dkd903 wrote in with an interview with Chris Dibona in Der Standard. Within, he declares Android as "... the dream come true. It's your Linux desktop, it's the ultimate success story of Linux that I've been working on personally since 1995." There's lots of other good stuff on Google's internal use of GNU/Linux: "If you'd look at laptops it's maybe 70 percent Mac OS X and most of the rest is Linux, we are a huge customer of Apple. Engineering Desktops are overwhelmingly running on Linux. We have our own Ubuntu derivative called 'Goobuntu' internally for that, integrating with our network — we run all our the home directories from a file server — and with some extra tools already built-in for developers."

Evil Al writes "From the ubiquitous Verifone card terminals to the fancy Apple Store terminals, point-of-sale devices are everywhere. But does anyone know of an open terminal (with printer + Wi-Fi), preferably running Linux, that we can use to run a custom application for retail, made by a reputable manufacturer?"

dkd903 writes "The CentOS team just announced the availability of CentOS Linux version 6.0 for both i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 6.0 is based on the upstream release of RHEL 6.0 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and includes packages from all variants."

An anonymous reader writes "The Debian Project is pleased to announce the availability of the Community Distribution Patent Policy FAQ, a document meant to educate Free Software developers, and especially distribution editors, about software patent risks. The FAQ has been prepared by lawyers at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) at the request of and with input from the Debian Project. While the document does not constitute legal advice, it provides insights on dealing with software patents, which might be applicable to other community-driven Free Software distributions. The Debian Project maintains a critical stance towards software patents: we consider software patents a threat to Free Software and we believe they provide no advantages in promoting software innovation."

anymooseposter writes "My mom is taking a computer class at the local Community College. she asks: 'I need to download a Linux OS and try it out for class. The assignment is to use an OS different from what you normally use. Well, since I use Windows and OS X, the assignment suggests Linux. But, my question is, what is the easiest version based on Linux for me to put on CD and try? I saw several on the web. Any thoughts off the top of your head?' What Linux Disto would be easiest to set up without having to resort to dual booting and/or driver issues?"

sfcrazy writes "Microsoft Corp has demanded that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd pay $15 for each smartphone handset it makes based on Google Inc's Android operating system. The software giant claims to own a wide range of patents used in the mobile platform. From the article: 'Samsung would likely seek to lower the payment to about $10 in exchange for a deeper alliance with Microsoft for the U.S. company's Windows platform, the Maeil Business Newspaper quoted unnamed industry officials as saying.'"

jfruhlinger writes "The relationship between Linux and Android is on a technical level not hard to grasp — there's a shared kernel, but the application and interface layers are quite different. But, as Brian Proffitt points out, there are differences of philosophy and of community — which hasn't stopped Adobe from touting its Android dev tools as proof of its devotion to Linux."

sfcrazy writes "The validity of another Oracle patent has become doubtful in the dispute with Google about the infringement of Java patents and copyrights on Android devices. The US Patent Office and Trademark Office (USPTO) has provisionally declared all 24 claims of patent number 6,125,447 as being invalid. The USPTO based its decision on a patent that had been used in another case. This patent was granted in 1994 – three years before Sun filed its Java patent application. The US patent office also considered two publications released in 1996 as evidence that Sun's described method for protecting applications via 'protection domains' was anticipated by 'prior art.'"

An anonymous reader writes "For a long time what x86 users took for granted was just 'the future' for ARM devices. Now that time is over. Linaro — a non-profit engineering organization funded by ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments — released a first port of Ubuntu Unity 3D experience and Compiz. If you have a pandaboard, go ahead, download, install the Linaro 11.06 LEB/Ubuntu images and try it out! It's just a few minutes away."

An anonymous reader writes "Now that the big Linux kernel power regression has been solved it looks like Ubuntu 11.04 can compete with Microsoft Windows 7 in terms of overall power usage. New tests revealed by Phoronix show the power consumption of Ubuntu 11.04 vs. Windows 7 operating systems. On a range of different systems, the power consumption of the Linux OS was comparable to that of Windows except for a few select workloads and systems."

dartttt writes "Robert Pelloni and his team are working to develop an indie handheld gaming console, the 'nD,' which will run a number of indie games. The device will support 2D games only, and will run a custom-developed, embedded Linux firmware. It will have its own Game Store, which will allow users to download games. The SDK will be released soon, and is based on open source gaming standard SDL. Developers are being told that they can actually start making and compiling games on Windows, Mac and Linux using a 320x240 resolution."

