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The wattOS team is pleased to announce the release of the new version of wattOS - release 8 - (also known as R8). After 5 years of being an Ubuntu-based distro, we have made the change to Debian. Specifically Debian 'Wheezy' as the base, with some backports thrown in (for example a newer kernel), and in a couple of small places a little 'Jessie' where warranted. But for the most part, its Debian 'Wheezy' as a base to build from. The additional tweaks include the addition of the expected things to make it easy to use as a live CD or install CD.

Sanbolic's newest storage offering integrates legacy and scale-out storage from local servers and the cloud into a centralized environment. Sanbolic has unveiled a new contender in the software-defined storage (SDS) market. Compatible with a range of operating systems, virtualization and cloud platforms, the product aims to integrate legacy and scale-out storage infrastuctures into a single resource.

This week we have a look at OpenStack Summit news, the new OpenStack marketplace and Intel's view on OpenStack from the chip level.

When Raspberry Pi co-creator Eben Upton helped come up with the idea of an inexpensive Linux-powered single board computer (SBC), he honestly thought, "We would sell about 1,000, maybe 10,000 in our wildest dreams. We thought we would make a small number and give them out to people who might want to come and read computer science at Cambridge." He was wrong.

One of the software applications that became available on the recently-released ROSA Desktop Fresh R3 is the first beta edition of ROSA Software Center, which will replace the current graphical software management suite in the next edition of the distribution.

Krautscape is an action-packed racing game with bird-like flying cars, focused on competitive multiplayer gameplay. It looks fantastic and it's really great to see them bring out a Linux version as we are still short on racing games.

There seems to be no shortage of interesting OpenStack installer projects and at that OpenStack Summit this week I learned about another one. Currently known as Project Staypuft - in homage to the Ghostbusters movie monster - Staypuft is essentially an installer for an installer (Foreman). During an OpenStack Summit session, Red Hat staffers explained that Staypuft lets Foreman do installation and help to manage the lifecycle as well. There is a strong Puppet tie-in with Staypuft, but for reasons I don't quite understand, Red Hat isn't using PuppetDB for the data.

There are two terms associated with computing that are frequently used but which often cause confusion. One of the terms is bittorrent and the other is bitcoin mining. I am going to admit that I have read all there is to read about bitcoin mining and yet I am still confused. Bittorrents on the other hand are fairly easy to understand when somebody explains it to you in simple terms. In this guide I am going to explain what torrents are, the legality of using bittorrent clients and the places where you can find torrents. I am also going to give a brief overview of the KTorrent client.

With audio and video applications, you often need more than one package, and the assembled collection of multimedia packages in AV Linux is huge. The range of software offerings is a bonus. You do not get lightweight ware that leaves you yearning for more powerful features. The audio-visual tools are mature. Many of the productive apps are custom builds that enhance what you can do with them.

Installing Apache2 With PHP5 And MySQL Support On OpenSUSE 13.1 (LAMP). LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on an OpenSUSE 13.1 server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support.

What is exactly happening with the Live version for Windows and Mac OS X? The companies that build these systems didn't shy away from “borrowing” features they liked from Linux, so why aren't they also taking the idea of a Live CD?

KDE is pleased to announce that Plasma Next Beta 1 has been released. Plasma Next is the codename for the new version of our beautiful desktop workspace built on KDE Frameworks 5. It features the same familiar layout you will be used to but with a simplified and more slick look from the new KDE Visual Design Group. For the first time our desktop ships with its own font, the Oxygen Font. Internally much has been rewritten in QML to make it smoother to render and easier to develop. The source has been split into over 20 sources making it easier for distributions to package. We need as many testers as possible to iron out the many bugs we know still exist. Many distributions have started making packages so you can easily test it, listed on the unstable packages wiki page. The easiest way to try it out is to download the Neon5 ISO and boot from it on a USB drive, Neon5 has the latest daily builds of Plasma code. Please test it out and let the Plasma team know what to work on.

Open Government Week is always a time for reflection on what has changed in the previous 12 months, and this year is no exception. Open Raleigh is nearing it’s second year as a program. Open Raleigh shares this milestone with the Open Data Institute (ODI) which is also nearing a second birthday. The Open Data Institute has had significant influence over the development of the Open Raleigh program and over open data as a movement. The ODI was one of the first institutions to suggest an open data strategy and philosophy that stresses inclusiveness and collaboration.

If you need to write EXIF data to multiple photos, a simple yet efficient Bash shell script might be a better tool for the job than the all-mighty digiKam.

The world’s leading PC maker Lenovo has also joined the Linux band-wagon and launched its first Linux-powered Chromebook for consumers space – earlier Lenovo offered Chromebooks for education. Lenovo has announced two Chromebooks – N20 and N20p. While both Chromebooks are identical, N20p offers a touchscreen display and its keyboard can flex 300° backward to convert from Laptop mode to Stand mode.

Patching a Linux kernel without any downtime is likely to become a common practice over the next few years; two patches released earlier this year are likely to make what is a task requiring downtime something that can be done on the fly.

Bravada is the début game from Russian developers Interbellum Team that features a cheery little story. It's a game like nothing I've ever played before and I rather enjoyed it. It's a tactical RPG game with turn-based battles like no other.

Pidora, Hadoop in Docker, Bodhi 2.0 improved testing feedback system, Vagrant on Fedora, and Magazine authors wanted. Fedora is a big project, and it’s hard to follow it all. This […]

In a move that seems somewhat obvious, Oracle May 13 announced OpenStack support for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM. Oracle had previously announced OpenStack support for its Solaris 11.2 Unix operating system that is currently in beta.

A year ago, we wrote a whole post looking at the copyright questions raised by Canadian astronaut, Commander Chris Hadfield, doing a cover version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," along with an astounding music video in space, as he prepared to return to earth. Hadfield, for months, had been a great ambassador for the space program, using a variety of social media to communicate with folks back on the planet about what his day was like. The "Space Oddity" video just cemented his place as a key figure helping to generate interest in the space program through regular public communications with everyone in a very accessible way.

In our post, we noted that while the copyright issues were complicated, thankfully, it didn't really matter "because after a bunch of back and forth negotiations, they got all the permissions they needed directly from David Bowie." Except, as we find out today, that's not fully true.