Open Source

Similar in many ways to Dell's 'Project Ophelia' PC, this new device targets businesses with full-fledged manageability. read more

In the growing world of online learning, Moodle has carved out a niche for itself. Moodle is a free, open source course management and webinar-production platform that we've written about many times on the OStatic blog. It provides a reat way to reach large online audiences for interactive events on topics ranging from marketing to tutorials, and there is a mobile app for it. Now, the Moodle community has announced version 2.5, adding hundreds of improvements that may be of special interest to teachers, students and administrators. Moodle 2.5 is available now for free download from the community site at http://moodle.org. Upgrades are supported from any previous version of Moodle, and if you don't have any experience with this e-learning platform, a certified Moodle Partner (http://moodle.com/partners) can help with upgrades, installation or customiing online coursework. Among many universities that use Moodle to deliver online courses, U.C. Berkeley offers Moodle-based, free online courses and lectures.  You can use Moodle to produce podcasts, include videos in online events, or deliver online presentations. According to the announcement, new features include: Use it on mobile: Moodle themes can now utilise the popular Bootstrap framework from Twitter. This means the appearance of Moodle can be attractive, flexible and responsive, allowing the site to perform equally well on desktops and mobile touch screens without additional work. In addition Moodle 2.5 supports the latest Moodle Mobile app for iOS and Android, which provides additional features for offline access to Moodle content and easy uploading of photos and videos from mobile devices. Improved usability: Moodle 2.5 has a host of smaller improvements for usability. Forms now look a lot simpler, with advanced settings being collapsed by default. Drag and drop images and text straight into a course page from the desktop or another browser window. Display course folders directly on the course page. Jump quickly between course sections, and more. This continues Moodle’s focus on usability improvements in every release. In this post, we also covered free online resources for getting started with Moodle. HowtoMoodle.com, in particular, is an excellent resource for people who would like to delve into this platform or perhaps build a quick online course. Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Software Moodle (add alternative, 2 reviews) Related Blog Posts Stanford's Class2Go to Offer Free Courses This Fall (post comment) MIT and Harvard Team Up on Open Source-Driven Online Education (post comment) Mobile Moodle App Arrives for Open Source e-Learners (post comment)

If you've been in the market for a portable computer, you may very well have considered buying a Chromebook. And, if you favor a particular Linux distro, perhaps Ubuntu or Mint, you may be interested in buying a $200 or $250 Chromebook only to put your favorite flavor of Linux on your new system. (The Acer system shown here sells for $199.) As we've reported, many OStatic readers have expressed interest in buying a Chromebook to run Linux. Now, there are very simple instructions for doing so online and a growing body of evidence that people are having good experiences with their Linux Chromebooks. The trend toward slapping Linux on Chromebooks will only pick up now that the latest version of the Linux kernel includes code for running Linux on the devices. You can read more about modifications to the Linux kernel for Chromebooks in Wired's story here.  But right here on OStatic, we've seen lots of evidence that readers are interested in buying inexpensive Chromebooks only to run Ubuntu, Mint or other Linux flavors on the systems. Here is one reader comment from this recent post:  "The only redeeming value of Chromebooks, the the ability to install Linux on them, in place of ChromeOS." There are videos on YouTube and other sites that show how easy it is to put a favorite Linux distro on a Chromebook, but one of the most straightforward tutorials appears on Lifehacker. In this post, you'll find a step-by-step guide to how to install Ubuntu and get a lot of extras out of a Chromebook. According to Lifehacker:  "[We] use a tool called Crouton to install Ubuntu (hat tip to our friends at the How-To Geek), which uses the chroot command to run Ubuntu on top of Chrome OS, which is already based on Linux. Unlike dual-booting, that means you can switch between Chrome OS and Ubuntu with a quick keyboard shortcut, no reboots necessary, which is awesome." One other OStatic reader wrote the following in response to a recent post: "In terms of size and weight, this is my dream computer; I tested it at Best Buy and fell head over heels in love. But agree with the comments above on Chrome OS. The question is, does it excel at running "standard" linux distros like Mint or Fedora? Can you post the link? If this runs Mint well, I would buy it today." The fact is, the low cost Chromebooks come with pretty solid hardware resources, and it's easy to run both Chrome OS and your favorite Linux version on a Chromebook. Look for this trend to continue as Google woos more hardware partners into producing Chromebooks at competitive prices.  Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Blog Posts OpenMandriva Picks Name, Releases Alpha (post comment) Raspberry Pis Chained Together Provide Massive Computing Muscle (post comment) Mageia 3 Released with Steamy Goodness (post comment)

