On NSA Watchlist, Dream Machines, and Ten Tips
Yikes, our top story tonight is we are all on the NSA watchlist. Jack Germain says the Novena Open Hardware laptop is a hacker's dream machine. LibreOffice 4.3.0 RC2 was released and Nick Rickert posted about the "progress toward openSUSE 13.2." And finally tonight, our old friend Jack Wallen has ten tips for a more friendly desktop.
Many sites, including ZDNet.com and The Register, are covering leaked NSA documents that indicate Tor/Tail users and Linux Journal readers are among those labeled "extremist" and put on the list for further surveillance. What a coincidence it is that Kyle Rankin published another article on Tor over at Linux Journal today. He updates his previous work instructing users how to install and use Tor. Referencing the same source as The Reg, Arstechnica.com published the smoking snippet of code.
Jack M. Germain at the LinuxInsider.com today said, "Would you buy a high-end laptop built completely around open hardware and the Linux distro of your choice? Novena offers that opportunity." He describes Novena as "an open-hardware computing platform that is flexible and powerful. It is designed for use as a desktop, laptop or standalone board." It's features a 1.2 GHz ARM processor, 64-bit DDR3, PCI-e bus, SATA-2, and HDMI. Their product line includes a $1300 all-in-one, a $2200 laptop, and $5000 Heirloom Laptop with handcrafted wood case. Germain says the Novena is a "hacker's dream machine."
Jack Wallen today published 10 tips to a "more user-friendly Linux desktop." His "simple tricks" will "make your Linux desktop experience as user-friendly as possible." These include installing a dock, learning keyboard shortcuts, and adding GNOME extentions. He concluded, "Linux is not the ubergeek-centric operating system it once was. In fact, in many ways, Linux is the most user-friendly platform available."
In other news:
* Progress toward opensuse 13.2
* Improve The Font Rendering Of Your Debian Derivative via Infinality