Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 14/9/2011: CentOS 5.7, Fedora 17 Name





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • 5 Reasons why Microsoft Windows users should definitely avoid Linux
    Last Saturday I got myself an Acer Aspire One netbook (bought it on impulse, really) from a friend who had it gifted to him but said he had no use for it. It came preloaded as usual with Windows 7 and as a nay sayer to that OS, I opted to install the beta release of Ubuntu 11.10 on it.


  • Desktop

    • The “Gleaners” of Paris
      Here I digress. With my found computer I added a bunch more memory, uninstalled Windows, and installed a free Linux system, Ubuntu. The computer is old but works fine and is faster than Windows. It uses fewer resources.

      Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/) is project started by a South African millionaire to make computing systems more available to everyone and one they can understand. You can download it for free or order CD’s for a symbolic price. Regular updates of programs and the system itself are always free. Once installed, I thought, €«OK, now I’m going to have to configure it to connect to internet and make stuff work in general.€» But no, it connected to the net automatically and everything in the package worked without changing a thing. The first thing to do is to use its update system because things are always changing.






  • Kernel Space

    • Kernel Log: x32 ABI gets around 64-bit drawbacks
      "x32 ABI" promises to take advantage of the benefits of 64-bit x86 processors without suffering from the overhead in 64-bit operation. At present, maintenance at Kernel.org has slowed down kernel development. Some kernel hackers are demonstrating their sense of humour with a Linux logo reminiscent of Windows 3.1 and a rickrolling kernel module.


    • Let’s not be too hasty.
      In a recent post tech writer Sean Michael Kerner advocated moving the kernel to Github. Here’s why I think the evidence isn’t so clear cut. Note this is my personal opinion, since I’m not a member of the kernel developer community and thus have no real say in the matter.


    • The Evolution of Stupidity: File Systems




  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



  • Distributions

    • Taking a look a Salix
      There seems to be a mad dash lately of bloggers tripping over themselves to write reviews of Bodhi Linux. Jeff Hoogland and his merry band of developers have come out recently with version 1.2.0 and I’ve put it through some paces. Overall, I like it, but rather than yet another Bodhi review getting lost in the shuffle, I thought I’d put that one off for another time.


    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • A bug’s life
        In an ideal world, software bugs get fixed shortly after they are discovered. (Actually, in a really ideal world, there would be no bugs to begin with, but let’s be a bit realistic). You might be led to believe that once a bug has been reported the Mageia packagers will fix the bug, issue a new package, and everyone will live happily ever after.




    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family



      • Derivatives

        • Introducing Lubuntu Software Center
          The upcoming Lubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system, due for release on October 13th, will introduce a new software center application.


        • Elementary OS Luna To Be Based On Ubuntu 12.04
          Good things come to those who wait – particularly elementary fans willing to wait until April 2012…


        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • The Purrrfect Ubuntu 11.10 Login Sound?
            Opinion is split over whether or not the default Ubuntu login sound needs a refresh. Just what could it be replaced with?


          • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 232


          • 5 years with Canonical
            This month, I will have been with Canonical for 5 years. It’s been fantastic, but I’ve decided to move on. Next week, I’m going to start working for Google,


          • Ubuntu Certification – What do we test?
            We frequently get asked what do we test on the certification program. While we do have a simple page covering this topic, some times we are asked for further details. We have now updated the certification program guide with a more comprehensive description of the test cases. We review and update if necessary the list of test cases for each release:


          • Ubuntu Team to Cast a Wider Net for Indie Developers
            For some time now, there have been calls for Canonical and the Ubuntu team to find ways to reach out to more useful applications that Ubuntu users can take advantage of. For example, many users lament the fact that applications such as Photoshop are easy for Windows and Mac users to use, while Ubuntu users are boxed out. At the core of this debate is how the Ubuntu team approaches developers, and there are some strong signs that a larger and more diverse community of developers will start to contribute to Ubuntu.










