proper. The PengPod will, assuming its creators follow through with their plans, arrive in buyers' hands in January of 2013.
Unfortunately, the PengPod seems doomed to mediocrity. The PengPod was funded through the Kickstarter-like site Indiegogo that ensures a market, no matter how small, does exist. But the device itself looks like little more than an off-brand Android tablet with Linux running from a micro SD card. There is also an option to have Linux pre-installed on the internal flash, but those aren't shipping right away.


The PengPod may well satisfy the enthusiasts who backed it, but it's hardly going to make a flagship example of Linux excellence in a brand new form factor.
In fact the best evidence that there's never going to be a year of the Linux tablet is that it doesn't even look like there's going to be a year of the Windows tablet.
Microsoft's Surface tablet effort is not, according to early numbers and a plethora of anecdotal evidence, flying off the shelves and hardware manufacturers don't seem to be rushing out the Windows 8 tablets.
So far, despite Microsoft's best efforts, the tablet world is still very much orbiting the twin stars of iOS and Android.
Having used a Samsung Windows 8 tablet for a few months, I have a theory as to why: you think you want a full desktop computer on your tablet - I certainly did -- but you don't. It simply doesn't work.
In the case of Windows 8 you can blame some of the "not working" on the buggy, incomplete software that is Windows 8, but not all of the problems can be attributed to a shortcoming of touch APIs.
Much of what makes a full desktop interface terrible on a touch screen tablet is simply the whole desktop paradigm was never designed to be used on a tablet and it shows. The Metro interface for Windows 8 is excellent; different, but in my experience really well done.
Where Windows 8 on a tablet falls apart is when you try to bring the software keyboard to the traditional desktop interface on a tablet. The software keyboard takes up half the screen, which makes even simple tasks difficult. How to you rename a file and move it? First you tap it to select it, then you tap the button to bring up the keyboard, then you type, then you touch away the keyboard, then you touch the file again. It isn't just awkward and slow; it's downright antagonizing.

Read Full Story: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/26/year_of_the_linux_tablet/

Linux Mint 14 (Nadia) and Linux Mint Debian Edition-Christmas Mint

The elves in the Linux Mint development team have been very busy the past few weeks, and just in time for Christmas they have produced new and updated relases for all of the Mint distributions.
The main branch, Mint 14 (Nadia), derived from Ubuntu 12.10 with the Gnome-based Cinnamon and MATE desktops came out in November, then Linux Mint Debian Edition Update Pack 6 at the beginning of December.
That was followed last week by the release of the Xfce version, and the set was completed this weekend with the release of the KDE version. In the following gallery I will show the default desktop and menus, and give a brief description of the content and some of strengths of each version. But there is no substitute for trying it for yourself.
All of these distributions are "Live" images, so you can download and burn them to a DVD or copy them to a USB stick, and boot it up on your own computer without changing anything on your disk. Running the live image you can see whether all of your hardware is supported - don't believe all of the FUD that people spout about having to find device drivers, compile kernel modules or whatever.
The screenshots in this gallery were taken on six different laptops, with a variety of Intel and AMD cpu and graphics, and Wi-Fi adapters from Intel, Broadcom, Atheros and Ralink - and they all worked from the base installation. If the live distribution works for you, the Mint installer will help you get it installed on your system alongside Windows.

Credits:http://www.zdnet.com/linux-round-up-a-bunch-of-mints-for-christmas-7000009158/

How to easily install the very latest GNOME in any Distro with JHBuild

The point for having an upstream GNOME installation built from sources is if you are going to build an extension, a theme or a GTK App and take advantage of all the new features of next GNOME. However it is also useful if you want to help GNOME to get better by submitting bugs  ..or it could be useful if you are just curious to see what’s coming next :)

The tool for building GNOME is nothing else than JHBuild. 

Intro

I am not going to write a full guide for how to install GNOME with JHBuild by just giving some commands, instead I will explain some basic points and then you can check on the official documentation before you start building. So this is just a quick intro and doesn’t explain all possibilities of JHBuild tool.

What JHBuild is?

JHBuild is a small application/tool, that helps us to install software from sources by setting a sandboxed environment. It also handles every dependency of the software we want to build by downloading it, configuring it, building it and installing it.

JHBuild is part of freedesktop.org and started for GNOME, but today many applications provide JHBuild modulesets. In this tutorial we just get bother only with building GNOME.

Will JHBuild brake my system?

Absolute no! JHBuild will use an isolated from the rest of your system installation similar to NPM and RVM. However it can mess up with your Apps configuration files. For example if you build Gimp with JHBuild and you have also Gimp distributor package, both installation will use the same configs.

You can easily avoid that, by using a different account just for running latest GNOME.

How much time will take to build GNOME?

It depends from your connections and your system! A typical installation (in my case) includes Gnome-Shell, Gnome-Control-Center, Empathy and Gnome Themes ..plus all their dependencies. That means downloading and building around 120 packages from GIT. With my ~7Mbps connection and and an Intel Ivy Bridge i5, it takes approximately 3-4hours and it uses around 6-7GB of space.

