September 2013 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

WLUG meeting tonight
by Peter Reutemann 29 Sep '13

29 Sep '13

Hi everyone There is a WLUG meeting tomorrow night at 7.30pm: http://www.wlug.org.nz/event_calendar/view/739/meeting I'll be talking about MOOCs (massive online open courses). Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Oracle makes tablet with Raspberry Pi and Java
by Peter Reutemann 27 Sep '13

27 Sep '13

'The enterprise software and hardware company has unveiled the "DukePad," a tablet powered by a Raspberry Pi and JavaSE Embedded 8. It's not actually for sale, but Oracle described it a few days ago in a technical keynote at its JavaOne conference and posted all the details on the OpenJDKWiki. In addition to providing instructions, open source software, and pointers to the necessary hardware, Oracle said it is "working with suppliers to make available pre-made kits that can be more easily assembled."' -- source: http://bit.ly/14MAWjj Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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SimpleScreenRecorder
by Peter Reutemann 26 Sep '13

26 Sep '13

"SimpleScreenRecorder is a Qt screen recorder for Linux which, despite its name, comes with more features than other similar tools. The application is very easy to use and the default settings should be enough for most cases, so usually you won't need to change any settings." -- source: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/simplescreenrecorder-powerful-screen.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Unsubscribe
by robert＠datamatrix.co.nz 26 Sep '13

26 Sep '13

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Middle-Click Paste? Not For Long
by Peter Reutemann 24 Sep '13

24 Sep '13

"Select to copy and middle-click to paste. That's very convenient usability feature associated with UNIX graphical environments. But it is confusing for new users, so the ability to middle-click paste was briefly removed from GNOME 3.10. It was restored few days later, but with clear message: middle-click paste will be permanently removed from next GNOME version." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/24/1252243 Man, that's one of my favorite feature!! Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Linus Torvalds worries about how Linux will handle end of Moore’s Law
by Peter Reutemann 24 Sep '13

24 Sep '13

'Perhaps the most hotly anticipated event at LinuxCon was this morning's kernel developer panel featuring none other than Linux creator Linus Torvalds. In the panel, Torvalds said he's worried the possible end of Moore's Law might finally be within sight, providing challenges to both hardware and software developers. "On the five- to 10-year timeframe scale, I'm very interested to see how the industry actually reacts to the fact that soon we will come against some physical limits," Torvalds said. "People used to be talking about having thousands of cores on one die because it keeps shrinking, and those people clearly have no idea about physics because we won't be shrinking for much longer."' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/linus-torvalds-worrie… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Fedora Project Turns 10
by Peter Reutemann 24 Sep '13

24 Sep '13

"It was ten years ago this past Sunday September 22nd, that the Red Hat sponsored Fedora project was born. The first Fedora release didn't come until six weeks later in November of 2003. Over the last 10 years the project has transformed itself from being entirely controlled by Red Hat to being a true community effort. In a video interview, the current Fedora Project Leader, Robyn Bergeron talks about the past and the future of Fedora. 'We need to think about how we're actually making the sausage,' Bergeron said. 'I think we can try and abstract and automate the things we have to do a lot, so our really awesome people's brains can be applied to solving problems that aren't yet automate-able.'" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/23/2350220 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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phpxmail problem
by Michael McDonald 24 Sep '13

24 Sep '13

Hi I've loaded Xmail on to my laptop running Ubuntu 13.04. I'm trying to use phpxmail to administer it - installed apache and php5 and copied the phpxmail files to /var/www Only problem is that when opening the scripts with my browser (Chrome) the script is not run and the browser just displays the text of the script. (might not be true for all of the scripts) To add to the confusion, the following DOES execute correctly ... <?php phpinfo(); ?> Any suggestions of where to look for the problem? Thanks Michael

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Valve Announces Linux-Based SteamOS
by Peter Reutemann 23 Sep '13

23 Sep '13

'Today Valve Software announced SteamOS, a Linux-based gaming operating system designed for, as Valve puts it, "living room machines." They say, "In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we're now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases." One major feature they're touting is the ability to use the SteamOS machine to stream video games from other Windows and Mac computers in the house to your TV. They mention media streaming as well, but without much detail. "With SteamOS, 'openness' means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they've been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation." ' -- source: http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/09/23/177246 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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$199, 4.2” computer is Intel’s first Raspberry Pi competitor
by Peter Reutemann 22 Sep '13