  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi warms up
      The volunteers of the Raspberry Pi project have, with the arrival and demonstration of the first alpha "Model B" boards, moved another step closer to their vision of creating an ARM-based, low-cost computer for education. The Raspberry Pi computer now has two models, and the "Model B" board being shown has changed somewhat from its previous appearance, losing the "USB stick" styling in favour of a more traditional rectangular board – the size of a credit card but with lots of space for mounting I/O ports. The board is based around the Broadcom BCM2835, a 700 Mhz "application processor", and over the last month the developers have been putting it through its paces. First they showed a demo of Quake 3 running on the Pi:


    • Why Be a Pirate? Use Open Source Software Instead
      It's no secret that I think software patents are a scourge that needs to be gotten rid of, and I'm by no means alone in that opinion. In this era of lawsuits and revenue models based heavily on patent licensing fees (I'm looking at you, Apple, Microsoft and Oracle), the harm they're doing to innovation is right before our very eyes all the time.


    • Phones



    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Best Buy: Android tablet sales 'better than we expected'
        Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn said that tablet demand was one of the company’s few bright spots in its second quarter and Android devices delivered sales ‘better than we expected.”


      • Acer Honeycomb tablet to ship with 4G, modest price
        AT&T will begin selling the 4G version of its 10.1-inch Iconia Tab Android 3.0 ("Honeycomb") tablet Sept. 18 for $480 outright, or $330 on contract. The Acer Iconia Tab A501 4G closely follows the typical Honeycomb script, from the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor to the five- and two-megapixel cameras, but it's significantly cheaper than most of its rivals.








Free Software/Open Source



  • File Servers - The Business Case for High Availability


  • 60 Open Source Replacements for Audio/Video Tools
    Most computer users are spending much more time these days viewing and creating multimedia content. According to comScore, 85.6 percent of online Americans (178 million people) watched video online in June 2011, and they spent an average of 16.8 hours each watching those videos during the month. In addition, Nielsen reports that the number of people watching video on their smartphones and tablets has increased 41 percent since last year.


  • Another reason why I choose free and Open Source software
    A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine bought a new laptop for his work. He called me and asked me to come over, mainly so he could show that device off. And partly (as it turned out) to once again try to convince me of the wonders and superiority of Windows.

    Shortly after arriving at my friend’s place, he unveiled his new Acer laptop. It’s a nice piece of hardware. They keyboard even has a numeric key pad — something I haven’t seen or used in a while.

    Of course, my friend started his new machine for me. It booted up into Windows 7 Home Premium Edition (whatever the heck that means). I’ve used Windows 7 before and wasn’t really impressed.


  • Events

    • Early bird registrations now open for linux.conf.au 2012


    • Ohio Linux Fest 2011 report.
      Following a truncated workday on Thursday, I quickly packed, threw my stuff in the car, and raced up the road as quickly as torrential rain would safely allow to Reagan National Airport. I took a short flight to Columbus, Ohio, where this weekend the Ohio Linux Fest 2011 was set to go. I got into the hotel around diner time and fortunately I was able to hook up with a variety of folks including Ruth Suehle from opensource.com, Jared Smith, Red Hat mega-architect and superstar Thomas Cameron, and Fedora Docs hackers John McDonough and Zach Oglesby for dinner at Bucca di Beppo. Yum!


    • Software Freedom Day 2011




  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Firefox for Tablets on Nightly
        We, Firefox Mobile front-enders, have been working hard for the last few weeks to get the new Firefox UI for tablets in place for general testing. It has now reached a functional state that is good enough for getting some early feedback. So, how can you help us?


      • Mozilla Takes its Fennec Technology Toward Firefox for Tablets
        All the way back in 2008, we were covering Mozilla's effort to deliver an innovative mobile browser, dubbed Fennec (Fennec is a small Fox...smaller than a Firefox). The Fennec project has not taken the world by storm since then, but the underlying technology powers a new version of Firefox for tablet devices that could make some waves. This week, a blog post announced that Firefox for Tablets has arrived in Nightly Builds.


      • Community spotlight: Paul Booker, Mozilla contributor
        On opensource.com, community is very important. We want to continue to recognize our community members who contribute in ways other than writing articles--things like rating and commenting, voting in polls, and sharing our collective work on social media. This is the second of our community spotlight posts.






  • Databases



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • The State Of GCC 4.7.0: Still Months Away


      From Jakub's message, the trunk code for GCC 4.7 should be done with state one by the end of October, if the same 4.6 schedule roughly follows. He's called out on various branch maintainers to see if their respective feature work will be ready in time for merging to GCC 4.7 trunk within the next month and a half.




  • Public Services/Government



  • Programming

    • Gedit as a Django IDE for Linux


    • OpenTeacher – learn a new language with Linux


    • Lets face it, windows programmers are smart.
      So what has this to do with windows programmers being smart? Well they have to be and also patient. The current visual studio (yes, small letters again Gary) seems to be a real monstrosity. Not only does it take for ever and a day to start up, it also wants to connect to the internet. Then to open up a "solution" (more like a problem to me :P) it wants to connect to the internet again and takes several more minutes to open. Long enough to make a cup of coffee. The disk space it consumes is massive. In the gigabytes compared to hundreds of megabytes for what I use. But lets put all that aside. The program is started up, the code is loaded and I am about ready to peruse the mind of a fellow programmer.


    • Parallel Programming Crash Course


    • Modularizing Core Features
      Perl 5 project leader Jesse Vincent has made a textual version of his Perl 5.16 and Beyond speech available in prose form: Perl 5.16 and Beyond thread on p5p.
    • Vincent: Perl 5.16 and Beyond






Leftovers





Recent Techrights' Posts

European Patent Office Illegally Gutting and Outsourcing Its Functions, Acting Like an Above-the-Law Commercial Business (It Won't Stop at Formalities Officers (FOs) and Classification Slop at the EPO)
breaking/violating laws and conventions
Links 19/09/2025: Lobbyist of American GAFAM Becomes Data Protection Commissioner in Europe
Links for the day
The Right to Punch People (Apparently)
At Brett Wilson, Brett's job title is "Head of Crime" and Wilson normalises calls for violence
Brett Wilson LLP Seem to Have Had Only One Litigation Client in 2025, He Was Previously Charged, Just Like the Serial Strangler From Microsoft (Whom They Now Represent)
Karma is superstition, regulators are not
Project 2030 to Cover How "Project 2025"-Styled Anti-Media Zealots From America Targeted Techrights and Tux Machines
The common denominator is also their attacks on women
Brett Wilson LLP Failed to Meet Deadlines Set by Judge 7 Months Earlier, Tried to Ruin Our Holiday, Then Had the Audacity to Ask Us for Over 3,000 Pounds for Its Own Lateness
As a matter of principle we will never respond to assassin while we are on holiday
 
