Open Source

Back in May the OpenMandriva project treated interested parties in an tech preview, but today we discover an official public alpha release ready for testing. Not much else is ready, but there is an ISO. Downloading is slow going, but that's not a completely bad thing. While we're waiting for the download, which is painfully slow, let's consult the announcement. It says a Beta will be ready by July 30, but for now the Alpha features: * Kernel 3.8.12 * KDE 4.10.4 * LibreOffice 4.0.3.3 * Firefox 21 * Clementine 1.1.1 * ROMP 1.6-1 The announcement mentions that their servers are getting slammed by all the downloads and suggests one use an alternative mirror, but those links are only a bit faster. Fortunately, João Patrício included several nice screenshots. Woo, nice new purdy wallpaper Multimedia Support with the ROSA Media Player See the announcement for several other screenshots and download information. jcl vanier posted a link to some workarounds for those having installation difficulties. TPG said it would be nice to have Steam support in there. I agree. Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Blog Posts Linux Potpourri: KDE 4.11 Beta, Debian 7.1, & Pisi Linux Beta (post comment) openSUSE Ends Week with 13.1 Milestone 2 (post comment) Debian Developers Get User Input on Systemd (5 comments)

The Washington Post reported today that Google has filed with the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington a motion for a declaratory judgment that Google has a First Amendment right to publish aggregated statistics on FISA orders it has received. Good for Google. I hope they prevail. I have done it as text for you from the Washington Post's embedded copy, because I know you are interested in what happens, and I wanted to point out one small correction. Well, it's probably not small to The Guardian.

There's rarely a dull moment in Open Source World and if you look away for just a second you'll miss something. Here are several interesting tidbits I found in my feeds I wished to share. KDE released 4.11 beta at the end of last week and it did indeed ship with Wayland support. Debian released an update to 7.0 Saturday and Pisi Linux (1.0) has made its first public appearance. KDE 4.11 Beta with Wayland Last Thursday the KDE team announced KDE Software Compilation 4.11 Beta1. The announcement featured highlights such as: * Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into the Plasma Workspaces * Nepomuk semantic engine received massive performance optimizations * Kontact got a faster indexer, Nepomuk improvements, and a new theme editor for email headers * KWin got experimental support for Wayland and OpenGL improvements Some planned work includes bringing the KTeaTime system tray progress indicator back, porting components and add-ons to QML, Vim-mode support in Kate, a Create New Folder option for Dolphin, and improved history retention in Klipper. The 4.11 todo list is still a bit red, but more green is seeping in. Beta 2 is due June 26 and RC1 is scheduled for July 10. RC2 should appear around July 24 and Final is planned for August 14, 2013. KDE 4.11 has been designated a long term support release and will be maintained for two years. Debian 7.1 Released On Saturday, The Debian Project announced an update to their latest release dubbed Debian 7.1. "This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems." Some include: * updates to the base files * a fix for misconfigured Alsa-base * updates to the Debian-history package * fixed certain LibreOffice build failures * lots of security fixes Debian always prefers you update via APT, but new images are available for fresh installs. Pisi Linux 1.0 Pisi Linux, the predecessor to Pardus Linux, is about to see its first public release in the form of a beta. "Pisi Linux 1.0 Beta will be released this week" according to a June 17 post on the Pisi forum. The same poster also said that a new Turkish language forum for Pisi has been launched as well. Today that beta was released. Distrowatch.com doesn't include Pisi Linux yet, but Pardus Community Edition 1.0 was released this Spring. "Pardus Community Edition, is a GNU/Linux distribution which is being distributed independent from TÜB?TAK/ULAKB?M." Download your copy of Pisi 1.0 Beta at www.pisilinuxworld.org. "Pisi GNU/Linux is a Linux distribution based on the old Pardus Linux with it's famous PISI package system." Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Software pisi (add alternative, post review) Related Blog Posts openSUSE Ends Week with 13.1 Milestone 2 (post comment) Debian Developers Get User Input on Systemd (5 comments) KDE Working in Wayland (2 comments)

If you want a really fast computer, then Linux is your operating system and Intel may be your chip manufacturer.

