5 Top Open Source Games of 2015

It is often complained that, GNU/Linux platforms lag behind, when it comes to support for games. This fact may be true up to a certain extend, due to unavailability of drivers for some graphics cards. How ever there are plenty of games which work well in GNU/Linux operating system in presence of justifiable hardware components.

The OpenSource portal has published a list of 5 top open source games for GNU/Linux distributions.

2015 has been a great year for open source and Linux gaming. The number of Linux games continues to grow, and Steam Machines finally hit the market on November 10. So, with the end of the year closing in, I’d like to give you my picks for the top five open games. Which one is your favorite? And which games do you think should have made the list?

See complete listing of games in Open Source Portal.

What Can Be A Perfect GNU/Linux distribution?

There is a wide variety of GNU/Linux distribution. Each of them have specific features, look and feel and purpose. The term perfect GNU/Linux distribution is some what relative. It will change from person to person.

Mr Bryan Lunduke is sharing his views about a perfect GNU/Linux distribution network portal.

As I review one Linux distribution or another, I find myself uttering phrases like "This is pretty good! Almost makes me want to switch my system to this," over and over again. So many distributions of Linux are truly fantastic – but usually with a caveat. Something that stops me from making them my primary system.
Which begs the question… What does the perfect Linux distribution (or Linux-based operating system) look like for me?

If I throw out all of my preconceptions of various distros, and ignore any sense of brand or community loyalty that I have (let's be honest… we all have at least a little bit of that) and focus purely on what that makes up that perfect system… what would it look like?

Read complete article in networkworld portal.

5 Things I hate and love in GNU/Linux

There will be thousands of reasons for people to hate and love GNU/Linux. Some features of GNU/Linux may appear good for some people, and same things may appear bad for others. An article written by Gabriel Canepa lists 5 reasons for him to hate and love GNU/Linux distributions.

For that reason, I have chosen to NOT use the word hate here which I do not feel entirely comfortable with and have decided to replace it with dislike instead.

That said, please keep in mind that the opinions in this article are entirely mine and are based on my personal experience, which may or may not be similar to other people’s.

In addition, I am aware that when these so-called dislikes are considered in the light of experience, they become the actual strengths of Linux. However, these facts often discourage new users as they make the transition.

Read complete article in tecmint portal.

Ubuntu Kylin Powers Around 42% of Dell Computers in China

Dell officials revealed that, more than 40% of Dell computers running in China are powered by Ubuntu Kylin, which is a canonical powered operating system. China government encourages their citizens to use Kylin as an alternative to Microsoft Windows.

From a news article published in thevarguy portal:

Open source fans, rejoice: The Year of the Linux Desktop has arrived. Or something close to it is on the horizon in China, at least, where Dell has reported that more than 40 percent of the PCs it sells run a variant of Ubuntu Linux that Canonical helped develop. Specifically, Dell said that 42 percent of computers in China run NeoKylin, an operating system that originated as an effort in China to build a home-grown alternative to Microsoft (MSFT) Windows. Also known simply Kylin, the OS has been based on Ubuntu since 2013, when Canonical began collaborating with the Chinese government to create an Ubuntu variant tailored for the Chinese market. Earlier versions of Kylin, which has been around since 2001, were based on other operating systems, including FreeBSD, an open source Unix-like operating system that is distinct from Linux.

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Customizing Ubuntu MATE Like `The Classic Ubuntu`/Ubuntu 4.10

People often like to customize their operating systems. Most of the newbies to GNU/Linux distribution prefer to customize their distributions like Windows or Mac OS X. However, exceptions are everywhere. There might some people who prefer to customize their operating system like classic Ubuntu.

An article published in softpedia introduces a theme pack that can be used for customizing Ubuntu MATE distribution like Ubuntu 4.10.

Users like to make their Linux distribution look like something else, and Windows is usually a good target, but someone figured out that users might like to experience something from the past and put together a pack that can do just that.

Most themes that you can find today are about being modern and about following the latest trends. One day we're using flat icons, the next we're moving to something better. There are thousands of system themes and icon themes for Linux OSes and it appears that new ones pop up every day.
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Ubuntu Continues As Leader in Cloud

Ubuntu, world's most widely used open source operating systems has maintained it's position in cloud platforms. A new analysis done by Cloud Market on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud confirms this trend. 