22 Sep '13

'With the Raspberry Pi, Arduino Due, and BeagleBone, the world is full of cheap, tiny computers that can be used by creative developers in everything from robots to space flight. One thing these platforms have in common is an ARM processor. Now they have some competition from Intel with its "MinnowBoard," a $199 computer in the form of a 4.2" x 4.2" board with an Intel Atom processor. [...] It's notable that the MinnowBoard is an open hardware platform, a distinction that Arduino and BeagleBone can claim but Raspberry Pi cannot. Users could create their own MinnowBoards by buying the items on the bill of materials [...].' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/199-4-2-computer-is-i… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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The Dash Is Now Anonymized In Ubuntu 13.10
by Peter Reutemann 22 Sep '13

22 Sep '13

'Last year, Canonical drew heat for the troublesome privacy implications that people like Richard Stallman saw in its in-built search-and-shopping facilities. An anonymous reader now writes "Long story short — Canonical now makes the user's data anonymous." ' -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/09/22/1538202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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WLUG meeting tomorrow night
by Peter Reutemann 22 Sep '13

22 Sep '13

Hi everyone There is a WLUG meeting tomorrow night at 7.30pm: http://www.wlug.org.nz/event_calendar/view/739/meeting Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Ubuntu's Smartphone OS Will Be Ready to Launch on October 17th
by Peter Reutemann 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

"The Ubuntu Edge smartphone may have missed its crowdfunding goal by a huge amount, but the Ubuntu Touch operating system is far from dead — it now has a planned release date of October 17th. That's according to a blog postfrom Canonical employee and QA community coordinator Nicholas Skaggs, who said that Ubuntu is "committed to delivering an image" of the OS for supported devices (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10). That's backed up by a post on the Ubuntu Phone Team mailing list that confirms "phone 1.0 will be a reality" in four and a half weeks." -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/739094 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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meeting on Monday next week
by Peter Reutemann 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

Hi there There is a WLUG meeting coming up on Monday next week. As of now, there aren't any specific topics. But if you have something for a quick show and tell, please do let me know. :-) Otherwise, we'll just have a social gathering, trading interesting news. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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OpenSUSE May Be First Major Distro To Adopt Btrfs By Default
by Peter Reutemann 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

"The openSUSE Linux distribution looks like it may be the first major Linux distribution to ship the Btrfs file-system by default. The openSUSE 13.1 release is due out in November and is still using EXT4 by default, but after that the developers are looking at having openSUSE using Btrfs by default on new installations. The Btrfs features to be enabled would be the ones the developers feel are data-safe." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/09/19/1352215 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Government of Argentina Launches Linux Distribution
by Peter Reutemann 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

"The news has been full of headlines of happenings at this year's LinuxCon, but one tiny little headline stands out today as different. Although it hasn't made it into English speaking press yet, it seems the Argentine government has sponsored the development of a Linux distribution to be used on all state provided education computers." -- source: http://ostatic.com/blog/government-of-argentina-launches-linux-distribution Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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How Linux defenders attack bad software patents before they’re approved
by Peter Reutemann 18 Sep '13

18 Sep '13

"Despite the rise in the number of patent trolls launching lawsuits affecting open source software, there are some glimmers of hope. The America Invents Act that was signed into law in September 2011 has provided new ways to prevent the issuance of over-broad software patents that could fuel future lawsuits. In a session at LinuxCon today, Linux Defenders director Andrea Casillas explained how the group is using rights granted by the new law to fight patent applications. A project of the Open Invention Network, Software Freedom Law Center, and Linux Foundation, Linux Defenders examines the 6,000 new patent applications published each week, attempting to identify those that are potentially threatening to Linux and open source. Then, the group looks for prior art that would invalidate at least some of the claims in the patents." -- source: http://bit.ly/15APmDY Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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New Operating System Seeks To Replace Linux In the Cloud
by Peter Reutemann 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

"At CloudOpen in New Orleans, KVM veterans Avi Kivity and Dor Laor revealed their latest venture, a new open-source (BSD license) operating system named OSv. OSv can run existing Linux programs and runtime environments such as a JVM, but unlike Linux, OSv was designed from the ground up to run efficiently on virtual machines. For example, OSv avoids the traditional (but slow) userspace-kernel isolation, as on the cloud VMs normally run a single application. OSv is also much smaller than Linux, and breaks away from tradition by being written in C++11." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/17/2113211 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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With XP's End of Life, Munich Will Distribute Ubuntu CDs
by Peter Reutemann 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