Links 19/09/2025: Press Freedom Dying in US, Anti-Austerity Strikes in France, and Alan Rusbridger to Leave 'Prospect'
Links for the day
Offloading to the Sister Site
In the interest of not overwhelming readers
Links 19/09/2025: Coffee Club and "SpellBinding is Now Absurdly Fast"
Links for the day
Links 19/09/2025: Media Freedom Ceases to Exist in US, "Consider Dropping Twitter/X"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/09/2025: Thinking and Insect Bites
Links for the day
Microsoft E.E.E.: Git Will Now (or Very Soon) Fully Depend on Rust, Which is Controlled by Microsoft
Microsoft now makes Git dependent on Rust, or making Git dependent on GitHub, which is proprietary
Slop or Fake Articles Have Turned Linux Journal From a Pioneering/Trailblazing "Linux" Magazine Into a Nuisance
some sites with former reputation - good reputation - turn into cesspools
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 18, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 18, 2025
On Claims That After Bluewashing Red Hat Will Increasingly Become an Indian Company
Discussed this week (long and detailed)
Americans Attacking British Sites Only Months After They Leave America
We find it kind of funny if not ironic that this site, originally an American site, got legal harassment only from Americans and only months after it had moved to the UK
Despite Losing Over a Quarter Million Dollars a Year Software in the Public Interest (SPI) Gives Helping Hand to Libreboot
SPI's financial state depends a lot on its public image or its reputation
Slopwatch: Google Helps Plagiarism and Sends Traffic to Ripoff Artists
That Google as a company helps spamfarms is noteworthy
If You Want to Know the Future, Listen to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Andy Farnell
We're sure the FSF will have plenty of its own output
Links 18/09/2025: A Taliban Ban on Internet Access and Troubled US Job Market
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/09/2025: Computer Literacy and Accessing Alhena's Database
Links for the day
Links 18/09/2025: US War on Media (Truth Banned, Cancel Culture by the Hard Right), NYT Chief Executive Warns Cheeto is Deploying ‘Anti-press Playbook'
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, Fake Text, Fake Images, Negative Slant on "Linux"
Google News has lost its value; the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen off a cliff
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Relax-and-Recover on Proxmox and New Smolweb File Transfer Service
Links for the day
Fact: EFF Got Corrupted by Corporate Money. Microsoft Lunduke (Political Noise): The Issue With EFF is, It Kills Babies.
Microsoft Lunduke - as usual - finds a way to make it about abortions
Pacing Publication Up a Bit
The news cycles have gotten rather light and slow
Links 17/09/2025: Power Outages, Digital Controls, and Attacks on the Mainstream Media (by Insecure and Corrupt Dictators)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Flashing LineageOS and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Long COVID Study, "Exposing Pegasus", and Chatbots Exposing Sensitive Data
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Secret Settlement for Internet Archive and Google’s LLM Slop Summaries Attracting Lawsuits
Links for the day
The True Cost of 'Generative Models'
Funded and promoted by the companies that profit from the waste
'Big Slop' Attacks Contemporary Information/Knowledge and Creative Works, 'Big Copyright' (Cartel) Attacks the Old
Someone at IA will hopefully "blow the whistle" on what they actually agreed
Why We Find It Difficult to Trust Rust
A comparison between C/C++ and Rust
Slop Nihilism is Funded by Big Oil
Eventually human civilisation will destroy itself
Watching the OSI: Our Series Will Carry on Irrespective of the Chief's 'Resignation'
the OSI isn't even the real guardian of the term "Open Source"
Professor Eben Moglen Recovering From Open Heart Surgery
From his public pages (this is not secret)
Just What LibreOffice Needs? Another Language? (Rust)
what's all this concern about memory safety?
Many Microsoft Managers Are Leaving
"Hey hi" chaff or chaff about "hey hi" cannot eternally distract from the difficulties inside the company
There Are Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs, But Google News is Infested With Slopfarms
It contributes a lot to misinformation and it encourages plagiarism
Tomorrow, Microsoft's Tim Anderson's 'The Register MS' Offshoot Will Have Been Inactive for 2 Months (There's Also a Slop Problem)
We've already caught The Register MS using LLM slop for articles
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Leaves Microsoft After Nearly 30 Years
And not retiring
Even Windows Users Are Having Problems With "Secure Boot"
When it comes to security - Microsoft strives for the very opposite
Another Competition Crime of Microsoft, Long Facilitated and Advocated by a Bad Actor, Who is Funded by a Third Party to Commit Extortion Against People Who Have Correctly and Repeatedly Warned About It for Over 13 Year
We must always go back to the core issues
3 More Reasons to Replace Mozilla Firefox With LibreWolf
Thankfully there are de-enshittified versions of Firefox
USA Not a Place for Free Speech
In America, as in the US, the attacks seem more enhanced or advanced these days
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Links 17/09/2025: Google Layoffs in "Hey Hi" (AI), Perplexity Hit With More "Hey Hi" (Plagiarism) Lawsuits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Reclaiming Things in a Digital Age and Moon Phases in CGI
Links for the day