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Planet Computers' clamshell phone can dual-boot Android and Linux
Planet Computers' laptop-like Cosmo Communicator phone just became that much more useful to its audience of very particular power users. The Cosmo now supports a promised multi-boot function, letting you run Android (both regular and rooted), Debian Linux and TWRP on the same device without one replacing the other. You'll have to partition your storage and know your way around a boot menu, but this will give you a way to run Linux apps or otherwise experiment with your phone.
Chromebooks will soon be able to run your favorite Linux apps
Chromebooks have always generally been cheap and accessible, but now they're about to get a lot more capable. Google announced today that Chromebooks will soon be able to run native Linux apps in addition to the Chrome web apps and Android apps that they already support. Not surprisingly, Google's own premium Pixelbook will be the first to get Linux app support, though we're told other models will join in before long.
Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released an experimental version of its Linux-based Pixel OS for Windows and Mac PCs. The OS, originally designed to run only on the Raspberry Pi hobby board, comes with the Chromium web browser and a suite of productivity and coding tools. "We asked ourselves one simple question: If we like Pixel so much, why ask people to buy Raspberry Pi hardware in order to run it?" founder Eben Upton wrote in a blog post.
Log into most any Linux system by hitting backspace 28 times
Security researchers have discovered a ludicrously simple way to hack into a number of Linux distributions: Just tap the backspace key 28 times in a row. A team from the Cybersecurity Group at Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) in Spain found that doing so for builds utilizing the ubiquitous Grub2 bootloader -- that's to say just about all of them -- immediately bypasses the lock screen, initiates the "Grub rescue shell" and grants the user access to the system for whatever nefarious things they have in mind.
Add-on lets your Chromebook run Linux in a window
You can already run a conventional operating system like Linux on your Chromebook if you're the determined sort, but it's not really convenient... not unless you like hopping between virtual terminals, anyway. However, there's now a relatively simple way to juggle between Chrome OS and Linux. If you grab a tweaked version of David Schneider's Crouton extension and type in a terminal command, you can now run a version of Linux (so far, Debian and Ubuntu) in a window. You won't have to drop that Hangouts chat just to finish some work in OpenOffice, in other words. While you'll still have to be comfortable with installing Linux in the first place, this could easily turn your cheap web surfing machine into more of a power user's tool. [Image credit: François Beaufort, Google+]
Trojan targets Linux desktop users, steals web banking info
Malware certainly exists for Linux, but it's more frequently targeted at servers than everyday PCs. Unfortunately, regular users now have more reason to worry: a rare instance of a Linux desktop trojan, Hand of Thief, has surfaced in the wild. The code swipes banking logins and other web sign-in details, creates a backdoor and prevents access to both antivirus tools and virtual machines. It's known to work with common browsers like Chrome and Firefox as well as 15 Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu. Thankfully, Hand of Thief is partly neutered by its limited attack methods; it relies on social engineering to fool victims into installing the software themselves. Even so, the trojan is a reminder that we shouldn't be complacent about security, regardless of which platform we use. [Thanks, Dreyer]
Google AirShow streams Google I/O live from several RC blimps (hands-on video)
Yes, there's a fleet of camera-equipped, remote-controlled blimps live-streaming a bird's-eye view of Google I/O on YouTube, right now. It's called Google AirShow and it's taken over the airspace within Moscone Center. We briefly chatted with Chris Miller, a software engineer with AKQA (the company that put the dirigibles together for Google), about the technology used in each aircraft. It all begins with an off-the-shelf model airship that's flown manually via standard a 2.4GHz radio. Each blimp is outfitted with a servo-controlled USB camera and 5GHz USB WiFi dongle which are both connected to a Raspberry Pi board running Debian, VLC and Python. A custom-designed Li-polymer battery system powers the on-board electronics. The webcam encodes video as motion-JPEG (720p, 30fps) and VLC generates a YouTube-compatible RTSP stream that's broadcast over WiFi. Python's used to pan the servo-controlled camera via the Raspberry Pi's PWM output. The result is pretty awesome. But don't just take our word for it -- check out the gallery and source link below, then watch our hands-on video after the break. %Gallery-188534%
Debian 7.0 'Wheezy' now available, lets Linux users mix architectures
In a market crowded by ocelots, cows and mountain lions, it's nice to see an operating system that isn't named after an animal. The trend bucking OS? Debian's 7.0 update, Wheezy. Okay, it's technically the name of a penguin from Toy Story, but we'll give it a pass. The distro's latest revision hit over the weekend, offering users an improved installer, new media codecs, UEFI support and a handful of tools to help users create their own XCP and OpenStack cloud severs. Perhaps even more significant is multiarch support, which allows the OS to install packages for both 32 and 64-bit machines simultaneously, improving support for legacy applications. The update includes a ton of software updates as well. Thinking of upgrading? You'll find release notes and download information at the source link.
Pi MusicBox weds Spotify and Raspberry Pi, plays your favorite tunes
Do you listen to Spotify? Do you have a Raspberry Pi? Well, Pi MusicBox might just be the thing for you. It's a bootable Debian image for RaspBerry Pi that implements Modipy, a music server which enables playback from local storage, Spotify streaming and remote-control from any MPD (Music Player Daemon) client or web browser (see screenshots above). There are MPD apps for most platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows and Mac OS. Pi MusicBox also supports WiFi, USB audio and AirTunes streaming right out of the, err, box. So, if your Raspberry Pi is jonesing to play some tunes, go ahead and hit those links below.
Supercomputer built from Raspberry Pi and Lego, managed by humans rather than Minifigs
If you're a computational engineer, there's no question about what you do with the Raspberry Pi: you make a supercomputer cluster. Researchers at the University of Southampton have followed their instincts and built Iridis-Pi, a tiny 64-node cluster based on the Raspberry Pi's usual Debian Wheezy distribution and linked through Ethernet. While no one would mistake any one Raspberry Pi for a powerhouse, the sheer number of networked devices gives the design both some computing grunt and 1TB worth of storage in SD cards. Going so small also leads to some truly uncommon rackmounting -- team lead Simon Cox and his son James grouped the entire array in two towers of Lego, which likely makes it the most adorable compute cluster you'll ever see. There's instructions to help build your own Iridis-Pi at the source link, and the best part is that it won't require a university-level budget to run. Crafting the exact system you see here costs under £2,500 ($4,026), or less than a grown-up supercomputer's energy bill.
So you got a Raspberry Pi: now what?
When the Raspberry Pi was released earlier this year, the credit-card-sized Linux machine became an instant hit. The night it became available to order, both Premier Farnell/element14 and RS Components, the official distributors of the Pi project, exhibited the signs of a late '90s Slashdot effect: you could barely even get the two sites to load. Fast forward to today, and you can finally get your hands on one within three weeks. The Raspberry Pi is truly the Linux device of the year, if not the past decade. Follow past the break and we'll show you how to set yours up now that you've actually succeeded in snagging one.
DARPA-backed Power Pwn is power strip by day, superhero hack machine by night
Call the Power Pwn the champion of white hat hacking. Underneath that Clark Kent power strip exterior, there's a Superman of full-scale breach testing that can push the limits of just about any company network, whether it takes 3G, Ethernet or WiFi to get there. Pwnie Express' stealthy sequel to the Pwn Plug ships with a Debian 6 instance of Linux whose handy hacking tools are as easy to launch as they are tough to detect. There's just one step needed to create a snoop-friendly Evil AP WiFi hotspot, and the box dodges around low-level NAC/802.1x/RADIUS network authentication without any help; in the same breath, it can easily leap into stealth mode and keeps an ongoing encrypted link to give do-gooders a real challenge. The hacker doesn't even need to be in the same ZIP code to crack a firewall or VPN -- the 3G link lets the Power Pwn take bash command-line instructions through SMS messages and doles out some of its feedback the same way. While the $1,295 device can theoretically be used for nefarious purposes, DARPA's blessing (and funding) should help keep the Power Pwn safely in the hands of security pros and thwart more than a few dastardly villains looking for weak networks.
Raspberry Pi announces Raspbian, an optimized OS upgrade with performance improvements abound
No software update is quite so sweet as one that brings improved performance, and that's exactly what Raspberry Pi users can expect from the latest Debian-based OS known as Raspbian. Optimized specifically for the $35 computer, Raspbian introduces more comprehensive support for floating point operations, and with that, a faster web browsing experience. The latest release also brings improvements to the firmware, kernel and applications, and is recommended as the distribution most appropriate for general users. An SD card image of Raspbian is now available for download, so do yourself a favor and snag it today.
Raspberry Pi hands-on and Eben Upton interview at Maker Faire (video)
Unless you've been hiding under a rock lately, we're pretty sure you've heard about the Raspberry Pi by now -- a $25 credit-card sized PC that brings ARM/Linux to the Arduino form factor. As a refresher, the system features a 700MHz Broadcom BCM2835 SoC with an ARM11 CPU, a Videocore 4 GPU (which handles HD H.264 video and OpenGL ES 2.0) and 256MB RAM. The board includes an SD card slot, HDMI output, composite video jack, 3.5mm audio socket, micro-USB power connector and GPIO header. Model A ($25) comes with one USB port, while Model B ($35) provides two USB ports and a 100BaseT Ethernet socket. Debian is recommended, but Raspberry Pi can run most ARM-compatible 32-bit OSes. This past weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 we ran into Eben Upton, Executive Director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and took the opportunity to spend some quality time with a production board and to discuss this incredible PC. We touched upon the origins of the system (inspired by the BBC Micro, one of the ARM founders' projects), Moore's law, the wonders of simple computers and upcoming products / ideas -- including Adafruit's Pi Plate and Raspberry Pi's prototype camera add-on. On the subject of availability, the company expects that "there will be approximately 200,000 units in the field by the end of June". Take a look at our hands-on gallery below and our video interview after the break.%Gallery-155800%
Genesi's hard float ARM optimizations can hasten Linux floating point operations by 300 percent
You may know Genesi for its ARM-based Smartbook, but a recent software initiative it's undertaken has much broader implications for the Linux ecosystem. Traditionally, the Penguin-powered OS is compiled under the assumption that all ARM designs contain floating point silicon. Unfortunately, this is only true of recent architectures, creating a problem for older chipsets who stumble when executing floating point code. It's the realization of the fault that stalls progress as the chip is forced to rely on software emulation to make the appropriate stars align. Heavy stuff, but the firm's work in recompiling 90 percent of the existing Debian repository have caused a 300 percent increase in the speed of applications that are heavily reliant on floating point. Purportedly, they managed this without changing a single line of source code, but we'll leave it to them to explain -- there's a 15 minute barrage of technobabble waiting just after the break.
Older PS3s losing 'install other OS' option in Thursday's firmware 3.21 update
Bad news, Linux fans. The older PlayStation 3 consoles are losing one of the features they could tout over their Slim successor. Firmware 3.21 is coming out this Thursday, April 1st, and its major raison d'être is to kill the "install other OS" option. (This is "not an April fools joke," as the PlayStation Europe blog clarifies.) "Security concerns" is the cited reason, although we're sure that doesn't make you feel much better -- no one likes the loss of a feature, even if it wasn't being used. Those who wish to keep Yellow Dog or Fedora running can opt to not upgrade, but skipping out means losing the ability to access PlayStation Network and play games online, among other things. DARPA enthusiasts notwithstanding, we can't say we know many people still running Linux on their console, but if you count yourself among the few and proud, our condolences. Them's the breaks, but hey, at least some of you still have PS2 compatibility.
PlayStation 3 controller used for N900 gaming (video)
Is the N900 the most hacker-friendly phone ever created? All sources are pointing to "yes." Just two short months ago, we saw one determined code monkey turn his N900 into a PS3 controller; today, we're looking at someone who did the exact opposite. If you've memorized the Debian source code and aren't afraid to dabble in the wild and murky world of N900 modding, you too can one day use a spare SIXAXIS controller in order to dictate gameplay on your Nokia handset. All the instructions you need are there in the source link, and for everyone else just looking to have a watch from the sidelines, hop on past the break and mash play.
X11 on G1 hack is for those who like a little extra OS in their OS
Android may be doing its best to exterminate Linux on the mobile platform, but a dedicated group of fans is doing its best to keep it alive and on the move. One of those is a G1 user by the handle ghostwalker who managed to get a full X-Windows environment running on his handset. Building on the already working Debian version for the G1, he installs LXDE (the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) on top and then connects to that using the Android VNC viewer. The process sounds straightforward (as far as these things go) and is fully detailed at the read link, but as always don't blame us if you break your poor Android's shell -- and heart.[Via Hack A Day, thanks Neerhaj]
ARM debuts Sparrow multicore netbook processor
We've had our eyes peeled for ARM Cortex-based netbook news, and now among the action this week at MWC '09 we're getting our first look at Sparrow, a Cortex A9 processor aimed squarely at netbook manufacturers. This is a multi-core update to the Cortex A8 (processor of choice for the Palm Pre and Pandora), and it's been speculated that this could be the processor for the next generation iPhone, with "at least triple the computing power of the ARM11 processors found in the [current] iPhone and T-Mobile G1." Toshiba, Pegatron and Wistron are all said to be showing demos of their ARM-powered netbooks at the conference this year, with a company spokesman saying that Ubuntu for ARM will go public in April, with Sparrow phones coming to market sometime in 2010. Additionally, companies like Adobe, On2, and Symbian are said to be "tuning their apps to run on the latest cores from ARM" as we speak.[Via Gadget Mix, Mac Rumors]
Debian gets ported to the G1, makes nice with Android
Recent firmware updates may have aimed to shut down such shenanigans, but it looks they were a little too slow to stop Jay Freeman (a.k.a. Saurik) from going to town with his newly jailbroken G1 and installing Debian on the handset. What's more, he apparently even managed to get Debian and Android to play nice with each other, letting you have a completely normal and unassuming phone by day and a nerd machine by night. As you might expect, however, it's not exactly as simple as installing an app from the Android Market, but anyone with a little experience in installing Linux distributions on unconventional devices should be able to follow the instructions fairly easily, although actually turning it into something useful is another matter. Hit up the read link below to get started.[Via ModMyGphone]