However there is not need to staring at it, right? Updating is much faster.

Read More:http://worldofgnome.org/how-to-easily-install-the-very-latest-gnome-in-any-distro-with-jhbuild/

Linux 3.8's features staked out

Linus Torvalds has announced the first pre-release version of Linux 3.8, releasing it on the "longest night of the year". As previously reported, it includes support for the Flash-Friendly File System (F2FS), which has been designed for use on flash storage devices such as USB flash drives, memory cards, and internal storage in devices such as cameras, tablets and smartphones.
The developers have also merged a number of basic core functions developed under the "balancenuma" name. These are aimed at enabling future kernels to automatically keep processes and the memory areas they are using in close proximity. This is important for optimum performance on today's popular multiprocessor systems with NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access). Further improvements likely to be merged in Linux 3.9 and later versions will significantly improve this automated placement and will build on the foundations merged in 3.8.
Code for a "huge zero page", which can reduce memory usage in some setups, has also been merged. The kmem extension for the "memory" cgroup controller can now be used to limit the memory used by the kernel for processes in a group. Appropriately configuring these limits enables the kernel to keep the lid on any fork bombs run from the shell.
The addition of inline data support means that the Ext4 filesystem is now able to store very small files together with the inode entry, thereby saving storage space. The kernel has also been given a simple driver for the graphics cores on NVIDIA's Tegra family of SoCs (system-on-a-chip). The code for using the acceleration functionality offered by these chips, which is being co-developed by NVIDIA, has, however, not yet made it into the kernel. To simplify maintenance and ongoing development, the kernel developers have removed support for Intel 386 and related CPUs. 486 and other x86-32 processors will continue to be supported.
This is, as usual, the first release of the new version of Linux, coming after the closing of the "merge window" where the majority of the changes for the new version are merged into the main development branch of Linux. The next phase, the stabilisation phase, will mostly include corrections and fixes to the new features and any regressions that appear as developers test the new kernel. Details of these and many other changes will as ever be provided by The H's Kernel Log. Assuming the kernel developers keep to their usual tempo, Linux 3.8 is likely to be released in mid-February.

Source:http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-3-8-s-features-staked-out-1774113.html

Steam Linux enters open beta, give it a go now

All aboard the Steam train – yes, even you, Linux users. The Steam Linux beta is now open to everyone, officially ditching the closed beta that began in early November.

Linux users will need to have Ubuntu 12.04 and the latest version of the Steam client; complete instructions for setting up Steam are on the Ubuntu wiki, with a brief rundown on the Steam community page. Steam has an entire catalog of Linux-supported games, including Team Fortress 2, Amnesia, Killing Floor, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery, Trine 2, World of Goo and more.

Source:http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/20/steam-linux-enters-open-beta-give-it-a-go-now/

Using the PHP/Java Bridge to Combine PHP and Java in the Same App

As you probably know, PHP 4 supported an extension for combining PHP with Java, but to combine PHP with Java in PHP 5 or PHP 6 you should install the PHP/Java Bridge, which the website describes as:

"... an implementation of a streaming, XML-based network protocol, which can be used to connect a native script engine, for example PHP, Scheme or Python, with a Java virtual machine."

In this article you will learn how to install and configure the PHP/Java Bridge and how to use Java classes in PHP scripts in a demo application. To use the PHP/Java bridge, you should have knowledge of Java SE and the PHP5 core, as well as how they interact.

Using the PHP/Java Bridge

The current distribution of the PHP/Java Bridge is available for download as a .zip file from the project page. The installation process depends on which Java platform will be interacting with PHP through this bridge. For J2SE, installation is simple:

1. Install J2SE 1.6 or above.
2. Install PHP 5.1.4 or above.
3. Extract the php-java-bridge_5.2.2_j2ee.zip to a folder.
4. From the command prompt, navigate to this folder and type: …>java –classpath JavaBridge.war TestInstallation
5. In the current folder, you should see an ext folder that contains four .jar files. Copy JavaBridge.jar and php-script.jar to your J2SE/Java SE ext directory ({JAVA_HOME}/jre/lib/ext).

Article link:http://www.developer.com/java/other/php-with-java-using-php-java-bridge-tutorial.html

Japanese toilet answers nature's call via Android

Japanese bathrooms are about to become a little more interactive, thanks to a new smartphone-controlled toilet known as the Satis. Manufactured by Tokyo-based Lixil, this Bluetooth-enabled commode can be controlled with an Android app called "My Satis," allowing users to flush, raise the toilet seat, and activate a bidet jet stream with the touch of a button. The app also lets you stream music through the toilet's speakers and will automatically monitor "usage history," giving you a better idea of how much electricity and water you're consuming with each visit.

Complete Story

Mozilla Firefox 20 Will Speed Up Page Load Times

Firefox 20 is sure shaping up to be a really big release for Mozilla. We already knew that it would finally be the release that provides Private Browsing as it should be. Now it looks like Firefox is finally getting a really interesting Network load fix that seems obvious and sure could make a huge performance difference.
Firefox 20 will load stylesheets before images.

