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
- Reddit as a Hive of Trolls, Social Control Media Curated (Many Voices Censored and Banned) by Marketing Firm of GAFAM
- Typical Reddit
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part III - Women Failing Women to Help Violent Americans From Microsoft
- Summed up, SRA will gladly prioritise the "legal industry" over women strangled, raped etc
- The World Gets Smaller, as Does Its Real Economy ('Human Resources') and So-called 'Natural Resources' (What Humans Call the Planet)
- Don't talk about "AI"
- Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
- transcoded version of the video
- Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
- Who will be held accountable for all this?
- In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
- Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
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- Our Gemini Protocol Support Turns 5 Today
- today is a rare anniversary for us
- In Today's World, One Must be Tough and Principled to Get Ahead Morally
- But not financially (sellouts)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 07, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, February 07, 2026
- The Right Wing in the United States Does Not Support Free Speech, It Supports Its Own Speech
- Free speech is often opposed by those who also oppose Free software
- IRC is a Lot Better Than Social Control Media (They're Not the Same at All)
- A good social analogy for IRC is, there are many buildings with a party in each building
- Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' is 'Dead Meat'
- Or 0xDEADBEEF as some geeks might call it
- When Identifying "Low Performers" and "PIPs" Aren't About Improving Performance But Reinforcing a Clique in Your Company/Organisation
- It's very troubling to see once-respectable brands like IBM and institutions like the EPO resorting to this
- Slop and Flop (IBM), Slopfarms and Hybrids (Linuxiac)
- Did Bobby Borisov assume he would never get caught?
- Crowdfunding vs Bitcoins: donations are better investment than digital tulip mania
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 07/02/2026: Misinformation by Slop, Overrated Slop Causes Stock Market Panic
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/02/2026: Diode Function Generators and Panic Over Buzzwords and Slop
- Links for the day
- A Can of WORMS - Part III - Envying the Influence and Accomplishments of RMS, Socially Deleterious Attacks on Popular Movements
- the actions are deliberate and coordinated, not some 'organic' or grassroots behaviour
- Crisis teams assembled as financial regulators anticipate Bitcoin implosion
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 07/02/2026: More White House Racism, "Europe Accuses TikTok of Addictive Design"
- Links for the day
- Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
- Layoffs by another approach
- Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
- Canonical selling Microsoft
- Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
- Does Microsoft create jobs?
- In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
- Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
- PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
- American workers out
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
- Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- Keep pushing
- Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
- it's a race to the bottom, basically
- Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
- LLM slop is a nuisance
- Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
- And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
- Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Git and Email Patches; MNT Pocket Reform
- Links for the day
- Geminispace Net Growth in 2026 About a Capsule a Day
- A pace like this means net gain of ~300 per year, i.e. about the same as last year
- It's Not About Speed, It's About the Message (or Its Depth)
- Better to write news than to just link to news if there's commentary that the news may merit
- Benjamin Henrion Warned About the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC) in FOSDEM 2026
- Listen to Benjamin Henrion
- Economies Crashing Not Because of Slop Improving 'Efficiency' (That's a False Excuse) and 'Expensive' (Read: Qualified) Workers Discarded in Race to the Bottom
- Actual cocaine addicts are pushing out moral people
- IBM's CEO Speaks of Layoffs, Resorts to Mythical (False) Excuses
- This has nothing to do with slop
- Links 06/02/2026: Voter Intimidation and Press Shutdowns in US, Web Traffic Warped by LLM Sludge
- Links for the day
- Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
- See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
- IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
- IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
- GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
- Democratic Republic Of The Congo
- Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
- The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
- Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
- Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
- Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
- Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
- "On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
- How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
- Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
- More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
- We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
- AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
- What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
- Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
- There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
- Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
- Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
- Growing Focus on Publication
- Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
- "Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
- Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
- End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
- circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
- Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
- Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
- EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
- disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
- Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
- Links for the day
- Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
- SRA is basically a waste of money
- Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
- Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
- IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
- IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
- Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
- Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop