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LXer Feature: 08-Jan-2012

In the Roundup this week we have 13 niche Linux distros, an OpenDNS freeze on Google, Linux on the Windows Cloud, Data predictions for 2012, some confusion about Gnome 3 and last but not least..could RMS have been right all along? Enjoy!

Canonical design team has revealed some more plans for the upcoming LTS release in a series of blog posts. Along with multi-monitor setup improvements, new changes have been proposed for system and sound settings. These settings will get many improvements this cycle keeping in mind layout consistency with upstream Gnome 3, Unity integration and simplified structure.

This guide describes how to install Cinnamon, a fork of GNOME Shell that looks like GNOME 2, on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.

This tutorial is supposed to show some features of the Enlightenment window manager as an alternative to the often used Gnome and KDE managers. I will install Enlightenment on a desktop computer with Ubuntu 11.10 installed. Apart from the login screen however, all of the controls shown on the screenshots should be the same for every installation of enlightenment, whatever distribution you install it on. Enlightenment is already included in the Ubuntu repositories, therefore Ubuntu users and those of any Ubuntu derivatives won't have any problems installing it. It is also available for download for most other distributions though.

Sensics will be unveiling their new SmartGoggles, Natalia, a new 3D, 360-degree gaming and entertainment platform at CES. They contain an embedded processor running Android to run applications in a standalone mode. The goggles can also be paired with game consoles, phones, tablets, or PC's. Natalia features a 1.2 GHz, dual-core processor running Android 4.0 on board, strengthened by a powerful graphics and 3D accelerator and 1 GB of memory. Its performance is comparable to top-shelf tablets or smart phones.

There's just four weeks to go until FOSDEM 2012 takes place in Brussels, Belgium. The initial schedule for this leading open-source European event is set, there's lots of interesting discussions to be had, and at least one surprise. The FOSDEM 2012 schedule is now available from this area of the FOSDEM.org web-site.

DreamLinux 5 has been released after a long hiatus in development. Features kernel 3.1 and based on Debian Wheezy uses XFCE 4.8 as its desktop.

You know....if this had only happened once, maybe even twice in my personal experience, I wouldn't bother mentioning it. But lately, it has occurred twice in a month's time. I'm not quite sure there's a darned thing that can be done about it, except quietly shake my head and write it off as abacus thinking in a digital world.

Some of you may know of the game Cardinal Quest (a fast paced rougelike - it's pretty cool go check it out) by a guy named Ido Yehieli, well he wrote a blog post I have been meaning to bring to light for a while but kept forgetting (I have a back log of articles to cover!). The blog post is titled Why Bundles and Steam Sales Aren’t Good for Most Indies.

The One Laptop Per Child program’s XO-3 tablet will be revealed next week at CES, according to the project’s founder, Nicholas Negroponte. The XO 3.0 features Marvell’s Armada PXA618 SOC processor and Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, with 512MB of RAM. It can run Android and other Linux operating systems like Fedora. The version that will be shown at the CES will be running Android.

XBMC is a free and open-source entertaining multimedia software works on major platforms and gaming consoles such as Xbox and on PS3 compiled through Ubuntu. XBMC 11.0 with code name “Eden” Beta released few weeks ago. Check what’s new in XBMC 11.0 Beta and installation instructions on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot using PPA.

Besides MythTV, Cube 2, and many other open-source projects, another high-profile project that's still around and kicking but that's been quiet as of late is the Zen Kernel...

There's some RFC patches out this week from Intel's Jesse Barnes that provides sprite support for the recently announced Weston Compositor for the Wayland Display Server...

For those who became more interested in the PandaBoard ES after it was benchmarked on Phoronix last week, here's some details about the Distributed Codec Engine found on this OMAP4 platform from Texas Instruments...

Search for PirateBay torrents on Ubuntu through Unity Dash by using the PirateBay Scope and Torrent Lens.

Welcome to the 181st issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!

Motorola's new Wi-Fi Xyboard tablet goes on sale January 19th and customers can pre-order theirs now as they've just popped up on the Motorola store, just ahead of the CES show where they will be on display. There are 4 models, starting at 400 dollar minus a cent up to 600 dollar for the top model, the Xyboard 10.1, 32GB. All of the tablets come with the same Technical Specs, with Android Honeycomb, which is upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich. 5 MP rear and HD front webcams with digital zoom, LED flash and auto focus and weighing in a 603 grams. The choice of model is really down to selecting a 8.2 screen or a 10.1 and 16GB or 32GB.

Another feature coming to the Linux 3.3 kernel is Byte Queue Limits (BQL), which attempts to fight "bufferbloat" in networking...

Krita (click to enlarge) The Calligra and KDE on Windows teams are proud to announce the first testing version of the Calligra Suite Windows installer. Yes, Windows users, you can now use and help test the Calligra from the comfort of your own operating system with a single installer. read more

Wind River, the maker of embedded and mobile software, has presented Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android, a series of software modules which the company claims can accelerate Android device development and reduce engineering time and cost to help developers turn around high quality devices faster.