Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

SolidRun refreshed its line of tiny 2 x 2 x 2-inch mini-PCs with four new community-backed models based on 1.2GHz multi-core Freescale i.MX6 SoCs. The CuBox-i devices run Android 4.2.2 and Linux, offer HDMI, S/PDIF, IR, eSATA, GbE, USB, WiFi, and Bluetooth interfaces (depending on model), and are currently available for pre-order starting at $45.

After written thousands of Linux articles, one of the complaints that I always heard about Linux is that you have to use the command line to install applications. Most people don’t like Windows, but they were afraid to move to Linux because of the command line. In Windows, they can install an application by double clicking the exe file, but in Linux, they have to use the command line. So is it true that the command line is the only way to install applications in Linux?

Now that The Linux Foundation is a member of the UEFI.org group, I’ve been working on the procedures for how to boot a self-signed Linux kernel on a platform so that you do not have to rely on any external signing authority. After digging through the documentation out there, it turns out to be relatively simple in the end, so here’s a recipe for how I did this, and how you can duplicate it yourself on your own machine.

Our favorite operating system is now 22 years old, and that means we're that much closer to a freedom-enabled future. "The sky is the limit!" blogger Mike Stone suggested. "Well, I guess Linux already is used on the International Space Station, so I guess the sky isn't the limit. With desktop computers fading in relevance, expect the last barriers to Linux to drop."

Dot Categories: KDE Advocacy, Discussions, and RumorsThe KDE community is deeply concerned by the wrong notion contained in a recent complaint to the European Commission. The Fairsearch initiative claims that "distribution of Android at below-cost" could constitute anti-competitive behaviour or predatory pricing. Mirko Böhm produced a response (PDF) for the KDE Community.

While Btrfs isn't always the fastest file-system, it makes up for in other areas not covered by benchmarks like transparent file-system compression, checksumming, online resizing, native RAID, online disk management, error recovering, and snapshot support. Since deploying Btrfs on a local storage server, the engineering manager of product strategy at Canonical proclaimed in today's blog post, "I love Btrfs."

It's been a while since last running any Ubuntu Linux disk encryption benchmarks either of the eCryptfs-based home directory encryption feature or the LUKS-based encrypted LVM, both of which are supported by Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer. With having around the System76 Gazelle Professional laptop and its nice Core i7 4900MQ "Haswell" CPU with Intel 520 SSD, and I'm always one to encourage encrypted disks especially for mobile systems, here are some new benchmarks of Ubuntu 13.10 with no disk encryption versus home directory encryption versus a fully encrypted LVM of the root EXT4 file-system.

Dot Categories: KDE Official NewsBack in the last months of 2010, the ALERT Project began. Part-funded under the European Union's 7th Framework Programme, the project followed in the footsteps of research efforts such as NEPOMUK. Its objectives were to help open source developers to work more effectively and to produce better software by improving bug tracking, resolution and software quality tools.

We've had the Gazelle Pro at Phoronix the past few days and have been running a plethora of Linux benchmarks on the high-end Haswell system with Core i7 4900MQ CPU, Intel SSD, and beautiful 1920 x 1080 display. As one of the final tests before having to return the review sample, I was curious how the Gazelle Pro compared to the Serval Pro -- the Ubuntu-friendly hardware vendor's laptop from two years ago when Intel "Sandy Bridge" CPUs were the latest and greatest.

One of the unique benefits of the Coreboot open-source BIOS/firmware project is that it can support loading the Linux kernel directly after initializing the motherboard -- instead of using GRUB2/SeaBIOS, the Linux kernel can be included on the ROM chip. This isn't a new feature to Coreboot, but with a Git commit made today it's now easier to configure.

Adlink announced a Linux-ready computer-on-module based on Intel’s quad- and dual-core 4th Generation “Haswell” processors clocked as high as 2.7GHz and equipped with high-end graphics and networking ports. The Express-HL meets COM Express Type 6 basic specs, can be equipped with up to 16GB RAM, and offers ruggedization features such as extra-wide operating temperature.

Electronics distributor Avnet has added Taiwan-based TechNexion’s computer-on-modules to its board-level embedded products portfolio. The deal raises the profile of TechNexion’s open EDM (Embedded Design Modules) standard that defines three COM sizes usable with both ARM and x86 CPUs, and which incidentally forms the computing core of the open hardware Wandboard SBC.

iWave Systems unveiled a tiny computer-on-module based on Freescale’s Vybrid VF6xx system-on-chip, which integrates an ARM Cortex-A5 processor along with a Cortex-M4 microcontroller. The RainboW-G16M-µMXM module provides up to 1GB RAM and 2GB flash, offers numerous interfaces including networking, video, audio, camera input, USB, CAN, GPIO, and analog I/O, and runs over an industrial temperature range.

For those curious about the performance of Intel's 520 Series Serial ATA 3.0 solid-state drives under Linux, here are a couple open-source disk performance benchmarks comparing the 120GB Intel SSDSC2CW12 to a few other HDD/SSDs.

July seemed like it was a long time ago, but it's time to take a look back at the best month opensource.com has had to date. We start with a list of the top five articles, then move on to other hot topics, like OSCON, licensing, text editors, OpenStack, and other open source news. Aloha!

After many months of development, the ported open-source AMD Radeon DRM/KMS driver from the Linux kernel has been merged into FreeBSD trunk. This AMD kernel graphics driver now provides modern Radeon/FirePro graphics support for BSD users with FreeBSD 10.0 but might be backported to FreeBSD 9.

A new Linux Foundation Collaborative Project has the potential to advance science through the use of open source software. The Linux Foundation announced this week that it is joining forces with the life sciences information framework OpenBEL, an open source software project that captures, integrates, stores, and shares biological knowledge through organizations.

A Samsung executive confirmed to The Korea Times that it will unveil its Galaxy Gear smartwatch on Sept. 4, along with the Galaxy Note 3 phablet, but quashed rumors of a flexible display. The Android-powered smartwatch, rumored to include a dual-core processor and a camera, will be the first of many Samsung and Apple smartwatches that will lead a surging 36 million unit a year market by 2018, predicts Juniper Research.

The nominations are in, and now it's time to cast your votes below for the 2013 Readers' Choice Awards! Voting ends September 22, 2013. You are not required to vote in every category (skip over any questions you like). Please also feel free to write in your choice if you don't see it listed for any question.

Next time you walk by a parked Tesla and its sunroof is opening and closing with nobody sitting inside or around it, you could be witnessing a hacker moment. For all of its strengths as a car, the Model S reportedly has a weak spot: the security of its API (application programming interface) authentication, according to an article in the O'Reilly Community by George Reese, executive director of cloud management at Dell. Tesla develops and uses its own API authentication protocols, which have made access to certain Model S functions too easy for hackers, Reese says - himself a Model S owner.