From the LibriVox website, I downloaded the free, public domain audio reading of Helen Keller’s amazing autobiography, The Story of My Life, which is an excellent book that was first published in 1903. Then, I downloaded the text of the book (it's in the public domain) from Project Gutenberg and imported the text into Calibre, the free ebook reading software. Using my favorite Linux screencasting software, SimpleScreenRecorder, I married the text (in a large font) to the audio recording. I created the first 11 chapters of the book as video files in this way, and uploaded them to YouTube. I also copied these onto the Dell Inspiron 9400, so these video files could be viewed offline.
Linux has been in the ascendancy ever since the open source operating system was released, and has been improved and refined over time so that a typical distribution is now a polished and complete package comprising virtually everything the user needs, whether for a server or personal system.
Much of the web runs on Linux, and a great many smartphones, and numerous other systems, from the Raspberry Pi to the most powerful supercomputers. So is it time to switch from Windows to Linux? Here are five reasons why.
Microsoft has agreed to pay a Californian woman $10,000 (€£7,500) after an automatic Windows 10 update left her computer unusable.
Teri Goldstein said her Windows 7 computer had automatically tried to update itself to Windows 10 without her permission.
She said the update had made her machine unstable, leaving her unable to use it to run her business.
GNU/Linux is $FREE as in costing $0 per licence/copy and FREE in permitting you to run, examine, modify and yes, even distribute the software… What more could you want compared to That Other OS which restricts what you can do with the hardware you own (just read the EULA), and make you pay to use your own PC. I recommend Debian GNU/Linux because it has a huge repository of software packages that work together on your system whether it has an ARM or AMD64 CPU. You can install any of them with a bit of typing or click of a mouse. They are all Free Software too.
Permabit Technology Corporation, the leader in data reduction technology, today announced the latest release of its Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO) software, VDO 6. The newest release of VDO delivers the company's patented deduplication, HIOPS Compressionâ⢠and thin provisioning in a commercial software package for Linux, expanding availability beyond the OEM marketplace to include the leading Professional Services organizations that are enabling today's modern Hybrid Cloud data centers.
Jason Donenfeld announced today WireGuard, what he describes as a next-generation secure network tunnel for the Linux kernel.
The Linux Foundation’s OPNFV Project claims 94% of telecom operators have NFV plans, although security, MANO and OSS/BSS remain top concerns
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced the lineup of early keynote speakers for LinuxCon and ContainerCon...
For those making use of DRI PRIME for multi-GPU systems (mainly in the context of iGPU + dGPU notebooks), the xorg-server's PRIME code now has synchronization support and double buffering.
Alex Goins of NVIDIA has been working on this big PRIME synchronization project for a while now to help reduce tearing in such configurations. That work has gone through many revisions over the months but as of this afternoon it's landed in xserver Git.
When it comes to Linux data center tools, there is no shortage of options. For automation, backup and monitoring, consider these five Linux tools first.
Today, June 28, 2016, the GnuCash development team has released yet another maintenance release of their open-source and cross-platform GnuCash 2.6 accounting software.
GnuCash 2.6.13 is here as the most advanced version of the money manager applications that runs on GNU/Linux, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows operating systems, and it arrives three months from the release of the GnuCash 2.6.12 maintenance update to fix a total of 22 issues reported or not by users during all this time.
For those still using Libav over FFmpeg, this multimedia library has added a wrapper for OpenH264 decoder support.
Lubiterum, spanish studio from Barcelona, and The Sidekicks, its game label are happy to announce that Crazy Pixel Streaker is now available for Mac and Linux.
A few hours ago Linux information was added to the SteamDB entry for Mighty No. 9, which indicates they are now pushing it into Steam.
Well well, Humble PC & Android Bundle 14 is here and it brings a number of interesting titles, all of which support Linux.
Company of Heroes 2 has received a patch today, it should fix the issue with it looking like you gain no experience points during matches.
Legacy of the Elder Star is a new indie shoot 'em up recently released on Steam with Linux support, the developer sent me a key so I had a little play.
Marinatide looks like a pretty cute little fishing game and the developers emailed me to confirm it will be Linux supported.
