Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Axiomtek’s latest Mini-ITX board supports Intel’s 4th Generation “Haswell” Core processors, and offers dual GbE, 10 USB and six serial ports, and HD A/V. The MANO881 is billed as a “cost-effective” Mini-ITX board, adopting the Intel H81 chipset, which is more limited than the Intel QM87 and other Haswell-ready chipsets.

On most Linux systems, network management – both wired and wireless – is handled by a utility called NetworkManager. It is so ubiquitous that you may not even think about it. But, in Linux, there is always another choice. You can always do network management by manually configuring the appropriate configuration files. A better option is to use the utility wicd. Wicd provides interfaces using either GTK or KDE. This means you can use the one appropriate for the graphic libraries for your desktop. There is also a text-based interface, which uses the curses library. You can even use wicd within your scripts or on the command line with the CLI interface. This tutorial will walk you through most of the interfaces, and how to use them to configure your machine’s networking. This will include some issues, like using unusual setups of WPA security and adding functionality in the guise of network templates.

Nvidia Optimus is a hybrid GPU system which utilises what is known as "discrete switching" and has been long associated with headaches and limitations on Linux systems. After years of wait, Ubuntu 14.04 with its shiny new kernel finally shipped with proprietary driver compatibility that can be installed easily. This article will guide you through the installation process after quick background of Nvidia Optimus for the unfamiliar readers. For the seasoned destroyer of Xorg configuration, you can quickly jump to the installation section below.

For some time now, there has been much talk about the Raspberry Pi revolutionising the teaching of computing in schools. Linux User & Developer has devoted much space and attention to the growing number of Jamborees and the increasing attention teachers are giving to the small, £25 bare-bones machine. It is, say advocates, the perfect way to introduce children to the world of computing, allowing them to see and actually interact with the innards of the machines they are using. It is, they add, a great platform for programming and for creating all manner of electronic wonders.

W2Comp unveiled a faster, 4K-ready version of its Probox Android media player with a quad-core SoC, a Mali-450 GPU, Miracast, and a gaming-oriented remote. Hong Kong based reseller W2Comp, which previously introduced a dual-core Rockchip RK3066 based Probox2 Ultimate media player that runs Android 4.0, has now launched a faster model, called the Probox2 EX (Extreme), that runs Android 4.4 (“KitKat”). The new mini-PC is open for pre-orders at $150, with shipments beginning Aug. 8. There’s no mention of any support for Google’s upcoming remix of Google TV called Android TV, but the Probox2 EX would seem to have the advanced hardware to run it.

In a surprise move, HP has granted OpenVMS a new lease on life, effectively reversing last year's decision to mothball the venerable server OS. HP hasn't changed its mind about its latest OpenVMS roadmap, which has it ending standard support for some versions of the OS next year and pulling the plug completely by 2020. Rather, it has granted an exclusive license to another company, VMS Software Inc. (VSI), to take over after its own support ends.

This week, we published articles from eight young professionals in open source—they are interns, students, and fellows working on open source projects and for teams that are part of open source businesses. Next week, we'll publish articles from open source professionals who have been working in the field for a significant portion of their careers or who have at some point in thier careers worked on an open project.

Zuck's engineers unveil formal spec based on PHP 5.6. A group of Facebook developers has decided to break with 20 years of tradition and release a formal specification for the PHP programming language. The initial draft of the spec was released on Wednesday and is available via a Git repository hosted on PHP.net.

Variscite has upgraded its Linux- and Android-ready “VAR-SOM-AM33? COM based on a 1GHz TI Sitara AM335x SoC, adding MIMO WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 LE. The “hugely successful” VAR-SOM-AM33, in Variscite’s description, appears to be a close cousin to its circa-2010 VAR-SOM-AM35 module, which showcased the 600MHz Texas Instruments AM3505 and AM3517 system-on-chips. The SODIMM-style VAR-SOM-AM33 instead runs on the also hugely successful Sitara AM335x, which has appeared in numerous Linux-ready computer-on-modules such as the IGEP Aquila.

