Meet Google's Tool for Jettisoning Android Malware, Dubbed "Bouncer"
If you're an Android user, you've no doubt seen the daunting recent reports about spikes in malware found in applications on Android Market. For example, late last year Juniper Networks reported a 472 percent increase in Android malware samples seen since July 2011.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Seamonkey Review: Firefox's Lightweight Hyper-Functional Cousin
Seamonkey has an interesting history, in that it is both older and younger than Firefox. Older, because originally it was built from Mozilla Suite code (for those of you that don't know, Mozilla Application Suite is the parent of Firefox, and was originally built from the code of Netscape Navigator...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
SambaXP 2012 Conference Call for Papers
The eleventh international Samba conference, the Samba eXPerience, will take place from 8 to 11 May 2012 in Göttingen, Germany and its organisers are now accepting submissions for papers, presentations and talks...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Distribution Release: Linux Mint 12 "KDE"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 12 "KDE" edition: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 12 KDE. Linux Mint 12 KDE comes with updated software and brings refinements and new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.....
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Coreboot Is Set To Start Booting Laptops
This weekend in Brussels at FOSDEM along with many interesting X.Org discussions and laying out the plans for Wayland 1.0, the Coreboot project has an exciting announcement: showing off the first mainstream laptop with Coreboot support...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Mozilla Developing Web Push Notification System for Firefox
Mozilla is developing a push notification system for the Firefox Web browser. It will allow users to receive notifications from websites without having to keep those sites open in their browser. The system will also be able to relay push notifications to mobile devices.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Komodo IDE 7.0 Adds Node.js, LESS and CoffeeScript Support
ActiveState's development environment now includes collaboration and synchronisation tools as well as code profiling features, and has been integrated with the company's Stackato Platform-as-a-Service product...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Development Release: Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2
Kate Stewart has announced the availability of the second alpha release of Ubuntu 12.04, code name "Precise Pangolin": "Welcome to Precise Pangolin Alpha 2, which will in time become Ubuntu 12.04. Alpha 2 is the second in a series of milestone images that will be released throughout the....
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
PCLinuxOS 2012.2 Released
Today, February 2, is Bill "Texstar" Reynolds' birthday, but it's the community who received the present. PCLinuxOS 2012.2 KDE was released today in a full sized version as well as a mini. This release ships with Kernel 2.6.38 and KDE 4.6.5. It comes packed with lots of your favorite apps like LibreOffice (installer), Firefox, TvTime, VLC, and the GIMP. The appearance hasn't changed since the last release, but some additional goodies have been added.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Weekend project: Zap Your Coworkers' Minds with Multi-Pointer X
Care to rethink your desktop user experience? It may be simpler than you think. Chances are you own more than one pointing device, but for years you've never been able to take full advantage of that hardware, because whenever you plugged in a second hardware mouse, it simply shared control of the same cursor. But with X, it doesn't have to: you can have any many distinct, independent cursors on screen as you have devices to control them. So grab a spare from the parts box in the closet, and get ready for the ol' one-two punch.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
PHP 5.3.10 Released With Critical Security Fix
The PHP 5.3.10 release is out; it contains a fix for a remote code execution bug introduced recently by another security fix. Anybody running 5.3.9 should probably upgrade as soon as possible.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Linux 3.3 Will Let You Boot Into Android: Greg-KH
The 3.3 kernel release will let you boot an Android userspace with no modifications, but not very good power management. The 3.4 kernel release will hopefully have the power management hooks that Android needs in it, along with a few other minor missing infrastructure pieces that didn't make it into...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Openmoko Smartphone Reborn as Hackable GTA04
German manufacturer Golden Delicious has begun shipping a hackable open source smartphone that runs a variety of Linux software, including a newly optimized Openmoko distro. The Openmoko GTA04 is available as a finished phone or as a board that slips into earlier Openmoko Neo Freerunner GTA01 and GTA02 cases, providing...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Running ownCloud3 On Nginx (LEMP) On Debian Squeeze/Ubuntu 11.10
This tutorial shows how you can install and run ownCloud3 on a Debian Squeeze or Ubuntu 11.10 system that has nginx installed instead of Apache (LEMP = Linux + nginx (pronounced "engine x") + MySQL + PHP). ownCloud enables universal access...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Critical PHP Vulnerability Being Fixed
The PHP developers are working to fix a critical security vulnerability in PHP that they introduced in a previous security patch. The full impact of the problem is not yet known...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Zarafa Launches git.zarafa.com
Messaging and collaboration specialist Zarafa has announced the launch of git.zarafa.com, which it says should help developers contribute and get real time updates...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Open thread: An Open House of Representatives?
