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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- Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
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- The "Infinite Bread"
- The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
- In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
- The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
- Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
- Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
- Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
- 4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
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- He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
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- Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
- Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
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- Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
- Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
- If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
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- IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
- Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
- Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
- Liberation From 'The Feed'
- They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
- Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
- We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
- Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
- Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
- OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
- Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
- 19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
- In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
- Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
- "More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
- IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
- This won't end well
- Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
- Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
- For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
- They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
- Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
- A crashing franchise
- Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
- Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
- Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
- Links for the day
- As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
- French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
- 25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
- there's nothing unreasonable about it
- A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
- Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
- Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
- Links for the day
- US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
- LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
- Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
- Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
- some weeks ago
- All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
- Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
- The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
- Each year it gets worse
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
- The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
- Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
- Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
- Links for the day
- Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
- The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
- Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
- Links for the day
- Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
- We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
- Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
- We appreciate the honesty
- Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
- It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
- From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
- We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
- End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
- There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
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- They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
- Digital Sanitation Good Practices
- leave behind Microsoftism
- 10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
- English translation
- Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
- The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
- The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
- expect the FSF to add more people
- Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
- That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
- Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
- Links for the day
- Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
- Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
- Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
- From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
- Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
- Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025