Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

MPlayer2 came about more than two years ago and has brought new changes/features over the original MPlayer video player. But now this weekend it was reported in a thread on the forums that a new fork was made.

Using the latest ZFS On Linux support, the ZFS file-system was benchmarked from the Linux 3.10 stable kernel and compared to the Linux file-system competition...

Before I came to Red Hat as a Social Media Marketing intern, I didn’t know a thing about open source. During the application process, I did some research into what Red Hat does and what this company is all about. I found all sorts of information about Linux, software, technology, and more. However, my eyes were not opened to the open source way until New Hire Orientation where this idea was stressed by every speaker. I quickly realized that this is a pillar of how Red Hat does business.

What do you call a computer program that uses big data to write jokes? Basic, judging by the list of groan-worthy gags generated by this new wisecracking software. Eggheads at the University of Edinburgh have developed code dedicated to spitting out quips along the lines of: "I like my men like I like my monoxide - odourless" and "I like my women like I like my gas - natural".

The Italian Institute of Technology gave its first public demonstration of a Linux-based quadruped robot for navigating rough terrain. Meanwhile, a new version of the Hydraulic Quadruped (Hyq) robot is under development that can “feel” and step over obstacles using a step reflex algorithm, letting the robot navigate more easily in low-visibility environments.

Knowing everything about any open source project is impossible. If you're going to deal with a large community, you're not going to know all the details. This is unlike reaching courses where everything is black-and-white, and there are plenty of reference texts. If you're going to teach open source, you're going to have to change the way you teach. Rather than a lecturer, you're a mentor.

Rikomagic UK announced two new versions of its MK802 HDMI stick computers pre-installed with Linux instead of Android, starting at 65 UK Pounds (about $100). The Cloudsto MK802III LE and MK802IV LE mini-PCs run on dual- and quad-core Rockchip processors and run a lightweight Ubuntu derivative called Picuntu.

With quite some time having passed since we last benchmarked the Reiser4 file-system, to end out July we have some fresh benchmarks of Reiser4 from the newly released patches for the Linux 3.10 kernel. There's fairly good performance out of the experimental file-system when compared to the original ReiserFS as well as EXT4, Btrfs, and XFS.

“Rewire your Brain”. The quote from the back of this book couldn’t have said it any better. I acquired this book to add to my every growing list of programming and scripting books in hopes that I can work through some of the ‘humps’ in my troubleshooting skills. Before I get started in this quick review I’ll give you a little background.

LinuxSecurity.com: This week we have the DefCon 20 and Black Hat computer security conferences in Las Vegas -- reasons enough for me to do 2-3 columns about computer security. These columns will be heading in a direction I don't think you expect, but first please indulge my look back at the origin of these two conferences, which were started by the same guy, Jeff Moss, known 20 years ago as The Dark Tangent.

The Intel-backed MinnowBoard.org project has shipped its first open source SBC for $199. The MinnowBoard runs a Yocto-compatible Angstrom Linux build on a 1GHz Intel Atom E640 with 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and provides SATA, gigabit Ethernet, USB, HDMI, and PCI Express interfaces, as well as stackable expansion boards called Lures.

Mozilla continues to build the Web as a platform for security which is a crucial part of our mission to move the Web forward as a platform for openness, innovation and opportunity for all. Today this platform for security is being advanced through Mozilla and BlackBerry collaborating on advanced automated security testing techniques known as fuzzing and Mozilla introducing Minion, an open source security testing platform intended to be used by developers and security professionals. These research efforts are some of the many ways Mozilla helps make the Web more secure and protect Firefox users.

There are only a few days left to apply. Code for America is looking for developers, designers, researchers, data scientists, and product managers for their 2014 Fellowship. It's a chance to make a difference with code, design, data, and much more.

Co-authors: Thomas Jansen and Hannes Meyle The GPLv2 continues to be the most widely used FOSS license, but has been rarely interpreted by courts. Most of these decisions have come from Germany as a result of the enforcement actions of Harold Welte. The recent Fantec decision in Germany is the latest such decision and provides guidance on the requirements for companies to manage their use of FOSS and the lack of ability to rely on statements from their suppliers.

Anyone who knows me well enough knows I love mobile devices. Phones, tablets and other shiny glowing gadgets are almost an addiction for me. I've talked about my addiction in other articles and columns, and Kyle Rankin even made fun of me once in a Point/Counterpoint column because my household has a bunch of iOS devices in it. Well, I was fortunate enough to add an Android device to the mix recently—a Nexus 7 tablet. I actually won this device at the Southern California Linux Expo as part of the Rackspace Break/Fix Contest, but that's a different story.

The security community remains in a mixed state of grief and confusion this morning, as word of Barnaby Jack's passing spreads. Known for his work on embedded devices, from the financial world to the medical one, the 35 year-old hacker was a beloved family member to the InfoSec community.

As a self-professed metadata geek, I’ve recently been participating in an online discussion about metadata and the Learning Registry. I have to say, it feels as if I’m on a merry-go-round that won’t stop, because for the past 10 years I’ve engaged in dozens if not hundreds of conversations about the use of OER (open education resources) metadata concerning these same issues: Do we need it? How should it be licensed? Who owns it?

I'm in the process of preparing some Tux3 file-system benchmarks on Phoronix compared to Btrfs, EXT4, XFS, etc. In the process of benchmarking Tux3, I've also been looking to see what the latest activity has been for this out-of-tree project. The last time I wrote about Tux3 was last May when they claimed to be faster than Tmpfs and previous to that was a Tux3 status update from March.

Those of us that live and work on the Linux Planet have long known that Linux is Super. It's Super for a number of reasons, among them is its dominance at both ends of the computing spectrum, from mobile to High-Performance Computing (HPC)

Next week, security professionals and hackers will descend on Las Vegas for the Black Hat security conference and Def Con 21. Security vendors and news organizations often talk about precautions and offer security advice this time of year, but Chris Hadnagy, from Social-Engineer Inc., has some additional thoughts, which focus on the human side of security.