Links 22/05/2008: 14 Million Downloads This Year for Famelix (GNU/Linux); Another Linux-Based Media Centre
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2008-05-22 16:48:29 UTC
- Modified: 2008-05-22 16:48:29 UTC
GNU/Linux
- Famelix and the dangers of combating Windows
As with any GNU/Linux distribution, exact figures for use are hard to come by for Famelix. However, other users of the distribution include 62 military units, and schools and digital inclusion centers throughout South America. On its home site, the distribution has had more than 22 million downloads -- at least 14 million of them in the last 12 months, thanks mainly to the first releases to support German, English, and Italian in addition to the original Spanish and Portugese. By any standard, the distribution seems a success.
- Home media system runs open source Linux
A company called Fiire is shipping a home automation, media control, and security system based on the open source LinuxMCE distro. Built around a dual-core AMD Athlon X2-based box called the Fiire Engine, the Fiire system also includes FiireStation thin clients and a Z-Wave-based FiireChief controller.
- Buntu Family Theater [video]
- PCLinuxOS
- Comparing Linux USB flash disk distros
- CeBIT - Red Hat champions open source market education
- New Enhancements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
F/OSS
GPUs
Leftovers
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
- Unlike systemd
- Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
- Something isn't right at The Register
-
- The Week to Come
- Planning ahead
- LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
- The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
- When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
- there's "no free lunch"
- We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
- We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
- Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
- the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
- Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
- Links for the day
- Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
- Links for the day
- Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
- Links for the day
- The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
- But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
- Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
- It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
- "New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
- We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
- When Silence Says So Much
- Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
- The Register in Trouble
- There is not much that can be done at this point
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
- Misinformation in Social Control Media
- Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
- Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
- throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
- Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
- Links for the day
- Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
- Links for the day
- Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
- Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
- Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
- That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
- Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
- The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
- The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
- The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
- Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
- Unlike so many other sites
- The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
- I decided to check how they're doing as a business
- Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
- Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
- Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
- days ago they hired a new US editor
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
- For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
- I myself know, from personal experience
- Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
- Links for the day
- Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
- Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
- HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
- When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
- New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
- It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
- Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
- Links for the day
- Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
- Links for the day
- They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
- They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
- The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
- The future of the Web does not look bright at all
- Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
- Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
- YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
- Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
- We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
- Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
- 'Tech' is Not Technology
- Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
- IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
- The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
- Yes, Master
- Gaslighting by actual racists
- Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
- Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
- Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
- Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
- Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
- Bobby Borisov got lazy
- 10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
- In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
- A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
- Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
- Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
- Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
- Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
- When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
- Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
- Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
- Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
- Links for the day
Comments
LinuxIsFun
2008-05-23 07:05:46
The founders of the Digital Standards Organization, and others, will sign the Hague Declaration on 21 May 2008 in the Hague. The signing ceremony will be held in the Dutch Royal Library.
Any updates on this....???????????????
Roy Schestowitz
2008-05-23 07:10:38
There have also been some interesting E-mails on the ODF Discussion List, such as this one from half an hours ago:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 7:37 PM, marbux
> The more interesting part to me was Phipps' closing:
> "Of course, I might also reflect on the fact they are finally doing > exactly what Stephe Walli said they ought to do to kill ODF.
This is potentially so huge I can't even get my mind around it. Why would Microsoft do this? What is in it for them? How will they seek to turn it to their advantage?
Some suggestions as to why:
1) because they are being investigated by the EU for their coercion in getting OOXML passed.
2) because they want to extend, embrace, and extinguish:
http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/12/how_microsoft_s.html
3) because they recognize that they have lost some important ground the format wars, and that governments really do resent being forced to use MOOXML the way that Microsoft forced it on them with proposed ISO 29500.
4) because they succeeded in using dirty procedural tricks to get MOOX approved as an ISO standard, and now they see that they need to get Microsoft reps on standards bodies if they are going to control and ultimately subvert those standards bodies as they did with ISO.
IMHO, we really need to all bookmark Stephen Walli's blog below, and read it frequently, and maybe even read it aloud to one one another occasionally at meetings, because we are not out of the dark as long as Microsoft has billions to burn to defend its monopoly. I have often heard it said that the rational monopoly will, at some point, be willing to spend the provable future value of the company minus one dollar defending its monopoly status. They owe it to their shareholders to be as vicious as we all know that they have been for decades now.
> If one reads the linked piece from 2005 by former Microsoft exec > Stephen Walli, >
Let's all remember what Microsoft did in staking the ISO vote; and how it packed rooms to block out Sun and IBM participation in Spain. We have one an important procedural step, but the competition for open document standards is only just now beginning. Please remember, too, what a Microsoft Exec once said about stacking panels:
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/30/evangelism-is-war-memo/
Thanks to Roy Schestowitz for uncovering and posting that revealing "Evangelism is war" presentation by James Plamondon, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Developer Relations Group, which is linked above.
Expect more procedural tricks from Microsoft. Exercise caution in watching meeting agendas and lists of participants. Here is a cut-and-paste from Roy Schestowitz's posting of Microsoft Evangelist James Plamondon's screed on how to stack panels:
**********
I have mentioned before the "stacked panel." Panel discussions naturally favor alliances of relatively weak partners — our usual opposition. For example, an "unbiased" panel on OLE vs. OpenDoc would contain representatives of the backers of OLE (Microsoft) and the Backers of OpenDoc (Apple, IBM, Novell, WordPerfect, OMG, etc.). Thus, we find ourselves outnumbered in almost every "naturally occurring" panel debate.
A stacked panel, on the other hand, is like a stacked deck: it is packed with people who, on the face of things, should be neutral, but who are in fact strong supporters of our technology. The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select die panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. Since you can't expect representatives of our competitors to speak on your behalf, you have to get the moderator to agree to having only "independent ISVs" on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed -just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the "real world." Sounds marvellously independent doesn't it? In feet, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the "independent" panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you've got a major win on your hands. Finding a moderator is key to setting up a stacked panel
************************