FreeBSD on ARM closer to reality

FreeBSD 1 Comment
Want to run FreeBSD on your Raspberry Pi or other ARM-based device? You're not far away from being able to do so. The folks over at the FreeBSD Developers Notebook report huge gains made in running FreeBSD on ARM v6 processors. They've got builds prepared for the Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, and several others, though support isn't yet total. What can you do with it? Lots of stuff, like running the Go programming language on it like Dave Cheney. Cool!
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Celebrating 25 years of Perl

General Development 12 Comments
Doesn't matter which OS you're running, somewhere in there, your system depends on Perl to get stuff done. Perl turned 25 years old on December 19th. Though venerable old version 5 remains the most popular, many have moved onto Perl 6, which intentionally broke compatibility and still isn't officially 'production ready.' I can't imagine administering a system without Perl though, so tonight I'm raising a glass of champagne in the direction of founder and creator Larry Wall.
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Ode to Skulpture

KDE 50 Comments
I tend to believe that the best interfaces have already been made. Behaviourally, CDE is the best and most consistent interface ever made. It looked like ass, but it always did exactly as you told it to, and it never did anything unexpected. When it comes to looks, however, the gold standard comes from an entirely different corner - Apple's Platinum and QNX' PhotonUI. Between all the transparency, flat-because-it's-hip, and stitched leather violence of the past few years, one specific KDE theme stood alone in bringing the best of '90s UI design into the 21st century, and updating it to give everything else a run for its money. This is an ode to Christoph Feck's Skulpture.
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Quick Guide to Fixing Hardware

Hardware 34 Comments
Last month, I explained why I use generic desktops and laptops running open source software. They're reliable and inexpensive. But this presumes you can fix them. I believe that even those with no hardware training (like me), can identify and fix most hardware problems. To prove it, here's a quick guide. Feel free to add whatever I've missed.
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Whonix, the anonymous operating system

OS News 15 Comments
"Whonix is an anonymous general purpose operating system based on Virtual Box, Debian GNU/Linux and Tor. By Whonix design, IP and DNS leaks are impossible. Not even malware with root rights can find out the user's real IP/location. This is because Whonix consists of two (virtual) machines. One machine solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway, which we call Whonix-Gateway. The other machine, which we call Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible."
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Bodhi Linux featuring Enlightment 0.17 coming in January

Linux 11 Comments
With Enlightment 0.17 released, it's no surprise the Linux distribution that uses E17 for its desktop is rushing to release a new version that uses it. Look for Bodhi 2.2.0 in January, featuring the stable E17 desktop. If you've never experienced it, Bodhi is a Ubuntu derivative, and it offers more configurabality than you can imagine. Have you been complaining about Unity and Gnome3 taking away your options? Bodhi and E17 bring them back - and many more, too.
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OpenSUSE board to take on big challenges in 2013

SuSE, openSUSE 5 Comments
The openSUSE community has elected its new board of directors, who will take office in January 2013. Welcome to Raymond Wooninck and Robert Schweikert, who will have a lot of work ahead of them as the board helps navigate openSUSE through some choppy waters. openSUSE remains one of the most popular Linux distros around, but their delayed release of 12.2 in September has led the team to spend the last six months reworking their development process, and both new members are planning to prioritize improvement of openSUSE's communication strategies as well.
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FreeBSD Foundation beats fundraising goal

FreeBSD 20 Comments
It's not exciting to talk about money, but it does often take cash to keep funding the developers that improve code. Congrats to the FreeBSD foundation then, for beating their fundraising goal of $500K by almost 40%. The $690K they raised will go to funding coders, developer conferences, and some limited travel. That bodes well for continued strong support for FreeBSD in general, soon to release version 9.1 (currently at RC3).
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The PlayStation 2 ceases shipping in Japan

Games 26 Comments
"We've joked about its refusal to die before, but today, finally, the console begins its march into the history books. Having sold over 150 million units since its release in 2000, the PlayStation 2 has today ceased shipping to Japanese retailers, meaning once remaining stock is gone, it's gone. The console was first released in Japan on March 4, 2000, and in those twelve years has become - by a longshot - the biggest-selling home video game console of all time." I should play Shadow of the Colossus again.
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China toughens its restrictions on use of the internet

Legal 7 Comments
"The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities." The crazy thing is not that China is tightening its control over the internet. No, the crazy thing is that if it were up to our own politicians, western governments should do the same.
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Windows RT ported to HTC HD2

Windows 31 Comments
The HTC HD2 is probably one of the most enduring mobile phones out there. While it originally shipped with Windows Mobile way back in 2009, it has become one of the most hacker-friendly devices out there, and hackers have managed to port virtually everything to the device - various versions of Android, MeeGo, Ubuntu, and Windows Phone have found their way to the HD2. Russian hacker Cotulla, responsible for many of these ports, has just announced the next big port: Windows RT is now running on the HD2.
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