## WANTED: New owner for @Linux ##
Hello everyone
My followers will have found that I haven’t posted anything in a long time.
This is because of certain changes in my life and me just having less time on my hands. I was very busy over the last few months and I can’t see it becoming any better soon.
My initial goal was to run this account so the @Linux account would be active here on Diaspora, unlike on other networks.
But now I’ve become what I wanted to fight: I’ve become the guy holding the account and not doing anything with it.
I don’t want to be that guy!
*And that’s why I’m looking for someone to take over this account.*
I’d like to hand it over to a Linux and Free/Open Source Software enthusiast who has enough time to run the account and post (whatever) relevant content.
If you’re interested in driving the Linux account, please pm me.
if not, please repost.
### TinyCore 4.4 brings updated Kernel ###
TinyCore and MicroCore Linux both got updated to version 4.4. The major change concerns the Kernel which was updated to version 3.0.21 and was compiled with a larger number of modules to support additional features and hardware.
‘Core’s package management system also got an update and now supports tags and searching for tags.
MicroCore and TinyCore Linux are very small distributions, neither of them being bigger than a few megabytes. Yet they feature a full GNU/Linux system with a toolchain and a package manager. TinyCore even comes with a GUI.
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,12836.0.html
#release #Linux #TinyCore #MicroCore
### HumbleBundle for Android 2 ###
HumbleBundle.com launched the HumbleIndieBundle for Android (and Mac, Linux and Windows) 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apnN-H4G1Vg
All five games are available on all three platforms. Part of the bundle are:
* Canabalt
* ZenBound2
* Cogs (Which had been in other bundles before)
* Avadon
For those who pay more than the average, the Bundle also includes “Sword & Soldiers”
As always, the games come without any DRM, are available on all four platforms, the user can decide how much they want to pay and a customizable part of the money is donated to the EFF and Child’s Play.
#HumbleBundle #Linux #Gaming #Game #Android
## updates on CyanogenMod ##
CyanogenMod is the most popular Android ROM, having over one million registered users world wide. It’s available for a large number of Android devices and has a big and healthy community.
### CM 7.2 ###
Currently, CyanogenMod is working on two new releases: 7.2 and 9.0. The 9.0 release is the CM version of Android 4.X and still not ready to be shipped or distributed. The 7.2 version is an update to the current 7.X branch which is derived from Android 2.3.
Now a first RC is out for the 7.2 version of CyanogenMod. According to the blog posting on the release, CM 7.2 now supports 70 Android devices - 20 more than 7.1 did. It also fixes several bugs and introduces some features backported from Android 4.0.
### Security improvements ###
To install a custom ROM on an Android device also means to gain root-access on the device. Having full access to the entire system is very handy. It lets the user see and control every process, browse the underlying files system, control the hardware, overclock the CPU and much more. It does, however, also introduce a number of security problems. Apps that run with root-privileges can harm the device. They have access to all data on the phone and can do whatever they like - including breaking the system entirely.
To prevent this and improve the overall security of CM, the 9.0 release will introduce a new approach to root-privileges. It will no longer be activated by default. That way, the user will have to turn on root-privileges manually if they need/want them. Or they can leave them turned off for improved security.
### Build infrastructure ###
A few weeks back, the project collected money for a new build infrastructure. The postings back then didn’t mention how much money they needed or what specific hardware they had in mind. But they collected enough money in just over eight hours. Now the CM team purchased the new servers:
“three new Dell servers […] 12-core Xeon machines with 32GB of RAM”.
http://www.cyanogenmod.com/blog
#CyanogenMod #Android #Cyanogen #ROM #Linux
### 0 A.D. Alpha 9 Ides of March ###
Wildfire Games released a new Alpha version of their realtime strategy game 0 A.D. last Friday.
