HTC is working on a mobile operating system for the Chinese market that offers deep hooks into regional services like Weibo, reports the Wall Street Journal. While it’s unclear whether the OS will be built from scratch or, more likely, on top of the open source Android OS, the company reportedly plans to launch the new software before the end of the year.
The rumor reflects the growing importance for China at HTC and within the mobile industry more broadly. According to the WSJ, the company’s Chinese market share grew from 2.6 percent in Q1 of this year to 6 percent in Q2, a massive increase. Likewise, the world’s top PC maker, Lenovo, is now selling more mobile devices than computers, largely on the back of its massive smartphone…
When supporting systems you have inherited or in environments that have many different OS versions and distributions of Linux. There are times when you simply don’t know off hand what OS version or distribution the server you are logged into is.
The open-source Nouveau graphics driver for reverse-engineered NVIDIA hardware support now has initial support for the ARM architecture and as part of that initial enablement for NVIDIA graphics on Tegra SoCs…
A new crowd-funding campaign seeks to produce “the first truly free and fully open-source computer utilizing only non-proprietary hardware and software under the GNU General Public License.”..
During the first day of the latest virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit, there were some brief remarks made concerning the state of the NVIDIA and AMD Catalyst binary drivers in supporting the Mir Display Server for Ubuntu…
Several distributions continue to support some their releases with bug fixes and updates after a set maintenance period. Some call it Long Term Support but the openSUSE folks call it Evergreen. Wolfgang Rosenauer, systems engineer and software developer, yesterday announced “that openSUSE 13.1 will be the next Evergreen release.”
Evergreen is a community project to prolong the life of selected releases of OpenSUSE by providing updates and fixes beyond official support dates. Previous Evergreen releases include versions 11.1, 11.2, and 11.4. 13.1 is due to be officially supported for 18 months until May 2015 and Evergreen postpones its end of life November 2016 or another 18 months.
Android’s persistent fragmentation problem isn’t just a Google problem, but a federal government concern too. A new study issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that Android devices expose US agencies to a significantly greater malware threats in large part because so many devices run outdated versions of the mobile OS. Of the malicious attacks documented in the study, 79 percent took place on an Android device. Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS received just 0.7 percent of the recorded malware threats.
Newspaper’s domain name registrar says someone took over a reseller account on Melbourne IT’s systems to take down New York Times web site. [Read more]
Drop-in replacement for GCC promises better performance
Intel has released the Intel C++ Compiler v13.0 for Android OS, its first attempt at delivering an optimizing C/C++ compiler designed specifically for Google’s mobile platform.…
Along with a great line up of keynote speakers and breakout sessions, LinuxCon and CloudOpen offer a dizzying array of workshops, mini-summits and work sessions this year. How will you make the most of your time in the Big Easy?
To learn more about each of the events on offer I spoke with a variety of projects and organizers about what attendees can expect. Allow me to make your scheduling decisions a bit easier then with this two-part guide to co-located events. Most events are included with your LinuxCon and CloudOpen registration, though some ask you to RSVP or pay a small additional fee.
Part one covers the three Linux Foundation collaborative projects holding day-long events co-located with LinuxCon and CloudOpen on Sept. 16-18 in New Orleans: the Xen Project, OpenDaylight and Tizen. Next week I’ll run through the highlights of the Linux Plumbers Conference; Linux Wireless Summit; Linux Security Summit; UEFI Plug Fest; Enea Hacker Day; and the Gluster Workshop.
Who should attend: Cloud people who want to understand more about SDN (software-defined networking) and what it can do for them.
“There is a need for a strong SDN foundation underneath OpenStack or CloudStack and OpenDaylight is specifically targeting to fill that need,” said Phil Robb, director of network solutions for OpenDaylight at The Linux Foundation.
What to expect: Unlike the recent OpenDaylight hack fest, which was focused on turning out code for the project’s first major release, the mini summit is a high-level discussion intended to get the open cloud platforms and SDN folks working together.
The day has five sessions, including an introduction to the project; a walk through of the features expected in the first release; and a panel to talk about how SDN can connect virtual networks in a cloud environment. See the full list of sessions in this OpenDaylight blog post.
Don’t miss: Brent Salisbury, a network architect at the University of Kentucky. Unrelated to any company in OpenDaylight, he has chosen to create and drive a project for integrating open virtual switch (OVS) into OpenDaylight. He and one of the student leads on that project will speak about using OpenDaylight in production. Yes, even though it’s not released yet.
Who should attend: Anyone interested in learning more about Tizen or contributing to the project.
“We’re bringing this for people who aren’t just familiar with Tizen,” said Thiago Macieira, a software architect at Intel and Tizen platform community manager. “There’s a big audience that’s varied and we want to present what the project is and what it’s trying to do.”
What to expect: Some sessions will be more high level, while others will be technical and geared for developers. Engineers involved in the project will present an introductory architectural overview of Tizen and lead a discussion on Tizen 3.0 open governance. Other sessions will cover issues such as security, and areas targeted for improvement that are seeking contributors.
Don’t miss: Samsung senior manager and engineer Tasneem Brutch will talk about acceleration of web applications via openCL and how that relates to Tizen.
Who should attend: Everyone from Xen beginners to long-time Xen users.
“We are covering a lot of territory for a one-day conference, so there is no doubt in my mind that people will walk away with plenty of good information, regardless of their background,” said Russell Pavlicek, Xen Project Evangelist at Citrix.
What to expect: This is the first of two Xen Project events this year. The September summit in New Orleans will focus on the hypervisor’s users, while developers will be the focus of the LinuxCon Europe summit in Edinburgh in October.
Advisory board members CA Technologies, Calxeda and Citrix will all be involved in presentations, but all other sessions are from the user and wider Linux communities.
“A few talks will touch on the future as well as the current state of things, so people will want to hear that as well,” Pavlicek said.
Don’t miss:Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of the Linux kernel stable branch, is giving an interesting talk on “how using kexec in a paravirtualized user domain, with no changes to the control Domain or Xen itself, can allow you to boot your own kernel, no matter what the hosting provider is forcing you to run,” according to the Xen Project blog post on the event.
Bryan Smith, also a regular OSCON speaker, will give the introductory talk on “Xen for Beginners.”
Several distributions continue to support some their releases with bug fixes and updates after a set maintenance period. Some call it Long Term Support but the openSUSE folks call it Evergreen. Wolfgang Rosenauer, systems engineer and software developer, yesterday 
What to expect: Unlike the recent OpenDaylight hack fest, which was focused on turning out code for the project’s first major release, the mini summit is a high-level discussion intended to get the open cloud platforms and SDN folks working together.
“We’re bringing this for people who aren’t just familiar with Tizen,” said Thiago Macieira, a software architect at Intel and 
What to expect: This is the first of two Xen Project events this year. The September summit in New Orleans will focus on the hypervisor’s users, while developers will be the focus of the LinuxCon Europe summit in Edinburgh in October.