I've been doing some form of systems administration since my freshman year in college (1994) and I've been making my living as only a sys admin since 2000...

In this article just for putting the initial CentOS/SL results into some perspective, I have some initial data from a single Intel Core i7 system running these new releases plus Fedora and Ubuntu Linux. Just as some initial metrics to get started with our benchmarking, from an Intel Core i7 4770K system with 8GB of RAM, 150GB Western Digital VelociRaptor HDD, and Intel HD Graphics 4600, I tested the four Linux distributions. The hardware and its settings were maintained the same during testing.

Originally for this first article I also hoped to test Scientific Linux / CentOS 6.5 too, but after doing the 7.0 tests and trying to boot the 6.5 releases, there was a kernel error preventing the testing from being realized (on initial boot was the i915 DRM error about detecting more than eight display outputs; when booting without DRM/KMS mode-setting support, there would be an agpgart error.) The i915 issue is corrected on future kernel revisions but for this system it was preventing the 6.5 releases from running nicely. From an older, more workstation focused system I will be running the new vs. old CentOS/SL releases.

LXLE has been kicking around for a while now and, for a supposedly lightweight distro, it’s looking fearsomely feature-packed right now. Having said that, it’s hard not to love LXLE, as it’s treading the line between resource efficiency and usability pretty well, and is borderline addictive when it comes to the DE itself. The clue’s in the updated acronym; rather than standing for ‘Lubuntu eXtra Life Extension’, as it did in the days before Lubuntu LTS releases, when LXLE was around to fill that niche using the LXDE desktop environment, it’s now pitched as the ‘LXDE eXtra Luxury Edition’.

Granted, Google has been updating handset issues at a quicker pace – particularly when it comes to security patches, via Play Services –and so far, the telcos have not played spoilers. But remember: Google has not initiated a move to push an entirely new OS directly to users except to those who own Google’s telco independent Nexus brand devices. Keep in mind that there’s a big difference between updating a feature or security patch and producing an entirely new OS. OS updates typically up the Kernel and the radios. It will be interesting (and historical) if the telcos continue to stay out of the way.

This is the first release of a new chapter of Plasma, in which a new release method will be used to celebrate the diverity of the KDE community.
We used to have a 6 months “big release” of all things KDE, called in the beginning just “KDE”, then “KDE SC”, but this release is not that anymore, because KDE grown a lot in the past years, is not just that anymore, and “a single release of everything” scales only so much....

Now that the 3.14 branch of the Linux kernel has been declared LTS (Long Term Support), which means that it will be supported for a few years with patches, updated drivers, and general improvements, a new maintenance version is available for download.

In a message about the release of the 3.14.10-rt7 realtime Linux kernel, Thomas Gleixner reiterated that the funding problems that have plagued realtime Linux (which he raised, again, at last year's Real Time Linux Workshop) have only gotten worse.

Linux kernel 3.4.98 LTS is here to introduce better support for the PowerPC (PPC) computer architecture, several updated wireless, Radeon, ACPI, SCSI, and USB drivers, improvements to the CIFS and NFS filesystems, as well as networking enhancements, especially for Bluetooth and Wireless.

Now that the CentOS 7 Linux kernel-based operating system has been officially released, the time has come to enjoy some screenshots of this beautiful distribution of Linux based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

One feature we are spending quite a bit of effort in around the Workstation is container technologies for the desktop. This has been on the wishlist for quite some time and luckily the pieces for it are now coming together. Thanks to strong collaboration between Red Hat and Docker we have a great baseline to start from. One of the core members of the desktop engineering team, Alex Larsson, has been leading the Docker integration effort inside Red Hat and we are now preparing to build onwards on that work, using the desktop container roadmap created by Lennary Poettering.

The 48th maintenance release of the Linux 3.10 kernel was officially announced last night, July 9, by Greg Kroah-Hartman. This build comes along with the Linux kernels 3.4.98 LTS, 3.14.12 LTS, and 3.15.5, for which we have separate announcements on Softpedia.

Linux Mint (Xfce) has a simple interface and is pretty perky, even on old computers. The installer will install Firefox, the LibreOffice office suite, and a variety of programs for managing e-mail, videos and music; perfect for a backup Internet surfing and word processing computer. The installer will ask if you want to install third-party utilities — choose “yes” for compatibility with websites that use Adobe Flash and other multimedia software. Depending on your computer, the installation should complete in fewer than 30 minutes.

I hate having to wade through these kinds of articles, but it's necessary to answer them lest the perception take root that "Linux is doomed!" and all the usual blather that goes along with such nonsense. Every single time I read one of these articles my eyes roll into the back of my head and various profanities burst from my lips.

The article focuses on the corporate desktop, but as we all know there has been a revolution going on inside companies as people move their focus from desktop computers to mobile devices. And Linux has been a part of that via Android and Chrome OS since the very beginning. And let's not forget that we'll soon have phones and tablets coming from Canonical that run Ubuntu.

The author acknowledges the transition to mobile, but then downplays it and focuses back on Windows on the desktop. Well, if Windows is still the main OS being used on the desktop then who's fault is that exactly? I hardly think that the users can be blamed for that, it's much more likely the IT department that is making those kinds of decisions.

Chrome Remote Desktop is a Chrome (the browser) extension that provides remote access to another desktop. Often suggested as a remote support tool, the technology is also a nice way to access a remote PC on which you left that file you really need to discuss in that meeting starting in ten minutes.

Professor Kannan Moudgalya, IIT Bombay says, “Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) also offers the nation an opportunity to save on precious foreign exchange. It is estimated that proprietary software purchases cost our nation of the order of a billion dollars per year, most of which goes to buy basic software like MS Windows and MS Office. This can easily be saved by switching over to Linux and a FOSS office suite, such as LibreOffice. In general, FOSS based software development keeps the cost low for the developer and the end user and this is most appropriate for our IT entrepreneurs, whose main investment is the idea and the time spent. This can reduce the cost of development of software and make Indian companies competitive in global market place. India has a cost advantage in terms of labour arbitrage. Proprietary software disturbs this cost advantage by imposing huge overheads. Choosing FOSS can help India leverage its demographic dividend, by reducing avoidable and unnecessary additional costs, without compromising on quality in the least bit.”

Volvo Cars has joined the Open Automotive Alliance to make the Android smartphone platform available to drivers through its new ground breaking user interface. This move brings together one of the world’s most progressive car companies and the world’s most popular smartphone platform, developed by Google.

Chromecast users can now start ‘mirroring’ their Android devices over the WiFi. Google has pushed an update for Chromecast, which adds this new feature to the device. The feature was already there on Apple TV and the star Android developer Koushik Dutta (Koush) also offered mirroring for his ‘AllCast’ app.

In today's Linux news, Red Hat announces the "beta availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11." Several gaming posts caught my attention and Ryan Lerch says try out new kernel features in the new Fedora kernel-playground. The first Linux.com Linux poetry contest winner was announced and his poem posted. And another Deepin review pops up.

Katie Miller is a Developer Advocate at Red Hat for the open source Platform as a Service, OpenShift, and co-founder of the Lambda Ladies group for women in functional programming. She has a passion for language and linguistics, but also for the open source way.

I have a Red Hat sticker on my laptop that simply says: It's better to share.

In this interview, Katie shares with me how she moved from journalism to a job in technology. Also, how she got introduced to functional programming, the Haskell programming language, and how open source is part of her daily life.

The fifth maintenance release of the current stable Linux kernel package, version 3.15, was announced last evening, July 9, by none other than Greg Kroah-Hartman. The release introduces numerous improvements and bug fixes.