An anonymous reader writes "For the Linux kernel power regressions that were found a few months ago, and hit in Ubuntu 11.04, Phoronix has found the regression that's still present in the Linux 3.0 kernel. The power regression is caused by a change in ASPM, the Active-State Power Management, for PCI Express support."

dkd903 writes "KDE 4.7 is almost here and brings along with it a number of features and performance improvements such as a better Dolphin with a faster file search, ability of KWin to run on Mobile devices, Grub2 integration in KDM and offline search support in the KDE virtual globe, Marble." Here's KDE's own announcement of the release candidate; the final release is planned for July 27. Reader jrepin quotes the KDE announcement: "With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing last-minute showstopper bugs and finishing translation and documentation that comes along with the releases."

sfcrazy writes "While we were thinking that the announcement of 3.x branch was nothing more than Linus' mood swing, it seems there is more to it. Linus wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, '3.0 will still be noticeably faster than 2.6.39 due to the other changes made (ie the read-ahead), so yes, the regression itself is fixed.'"

itwbennett writes "Netbooks died the death of a thousand cuts and there were conspirators aplenty with motive, weapons and opportunity. Was the unpopularity of Linux to blame? What about Microsoft and its efforts to kill XP? Ever smarter smartphones certainly played a role, as did the rise of the App Store, and lighter full-featured notebooks. Or maybe it was just that the American consumer wasn't going to be satisfied with technology designed for third-world use. 'In late 2005, the only computer found for $100 was stolen, was dead, or was ancient enough to require Windows 95. A real and functional computer for $100 was a dream, but also made people wonder what sacrifices might need to be made to offer such a comparatively inexpensive machine,' writes Tom Henderson, in an in-depth look at what contributed to the netbook's demise." Before solving the murder mystery, it's worth considering whether the netbook is actually dead.

An anonymous reader links to a story at Techie Buzz according to which (quoting): "When Canonical started developing the Ubuntu Software Center, I knew that a time will come when it will completely replace Synaptic. The Software Center is a noob-friendly replacement for Synaptic where users can discover new applications more easily. Unexpectedly, Canonical has decided that it is time for the Software Center to replace Synaptic as well. So, in the next daily build of Ubuntu 11.10, Synaptic will no longer be installed by default. The Ubuntu Software Center still lacks many important features that are present in Synaptic."

An anonymous reader writes "There's been a lot of talk recently about $0.99 Kindle eBooks, after publishers were accused of spamming the market with low-quality titles. Author Keir Thomas published two $0.99 computing books in March and has some figures for those who might want to have a go, as part of his Adventures in Publishing series of blog postings. Thomas says he loves the democratic nature of the Kindle Direct Publishing system, and points out one of his self-published books tops Amazon's Linux charts, besting titles by all the major publishers."

An anonymous reader writes with news that Nokia has unveiled its first MeeGo-powered smartphone, the N9. "[T]he smartphone doesn't have any buttons on the front, with only the volume controls and a lock button located on the right side of the device. ... The performance of the prototype device felt very snappy, and it looks almost ready for retail. As a MeeGo device, the N9 will be running apps based on the Qt platform." The Washington Post calls it "the platform that could have been," referring to Nokia's decision to make the transition to Windows Phone for future devices. Others are impressed with the device, but see it as either a dead end or just another distraction to Nokia's long-term plans.

arglebargle_xiv writes "In a sign that many eyes don't really make (security) bugs shallow, a thirteen-year-old password-hashing bug that affects (at least) PHP, some Linux distros (Owl, ALT Linux, SUSE), and a variety of other apps has just been patched. This problem had been present in widely-used code since 1998 without anyone noticing it." Better late than never; reader Trailrunner7 points to this article outlining the dangers of old exploits, given old code for them to toy with.

jfruhlinger writes "Power-efficient ARM processors are moving up the food chain, to the extent that even Windows will soon see an ARM port. Linux, which has long been cross-platform, should have a long head start in this niche, right? Well, blogger Brian Proffitt explains just how messy the state of Linux support for ARM is right now, partially as a result of mutually conflicting kernel hacks from ARM manufacturers who just wanted to get their products out the door and weren't necessarily abiding by the GPL obligations to release code. Things are improving now, not least because Linus is taking a personal hand in things, but sorting the mess out will take time."