After over 12 months of previews, the latest version of Oracle's MySQL Cluster, 7.3 is now generally available and offers Node.js connectors and foreign key support alongside easier deployment and the latest MySQL server technology

The latest version of the compiler infrastructure suite brings full support for all C++11 features in Clang, including library features which, according to its developers, makes it the first compiler to support the full C++11 standard

Canonical has formed a "Carrier Advisory Group" of eight mobile operators who will collaborate to influence the development of Ubuntu for smartphones. Canonical said the first members of the group are Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom, and "the leading Spanish international carrier." Canonical declined to identify the Spanish carrier when we contacted them, although based on the description it may be Telefónica (also known as O2). With the exception of Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, the list doesn't include any major US carriers. Canonical said that "any national or multinational carrier" may join. The carriers in this group will be the only ones to get "access to early information about Ubuntu and device manufacturer plans to support the OS, as well as the opportunity to be a launch partner for Ubuntu on smartphones," Canonical said. While Canonical remains the developer of Ubuntu phone software, the carriers will be able to influence the roadmap. The group will hold meetings to discuss topics including "differentiation for OEMs and operators; developer ecosystems and application portability from Android and Blackberry; HTML5 standards, performance and compatibility; marketplaces for apps, content and services; revenue share models for publishers, operators and OEMs; payment mechanisms and standards; platform fragmentation; [and] consumer and enterprise market segments and positioning." Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The free software platform for media sharing can now share all sorts of documents, harnessing the power of two other free software projects, pdf.js and LibreOffice, to handle displaying and converting documents

The Linux Foundation has just announced that its 2013 Linux Training Scholarship Program is open for applications. This program has been in place since 2011, and is actually pretty cool. Usually, The Linux Foundation charges for access to its training programs, but the Scholarship Program makes the training free for promising contributors to Linux and Linux-related software projects. Specifically, scholarship opportunities will go to contributors "who show incredible promise for building Linux careers and shaping the future of the operating system." The 2013 Scholarship Program will award five scholarships to individuals who demonstrate substantial need and who have already displayed some knowledge of Linux and open source software. "In addition, winners this year will receive a virtual, one-on-one mentoring session with one of The Linux Foundation’s Linux training instructors," the announcement adds.  It continues: "The Linux Foundation is offering one scholarship in each of the following five categories. Each application will be reviewed by a panel of Linux Foundation staffers. Recipients will be notified early- to mid-August and will be publicly announced shortly thereafter.  For more details on the criteria for each category, please visit the Linux Training Scholarship website.  Whiz Kids Women in Linux SysAdmin Super Stars Developer Do-Gooders Linux Kernel Gurus "Each Linux Training Scholarship will cover the registration fees for one course. Travel, Internet connection fees and other expenses are not included."  Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. PT on July 23, 2013 and can be submitted here.  The 2013 Linux Jobs Report and reports from firms focused on recruiting note that Linux skills are in high demand in the job market. The Linux Foundation's scholarship program could be a good opportunity to pick up some valuable skills. You can find out more about the program here. Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Blog Posts The Linux Foundation Adds New Members Focused on Cars and Games (post comment) The Linux Foundation Becomes Steward of Collaboration for Xen (post comment) The Linux Foundation Forms Software-Defined Networking Consortium (2 comments)

For years now, Google has been looking to take a leadership stance in web-based video formats. We've reported on its efforts to facilitate 3D online video, and we covered Google's acquisition of On2, giving Google control of the VP8 video codec. Meanwhile, Google, of course, has YouTube under its belt, attracting countless eyeballs per day to the videos housed there. Now, Google is done creating the definitions and specs for the VP9 video codec,  an open and royalty free video compression standard that succeeds VP8. As of today, June 18, VP9 is activated in the latest Chromium build, and could give Chromium users a big performance boost. Francois Beaufort, a Chromium evangelist, has a post up about the arrival of VP9: "VP9, the open and royalty free video compression standard has just been enabled by default in the last chromium build. The main advantage of VP9 as a user is the fact is that it's 50% better than the very best H.264, the most popular video codec. What it means is on average you'll use half the bandwidth when watching a video on the internet. Cool thing is that VP9 is also going to be part of WebRTC at the end of the year." It's also worth noting that if you are a YouTube watcher, Google is building the VP9 compression and playback technology into YouTube's infrastructure, so you may start experiencing less performance drag when viewing video content at the site. Google discussed VP9 at its Google I/O conference, including information aimed at developers, and you can watch a video from the conference here.  You can also watch VP9 videos here. Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Software youtube (1 alternative, post review) Related Blog Posts Getting Ready for Google Readers Demise (1 comment) Shape Up! Google and Other Tech Firms React to Government Snoops (post comment) Google to Deliver Two Chrome Mobile Events This Month (post comment)