Read More:http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/mozilla-firefox-20-will-speed-up-page-load-times.html

HTML5 Still Not a Standard Until 2014

The W3C announced  that the HTML5 definition is now complete. This is a big deal for the web and all of us that work and use it…but it's not end of the story.

The definition is not a final standard for HTML5, though it is an important milestone. HTML5 will not likely be a full bona-fide standard until mid 2014 according to what Jeff Jaffe told me during a conference call  to talk about HTML5.

Credits:http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/html5-still-not-a-standard-until-2014.html

Linux servers targeted by new drive-by iFrame attack Serves online banking malware

The Linux/Chapro.A. attack is starting to look like part of a trend for using 64-bit Apache as a malware conduit, bearing a resemblance to the similarly-crafted but apparently unrelated ‘Snasko' rootkit attack discovered last month. 

Aimed at Russian and European bank users, Chapro injects malicious content into web pages, targeting Windows users vulnerable to one of several well-known Java, IE and Adobe flaws using the ‘Sweet Orange exploit pack hosted on a remote server.
A secondary main task is to hide itself from admins for as long as possible, dropping a cookie and recording the IP address of the infected machine. That means the PC will not be infected over and over when returning, making it harder for researchers to detect where a given infection happened.
"The attack described in the present analysis shows the increased complexity of malware attacks.  This complicated case spreads across three different countries, targeting users from a fourth one, making it very hard for law enforcement agencies to investigate and mitigate its effects," said ESET's Pierre-Marc Bureau.
The main difference between the new attack and Snasko is its greater menace; the latter seemed rough around the edges. This one looks like a fully-functioning attack system, albeit that ESET said it hadn't detected many examples of the attack in the wild.

Read more: http://www.techcentral.ie/20549/linux-servers-targeted-by-new-drive-by-iframe-attack#ixzz2FWNwzhfb

Three new features coming in Linux Mint 15

It's been just a few weeks since the launch of Linux Mint 14 “Nadia,” but already the project behind the popular distribution has been making plans for its next release.

In fact, last week project lead Clement Lefebvre laid out a roadmap for Linux Mint 15, whose nickname is still to be decided.
Linux Mint has remained at the top of DistroWatch's page hit rankings for the past year or so, making its next version a topic of widespread interest.
Ready for a rundown? Here are three features we can expect to see in Linux Mint 15.
1. Cinnamon 1.8
It's already been a full year since the launch of the GNOME 2-like Cinnamon desktop environment, and the next version of Linux Mint will use Cinnamon 1.8.
Included along with that popular desktop will be desklets, or desktop widgets, such as for system monitor, terminal, and picture, video, and slideshow frame; themes with configurable color schemes; calendar events similar to those in KDE; and new applets including an email notifier and an RSS reader similar to Pulse.

Also coming will be bump maps and a control center governing settings for both Cinnamon and GNOME properties, among other features.
2. Nemo 1.8
Cinnamon's default Nemo file manager, a fork of Nautilus, will be upgraded to version 1.8 in the next Linux Mint release, according to the roadmap. Along with it will come an action API, disk management, file preview capabilities, and user interface improvements.
3. MDM 1.2
Version 1.2 of the Mint Display Manager (MDM), meanwhile, will bring new capabilities as well. Themes, for example, will be able to have borders around text fields.
Other new features coming in Linux Mint 15 include user interface improvements for software management and the live installer as well as a new screensaver and driver manager.
Based on Ubuntu, Linux Mint issues new releases twice a year. The current version, “Nadia,” was rolled out in November. 

Linux Top 3: Hello ARM, Goodbye 386

Last week was a busy one on the Linux Planet with new kernels, new distributions and a (not so) fond farewell to Linux's first architecture.

1) Linux 3.7

The Linux 3.7 kernel was formally released by Linus Torvalds last week ushering in a new era for Linux on ARM. After years of fractured development across multiple version of ARM, unified system architecture support for ARM landed in the 3.7 kernel. The 3.7 kernel also provides full support for ARM v8 which provides 64-bit capabilities.
Btrfs continues to mature in Linux 3.7 by way of a number of incremental improvements including fsync()speedups and the remove of hard link limits.
On the networking side, Linux 3.7 now support VXLAN (Virtual eXtensible LAN), which is a tenant of the Software Defined Networking (SDN) movement). VXLAN is a layer 2 overlay over a Layer 3 network. VXLAN was started as a joint effort of Cisco and VMware and is not in the process of moving through the IETF for standardization.

Also on the networking side for Linux 3.7 is TCP Fast Open for servers. TCP Fast Open is a new Google led networking approach tha delivers an optimized method for performing the initial TCP handshake in a data connection. The initial code commits for TCP Fast Open debuted on the client side in Linux 3.6 in October of this year.

