Todays special is about Mandrake derived distributions, namely,
OpenMandriva Lx 2014 alpha vs Mageia 4 final vs ROSA 2012 R2 final vs PCLinuxOS 2013.12 final.

In (my limited) testing, I've used the X86_64 versions favoring the KDE desktop, and I've used the NVidia binary drivers provided with each distro.

Here's my experience with each one:

I first heard about Bill Reynolds (AKA "Texstar") when I was using Mandrake Linux 7 (later called "Mandriva") many years ago. Back then, Texstar was putting together updated KDE releases for Mandrake Linux, as Mandrake would only typically update their KDE release once or twice a year.

Wonder how many journalists are waiting for the SOL to fail so they can use the headline "SOL is Shit Out of Luck?" (Not /me/ of course, but I do smell a poll question in there somewhere).

New KDE 4.10.5 is more like Windows than ever. Fresh new warning says "The key sequence 'Del' is ambiguous. Use 'Configure Shortcuts' from the 'Settings' menu to solve the ambiguity. No action will be triggered." Great, after 14 years of using KDE and the Del key to delete unwanted mail, all of a sudden said Del key is ambiguious. What's ambiguious about Del? Del means delete. No means no....

I needed a fresh install on a safe partition today and thought I'd try Korora 19, but alas, I've ended up using Mint 15 KDE (rc). So, far so good...

When Kororaa changed their name to Korora I wondered why? But today I think I've spotted the real reason.

There is functionality in OSX called Airdrop which Linux Desktops could do with as a replacement of the SMB/NFS shared files sharing system. There are some options out with but they are seemingly stale projects which however can provide the functionality which is needed in Linux

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asking this very simple question which is the best Operating system in some corners of the Internet, is like throwing a slab of raw meat into a wild animal enclosure and watching as the question gets ripped apart. Its tantamount to asking which religion or political system is the best in the way some will tear strips off others

The rest here...

There’s lots of forums and even 3 or 4 releases in I still hear people talking about how much they dislike Unity, which is a shame because it’s turning into quite a nice Gui from where i’m sitting, however one thing Linux has is choice. If nothing else there are other solid, stable distributions out there which offer a user a good solid alternative. Once such example is maybe OpenSUSE.

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I found this article on the osxdaily website, the article refers to running nettop on OSX however it’s a *nix command so will also be in the package repository (if not preinstalled) on your favorite distro. I’ve tested all of the command options on Sabayon and they work fine..

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I’m really starting to appreciate the benifits of dual factor authentication across the board, so this Howtoforge article is of interest to anyone who wants to secure SSH access on thier Linux systems. I previously posted about using your mobile phone as the something you have bit, well this is another method.

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While you may have your Ubuntu install locked down with Full disk encryption incase you loose the laptop, UFW locking down the network with a firewall, there is no point if you have a poor password. Dual factor authentication using One Time Passwords may be an option for you, if they are this great howtoforge article might point you in the right direction.

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I've been playing Half-Life recently, something to which I've looked forward for quite some time. I did get it playing under Wine years ago, but I thought I only got a little ways. I'm stuck In the Rails right now, but I remember this level.

I’ve had a need to get a local squid proxy to perform local filtering based on AD Security groups because it’s not something websense can do. I found this wonderful howtofoge guide online and Used it to setup the base system. This howto is a work in progress as the next stage is to get it working with DansGuardian or SquidGuard.

Prerequisites
Client Internet Explorer Browsers need to have “Enable Integrated Windows Authentication” ticked in Internet Options :: Advanced settings as well as Proxy Auto detection enabled – google these if not sure. All modern web browsers will support proxy auto detection. Firefox and Chrome also support Windows Authentication.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on using a Chromebook to develop on a cloud platform. Its based on a Digital Ocean remote server and like most people who wish to attach to the command line interface on a remote server I use SSH. It’s an encrypted connection over the network/internet from end to end. However being a cloud server I was wondering if it was possible to secure this a little bit more?

A chat with a friend on the way into work provided me with a solution.

The solution is Two Factor authentication a system beased on a simple premise, something you know (the SSH password in this case) and something you have (your mobile phone in this case, but it could be a secure token) which will deliver a random number.

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Most of the guides you will see using this utility mine included cover how to get Ubuntu 12.04 the LTS version working, however there is also scope within the command line to get the latest and greatest up and running. specifically the -r switch. Issuing the following command will provide you with a bare bones Ubuntu 13.04 install

Read How

Being a few months in with my Acer C7 Chromebook as my only laptop i’ve very pleased with what it does, I do have the Crouton Ubuntu chroot installed and upgraded the device to 16Gb of Ram, however there is one core thing I miss with this setup. VMWare/Virtualbox. I find i’m often building virtual machines, usually Ubuntu to test bsh scripts or build LAMP Environments to test some PHP out with. That isn’t something i’m able to do even on the CHROOT Ubuntu environment.

All however is not lost, and i’ve found a way to get round this..

Read my ChromeOS virtual soluton

Will the believers in the desktops ever stop making this year is the year of Linux on the desktop...

They say a week in politics is a long time, well a year in the mobile phone industry is an eternity and what huge changes the industry is going through. A year ago the roost was ruled by Apple and Google, 3G was the fastest we can go and handsets were finding a stock size at 4.5″.. The world however of the mobile device is now a very different place and very much in a positive state of change..

What does the Ubuntu Phone need to succeed?

After being retired (for four years) from teaching high school Computer Science, I decided to get back into programming again. I once taught a beginning programming class using the Ruby language, and I thought that would be a good way to get back into programming. So, I decided I needed a “Ruby refresher”, and I wanted to learn more about that language than I taught in the classroom.