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Debian

Why Debian Matters More Than Ever 345

Posted by timothy from the secretly-replaced-these-folgers-crystals-with-debian dept.
Julie188 writes "If you look at the feature list for Debian 6, released on February 6, it's easy to be underwhelmed. This is especially true when measuring Debian against its offspring, like Ubuntu. Debian doesn't get much credit, and its become trendy for industry pundits to claim it's become irrelevant. But it's more relevant than ever. If you're using Ubuntu (or Linux Mint, or Mepis...), you're really using Debian with some enhancements. According to a presentation given recently by Debian Project Leader (DPL) Stefano Zacchiroli, only 7% of Ubuntu is directly derived from upstream projects, Canonical's projects, or other non-Debian sources. Of the rest, 74% of Ubuntu is rebuilt Debian packages, and 18% are patched and rebuilt Debian packages."
Cloud

Dell Releases Ubuntu-Powered Cloud Servers 94

Posted by samzenpus from the silver-lining dept.
angry tapir writes "Dell has released two servers for the US market that have been customized to run Ubuntu-based cloud services. The company has outfitted its PowerEdge C2100 and C6100 servers with Canonical's Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC), an implementation of the Eucalyptus private cloud software that runs on the Ubuntu Server Edition operating system."
Education

Advice On Teaching Linux To CS Freshmen? 467

Posted by timothy from the treat-them-like-your-future-boss dept.
copb.phoenix writes "I'm a sophomore Computer Science student teaching computing labs to a freshman class, getting ready to go over the major ins and outs of the Linux terminal and GUI. While I have my own ideas and the professor over this class to lean on, I've found it difficult to get the few students that I've tried to teach in the past to connect the dots and understand how it relates to what they already know about computers. Does anybody out there have any advice on how to engage and inspire our upcoming class? (Perhaps important: Our machines are running Ubuntu Hardy.)"
Google

The 10 Best Android Hacks 134

Posted by samzenpus from the hack-job dept.
Barence writes "The Android vs iPhone debate will continue until the apocalypse, but there's no doubt Android wins on customability. PC Pro has listed its ten favorite Android hacks, which include the ability to open your garage door with your smartphone, install Ubuntu on your handset, and overclock your phone's processor. There's also instructions on how to replace your dashboard satnav with Google's version."
Ubuntu

Ubuntu Powered Tablet Spotted! 169

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yes-have-some dept.
dkd903 writes "The year 2010 had been all buzz with tablets and a similar trend is expected during the year 2011 too. We have already seen a lot of Android powered tablets. But how does a tablet powered by Ubuntu sound? A Chinese manufacturer TENQ has launched a tablet called P07. The device is said to be running Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition and the boot time reported to be almost instant."
Microsoft

Microsoft Ready To Talk Windows On ARM 342

Posted by timothy from the hole-in-the-marketshare-dike dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After many months of working in secret, Microsoft is nearly ready to start talking about its plans to bring Windows to ARM-based processors. However, while the company is set to discuss the effort at next month's Consumer Electronics Show, there is still a lot that must be done before such products can hit the market. Among the steps needed is for hardware makers to create ARM-compatible drivers, a time-consuming effort that explains in part why Microsoft is talking about the initiative well ahead of any products being ready. Meanwhile, Ubuntu is already starting to ship on some ARM devices and running on many others."
Ubuntu

Hackers Dual-Boot Chrome OS With Ubuntu Linux on CR-48 148

Posted by timothy from the this-sounds-delicious dept.
jbrodkin writes "Google's Chrome OS makes Web surfing an incredibly pleasant and secure experience, but most of the knocks against it relate to what it can't do — namely, nearly everything traditional desktop operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux can. The easiest solution might be dual-booting, allowing users to choose either Chrome OS or a Linux distro at startup. Google's Chromium project site is now hosting instructions for booting Ubuntu Linux alongside Chrome OS. The process is cumbersome but indicates that dual-booting Chrome OS should be possible — and hopefully a bit simpler — once Google releases commercially available netbooks in mid-2011."
SuSE

