Links: GNU/Linux Advocacy, Kernel Space News
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-21 22:13:27 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-21 22:15:14 UTC
Summary: Another large lump of GNU/Linux news items (almost caught up fully by now, still unloading some photos from the trip)
GNU/Linux
Just like Marcel Gagne said, stop apologizing for Linux! He wasn't talking about "invisible Linux", but that's another branch on the same tree. All these businesses who are profiting from Linux and Free/Open Source software are real big on branding and name recognition---until it comes to giving credit to Linux and FOSS. Linux/FOSS are the beneficiaries of considerable corporate support, both in code and money. So why the big hangup over the saying the L-word? Is it shameful? Will the other suits snigger? It doesn't help when we go all apologetic over things like Flash is a piece of junk, or forget that 64-bit Linux appeared months before 64-bit Windows, which to this day is plagued with problems and compatibility issues, while 64-bit Linux is plagued only by proprietary crapware like Flash, and performs beautifully on everyday systems and doesn't need elite gurus to install and maintain.
1. Defrag Windows disk drive 3X a day
Ask any PC expert and they will always tell you that to speed up Windows you have to defrag your hard disk as often as possible. So in order to make Windows really fast (faster than Linux), why not defrag your hard disk three times a day.
2. Remove anti-virus software
I know this will make Windows vulnerable to security threats such as viruses, spyware, trojans, fungus (sic), and worms. But since this is all about making Windows faster, we recommend that you remove your anti-virus software because it's a resource hog and it is one of the key reasons why your desktop is running slow.
3. Disable Automatic Updates
This is another bad idea in terms of security, but disabling automatic updates can help Windows gain some speed. Running automatic updates slows down your system as it uses computer resources to constantly check for updates like security patches. The system also regularly (more regular than normal) checks and hunts down those who are using pirated copies of Windows.
Some of the best open source software (OSS) around is multiple platform. You can run the exact same software with the same look and feel (I can understand the look part but how do you feel a program? Do a Vulcan mind meld with it?) no matter what operating system you use. Originally, many of these programs were Linux only and were ported to other operating systems due to demand.
[...]
Darth is ecstatic. His computer runs much faster, he has the exact same programs as before and he has no virus problems. Luke is also much happier, he now has far less support problems than before and the Deathstar is a much more peaceful place.
There you have it. A true story on how open source software was a gateway to a new Linux user. Do you have any stories like this? Either leave them in the comments or message me with them and I can put them in special Tales from the Borg ship articles.
My how things have changed. When I first became aware of the advantages Linux and more importantly Open Source Software, people would look at me like I had three heads when I mentioned Linux. That was five or six years ago. However, last Tuesday, I had a first. I was at a CLE that involved a web based bill entry system for the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. My Ubuntu based laptop kept hitting an error screen. I went to the techiest of the techy facilitators and said "I think I know what the problem is." She said, "What?". I said, "Well, I'm running Linux." Without missing a beat, she said, "But we tested it on Linux."
Dell certainly knows about the security facts described above, as does any Linux user. However, the ambivalent policy that Dell keeps undermines its Linux partner, Canonical. I mean, Dell did advertise that Ubuntu was SAFER than Windows but, maybe because of hidden pressure from Redmond, the statement on the Dell site was modified to read "UBUNTU IS SAFE" (read about it here).
This is interesting because Dell mostly sells computers running Windows. They were saying "Ubuntu is safer than Windows...don't you want to buy a Windows computer from us? No? Well, there's always Ubuntu." Very motivating...
Dell's INVISIBLE LINUX discourse is not helping anyone. I thought they had figured it out by now.
Who are they trying to please...Canonical, Microsoft, or costumers?
Colonel Panik, my good friend and constant commenter to this blog, asked me to give you all some insights about what we’re finding at the Felton Farmers Market every Tuesday.
[...]
There are other things that amaze me: The Google engineer who stopped by the table — “Oh, I’d better know what Linux is.” — and others who work “over the hill,” as we call the Silicon Valley, who would stop with strawberries in hand to take a look at what we had, and take a disk or two to try out. Also, what amazes me is that a lot of youngsters — teens, of course — who have used FOSS and don’t mind spending their time at the table talking about things like “Will GIMP ever have only one window?”
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Audiocasts/Radio
On this episode of Linux Outlaws: Google kills the Nexus Two, Mandriva avoids bankruptcy, arguments about “Open Core”, Monty acts up again, Google App Inventor and lots of Microsoft and Apple bashing as usual.
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Kernel Space
As a system administrator, I work with dozens of large systems every day–Apache, MySQL, Postfix, Dovecot, and the list goes on from there. While I have a good idea of how to configure all of these pieces of software, I’m not intimately familiar with all of their code bases. And every so often, I’ll run into a problem which I can’t configure around.
