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FishPi: Raspberry Pi Powered Autonomous Boat To Cross the Ocean
by Peter Reutemann 28 Jun '12

28 Jun '12

"The Raspberry Pi is a triumph in computing, and it's now set to become a triumph in robotics as one developer plans to build a model boat around it and sail it across the Atlantic Ocean, completely unmanned. It's codenamed FishPi and will see a model boat sail across the Atlantic all by itself save for a camera, GPS module, compass and solar panels." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/06/27/154242/fishpi-raspberry-pi-powered… 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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Are Open-Source Desktops Losing Competitiveness?
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jun '12

26 Jun '12

"Peter Penz has been a user of KDE since version 1.2, and he led the development of the Dolphin file manager for the past six years. Now, he's quitting KDE development and handing off Dolphin. His reasons for quitting KDE development are described in a blog post. Penz speaks of KDE losing competitiveness to Apple and Microsoft due to increased complexity and other reasons. 'Working on the non-user-interface parts of applications can be challenging, and this is not something that most freetime-contributors are striving for. But if there are not enough contributors for the complex stuff behind the scenes and if no company is willing to invest fulltime-developers to work on this... well then we are losing ground.' Are open-source desktops losing?" -- source: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/06/26/1940250/are-open-source-deskt… 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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Canonical proposes alternate UEFI Secure Boot solution
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jun '12

21 Jun '12

"Canonical founder and Ubuntu leader Mark Shuttleworth has weighed in with a solution to boot Ubuntu with UEFI Secure Boot. Red Hat developer Matthew Garrett has criticised the approach as more closed than Fedora's". -- source: http://h-online.com/-1623134 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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Dell to bring Ubuntu laptops to 850 retail stores in India
by Peter Reutemann 19 Jun '12

19 Jun '12

"Canonical and Dell have announced that new laptops pre-loaded with the Ubuntu Linux operating system will be sold in retail stores across India. These systems will include the Dell Inspiron 14R and 15R laptops, and will be part of the initial "widescale roll out" to 850 retail outlets from Thursday 21 June; new models are expected to be added later in the year." --source: http://h-online.com/-1620657 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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Linux Mint 13 - Mate edition
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jun '12

17 Jun '12

Hi everyone My work laptop (Lenovo X100e) choked and died during an update of Ubuntu 12.04 on Friday morning, resulting in an installation that no longer booted (root partition gone, kernel panic). Decided to re-install it with Linux Mint 13 Mate edition, since the Cinnamon edition was rendering too slow and quite sluggish. After a couple of hours, I was up and running again. Once again with a beautiful desktop, but with qt applications (keepassx, skype, ...) looking hideous. Today, I found the solution: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=219&t=104216#p591250 The qt4 theme wasn't set to gtk+, but "Desktop settings". Doesn't seem to handle gtk+3 for some reason. 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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Introducing the mintBox
by Peter Reutemann 17 Jun '12

17 Jun '12

"In association with CompuLab, Linux Mint is proud to introduce the mintBox. The pro model is recognizable by its ribbed case (its faster performance requires more heat dissipation) We’re passionate about what we do and for our very first Mint device, we wanted something unique, something special and extraordinary." Based on the fit-PC3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fit-PC#fit-PC3) and marketed as mintBox running Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon). Specs: - mintBox Basic ($476 + shipping, duty & VAT): 250GB HDD APU G-T40N (1.0 GHz dual core + Radeon HD 6290 – 9W) 4GB RAM Flat metal case - mintBox Pro ($549 + shipping, duty & VAT): 250GB HDD APU G-T56N (1.65 GHz dual core + Radeon HD 6320 – 18W) 8GB RAM Ribbed metal case "Another highlight of the mintBox is how easy it is to open it. Both the RAM and the HDD are accessible from underneath the box. Use a standard screwdriver to open the bay and you can upgrade your RAM or switch the HDD for a SSD drive without any hassle." -- source: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2055 It ain't cheap, but still cool. :-) 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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Re: [wlug] Skype 4.0 For Linux Now Available
by GJB 15 Jun '12

15 Jun '12

Wonder if they have any new encryption for chat or privacy tools included? It is notoriously insecure, something linux users are usually not that happy about. > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [wlug] Skype 4.0 For Linux Now Available > From: Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz> > Date: Fri, June 15, 2012 10:43 am > To: wlug <wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz> > > > "Anyone who uses Skype on Linux will be happy to hear that a new > version has been made available today, bringing with it a host of > essential updates and new features. Skype 4.0, codenamed "Four Rooms > for Improvement," is long overdue, and Marco Cimmino makes a point of > thanking Linux users for their patience on the Skype blog. The main > improvements Skype is delivering include much improved audio call > quality, better video support, and improved chat synchronization. For > video specifically, Skype has spent time implementing support for a > much wider range of webcams, so if your camera didn't work before > today you might be surprised to find it does in Skype 4.0. Visually, > Skype has received a new Conversations View, which brings all chats > into a single, unified window (you can revert to the old view if you > prefer). There's also a new Call View, presence and emoticons have > been redesigned, and you can now store and view numbers within each > Skype profile." > > -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/06/14/223213/skype-40-for-linux-now-avai… > > Cheers, Peter > -- > Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ > http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 > _______________________________________________ > wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Skype 4.0 For Linux Now Available
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jun '12

14 Jun '12

"Anyone who uses Skype on Linux will be happy to hear that a new version has been made available today, bringing with it a host of essential updates and new features. Skype 4.0, codenamed "Four Rooms for Improvement," is long overdue, and Marco Cimmino makes a point of thanking Linux users for their patience on the Skype blog. The main improvements Skype is delivering include much improved audio call quality, better video support, and improved chat synchronization. For video specifically, Skype has spent time implementing support for a much wider range of webcams, so if your camera didn't work before today you might be surprised to find it does in Skype 4.0. Visually, Skype has received a new Conversations View, which brings all chats into a single, unified window (you can revert to the old view if you prefer). There's also a new Call View, presence and emoticons have been redesigned, and you can now store and view numbers within each Skype profile." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/06/14/223213/skype-40-for-linux-now-avai… 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 12.04 Ported To the Allwinner A10 MK802 Mini PC
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jun '12

14 Jun '12

"Thanks to the strong ARM support in the Ubuntu repositories, Ubuntu, along with Lubuntu and others have been ported to work on the new MK802 mini PC. Performance is very impressive, especially given that Mali GPU driver support in Linux is still lacking features such as hardware video decoding." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/06/14/1343205/ubuntu-1204-ported-to-the-… 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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/usr/share/applications what am I doing wrong?
by Bruce Kingsbury 14 Jun '12

14 Jun '12

I've installed Padman and urban terror in /opt .. created scripts to launch them in /usr/games, put icons in /usr/share/pixmaps and created .desktop files in /usr/share/applications (by copying the one for openarena and just changing the names). So far so good, the games appear in the menu and I can play them. After a reboot they're gone from the menu for every user, but I can get them back in the menu by simply opening a root terminal, moving the two .desktop files from /usr/share/applications to another directory and then moving them back again. And nothing more than this is required. What is going on?!

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