Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/11/2010: Debian 6.0 is Coming, OpenRespect.org Criticised



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • Windows Legacy Apps vs. Linux Desktop Adopters?
      In a previous article on Linux-Window desktop competition, I shared my thoughts on why desktop Linux shouldn’t focus on competing with Windows. Not because Linux can't compete, but because Linux can stand its ground on its own merits without being held against Windows for comparison. I believe most groups within the Linux community can agree on, despite their differences on other issues.

      Now let's ask a bigger question. Is it not possible that the real culprit that prevents people from trying new platforms like Linux is actually due to legacy software and familiarity with the Windows desktop? Seems plausible that the above hurdles could be a common challenge faced by prospective Linux adopters, does it not?




  • Applications



  • Distributions



    • Red Hat Family

      • Attention class! Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA)


        Red Hat is urging system administrators to up their skill sets with a new base-level certification aligned to the key tasks required of Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators.


      • Fedora

        • Upgraded to Fedora 14
          I just did a preupgrade upgrade from Fedora 13 to Fedora 14. The only hitch is that it didn’t find enough space to download the installer ahead of time so that had to be downloaded after the the reboot. Everything went off without a hitch. My absolute cleanest upgrade ever. Dual screen worked, nothing had to be uninstalled. None of the repos had to be disabled. All my usual programs work. I haven’t tried Blender yet, that’s tomorrow. The first thing I noticed was that the OpenOffice.org icons have changed again. This is the third time, I think,since I’ve been using Linux.


        • Fedora 14: Strong follow-up to 13 still suffers from same niche appeal
          As far as Linux is concerned, there are distributions that are ready for the masses (Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Linux Minut) and there are distributions whose appeal doesn’t go much further than a niche of users. Fedora Linux, however, is a distribution that seems to want to vacillate between target audiences. At one point Fedora wants to reach out to a massive scope of users. At the next point Fedora seems to focus on a far, far smaller audience. And it seems this vacillation happens just about every release.






    • Debian Family

      • Debian 6.0 Homestretch Just Around Corner
        Neil McGovern, Debian release team member, wrote to the Debian Development Announce mailing list, "It's time for another release update as we move, like a glacier, inevitably and unstoppingly towards the release."


      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Make it really easy to fix bugs on Ubuntu
          One of the best things that anyone ever said was, "not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap". Mr Glass was probably talking about writing, but his words could well have been aimed squarely at any well-established software development process.


        • New Introduction To Ubuntu 10.10


          I’ve recorded a new screencast introducing Ubuntu 10.10. This video gives beginner Ubuntu users a brief tour of the operating system, and covers installing updates, proprietary drivers, customizing appearance, and installing software via the Ubuntu Software Center as well as with downloaded *.deb files, all in less than 10 minutes. Enjoy!


        • OpenRespect.org: a bid to deflect criticism of Ubuntu?
          In today's climate, when spinmeisters are trying to gain ascendancy in the FOSS world and are succeeding to a large extent, Torvalds' comments would not go down well. The man was clearly not showing respect - which, as Stephen Colbert would say, is today's word.

          But the topic of respect is raised only when it suits people to do so. Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution has been under siege recently, for its decisions to adopt a new interface and also a new X server. Some of the criticism has been rather, shall we say, pointed and direct.

          Now suddenly, Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu community manager - the spinmeister-in-chief - has come up with an initiative to try and create respect within the FOSS community. Why? Well, Bacon feels that all the aggressiveness in the community is not of much help in what the community is trying to do.


        • Natty Community Team Plans
          With every cycle, part of my responsibility is to understand the needs of the Ubuntu community, understand the needs of some of the key stakeholders to my team, and to plan what the team will work on throughout the next cycle. Recently I have been asking the team (Jorge Castro, Daniel Holbach, David Planella, and Ahmed Kamal) to reach out to the community to get a feel of needs, and flesh out their goals in a set of blueprints. I then reviewed and accepted a set of blueprints ready for the cycle. I think this is a good, solid chunk of work and will make some inroads into some key areas.


        • Flavours and Variants

          • Linux Mint 10
            Summary: Linux Mint 10 adds some helpful tweaks and improvements to an already great distro.

            Rating: 5/5












Free Software/Open Source



  • 55 Open Source Replacements for Popular Multimedia Software
    Open source multimedia software clearly has remarkable growth potential. Statistics reveal that multimedia grabs a huge percentage of the time most users spend with their PCs and smartphones. Hulu has 30 million viewers a month. Netflix now accounts for 20 percent of U.S. Internet traffic in the evening. According to NPD Group, 30 percent of U.S. music consumers listened to streamed music in August. As of June, consumers had downloaded more than 5 billion songs from iTunes, and they watch 50,000 movies through the service every day.


  • An Open Source Toolkit for Your Small Business
    Whether your small business has been around for years or you’re just starting out, it simply makes good sense to use open source software for everything from managing your office network to putting together slide decks for your next client presentation. Open source software is inexpensive (and often free!), secure, and easy to customize to the unique needs of your company. Unlike many commercial applications on the market today, you can even find in-depth, no-cost tech support from within the user community.


  • Should Companies That Use Open Source Software Pay a Tithe?
    Just about every startup on the planet benefits from the use of open source software--everything from database software PostgreSQL to the Apache web server--which is free to use.

    Weinberg's idea is simple: reckons companies that make a profit with the help of Free and Open Source Software should return a tenth of their profit to the open source community, to help solve problems with some open source projects.


  • Web Browsers

    • Try the uzbl browser if you're tired of feature bloat
      Give it a shot. Talk to its community in the #uzbl channel on the freenode IRC network if you need some help getting started. See if you like it. If not, go back to a big, sophisticated browser, if that is what you prefer. To tell you the truth, I am actually using Chromium, Firefox, and uzbl about equally right now, switching between them; I have not entirely given up on those big and sophisticated browsers myself, at least so far. I think you owe it to yourself to see if you like your browser small and simple, though.




  • Oracle





Leftovers

  • 'Super-secret' debugger discovered in AMD CPUs
    A hardware hacker has discovered a secret debugging feature hidden in all AMD chips made in the past decade.

    The password-protected debugger came as a shock to reverse-engineers who have hungered for an on-chip mechanism for performing conditional and direct-hardware breakpoint operations. Although AMD has built the firmware-controlled feature into all chips since the Athlon XP, the company kept it a closely guarded secret that was only disclosed late last week by a hacker who goes by the name Czernobyl.


  • Is AMD Having Second Thoughts About Killing Off ATI Brand?


  • Nvidia CEO: We're Done with Chipsets
    Share/Save

    One thing we appreciate about Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is that he typically doesn't pull any punches. Rather than dance around marketing speak and typical PR rhetoric, the outspoken CEO gets straight to the point, oftentimes in a very candid manner. More recently, Huang got on the topic of chipsets, seemingly putting an official end to that part of Nvidia's business, Xbit Labs reports.


  • Security







Clip of the Day



Intel on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Credit: TinyOgg

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman's Web Site Back Online, But It Seems Like a 2-Months-Old Snapshot
Latest political notes are dated July 2 (2026)
 
