MATE comes to Ubuntu 14.04

If you follow this blog, then you know I wrote an article about MATE back in September.

In that article I mention that the only way to install Mate is to follow some terminal commands to stop apt-get from complaining that the sources aren't safe and to then use apt-get to install Mate.

These steps will no longer be needed as of Ubuntu 14.04 however, because Mate will now be in the repos, meaning these hoops we had to jump through will be a thing of the past.

I personally am glad to hear this, it means that people will be much more likely to try out Mate, being that it will be a piece of cake to install and the sources will be verified as safe.

While I still think XFCE is a better desktop environment, Mate is an excellent option, especially if you want the functionality of old Gnome 2 with the speed of XFCE.

Chromium to loose flash support as of April

Flash content will stop working in Chromium on Linux in April.

But before you panic, there will be options. First of all, Chrome will still work with Flash, just not Chromium.

There will also be the other options, like Firefox.

The reason for the loss of Flash support for Chromium is the "Netscape Plugin API" or  NPAPI for short is used by Adobe's Flash for Linux based browsers.

NPAPI will no longer be supported thanks to a decision by Google.

Google touted security flaws among other reasons for ditching NPAPI.

Chrome doesn't use NPAPI, but instead uses "Pepper Plugin API", or  PPAPI, which will allow Chrome for Linux to continue function where Chromium will fail.

So to recap, as long as you use Chrome or Firefox after April, you will still have Flash support.

For more detailed information on all of this, check out http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/01/chromium-npapi-flash-dropped-april-2014

Overstock.com to except BitCoins

Overstock announced just hours ago that they would be accepting Bitcoin as legal tender for items on their website.

While Bitcoin has been used for years as legal tender in local shops around the U.S. and overseas, Overstock.com is the first major retail sales company to do so.

In case you are wondering what a Bitcoin is, or more correctly what the Bitcoin service is, here is an explanation from Bitcoin.org:

"Bitcoin is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital money. It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. From a user perspective, Bitcoin is pretty much like cash for the Internet. Bitcoin can also be seen as the most prominent triple entry bookkeeping system in existence."

If that was just not clear enough, here is a better visual representation: http://bitcoin.org/en/how-it-works

"Since December, Overstock’s free-thinking CEO and chairman, Patrick Byrne, has been telling anyone who would listen that his company would adopt bitcoin sometime in the next six months." -WIRED

Overstock.com's CEO Patrick Byrne stated "I felt I had tipped my hand" and "I didn't want someone else to beat us."

So today they officially launched the Bitcoin services of their website.

What does this mean for us? Bitcoin is an attempt to make money a global community controlled property. This is a milestone. If Bitcoin succeeds, banks could cease to exist the way they do today.

The money would be centralized, anyone could theoretically open a bank with services then, whether they had the backing of big money or not.

DTRX, The easiest and simplest CLI archive tool for Linux

While the statement "The easiest and simplest CLI archive tool for Linux" is my opinion, I think you will agree with me when you use it yourself.

I harbor no ill will toward "tar — The GNU version of the tar archiving utility", but tar wasn't designed to be super easy/simple, it was designed to be very powerful, and it is.

In defense of tar, it's been around since version 7 of AT&T Unix.

DTRX takes the next step, keeping the power of tar, but making it much simpler and easier.

Here is a great example from http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/:

"$ dtrx linux-3.0.1.tar.bz2
That's basically the same thing as:

$ tar -jxf linux-3.0.1.tar.bz2
But there's more to it than that. You know those really annoying files that don't put everything in a dedicated directory, and have the permissions all wrong?

$ tar -zvxf random-tarball.tar.gz
foo
bar
data/
data/text
$ cd data/
cd: permission denied: data
dtrx takes care of all those problems for you, too:

$ dtrx random-tarball.tar.gz
$ cd random-tarball/data
$ cat text
This all works properly.

dtrx is simple and powerful. Just use the same command for all your archive files, and they'll never frustrate you again."

Features from http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/:

"Handles many archive types: You only need to remember one simple command to extract tar, zip, cpio, deb, rpm, gem, 7z, cab, lzh, rar, gz, bz2, lzma, xz, and many kinds of exe files, including Microsoft Cabinet archives, InstallShield archives, and self-extracting zip files.

If they have any extra compression, like tar.bz2 files, dtrx will take care of that for you, too.

Keeps everything organized: dtrx will make sure that archives are extracted into their own dedicated directories.

Sane permissions: dtrx makes sure you can read and write all the files you just extracted, while leaving the rest of the permissions intact.

Recursive extraction: dtrx can find archives inside the archive and extract those too.
Download

Support for LZH archives."

For me, installation was a breeze. I run Xubuntu 12.04.

I just ran sudo apt-get install dtrx in my terminal emulator. (Like gnome terminal, or terminator.)

You can also install DTRX from the software center or synaptic.

For more information, you guessed it, go to http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/.

Belkin's Linux powered smart crock pot

"We live in an age where more and more devices are being run by operating systems, and are being connected to the internet that can seemingly be found all around us. The latest of such is a Belkin Smart Slow Cooker. As you might have guessed, the Slow Cooker is powered by WeMo, which is based on Linux and powers a multitude of other home based devices. This crock-pot is able to be controlled remotely via the WeMo app for Android or iOS and will be sure to have an edge on other slow cooking challengers. Mums no longer need to stay at home and wait for the cooking to be done. This functionality is huge and will surely make huge strides in 2014." -Muktware

I have been touting the Linux banner for years. When people tell me that they "don't use Linux", I tell them that if they own a car, a watch, a microwave oven or other kitchen appliance, that they do indeed use Linux.

This is just another example of what I am talking about.

Belkin is releasing this at CES 2014 this year:

As you read above, it's got some great features built in thanks to Linux.

That's right, it's a Linux operated crock pot.

So the next time a friend or relative says "Never heard of it" or "never use it", clue them in.

Ubuntu to add torrent search tool

"A new scope set to be included in Ubuntu by default will allow users of The Pirate Bay to conduct BitTorrent searches directly from Unity desktop. The tool’s creator informs TorrentFreak that while there is still work to be done, the aim of the scope – which is endorsed by Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth – is to embed Free Culture directly into the Ubuntu user experience." -TorrentFreak

The name "The Pirate Bay" or "TPB" automatically leads to thoughts of software piracy... especially TPB, because TPB is used to download software for free that isn't free.

The truth of the matter is though that there is a lot of content on TPB that is not pirated, and is legal.

The first example that comes to mind is Linux distributions. Most of your Linux distributions these days are available for torrent download through TPB, and those are 100% legal.

"Only torrent files are saved at the server. That means no copyrighted and/or illegal material are stored by us. It is therefore not possible to hold the people behind The Pirate Bay responsible for the material that is being spread using the tracker. Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site." -The Pirate Bay "About" page

I am not trying to say that this tool can't or won't be used to download pirated material. That would be tantamount to putting a filled cookie jar on the floor of a room filled with three year old children, and then expecting the honor system to work.

However... A lot of material that is legal will also be downloaded using this integrated tool.

Here's a snapshot of the tool in action thanks to TorrenFreak:

One last note...  I download "public domain" stuff from TPB. I would not suggeest using the "all" option in the search. I do this instead:

You will see I made sure the option "porn" is unchecked. The TPB people don't care much what shows up in front of you, and if you find porn as offensive as I do, you will not want to choose "all", you will want to be far more choosy.

By the way, public domain files on the internet, as long as they truly are public domain, are 100% legal to download, use and distribute.

-Denny

FreeBSD 10 to come with major improvements

In case you are not familiar with FreeBSD, it is an operating system for a variety of platforms which focuses on features, speed, and stability. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley.

FreeBSD tends to lag behind the other free operating system releases in hardware support and new technology compatibility.

The FreeBSD team is making some serious strides though in resolving this as of version 10.

Here are the major fixes that are being focused on:

GCC out, Clang in. FreeBSD has been gravitating slowly away from using the GCC, not only because of its antiquated design, but also its GPL licensing, which was at odds with FreeBSD's far more liberal licensing. In place of GCC, FreeBSD now includes Clang/LLVM as its default C/C++ compiler, and FreeBSD has itself been built with LLVM since late 2012 or so.

Support for Hyper-V virtualization. Microsoft, NetApp, and Citrix have contributed code that allows FreeBSD to run well in Microsoft's virtualization solution without the need for additional software. Support for FreeBSD was originally announced by Microsoft back in 2012, but it's now being baked directly into FreeBSD.

EC2 integration. Those running FreeBSD on Amazon EC2 can now use the freebsd-update(8) utility to directly update EC2 images.

Improvements for ARM processors. The upgrades include support for superpages, which allows FreeBSD to work well with ARM hardware intended for servers; and additional support for ARMv7 and v7 processors, plus other system-on-chip designs.

Support for the Raspberry Pi. The explosively popular sub-$50 hobbyist's computer has nominally run Linux, but changes submitted to the FreeBSD code base now allow that OS to run on the Pi with minimal work. -This list provided by Infoworld

This is not all that FreeBSD 10 has to offer in it's upcoming release, these are just the major ones.

FreeBSD is also adding some defense against the NSA's attempt to gather information from it's users.

If you are interested in more information about FreeBSD, or you would like to download the ISO (Image file of the cd/dvd) then check the official FreeBSD page out.