Today, the US House of Representatives is hosting a 2-day conference about how they can be more open and transparent about what they do under the dome. They are exploring ideas and recommendations on how to create transparency...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Final GIMP 2.6 Series Update Arrives
Version 2.6.12 of the open source GIMP image editing application will be the final 2.6 stable series update as the developers shift all of their focus to completing work on version 2.8, the project's next major release...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
A Short Q&A with New Linux Foundation Fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman
The Linux Foundation announced this week that Greg Kroah-Hartman would be joining as a fellow. Kroah-Hartman is joining a small group of developers that work with the foundation on Linux and open source projects. We conducted a short Q&A to see what this means for Kroah-Hartman and his work on the Linux kernel.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
Using An OpenCL Kernel In GStreamer
There's now a GStreamer plug-in to utilize OpenCL within this popular Linux video framework so that an OpenCL kernel can be applied against a video stream...
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
On the day before the conference, February 14, the first-ever Yocto Project Developer Day you will have the opportunity to meet the Yocto Project's supporting organizations and many experts who will be presenting sessions and labs.
Stay a little longer and right after the conference on Saturday/Sunday February 18/19, you can deepen your Yocto Project knowledge with a 2-day crash course offered by The Linux Foundation.
Join me for two days of hands-on learning fun, building Linux system images to boot in an emulator and on a Beagleboard. First you will get an introduction into the Yocto Project and
What will you need? You know your way around on a Linux system and are not afraid of a commnad shell. You can use any of the standard text editors such as vi or emacs. You understand the basics of compiling and linking programs and constructing Makefile.
What to bring? Tag along your laptop with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 32-bit installed on it. Or alternatively, have VirtualBox 4.1.8 installed on your system. We can provide you with an appliance ready to be imported in VirtualBox.
I am looking forward to seeing you soon in Redwood Shores!
Interview: Jaisen Mathai of OpenPhoto
I met Jaisen Mathai at SCALE10x after seeing his UpSCALE talk in which he introduced the OpenPhoto project with 20 slides in five-minutes. In this interview, Mathai explains what inspired the ambitious project and his vision for where it will be by the end of the year.
Linux.com - Content Feed
~Created Fri Feb 3 21:57:46 2012
ReeceTarbert writes "VirtualBSD 9.0 is a desktop-ready FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE built around the XFCE Desktop Environment for good aesthetics and usability, and is distributed as a VMware appliance (that can also be made to work with VirtualBox) so even non techies can be up and running in minutes. The most common applications, plugins and multimedia codecs are ready since the first boot and chances are that you'll find VirtualBSD very functional right out of the box. However, it should be noted that VirtualBSD is more a technology demonstrator than a fully fledged distribution, therefore is squarely aimed at people that heard about FreeBSD but have never tried it, didn't have enough time
to build the system from scratch, or have since moved to a different OS but still need their FreeBSD fix from time to time."
PuceBaboon writes "It's worth noting that, in addition to the main FreeBSD release covered here recently, PC-BSD has also released their 'Isotope' edition, based on FreeBSD 9.0. Why would you be interested? Well, PC-BSD, while not the first, is certainly the most current version of FreeBSD aimed squarely at the desktop user. Pre-configured for the desktop and using a graphical installer, the 9.0 release includes KDE, GNOME, XFCE and LXDE desktop environments, an update manager, WiFi 'quick connect,' BootCamp support and auto-configuration for most common hardware. Live-CD, VirtualBox and VMware release images for 32- and 64-bit architectures also make it easier than ever for users to test the release before committing to a full install. Check out the torrents (scroll down), main download page and the PC-BSD 9.0 manual pages."
An anonymous reader writes "FreeBSD 9.0 has been released. A few highlights include: A new installer, bsdinstall(8) has been added and is the installer used by the ISO images provided as part of this release, The Fast Filesystem now supports softupdates journaling, and Kernel support for Capsicum Capability Mode, an experimental set of features for sandboxing support."
An anonymous reader points out an interesting, detailed interview with Andrew Tanenbaum at Linuxfr.org; Tanenbaum holds forth on the current state of MINIX, licensing decisions, and the real reason he believes that Linux caught on just when he "thought BSD was going to take over the world." ("I think Linux succeeded against BSD, which was a stable mature system at the time simply because BSDI got stuck in a lawsuit and was effectively stopped for several years.")
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia wonders why more folks aren't using FreeBSD on the desktop. 'There used to be a saying — at least I've said it many times — that my workstations run Linux, my servers run FreeBSD. Sure, it's quicker to build a Linux box, do a "yum install x y z" and toss it out into the wild as a fully functional server, but the extra time required to really get a FreeBSD box tuned will come back in spades through performance and stability metrics. You'll get more out of the hardware, be that virtual or physical, than you will on a generic Linux binary installation.'"
First time accepted submitter tearmeapart writes "A new version of the operating system that most of us would love to love, but probably hardly ever directly use, has been released. As scheduled, release 5.0 brings support for more hardware, network improvements, and OpenSSH 5.9. The links: changelog; download; main 5.0 page; and how to order your OpenBSD products!"
An anonymous reader writes "It's that time of the year again: when we all unite regardless of the (free) licenses we cherish and go out into the streets to let people know how Free Software has changed our lives. With over 425 events in 80+ countries, communities as diverse as Joomla!, FreeBSD and The OpenDisc, to name just a few, will be celebrating all over the world. Don't wait; grab your best arguments and join the wild masses of freedom lovers to the software freedom parties. Where will you be partying today?"
An anonymous reader writes "The developers behind the Mesa 3D graphics library, which provides the default graphics driver support for most hardware on Linux (and BSD/Solaris), has ended their support for older hardware. Being removed from Mesa (and therefore versions of Linux distributions) is support for hardware like the 3Dfx Voodoo, Intel i810, ATI Rage, and S3 Savage graphics processors. Also drivers being dropped were for Matrox and VIA graphics. Mesa developers also decided it's time to end support for the BeOS operating system. Dropping this code lowered the developers' responsibility by some 100k L.O.C., so maybe we will see GL3 support and OpenCL in Linux a bit sooner."
badger.foo writes "OpenBSD-current just turned 5.0-beta, providing us a preview of what the upcoming release (slated for November 1st) will look like. Peter Hansteen takes us through the main new features and explains the development process that has consistently turned out high-quality releases on time, every six months for more than a decade."
halfaperson writes "In an interview with LinuxFr.org, Lennart Poettering speaks freely about his creations, PulseAudio, Avahi and systemd among other things. Naturally, what has stirred up most of the discussions online is Lennart's opinions on BSD. Following the recent proposal to make Gnome a Linux-exclusive desktop, Lennart explains that he thinks BSD support is holding back a lot of Free Software development. He says this while also taking a stab at Debian kFreeBSD: 'Debian kFreeBSD is a toy OS, people really shouldn't misunderstand that.'"
Moderator writes "Could Gnome drop support for non-Linux operating systems? That was a recent proposal on the Gnome mailing list, although there were significant objections in response. Quoting: 'It is harmful to pretend that you are writing the OS core to work on any number of different kernels...the time has come for GNOME to embrace Linux a bit more boldly.'"
An anonymous reader writes "The release of OpenBSD 4.9 has been announced. New highlights included since 4.8: enabled NTFS by default (read-only), the vmt(4) driver by default for VMWare tools, SMP kernels can now boot on machines with up to 64 cores, support for AES-NI instructions found in recent Intel processors, improvements in suspend and resume, OpenSSH 5.8, MySQL 5.1.54, LibreOffice 3.3.0.4, and bug fixes."
