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
- Further Media Cut-downs
- media reporting about the media being cut
- Gemini Links 09/09/2025: Moon Eclipse and ROOPHLOCH Reports
- Links for the day
- Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing)
- The company is all about sound bites
- Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It
- "Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
- Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot'
- Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
- It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure
- A very large third one expected next week
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- statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Exceeding 10% in Bulgaria This Month
- What can Microsoft still do to stop GNU/Linux?
- Dark Patterns
- Microsoft saying "security" is like a Convicted Felon in the White House saying "law and order".
- It's Almost Fall (Autumn)
- To "Facebook prison" you are bound
- Bruce Schneier About "Secure Boot"
- Bruce Schneier isn't a fan of "Secure Boot"
- Links 09/09/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again and "RTO" (Timed Like It Serves as a Distraction From the Mass Layoffs)
- Links for the day
- RMS Told Microsoft to Stop 'Secure Boot' (He Even Went There to Say That), But They Didn't Listen
- Dr. Stallman (RMS) assumed that speaking to sociopaths would work
- What Richard Stallman Told Me About 'Secure' Boot in 2012
- "if the user doesn't control the keys, then it's a kind of shackle"
- Those Who Helped Microsoft Weaponise "Secure Boot" Against GNU/Linux and BSDs Are Fleeing
- Microsofters doing what they do best: they evade accountability
- Simple is Better, Simplicity is Power
- That is "the advantage of having commodity GNU/Linux systems," an associate notes
- Much Ado About Nonsense
- Microsoft Lunduke is still all dramatisation and sensationalism
- Current Events in France
- It needs to dump Microsoft and other GAFAM (US) giants, move to Free software
- Links 09/09/2025: US-Korea Tensions and Meta Whistleblowers
- Links for the day
- Links 09/09/2025: “Torrents of Hate” and Political Crisis in France
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/09/2025: "Dedigitizing" and Forgejo on FreeBSD
- Links for the day
- Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images)
- That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
- Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs
- There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
- From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai
- The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
- Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech
- The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
- How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail)
- We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
- LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge
- Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
- LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching)
- The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions)
- the "upgrade treadmill"
- Rumour: Second Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in September to Commence Third Week of September
- That basically answers questions like, "Any specific date or time of the month?"
- If Your Machine Still Has "Secure Boot" Enabled, Then Microsoft Has a de Facto Kill Switch (Even If Your Machine Doesn't Have Windows and Never Had Windows)
- It is not incorrect to call UEFI 'secure boot' a "kill switch"
- Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Reality, ROOPHLOCH 2025, and Writing Another Gemini Client
- Links for the day
- Updating Firmware is Not the Solution But Only Additional Risk, Disable "Secure Boot" Today
- firmware blobs are buggy, secret, impossible to audit, and barely tested
- Microsoft Tim's DevClass (Part of The Register MS/Situation Publishing) is Full of Slop
- Looking at many sites that are full of slop images is becoming an eye sore and hallmark of text too likely generated by LLMs or 'assisted' (tainted) by them
- Microsoft Trying to Fake Demand for Slop. At What Cost?
- That's a giant demotion and broken promises
- Reddit is Corporate Propaganda
- To make matters worse, Reddit ousted many original moderators
- Jeff Geerling Shocked to Discover Many Metrics in YouTube Are Fake (His Audience Turns Out to be Much Smaller)
- Maybe self-host all videos, don't rely on Google's "FOMO" cheating (addiction based on false assumptions)
- Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant and Kryptonite/Garlic to Vampires
- Transparency (sometimes described by words like "Sunlight" or "Truth") is paramount
- The Register MS Uses Slop in Articles About Slop
- we are fairly certain it's slop or CG based on other people's work
- Visiting a Web Page or a Public URL Should be Safe, Predictable, and Benign
- It's probably too late to "fix" the Web
- The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Paid to Spread Mindless Hype for the "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme and That's a Serious Problem
- "Sponsored by Zoom."
- Links 08/09/2025: Burger King Cracked, Cox v. Sony Analysed
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Socialist Computer Museum and GAFAM/ByteDance/TikTok-Dominated Net
- Links for the day
- Links 08/09/2025: Tim Crook Disappoints Apple Faithfuls and Zuckerberg Lies (Financial Fraud) for Cheeto King
- Links for the day
- EPO Workers Point Out that the EPO is Destroying the Planet Under the Guise of "Hey Hi" (It Also Grants Many Invalid Patents Illegally
- On 12 March and 16 June 2025, staff representation met with the administration in the Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in Munich
- Turn Off Microsoft's Restricted Boot ("Secure Boot")
- We're still running a series on this issue
- Social Control Media Sites Have Become Bot Farms (Not Limited to LLMs and Automation)
- linkedin.com was nothing but trouble and losses for Microsoft
- Deep in Debt With the Magnitude of Losses Quickly Growing, Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Now Uses Broadcom for Vapourware, Pretending It'll Do OK Next Year
- At some stage it'll collapse
- You Can Tell Microsoft is in Trouble When Its Own Fans and Staff Blast it
- "Microsoft sinks billions into chasing artificial intelligence fads to hype up its share price."
- Multiple Undersea Cable Cuts and We're Still OK
- Microsoft customers experience problems
- Lawyers Who Think They Are Online Assassins Don't Deserve a Licence to Operate
- they've become a laughing stock in their "sector"
- Microsoft Windows Fell to 3.9% "Market Share" in Bahamas
- Based on statCounter
- How the European Union (EU) Fell Out of Love With Free/Libre Software
- Lots of bribery
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 07, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, September 07, 2025
- Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Scanner, Slop, and Chadobear
- Links for the day
- The UEFI 9/11 is 3 Days Away
- Nobody denies that bad things will happen
- Google Versus Journalism
- Google played a big role in the demise of news sites
- Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Advertising, Decentralized Archival, and Outsourcing to Bezos
- Links for the day
- Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Has Almost Gone Down to Zero, Nearly Totally Extinct in Geminispace, the Few Capsules Still Using It Are Spam/Dead/Stagnant
- This represents another decrease for Let's Encrypt; the last decrease was last week
- Not Much Left in News Cycles
- To be very clear, this does not describe "Linux" anything; it's true in just about every facet of news, except the paid-for fake "journalism" about "hey hi" (sites getting paid explicitly to maintain or rekindle hype)
- Trying to Silence Techrights Was a Huge Mistake
- Peter Thiel attacked a publisher for asserting, correctly, that he was gay. Now everyone knows it.
- Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
- Mozilla is not leftist
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part VIII - Denial of Service and Selling Us WSL (Windows) Instead of "Risky" (Prone by Breakage by Microsoft) GNU/Linux
- Restricted Boot (so-called 'SecureBoot') does not improve security. It is nothing but trouble. It's meant to trouble non-Windows users. In dual-boot setups, SecureBoot is a recipe for disaster because Microsoft keeps erasing or tampering with the boot sector, to paraphrase an associate
- Slop is Extremely Rare in Geminispace, Slop Images Are Unheard Of (Despite Images Being Supported)
- As long as Geminispace grows in terms of domains it's safe to predict the protocol will still be used in 2029 and hence Geminispace will turn 10
- Links 07/09/2025: Robodebt Class Action, Fines, and Copyright Settlement
- Links for the day
- Links 07/09/2025: Yle Impersonated in Social Control Media, Boat-Attacking Orcas, Midjourney Sued Again
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper
- Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
- Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre
- Links for the day
- Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop)
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025