LXer Weekly Roundup for 12-Sept-2010

LXer Feature: 12-Sept-2010 In the LXWR this week we have some new happenings with Diaspora, debunking the 1% Myth and a rather subdued response to the announcement of the Open Solaris fork known as OpenIndiana. Also, a Gartner report predicts Android will the top mobile OS by 2014 and could Oracle fracture open source community? Enjoy!

Open-Source GPU Drivers Causing Headaches In KDE 4.5: Martin Gräßlin, the KDE developer known for working on KWin and working on advanced features like OpenGL 3.x compositing in KDE 4.7, has written a new blog post in which he details some of the driver issues currently being experienced by some users of the recently released KDE 4.5 desktop.

Diaspora coming: It's probably not true to say that everybody hates Facebook. But there are many millions (of the hundreds of millions that use the site) that claim to hate Facebook's cavalier approach to privacy and founder Mark Zuckerberg's equally vague approach to the future of our privacy. There are even groups dedicated to encouraging users to leave Facebook (some on Facebook itself, ironically).

Five tips for a smooth Linux migration: We've talked a little bit before about ways to bring your new Linux users along so that their migration experience is positive. Here are a few more tips to help make the switch to Linux a pain-free experience for you and for them.

Could Oracle fracture open source community?: An Oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion. How can that particular definition be applied to Oracle the company? It can't. In fact I would claim that Oracle, the company, is quite the opposite of "wise" or "prophetic".

A Look at KDE Desktop Effects: KDE’s visual effects for windows and menus technically dates back to KDE 3. Experimental programs like kompmgr provided drop shadows and transparency for windows, and the KDE desktop itself had built-in support for basic menu transparency, shadows, and other effects. With the coming of KDE 4, the number of effects has multiplied, and KWin (KDE’s window manager) is now on par with Compiz (a window manager with numerous desktop effects). Moreover, KWin’s primary advantage over Compiz is that it is part of KDE and integrates perfectly with the rest of the desktop. While support for Compiz has been added, there are still some outstanding glitches when run on top of KDE.

Debunking the 1% Myth: It seems like almost every day someone in the tech press or someone commenting in a technical forum will claim that Linux adoption on the desktop (including laptops) is insignificant. The number that is thrown around is 1%. These claims are even repeated by some who advocate for Linux adoption. Both the idea that Linux market share on the desktop is insignificant and the 1% figure are simply false and have been for many years.

Whither with Ubuntu?: In the Autumn of 2004, I was searching the net and came across this new Linux distribution called Ubuntu Linux. It was based on Debian and was supposedly easy to use. It promoted these seemingly humanitarian concepts and touted itself as shipping with over 1000 pieces of software. Overtime, the colors of the site remained odd, and the default color scheme of the desktop did as well. The word "Linux" was made less and less a part of the website through the few years I followed it closely. By 2009, Linux was only one word in relatively small font size as part of the description of Ubuntu. One of the coolest things about Ubuntu was that you could the install discs for free via snail mail. This also stopped. Over the 6 years of life that Ubuntu has had so far, it has changed drastically.

Linux Mint Based On Debian Released - And It's A Rolling Distribution!: Linux Mint based on Debian Testing has been released yesterday. Besides being based on Debian and not Ubuntu, there's something else very special about the new Linux Mint Debian: it's a rolling release distribution!

OpenIndiana: OpenIndiana is a continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system. It was conceived during the period of uncertainty following the Oracle takeover of Sun Microsystems, after several months passed with no binary updates made available to the public. The formation proved timely, as Oracle discontinued OpenSolaris soon after in favour of Solaris 11 Express, a binary distribution with a more closed development model to debut later this year.

Is Apple Now Blocking Contributions To GCC?: Yesterday on the mailing list for GCC is was brought up if Apple's Objective-C 2.0 patches for the GNU Compiler Collection could be merged back into the upstream GCC code-base as maintained by the Free Software Foundation. Even though Apple's modified GCC sources still reflect the FSF as the copyright holder and are licensed under the GNU GPLv2+, it doesn't look like Apple wants their compiler work going back upstream any longer.

Android Might Be Top Mobile OS Globally By 2014: Gartner has released a report predicting that by 2014, Android will be second only to Symbian in mobile operating system marketshare worldwide, with the two platforms accounting for nearly 60 percent of the mobile OS market within the next four years. The news follows numerous recent bullish reports on the state of Android in the U.S.

99.4 percent of malware is aimed at Windows users: Have you ever thought about measuring the Internet in terms if malware per minute? Me neither, but someone has and it makes for uncomfortable reading if you are a Microsoft Windows user.

5 Things I Miss From Linux When Using OSX: Recently I purchased a MacBook Pro. Principally because I like the hardware, and can put Linux on it. However, it has also given me the opportunity to use OSX. In fact I’ve been using OSX quite a lot – given I’ve paid for it, I want to really see how it works. However, in the course of using it, I’ve come across a number of features of Linux and the KDE desktop that I greatly miss.