2) Linux 386

The cycle of kernel development never ends. When one kernel is released that the signal for the merge window on the next kernel.
While it is still early in the merge window for the Linux 3.8 kernel, we already know off at least on thing that will not be included: support for 386.
That's right Intel's original 386 has remained supported in the bleeding edge of the mainline kernel since the day Linus started and remains so today. That won't be the case in the mainline kernel beginning with Linux 3.8 in 2013.
Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar got Linus Torvalds to pull in the, 'x86-nuke386-for-linus' code tree on Tuesday. According to Molnar,"this tree removes ancient-386-CPUs support and thus zaps quite a bit of complexity: 24 files changed, 56 insertions(+), 425 deletions(-)... which complexity has plagued us with extra work whenever we wanted to change SMP primitives, for years."
Molnar noted however that there is a cost.
Nostlagia.
"Your old original 386 DX33 system from early 1991 won't be able to boot modern Linux kernels anymore. Sniff," Molnar wrote.

3) Slax 7

Some distributions have milestone updates somewhat less regularly than others. Case in point is the Slackware based Slax distribution.
This past week, the first major Slax update in three years was released with Slax 7.0, code name, Green Horn.
"Slax 7.0 is the major update of Slax Linux live operating system. It includes newest Linux Kernel, KDE4 desktop, GCC compiler and lots of other stuff and that all in just a ~210MB download," Slax developer Tomas Matejicek wrote in his release announcement


Credits:http://www.linuxplanet.com/news/linux-top-3-hello-arm-goodbye-386.html
.

Freedom from passwords

Mozilla’s Persona website authentication service has entered the public Beta testing stage, offering a third-party system for registering on websites for those which feel that using Twitter or Facebook to authenticate users is a compromise to privacy.
The project, previously known as BrowserID, has set itself an ambitious goal to “eliminate passwords on the Web”. The Beta version offers developers an improved API, while the users will benefit from simplified sign-up process and clear privacy policy. It supports all major browsers for mobile devices and desktop computers.
Persona is a secure website authentication mechanism prototyped by Mozilla, which uses email addresses as identifiers and focuses on privacy and browser integration. Once a user has a Persona account, they can use it to log in into any website that supports the platform, without sharing any additional details with individual sites.
The platform was designed to co-exist with the current login systems, not replace them. It saves security-conscious users the trouble of remembering dozens of passwords, removes the need to create new accounts and mitigates the risk of account theft.
What makes it different from Disqus, Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter and other similar services? In the past, Facebook has been accused of tracking the websites user visits trough its comment system and “like” buttons, in order to serve personalised advertising. Same is true with Google. In contrast, Mozilla adheres to a strict code of moral values, outlined in its manifesto.
“When you deploy Persona on your web site (in an afternoon or, sometimes, only 15 minutes), you’re showing respect for your users and their data. You’re only asking for the data needed to log them in, and users know they’re only sharing exactly what’s shown on the screen,” explained Ben Adida, Mozilla’s tech lead on Identity and User Data, on the organisation’s blog.
One of the things that Persona team was concerned with was the time it takes to open an account. After all, every second that the user is forced to spend while trying to login will have a negative effect on completion rates. The open Beta offers simplified sign-up process, which in some cases doesn’t even require confirmation by email.
The platform has also started asking users to consent to site-specific Terms of Service and Privacy Policies as a native part of the login flow, and added the option of a global log out from any device.
According to Endgadget, websites already offering Persona login include The Times‘ online crossword section, OpenPhoto and Voost. You can find complete instructions on how to add the platform to your site here.

Credits:http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/mozilla-opens-persona-beta-94474

Linux Support Engineer / System Administrator Leading Worldwide Hosting Provider

Contract Type: Permanent
City: Southampton
Company: RecruitmentRevolution.com
Salary: £30,000.00 - £35,000.00 /Year

Linux Support Engineer / System Administrator – Leading Worldwide Hosting Provider 

Southampton, Hampshire

£30,000 – £35,000 Negotiable
 
We are a worldwide hosting company running 20,000+ servers for our 10,000+ clients.

Are you customer obsessed and a top notch Linux Support Engineer, if you are then this could be your dream job!

GENERAL SUMMARY:

The Linux Support Engineer / System Administrator interacts with our Dedicated Hosting customers via the telephone and ticketing system to walk them through system administration tasks. System administrators resolve issues utilizing a variety of resources necessary, knowledge, skills, techniques and tools. This includes research from the Internet, books and product documentation, other employees within the support organisation.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Linux Support Engineer / System Administratormust demonstrate the following:

> First class experience within Linux Hosting environment

> Operating System — Intermediate knowledge and use of Redhat or Centos.

> Knowledge of Linux commands/utilities 

> Familiarity with basic system administration tools and processes

> Experience with maintaining, configuring, and troubleshooting Redhat, Centos through ES5 servers

> Working knowledge in mail server applications using SMTP/POP3/IMAP such as Postfix, and/or Qmail, and/or Sendmail

> Ability to troubleshoot basic networking issues 

> Ability to troubleshoot Hardware firewalls, and VPN.

