Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

One of the many OpenBenchmarking.org features that haven't yet been fully taken advantage is the opportunities presented by the vast collection of system hardware/software information and logs that have been submitted to this collaborative testing platform from Phoronix Media. OpenBenchmarking.org is much more than just being a storage place for benchmark results. After writing a simple plug-in this morning, here's a list of many motherboards that have broken PCI-E Active State Power Management support from their BIOS, which can lead to greatly increased power consumption under Linux.

If another group was trying to take on Android and Apple’s iOS on smartphones and tablets, I’d dismiss them. RIM, BlackBerry’s parent company, is having a heck of a time getting anyone to buy into PlayBook and while HP TouchPad users loved it,HP killed the TouchPad after only a few weeks. So, why should anyone think that KDE, makers of one of the two most popular Linux desktops, should stand a chance with Plasma Active? Well, because KDE has a long history of delivering the goods with minimal resources.

LXer Feature: 10-Oct-2011

In the Roundup this week we have Linux on a flash drive saving the day, Larry the Free Software Guy goes deep into the heart of TexOS, Helios wants to know if you can name that app, My Linux Rig profiles our Publisher Bob Whitinger and Carla Schroder asks do volunteers write better code? Enjoy!

The Free Software Foundation has removed GNU PDF from their list of high-priority projects, since libpoppler and other open-source PDF viewing solutions have matured and support the PDF ISO standard.

While I was away for three weeks, there was an update on LP bug #760131, the infamous bug report on the power consumption being raised significantly higher in Ubuntu Natty. This bug report of high importance now indicates a fix being committed to Natty and a fix being released for Oneiric, but what has changed? Here is an update.

LibreOffice users ought to update their software: a security hole has been discovered in the code used to import Microsoft Word documents into the open-source productivity suite. The latest version of the software contains a fix for the problem.

FlashSoft, which emerged from stealth mode in June with software that supported the use of solid state drives (SSDs) to provide a read and write cache, Thursday announced enhancements to its SE software. The software is presently in beta.

The Linux Foundation and CE Linux Forum announced a schedule for the Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE), set to take place Oct. 26-28 in Prague. Co-located with LinuxCon Europe, ELCE 2011 offers 50 presentations on Linux and Android -- including projects such as Genivi, Yocto, Linaro, and possibly Tizen -- plus speakers ranging from Linus Torvalds to Intel's Dirk Hohndel.

Sources tell us that Nokia is developing a Linux-based replacement for its S40 phones, called Meltemi. The news was leaked, accurately, by the Wall Street Journal last week. Now we can confirm it. The codename turned up in an internal communication we saw in April, referring to opportunities for redundant Meego staff “in the Meltemi organisation”. We inferred that was a Windows project. It isn’t.

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is considering a bid for Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O), resurfacing as a potential buyer after a bitter and unsuccessful fight to take over the Internet company in 2008, sources close to the situation said on Wednesday. Microsoft joins a host of other companies looking at Yahoo, which has a market value of about $18 billion and is readying financial pitch books for potential buyers, they said.

Dave needs a new 64-bit Linux for his primary audio production machine. What shall he do ? Read on to learn how and why he decided upon the Arch Linux distribution.

Following a series of embarrassing intrusions that hit the servers used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system, project elders have advised all developers to check their Linux machines for signs of compromise. Emails sent Friday by Linux kernel lead developers Greg Kroah-Hartman and H Peter Anvin arrived as volunteers with the open-source project worked to bring LinuxFoundation.org, Linux.com, and Kernel.org back online following attacks that gained root access to the multiple servers that host the sites.

IBM presented an update on Linux on its mainframe line of computers. It was refreshing to learn about the success Linux has been having outside of the realm of industry standard X86-based systems. Here’s a quick summary of the session.

Linux is, by design, a very secure operating system, but so what? You can have the best security system in the world on your house, but if you leave your front-door open anyone can still walk in. Even people who know better, like Linux kernel developers, blow it sometimes. That’s what happened to the Linux Foundation’s constellation of sites. Multiple important Linux sites were down for weeks and as of October 3rd, kernel.org is still down. This doesn’t have to happen to you. Here are a few simple suggestions from me, and some more advanced ones from Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of Linux’s lead developers.

LXer Feature: 02-Oct-2011

In the LXWR this week we have memory leaks found on Firefox 6.0, an impatient distro dev sings a song, the KDE vs. GNOME schism and are Linux users playing to their strengths or shooting themselves in the foot? Enjoy!

Google is open sourcing one of its key JavaScript testing tools in an effort to get developers to speed up web applications. Google JS Test is used internally on the V8 JavaScript engine using in Chrome. Google has attributed much of the speed increases it claims for the browser to the performance of the V8 engine, and the company is clearly hoping this will improve matters further.

Microsoft is working with an Apache-licensed open-source project to make Hyper-V and Windows Servers an integral part of cloud-computing infrastructure. The software giant is providing support and technical guidance to OpenNebula to put Hyper-V on a list of hypervisors that the project officially supports.

Nokia is developing a new Linux-based & Meltemi& operating systems to replace Symbian on its feature phones, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, more details have emerged on the Linux Foundation's MeeGo-derived Tizen project, which also gained a bit of industry support beyond co-sponsors Intel and Samsung.

For those looking for an interesting read today, Martin Gräßlin, the maintainer of KDE's KWin and known for his insightful blog posts, has written about fighting the schism in free software; in particular, the KDE vs. GNOME battle...

Live DJs chasing a simplistic but attractive application are going to love Giada. At the same time, Giada also covers something I've been wanting for a year now, which is a way to trigger individual samples from a computer keyboard simply in real time.