pacopico writes: In a typically blunt interview, Linus Torvalds has said for the first time that if he were to die, Linux could safely continue on its own. Bloomberg has the report, which includes a video with Torvalds at his home office. Torvalds insists that people like Greg Kroah-Hartman have taken over huge parts of the day-to-day work maintaining Linux and that they've built up enough trust to be respected. This all comes as Torvalds has been irking more and more people with his aggressive attitude. The line between "blunt" and "aggressive" is one that you probably get to skirt a lot, when you (in the words of the Bloomberg reporter) "may be the most influential individual economic force of the past 20 years."

New submitter Ben Dibell writes: My name is Subsentient. I maintain the Epoch Init System, a single-threaded init system for Linux designed to be easy to configure and customize, as well as staying out of your way.
Epoch uses a numeric priority system to determine the boot order of objects, supports a wide range of customizability, and doesn't require much anything except libc and /bin/sh (though /bin/sh can be omitted, not recommended). Epoch also features advanced service status reporting features and has service supervision.

I'm just here to ask the Slashdot community what they'd like to see in the next release, 1.3.0 "Fluoxetine", before I wrap it up.

There are generally 2 things I can't consider:
* Parallel service startup, because that can be done manually, and implementing it would make Epoch too complex IMHO.
* Switching away from the numeric priority system to "true" dependencies. I implemented the priority system because I liked the freedom it gives the end user.

Despite these omissions, your feedback matters to me. I want to make something everyone will want to use.

-Subsentient

New submitter houstonbofh writes: When the m0n0wall project ended back in February, many people just did not want to lose their small and lean firewall. And now, one of the forks, SmallWall, has released it's first non-beta release. It has some small improvements to the GUI, and now has added L2TP support. The announcement with the changes can be found here. Also, a partnership with MIXTPC was announced, allowing firewalls with SmallWall preloaded to be purchased. Their web store is here.

DeviceGuru writes: The results from the 2015 Hacker SBC Survey cohosted by LinuxGizmos.com and the Linux Foundation's Linux.com community site have just been announced and, not surprisingly, RPi won two of the top three slots. With 1721 voting in the survey, the ten most popular single board computers turned out to be the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, Beaglebone Black, Raspberry Pi Model B+, Odroid-C1, DragonBoard 410c, Odroid-XU3, Parallella, Arduino TRE, Edison Kit for Arduino, and Odroid-U3. The report includes scores for all 53 SBCs that were listed in the susrvey, along with data on feature preferences, targeted applications, and the nature of participants' use of [SBCs], and more.

prisoninmate writes: The Debian Project has announced the immediate availability of the first maintenance release of Debian GNU/Linux 8 (Jessie). As expected, Debian GNU/Linux 8.1 comes with a new Linux kernel, version 3.16.7-ctk11, which fixes the well-known EXT4 data corruption issue caused by delayed and unwritten extents, blacklists queued TRIM on Samsung 850 Pro SSDs, adds support for XHCI on APM Mustang USB, and updates Crucial/Micron blacklist in libata.

Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin doesn't use the phrase 'world domination' in these videos, but he could. He lists enough computing niches where GNU/Linux is the major player -- from supercomputers to the next generation of automotive systems -- that with or without world domination, Linux has obviously become an extremely important, widely used operating system that has grown amazingly since Linus Torvalds first shared his humble kernel with the world in 1991. With great popularity has come a great need for people who know how to administer and otherwise work with Linux, so the Linux Foundation is developing new courses in tandem with massive open online course (MOOC) provider edX. Unlike some of the Linux Foundation's previous course offerings, their edX ones are free to audit, and the cost for certification (if you want a cred, not just knowledge) is lower than many IT certification tests and certificates.

These videos (both visible today) were made remotely, with Timothy Lord at one end in Austin, TX, and Jim Zemlin at the other end in Tokyo, Japan. Their sound quality suffers from the distance involved, but they are generally intelligible -- and, of course, you can always choose to read the transcript instead of watching the videos.

New submitter prisoninmate writes: The Linux Foundation's LinuxLTSI (Long-Term Support Initiative) group has confirmed on Twitter that the next LTS version of the Linux kernel will be 4.1. The information has also been confirmed by Greg Kroah-Hartman, a renowned kernel developer who is currently maintaining several kernel branches, including a few LTS ones. When Linux kernel 4.1 is released, it will become the LTS version of 2015 and the most advanced long-term support release. This is significant because the LTSI releases are (or will be) everywhere, in a "Linux is everywhere" sense. As the initiative's page puts it, "The LTSI tree is expected to be a usable base for the majority of embedded systems, as well as the base for ecosystem players (e.g., semiconductor vendors, set-vendors, software component vendors, distributors, and system/application framework providers). ... The goal is to reduce the number of private trees currently in use in the CE industry and encourage more collaboration and sharing of development resources."

jones_supa writes: The Linux Mint team has just announced that Cinnamon 2.6 desktop environment is considered stable and ready to download. It is a big update. The load times have been greatly improved and unnecessary calculations in the window management part are dropped, leading to a 40% reduction in the number of CPU wakes per second. Other improvements include a screensaver that does more than just lock the screen, panels that can be removed or added individually, a much better System Settings panel that should make things much clearer, a cool new effect for windows, and a brand new plugin manager for Nemo. Linux Mint users will receive the new Cinnamon as an update by the end of the month.

Julie188 writes: As you probably heard by now, Linux company Mandriva has finally, officially gone out of business. The CEO has opened up, telling his side of the story. He blames employee lawsuits after a layoff in 2013, the French labor laws and the courts. "Those court decisions forced the company to announce bankruptcy," he said.

DeviceGuru writes: Freescale has announced three new versions of its popular i.MX6 SoCs, including new DualPlus and QuadPlus parts featuring enhanced GPUs and expanded memory support, and a new low-end, IoT focused 528MHz UltraLite SoC that integrates a more power-efficient, single-core ARM Cortex-A7 architecture. The UltraLite, which will be available in a tiny 9x9mm package, is claimed by Freescale to be the smallest and most energy-efficient ARM based SoC. It has a stripped-down WXGA interface but adds new security, tamper detection, and power management features. All the new Freescale i.MX6 SoCs are supported with Linux BSPs and evaluation kits.

ectoman writes: Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst has just published The Open Organization, a book that chronicles his tenure as leader of the world's largest open source company. The book aims to show other business leaders how open source principles like transparency, authenticity, access, and openness can enhance their organizations. It's also filled with information about daily life inside Red Hat. Whitehurst joined Red Hat in 2008 after leaving Delta Airlines, and he says his time working in open source has changed him. "I thought I knew what it took to manage people and get work done," he writes in The Open Organization. "But the techniques I had learned, the traditional beliefs I held for management and how people are taught to run companies and lead organizations, were to be challenged when I entered the world of Red Hat and open source." All proceeds from the book benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Opensource.com is hosting free book club materials.

An anonymous reader writes: After struggling for the past several years, Mandriva has finally gone out of business, and is in the process of being liquidated. The company was responsible for Mandriva Linux, itself a combination of Mandrake Linux and Conectiva Linux. When Mandriva fell upon hard times, many of the distro's developers migrated to Mageia Linux, which is still going strong and just putting the final touches on its next major version (5).

An anonymous reader writes: Security firm ESET has published a report on new malware that targets Linux-based communication devices (modems, routers, and other internet-connected systems) to create a giant proxy network for manipulating social media. It's also capable of hijacking DNS settings. The people controlling the system use it for selling "follows," "likes," and so forth on social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Facebook, and Google+. Affected router manufacturers include: Actiontec, Hik Vision, Netgear, Synology, TP-Link, ZyXEL, and Zhone. The researchers found that even some medical devices were vulnerable to the worm, though it wasn't designed specifically to work with them.