Joanna Rutkowska, a member of the Qubes OS project, has published today an interesting ticket to the list of issues for the upcoming Qubes OS 3.2 operating system on the project's GitHub page.
In the respective ticket, Joanna Rutkowska talks about the promotion of Xfce 4.12 as default desktop environment for Qubes OS 3.2, the next major release of the GNU/Linux distribution based on Fedora Linux and built around the Xen hypervisor and other popular open source technologies.
Debian and Ubuntu developer Iain Lane writes today on one of the mailing lists of the Ubuntu Linux operating system about the fact that he's been working for the past few weeks on bringing GTK+ 3.20 support to Ubuntu.
According to Iain Lane, the latest GTK+ 3.20 GUI toolkit, which is usually shipped by default with the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment, is ready for upload on the Ubuntu software repositories, for Ubuntu Desktop, only that he doesn't mention for which Ubuntu version, so we can only guess that he's talking about Ubuntu 16.10.
I like to watch videos by the Linux Help Guy who has changed his Youtube channel to English Bob. He has always been an advocate for 2 distributions and they are Peppermint OS and Manjaro.
I have to say he is going to be over the moon when he tries this out for the first time.
It has been such an easy experience thus far and the theming is excellent. There isn't really all that much to review software wise but the way Peppermint integrates web applications with desktop applications is really nice.
I highly recommend this. One of the best distributions that I have reviewed recently.
Users of the GeckoLinux distribution are in for yet another treat after the announcement of updated GeckoLinux 421.160623.0 "Rolling" Editions based on the latest openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots.
Last Friday, at openSUSE Conference 2016, I was giving a talk together with Christian Schneemann about KIWI and OBS (the events.opensuse.org software is not able to manage "two speakers for one talk", this is why I am not listed in the schedule).
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Felipe Ceballos, the technology leader at SEAQ Servicios in Colombia, has been named the 2016 Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year. The annual award honors a Red Hat Certified Professional (RHCP) who demonstrates ingenuity, hard work, and expertise, and will be presented to Ceballos at Red Hat Summit 2016, currently taking place in San Francisco.
Red Hat showed off a major new Ceph storage release and a Gluster update more tightly integrated to work with application containers to launch its annual summit.
New container technologies will only gain traction if they're available via products that don't require a major commitment to use. Which helps explain Red Hat's latest changes to OpenShift.
Today Red Hat announced a slew of new pricing structures and support levels for its OpenShift containers-as-a-service offering. The options are designed to entice prospective container users -- in organizations big and small -- into building private and hybrid clouds with OpenShift.
The deal is not crucial to Red Hat though it does plan to "open source the code in the Red Hat way", according to a blog post from the vice president and general manager of middleware at the company, Mike Piech. The company also said that its GAAP operating expenses will increase by $7 million during the 2017 fiscal year.
Most cloud-native applications require there to be persistent storage somewhere. While one can assume that it’s provided through a service running somewhere else, a platform supporting the development of complete cloud applications needs to provide persistence mechanisms within that platform.
The Fedora Modularity Project is an effort to fix several problems that all distributions face. One of them is the disconnect between Fedora's release cycle and the release cycle of larger Fedora components like for example GNOME, KDE or even the kernel. Those components obviously don't have the same lifecycle that Fedora follows and Fedora can't always wait for major components to be released upstream and on the other hand doesn't want to ship outdated software.
An earlier attempt to work around this disconnect were the Fedora Rings with a central core 'base design', a concentric ring #2 around it for 'environments and stacks' and a ring #3 for applications. It wasn't possible to have different release cycles for packages in ring #2 as dependencies wouldn't allow that most of the time.
Today, June 28, 2016, Debian Project, through Salvatore Bonaccorso, published details about a major Linux kernel security update for the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" operating system.
Today, June 28, 2016, the developers behind the Debian-based Parsix GNU/Linux computer operating system have announced that new security patches and kernel versions are available for both Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5 and 8.10.
We reported the other day that Canonical released a major kernel update for its Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, and it appears that it also affected users of the Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) distribution.
