North Korea’s Red Star Linux OS: Made in Apple’s Image?

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January 7, 2015

Red Star OS, the open source operating system from North Korea that is based on Linux and the KDE desktop environment, has started looking more like Apple’s OS X.

CES 2015: Intel Introduces Compute Stick with Atom Quad-Core CPU

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ZDNet

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January 7, 2015

Lost amid the hoopla of Intel’s other CES announcements — the official launch of Broadwell processors, the microscopic Curie wearable PC — the chip giant has also provided details about its forthcoming Compute Stick, a PC-on-a-stick that will ship with either Windows 8.1 or Linux pre-installed.

More than just a media stick like the Amazon Fire TV Stick, the Compute Stick essentially squeezes the power of a tablet into the size of a pack of gum. While it can handle media streaming duties via its HDMI 1.4a port, its other specs let you do much more.

More Fedora 22 Changes Include A New Default Console Font

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Phoronix

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January 7, 2015

There’s more Fedora 22 changes now seeking approval for the first Fedora Linux release of 2015. One of the changes would be changing the default console font to one that better supports some languages along with smiley faces and some other glyphs for the terminal…

3D File-System Browser Revived: Interact With Your Files In 3D

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Phoronix

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January 7, 2015

The old 3D File System Browser “tdfsb” has been revived as a new open-source project under the name 3dfsb and its version 1.0 release just occurred…

CES 2015: AllSeen Alliance to Bring Order to the Internet of Things

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ZDNet

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January 7, 2015

It’s easy to get devices to talk to each other or to the Internet. Managing them, however, is another kettle of fish. AllSeen Alliance just might have open-sourced the answer.

Seagate Debuts Wireless, Seven Storage Drives

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eWeek

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January 7, 2015

Mobile devices connect to Wireless over a WiFi connection, which the battery-powered drive emits once powered on, while the Seven is ultra-svelte.

Samsung Releases Mid-Range Galaxy E5 and E7 with Android KitKat

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ZDNet

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January 7, 2015

Samsung has released a mid-tier duo as part of the Galaxy family, which it hopes will give the company an edge in India’s hot smartphone market.

APT Packaging Management Tool In Detail; Linux

By

Mohd Sohail

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January 7, 2015

APT Packaging Management Tool In Detail; Linux

A package is a ‘Software’. Examples of the package can be the browsers (Google chrome, Mozilla, Safari etc.), utilities package (ccleaner, ASC, BleachBit etc.), designing program (Photoshop, Gimp etc.) and Games (Need for Speed, Call of Duty etc.). The packages/software are compiled and set altogether so that when someone executes them, all the files or scripts start and install the programs on the system. Sometimes the compiled code is provided in which everything is setup, all the files and scripts, only thing user do is execute them. Mostly programs are packaged so that user can easily install it.

That packaged code need to be unpackaged or execute through ‘Package Management Tools’. That’s where newbies have problem/confusion in Linux.

While turning from Windows/Mac to Linux, one of the biggest problems is to understand the packaging management tools in Linux. The first confusion understanding software installation is different types of packaging tools for different Linux distributions and second is in Windows we’ve simply a setup.exe file clicking on which starts the installation. In Linux also we’ve such files to install programs but they get changed in other Linux Distributions.
Although Windows packaging setup.exe has also some problems, like, they are larger in size and some others but I am discussing here about packaging In Linux, APT. So let’s get started.

In this Article I am only heading to APT. To see other packaging Management tools, just see my article How To Install Software In Linux : An Introduction

Introduction to APT

As I mentioned above for different distributions we’ve different packaging management tools and so APT is for the Linux Debian based distributions. APT stands for Advanced Package Tool. In the beginning the .tar.gz (source code) was given that users had to compile them before they install on their GNU/Linux system. When the debian was created then they thought to make change and they designed a packaging management/system called dpkg. Then Red Hat after a while created rpm system. Then there was another challenge to install those packages easily and efficiently on systems with configuring perfectly and manage dependencies automatically. Then Debian created APT, Advanced Packaging Tool, since then has been being used in several other Linux distributions.

It was all needed to know for understanding the basics of the packaging and packaging management tools. Keep in mind the packaging management tools are the tools to execute programs in different ways. Here I’m going to tell you that how you can install/Unpack/configure any software (i.e package) through a widely used tool APT. It’s all done in terminal, don’t get scared it is super easy! And yeh! It can also remove/uninstall, update and upgrade any packages from the system as well. So It’s very featured.

How to use APT to install software : Commands

Each command needs user to be in root or using sudo. Read here more about sudo.