OpenSUSE To Offer a Rolling Release Repository 72

Posted by timothy from the distinguish-from-nightly-builds dept.
dkd903 writes "While the rumors of Ubuntu moving to a rolling release have been brought to a halt, another major Linux distribution is looking to provide a rolling release. In a message to the opensuse-project mailing list, openSUSE developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced a new project – openSUSE Tumbleweed. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed will provide a rolling release for those openSUSE users who wishes to have a rolling release. It will essentially be a repo containing the latest stable versions of the applications."
Ubuntu

Preview of Ubuntu's Unity Interface 382

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.
itwbennett writes "In late October we learned that starting with the next release (11.04), Ubuntu would use Unity instead of GNOME as its default desktop interface. Now we know a bit more about what that will (and won't) mean for users. The move to Unity doesn't mean that Ubuntu is abandoning GNOME. It also doesn't mean that users will be forced to use Unity; they'll still be able to revert to the old GNOME interface. What it does mean, mainly, is that users will be presented with a simple interface — probably too simple for nuts and bolts types. The more 'radical shift' will be switching Ubuntu's base graphics system from the X Window System to Wayland. There users can expect that it will take some time before things are in working order. 'In other words,' says Steven Vaughan-Nichols who reviewed Unity for ITworld, 'Wayland will be an option, and one that only people who don't mind having their desktops blow up on a regular basis should fool with, in Ubuntu 11.04. By Ubuntu 11.10, it will be workable, and come the spring release two years from now, Ubuntu 12.04, we should, if all goes well, see a stable Wayland-based Unity desktop.'"
Ubuntu

Ubuntu's Engineering Director Debunks Rolling Release Rumours 80

Posted by timothy from the really-wrong dept.
Responding to yesterday's post indicating that Ubuntu might move to a rolling release schedule, reader ddfall writes "This is wrong! Engineering Director of Ubuntu Rick Spencer says 'Ubuntu is not changing to a rolling release.' He goes on to say, 'We are confident that our customers, partners, and the FLOSS ecosystem are well served by our current release cadence. What the article was probably referring to was the possibility of making it easier for developers to use cutting edge versions of certain software packages on Ubuntu. This is a wide-ranging project that we will continue to pursue through our normal planning processes.'"
Linux Business

Ubuntu May Move To Rolling Releases 246

Posted by timothy from the gathering-no-moss dept.
formfeed writes "The register claims that 'Ubuntu is moving away from its established six-month-cycle and potentially to a future where software updates land on a daily basis.' While this sounds like a sudden change, it is apparently more of a long-term thought. The Register quotes Shuttleworth: '"Today we have a six-month release cycle," Shuttleworth said. "In an internet-oriented world, we need to be able to release something every day. That's an area we will put a lot of work into in the next five years. The small steps we are putting in to the Software Center today, they will go further and faster than people might have envisioned in the past."' But given that many of Shuttleworth's thoughts became decisions later on, it might be interesting to see, where this one leads. Interestingly enough, five years is about the time when Ubuntu will run out of letters."
Image

NHibernate 3.0 Cookbook Screenshot-sm 72

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
RickJWagner writes "Are you a .Net developer? Do you have to persist your application objects to a database? If so, I know of a book you might be interested in, Packt Publishing's NHibernate 3.0 Cookbook. NHibernate is a port of the popular Hibernate object-relational mapper (ORM, for those who like TLAs.) An object-relational mapper is a framework that lets the developer get and retrieve application state from a database, and it does so in an efficient, non-intrusive, and flexible manner. Hibernate is the top of the line ORM implementation, yet it's easy enough to learn that even a newbie will find it easy to get started." Read on for the rest of Rick's review.
Operating Systems

