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LXer Feature: 08-Jun-2014

The Roundup this week includes: To beat the video game you reprogram it, Linus tries a new merge plan, the sought after Linux professional, Mathematica explained and the worlds first emotional robot runs Linux. Enjoy!

SoftBank and Aldeberan have teamed up on a Linux-based, $1,930 personal robot named Pepper that can read emotions and respond autonomously. As we gradually approach the “singularity” when robots overtake human intelligence, we often comfort ourselves in believing robots will never duplicate our often troublesome capacity for emotion. Yet such James Kirkian sentiments may prove suspect as roboticists make robots more sensitive to emotions while using emotional expression to communicate.

This guide explains how to configure samba server in CentOS 6.5 with anonymous & secured samba servers. Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that provides seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients. Samba is freely available, unlike other SMB/CIFS implementations, and allows for interoperability between Linux/Unix servers and Windows-based clients.

We all know that Linux has changed the world....in small ways and large One of the ways it's changed the world is by changing the way work gets done in corporations, big and small, around the world. As with the computer itself, the effects of ever-advancing Linux seem evolutionary and "slow & steady" from day to day. But in the 20 years since its introduction, the impact Linux has made in macro is truly staggering!

During the course of the last twelve months, the OpenStack community has advanced as more users of the leading open source cloud technology have been reporting their progress—with the help of their partners—towards making a meaningful impact on their business goals and objectives.

A coding language from Wolfram supplied free to all Raspberry Pis. Why should you care? I’m going to be completely honest, I really have no idea what Mathematica is. Not even sure I’ve heard of Wolfram. So let’s start with that. What is Wolfram?

AMD announced six new Embedded G-Series SoCs, featuring improved performance-per-Watt, on-chip security processors, and Mentor Embedded Linux support. Following up on last month’s announcement of a new “Bald Eagle” generation of R-Series processors for high-end, multimedia-focused embedded processors, AMD unveiled new Embedded G-Series SoCs and APUs called “Steppe Eagle” and “Crowned Eagle,” respectively. These new, more power-efficient embedded processors are pin compatible with earlier models, which are still available.

Oculus Rift users—and those still holding out for a Valve VR rig—are in luck. The VR mode for the Linux version of the game is out of beta, so an even better Half-Life 2 virtual experience is waiting. For a full list of changes, check out GamingOnLinux.

"We're witnessing unprecedented demand for OpenStack by organizations large and small as more and more enterprises embrace private clouds and adopt OpenStack as their preferred platform," said Adrian Ionel, CEO of Mirantis. "With Mirantis OpenStack 5.0, we are offering customers a future-proof solution for OpenStack, along with key new features that help make OpenStack robust enough to support mission-critical workloads."

Encryption is like a relationship -- both parties need to be on the same page for it to work. And Microsoft and Comcast are apparently not on Google's page. Google began a campaign Tuesday to raise awareness around encryption, and in the process it reported that less than 1 percent of emails sent during May from Gmail to Comcast.net accounts were encrypted in transit.

In mobile we are losing the free world called the Web and the Net. How do we save it? Already most of us spend more time on mobile devices than we do on desktops and laptops, put together. We also can do a lot more stuff, in a lot more places, on mobile devices than on computers. There were more than a million iOS apps on the shelves of Apple's store in October 2013, and I'm guessing there are at least that many Android apps on Google's shelves by now.

Nginx (pronounced "engine x") is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server. Nginx is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. This tutorial shows how you can install Nginx on a CentOS 6.5 server with PHP5 support (through PHP-FPM) and MySQL support. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

A $149 “Sherlybox” NAS debuted on Kickstarter today, based on a Raspberry Pi core, and offering a secure VPN that creates an invite-only cloud service. After Polish startup called “Sher.ly” developed a VPN and file-sharing software product of the same name, the developers felt it needed a little kick with the help of a Kickstarter-funded hardware device called “Sherlybox.” The device is somewhat similar to another Linux-based Kickstarter project called Lima, which has yet to enter commercial pre-sales more than 10 months after being funded. While the Lima was built from scratch, the current Sherlybox prototype is based on a Raspberry Pi Model B single-board computer.

Upstream is a new podcast featuring interviews and conversations with people who are moving open source forward. The podcast is produced by Red Hat's Open Source and Standards team. In their first episode, Joe Brockmeier talks with Leslie Hawthorn of Elasticsearch about her Sunday morning keynote at the Twelfth Annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 12x) in February this year.

Missed a Raspberry Pi project-focused issue of the magazine? We've compiled the 20 best projects into one cheaper digital bookazine you can get today. Over the past couple of years we’ve been able to bring our readers an amazing array of Raspberry Pi projects that we are genuinely proud of. From big projects such as building your own robot and quadcopters down to the little stuff like making melodies with Sonic Pi or making Pong.

There a few reasons why you might want to build your own distribution. You might want to build a custom install CD to match the policy of your organisation. For example, a GNOME desktop with Chrome as the web browser might be the standard desktop where you work. That touches on another motivation for wanting to create a customised installer: sometimes the creator of the distribution makes a decision that you simply don’t like. Canonical’s decision to switch to its own UI, Unity, ranks amongst its most controversial decisions. However, by using some of the methods that we explore here, you could create a distribution that is standard Ubuntu, but with a traditional desktop that you are more comfortable with.

Over the last few columns, we’ve looked at some fundamental concepts in Python, concerning objects, object- oriented programming and how objects are stored in memory. This issue, let’s take a look at the Raspberry Pi and one of the unique features not usually offered on single-board computers. Of course, I’m speaking of the GPIO pins. GPIO stands for general-purpose input/ output. The pins provide an interface between the Raspberry Pi and the outside world. They can act as either inputs into the computer, or outputs to the world. With the addition of these pins, the possibilities for the Raspberry Pi explode. It goes from being simply a single-board computer to a project platform.

The KDE Applications 4.13 announcement highlighted the delightful new capabilities of Palapeli, the KDE jigsaw puzzle application. What the announcement did not mention is that the Palapeli maintainer, Ian Wadham, is celebrating 50 years of software experience. He’s ready to hand off Palapeli and his other KDE software development responsibilities. Albert Astals Cid called attention to Ian’s achievements and suggested a Dot interview.

The Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) was established in May 2012, by a group of public plant breeders, small seed company plant breeders, farmer-breeders, and advocates for seed sovereignty. OSSI was formed in order to enhance vigorous innovation in plant breeding by the creation of a licensing framework for germplasm exchange that would preserve the right to unencumbered use of shared seeds and their progeny in subsequent use. We had hoped that we could develop a legally defensible license for germplasm in the way that the free and open source software movement developed its licenses.

Samsung finally lifted the veil on the world’s first Tizen smartphone, the “Samsung Z,” and is showcasing it at this week’s Tizen Developer Conference. In its announcement of the Tizen Z, Samsung described it as being “built on top of unparalleled quality and the cutting-edge technology of Samsung’s latest premium smartphone.” Despite the rhetoric, the Z’s specs aren’t particularly spectacular — yet it still earns high marks for chutzpah, being the first mobile handset to venture down the untrodden Tizen smartphone path.