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
- Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
- Links for the day
- The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
- We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
- “Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
- they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
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- Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
- Links for the day
- PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
- let's just be patient
- Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
- a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
- IBM is Not Your Master
- IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
- Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
- A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
- good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
- Leadership in Free Software
- Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
- Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
- The Web is in a really bad state!
- COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
- A few months later we created our very own IRC network
- Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
- Links for the day
- Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
- Links for the day
- Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
- Links for the day
- How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
- Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
- Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
- "[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
- Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
- no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
- Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
- There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
- The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
- X.Org Server is alive and well
- Rewriting Things in Rust
- How far would you go?
- In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
- Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
- Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
- Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
- Monopolies and Scalping
- Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
- Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
- "August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
- What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
- You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
- Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
- LLM slop disguised as news
- Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
- Links for the day
- Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
- Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
- Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
- Via the GNU Web site this week
- Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
- Links for the day
- Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
- We'll write about this for a long time to come
- Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
- Slop videos aren't a new thing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
- The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
- There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
- What Digital Independence Means
- Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
- NVidia is a Bubble
- they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
- Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
- any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
- Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
- Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead