I don't know whether it's the best, but as far as I know it's the only one.

As for using GPG in command line, might as well use Mutt, it has GPG signing and encryption built-in :-)

I've been using enigmail for years but the recent update to 1.7.2 made it unusable.

Besides being suddenly very slow, it is now saving *all* drafts as encrypted even the one sent to people not using PGP. I don't know what's going on, but the end result seems to be that if the mail I'm writing has embedded images (*not* distant online images, just inline in the flow of the text), as soon as it is auto-saved in the draft folder (after 2-3 minutes), the inline images become "broken" (white square with dead link symbol).

The solution I've seen so far ? don't use html in emails, just plain text. But that doesn't fit very well in my workflow of sending inline graphs with comments around.

I downgraded to 1.7 since I'm don't feel impacted by the bugs (I never used the encryption, only the signing) and it's working fine. I'll try to fill a bug whenever I've time.

Sorry for the Friday morning's rant ... seriously :-)

I don't know the kernel configuration well enough (or at all), but my understanding was that having a Linux kernel with specific custom configurations (compilation flags, modules, scheduling policy, file system, minimum amount of necessary drivers and so on) was exactly the sysadmin's job (i.e. the guy in charge of the server is supposed to know better).

Besides, there are so many different servers out there, I fail to understand how one Linux with minimal packaging could fit them all. I understand the idea of stripping the repositories from all the unnecessary desktop-related packages, but it can't be just about that, is it ?

There's quite a bit more to his argument than these two paragraphs so read on before pointing out that Linux distros are already mostly divided into server and desktop focuses.

That's one of the many reasons I like pipedot. You're supposed to read TFA :-)

I did send an email simply asking a checkbox in my settings to turn it off, but it was polite and certainly wasn't threatening.

Besides thanks to Bryan, I discovered that I could add SN in my pipedot feed, so when I feel like reading it, I just go there.

Anyway, I really prefer pipedot waaaaaay more than the two others, it's elegant, nice and the articles have a much better quality.

I'd love to see IBM ship some hot new tech

well, they gave it a try a few years ago with the millipede memory, but as far as I know, although promising technology at the time, it went nowhere for the moment.

Unfortunately the article is low on details.

The embedded video has more details. There is also an older and more technical video on MIT website:

http://video.mit.edu/watch/tr10-racetrack-memory-545/

It's based on Debian rather than Ubuntu so you get a dated version of the Gnome 2 desktop

From the article and screenshots, it looks like Gnome 3, but I could be mistaken since I never used it. It just doesn't look like ol' Gnome 2 to me ;-)

Anyway, extremely interesting review, thanks !!

I like p8r, it has a vertical infinite sign in it ;-)

mmmmh, encoding problem, it's supposed to be an R in a circle as last letter. Let's try again:

|.3® or |3®

why not |.3 or |3 ? (instead of |.er)

PC != Windows.

Although I kinda agree with you, the statement "PC == Windows" still has a pretty good 90% accuracy. Besides, it is unfortunately very representative of the way many people (especially management) look at PCs in enterprises: Windows boxes (and often worse: Windows boxes without admin privileges).

At work, we, Linux or OSX users (not to talk about the BSD ones), are still the outliers, the weird guys with limited support, if any, from the IT department.

So far, for websites I use pseudo-random password (generated using "$ openssl rand -base64 24") and I let the browser memorizes them (but I don't export it to my backups). So only my browser password to remember. The day they get erased or I change laptop, I guess I'll just click on the "Forgot your password ?" links wherever I need it. And websites I never visit ? oh well, I don't need them anyway (I'm pretty sure I've lost my slashdot credentials a long time ago and I have zero intention to get them back :-) )

As for ssh (or ssh-based) connexion, I use public/private key pairs with passphrases, I only have 3 different pair of keys so far, so only 3 different passphrases to remember

I would actually be interested in knowing which tool to use to manage all my passwords outside of the browser and still have them auto-complete when I log into a website.

I would be even more interested into some easy smartcard-like technology where I would use one of my USB stick with my GPG key on it to manage all of that. step 1: format USB key and fill it with some sort of GPG key, step 2: plug the USB key into laptop (+ maybe some 2-step verification ?) step 3: identified. step 4: the moment you unplug the USB key, you're offline.

But I know nothing about security or cryptography, so probably this is all highly insecure and/or dumb ...

I know at least the historical reasons that could justify that quote: BSDs are direct descendants of Unix (version 5 & 6 according to this graph), whereas Linux is a Unix-clone started from scratch.

Besides, I remember reading something along the lines about Linus Torvalds writing Linux as a Unix-replacement instead of using the *BSD of the time because there was ongoing lawsuits about *BSD licensing vs. Unix (now settled). Without these, maybe he would never have started Linux in the first place.

Anyway, I believe the quote mostly points to philosophical differences between the mindset of *BSD communities and developers vs. that of the Linux ones, but I don't know much about it.

There's also the fact that the BSDs are traditionally server, not desktop OSes

I'm aware of that but I thought that PC-BSD was precisely the more desktop-oriented version of FreeBSD. My usual workflow involves vim/cmake/C/bash/git/Matlab and I usually stay in userspace (so no low-level kernel dev). I also have some personnal LAMP projects. All of which I thought as mostly OS agnostic things.

What compromises would I have to make if I were to use PC-BSD or FreeBSD with another DE* for such a R&D desktop ? (i.e. as opposed to a personal computer, for which I'd probably stick to Linux for now)

*certainly not Gnome 3, mind you ... ;-)

many desktops now depend on Linux-specific functionality that makes the port almost impossible.

As a Linux user considering a move to *BSD someday, apart from Gnome dependency on systemd, are there other Linux-specific functionalities that I should be aware of ?

Besides, rumor has it that OpenBSD would start development of an api-compatible systemd replacement to solve that specific issue, but I haven't seen any news on that topic yet.

For instance I was really enjoying the weekly review of a gnu/linux distro ;)

+1 on that :-)

Mainstream support just means no more Service Pack, whereas extended support is what matters: security patches.

Even Home editions have extended support until 2020, so no worries yet for all our windowers friends (although it seems they must have the latest SP installed to get the extended support).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/07/10/microsoft-windows-7-mainstream-support/

oh, that's why :-(

sorry, I felt dumb to just post "I liked that article" without any kind of extra insight. Indeed a way to share appreciation would certainly help :-)

Still, I'd like to be able to filter out SN articles via the GUI, an option box on the front page to hide/show news from SN perhaps? Pipedot has a different feel and while the two are aligned they are not the same.

I agree 100% on this, besides I thought that this is what the feed is for ?

Also I got a bit lost at the huge amount of articles, so I think this was a bit over the top. Would it be possible to only import the most significant SN posts (possibly pre-selected by the editors) to remain, as vanderhoth put it, "more tech focused" ?

Anyway, kudos for at least testing this and moving forward with new ideas :-)

I wouldn't mind reading more articles every day of the same quality as the one-a-day pipedot one, on the other hand don't forget quantity != quality

As for submissions, I'm unfortunately more of a "late" reader: whenever I see something interesting on one of my favorite tech sites, it's already been posted here or at SN :-/

I'll happily submit the day I'm first on the ball though ;-)

- IEEE Spectrum
- Wired (.com and .co.uk). Although tainted by sensationalism and sometimes a bit off the mark, I find interesting stuffs there.
- pipedot ( error: recursive path ;-) )

It's not like you aren't going to install the "Facebook" app if you don't fully agree with one of the bullet items on the permission list.

Actually that's the very reason I uninstalled the skype app a few months ago, it started asking for more and more permissions with every update. I think it currently asks for more permissions than any other apps (maybe short of facebook ? I don't have that app) and can read your emails, text messages, who you're calling (the normal way), what apps are running, it can even draw over other applications ... all of which are completely unnecessary for skyping. And it keeps running invisible in the background (i.e. it doesn't appear in the "running app list") even when you turn it off (and I know it did because popup with new messages kept showing up).

It looks as if it is trying to know more about you than Google itself ...

Anyway, I really wish vanilla Android would allow find tuning of the permissions. If I remember correctly, this ability was there at some point for a short period of time in 2013 and then quickly removed (found it: http://www.osnews.com/story/27469/Google_removes_vital_privacy_feature_from_Android).

Yep, same here. Either that or a new GPS, the old one died a few days ago.

And while we're at it, Microsoft CEO's name is Nadella ...

Given the small amount of comments I see on each article, I just wanted to let you know that, although not actively participating, I (and others I know) *really* appreciate the excellent work on this site, as well as its content. Thank you.

Keep going!