When I’m lucky, I can reproduce the bug in a testing environment. I can then drop in arbitrary print statements, recompile with debugging flags, or otherwise modify my application to give me useful data. But all too often, I find that either the bug vanishes when it’s not in my production environment, or it would simply take too much time or resources to even set up a testing deployment. When this happens, I find myself left with no alternative but to sift through the source code of the failing system, hoping to find clues as to the cause of the bug of the day. Doing so is never painless, but over time I’ve developed a set of techniques to make the source diving experience as focused and productive and possible.
All of the extra kernel modules needed are included on the hard disk as part of the Linux installation (with most of the mainline distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc.). This says a lot considering the small footprint needed by Linux compared to more bloated operating systems like Windows, when you consider this is 99% of the needed drivers, whereas Windows only includes the base set of drivers and uses about 2x to 4x the space.
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Graphics Stack
Yesterday we reported on the emergence of the 3Dfx Linux DRM/KMS driver that introduces Linux kernel mode-setting support for the decade-old Banshee and Voodoo graphics cards. This work was done by a lone developer, but at this time it doesn't play well with the 3dfx X.Org DDX driver, which diminished hopes of it entering the mainline kernel. However, it appears there is interest in this driver and that the developer is now working on adding TTM memory management support for these 3dfx PCI/AGP graphics cards.
NVIDIA has finally got around to issuing an update to two of their legacy drivers that allows those with old GeForce hardware to run it with newer Linux distributions using X.Org Server 1.8. Beyond the new X Server compatibility, the NVIDIA 173.14.75 pre-release driver update also fixes two bugs. The NVIDIA 96.43.18 legacy update doesn't bring X.Org Server 1.8 support, but it carries two bug-fixes.
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Applications
Over the last few days, I've incorporated configurable compression format support into Metro, and I am now creating Funtoo stages using the .xz compression format (these patches are in git, and not yet in an official Metro release.) On the mirrors, this is resulting in a very nice 40% size decrease over bzip2, with stage3's weighing in at around 95MB.
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Instructionals
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Backlash and Negative Press After Microsoft Tells Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) People to DIE
- Follow-up stories
- Censorship as Signal of Opportunity for Reform
- It remains sad and ironic that Wikileaks outsourced so much of its official communications to Twitter (now X)
- The World Wide Web Has Been Rotting for Years (Quality, Accuracy, and Depth Consistently Decreasing)
- In the past people said that the Web had both "good" and "bad" and that the good outweighed the bad
- Comoros: Windows Plunges to Record Low of About 6% in Country of a Million People (in 2010 Windows Was 100%)
- Many of these people earn a few dollars a day; they don't care for Microsoft's "Hey Hi PC" hype
- The Mail (MX) Server Survey for July 2024 Shows Microsoft Collapsing to Only 689 Servers or 0.17% of the Whole (It Used to be About 25%)
- Microsoft became so insignificant and the most astounding thing is how the media deliberate ignores it or refuses to cover it
- Windows Down From 98.5% to 22.9% in Hungary
- Android is up because more people buy smaller mobile devices than laptops
- Microsoft Windows in Algeria: From 100% to Less Than 15%
- Notice that not too long ago Windows was measured at 100%. Now? Not even 15%.
- Microsoft Windows "Market Share" in New Zealand Plunges to 25%
- Android rising
- SUSE Goes Aryan: You May Not Use the Germanic Brand Anymore (It's Monopolised by the Corporation)
- Worse than grammar Nazis
- Gratis But Not Free as in Freedom: How Let's Encrypt is Dying in Geminispace
- Let's Encrypt is somewhat of a dying breed where the misguided CA model is shunned
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- Microsoft's Bing Falls to Fourth in the Europe/Asia-Based Turkey, Share Halved Since LLM Hype, Now Only 1% (Sometimes Less)
- Turkey (Eurasia) is another example of Microsoft failing with LLM hype and just burning a lot of energy in vain (investment without returns)
- Red Hat Keeps Behaving Like a Microsoft Reseller (for Proprietary Stuff!), Microsoft Employees as Authors in redhat.com
- In some ways this reminds us of Novell
- UEFI 'Secure Boot' Once Again Bricking PCs and Fake Security Models Are Perishing in Geminispace
- Let's Encrypt has just fallen again
- Links 17/07/2024: New Attacks on the Press, European Patents Squashed Even at Kangaroo Court (UPC)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/07/2024: Proponents of Censorship and New Arrivals at Gemini
- Links for the day
- Links 17/07/2024: School Budget Meltdown and Modern Cars as Tracking Nightmares
- Links for the day
- This Should Certainly be Illegal, But the Person Who Helped Microsoft Do This is Still Attacking the Critics of It
- perhaps time for an "I told you so post"
- [Meme] A Computer With an Extra Key on the Keyboard Isn't Everyone's Priority
- (so your telling me meme)
- Africa as an Important Reminder That Eradicating Microsoft Doesn't Go Far Enough
- Ideally, if our top goal is bigger than "get rid of Microsoft", we need to teach people to choose and use devices that obey them, not GAFAM
- Billions of Computers Run Linux and Many Use Debian (or a Derivative of It)
- many devices never get updated or even communicate with the Net, so exhaustive tallies are infeasible
- [Meme] Microsoft is Firing
- Don't worry, Microsoft will have some new vapourware coming soon
- More DEI (or Similar) Layoffs on the Way, According to Microsoft Team Leader
- What happened shortly before Independence Day wasn't the end of it, apparently
- [Meme] Many Volunteers Now Realise the "Open" in "OpenSUSE" or "openSUSE" Was Labour-Mining
- Back to coding, packaging and testing, slaves
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
- [Meme] Ein Factory
- A choice between "masters" (or "master race") is a false choice that results in mass exploitation and ultimately eradication (when there's little left to exploit)
- Links 17/07/2024: Open Source Initiative Lies and Dark Net Thoughts
- Links for the day
- Media Distorting Truth to Promote Ignorance
- online media is rapidly collapsing
- Android Rises to New Highs of Almost 80% in Cameroon
- How many dozens of nations will see Windows at under 10% this coming winter?