 

According to statistics, Ubuntu has over 135,000 instances in EC2. While the second operating system, far behind Ubuntu, is Amazon's Linux Amazon Machine Image (AMI). Windows, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux are on 3rd, 4th and fifth positions respectively. 

 From a news article published in zdnet.com,

To put this into perspective, by RightScale's latest State of the Cloud report, Amazon Web Services (AWS) dominates the public cloud, with 57 percent of market. Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is second with 12 percent. In short, by dominating AWS, Ubuntu is, without doubt, the most popular cloud Linux. In addition, to AWS, Ubuntu has been available on HP Cloud, and Microsoft Azure since 2013. It's also now available on Google Cloud Platform, Fujitsu, and Joyent.
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Is Your PC Compatible with GNU/Linux

In present world, most of the PC's are designed to be compatible with Microsoft Windows. But If you are a GNU/Linux enthusiast you might not be happy with that and you will prefer to have a GNU/Linux distribution installed in your system.

But is your PC really compatible with GNU/Linux? How to know that? An article written by Chris Hoffman published in pcworld magazine suggests some approaches that can be adopted to check your PC's compatibility with GNU/Linux distributions.

Linux’s hardware support is better than ever, but you still can’t take it for granted. Not every laptop and desktop you see at your local computer store (or, more realistically, on Amazon) will work perfectly with Linux. Whether you’re buying a PC for Linux or just want to ensure you can dual-boot at some point in the future, thinking about this ahead of time will pay off. 

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Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, version 1.5.1 Released

The Tails GNU/Linux development team announced release of Tails 1.5.1, the latest update of Debian based GNU/Linux distribution featuring tools that ensure your privacy and anonymity while surfing internet.

Tails 1.5.1 is a critical release or in another words it is an emergency release triggered by release of Mozilla Firefox with some critical security fixes. Tails 1.5.1 includes Tor Browser 5.0.2 which is anonymous and secure browsing tool kit, based on Mozilla Firefox ESR 38.2.1.

For more information, read official release announcement

Download Tails 1.5.1 ISO

Download Tails 1.5.1 TORRENT

Ubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 is Available for All Flavors

The Ubuntu developers and the teams behind other official Ubuntu flavors announced release of *ubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 with code name 'Wily Werewolf'. *ubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 is first beta release for upcoming *ubuntu 15.10 stable release. It is expected that, *ubuntu 15.10 final will be shipped on 22nd of coming October.

This release announcement is applicable for all official ubuntu flavors including Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE and Xubuntu.

Following section includes resources related to *ubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 Release.

Download Ubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 Flavors

• Kubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 64 Bit (ISO, TORRENT)
• Lubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 64 Bit (ISO, TORRENT)
• Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 Beta 1 64 Bit (ISO, TORRENT)
• Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 64 Bit (ISO, TORRENT)
• Xubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 64 Bit (ISO, TORRENT)
• Ubuntu Kylin 15.10 Beta 1 64 Bit (ISO, TORRENT)

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 Released

The Ubuntu MATE developers announced release of Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1, with code name 'Wily Werewolf'. Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1, is a pre-release for Ubuntu MATE 15.10 final, which is expected to be release on 22nd of coming october. 

Ubuntu MATE team has made several changes since release of earlier pre-release, Alpha 2. According to release announcement, these changes includes

• Almost completely updated to MATE 1.10
• Ubuntu MATE welcome screen is updated
• MATE Tweak 3.5.2 is included
• Added Deja Dup integration to Caja filemanager. 
• Fixed unlocking issue for locking screen.

From release announcement:

That's quite a list. As I've said before I conduct all MATE packaging work in Debian, as part of the MATE Packaging team for Debian. What with summer vacations, civic duty and DebConf 2015 we didn't quite get all of MATE 1.10 uploaded in time for Beta 1. The packages above should receive their 1.10 updates in the coming days.

Until all the MATE components are updated to 1.10, things could be a bit bumpy. Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 might be the most unstable version of Ubuntu MATE we've every released. But everything should be hunky-dory for the final beta next month.

Detailed release notes can be found here.

Download Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Wily Werewolf

TORRENT

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 Torrent

PC (Intel x86)

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 Torrent
64-bit PC (AMD64)

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1 Torrent
Mac (PowerPC) and IBM-PPC (POWER5)

 DIRECT DOWNLOAD

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1

PC (Intel x86)

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1
64-bit PC (AMD64)

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 1

Mac (PowerPC) and IBM-PPC (POWER5)