In this release, they added the Roman empire as one of the factions to play. 0 A.D. plays in the time-frame of the rise of Rome and the Roman Empire is certainly going to be an important part of the game. The new faction comes with their own set of buildings and units and just as in the real world, the Romans will have superior weapons, infantry and technology.
Another important new feature is the combat system that allows more dynamic unit configuration and more realistic battles. Units can be stronger or weaker, depending on which kind of unit they’re fighting.
Also new to this release is the trading system that’s more realistically. One can now train traders which will travel to foreign markets or docks and bring back resources on every trip.
0 A.D. is an Open Source effort to create a great, free strategy game similar to the well known Age Of Empires series. The 0 A.D. project is looking for contributors in all areas such as 3D modeling, music and development.
The 9. Alpha is named “Ides of March”, the Roman’s mid-day of March that was celebrated and on which Julius Caesar got murdered.
http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=14450
#fossgaming #releae #game #gaming #0ad #wildfire #wildfiregames #OpenSource
### Linux 3.4 Merge Window opened ###
With the release of Linux 3.3, the merge window for 3.4 started. The merge window is a two week period where the big changes are submitted to the subsystem maintainers and to Linus Torvalds to be merged into the Kernel. After these first two weeks in the life of a new Kernel, rc1 is released.
Over the next weeks, only smaller changes and bug- and security-fixes will be accepted to the Kernel code. Over this period, a new rc is released about once a week until the code is stable enough for the final release.
#Linux #Kernel
### Is h.264 coming to Firefox? ###
One of the major new features of HTML5 is the <video>-tag which allows webbrowsers to natively show videos - this is, without the usage of any plugins. This feature is seen as a relive by many that don’t like Aobe’s Flash plugin - or any browser-plugins at all, because they are never fully integrated in the web experience, aren’t free or because they lack security.
The difficult part of the <video> standardisation is to find a video codec that everyone agrees up on. Originally it was suggested to use the free OGV Video format. But this was rejected by Microsof and Nokia who feared patent attacks by unknown patent holders to the technoloy involved in ogv (so called submarine-attacks). Another idea was to use the already very popular and very efficient h.264 algorithm. But this idea was rejected by even more parties because h.264 is a non-free standard and it was not clear for how long it would be available for free. Eventually, Google bought the VP8 codec which is supposedly free from copyright and patent claims from any third party. They released the WebM vide standard (Ogg Theora sound and VP8 Video in an MKV container) as Open Source software and promoted it haevily, starting to convert all Youtube Videos to the new format. Right from the start, WebM was included in Firefox, Opera and Google’s Chrome Browser. Both Apple and Microsoft however, rejected the standard. This made it hard for WebM because Microsoft Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser. It’s also crucial that the codec is supported by iOS because that’s the most important platform to come without Flash player and therefore depends heavily on HTML5 <video> - and also drives the development. But that’s not all: For mobile devices to be able to play high resolution videos without draining the battery, the ARM chips needs native support for the codec - but there aren’t too many phones with WebM acceleration around until today, making it hard to record and watch videos in the WebM format on these devices.`
Firefox, being an Open Source project, could use H.264 (base profile, which is about as efficient as VP8) for free in their browser, but they would not, because website o
wners using the alorithm could be charged for the usage of it. The pressure coming from WebM eventually drove the MPEG LA into promising that the h.264 base profile would
be available for free to any website owners and Open Source projects. But that doesn’t apply to browser vendors such as Opera who don’t release their sources. And using
a proprietary format is against Mozilla’s (and many others) idea of a free web.
Now h.264 might come into Firefox after all. Not as native implementation in the Firefox code, but by using the underlying hardware implementation or the system libraries
. This would allow the Boot2Gecko Operating system to play back h.264 Videos performant.
It will be very interesting to see which path Mozilla takes in the question - and it will certainly affect the future of the Web heavily!
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Mozilla-looks-at-supporting-H-264-video-again-1471283.html
#Mozilla #Firefox #WebM #html5 #Video #OGV #h264