Also in BSD news, an anonymous reader writes "DragonFly BSD 2.10 has been released! The latest release brings data deduplication (online and at garbage-collection time) to the HAMMER file system. Capping off years of work, the MP lock is no longer the main point of contention in multiprocessor systems. It also brings a new version of the pf packet filter, support for 63 CPUs and 512 GB of RAM and switches the system compiler to gcc 4.4."
meta coder writes with word of the release of FreeBSD 8.2: "This is the third release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.1 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights includes improvements in Xen support and various bugfixes."
An anonymous reader writes "One week after Sony's PlayStation 3 private cryptography key was obtained, FreeBSD is up and running on the PS3. Nathan Whitehorn writes: 'Yesterday, I imported support for the Sony Playstation 3 into our 64-bit PowerPC port, expanding our game console support into the current generation. There are still a few rough edges due to missing hardware support, but the machine boots and runs FreeBSD stably. These rough edges should be smoothed out in time for the 9.0 release.'" Update: 01/10 15:04 GMT by KD : As several commenters have pointed out, the submission was misleading in that BSD runs in OtherOS, making no use of the cracked keys.
itwbennett writes "In follow-up to last week's controversy over allegations that the FBI installed a number of back doors into the encryption software used by the OpenBSD operating system, OpenBSD lead developer Theo de Raadt said on a discussion list Tuesday, that he believes that a government contracting firm that contributed code to his project 'was probably contracted to write backdoors,' which would grant secret access to encrypted communications. But that he doesn't think that any of this software made it into the OpenBSD code base."
“
"You now know more about SSH, OpenSSH and Putty than the vast majority
of IT professionals! Congratulations".
”
That claim will be true for any reader of SSH Mastery who has read the
book up to that point and has incorporated at least some of the
elements of the configurations it describes into their own
environments.
Using OpenBSD VMs to teach Unix
In episode 208 of his bsdtalk podcast, Will Backman talks about how he uses OpenBSD virtual machines to aid in his teaching of a Unix course at the University of Maine, along with details of why he chose it and how it helps round-out his pupils' understanding of different Unixes.
The podcast files (15min, 7MB) are available here:
So, I got tired of doing my little time saving workarounds every time I connected to a wireless network and decided to look for a solution. Several people have posted little wireless scripts here, to misc@ and minor modifications to help simplify and automate the configuration of wireless, but the scripts never seemed to go far enough.
Read more...
OpenBSD reaches 5.0!
As several submitters wrote in to remind us, Following the regular 6-monthly schedule, OpenBSD 5.0 was released on 1 November and is available on CDs and online.
OpenBSD Journal
~Created Sat Feb 4 00:39:59 2012
Your CMS Is Not Your Web Site
A content management system is a centralized repository for your content. A Web site is a composite of decentralized fragments that are assembled on the edge, in just-in-time fashion as the content is being delivered to users. If it's not a Web site, what does a "MS do?
Casper, the Friendly (and Persistent) Ghost
"reating a live Linux USB stick isn't anything new. And, in fact, the ability to have persistence with a live ""/USB stick isn't terribly new. What many people might not be aware of, however, is just how easy it is to make a bootable USB stick that you can use like a regular Linux install.
Razor-qt 0.4 - Qt based Desktop Environment
Razor-qt is a new desktop environment based on the QT toolkit. I installed it from the PPA and gave it a quick go. It’s early days for the project, but it might eventually become a refuge for lovers of K"" 3 in the same way that Xfce has become popular with people who want to recreate the Gnome ".x experience.
Using Plop Boot Manager for USB Boot
Portability is a huge advantage that Linux enjoys over most other desktop operating systems as most major distros work very well when installed to a flash drive. However, there are still machines in service that just won't play ball when it comes to USB booting. Fortunately, I found a nice little utility that can work around this problem.
Moose
Perl has been around for more than "" years. "uring that time, it has received
its share of both praise and criticism, and lots of
misconceptions surround it. Much of this stems from long-outdated
notions of what Perl used to be, but have nothing to do with what Perl
actually is today.
