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LXer Feature: 13-May-2012
In the LXWR this week we have all kinds of FOSS news including our own Dr. Tony Young asking how long a piece of string is, Dell announces Linux laptop designed for devs, Microsoft wants to restrict access to its OS..I know, I wasn't surprised either. Dinotrac asks for some advice, Larry the Software Guy gives an apology, Carla Schroder asks where Linux innovates or imitates as well as a Ubuntu 12.04 review. Enjoy!
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Slackware is alive and kicking: Volkerding: An uninformed comment on a Linux community blog has led to questions over the stability and finances of the Slackware GNU/Linux project, but its founder assures iTWire that the project is alive and kicking.
Who's Afraid of a Big, Bad Hacking Story?: It's been a cheerily good spring for FOSS fans here in the Linux blogosphere, so we may perhaps be forgiven for our utter shock and disbelief at the affront recently committed against us by a certain brick-and-mortar purveyor of books and magazines. Barnes & Noble yanked the very excellent Linux Format magazine from its U.S. shelves -- apparently because of a cover story on the topic of "hacking."
How Long is a Piece of String?: This item is dedicated, with thanks to Gus3. Without his suggestion it never would have been written. I stress the following text involves Linux only obliquely......but I hope all my friends here on LXer will find it interesting, and perhaps, useful.
Dell Announces A Linux Laptop Designed for Developers: A few years ago Dell began offering the Ubuntu distribution of Linux on its desktops and laptaps, but quietly dropped the option from its online store in 2010 (though it’s still possible to order certain machines with Ubuntu). Today at the Ubuntu Developers Summit Dell announced that it is dipping its toes into back into the Linux laptop market with Project Sputnik, a developer-centric laptop running Ubuntu 12.04 on Dell’s XPS13 Ultrabook hardware.
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/166597/index.html: Chris Kenyon, the VP of sales and business development for Canonical, just spoke this afternoon at the Ubuntu 12.10 Developer Summit about what Canonical does with OEMs and ODMs. He also tossed out some rather interesting numbers about the adoption of Ubuntu Linux...
Mozilla and Google blast IE-only Windows on ARM: Mozilla and Google are crying foul over Microsoft restrictions blocking rivals from Windows 8 on ARM, due later this year. Firefox-shop Mozilla has branded Microsoft's restrictions a return to the digital dark ages "where users and developers didn't have browser choices".
OK - So what do I tell my Mac friend?: So...I'm at a Ruby hack night when a friend tells me that his older Mac Book slowed to a crawl with the new Lion OS, so...he's toying with the idea of putting on Linux. But...
Linux Hardware Support Myths and Legends: With a new major Windows release just around the corner we are being treated to an onslaught of articles proclaiming the failings of Linux on the desktop. You'd think that such articles wouldn't be necessary if the Linux desktop had indeed failed. One recurring theme is the idea that Linux has terrible hardware support. The premise is always that Linux is impossibly difficult to install and that lots of hardware just doesn't work with Linux.
Microsoft To Block Competing Browsers In Windows 8, RT Edition: Microsoft is planning to block competitors such as Firefox and Chrome from its RT edition of Windows 8. Microsoft calls the ARM version of Windows 8 as RT.
An apology is owed: It has been brought to Larry the Free Software Guy's attention that he has been somewhat hard on a particular Linux distro and its esteemed project leader. He may have said some mean and unfair things about this distro and its leader. So he makes amends here.
Goodbye, CouchDB: Here at Sauce Labs, we recently celebrated the completion of a significant project to improve our service uptime and reliability, as we transitioned the last of our CouchDB databases to MySQL. We’d outgrown CouchDB, to the point that a majority of our unplanned downtime was due to CouchDB issues, so wrapping up this migration was an important milestone for us.
Innovate or Imitate? Where Linux Lags, Where Linux Leads: In which we debunk the silly canard that Linux does not innovate, but merely imitates. And as a free bonus, suggest meaningful ways to contribute other than cranking out yet more Ubuntu respins.
The good and bad of Ubuntu 12.04 (part 2): I had written an article in beta days. I want to revisit the topic. No operating system is perfect, so to consider Ubuntu to be bug free is just like saying software does not have bugs. The reality is software always has bugs. Its the amount and severity of bugs that gives a good metrics of how usable a system is.
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