> Has a solid understanding of Intel-based server hardware, including RAID configuration.

> Significant work experience with the following: Redhat ES3, ES4 and ES5: Apache, FTP, Bind, MySQL 

> Solid understanding of DNS Record types, resolution process and troubleshooting.

> Ability to duplicate the customer’s issue, troubleshoot and document. Resolve and document the resolution at a level the customer can understand.

The following certifications and/or skills are a bonus: 



> IT qualification or related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience. RHCSA/RHCE, or comparable certification.

> Redhat Cluster Suit (RHCS)

> Plesk 8.x /9.x /10.x

> Familiarity with Load Balancer and Content Delivery Network

YOU ALSO NEED TO BE:

> Customer obsessed

> Good over the phone

> Geeky not nerdy

> Have less than 45 minute commute to Southampton
 
Credits:http://jobs.techweekeurope.co.uk/4870/linux-support-engineersystem-administrator-hosting-provider/ 

The New 'Pure GNOME' Ubuntu Linux Is Coming This Fall

Earlier this month fans of the good old GNOME 2 desktop environment got some exciting news when it became clear that a version of Ubuntu Linux featuring the classic desktop was in the works.
Now, plans for that new Ubuntu flavor are beginning to take form, and it looks like we can expect its arrival in October.
There's now what looks like an official Web page for this new GNOME Ubuntu--called GNOMEbuntu in its URL--and a Muktware report on Thursday uncovered numerous details about the forthcoming release. Here's a quick rundown of some of the highlights.
1. The Name
While initially it sounded like GNOMEbuntu would be the name of this new Linux flavor, developer Jeremy Bicha has apparently said that the GNOME Foundation Board won't permit it, according to Muktware.
In a recent Quantal Quetzal-focused thread on the Ubuntu forums, both GNObuntu and Gnubuntu were being discussed. No final word yet, as far as I can tell.
2. The Apps
Along with Compiz, the new GNOME Ubuntu will reportedly use the Rhythmbox music player as well as the Epiphany browser, Evolution for e-mail and workgroup functions, the Abiword word processor, and the Gnumeric spreadsheet package. Neither Firefox nor LibreOffice will be preinstalled, according to the report.
3. The GNOME Goodness
As part of its goal of offering a “pure GNOME” experience, this new Ubuntu flavor will of course not include the mobile-inspired and controversial Unity desktop interface. According to the Muktware report, it also won't include cloud service Ubuntu One.
Perhaps even more intriguing, it sounds like there will be customized Ubuntu settings that let users make their GNOME experience in the operating system even more pure.
4. Still Up in the Air
Besides the name of this new Ubuntu flavor, a number of other features are reportedly still under discussion as well, including both the file manager and the display manager that will be used.
After all the controversy that has been generated by both Unity and GNOME 3, I'm so excited to see this classically flavored Ubuntu becoming a reality. The emergence of like-minded efforts such as MATE and SolusOS shows there's a real need.
An alpha version of the new GNOME Ubuntu will reportedly arrive soon. I'm betting there will be quite a crowd waiting to check it out.
  
CREDITS:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/261723/the_new_pure_gnome_ubuntu_linux_is_coming_this_fall.html

Tweet this: Twitter joins Linux Foundation

Social network Twitter has signed up as a member of the Linux Foundation.
The non-profit Linux consortium welcomes the social network on the back of its extensive use of Linux servers and other open technologies in its data centres and operational office headquarters.
The Linux Foundation serves as a neutral spokesperson for Linux and generates original research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform.

The foundation itself relies on corporate sponsorship from a variety of IT vendors who manufacture and ultimately profit from commercially supported versions of open source software.
Reports suggest that Twitter has joined as a "silver member" for a mere US$15,000 or just less than £10,000. Good news then for the group as it eyes its annual LinixCon convention scheduled for next week in San Diego from August 29-31.
Twitter open source manager Chris Aniszczyk has Tweeted the following:
"... it's been in the works for awhile... press is coinciding with #LinuxCon next week, that is all, we sponsored@TheASF (The official Twitter feed of The Apache Software Foundationhttp://www.apache.org/) months ago!'

Twitter has already got its open source credentials over and above its use of Linux-based servers, the company uses MySQL as its database of choice for tweet storage and also uses the free and open source Memcached distributed memory object caching system to the extent that it has even developed its own (publically available) fork known as Twemcache.
Twitter is also said to be a user of other open source technologies including the Iago load generator testing service, the Zipkin distributed tracing system and the Scalding Scala library.

CREDITS:http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2012/08/tweet-this-twitter-joins-linux-foundation.html

SUSE Linux joins in with Windows 8 secure boot plans

Well the Secure Boot saga keeps going on and on as Linux distributions far and wide decide how they're going to work around Windows 8's planned restrictions, and this week we heard from yet another project. 

It was SUSE Linux to speak out this time, and what it has proposed amounts in many ways to a hybrid approach between what we've already seen from Ubuntu and Fedora. 