APT Installations commands

apt-get install {package_name}

It will install a new package

apt-get build-dep {package_name}

This command searches the repositories and installs the build dependencies for . If the package is not in the repositories it will return an error.

aptitude install {package_name}

Aptitude is an Ncurses viewer of packages installed or available. Aptitude can be used from the command line in a similar way to apt-get. See man aptitude for more information.

APT and aptitude will accept multiple package names as a space delimited list. For example:

apt-get install {package1_name} {package2_name} {package3_name}

Use the -s flag to simulate an action.”sudo apt-get -s install ” will simulate installing the package showing you what packages will be installed and configured

How to maintain linux: Commands

apt-get update

Run this command periodically to make sure your source list is up-to-date. This is the equivalent of “Reload” in Synaptic or “Fetch updates” in Adept.

apt-get upgrade

This command upgrades all installed packages. This is the equivalent of “Mark all upgrades” in Synaptic.

apt-get dist-upgrade

It tells APT to use “smart” conflict resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary.

apt-get check

This command is a diagnostic tool. It does an update of the package lists and checks for broken dependencies.

apt-get -f install

This command does the same thing as Edit->Fix Broken Packages in Synaptic. Do this if you get complaints about packages with “unmet dependencies”.

apt-get autoclean

The command removes .deb files for packages that are no longer installed on your system. Depending on your installation habits, removing these files from /var/cache/apt/archives may regain a significant amount of diskspace.

apt-get clean

The same as above, except it removes all packages from the package cache. This may not be desirable if you have a slow Internet connection, since it will cause you to redownload any packages you need to install a program.

The package cache is in /var/cache/apt/archives . The command

du -sh /var/cache/apt/archives

will tell you how much space cached packages are consuming.

dpkg-reconfigure {package_name}

Reconfigure the named package. With many packages, youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll be prompted with some configuration questions you may not have known were there.

echo ” hold” | dpkg –set-selections

This command may have the unintended side effect of preventing upgrades to packages that depend on updated versions of the pinned package. apt-get dist-upgrade will override this, but will warn you first. If you want to use this command with sudo, you need to use echo ” hold” | sudo dpkg –set-selections not sudo echo ” hold” | dpkg –set-selections.

echo ” install” | dpkg –set-selections

This command removes the “hold” or “locked package” state set by the above command. The note above about sudo usage applies to this command.

How to remove packages: Commands

apt-get remove {package_name}

This command removes an installed package, leaving configuration files intact.

apt-get purge {package_name}

This command completely removes a package and the associated configuration files. Configuration files residing in ~ are not usually affected by this command.

+ operator

If you want to remove package1 and install package2 in one step:

apt-get remove {package1} {package2}+

This command removes packages that were installed by other packages and are no longer needed.

apt-get autoremove {package_name}

This command removes an installed package and dependencies.

While there is no built in way to remove all of your configuration information from your removed packages you can remove all configuration data from every removed package with the following command.

dpkg -l | grep ‘^rc’ | awk ‘{print $2}’ | xargs dpkg –purge

How to search package in Linux: Commands

apt-cache search {search_term)

This command will find packages that include {search_term}.

dpkg -l *{search_term}*

This will find packages whose names contain {search_term}. Similar to apt-cache search, but also shows whether a package is installed on your system by marking it with ii (installed) and un (not installed).

apt-cache show {package_name}

This command shows the description of package and other relevant information including version, size, dependencies and conflicts.

dpkg –print-avail {package_name}

This command is similar to “apt-cache show”.

dpkg -L {package_name}

This command will list files in package {package_name}.

dpkg -c foo.deb

This command lists files in the package “foo.deb”. Note that foo.deb is a pathname. Use this command on .deb packages that you have manually downloaded.

dlocate {package_name}

This command determines which installed package owns . It shows files from installed packages that match , with the name of the package they came from. Consider this to be a “reverse lookup” utility.

In order to use this command, the package dlocate must be installed on your system.

dpkg -S {package_name}

This command does the same as dlocate, but does not require the installation of any additional packages. It is slower than dlocate but has the advantage of being installed by default on all Debian and Ubuntu systems.

apt-file search {package_name}

This command acts like dlocate and dpkg -S, but searches all available packages. It answers the question, “what package provides this file?”.

apt-file needs to be updated regularly like apt-get. Use the command:

apt-file update

In order to use this command, the package apt-file must be installed on your system.

apt-cache pkgnames

This command provides a listing of every package in the system.

A general note on searching: If searching for a generates a list that is too long, you can filter your results by piping them through the command grep. Examples:

apt-cache search filename | grep -w filename

will show only the files that contain filename as a whole word.

dpkg -L package | grep /usr/bin

will list files located in the directory /usr/bin, useful if you’re looking for a particular executable.

