Showing all newswire headlines

In one of our earlier article on vim, we discussed about macros and bookmarks. Besides these features, there are many other features that are very helpful while text and code editing in Vim editor. In this article, I will present eight interesting and really helpful features that I use every time I work on Vim editor

Now that Steam has come to Linux — and with it, brought a handful of popular games, as well as a larger handful of less popular games — the platform is very slowly becoming viable for gaming. However, Linux games still tend to be ports — and we all know that while ports are better than nothing, they’re usually not as good as developing a game natively. Kickstarter project Leadwerks for Linux aims to do just that, and bring sophisticated game development to Linux.

This tutorial shows you how to remove the Debian signature/version info from packages such as Apache, Postfix or SSH. There are various reasons to remove the signature (and therefore hide that you are using Debian/a specific version). The most important one is about security. When a hacker knows the distro you are using, he can search for well-known security issues and start an attack against them. If he doesn't know the distro in use, chances to not find any security holes are much larger.

France's higher education institutes must offer their digital services and learning resource materials primarily as free software, the country's parliament decided Tuesday afternoon. A new law on higher education and research comes with an article giving priority to free software.

We have officially launched the beta of Simplicity Linux Desktop 13.7. We are currently in the process of uploading Simplicity Linux Obsidian and Netbook 13.7 betas. Media probably won't get a beta release because we are having some issues with it, but it should be ready to go for release on 28th July. The biggest change we've made between alpha and beta is we have officially moved from Carolina Linux as our base to LXPup. We like Xfce, we've been using it for a long time, but we think that LXDE is a better window manager, and if nothing else, it's more energy efficient. Of course, the biggest change you get because we've moved to LXPup is Gslapt.

What if your pen could warn you about spelling mistakes, just like your word processor? Lernstift — German for “learning pen” — is a Linux-based smart pen that not only corrects spelling, but can also help students, or anyone else, improve their handwriting.

The community is busy working on 4.2.0, and there's much to be done before the release is ready. This week, we're taking a look at some of the interesting discussions going on in the the community about the next generation of Apache CloudStack, and functionality we can provide, as well as procedural changes that everyone should be aware of.

Open Course Library has now released 81 high quality, free-to-use courses to the public. Users are can adapt and distribute content under a  Creative Commons license and download, remix, or teach using them. All content is stored in Google docs making it easy to access, browse, and download.

The One Laptop Per Child organization’s 7-inch, Android 4.2-powered “XO Tablet” will go on sale at Walmart stores in the U.S. next week, according to a July 8 post by OLPC CEO Rodrigo Arboleda on the OLPC’s blog. The device will initially be available exclusively at Walmart starting July 16, but will soon be offered [...]

Well, well, well, I have never imagined I would be testing a distribution based on another distribution, which mandates that you sacrifice animals on a cold slab of red marble etched with runic symbols and C language just to get the networking running. But Manjaro is unto Arch what Sabayon is unto Gentoo. And so here we are.

I have received maybe half a million requests, all right, maybe three requests to review the distro, and they all promised I would not have to manually monkey my way around the system as if it's a paying job. With this in mind as strict rule no. 4, thou shalt not dabble in unnecessary stuff, I set about testing Manjaro 0.8.5, the almost latest version by the time you read this review. The drama takes place on a T61 box, with Intel graphics and SSD.

Applying the European Commission's 'Guide for the procurement of standards-based ICT' will not be enough for public administrations to get rid of IT vendor lock-in, says Jutta Kreyss, IT-architect for the German city of Munich. "Standards alone are insufficient for any non-simple IT project. To get out of the vendor-lock in, one has to use standards and open source."

Despite having fewer resources and a fraction of the customers that broadband giants like Verizon and AT&T boast, one small internet service provider has resisted pressure from the NSA and refused to turn over customer data without a warrant. Xmission, an independent company based out of one office in Salt Lake City, Utah, has spent nearly two decades protecting its customers’ privacy as the National Security Agency, Department of Justice, and prosecutors have ramped up pressure on internet service providers (ISPs).

The Linux Foundation this week formally launched its Tizen App Challenge, touted as a “skills-based” contest meant to encourage application developers to create new apps that “redefine mobile experiences.” The challenge will award a total of $4.04 million to more than 50 developers of Tizen apps in nine categories. Developers can submit mutiple entries at [...]

Hard to believe, but five years ago today Apple launched the App Store, and with it changed the face of IT as we knew it, ushering in the BYOD and consumerization trends and altering user expectations forever.

Well that's it folks, Desura has been acquired by Linden Lab the makers well known for the Second Life game. Hopefully they won't drop Linux support!

Officially, Red Hat still isn't saying that MariaDB, instead of Oracle's MySQL, will be its default database management system in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. But off-the-record people close to Red Hat tell a different story.

Are you on the fence about MySQL versus other open-source databases? Sometimes it helps to have two tech-savvy experts take opposite sides of an issue to duke it out. (I like to think of these as, "Jane, you ignorant slut!" articles.) Then you can make your own decision about the right choice for your own circumstances.

I’ll admit, the last time I got up close and personal with a Dell advertising flyer was years ago. Again, they usually go straight to the rotary file. But I distinctly remember noticing, quite a few years back on a day when I had nothing better to do than study junk mail, that “Dell recommends Windows XP” was plastered all over the thing. Right now I’ll willing to bet that a year ago it was “Dell recommends Windows 7.”

How the economics of open source make sense for large scale, national healthcare infrastructure projects. A recent study published by the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, examined "the use of open source electronic health records within the federal safety net."

Fedora has never been one of my favorite desktop distros since it seems to tend more toward enterprise level usage. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with it, but it's just never wowed me enough to really consider it versus Linux Mint Debian Edition or vanilla Debian.