nukem996 writes "AMD has just announced that they will be supporting Coreboot (previously LinuxBIOS) on all upcoming processors." That means a flexible Free software BIOS replacement with a nice list of benefits.

neokushan writes "Sony has been in the news a lot lately — from the PSN downtime and the identity theft issue that came with it, to the numerous court cases launched to try and quell the PS3 hacking scene. It may come as a surprise to many, then, that Sony's mobile smartphone division has taken an almost polar-opposite approach — they're actively encouraging developers to create, modify and install customized Linux kernels into their latest lineup of phones, including the Xperia Play, the device that was once known as the 'PlayStation Phone.'"

dvdkhlng writes "The Ben NanoNote open-source hand-held computer has often been criticized for not being very extensible hardware-wise. A community effort now starts to challenge this by shipping the so-called UBB board, which plugs into the micro-SD port, making 6 I/O lines available to hardware hackers. The most impressive use so far is this VGA port implemented by just a few resistors, with signal-generation mostly controlled by software. The guy who did this calls it an 'unexpected capability.' Schematics and source code are available under the GPL."

Zubinix writes "I have a background in doing automation in a Unix/Linux environment using scripting languages such as perl and bash shell, as well as ssh for remote scripting. My next project will be in the Windows environment so what approach and methodology is best for developing, say, the automation required for a test system? I don't want to use things like Cygwin, as I need to integrate with Windows applications such as Exchange and Sharepoint. Is there a list of should and should not dos when it comes to Windows automation?"

An anonymous reader writes "Until today, GPGPU computing was a userspace privilege because of NVIDIA's closed-source policy and AMD's semi-open state. KGPU is a workaround to enable Linux kernel functionality written in CUDA. Instead of figuring out GPU specs via reverse-engineering, it simply uses a userspace helper to do CUDA-related work for kernelspace requesters. A demo in its current source repository is a modified eCryptfs, which is an encrypted filesystem used by Ubuntu and other distributions. With the accelerated performance of a GPU AES cipher in the Linux kernel, eCryptfs can get a 3x uncached read speedup and near 4x write speedup on an Intel X25-M 80G SSD. However, both the GPU cipher-based eCryptfs and the CPU cipher-based one are changed to use ECB cipher mode for parallelism. A CTR, counter mode, cipher may be much more secure, although the real vanilla eCryptfs uses CBC mode. Anyway, GPU vendors should think about opening their drivers and computing libraries, or at least providing a mechanism to make it easy to do GPU computing inside an OS kernel, given the fact that GPUs are so widely deployed and the potential future of heterogeneous operating systems."

jrepin writes "KDE has released a series of updates to the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Applications and the KDE Frameworks. This update is the second in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.6 series. 4.6.3 brings many bugfixes and translation updates."

KPexEA writes with this excerpt from geek.com: "[Game developer David] Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into an HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port, giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25. The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0, allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. ... We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it's plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain."

jbrodkin writes "Although Red Hat fights patent lawsuits when it deems it necessary, CEO Jim Whitehurst says it's often just better to pay the trolls to make them go away. 'When it's so little money, at some point, bluntly, it's better to settle than fight these things out,' Whitehurst said. Red Hat has been forced to pay out claims to the likes of FireStar Software and Acacia, and Whitehurst indicated Red Hat has paid off various other companies behind closed doors. 'Some of them are [public] but we often seal them in settlement,' he said."

Radium_ writes "Along with the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Linux kernel, Linuxfr — a French-language Linux website — published an interview with Linus Torvalds. [Interview in English.] The creator of Linux answers questions about Linux kernel licensing, his contributions to the kernel development model and Linux in 2031."

An anonymous reader writes "Gitbrew has proudly released otherOS++ Linux Dual Boot v1.0b1, enabling PS3 users to install an alternative OS to their console with full access to all system hardware, including all 8 CELL cores (making the PS3 the world's most affordable supercomputer). For more information check out the installation instructions and source code."

Barence writes "Canonical's decision to impose the new Unity interface on Ubuntu 11.04 users appears to have split the Linux distro's users, according to PC Pro. Features such as a moving Launcher bar and invisible scrollbars have angered many users, with one claiming that 'Ubuntu is doing a great job throwing away years of UI experience.' The rush to meet the six-monthly release schedule also appears to have harmed the release, with many users reporting graphical glitches with the new user interface."

An anonymous reader writes "One of Australia's largest government technology buyers, the Tasmanian Department of Education, has gone to market for a security vendor to supply anti-virus software for its 40,000-odd desktop PCs and laptops, as well as servers. But the department's not just running Windows — it runs Mac OS X and Linux as well, and has requested that whatever solution it buys must be able to run on those platforms as well. But have we reached the stage were Mac OS X and Linux even need third-party security software? It seems like most Mac and Linux users don't run it."

An anonymous reader writes "US Patent #5,893,120 has been reduced to mathematical formulae as a demonstration of the oft-ignored fact that there is an equivalence relation between programs and mathematics. You may recognize Patent #5,893,210 as the one over which Google was ordered to pay $5M for infringing due to some code in Linux. It should be interesting to see how legal fiction will deal with this. Will Lambda calculus no longer be 'math'? Or will they just decide to fix the inconsistency and make mathematics patentable?"

dmbkiwi writes "For a long time I've been a big fan of Kdenlive. I've written two articles about it. One is a general overview of video editing on Linux and the other is more specific to Kdenlive. For a number of years, video editing on Linux – at least at a consumer level — has been patchy at best. This is somewhat ironic given the heavy use of Linux in major Hollywood blockbuster film production. However, with the advent of Kdenlive, things are looking pretty good and with the release of version 0.8, there have been some great features added for the more advanced users, while still retaining a simple and easy to use UI."

dkd903 writes "Mozilla's Mike Hommey has announced on his blog that his team at Mozilla has finally managed to get the Linux builds of Firefox to use GCC 4.5 with aggressive optimization and profile guided optimization enabled. All this simply means that we can now expect a faster and less sluggish Firefox browser on Linux (both 32 bit and 64 bit systems)."

An anonymous reader writes "The 32-bit OpenRISC CPU has been available for many FPGAs and was turned into a commercial ASIC in 2003. Now, the OpenCores community is asking for donations to create a new ASIC with the OpenRISC CPU, ethernet, PCI, UART, USB and other peripherals. The goal is to be able to sell these ASICs at a low price to anyone who wants to build a cheap embedded system built completely on open source. The OpenRISC currently runs on Linux 2.6.37 and has ports of gcc 4.5.1 among other things."

ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine is proposing big companies like Cisco and Sony consider 'open sourcing' their failed or discontinued products. The list includes Sony's AIBO and QRIO robots, IBM's Deep Blue chess computer, Ricochet Wireless, Potenco's Pull-Cord Generator, Palm, Microsoft's SPOT Watch, CISCO Flip Camera and more. MAKE is also encouraging everyone to post about what products they'd like to see open sourced."

Approximately one billion Slashdot readers wrote in to tell us today that one of two distributions had releases: the new Ubuntu sports the Unity interface, marking a 'radical departure' from its UI of old. Now the more ancient and bearded amongst you might be interested in Patrick announcing the latest Slackware release which clearly has the most 1337 version number to date.

jfruhlinger writes "Linux proponents used to proclaim that the era of Linux on the desktop was just around the corner. That may never come to pass, but there are still occasional wins. For instance, a German insurance giant will be moving 10,000 employees to Linux-based desktop and laptop machines."

x*yy*x writes "According to Consumer Board in Finland, Sony should pay up 100 euros to a console owner for OtherOS removal. The board said that the removal of OtherOS crippled console features that were present at the time of purchase and agreed that consumers should be compensated. Sony tried to point out that the user agreed to the PS3 EULA, but the consumer board noted that such agreements can't go around consumer laws."