The development of Snapcraft, the handy Ubuntu utility that lets you create Snaps for your applications, which you can now distribute across multiple operating systems, is advancing at a fast pace, and it looks like Snapcraft 2.12 will land soon.
Today, June 28, 2016, Canonical's Dimitri John Ledkov laid down an example draft plan on how Canonical will deal with 32-bit (i386) support for upcoming Ubuntu Linux releases.
Thanks to one of our regular readers who constantly monitored the development progress of the Linux Mint 18 operating systems, we've been informed that the final ISO images are now available for download for both Cinnamon and MATE editions.
At a first glance, it would seem that Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre has approved the ISO images earlier today, June 28, 2016, for landing. Therefore, we checked the Irish mirror, where the ISOs usually appear first, and it looks like they are already available for download in their final, production-ready form.
AsteroidOS is a new open source operating system specifically designed to serve software application development on smartwatches. The project is now gaining some traction and has been reported to now be looking for developer and community contribution engagement.
Regardless, Wileyfox CEO Nick Muir describes the phones' price as "competitive," and it's hard to argue with the balance of hardware and software when you consider the base model Spark costs less than many accessories for rival handsets. Going forward, the firm clearly has big plans — Muir told us the company has shipped 250,000 units of its existing Swift and Storm models, and is aiming at the 2 million mark in the next 12 months. That includes not just the Spark devices, but future, higher-end offerings. Spark is "not indicative of Wileyfox's pricing direction," Muir told us, adding that higher-end models would follow in the next few months.
For the moment, Wileyfox finds itself with an augmented, product portfolio, but one still laser-focused on affordability.
Code repository GitHub published data visualizations that show the impact of open source development on hosted projects, along with the "shape" of project activity. The visualizations emphasize the effect of teamwork, collaboration and communication that reinforce coding efforts.
The above message may seem like a random string of emoji. But not so: When decoded, it reads: “Encryption Matters.”
Today, Mozilla is launching Codemoji, a fun, educational tool that introduces everyday Internet users to ciphers — the basic building blocks of encryption — using emoji.
John Willis is an IT operations veteran of more than 35 years, and he has been a leader in the DevOps movement from the beginning. He is a co-host of the DevOps Cafe podcast, co-author of the upcoming DevOps Handbook, and Evangelist at Docker. You can find him presenting about DevOps, most likely with a few Deming quotes, at numerous events around the world.
What is OpenStack? The answer from the community is "We are OpenStack!"
In preparing for an interview for the OpenStack Foundation's "Newton Design Series," I was reflecting on what I've learned over the past two and a half years participating in the OpenStack community, and contributing to the Trove project in particular. It really struck me how much OpenStack is about the community rather than any particular technology, and that our place in that community is based on what we contribute. Overall, it has been a great chance to get involved in a true open source community and contribute to making it even better. We often forget how significant this is, and fail to realize that both OpenStack and Trove are true community open source projects.
The ODPi, a Linux Foundation collaborative project building, has moved one step closer to building a better integrated big data ecosystem based on open source technology. This week, it announced that several major Hadoop distributors have adopted its runtime standard.
Primarily, the car manufacturers say that their dislike of the GPLv3 software is due to security issues. According to them, it should not be possible for the car owners to modify the software of the car because this could lead to exposing the users themselves and other road users to danger.
In the light of the above, is seems reasonable to question whether security considerations is actually the true reason for the car manufacturers not wanting the users to run their own software on the cars’ hardware.
For many years, car owners have replaced parts of their cars, e.g. tires, brakes and even software – which is supported by the car industry.
To give an example, there is a large market for the replacement or modification (“remapping”) of the Engine Control Units (“ECU”) software of cars. The ECU’s are computers that control the car’s engine, including fuel mix, fuel supply and gearing.
The car industry takes advice and uses data from companies which offer ECU remapping and thereby indirectly supporting the companies although – according to the car industry – changes to the engine allegedly can pose a security risk.
Another aspect of the matter is that stating that the clause in GPLv3 absolutely prohibits the car fabricants from forbidding the users running their own software on the hardware of the cars is not completely true. Section 7 of GPLv3 makes it possible for the creators of GPL programs to give the car factories an extra license under which it is possible to use the GPLv3 software in their cars without having to comply with the former-mentioned obligation to provide the installation information to the users of the cars.
The way the system works now, the car industry allows modifications of cars which may cause a loss of security. It is possible to develop GPLv3 software that the car fabricants can use without having to allow the car owners modifications. Furthermore, it is only GPLv3 – and therefore not other FOSS licenses – which on a general level forces the car manufacturers to allow modifications of their software.
The question of the security level of the cars should hardly be a hindrance to the use of FOSS in self-propelled cars. If the car fabricants could realize this, the many advantages of the freely-available source code could clear the way for the technology generally being adopted faster.
Open source is no longer just about the software that sits on your computer. Open methods are being used to develop everything from better automobiles to life altering medical devices.
Kyle writes, "The Volt is a fully open source, arduino-based, handmade analog clock that tells time with meters. Available in a DIY install kit, 2 pre-made models, and a mix & match hardware option. The clocks are but with solid black walnut and maple, with faceplates produced in brass, copper, and steel. Only on Kickstarter!"
After a leader effectively keeps her or his ego in check, where does he or she begin delegating decisions and problem solving? To find the answer to that question, one must simply explore where value is created. The people involved in creating value are the people who should be most involved in the decision-making process. Having maturity, curiosity and determination, our newly-open CEO should be willing to open up that decision-making process and give decision making power and trust to those individuals, whether within the company or outside. The leader's role should be to support those people and groups, and to create an environment in which they can come up with the solutions that best suit their immediate situations, and the company as a whole—not an environment that lets the CEOs ego spiral out of control.
The World Health Organization has named veteran health crisis expert Peter Salama of Australia the next head of the Health Emergencies Programme, a high-profile position for the UN agency’s leadership against outbreaks and disasters.
When it comes to security, everyone knows you shouldn't run executable files from an untrustworthy source. Back in the late 1990s, when web users were a little more naive, it was quite common to receive infected email messages with fake attachments.
A very curious puff piece has turned up in the Guardian for holidays in Uzbekistan, which fails entirely to mention that it is one of the world’s least free countries and most repressive dictatorships. Nor is this irrelevant to tourism, as there could well be serious problems for visiting religious muslims or gays, and it very definitely impinges on everybody’s freedom to move around.
Neocons want a new Cold War – all the better to pick the U.S. taxpayers’ pockets – but this reckless talk and war profiteering could spark a nuclear war and leave the world to the cockroaches, writes Robert Parry.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage was jeered by the European Parliament after he told MEPs that they were "in denial" about Brexit and that they had "never had a proper job before".
His astonishing speech at a special meeting of the European Parliament today ended with boos echoing through the Brussels chamber.
Scottish nationals have two supra-national citizenships. One is UK citizenship, the second is EU citizenship. In democratic referenda over the past two years, Scots have voted clearly to retain both citizenships.
English, the world's second language and the main working tongue of EU institutions, may no longer be an official language of the European Union once Britain leaves the bloc, a senior EU lawmaker said on Monday.
If the Brexit fallout has left you reeling and combing your family tree for alternative passport options, it might be time to consider adoption by a Romanian family.
A daily newspaper in Bucharest has launched a “Romanians for Remanians” campaign, offering a new home to the 48% of Britons who voted to stay in the European Union.
The Gandul website tells Brits who believe in a united Europe to “leave the Brexiters, the quarrelling and the weather behind” and “start brand new life” in Romania.
170,000 Labour members voted against Jeremy Corbyn in the last leadership election. Any of them can expect to be made briefly famous by Laura Kuenssberg as she deliriously seeks to promote her “Labour members turn against Corbyn” message.
She broadcasts that Andy Slaughter’s resignation from an obscure shadow junior ministerial post is “different”, because he uses the word “comrade”, and is a sign that even Corbyn’s supporters are turning against him.
Let’s consider that a moment. Slaughter’s voting record shows that he is a strong supporter of nuclear missiles and Trident replacement, and voted consistently against an inquiry into the Iraq war. So Kuenssberg’s characterisation of Slaughter is false.
And did Slaughter support Corbyn for leader last time? No. Andy Slaughter actually nominated Yvette Cooper for leader.
