Showing all newswire headlines

The recently released version 11.0 of the open source telephony software will be supported with security patches and updates for four years. The most significant new feature is WebRTC support

While almost no one thinks that the America Invents Act (AIA) will completely solve America’s patent problems, there are a few provisions in the AIA that may be useful tools in limiting and/or preventing bad patents. One of these tools is the newly implemented Preissuance Submission procedure, which went into effect on September 16, 2012. This procedure allows third parties to participate in the patent application process by providing prior art, which can then be used by a patent examiner to determine whether a patent application lacks novelty or is otherwise obvious. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has now seized upon the new procedure to organize a project to identify pending applications related to 3D printing and then seek out relevant prior art for submission.

Currently, there are four major types of e-voting around the world that are worth keeping an eye on: Brazil’s homegrown direct recording electronic (DRE) setup, Australia’s open-source software, Estonia’s Internet voting, and a Spanish startup’s efforts to expand what’s been called "crypto-voting." Each of these approaches has its own unique set of problems, but the primary obstacles they present for many voting officials and computer scientists is their lack of ability to verify source code and expense.

LXer Feature: 04-Nov-2012

The latest installment of the Weekly Roundup. Enjoy!

Two features that have been standard in the installation programs of other distributions finally got implemented. (One of them, is only partially implemented, but half a loaf is better than none.)

With 75% market share (Android), the future is open for smartphones.

Is it enough to have an open-source OS ecosystem but everything else ... not so open ?

Linux kernel developer Matthew Garrett has kicked off what could be a damaging episode in the free and open source software community by describing a fellow developer, senior Linux guru Ted Ts'o, as a "rape apologist" over comments the latter made in 2011.

At the base of these articles there is a simple fact: a simple rm of a file or deleting it via any file manager is not enough to really remove it from your hard disk.

If you really want to delete files from a computer you have to use more sophisticated commands and in this article we'll take a look at the package secure-delete

In part 1 we talked with a developer in the waning days of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Project Eternity raised almost $4 million from Kickstarter alone. In part 2, we talked with Chris Keenan from inXile Entertainment about their successfully funded sequel, Wasteland 2. Both of these games have shown that there is a strong desire from the gaming community for unique, innovative and ‘risky’ games. Continuing on with the series, today we talk with a game developer who has recently has had their game “Greenlit“. Simon Dean from Games Foundry chatted with me about Folk Tale, a self proclaimed “City Builder, God, RTS, Adventure Game.”

While it hasn't been a news item for a couple months, a group of developers are still hard at work to advance the LLVM/Clang compiler and the Linux kernel to a point where this alternative compiler to GCC can be used for building the Linux kernel...

Slackel Live KDE-4.9.2 has been released. A collection of two KDE live DVD images are immediately available that can be burned to a DVD or used with a USB drive. The Slackel live DVD images include Linux kernel 3.2.29. Slackel Live KDE-4.9.2 includes the current tree of Slackware Linux and KDE 4.9.2, accompanied by a rich collection of KDE-centric software. Firefox 16.0.2, KMail, KTorrent, Akregator, Kopete, OpenJRE 7u9, Pidgin, gFTP, GParted, wicd, slapt-get and Gslapt, sourcery. In the multimedia section Bangarang 2.1, Clementine 1.0.1, K3b 2.0.2 are all included.

The following tutorial will teach Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) users how to upgrade their operating system to the brand-new Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) release.

Mutter and Gnome Shell 3.8 will be port to use latest input X.org extensions XI2! Porting Mutter to XI2 is the prerequisite for enabling multitouch and gesture support in gnome-shell. It is also needed for triggering the message tray by downwards pressure, as it was designed to do.

It is uncertain if multitouch and gesture support will arrive in this cycle but the first step is done!

LXDE is good. Puppy is good. Put them together and it is like sausages and mash or roast beef and yorkshire puddings.

Dot Categories: DeveloperIn this week's KDE Commit-Digest:

Tualatrix Chou proudly announced that the famous Ubuntu Tweak utility has been updated and it now has full support for the Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) operating system.

In the microprocessor wars, ARM and its many partner allies have always had the most units sold in the market. But Intel, which can sell chips for $100 or more, has always had the lion’s share of the profits in a $30 billion-plus industry. With the growing popularity of smartphones and tablets, ARM is a rising star while Intel’s core PC market is weakening. And this week, Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices announced it would move beyond Intel-compatible chips to making ones based on ARM designs. (Not a Linux story, but pertinent--ed.)

This tutorial shows how you can install and run a Question2Answer web site on a Debian Squeeze or Ubuntu 12.10 system that has nginx installed instead of Apache (LEMP = Linux + nginx (pronounced "engine x") + MySQL + PHP). nginx is a HTTP server that uses much less resources than Apache and delivers pages a lot of faster, especially static files. Question2Answer is a free and open source platform for Q&A sites.

If a major Linux desktop falls in the forest and no one is around to use it, does it make a sound? That's a question the GNOME project would do well to contemplate. The once mighty Linux desktop has stumbled and looks like it might be poised to come crashing down after the release of GNOME 3. Here's the problem: the radical rewrite that is the GNOME 3 desktop seems to have pleased almost no one.

This article shows how to set up Compiz in Xubuntu (w/ Xfce) 12.10 or 12.04. I've tested the instructions below on Xubuntu 12.10, but they should work on Xubuntu 12.04 as well - there are some minor differences which I've explained below.

Before proceeding, please note that to be able to use Compiz, you'll obviously need a 3D capable graphics card and drivers.

Let's get started!