I recently spoke to Samsung's Ibrahim Haddad who is the head of the company's Open Source Group in Silicon Valley. He is leading efforts to find the best Linux and open source sofware talent to help Samsung maintain its market position and shares with us why this is a priority for the company, how they're finding this talent and what they're doing to attract and retain open source developers. Samsung is investing resources in setting up a Silicon Valley presence to attract  leading open source developer talent. Why is this a priority for the company? Haddad: It is not a secret to anyone how important open source and its ecosystem are to Samsung. During his keynote at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit on April 15, 2013, Sang-bum Suh (VP, Software Platform in the Software R&D Center) emphasized the role and importance of open source at Samsung. I’d also like to stress that this goes beyond just communities such as Android and Tizen. As Dr. Suh alluded to, there are open source components in use across several Samsung product lines.  As a company, we realize that we need to move beyond just being good consumers of open source, and being a contributor to a few select projects, to being very active and strong contributors and thought leaders in the component communities that are the foundation for our software platform and used in many products. Why are Linux and open source developers in such high demand by Samsung? Haddad: Samsung uses Linux and open source software in a wide range of products: mobile phones, tablets, TVs, home appliances, cameras, etc. Software is a key differentiator and having great software talent is a significant added benefit that compliments the great hardware design talent that Samsung is famous for. Across Samsung, including at the Open Source Group, we are looking to hire Linux and Open Source developers to help drive innovation and collaboration within the company. We heard Samsung say at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit that it has more than 20,000 developers. That's amazing. What does that mean to the company?  Haddad: In today’s technology environment, all kinds of companies are becoming software companies. Samsung is not very different from that perspective. We are very well known as a company that drives for innovation on the hardware side and creates great products across a wide range of consumer verticals. Software is a great differentiator and open source software is a core component of any software strategy. Having said that, Samsung is very much engineering-driven and we are looking for developers who can advance that function within the company. As for developing competence, there are several ways that include new hires, promoting internal developers with proper training and mentoring, and doing small acquisitions when appropriate. As part of the Open Source Group, our goal is to build a very positive image for Samsung in the open source space as a great place to work if you are an open source developer. We are creating the environment that will allow us to hire and retain talent. Internally, we are in the process of creating mentorship programs that will allow us to propagate that knowledge (not just technical, as there is an abundance of that) but also the open source development and collaboration know-how. Hiring top-tier development talent that already is used to working ‘The Open Source Way’ helps us with that goal of mentoring our existing developers. What does "talent" mean to Samsung? What kinds of people are you looking for to work in the open source community on behalf of Samsung? What skills are most important? Haddad: Great question and very timely as we are ramping up our open source group and we are in hiring mode now and for the next few years. I can speak to what talent means to the Open Source Group. We are looking for individuals who have strong technical competence in several open source technology areas (system, cloud, web, virtua

If you want an old-style, hard-working, windows, icons, menus, and pointer desktop, then what you want is Linux Mint 15.

Mint isn't just an outstanding Linux desktop, it's the best new desktop operating system of any kind available now.

In his personal blog, open source advocate Simon Phipps has pointed out that Google's proposed cross-licence for the VP8/WebM video codec patents is incompatible with multiple parts of the open source definition

Available free of charge, the Clueful app exposes Android programs that don't take users' privacy seriously enough, for example by sending personal information to advertising networks

The developers of the Debian project have released the first major version of the Debian userland with the GNU Hurd kernel. Even though it is not an official Debian release, it is in "a very decent state" say the developers

The memory-mapped I/O can potentially double the performance of the embeddable SQL engine but care needs to be taken with its use. Other enhancements make SQLite databases easier to identify and improve error reporting