Links 21/3/2012: Torvalds Secrets, Radeon HD 7000 Driver Now Free/Libre
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2012-03-22 00:15:30 UTC
- Modified: 2012-03-22 00:15:30 UTC
Contents
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Kernel Space
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To get the most out of your systems, you want detailed insight into what the operating system kernel is doing. A typical approach is to sample stack traces; however, the data collected can be time consuming to read or navigate. Flame Graphs are a new way to visualize sampled stack traces, and can be applied to the Linux kernel for some useful (and stunning!) visualizations.
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Graphics Stack
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Applications
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The TEA Text Editor is a very handy writing tool that delivers a much different user interface. For most computer users cranking out words or program code for digital consumption, text editors are often preferable to feature-bloated word processors. TEA pours on features yet keeps from getting too steamy.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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You may have heard a few days ago that Dear Esther, a game built upon Valve's Source Engine, would be ported to Linux and released in the coming months. Well, here's more details about that Source-based game is getting to Linux.
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Desktop Environments
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GNOME Desktop
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Users who choose between GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 are rarely making that decision on a purely rational basis. In my experience, users of GNOME 2 are often choosing what they know, while users of GNOME 3 are technophiles who enjoy anything that is new.
Neither is likely to go over the two generations of GNOME feature by feature. In many cases, the choice seems made before login.
But what happens when the two desktop environments are compared in general features? I'm a fan of neither GNOME 2 nor GNOME 3, but I decided to find out.
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New Releases
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Today sees the release of Legacy OS 4 Mini an Update / Replacement for TEENpup 2010 Mini Beta. Those updating from TEENpup 2010 Mini Beta will need to save any important documents, music etc to an external Hard Drive, USB stick etc as a full reinstall is required to update to this new version, sorry!
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Debian Family
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Spending a couple of days intensely running Linux Mint 12 on a very nice desktop PC sent to me for review by ZaReason (much more about that later), I probably shouldn't have been surprised by the annoying bugs in Mint that made me a lot less productive than I am in the Debian Squeeze system I've been running on my laptop since late 2010.
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In this interview, Luke Kanies, CEO and founder of Puppet Labs, explains why the Puppet configuration management tool is a huge hit with sys admins, and tells us what to expect next from the popular open source project.
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We got another reminder of how disruptive open source software is to mobile computing this week, when Linux and Android merged back together. This appears to be good news for a number of parties, but Android and Linux developers and users seem particularly likely to benefit. The inclusion of Android code in the Linux kernel and the ability for Linux developers to more easily work on the Android environment and applications also ties into some of the key topics we’ll be covering in a Webcast March 21 titled ‘Open Source, A Tale of Two Cities in the Mobile Enterprise,’ presented by 451 Research and Black Duck Software.
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Web Browsers
Chrome
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Ever since Google started working on its Chrome OS operating system, it has had a pronounced focus on allowing users to only work with cloud-based data and applications. This has drawn criticism from many users, and some from us here at OStatic, as seen in this post. With Chrome OS, Google placed a heavy bet on the idea that consumers and business users would have no problem storing data and using applications in the cloud, without working on the locally stored data/applications model that they're used to.
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CMS
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Licensing
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Are developers actually chasing down license violations?
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Openness/Sharing
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There are some pretty basic things that a researcher can do to make their work into an open content project. Here are a few.
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Programming
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Finance
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Censorship
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The Obama administration has condemned Iran for trying to take control of the Internet. In addition, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued guidance and licensing information to further support the free flow of information to citizens of Iran – a freedom the Iranian regime has consistently denied to its people.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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They're selling us out. Just weeks after Internet users from across the globe came together to to beat SOPA, the major ISPs are cutting a deal with Big Content to restrict web access for users who are accused of piracy.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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ACTA
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Concerned of the ACTA dossier many citizens contacted the press staffers of his colleague Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Commissioner Michel Barnier is right when he emphasized the need for better communications. Karel De Gucht had the opportunity to embrace the public attention to ACTA, and strengthen the institutional cohesion with the European public, help the transformation of the EU towards an “Europe of the citizens”. He didn’t exercise this opportunity, and it appears to me the reason is a fundamental disrespect to democratic principles, he doesn’t take the public seriously.
