Nokia N950 Running Plasma Active on Mer

KDE 6 Comments
MeeGo community member Vgrade. who is involved with the Mer Core project, describes his experiences with adapting Plasma Active for ARM architecture and running in on top of Mer. Even though Plasma Active One is targeted for tablets, it runs as a usable UX on a Nokia N950 handset. Mer itself is an open, inclusive, meritocratically governed and openly developed Linux core, providing a mobile-optimised base distribution for use by device manufacturers. The Plasma Active team plans to focus on a handset UI in Plasma Active Three, which is scheduled for summer 2012.
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Released (For Some)

Games 6 Comments
This is massively off-topic since we barely cover the video game industry on OSNews, but in select cases, I'm willing to make exceptions. I just got home from picking up my pre-order copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition (Xbox 360), and just want to gloat a little bit for all the peasants among us that won't get it until Thursday or Friday. You can imagine OSNews will be shutting down for the coming, oh, seven months or so.
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In Favor Of FreeBSD On The Desktop

BSD & Darwin 69 Comments
Deep End's Paul Venezia wonders why more folks aren't using FreeBSD on the desktop. 'There used to be a saying -- at least I've said it many times -- that my workstations run Linux, my servers run FreeBSD. Sure, it's quicker to build a Linux box, do a "yum install x y z" and toss it out into the wild as a fully functional server, but the extra time required to really get a FreeBSD box tuned will come back in spades through performance and stability metrics. You'll get more out of the hardware, be that virtual or physical, than you will on a generic Linux binary installation.'
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Simplicity vs. Customizability in Desktop Design

Graphics 78 Comments
In the commercial software world, user interfaces are generally designed by one group. Like Microsoft for Windows or Apple for Mac OS. Those desktop environments were designed by one company who did things like user testing and statistical analysis to try and make the desktop they thought would work best. Linux is different. Large groups definitely DO perform user testing and statistical analysis, but one group can also say "Here's what we want" and, if they have the ability to code it, their idea comes into being. It's pretty amazing, when you think about it. Linux lets people create what they want. If you don't like what's out there, fork it! Or start from scratch! You're in control!
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German Court Grants Motorola Injunction Against Apple

Legal 99 Comments
Why oh why does big news always break when I'm already in bed? This is a big one, guys: Motorola has been granted an injunction in Germany against Apple, which, as far as we can tell right now, covers Apple's entire portfolio of mobile products. Motorola can enforce this injunction, barring all of Apple's mobile products from the German market. In addition, Apple has to pay Motorola damages from 2003 and onwards. Update: Apple has responded (see Engadget article linked to above): "This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time." At this time huh? Huh.
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Google Mulls Divorcing Chamber of Commerce over PROTECT IP

Google 16 Comments
"Google is considering ditching the U.S. Chamber of Commerce out of frustration with its support for legislation that would force Internet companies to police websites that peddle pirated movies and fake Viagra. The rumblings of a defection - a potentially serious blow to one of Washington's most powerful lobbies - come weeks after Yahoo left the Chamber in October, largely over its support of Sen. Patrick Leahy's online piracy bill, the PROTECT IP Act." What, the US Chamber of Commerce is a front for the pharmaceutical and content industries? I'm shocked.
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Linux Mint 12 Builds Custom Desktop on Top of GNOME 3

  Submitted by Dart Linux 63 Comments
When GNOME did its version 3 and Ubuntu came up with Unity, the popularity of Linux Mint sky-rocketed, because they stuck with GNOME 2.32. The Mint team has been working on their next version for a while now, and today, they first unveiled what they're working on. There's good news - the team is working on making GNOME 3 likeable. Their question for this release: "How do we make people like Gnome 3? And what do we provide as an alternative to those who still do not want to change?"
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European Commission Investigating Apple, Samsung Over Patents

Legal 46 Comments
This is probably not entirely surprising. The European Commission has announced that it is investigating both Apple and Samsung because they may have breached antitrust rules with regard to patents used as standard in the mobile phone industry - otherwise known as FRAND patents. While the EC states it's investigating both Samsung and Apple, it's likely the investigation focusses on Samsung.
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Why Eucalyptus Will Win Out Vs. OpenStack

Web 2.0 8 Comments
Open source history suggests vendor-backed Eucalyptus will ultimately win out over the foundation-based Open Stack as the open source cloud platform of choice for IT going forward. 'History has shown that when an open source project is dealing with a valuable layer of the software stack, that project has tended to be controlled by a single vendor that can directly make money from the project,' Rodrigues writes. 'History also shows that when an open source project is dealing with a commodity layer of the software stack, the project tends to be controlled by a foundation.' The question then boils down to whether cloud platforms are indeed a valuable layer, and thus directly monetizable, as Red Hat proved with Linux, or are they a commodity layer, like Apache HTTP Server or Eclipse. Ultimately, Rodrigues believes that the private cloud will prove to be a valuable component of the IT stack, thereby favoring Eucalyptus' AWS-based private cloud platform.
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SunSolve Resurrected Independent of Oracle

Solaris 12 Comments
If you have ever administered Sun machines, updates were a big part of your work. In the past, information about them were available on SunSolve, the Sun support website, to help sysadmins sort everything out. SunSolve has been decomissioned by Oracle and its replacement hasn't received a warm welcome from the Solaris community due in large part to technologies used (Flash,...). We Sun Solve was created to avoid this problem.
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Dell, HP Respond to Secure Boot Issue

  Submitted by lucas_maximus Hardware 127 Comments
A big issue right now in the world of operating systems - especially Linux - is Microsoft's requirement that all Windows 8 machines ship with UEFI's secure boot enabled, with no requirement that OEMs implement it so users can turn it off. This has caused some concern in the Linux world, and considering Microsoft's past and current business practices and the incompetence of OEMs, that's not unwarranted. CNet's Ed Bott decided to pose the issue to OEMs. Dell stated is has plans to include the option to turn secure boot off, while HP was a bit more vague about the issue.
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Tough Tests Flunk Good Programmer Job Candidates

General Development 54 Comments
Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses the use of quizzes and brain-teasers in evaluating potential software development hires, a practice that seems to be on the rise. 'The company best known for this is Google. Past applicants tell tales of a head-spinning battery of coding problems, riddles, and brain teasers, many of which seem only tangential to the task of software development. Other large companies have similar practices -- Facebook and Microsoft being two examples,' McAllister writes. 'You'll need to assess an applicant's skill in one way or another, but it's also possible to take the whole interview-testing concept too far. Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind when crafting your test questions, to avoid slamming the door on candidates unnecessarily.'
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Extending Native Features To HTML5 Web Apps

General Development 9 Comments
A small company called AppMobi is enabling developers to create HTML5 apps that tap into native hardware and OS capabilities of mobile devices, such as gravity sensing, accelerometer, GPS, camera, sound and vibration, and the file system, InfoWorld reports. 'Its MobiUs browser for iOS implements HTML5's DirectCanvas API for gaming, as well as the HTML5 local storage API for saving executables and data in the browser cache so that apps can run offline. But what makes MobiUs more than just yet another browser is the set of libraries AppMobi provides app developers to access native hardware and enable push messaging from Web apps.'
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