But worry not. Kuenssberg has another, killing example that Corbyn has lost it. The former leader of Dudley Council, councillor Dave Sparks, is going to vote against him! Kuenssberg evidently expects this bombshell to move financial markets. And did Bob Sparks vote for Corbyn the first time? Er, no. But, Kuenssberg announces, some other Labour councillors will vote against Corbyn too! Amazing!
A controversial vote over planned Web blocking rules—recently squeezed into the EU's draft anti-terrorism law—has been postponed by a week.
It was due to take place on Tuesday in the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee, but the vote has now been pushed back to Monday June 27.
The latest draft of the directive on combating terrorism contains proposals on blocking websites that promote or incite terror attacks. Member states “may take all necessary measures to remove or to block access to webpages publicly inciting to commit terrorist offences,” says text submitted by German MEP and rapporteur Monika Hohlmeier.
Vanuatu’s Public Service Commission is forbidding government workers from accessing social media, Radio Vanuatu News reports today.
Atheist groups in the Middle East and North Africa region are demanding that Facebook, which has deleted numerous pages with more than 100,000 members for criticizing Islam, change the way it addresses violation claims so that members' freedom of speech is preserved.
In April, Facebook removed more than six Arabic-speaking atheist pages due to "violations" of Community Standards, after deactivating 10 of the largest Arabic-speaking atheist groups with a total of about 100,000 members, in February, according to The News Hub.
The censorship is a result of organized efforts by "cyber jihadist" groups to get anti-Islamic groups or pages removed, atheist groups say.
According to Tech Central, veteran journalist and SABC acting CEO Jimi Matthews has quit, saying in his resignation letter that what is happening at the state-owned broadcaster is “wrong” and that he can “no longer be a part of it.”
SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng has scoffed at suggestions that the public broadcaster is engaging in censorship, saying censorship is an English concept, so he “doesn’t know it”.
Speaking at a media briefing at the SABC’s Johannesburg head office in Auckland Park, Motsoeneng took to the microphone to deliver a customary diatribe against his detractors.
“I don’t even know what censorship is,” an exasperated Hlaudi Motsoeneng said.
“What is this censorship thing? It is English so I don't know it. There is no censorship here,” he declared.
An online petition aimed at freeing the SABC from censorship and political interference has been started.
It is calling for the public broadcaster to stop intimidating and purging staff with opposing views.
The petition, initiated by worker union Bemawu, is asking for the independence of journalists to be guaranteed and for the SABC board to be replaced.
It also wants the newscaster to comply with its own charter, the constitution and the Broadcasting Act.
The petition calls for the withdrawal of the alleged financial reward of R100,000 to anyone who informs on staffers leaking information to the media.
One of the National Security Agency’s most important roles in government cybersecurity is advising the White House and other federal agencies about potential risks and opportunities. Philip Quade, special assistant for cybersecurity to the NSA director, leads that effort.
The message arrived at night and consisted of three words: “Good evening sir!”
The sender was a hacker who had written a series of provocative memos at the National Security Agency. His secret memos had explained — with an earthy use of slang and emojis that was unusual for an operative of the largest eavesdropping organization in the world — how the NSA breaks into the digital accounts of people who manage computer networks, and how it tries to unmask people who use Tor to browse the web anonymously. Outlining some of the NSA’s most sensitive activities, the memos were leaked by Edward Snowden, and I had written about a few of them for The Intercept.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting of the Manchester branch of the Open Rights Group to discuss the proposed Investigatory Powers Bill known as the IPBill and currently about to be discussed and voted on by the House of Lords.
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One important additional question is "how did we get here?" It seems likely that we have boxed our politicians into a corner: when there is a bad news story (such as a terrorist attack), we, or the Press supposedly on our behalves, demand to know why it wasn't prevented. The politicians, therefore, go to the security services and police and ask what tools they want in order to ensure it doesn't happen again. And, of course, this puts the spies and law enforcers in a tight spot because now they will be held responsible, so they obviously ask for strong powers. Pervasive bulk surveillance is just one of the arrows they demand for their quiver.
Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has approved a series of new online surveillance measures as part of a wide-ranging anti-terrorism law. In a tweet, Edward Snowden, currently living in Russia, wrote: "Russia's new Big Brother law is an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights that should never be signed."
As well as being able to demand access to encrypted services, the authorities will require Russia's telecom companies to store not just metadata, but the actual content of messages too, for a period of six months. Metadata alone must then be held for a total of three years, according to a summary of the new law on the Meduza site. Authorities will be able to access the stored content and metadata information on demand.
We've noted in the last month or so a series of court rulings in California all seem to be chipping away at Section 230. And now we've got another one. As we noted last month, revenge porn extortion creep Kevin Bollaert had appealed his 18-year sentence and that appeal raised some key issues about Section 230. As we noted, it seemed clear that the State of California was misrepresenting a bunch of things in dangerous ways.
Unfortunately, the appeals court has now sided with the state, and that means we've got more chipping away at Section 230. No one disagrees that Bollaert was a creep. He was getting naked pictures of people posted to his site, along with the person's info, and then had set up a separate site (which pretended to be independent) where people could pay to take those pages down. But there are questions about whether or not Bollaert could be held liable for actions of his users in posting content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230) is pretty damn clear that he should not be held liable -- but the court has twisted itself in a knot to find otherwise, basically arguing that Bollaert is, in part, responsible for the creation of the content. This is going to set a bad precedent for internet platforms in California and elsewhere.
Back in May, we noted that large cities around the country were rushing to put in place anti-Airbnb laws designed to protect large hotel companies. In that post, we noted that many of the bills almost certainly violated Section 230 of the CDA by making the platform provider, Airbnb, liable for users failing to "register" with the city. Section 230, again, says that a platform cannot be held liable for the actions (or inactions) of its users. San Francisco was the first city to get this kind of legislation pushed through. And while the city's legislators insisted that Section 230 didn't apply, they're now going to have to test that theory in court. Airbnb has asked a court for a preliminary injunction blocking the law, based mainly on Section 230, but also mentioning the Stored Communications Act and tossing in a First Amendment argument just in case.
If you've been distracted by something like a coma, you may have noticed that the cable industry has developed an atrocious reputation for poor customer service, built over a generation of regulatory capture, prioritizing growth over customer service, and just generally not giving much of a damn. By and large, a Congress slathered in telecom and cable campaign contributions has ensured that nothing much changes on that front, with most politicians taking every opportunity to in fact defend this dysfunctional status quo from innovation, competition, or change.
Xbox users who purchased training videos through the Xbox Fitness app probably thought they were buying a workout program they'd be able to use regularly for the life of the Xbox One, at the very least. Instead, those videos will soon be completely unavailable to those who paid for them up front, according to a "sunset" plan announced by Microsoft yesterday evening.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said today that the European Union would not include national parliaments of EU member states in the final decision on the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA). Juncker’s CETA statement was made during the post-Brexit meeting of EU heads of state in Brussels today (28 June), several German newspapers reported quoting the German News Agency (DPA).
Like thisand this, this one is about Article 28 declarations. Those are the declarations you have until September 2016 to file to ensure your pre-22 June 2012 EUTMs cover all the goods and services you think they cover.
It's a good thing to think about the technology of the future. Especially if you're politicians and the future may have a big impact. Considering how frequently we see politicians ignore future technological change, it might be encouraging that the EU Parliament is at least considering what happens when our new robot overlords enslave us. Except that the report that the EU Parliament has come out with... is ridiculous. Most of the headlines are focusing on the ideas raised around making robots "electronic persons" for the purposes of paying social security or taxes, but the part that gets me is the plan to give them access to copyright as well.
And yet, his most famous song, "This Land," keeps coming up in copyright disputes. Over a decade ago, we wrote about how the organizations claiming to hold the copyright on that song went after the company JibJab, which had made a clear parody of the song during the 2004 Presidential election. In that case, once the EFF got involved, the case was settled out of court.
The Central District of California’s June 23 verdict in Skidmore v Zeppelin will ease fears raised after last year’s Blurred Lines case that juries are more likely to find infringement in copyright cases involving songs