New submitter JoSch1337 writes: After a year and a half of development, the Neo900 project now opened its web shop for the down payments of binding pre-orders for either a full Neo900 phone or the bare circuit board to upgrade an existing Nokia N900. The up-front down payment is necessary to now secure expensive "risk parts" like the modem, 1GB RAM and N900 cases. Thus, without pre-ordering now, there might not be enough parts left after the first batch.

The Neo900 is the spritual successor of the Nokia N900. The new circuit board can be placed into an existing N900 for better specs (faster CPU, more RAM, LTE modem) than the original device while still maintaining fremantle (maemo 5) backwards compatibility. Alternatively, a fully assembled phone can be purchased as well. The Neo900 will be fully operational without any binary blob running on the main CPU. While the modem still requires a non-free firmware, it is completely decoupled from the rest of the device (think of a LTE usb stick you put in your laptop) and can reliably be monitored or switched off by the operating system.

You can follow the development of the project in the maemo forum, read about the specs of the device or consult the FAQ

An anonymous reader writes: For the past few days kernel developers and Linux users have been investigating an EXT4 file-system corruption issue affecting the latest stable kernel series (Linux 4.0) and the current development code (Linux 4.1). It turns out that Linux users running the EXT4 file-system on a RAID0 configuration can easily destroy their file-system with this newest "stable" kernel. The cause and fix have materialized but it hasn't yet worked its way out into the mainline kernel, thus users should be warned before quickly upgrading to the new kernel on systems with EXT4 and RAID0.

DeviceGuru writes: LinuxGizmos and Linux.com have just launched their annual 2-minute survey asking folks to rate their favorite hacker SBCs from a list of 53 single board computers that are priced below $200, supported by open documentation and Linux or Android OSes, and will ship before July. As usual, the survey's data will be made available publicly, but one big change this year is that participants can register for a random drawing that will give away 20 hacker SBCs, split equally among the BeagleBone Black, Imagination Creator CI20, Intel Edison Kit for Arduino, and Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c. (Emails submitted will only be used for selecting and notifying SBC drawing winners, say the sites.)

Mark Wilson writes: Chinese firm Huawei today announces its IoT OS at an event in Beijing. The company predicts that within a decade there will be 100 billion connected devices and it is keen for its ultra-lightweight operating system to be at the heart of the infrastructure. Based on Linux, LiteOS weighs in at a mere 10KB — smaller than a Word document — but manages to pack in support for zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking. The operating system will be open for developers to tinker with, and is destined for use in smart homes, wearables, and connected vehicles. LiteOS will run on Huawei's newly announced Agile Network 3.0 Architecture and the company hopes that by promoting a standard infrastructure, it will be able to push the development of internet and IoT applications

sfcrazy writes: Jos Poortliet, former openSUSE community manager, wrote in a blog post, "At the time of writing this, the openQA servers were busily running tests and, by the time we publish this article, they should be done. What was being tested? A massive amount of changes, bringing not only the latest Plasma 5.3 and Applications 15.04.1 to Tumbleweed, but also marking the switch to Plasma 5 as the default desktop!" The switch to P5 will also have a massive impact in Plasma 5 development because now there will be more users finding bugs and filing reports to make it even better.

DeviceGuru writes: Arduino announced a smaller, cheaper Arduino Yun Mini version of the Arduino Yun SBC at the Bay Area Maker Faire [Friday]. The $60 Arduino Yun Mini SBC sacrifices a number of interfaces in order to reduce size, and gives the OpenWRT Linux based Linino distribution, which is also used by the original Yun, more control over the board's functions. Arduino also announced a new community web portal called my.arduino.org, plus an open source Arduino IDE-alpha development system that is entirely based on JavaScript, which will be available there by the end of the month.

jones_supa writes: After Debian adopted systemd, many other Linux distributions based on that operating system made the switch as well. Ubuntu has already rolled out systemd in 15.04, but Linux Mint is providing dual options for users. The Ubuntu transition was surprisingly painless, and no one really put up a fight, but the Linux Mint team chose the middle ground. The Mint developers consider that the project needs to still wait for systemd to become more stable and mature, before it will be the default and only option.