Basic Chemistry on the GNOME Desktop
I've realized I've missed out on a huge area of computational
science—chemistry. Many packages exist for doing chemistry
on your desktop. This article looks at a general tool called
avogadro. It can do computations of energy and gradient values.
Additionally, it can
do analysis of molecular systems, interface to GAM"SS and import and
export from and to several file formats.
Black Wednesday
No, it's sadly not a day for shopping. Today, some of the most visited websites are dark to raise awareness of two bills now making their way through the U.S. "ongress.
Can we help AT&T solve its mobile data problem?
I'm in midtown Manhattan, connected to the Net over my hotel's slow but costly wi-fi connection. Normally when I'm traveling — at least here in the U.S. — I avoid lame hotel connections by using AT&T's cellular data system, usually through my iPhone's "personal hotspot."
ZevenOS - Does it recapture the flavor of BeOS?
BeOS was a much loved and highly advanced desktop operating system that ceased active development in """1. ZevenOS is a Ubuntu 11.1" based system (with a bit of help from Xubuntu) that attempts to recapture some of the BeOS look and feel.
gStrings in Your Pocket
What may sound like a perverse concept is actually one of the many ways
smartphones can change your life. If you play a musical instrument
but don't happen to have perfect pitch (most of us, sadly), you can buy
a tuner, pitch pipe, tuning fork or any number of other aids to
keep yourself in tune. If you have a smartphone in your pocket, however,
you also can simply download gStrings.
Short Notices: News In Linux Audio
I hope all my readers enjoyed the best of the holiday season. I've been busy with the predictable confusions and minor crises that attend this time of year, but I managed to find time to jot down some recommendations for my readers. Go on, you've been good, give yourself a few extra belated gifts and don't worry if your budget's busted - it's all free software, you can't beat these deals.
Linux Mint 12 Offers a Traditional Gnome Feel
The recently released Linux Mint 1" offers a two pronged approach to supporting those who prefer the traditional Gnome desktop. Firstly, the Mint Gnome Shell "xtensions (MGS") transform Gnome 3 into something resembling Gnome ". Secondly it ships with Mate, the Gnome "." fork project.
The Commodore 64 is 30 This Year
I used to have a paperweight sitting on my desk that read something like “Robert H. Lane, appointed President of "ommodore "omputers....” It was the sort of thing that they gave to executives. A brass plaque of their appointment as it appeared in the Wall Street Journal or the Globe and Mail.
Munich Linux Migration Project LiMux Reports Success
LiMux, a project to convert local government institutions to Linux and open source software in Munich, has exceeded initial expectations. The project has done slightly better than projections of ",5"" and now boasts ",""" Linux migrated workstations. The progress and evolution of this project that began in """3 is well worth examination.
BSDA "Associate" sysadmin course to be taught in DFW Texas BSD Unix system administration course focusing on the BSD Certification Group's BSDA (BSD "Associate") Certification exam objectives will be taught April 22 - 25, 2008, in Fort Worth, Texas, USA by Puget Sound Technology.
BSDnewsletter.com
~Created Fri Feb 3 22:42:50 2012
Contributors for Admin Book Needed A collaborative, short-term open source authoring project to quickly write a book covering the basics from the 2005 BSDA Certification Requirements Document was recently started.
BSDnewsletter.com
~Created Fri Feb 3 22:42:50 2012
Pkgsrc on non-NetBSD interview This article contains interviews with five pkgsrc packaging system users (non committers) who use pkgsrc on non-NetBSD systems.
BSDnewsletter.com
~Created Fri Feb 3 22:42:50 2012
iXsystems acquires PC-BSD iXsystems announced this week its acquisition of PC-BSD, a desktop operating system based on FreeBSD.
BSDnewsletter.com
~Created Fri Feb 3 22:42:50 2012
NetBSD's Bugathons NetBSD held two "bugathons" which brought together several developers and non-committers together on two weekends to resolve hundreds of problem reports.
BSDnewsletter.com
~Created Fri Feb 3 22:42:50 2012