"UEFI Secure Boot is a useful technology, making it harder for attackers to hide a rootkit in the boot chain," began Olaf Kirch, director of the SUSE Linux Enterprise department in SUSE Engineering, in a blog post on Wednesday. "At the same time, already the basics of its operation - establishing a single root of trust - conflict with the principles of Open Source development, which must be independent and distributed to work." 

'It's a smart solution'

 For those who missed it, Windows 8's Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) will stipulate that only operating systems with an appropriate digital signature can boot. Both the Free Software Foundation and the Linux Foundation have weighed in with their own views on the matter. 

Yet there are two ways of working around those restrictions, Kirch explained.

"One is to work with hardware vendors to have them endorse a SUSE key which we then sign the boot loader with," he explained. "The other way is to go through Microsoft's Windows Logo Certification program to have the boot loader certified and have Microsoft recognize our signing key."

SUSE plans to use the shim loader originally developed by Fedora, Kirch said: "It's a smart solution which avoids several nasty legal issues, and simplifies the certification/signing step considerably," he explained.

That shim loader will load the GRUB 2 boot loader, verify it, and then load kernels signed by a SUSE key.

Two keys possible

On Thursday, however, Vojt?ch Pavlík, director of SUSE Labs, offered more detail. 

"We start with a shim, based on the Fedora shim, signed by either a certificate signed by the SUSE KEK [Key Exchange Key] or a Microsoft-issued certificate, based on what KEKs are available in the UEFI key database on the system," Pavlík explained.

In other words, two separate versions of the shim will be possible: one signed with SUSE's own key, similar to Ubuntu's approach, and one signed with a key provided by Microsoft, much as in Fedora's strategy. Either way, the shim will verify that the GRUB 2 boot loader is trusted using by default an independent SUSE certificate embedded in its body. In addition, however, the shim will also allow "Machine Owner Keys" (MOKs) to override the default SUSE key, Pavlík explained.

'A wonderfully elegant solution'

So, "GRUB 2, once loaded and verified by the shim, will call back to the shim when it wants to verify the kernel--to avoid duplication of the verification code," he added. "The shim will use the same list of MOKs for this and tell GRUB 2 whether it can load the kernel."

Because MOKs constitute a list and not just a single key, "you can make the shim trust keys from several different vendors, allowing dual- and multi-boot from the GRUB 2 boot loader," Pavlík concluded.

Implementation, of course, may prove more complicated, he added. Still, of paramount importance is that "you can freely modify GRUB2 and your kernel as an owner of a machine" as well as the fact that "the machine didn't get tivoized," he noted.

Red Hat developer Matthew Garrett - who originally called attention to all this back in September - has called SUSE's approach "a wonderfully elegant solution." In fact, "I suspect that we'll adopt this approach in Fedora as well," he said in a blog post on Friday. 

"I'm sure this isn't the last update, however, and it remains to be seen what route openSUSE will take. When more is announced, I'll keep you posted."

 CREDITS : http://news.techworld.com/operating-systems/3375505/suse-linux-joins-in-with-windows-8-secure-boot-plans/

Valve, Linux and the Windows 8 'Catastrophe'

Credits:http://www.technewsworld.com/story/75770.html

By Katherine Noyes
LinuxInsider
Part of the ECT News Network
07/30/12 5:00 AM PT

 

Love knows no bounds, as the old saying goes, and there may be no better example than the Linux community's feelings for Valve.

That, of course, dates back to the magical day in April when the gaming company announced it was bringing its Steam gaming platform to Linux at last, causing no end of jubilation in the Linux blogosphere.
Today, however, the flame of Linux geeks' love for Valve burns brighter than ever before. The reason? None other than a series of comments made by Valve cofounder Gabe Newell at the recent Casual Connect videogame conference in Seattle.
Newell's words may have focused on operating systems and technology platforms, but they fell like so many tender sweet nothings upon the Linux community's collective ears.

The Openness of the Platform'

"In order for innovation to happen, a bunch of things that aren't happening on closed platforms need to occur," Newell reportedly said. "Valve wouldn't exist today without the PC, or Epic, or Zynga, or Google. They all wouldn't have existed without the openness of the platform.
"We are looking at the platform and saying, 'We've been a free rider, and we've been able to benefit from everything that went into PCs and the Internet, and we have to continue to figure out how there will be open platforms,'" Newell added.
Swooning yet? Just wait for what comes next.

'Windows 8 Is a Catastrophe'

"We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well," Newell said. "It's a hedging strategy.
"I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space," he added. "I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality."
In no time at all, Linux bloggers everywhere began tripping over themselves in their haste to proclaim their love.