"Windows XP is going to officially die and stop receiving support from Microsoft in April, 2014. After that very moment, it is said to become a gold mine for hackers all over the world who will exploit 'zero-day' vulnerabilities. The municipality of the German city of Munich wants to stop that from happening [and] has decided to distribute free CDs with Ubuntu 12.04 to users of the almost extinct XP. Munich, through its Gasteig Library, will prepare around 2000 CDs with Ubuntu 12.04 to offer to city residents affected by Windows XP's end of support. Previously, it was believed that Munich city's authorities were going to offer Lubuntu 12.04, which would have required lower system requirements with the same support period." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/17/1250257 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Gabe Newell talks about Linux as the future of gaming; teases "Steam Box" hardware
by Peter Reutemann 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

'The gamers among us waited... very... patiently... for Steam to come to Linux. This week, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell came to LinuxCon to talk about Linux, gaming, and how important open source is to the future of gaming, which given the audience, he described as "sort of like going to Rome and teaching Catholicism to the Pope." In even better news, he also strongly hinted at a Steam Box announcement next week.' -- source: http://opensource.com/life/13/9/gabe-newell-talks-about-linux-future-gaming… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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TrueAbility Launches Ability Screen for Linux Pros
by Peter Reutemann 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

"Jobs are also on the rise for Linux professionals, and Technical assessment platform provider, TrueAbility, has announced the launch of AbilityScreen for Linux Professionals, billed as "a new way to evaluate the skill level of those who work within a Linux environment." It allows Linux professionals to demonstrate their expertise and prove what they know, helping companies to discover them. The company also hosts Linux Showdowns for demonstrating skills." -- source: http://ostatic.com/blog/trueability-launches-ability-screen-for-linux-pros Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Google and Samsung soar into list of top 10 Linux contributors
by Peter Reutemann 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

"Google and Samsung have become increasingly frequent contributors to Linux, and each is now among the top 10 companies sponsoring the open source kernel that powers operating systems from mobile devices to desktops and servers. A new Linux Kernel Development report (informally known as "Who Writes Linux") released today by the Linux Foundation names Samsung and Google as the seventh and eighth most frequent corporate contributors, behind Red Hat, Intel, Texas Instruments, Linaro, SUSE, and IBM. The report covers almost 92,000 changes to Linux from 3,738 individuals since version 3.3 in March 2012." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google-and-samsung-so… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Installing Rackspace Private Cloud In 20 Minutes Or Less
by Peter Reutemann 16 Sep '13

16 Sep '13

"Being an application developer with a very limited attention span, my test of any new technology or product is how quickly can I write my “Hello World” application. The Rackspace Private Cloud, which is based on OpenStack, is intended for a full-fledged data center with a number of compute, storage and network requirements, but I was still hoping to install it in just a few minutes." -- source: http://www.rackspace.com/blog/installing-rackspace-private-cloud-in-20-minu… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Raspberry Pi As an Ad Blocking Access Point
by Peter Reutemann 13 Sep '13

13 Sep '13

"Adafruit has a new tutorial that will show you how to use your Raspberry Pi as a WiFi access point that blocks ads by default for any devices using it. This is really neat in that it would work for your Android or iOS device, your Xbox 360, TiVo, laptop, and more without needing to customize any of those devices other than to use your Raspberry Pi as the access point for WiFi. Using an ad-blocker can be useful for conserving bandwidth, helping out low-power devices, or for keeping your sanity while browsing the web!" -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/09/13/2059228 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Google Releases Raspberry Pi Web Dev Teaching Tool
by Peter Reutemann 13 Sep '13

13 Sep '13

"Google has released 'Coder,' described as a simple way to make web stuff on Raspberry Pi. The idea is to make the Pi into a simple web server and web development environment on which kids can learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They provide an image for the Raspberry Pi, and they've open-sourced Coder as well. 'We thought about all the stuff we could do to make Coder a more complete package, but we have a hunch that the sooner this gets into the open source and maker communities, the more we’ll learn about how it might be used. Hopefully, a few more folks will pitch in and help us make this even more accessible and helpful for new coders.'" -- source: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/09/13/1514202 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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