LXer Weekly Roundup for 16-Dec-2012

LXer Feature: 17-Dec-2012 The latest installment of the Weekly Roundup. Enjoy!

Ubuntu Community Manager apologises to Stallman: After posting a rapid personal rebuff to Richard Stallman's criticism of Ubuntu's Amazon Lens and its search servers, Jono Bacon has apologised for calling Stallman's position "childish"

Python creator Guido van Rossum joins Dropbox: Dropbox has announced that Python creator Guido van Rossum will be joining the company. Dropbox has been built using Python from the beginning and its design was influenced by the language's design philosophy

How To Install XFCE On Linux Mint 14: XFCE is a lightweight desktop environment. For Linux Mint 13, the was an XFCE edition in addition to the Cinnamon and Mate editions, but for Linux Mint 14, there isn't. This short guide explains how to install XFCE on your Linux Mint 14 desktop.

Swiss City Mandates Use Of Open Source, Banishes Microsoft Officially: In an overwhelming majority vote, the city council in Bern, Switzerland has moved to implement all future infrastructure with open source technologies. The “Party Motion”, as it is called in Switzerland, was submitted over a year ago, and has finally been realized. Plans to move forward with open source design, strategy and implementation should begin immediately.

4 things I have learned since I was given a Raspberry PI: Last month my Wife kindly bought me a Raspberry PI. It wasn't an out of the blue present because I'd been going on about how much I wanted one since I first heard about the concept. Having had a good chance to play with the Raspberry PI over many a weekend I have learned some very valuable lessons.

Linux dumps 386 support: Linus Torvalds has announced the Linux kernel no longer supports Intel's 80386 processors. Reg readers will doubtless recall that the 386 debuted way back in 1985 and made something of a splash when the chip found its way into PCs made by Compaq before an IBM PC bearing the processor reached the market.

Secure boot: Microsoft shows up Linux: It's early days for secure boot, the new method that Microsoft is using to protect its desktop turf, but it would not be unfair to say that the company has succeeded in showing up the sharply fragmented nature of GNU/Linux.

Weekend Project: Distros You Never Heard Of: Ubuntu this, Fedora that, Mint the newest Linux darling-- it's as though all those other hundreds of Linux distributions don't exist. Let's throw caution to the winds and seek out new distros, and boldly go where we have not gone before. Here are three I'm thinking of installing on my test machine and torture-testing this weekend.