Software Freedom, Even If Difficult to Attain Due to Outside Pressure, Does Make You Happier
Peer pressure and opinionated employers can make friends and staff more miserable if they dictate bad software
You Can Run GNU/Linux on a Desktop/Laptop for 1,000+ Days Nonstop
To me, the long uptime is a way of "marketing" GNU/Linux as robust and stable
Profiting From Global Warming (and Making More Money the More You Cause Warming)
Unregulated bank and pyramid scheme
SLAPP Censorship - Part 172 Out of 200: The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Complicit in the SLAPPs by Inaction (Didn't Even Study Any Evidence, Only Wasted Time and Budget)
"SRA placed into special measures due to 'disappointing standard of leadership'"
China Does Not Need American (US) Products Like GAFAM's
China has abundance of technical things it can leverage to preserve its autonomy
RMS Didn't Make Enough Backups
Making backups is important
Refresher: Why EPO Staff is on Strike This Year (Aside From the EPO Acting Like a Corrupt, Above-the-Law, For-Profit Corporation That Violates Its Own Charter)
One core issue at the EPO is erosion of purchasing power
Gemini Links 05/09/2026: Fireflies, Shore Pine, and ASCII Art
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 04, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, September 04, 2026
The Legal Services Board (LSB) Takes on Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Utter Failures, We'll Resume Our SRA Series to Illuminate How Bad the SRA Really Is
a quick overview of the latest news
Links 04/09/2026: Notorious Patent Trolls' Judge Enters the Private Sector (Corruption, Revolving Doors), Gloria Steinem's Life in Pictures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2026: Worries, Upgrades, and CS Students
Links for the day
SPAM Disguised as Benchmark or Comparison: The Register MS "PARTNER CONTENT" is Getting Weirder by the Month
Sites that promote fake 'coins' or pyramid schemes to their audience(s) aren't worth tolerating
PIPs at IBMs are Layoffs Because They're Impossible to Satisfy (or They Terminate Workers Despite Satisfying Them)
What insiders say
In the United Kingdom You Can No Longer Make the Assumption People Use Windows (or 'Smart' 'Phone')
As autumn arrives Microsoft faces a crisis
SLAPP Censorship - Part 171 Out of 200: Talking About Corruption and Violence Against Women
Today the Labour Party (UK) speaks about corruption
Warming Up for Investigative Journalism About the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest and Probably Most Corrupt Institution in Europe
It continues to exploit diplomatic immunity for impunity
Microsoft Handing Out PIPs by the Thousands, Anxiety in GAFAM Building Up
Years ago I heard from people who pretended to be ill to avoid getting fired
BRICS in the Windows: Brazil's GNU/Linux Share (as Measured by CDN) Has Hit Highest Point in a Month
The largest Web CDN, Clownflare, sees GNU/Linux at 8.1% right now in Brazil
Corporate Media Will Always Glorify Its Owners (Corporations That Value Nothing But Capital)
Collecting "money" like it's a form of competition where they track "score"
We'll Never Do Slop!
Being against slop is not being "left behind"
Thieves Complain About the People They Steal From
"When you point the finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back to you"
Links 04/09/2026: "The Rise of the Billionaire Lobby", the "Imperialist Delusions", and Digital Restrictions (DRM) From Nvidia
Links for the day
Buying From China
Nations must begin to speak about their digital sovereignty, which Free software is best equipped to grant and best positioned to assure in the face of outside resistance
GNU/Linux Continues to Grow in China
GNU/Linux reached its highest point in a month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 03, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, September 03, 2026
Gemini Links 04/09/2026: Forgotten Realms Avatar Series and Slop Plagiarism's Footprint in Gopher/Geminispace
Links for the day
Like Uber, Paypal's Debt Has Shot Up 2.5 Billion Dollars in 3 Months, Now the Mass Layoffs Come to India
even reducing the salaries by offshoring isn't enough to save the company
IBM Eliminating Over 20,000 IBM Workers by Year's End, Insiders Claim
the layoffs are silent
Microsoft "engineers who aren’t critical are let go" this week/month (silent layoffs)
"stack ranking"
Is Microsoft Trying to Kill What's Left of XBox by Year's End?
How many people will still bother purchasing these consoles by the end of the year?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 170 Out of 200: Downtimes
Yesterday traffic skyrocketed here
The Register MS Publishes More Word Salads Promoting "AI" Because It's Paid to Do So
Hype, name-dropping, and scaremongering
Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Google Maps, Gemini's Early History, and Suppressing Slop Plagiarists
Links for the day
Links 03/09/2026: Unsafe Skies, Thunderbird Adopts Proprietary / Vendor Lock-in Traps, "Xbox Live Down Again"
Links for the day
Growing Thirst for Free Software, the LibreOffice Edition
LibreOffice is in "high demand"
Links 03/09/2026: John Ternus Enters Apple Amid Mass Layoffs, Journalist İrem Delice Arrested
Links for the day
Stallman.org Down Due to Virtual Machines Issue, "Senior Engineers are Investigating the Issue" Since Saturday
RMS site down due to virtual machines issues upstream
Linux Foundation is Plagiarism Hub, Linux is at Risk From It
Torvalds never looked weaker and more compromised
Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Back in Japan, Another New Year, Reasons to Avoid Have a "Smart" "Phone", and Rant About Built-in Batteries
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 02, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 02, 2026