Red Hat has upped its commitment to support servers based on the ARM processor architecture, with the formation of a new partner program specifically for vendors of 64-bit ARM hardware for the data center. The Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program is aimed at both chipmakers and server builders, and its early members include AMD, American Megatrends, AppliedMicro, Broadcom, Cavium, Dell, HP, Linaro, and ARM Holdings itself

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a critical tool – but bored customers can spell disaster. Zurmo has the answer. All businesses thrive on customers, and managing the customer relationships is one of the most important day-to-day tasks. In this guide we’re looking at customer relationship management with a twist – Zurmo, the gamified CRM that could change your customer interactions for the better.

Akademy 2014 will kick off on September 6 in Brno, Czech Republic; our keynote speakers will be opening the first two days. Continuing a tradition, the first keynote speaker is from outside the KDE community, while the second is somebody you all know. On Saturday, Sascha Meinrath will speak about the dangerous waters he sees our society sailing into, and what is being done to help us steer clear of the cliffs. Outgoing KDE e.V. Board President, Cornelius Schumacher, will open Sunday's sessions with a talk about what it is to be KDE and why it matters.

TouchPico is prepping an Android 4.2 mini-PC that doubles as a pico-projector and approximates touch input via an infrared stylus and camera. It’s not enough to offer just another straight-ahead pico projector these days. Sprint’s recent, ZTE-built LivePro, for example, doubles as a mobile hotspot and features an embedded display, and Promate’s LumiTab is also a tablet. Now a startup called TouchPico offers a similarly Android-based TouchPico device that adds touch input to projected images.

When I was in journalism school back in the late 1980s, gathering data for a story usually involved hours of poring over printed documents or microfiche. A lot has changed since then. While printed resources are still useful, more and more information is available to journalists on the web. That’s helped fuel a boom in what’s come to be known as data journalism. At its most basic, data journalism is the act of finding and telling stories using data—like census data, crime statistics, demographics, and more.

Intel and Microsoft launched a community-backed, quad-core Atom Z3735G-based “Sharks Cove” SBC aimed at designers of Windows or Android tablets. As you might expect from the fact that the $299 Sharks Cove development board ships with a Windows Embedded 8.1 image, this is not an open source SBC — at least from the Windows OS perspective. However, it’s backed up by a SharkCove.org community site, which has posted hardware documentation, but currently lacks a forum. The board is available on pre-order from Mouser.

Reducing tool complexity requires mercilessly applying YAGNI to your toolchain. Resist the siren songs of new, popular memes and the blandishments of vendors, and choose the tools that deliver only what you need.

Hardkernel launched a $30, 60 x 36mm Raspberry-Pi compatible “Odroid-W” wearables oriented SBC, adding eMMC, ADC, RTC, a fuel gauge, and step converters. Hardkernel’s Odroid project developed the Odroid-W (Odroid-Wearable) for a partner’s Internet of Things prototyping platform, after first considering and dismissing its quad-core Odroid-U3 single board computer. The Odroid-U3, which was rated as the third most popular Linux hacker SBC in our recent survey, used too much power for use as an IoT and wearables platform. The Raspberry Pi was more power efficient, but too large. No doubt, RPi compatibility also had its attractions, as the project ended up building its own Raspberry Pi pseudo-clone implemented on a COM (computer-on-module) style form factor.

The developers behind the stripped-down CoreOS Linux distribution have pushed version 367.1.0 to the Stable release channel, marking the first time the project has delivered a production-ready release. Unlike other Linux distros, CoreOS is a minimal OS that ships each new version as a single unit, rather than updating individual software packages. Updates are pushed to users via "channels," similar to how web browser vendors deliver their releases.

Attackers have figured out a new way to get Amazon's cloud service to wage potent denial-of-service attacks on third-party websites—by exploiting security vulnerabilities in an open source search and analytics application known as Elasticsearch.

Interested in keeping track of what's happening in the open source cloud? Opensource.com is your source for what's happening right now in OpenStack, the open source cloud infrastructure project.