'A Train Wreck'

"I've tried Windows 8, and I couldn't agree with Gabe Newell any more than I do," enthused Google+ blogger Linux Rants, for example.
"Windows 8 is a disaster, plain and simple," he added. "I'd recommend staying as far away from it as possible. If this travesty of an operating system is what it takes to push more users to Linux, we have Microsoft to thank for coming through on delivering that travesty."
That said, however, "Windows 8 doesn't exactly have Gabe Newell's best interests at heart," Linux Rants pointed out. "Valve's Steam is basically a software store, and as such, will compete directly with the Windows Store integrated into Windows 8. If done well, the Windows Store could spell the end for Steam."
Of course, "that's a huge 'if,' as everything else about Windows 8 is a train wreck," he concluded. "I think Steam is safe, and will give many Linux users out there a great opportunity to play their games without WINE."

'That Is Very Insightful'

Indeed, Newell "is not the first to say that about Windows 8, and hedging makes sense," opined Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien.
Even more significant, however, "is that he says that innovation *requires* openness," O'Brien added.
"That is very insightful, and an attack on the basic idea of Windows," O'Brien pointed out. "I think that as time goes by, more and more companies are going to see that innovation really *does* require openness."

'They Become Less Appealing'

Similarly, "catastrophe might be a little strong, but it is only logical to hedge your bets," agreed Hyperlogos blogger Martin Espinoza. "As Microsoft predictably tries to tighten their grip further, they become less appealing to developers and publishers."
Linux continues to be a viable alternative, "but at the same time, the numbers of users continue to be less than impressive," he noted.
"Still, with many people only buying games through Steam these days, if they can get a significant number of developers (and development houses) to port their games to Linux, it is likely that they will have numerous customers," Espinoza predicted.
"I suspect the majority of these customers will not be new customers, but current Windows Steam customers who shift platforms," he added.

'Steam Is Huge'

And again: "Gaming is one of the niches where GNU/Linux has been excluded by developers," observed blogger Robert Pogson.
"Steam is huge," Pogson added. "If they port to GNU/Linux, many games will be available to GNU/Linux users."
Then, "when '8' flops, users of Steam needing a new PC may well choose GNU/Linux," he said.

'The Boost Linux Needs'

"Basically, Valve is looking at a future where getting their apps to consumers means going through Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft or Sony," suggested Roberto Lim, a lawyer and blogger on Mobile Raptor.
"It seems like they are a bit worried about that kind of future," Lim added. "The only platform which guarantees to remain open to apps direct from the publishers is Linux. Valve is supporting Linux to make sure it does not find itself locked in behind apps stores owned by other companies."
That, in turn, "could be the boost Linux needs to make a big splash in the desktop space," he concluded.

'I'll Probably Buy a Few Games'

Consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack said he doesn't actually care about Valve's motivations.
"I'll just take it and probably buy a few games if they port some good ones," Mack said. "I'm tired of feeling like Linux is an afterthought when it comes to games."
In any case, Newell's comments couldn't have come as music to Microsoft's ears, noted Chris Travers, a Slashdot blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project.

'The Beginning of the Tipping Point'

"This is on top of Microsoft's shrinking Windows revenue and Dell announcing plans to offer Ubuntu on laptops," Travers pointed out. "It seems to be one thing after another for Microsoft these days.
"This may well be the beginning of the tipping point for the tech giant," he opined.
Meanwhile, the pace of change in desktop operating systems in general and user interfaces in particular "has become breathtaking," Travers observed. "Quite frankly, average users are left out in the cold. I am sure it will settle down again, but it will take some time."

Intel Releases 12.07 Linux Graphics Package

Like usual, the Intel Linux graphics package isn't some new software component release, but rather it's just what Intel recommends their customers and Linux distributions use for appropriate versions of the upstream Linux components to deploy when running Intel integrated graphics. 

The Intel 12.07 graphics package comes down to using the Linux 3.4.x kernel, Mesa 8.0.4, xf86-video-intel 2.20, libdrm 2.4.37, libva 1.0.15, and vaapi-driver-intel 1.0.17. They also recommend using X.Org Server 1.12.1 although the xorg-server isn't officially part of this "package" for Linux. Basically these are all the latest stable package versions available right now, although soon to be succeeded by Mesa 8.1, Linux 3.5/3.6, etc. 

Compared to the previous Intel Linux graphics package, these newer components provide RC6 power-savings (and performance improvements) for Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, support for Ivy Bridge GT2 server graphics, general performance improvements, and many bug-fixes. There's also experimental 2D acceleration support for SNA and GLAMOR to complement the stock UXA 2D acceleration mode. 

Microsoft profits from Linux patent FUD

Microsoft has long made some nice cash from convincing Android vendors that they should pay them for Linux-related patents. Now, for the first time, a company that uses Linux on its servers. Amdocs has publicly paid off Microsoft for patents covering Linux. Mind you, there's never been any proof thatLinux violates any of Microsoft's patents. Despite that, several C level executives have made similar contracts and tell me that Microsoft has been shaking them down for Linux patent licensing agreements for years.

One involved attorney explained, “Microsoft has been doing this for years, although I don't know whether a patent cross license, as compared to a monetary payment, has usually been part of the deal.” An executive added, “ In our case we had no patents of our own. We had to sign an NDA [non-disclosure agreement] barring us from revealing any of the Microsoft's Linux infringement claims.” 

