Showing headlines posted by JaseP

On Friday, following comments made by Linux legend Linus Torvalds about diversity in the open source development community, a new Linux fork went online at Github, apparently to mock diversity advocates. Dubbed ToleranUX, the fork, created by a one-day-old Github account called The Feminist Software Foundation, was announced with a lengthy diatribe full of over-the-top mockery of feminist and diversity movements within the tech sector.

Like most Linux distros, Fedora is a massive, sprawling project. Frankly, it's sprawl-y to the point that it has felt unfocused and a bit lost at times. Just what is Fedora? The distro has served as a kind of showcase for GNOME 3 ever since GNOME 3 hit the beta stage. So Fedora in theory is meant to target everyday users, but at the same time the project pours tremendous energy into building developer tools like DevAssistant. Does that make Fedora a developer distro? A newbie-friendly GNOME showcase? A server distro? An obscure robotics distro?

On Thursday, Linux legend Linus Torvalds sent a lengthy statement to Ars Technica responding to statements he made in Auckland, New Zealand earlier that day about diversity and "niceness" in the open source sector.

Hardware hackers building interactive gadgets based on the Arduino microcontrollers are finding that a recent driver update that Microsoft deployed over Windows Update has bricked some of their hardware, leaving it inaccessible to most software both on Windows and Linux. This came to us via hardware hacking site Hack A Day.

If you’re sitting in the itty-bitty overlapping sliver on the Venn diagram of “People who use Ubuntu” and “People who can’t figure out how to use user agent spoofing and other trickery to make Netflix work on Ubuntu” — good news! Netflix is likely (finally) coming to Ubuntu soon.

Don’t worry, the XBMC project that many people use and love is not really dead, but it won’t be called XBMC anymore.

An e-mail highlighting praise for an attorney's argument led to resignation.

Multi-platform threat exploits old Java flaw, gains persistence.

White hat hacker uncovers critical bugs in firmware for two popular devices.

Leans heavily on Steam for Linux and isn't much cheaper than the Windows version. Dell is one of the few PC makers that attempts to cater to Linux users with its computers. The company's "Project Sputnik" laptop, a developer-centric version of its XPS 13 that comes with Ubuntu, is one such effort. PC gamers can also get in on the fun with the Linux version of Dell's Alienware X51 slimline desktop, which as of today can be purchased running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Tens of thousands of websites, some operated by The Los Angeles Times, Seagate, and other reputable companies, have recently come under the spell of "Darkleech," a mysterious exploitation toolkit that exposes visitors to potent malware attacks.

Join us as we delve into this fledgling fad and ask whether such low-cost hardware can persuade you to put down your Kindle, Nook or Kobo and give them a shot.

Why would you spend a few hundred dollars on a device that is little more than a smartphone (with a bigger screen, without the phone)?

WiFi hacking has long been a favorite pastime of hackers, penetration testers, and people too cheap to pay for their own Internet connection.

Just 16 months after announcing the acquisition of Palm, HP has said today that it will “discontinue operations for webOS devices,” saying that the units (presumably the TouchPad, Pre series, and Veer) have “not met internal milestones and financial targets.”

Nokia unveiled the N9, its first MeeGo-based smartphone, at an event in June. Although the device is impressive, Nokia is setting it up for failure. Nokia's commitment to a new platform strategy that revolves around Windows Phone 7 raises questions about the extent to which its first—and probably last—MeeGo device will be supported...

Bitcoin, the decentralized virtual currency whose value has skyrocketed in recent weeks, faced a key test Monday as a veteran user reported that Bitcoins worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been stolen from his computer. ...

The United States Supreme Court has ruled against Microsoft in a $290 million patent infringement case related to Microsoft Word.

The Commodore brand finally staged its comeback Wednesday, ... the Commodore 64 runs a version of the Linux operating system on an Intel processor, and boasts 2GB of memory and a modern Blu-ray or rewritable DVD optical drive.

Nearly three decades into his quest to rid the world of proprietary software, Richard Stallman sees a new threat to user freedom: smartphones. "I don't have a cell phone. I won't carry a cell phone," says Stallman, founder of the free software movement and creator of the GNU operating system. "It's Stalin's dream. Cell phones are tools of Big Brother. I'm not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I'm not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop."