GNU
GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance and give us a way to fight back
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Thursday 21st of August 2014 03:26:46 AM Filed under

GNU community members and collaborators have discovered threatening details about a five-country government surveillance program codenamed HACIENDA. The good news? Those same hackers have already worked out a free software countermeasure to thwart the program.
According to Heise newspaper, the intelligence agencies of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, have used HACIENDA to map every server in twenty-seven countries, employing a technique known as port scanning. The agencies have shared this map and use it to plan intrusions into the servers. Disturbingly, the HACIENDA system actually hijacks civilian computers to do some of its dirty work, allowing it to leach computing resources and cover its tracks.
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Play Hexen, Quake I, and Quake II with 4MLinux Game Edition 9.1 Beta
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Thursday 21st of August 2014 03:21:45 AM Filed under

4MLinux Game Edition, a special Linux distribution based on Busybox, Dropbear, OpenSSH, and PuTTY, which also happens to feature a large number of games, is now at version 9.1 Beta.
The 4MLinux distributions are among the smallest ones in the world, but that doesn't mean the developers can't add a ton of interesting games into the mix.
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SparkyLinux GameOver Is a Winning Work-Play Combo
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Thursday 21st of August 2014 02:37:02 AM Filed under


This SparkyLinux game edition builds in access to a large collection of popular games compiled for the Linux platform. It brings the latest game fare via the Steam and Desura platforms. It provides handy access from a quick launch bar to a dozen plus emulators to let you run top-line games from leading gaming boxes and platforms.
GameOver does not wimp out on providing all of the needed everyday computing tools found in other Linux distros, either. It provides nearly all of the standard Linux applications out-of-the-box, so you do not have to install them on your own.
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Parsix GNU/Linux 7.0 Test 1 Is an Interesting Debian and GNOME 3.12 Combination
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 20th of August 2014 06:13:09 PM Filed under



Parsix GNU/Linux 7.0 Test 1, a live and installation DVD based on Debian, aiming to provide a ready-to-use, easy-to-install desktop and laptop-optimized operating system, has been released and is now ready for testing.
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Munich Switching to Windows from Linux Is Proof That Microsoft Is Still an Evil Company
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 20th of August 2014 09:01:50 AM Filed under


Reports about the city of Munich authorities that are considering the replacement of Linux with Microsoft products mostly comes from one man, the Deputy Mayor of Munich, who is also a long-term self-declared Windows fan.
Munich is the poster child for the adoption of a Linux distribution and the replacement of the old Windows OS. It provided a powerful incentive for other cities to do the same, and it's been a thorn in Microsoft's side for a very long time.
The adoption of open source software in Munich started back in 2004 and it took the local authorities over 10 years to finish the process. It's a big infrastructure, but in the end they managed to do it. As you can imagine, Microsoft was not happy about it. Even the CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, tried to stop the switch to Linux, but he was too late to the party.
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The OS LinuX Desktop
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 20th of August 2014 05:02:56 AM Filed under


Reader Oliver wanted to make his Linux Mint desktop look as much like a Mac as possible so others would find it easy to use. Given some of our previous Linux featured desktops, we know it wasn't tough, but the end-result still looks great. Here's how it's all set up.
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A Linux Desktop Designed for You
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 20th of August 2014 05:00:15 AM Filed under

Desktop environments for Linux are not released ready-made. Behind each is a set of assumptions about what a desktop should be, and how users should interact with them. Increasingly, too, each environment has a history -- some of which are many years old.
As you shop around for a desktop, these assumptions are worth taking note of. Often, they can reveal tendencies that you might not discover without several days of probing and working with the desktop.
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Ditching Linux for Windows? The truth isn't that simple, says Munich
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 19th of August 2014 07:50:12 PM Filed under


Munich city council demonstrated to the world that an organisation employing thousands could ditch Windows and move to Linux and free software.
When the project finished late last year about 15,000 staff at the German authority had been migrated to using Limux, a custom-version of Ubuntu, and OpenOffice.
But is the council's move to open source about to be scrapped in favour or returning to Microsoft?
No says the council, in spite of numerous reports to the contrary. Suggestions the council has decided to back away from Linux are wrong, according to council spokesman Stefan Hauf.
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Alienware: Steam Machine owners will "sacrifice content" for the sake of Linux
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 19th of August 2014 07:29:30 PM Filed under


It’s been tough to parse Alienware’s position on the Linux-based SteamOS. At E3 they told us that the Steam Machine will increase Linux gamers by “20, 30 fold, overnight”. But with the first Steam Machines delayed into 2015, they’ve upstaged their own Linux box with a Windows-based living room PC: the Alienware Alpha.
So who would win in a fight, Alienware? A living room PC running Windows, or the same PC running SteamOS?
“It depends on what you’re looking for; there’s advantages to both,” said Alienware general manager Frank Azor. “[With] the Linux version I do think you’re going to sacrifice a little bit of content.”
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The Justice League of Linux: If Distros Were Superheroes Ubuntu Would Be Superman
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 19th of August 2014 04:56:59 PM Filed under


It’s an obvious comparison: both Ubuntu and Superman are leaders, they are dependable, and they are arguably the most well known of their kind. Both are security minded and concerned with privacy, while Canonical’s laser-like focus in pursuit of convergence is nearly as intense as the red-hot beam fired out of Superman’s eyes!
Powerful, upfront and well intentioned (sometimes to a fault) the famous Linux distribution has much in common with the most famous superhero of all time.
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