Why would a company do this? A C level executive told me, “We use a lot of Microsoft software as well, and it was cheaper than fighting with them over our contracts. We want to do business, not fight over legal claims that have nothing to do with us.” 

Another told me that, When Microsoft bought the Novell patents  in 2011, “We knew Microsoft had to share those patents under the GPLv2, but our in-house counsel thought that didn't mean that Microsoft still couldn't charge for their use.” So this business decided “It's just part of the cost of doing business with Microsoft if you use Linux in the data-center and who doesn't?”

This doesn't come as much of a surprise for those of us who've been following the business side of Linux. Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, said, "Microsoft's patent license agreements are not news. The company is trolling for dollars and companies are compelled to settle for less money than it would cost to litigate with Microsoft.”

Zemlin continued, “The key to remember here is this: When Microsoft signs a patent license agreement with a company and that company uses Linux, it doesn't mean that the company concluded they needed a license for Linux. It only indicates that it concluded it needs a license to at least some of the Microsoft patents. Patent license agreements cover any and all technologies between the two companies. In the case of Amdocs: yes, they run their business on Linux servers, as most companies do today, but it is a mistake to conclude that Linux was the impetus for the licensing agreement. For Microsoft this is an attempt at another sound bite for a tired and dying FUD campaign."

Mark Webbink, a visiting professor of law at Duke University, executive director of the Center for Patent Innovations at New York Law School and former Red Hat agreed. “I don't think this is the first MS patent licensing deal covering Linux on servers, and like the others it is a licensing deal with a user, not a Linux 'developer/distributor. (d/d)'"

“What continues to fascinate me, Webbink said, “is that, with the exception of Novell, those d/d's remain license free. You would think if it really had something, MS would have asserted patent infringement against Red Hat a long time ago.”

This was, however, to Daniel B. Ravicher, Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT)  the first he'd “heard of MS asserting patents against users of Linux on servers, although it doesn't surprise me. They stopped innovating long ago, so all they can do now is try to become a leech on Linux. They'll have to take cheap payments or eventually go to court, and with the range of equitable defenses that can be asserted against them, including patent misuse, I think they'd have a tough road to hoe there.”

In the meantime, though, until some business decides to fight Microsoft's Linux patent claims, or Microsoft does after a Linux distributor, it appears that, just like with Android, Microsoft will continue to profit from unproven Linux intellectual property claims.


Credits&Full Story:http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-profits-from-linux-patent-fud-7000001598/

Linux Mint 13 KDE released

The final release of Linux Mint 13 KDE is now available for download. Based on the KDE desktop version of Ubuntu 12.04, this is the current stable release and includes version 4.8.4 of the KDE Software Compilation. A part of the Mint 13 family, it has been created by the Mint development team starting from the main Ubuntu distribution. It is perfect for those who want Ubuntu or Mint on their machines but are not comfortable with Cinnamon or MATE, and feel that Xfce might be downsizing too much.

The ISO DVD installation image is around 900 MB in size and available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It is a hybrid ISO image, so you can either burn it on a DVD or copy to a USB Flash drive. You can simply download the image to the USB drive if you have a Linux system. Check out theRelease Notes and What's New documents for more details about the contents of this release.

Here’s a list of what’s included in Linux Mint 13 KDE:

Linux Kernel 3.2.0: Features support for all latest devices to make it work out-of-the-box on any device. You are not going to encounter any driver or screen problems with this release. Network problems, including Bluetooth and 3G cellular modem, are taken care of too.

KDE 4.8.4: The KDE 4.8 desktop is the highlight of this edition. It is powerful and flexible at the same time and carries the traditional charm that most users prefer on their Linux machines.

digiKam 2.5.0: digiKam 2.5.0 takes care of all your photo-management needs. Image editing, cataloging, tagging, geolocating, publishing/sharing and panorama creation are just some of the functions this program is capable of handling.

LibreOffice 3.5.3.2: Apart from Text, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Database and Drawing, LibreOffice 3.5.3.2 can also read MS Office documents and make PDF files.

Firefox 14.0.1: The latest version of Firefox ensures a hassle-free browsing experience.

GIMP Image Editor 2.6.12: GIMP Image Editor is for users who are deeply into photo editing and need something more expert and powerful than digiKam.

Gwenview 2.8.4: Gwenview is a photo viewer with some basic functions related to photo management. A perfect alternative for users who are not into complex photo editing or stuff like that. It simpy lets you view photos and organize them into albums.

Amarok 2.5.0: Amarok 2.5.0 is a feature-rich audio player to take care of your audio files.

Kaffeine 1.2.2: Kaffeine 1.2.2 is a media player with digital TV support.

VLC Player 2.0.1: VLC player is the preferred player for most of us when it comes to watching our favorite video. Of course, it has no problem doubling up as your audio player.

Credits: http://tech2.in.com/news/linux/linux-mint-13-kde-released/332552