oVirt 3.4 Release Notes

oVirt is an open source alternative to VMware vSphere, and provides an excellent KVM management interface for multi-node virtualization.

To find out more about features which were added in previous oVirt releases, check out the oVirt 3.3 release notes, oVirt 3.2 release notes and oVirt 3.1 release notes. For a general overview of oVirt, read the oVirt 3.0 feature guide and the about oVirt page.

via oVirt 3.4 Release Notes.

XenServer 6.2 is now fully open source!

It’s an exciting day for Citrix, our customers and the open source community as we announce some BIG news for Citrix XenServer. Today we cross another major milestone as XenServer moves to a full open source model beginning with the new XenServer 6.2. Cutting right to the chase, here are the highlights that I’ll go into more detail on:

  • XenServer 6.2 is available as a free open source virtualization platform for all users
  • Citrix is also introducing a new XenServer.org community portal
  • Citrix provides a paid version of XenServer that includes support and maintenance
  • New CPU socket licensing
  • New simplified packaging and pricing

via XenServer 6.2 is now fully open source! | Citrix Blogs.

BackTrack successor Kali Linux launched

Outwardly, Kali looks the same as the previous version of BackTrack. But dig a little deeper, according to founder Mati Aharoni, and that’s where the similarities end.

“It boots like BackTrack, but when you look deeper into Kali, you see all these amazing new features that just weren’t available in BackTrack,” Aharoni told SC speaking ahead of the launch in Amsterdam.

via BackTrack successor Kali Linux launched – Applications – SC Magazine Australia – Secure Business Intelligence.

From Kali’s site comes this:

What’s New in Kali Linux

From an end user perspective, the most obvious change would be the switch to Debian and an FHS-compliant system. What this means is that instead of having to navigate through the /pentest tree, you will be able to call any tool from anywhere on the system as every application is included in the system path. However, there’s much hidden magic in that last sentence. I’ll quickly list some of the new benefits of this move.

Backtrack has been a very useful resource for me and prominently listed in the Tools section on this site.  One of the main features that I gleaned from this release is support for ARM.   I haven’t poked around the site or created a Kali VM to play with yet.  Will report whatever I observe later.

The Linux Foundation Secure Boot Pre-bootloader Released

The Linux Foundation started work on Secure Boot last year and announced back in October that its plan involved development of a pre-bootloader, which it will get signed by Microsoft. A signed pre-bootloader will allow for chain-loading of boot-loader of any other operating system thereby enabling users to install non-signed Linux distros on Windows 8 UEFI hardware. This signed pre-bootloader will greatly help smaller distributions that don’t have either the resources or time to get their own Microsoft-verified key.

via The Linux Foundation Secure Boot Pre-bootloader Released – ParityNews.com: …Because Technology Matters.

Fedora 18 released

This document provides the release notes for Fedora 18. It describes major changes offered in the Spherical Cow as compared to Fedora 17. For a detailed listing of all changes, refer to the Fedora Technical Notes.

via Release Notes.

The Gnome2 fork MATE is supposedly integrated with this release.  After reading the comments on slashdot I’m not keen on upgrading and will stick to FC14 or if another MATE release becomes available that supports system monitor.  System monitor is so important for security and general maintenance of the system and yet most consumer devices don’t include it.  System monitor is equivalent to the temperature guage in your car.  You want to know if the engine is overheating just like you want to know if your computer is causing unexpected traffic on the network.

Introducing Qt 5.0 | Qt Blog

While we have cleaned up many things in our internal architecture and made Qt more modular, leaner and faster, we have managed to keep application compatibility in a way that most applications will work with very few changes and a simple recompile on Qt 5.

Of course, this also implies that Qt Widgets are fully supported and an essential part of Qt 5.

via Introducing Qt 5.0 | Qt Blog.

Samba – opening windows to a wider world

As the culmination of ten years’ work, the Samba Team has created the first compatible Free Software implementation of Microsoft’s Active Directory protocols. Familiar to all network administrators, the Active Directory protocols are the heart of modern directory service implementations.

via Samba – opening windows to a wider world.

Suitable for low-power and embedded applications, yet scaling to large clusters, Samba 4.0 is efficient and flexible. Its Python programming interface and administration toolkit help in enterprise deployments.

Wayland 1.0 Officially Released

In terms of actual Wayland adoption, Ubuntu developers may try again to have Wayland become the Ubuntu System Compositor for Ubuntu 13.04 in April, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see that delayed until Ubuntu 13.10 one year from now. Wayland is making nice progress and it’s becoming likely that it will succeed the X.Org Server on the modern Linux desktop, but there’s still much work ahead. Even the Wayland adoption within Fedora and the other more experimental / bleeding-edge Linux distributions has been slow.

via [Phoronix] Wayland 1.0 Officially Released.

Development Release: Damn Small Linux 4.11 RC1

Nearly four years after the last stable release, the Damn Small Linux distribution is once again being actively developed. Yesterday John Andrews announced the availability of the first release candidate version 4.11: “Here is the first release candidate for Damn Small Linux DSL 4.11. The changes in this release are a step toward making DSL a friendly alternative for older hardware. I’ve fixed some bugs, updated some applications, and replaced others.

via Development Release: Damn Small Linux 4.11 RC1 DistroWatch.com News.

Download here.