- Links 16/07/2024: TikTok Ban in Europe and Yandex Split
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/07/2024: On Packrafting and on Trump Shot
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Firefox Users Who Think They Know Better Than Mozilla
- Enjoy Firebook
- Firefox Used to Have About Half the Market in Switzerland, But It Doesn't Stand a Chance Anymore (Chrome Surging This Summer)
- Mozilla has managed to alienate some of the biggest fans of Firefox
- Microsoft's Biggest Losses Are in Europe This Summer
- Microsoft's ability to milk a relatively rich Europe is fast diminishing
- How to Make Software Suck and Discriminate Against People at the Same Time
- ageism glorified
- Bing Was at 2.6% in Russia When LLM Hype Started. Now It's Down to 0.8% (for 3 Months in a Row Already)
- The sharp fall of Bing may mean that exiting the Russian market won't matter to anybody
- [Meme] Microsoft Seems to be Failing to Comply With WARN Act (by Refusing to Announce Mass Layoffs as They Happen)
- since when does Microsoft obey the law anyway?
- Microsoft Layoffs Are Still Too Frequent to Keep Abreast of and Properly (or Exhaustively) Classify
- The "HR" department knows what's happening, but whistleblowers from there are rare
- Bahamas Joined the "5% Windows" Club
- statCounter only traces back about 1 in 20 Web requests to Windows
- Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
- Links for the day
- Antenna Abuse and Gemini Abuse (Self-hosting Perils)
- Perhaps all this junk is a sign of Gemini growing up
- Possibly Worse Than Bribes: US Politicians and Lawmakers Who Are Microsoft Shareholders
- They will keep bailing out Microsoft to bail themselves out
- The Software Freedom Conservancy Folks Don't Even Believe in Free Speech and They Act As Imposters (Also in the Trademark Arena/Sense)
- Software Freedom Conservancy was already establishing a reputation for itself as a G(I)AFAM censor/gatekeeper
- Djibouti Enters the Windows "10% Club" (Windows Was 99% in 2010)
- In Africa in general Microsoft lost control
- GNU/Linux Share Doubled in the United States of America (USA) in the Past 12 Months
- Or so says statCounter
- Even in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Of Korea) Google Said to Dominate, Microsoft Around 1%
- Google at 93.26%
- [Meme] The Red Bait (Embrace... Extinguish)
- They set centos on fire, then offer a (de facto) proprietary substitute for a fee
- Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message
- segment of a Noam Chomsky talk
- [Video] Boston Area Assange Defense (Yesterday)
- It was published only hours ago
- Guinea: Windows Down From 99.3% to 2.7% 'Market Share'
- Guinea is not a small country
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 15, 2024
- IRC logs for Monday, July 15, 2024
- What's Meant by "Antenna Abuse" (Gemini)
- syndication is not a monopoly in Gemini and if one doesn't condone political censorship, then one can create one's own syndication service/capsule
- Microsoft Layoffs and Entire Unit Termination: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- What an announcement to make just before Independence Day
- Links 16/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and One Page Dungeon Contest
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Falls Further and Closer Towards 10% (Windows "Market Share") in Kuwait
- more countries entering the "single-digit Windows" (under 10%) club
- Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Antenna's Pro-Hamas Bias Revisited and Old Computer Challenge
- Links for the day
- [Video] Julian Assange, Over One Decade Ago, Cautioning About What the Internet Had Truly Become
- video is not new
- Homage to Malta
- Malta is probably easy for Microsoft to bribe
- IRC at 16
- Logging has been used for us and against us
- In Malta, Android/Linux Has Overtaken Microsoft Windows (According to statCounter)
- statCounter milestone?
- Links 15/07/2024: China’s Economic Problems, Boeing Under Fire
- Links for the day
- 500 Days' Uptime Very Soon
- Good luck doing that with Windows...
- Windows Falls Below 20% in Tunisia
- A month ago we wrote about GNU/Linux in Tunisia
- Links 15/07/2024: Google Wants Wiz and Why "Sports Ruin Everything"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and Sending Files via NNCP
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 14, 2024
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 14, 2024