Comparing Windows and Ubuntu On Netbooks 317

Posted by CmdrTaco from the little-bit-of-this-and-that dept.
Barence writes "With the arrival last month of Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, PC Pro has revisited a familiar question: which operating system is best for a netbook?. The magazine has run a series of benchmarks on a Asus Eee PC 1008HA running Windows XP Home, two versions of Windows 7 (with and without Aero switched on) and Ubuntu Netbook Edition. The operating systems are tested for start-up performance, Flash handling and video, among other tests. The results are closer than you might think."
Programming

Kernel Tracing With LTTng On Ubuntu Maverick 88

Posted by kdawson from the truth-of-kernel dept.
francis-giraldeau writes "Linux Tracing Toolkit (LTTng) provides high-performance kernel tracing for Linux. This is the killer app for system level debugging and performance tuning. It's now easier than ever to install, with packages released for Ubuntu Maverick. The short introduction to kernel tracing shows how to interpret a simple kernel trace and relate it to strace. I would like to ask Slashdot readers what they would expect as features for a kernel tracing analysis tool, because I'm starting my PhD on this topic and looking for ideas. Also, I wonder why LTTng is not mainline yet. Will Linus Torvalds see the light in 2011?"
X

Ubuntu Dumps X For Unity On Wayland 640

Posted by Soulskill from the no-longer-marks-the-spot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced that Ubuntu will move away from the traditional X.org display environment to Wayland — a more modern alternative. The move means there is now little reason for GNOME developers to recommend Ubuntu as an operating system. Shuttleworth said, 'We're confident we’ll be able to retain the ability to run X applications in a compatibility mode, so this is not a transition that needs to reset the world of desktop free software. Nor is it a transition everyone needs to make at the same time: for the same reason we'll keep investing in the 2D experience on Ubuntu despite also believing that Unity, with all its GL dependencies, is the best interface for the desktop. We'll help GNOME and KDE with the transition, there's no reason for them not to be there on day one either.'"
Open Source

Fedora 14 Released and Reviewed — Advanced, and Not For Wimps 200

Posted by Soulskill from the new-and-shiny dept.
Several readers have sent word that Fedora 14, codenamed Laughlin, has been released. A brief listing of the major changes has been posted, and the download is available at the Fedora project's site. Reader jfruhlinger points out a quick review of the new version, saying, "Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood — arcane knowledge needed, but great rewards? Steven Vaughan-Nichols has tested out Fedora 14, and that was how it went. No Ubuntu-style handholding, but some powerful new features."
Google

New VP8 Codec SDK Release Improves Performance 168

Posted by Soulskill from the frame-job dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google released a new version of the VP8 codec SDK on Thursday. They note a number of performance improvements over the launch release including 20-40% (average 28%) improvement in libvpx decoder speed, an over 7% overall PSNR improvement (6.3% SSIM) in VP8 'best' quality encoding mode, and up to 60% improvement on very noisy, still or slow moving source video. In other WebM news, Texas Instruments has a demo of 1080p WebM video playing on their new TI OMAP 4 processor, in both Android and Ubuntu."
Microsoft

Microsoft Charging Royalties For Linux 286

Posted by samzenpus from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept.
andydread writes "It seems Microsoft's campaign to scare manufacturers away from open source and Linux in particular is proceeding at full force. The latest news is from Digitimes out of Taiwan. Apparently Microsoft is threatening Acer and Asustek with having to pay Microsoft a license fee for the privilege of deploying Linux on their devices. This time, it's in the form of Android and Chorme OS. So basically, this campaign is spreading to PC vendors now. What are the implications of this? Does this mean that if I build PCs with Linux (Ubuntu/ChromeOS/Fedora) and sell them I am at risk of getting sued by Microsoft? "
GNOME

Ubuntu Moves Away From GNOME 514

Posted by CmdrTaco from the end-of-an-era dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It's official: Ubuntu has, with its ironically named 'Unity' interface, chosen to move away from GNOME for Ubuntu Natty Narwhal. Or at least move away from GNOME Shell. Mark Shuttleworth says that Ubuntu will still be 'GNOME,' even if it's not using GNOME Shell. Do you agree?"

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