Recent Techrights' Posts
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- The "Alicante Mafia" might not last much longer
- openai.com Traffic Said to Have Fallen 50% in the Past Three Months, Reports Say It Nearly Ran Out of Money to Borrow
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- Links 21/01/2026: "Snap Settles Lawsuit on Social Media Addiction" and Attempts in the US to Revive Software Patents
- Links for the day
- Links 21/01/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' in More Trouble, US Has "Brown Shirts" Problem
- Links for the day
- Yesterday Afternoon The Register MS Published Paid Microsoft SPAM Disguised as an Article About "AI PCs"
- The Register MS cannot help itself, can it? [...] Follow the money.
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- Expect many layoffs soon
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- LLM Slop Not Dead Yet, Examples of Slop About "Linux"
- We wish to see the totals down to zero
- Links 20/01/2026: Cheeto Blackmails France Into 'Peace' While Looking to Annex EU, Mass Layoffs in Capgemini (Microsoft Reseller/Promoter) in France
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- Windows and Slop Declining While Microsoft Silences Critics
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- IBM Kills OzLabs, Signalling An Attack on Free Software (a Sign for Red Hat)
- ibiblio also appears to have died (or experiences critical issues)
- Red Hat Vice President Leaving After Nearly Two Decades
- IBM's culture of secrecy is not compatible with Free software
- Links 20/01/2026: "ChatGPT Health" (Latest Distraction From Being Insolvent) Flops and Raises Concerns, "The U.S. Military Faces a Reckoning on Greenland"
- Links for the day
- Rudeness and Vulgarity Won't Stop Journalism About Free Software
- we seem to be on the right path
- Readers Pleased With Layout Changes
- Two days ago we began improving clarity and accessibility in the site
- IBM Plans for Layoffs Becoming Clearer With "Employee Reviews"
- Of course this impacts Red Hat as well
- IBM is Outsourcing Red Hat's Fedora to Slop to 'Save Money'
- If IBM cared about quality rather than alleged "cost savings" (cutting corners), it would assign more IBM staff to Fedora, but instead the exact opposite happened, with the likes of Cotton and Miller removed from the project
- European Patent Office (EPO) Industrial Actions Formally Start in Two Hours
- As per the latest (revised) action plan, today workers will slow down their work and limit patent grants
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- In 2025 we kept a running tally of 30,000+ Microsoft layoffs, so 40k this year would not be unthinkable
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VI - More Strikes Planned at the EPO, Starting This Month
- Yesterday we said that friends of Berenguer or inside Berenguer's circle may have left
- Gemini Links 20/01/2026: New Tea, Using a Roku at a Hotel, and "Voltage-Based Power Management for Any Raspberry Pi"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- Links for the day
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- Links for the day
- Slopfarms in Google News (at Least Three Today) With Fake 'Articles' About "Linux"
- Google itself is trying to promote its own slop ("Overview") at the expense of original and credible sources
- Links 19/01/2026: ChatGPT’s Defects and The Guardian on Why So-called "AI Companies Will Fail"
- Links for the day
- This is What the Slop Bubble Popping Can Look Like
- Maybe not an overnight collapse, but getting there gradually
- IBM Quiet About Its Plan for Red Hat Amid Accelerated Bluewashing
- Something is going on at Red Hat
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part V - It Seems Like Some People Are Already Leaving "The Mafia"
- they have a rough idea of what's coming
- Microsoft Means War, Microsoft is on the Side of ICE
- Microsoft, people-ready
- More Confirmatory Rumours Regarding "Massive" Red Hat Layoffs
- Ecosystem and sales said to be targeted
- Proprietary UNIX is What We'll Have If IBM Red Hat Gets Its Way
- IBM Red Hat wants to control everything, even if that means killing everybody
- Free Software in Times of Peace (and Times of War, Too)
- GAFAM and IBM are war companies
- Founder of GNU/Linux (RMS) Speaks in US University (College) This Week
- The auditorium has very high capacity and this is his "college comeback" talk in the United States
- Office Meetings Are Most Useful to the Least Productive Workers
- In my "office life" days I really didn't like meetings
- LinuxSecurity and Linuxiac Are Still Slopfarms, Even Anthony Pell Does It
- We suppose waiting another month or another year won't change a thing
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- Links for the day
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- False marketing, FOMO marketing tactics
- Gemini Links 19/01/2026: Analog Cameras and Plucker in 2026, US Losing Acceptability in Europe
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
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