For more information on apt-get, apt-cache and dpkg consult their manual pages by using the man command. These manuals will provide a wider scope of information in addition to all of the options that you can use with each program.

man apt-get

For more Linux Packagement tools go to:
How To Install Software In Linux : An Introduction

CES 2015: The Linux Penguin in Your TV

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ZDNet

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January 7, 2015

Linux fans can happily tell how Linux is the most popular end-user operating system thanks to Android, how Tux the penguin, Linux’s mascot, rules supercomputers, and how even Microsoft loves Linux now because of its power in the cloud. What even they might not know, but has become crystal-clear at CES, is that Linux also now dominates Smart and 4K TV.

One TV manufacturer after another turned on its latest, smartest, biggest 4K TVs at CES: Samsung has a bendable 105-inch TV (no really, it bends); LG has a model that shows just how thin a TV can be; and relative unknown Hisense wants to convince you that projector TVs aren’t dead. I could go on and on but if there’s one thing to know about CES, it’s that this show is all about the biggest and best new TVs.

3 Ways Enterprise IT Will Change in 2015

By

Katherine Noyes

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January 7, 2015

DevOps Survey Infographic Much the way the end of a year invites reflection upon what changed over the preceding 12 months, there’s nothing like the start of a new one for looking ahead and predicting what’s to come. So it is in enterprise IT, where market researchers have been busy studying their proverbial crystal balls for that very purpose.

Late last month, for instance, IDC released not just one but three new prediction-filled reports focusing on three key areas of enterprise technology. Bottom line? Things will look pretty different a year or two from now.

1. More Hybrid Clouds

Much has already been said about the distinct appeal of hybrid clouds for many organizations, and a growing number of those companies are clearly taking heed. In fact, more than 65 percent of enterprise IT organizations will commit to hybrid cloud technologies before 2016, IDC predicts. There will also be an 11 percent shift of IT budget away from traditional in-house IT delivery and towards the cloud as a new delivery model, it says.

“Digitization and transformation to virtualized, on-demand provider-based services are driving very rapid internal IT change,” said Robert Mahowald, program vice president for IDC’s SaaS and cloud software research practice. “IT buyers are shifting steadily toward cloud-also and cloud-first strategies, and nearly all are reconsidering their IT best practices to embrace hybrid cloud construction and operations, secure data management, end-to-end governance, updated IT skills and improved multivendor sourcing.”

On the open source front, a full 20 percent of enterprises are expected to adopt community-driven open source standards and frameworks strategically by 2017. Meanwhile, 35 percent of new applications will use cloud-enabled continuous delivery and DevOps lifecycles for faster rollout of new features and business innovation.

2. DevOps on the Rise

Speaking of DevOps, it’s enjoying growing adoption across both development and operations projects, and IDC predicts that it will be embraced by a full 80 percent of Global 1000 organizations by 2019. Little wonder, either, as the practice has been found to deliver benefits not just for the IT department — that aforementioned faster time to market, for example — but also for the b usiness, such as increased sales and customer conversions.

“We are likely to see the trend and technology continue to spread to more enterprise verticals and to more mainstream organizations,” Jay Lyman, a senior analyst for enterprise software with 451 Research, told Linux.com. “We’ve already seen DevOps technology and methodology extend beyond Web 2.0 and technology companies, and now we’re seeing expansion beyond leading-edge verticals such as financial services, insurance and telecommunications.”

This year, in fact, it will be difficult to find an enterprise vertical where DevOps is *not* having an effect, Lyman predicts: “We see continued signs of the trend happening across healthcare and life sciences, research, manufacturing, shipping, transportation, retail, academia, government, military and defense.”

Of course, it’s going to take some time for DevOps to become truly mainstream, and this year much of what we’ll see will be “divisional, departmental, PoC and test and dev deployments,” Lyman noted. “After all, the technology and process in question here is basically the stuff that companies large and small run their businesses on, so change will be gradual and will involve a mix of new and old technology and process.”

3. Mobile Apps Come Marching In

Last but not least, the rise of mobile enterprise apps is another key trend worth noting. In fact, the number of enterprise applications optimized for mobility will actually quadruple over the course of 2015, IDC predicts. This year, a full 35 percent of large enterprises will leverage mobile application development platforms for apps across their organizations; by 2017, IT organizations will be dedicating at least 25 percent of their software budgets to mobile application development, deployment and management.

And the result of all this activity? Nothing less than a sea change for those involved. “The benefits from efficiencies and business innovation on the back of this app explosion will transform industries and markets,” said John Jackson, IDC’s program vice president for mobility research.