LXer Weekly Roundup for 25-May-2014

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on May 25, 2014 2:30 PM EDT
LXer Linux News; By Scott Ruecker (Phoenix, U.S.)
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LXer Feature: 25-May-2014

In the news this week, the Gmail app crosses one billion downloads, never leave an unused Java file laying around, China bans Windows 8 in retaliation of Microsoft stopping XP support, Red Hat's new model, Linus Torvalds and the cult of personality in technology, the growing role of UEFI and a reborn FOSS laptop. Enjoy!

Terry Hancock on Free Software and Free Culture: Free Software Magazine Columnist and co-owner of Anansi Spaceworks, Terry Hancock is also the creator of the Lib-Ray standard, which he is still working on.

Open source code helps governments share information with citizens: Before open data, there was FOIA. Beginning in 1967, the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) empowered the public to request access to government documents. Unfortunately, some branches of government quickly began to push back, and within the decade the infamous phrase "can neither confirm nor deny" had been devised to avoid releasing information.This came to exemplify the adversarial relationship between the public and government. Yet public records requests (also known as FOIL, Right-to-Know, public information or open records requests, depending on where you are) remain a fundamental way in which the public is able to obtain information from government agencies under FOIA-like laws in all fifty states.

How to manage ip addresses and subnets with phpIPAM: A typical network/system admin is responsible for managing one or more subnets within the network under control. For example, when a LAN segment is assigned a /24 subnet, a total of 254 IP addresses can be used for different purposes. To keep track of what IP addresses are assigned to which hosts, some sort of […]Continue reading... The post How to manage ip addresses and subnets with phpIPAM appeared first on Xmodulo. Related FAQs: How to detect IP address conflicts in Linux How to assign multiple IP addresses to one network interface on CentOS How to manage Linux containers with Docker on Ubuntu How to allow remote access to MySQL server How to install and configure tinc VPN on Linux

Defenders Of The GNU/GPL Threaten Project Zomboid: Something I would like to highlight to you all today is the annoyance of licensing zealots that causes unneeded grief for people.

Microsoft walks into a bar. China screams: 'Eww is that Windows 8? GET OUT OF HERE': The Chinese government has banned Windows 8 from a sizeable chunk of public-sector PCs – capping off a long-running dispute with Microsoft over the company's decision to cut support for XP. The ban was announced by the government's IT procurement agency in a notice posted online on Friday. It was addressed to vendors bidding on a contract to supply the Chinese state with new energy-saving PCs, laptops, tablets and other gear.

Red Hat's new model: The centOS community used this facility to build a successful clone of red hat enterprise Linux. Red Hat has now taken CentOS under its wing. Traditionally software companies have relied upon the ‘unique’ qualities of their software as the selling point, but selling free software is a different proposition. Most, but not all, of the distributions that Distrowatch currently lists began life as copies or derivatives of one or other of the generic Linux distributions – Red Hat, Slackware or Debian – each of which owed some kind of a debt to Linux pre-history in the shape of SLS or Owen le Blanc’s MCC Interim Linux, which is often claimed to be the first installable Linux distribution.

Linus Torvalds decries the cult of personality in technology: Linus Torvalds has never been shy about expressing his opinions. The Huffington Post recently did an interview with him where he shared his thoughts about what's happening in technology right now, the cult of personality surrounding technology leaders, Google versus Microsoft, and even religion and politics.

The Growing Role of UEFI Secure Boot in Linux Distributions: With the increasing prevalence of open-source implementations and the expansion of personal computing device usage to include mobile and non-PC devices as well as traditional desktops and laptops, combating attacks and security obstacles against malware is a growing priority for a broad community of vendors, developers and end users.

How FOSS Brought New Life To My Once Linux-Unfriendly Laptop: Many of you can probably relate to this: that machine, whether it be a laptop or a desktop computer, that just seems to hate any Linux operating system you throw at it. Poor performance, inefficiency or non-working bits of hardware or functionalities seem the norm whenever you try your favourite Linux distro on it to the point where you reluctantly accept this machine may only ever be usable on it's factory installed OS (often Windows, of course). I too had this experience but it turns out sometimes a little patience and the fast moving nature of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) can turn things around.

From foe to friend: my journey with Linux: Nowadays, it's just a sanctuary for my father to play marathon sessions of Diablo 3. But a little over 15 years ago, the breakfast nook in my parents' kitchen more closely resembled a coliseum where man (my father) was pitted against machine. Back then, it wasn't uncommon to hear strings of profanities streaming out of the room while he sat in front of a desktop computer hunched over in defeat -- all in an attempt to run Linux.

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» Read more about: Story Type: Roundups; Groups: Community, Debian, Distributions, GNU, Linux, Microsoft, Mobile, MySQL, PHP, Red Hat, Slackware, Tablets, Ubuntu

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