ReviewLinux

Linpus Lite 1.9 review

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:25:28 +0000

Linpus Lite is one of those distributions that I’ve always hoped will be done right, considering that it is published by a commercial entity. However, with every release, it manages to fail in taking care of the little things that matter. Almost every desktop distribution suffers from the same problem. They get the big picture, [...]

Rise of the Ravager released, Interview and Free Keys!

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 15:25:32 +0000

Rise of the Ravager offers classic arcade action reminiscent of a fast action Missile Command while players blast descending waves of coloured enemies that can only be annihilated by a matching colour bullet (in a similar fashion to Guitar Hero or Ikaruga). Seek the favour of the Old Ones to prevent an ancient god’s avatar [...]

Amazon expands Appstore reach, gives devs more user data

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 13:25:35 +0000

Alternative Android store now in nearly 200 countriesLooking to woo more app publishers to its Android Appstore and away from Google Play, Amazon has announced new tools that allow developers to track user engagement with their apps.… LXer Linux News

Latest Tizen sightings: Samsung phone, Intel laptop demo

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 12:25:30 +0000

Days after releasing version 2.1 of the Linux-based Tizen mobile operating system, Samsung confirmed an upcoming GT-I8805 Tizen smartphone, and Intel demonstrated a laptop running Tizen 3.0 in a GNOME shell. Other developments around this week’s Tizen Developers Conference include a Tizen App Challenge and 2013 phone launch promises from NTT DoCoMo and Orange. On [...]

Transparency Camp event report and review of new tools

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 10:49:24 +0000

I got bitten at camp this weekend, but indifference would have been the only relevant repellant and thankfully, I’m allergic to that. Here’s what I learned as a first-time camper. Transparency Camp is not for the faint of heart. It requires you to dig in deep. If you are a tech expert, like Northeast Ohio’s own [...]

Microsoft Snoops In Skype, Dissed By HP & More

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 10:25:30 +0000

What is Microsoft going to do about this? Threaten to play hardball and make it difficult for HP’s PC division? We think not. Ballmer can hardly afford to do that; the PC market is the only coin in his pocket. Besides, CEO Whitman is probably prepared for that possibility. We wouldn’t be surprised to discover [...]

It Seems I Won’t Be Writing For Linux Advocates After All

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 08:25:31 +0000

Today it became clear that I wouldn’t be writing for Linux Advocates after all. I’ve learned a lot in the past week and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is for the best. LXer Linux News

A New X.Org-Free Wayland LiveCD Released

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 08:25:30 +0000

For technology demos and testing, the “first true Wayland LiveCD” has been released that can start Wayland directly without depending upon an X.Org environment… Phoronix

Microsoft reportedly plans to take a cut of used game sales

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 06:49:07 +0000

Xbox One games are installed to the console’s hard drive and registered to users’ Xbox Live accounys. It remains unclear how the system will handle used games and Microsoft has failed to address the issue. According to a report from gaming news website MCV, retailers will be allowed to charge whatever they want for pre-owned [...]

Going All the Way: GPL’ing Our Theme

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 06:25:31 +0000

If you’ve been vising our site for awhile now (thanks, by the way), you’ve certainly noticed that things have been looking a little less…terrible, as of late. We’ve been working on turning “The Powerbase” into a more modern and aesthetically pleasing site, and the recent change of theme is a major step in that direction. [...]

High-res batch convert EMZ / WMZ grahpics to PNG a.k.a. “liberating your graphics”

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 05:25:52 +0000

[img]http://lxer.com/content/Hans_Kwint.jpg[/img] [b]LXer Feature: 24-May-2013[/b]Recently I’ve been trying to ‘minimize’ some big ‘legacy’ MS Word files. When using MS Office to export to HTML (unfiltered), I’ve found out they’re so big because they have EMZ (gzipped EMF) and WMZ (gzipped WMF) files in them, accompanied by large “msoledata-thingies”. These WMZ’s / EMZ’s are (zipped) “container” formats, [...]

GCC 4.8.0 vs. LLVM Clang 3.3 Compiler Performance

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 05:25:52 +0000

In preparation for the upcoming release of LLVM 3.3, here is an extensive round of C/C++ benchmarks from GCC 4.8.0, LLVM Clang 3.2, and LLVM Clang 3.3-rc1 to look at the Linux compiler performance. Benchmarks happened from three different systems bearing Intel Core i7 3960X, AMD FX-8350, and Intel Core i3 3217U processors for a [...]

Zend Framework 2 Tool (ZFTool) Introduction

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 04:26:16 +0000

ZFTool is an utility module for maintaining modular Zend Framework 2 applications. It runs from the command line and can be installed as ZF2 module or as PHAR. LXer Linux News

Unity 8, Mir Made Progress This Week On Features

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 04:25:09 +0000

Canonical’s Kevin Gunn shared a status update for the advancements made by their team this week on the Mir Display Server and next-generation Unity 8 interface… Phoronix

ZevenOS 3.1 Neptune Screenshot Tour

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 03:26:04 +0000

The Neptune team is proud to announce the release of Neptune 3.1. We worked hard and spend a lot of effort in creating this service release for Neptune 3.0. This release features the Linux kernel 3.9.2 and is exclusively meant to run on 64-bit CPUs. The Debian base system was updated to the released version [...]

Hands On Embedded Linux Development Training course.

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 02:25:28 +0000

LinuxCertified Inc, a leading provider of Linux training and services, announced its next Hands On Embedded Linux Development class to be held in San Francisco Bay Area from [url=http://www.linuxcertified.com/class_schedule.html]June 19th – 20th, 2013.[/url] LXer Linux News

HP CEO Scorecard: Google Android 3, Windows 8 Zero

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 01:26:20 +0000

How does Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman feel about Windows 8 vs. emerging Google Android and Chrome OS tablet and notebook alternatives? The answers emerged indirectly amid HP’s Q2 2013 earnings call. Here’s the scorecard. LXer Linux News

LLVM Clang 3.3 RC2 Is Ready For Testing

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 01:25:15 +0000

The release of LLVM 3.3 along with its sub-projects like the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end and Compiler-RT is imminent. A second release candidate was posted just prior to the weekend to usher in some last minute testing… Phoronix

Microsoft’s Linux app, Skype, gets updated

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 00:25:45 +0000

Microsoft has released a new version of Skype, its popular VoIP program, for Linux. LXer Linux News

Wine 1.5.31 Pulls In New Gecko Release

Michael Perks — Sat, 25 May 2013 00:25:44 +0000

Wine 1.5.31 has been released as the latest bi-weekly development milestone… Phoronix

http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-companies/red-hat-openstack-linux-virtualization-cloud-triple-play

Michael Perks — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:26:27 +0000

OpenStack, the open source cloud platform, has hundreds of backers. But like Linux, multiple OpenStack distributions may emerge on the market. That could trigger customer confusion and indecision. Enter Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the leading provider of corporate Linux solutions. I’m betting Red Hat will gradually repeat that success with OpenStack. Here’s why. LXer Linux News

Intel Shows Off GNOME3-Based Tizen Shell

Michael Perks — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:25:25 +0000

At the Tizen conference this week in San Francisco, Intel showed off an Intel Ultrabook running their next-generation Tizen 3.0 platform that’s using a shell/desktop derived from GNOME 3.x… Phoronix

Handheld SDR Transceiver runs Linux on ARM/FPGA SoC

Michael Perks — Fri, 24 May 2013 22:26:30 +0000

Epiq Solutions announced a handheld software defined radio (SDR) device with an RF transceiver that tunes from 300MHz to 3.8GHz, plus a built-in 1PPS GPS. The Matchstiq Z1 is built around a Linux-ready iVeia Atlas-I-Z7e computer-on-module equipped with a Xilinx Zynq Z-7020 SoC, which integrates dual ARM Cortex-A9 cores along with FPGA circuitry. The Matchstiq [...]

AMD RadeonSI Gallium3D Begins Simple CL Demos

Michael Perks — Fri, 24 May 2013 22:25:09 +0000

The open-source AMD RadeonSI Gallium3D driver is beginning to work when it comes to running simple OpenCL programs on the Radeon HD 7000 series graphics cards… Phoronix

5 Links for Developers and IT Pros 5-24-13

Michael Perks — Fri, 24 May 2013 21:25:40 +0000

This week we look at the 7 best open source projects for newbies, why a bad app could be worse than no app and programming languages you should skip. LXer Linux News