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
- Parties and Milestones Again
- we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
- Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
- Against its most faithful enablers
- Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
- Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
- Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
- If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
- More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
- when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
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- Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
- Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
- Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
- Links for the day
- PETA and Activism
- Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
- Big Blue, Huge Debt
- debt will soar again
- Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
- Links for the day
- Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
- Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
- Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
- If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
- We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
- Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
- Links for the day
- This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
- LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
- 19 Years, No Censorship
- No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
- We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
- Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
- The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
- High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
- Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
- Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
- Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
- Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
- Links for the day
- Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
- Links for the day
- India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
- They do this almost every day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
- Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
- All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders