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
- Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, March 2026
- When will the media properly investigate this?
- An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part IV - Escalating to Ministers, Explaining the Severity of These Matters
- British Sovereignty at Stake
- Garrett Announces LibreLocal Instance in Northampton, Massachusetts (USA)
- his message was the only one last month
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- Very Little Slop About "Linux"
- We hope to see slop eradicated by year's end
- BBC Lied for Its Longtime Sponsor (Bribes for 15+ Years) Bill Epsteingate, in Effect Covering Up Sex Trafficking of Underage Girls
- The state of the media is truly awful
- Microsoft GitHub is Not Free Hosting and It Won't Last
- Not for much longer [...] Microsoft is afraid to say that it is pulling the plug, but it seems inevitable
- "The Lost Generation" Came Back, This Time Literally
- Based on my limited experience with young people ("alphas"), they're lost
- IBM is Not Likely to Survive Another Decade
- Despite having already survived over a century [...] Last week we saw claims that some company would likely acquire IBM for its remaining assets
- IBM Has Just Been Sued Again by Its Own Staff (This Time a Manager, Stephen P. Gutierrez)
- IBM's behaviour towards its staff can prove costly
- When a Company Says Its Layoffs are "Due to AI" Check the Debt (Typically the Real Reason for Mass Layoffs)
- The mass layoffs at Microsoft continue, but Microsoft hides those in some of the same ways IBM does
- Doing More With Less
- primacy of concepts rather than bells and whistles
- Andy and Helen in Cybershow on Divesting From the United States' Technology and Politics
- It is no longer considered a taboo to say this and it's not "anti-American" because many Americans can relate to and agree with such criticism
- Links 10/03/2026: "GEMA v. Suno Copyright Case" and "Valve Faces PRS Lawsuit Over Allegedly Unlicensed Steam Music"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 10/03/2026: Woods in UK, Slop Laziness, and "Small Technology and Small Economic"
- Links for the day
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 8 Out of 200: Gross Misuse of UKGDPR to Protect the Agenda of American Back Doors (Mass Surveillance)
- Responding to bunk claims regarding UKGDPR and claims of 'analytics' in our sites
- Links 10/03/2026: Oil Prices Rising, South Korean/US Military Assets Redirected
- Links for the day
- Links 10/03/2026: Rust Rewrites by Slop "20,171 Times Slower", "You MUST Review LLM-generated Code"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 09, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, March 09, 2026
- Attacks on Techrights Make Techrights Stronger and Attract More Whistleblowers to Techrights
- The harder they attack us, the more productive we become
- The Register MS Has Just Taken Money From Google (Where the Former Chief Editor Now Works) for Femmewashing and Ponzi Scheme Promotion
- now The Register MS not only promotes a Ponzi scheme but also bags money to pretend Google respects women
- People at IBM Are Still Smart Enough to Understand What's Really Going on
- "I would never refer someone to work at IBM that I liked! I hope all of you have reviewed IBM on Glassdoor."
- European Patent Office (EPO) to "Eventually Eliminate the Tasks Performed by Formalities Officers"; EPO Run by People Without Experience in Patents
- full paper
- RMS is 73 Next Week
- Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS) turns 73 exactly 7 days from now
- Iran & FSFE: blackmailing women, from football to the French Government (CNIL)
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part III - Very Strong Legal Basis for an Appeal
- The case is now being escalated to a Foreign Secretary and former Deputy Prime Minister
- Police investigations, lawsuits & Debian leader election candidate shortage
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Has Defeated Cancel Culture, a Mostly American Phenomenon
- RMS is talking now
- No Slop Found in RSS Feeds, Only in Google News
- No slopfarm will survive for very long, certainly it'll go bust as soon as readers (if it had any) know what it is
- Links 09/03/2026: Many Security Breaches and a Pandemic of Censorship
- Links for the day
- People Who Work or Worked at IBM Hate It
- bluewashing is only the first step
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Talks in 30 Minutes, Next Stop Bern (Last Stop)
- We assume he'll travel back to Boston after that
- IBM's Fedora as a Booster of Slop Disguised as Code or Computer Programs
- Maybe we should also stop seeing a doctor and instead ask chatbots about symptoms?
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk Five Hours From Now
- there is growing recognition for what he really did for everybody
- What the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Action Fraud UK Have in Common
- Don't let London become the world's "crime capital"
- EPO Strike 10 Days From Now, Planning Assembly Tomorrow, Last Couple of Strikes Had High Participation Rates (1,500-1,600 Staff Went on Strike)
- The next strike is in 10 days' time and then there will be another strike
- Dr. Andy Farnell on How GAFAM, NVIDIA and Others Lie to People Via the Sponsored Media to Prop Up Lies Under the Guise of "AI"
- Lots of key aspects are covered
- Links 09/03/2026: GAFAM Outsourcing, "MAGA Political Meddling" in EU, Indonesia Bans Social Control Media for Children Under 16
- Links for the day
- Using Slop (and Slop in Articles) to Attack Copyleft 'on Budget'
- This article is pure BS from an anti-GPL and anti-RMS 'activist'
- Why The Register MS Sold Out to Microsoft: They're Losing Lots of Money, The Register MS is Bleeding to Death, Based on Its Own Financial Records
- With over 6 million pounds in debt (nearly 10 million US dollars) we guess it's likely some other company will take over the site (if it deems it worthwhile)
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 7 Out of 200: Like With the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Misuse of UK-GDPR to Try to Hide Embarrassing Facts
- They do and say really bad things, then allege it's a "privacy violation" to mention those things
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 08, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, March 08, 2026
- Gemini Links 09/03/2026: Exponentials and Tailscale
- Links for the day
- Sloppyleft
- Article by Alexandre Oliva
- Hard to Replace 'Human Touch'
- The reason many people insist on using GNU
- Richard Stallman Gives Talk in 20 Hours at Ostschweizer Fachhochschule Campus in Rapperswil-Jona
- The talk is in English
- The Slop Companies Gamble at Our Economy's Expense and They Know It's a Losing Bet (So It's a de Facto Robbery)
- The crash of this bubble isn't just inevitable, it's already happening and receding sporadically because of false announcements about money that does not actually exist (to "buy time")
- Suppressing Speech by Blackmail, the Iran Story
- When Debian wanted to stage a seemingly legitimate election it needed to have more than one candidate running; so eventually the female partner of a geek rose to the challenge (had no coding skills at all, no technical history in Debian) and lost to the "incumbent German"
- Too Focused on Buzzwords the Media is Paid to Saturate the Collective Mind With
- Just because companies do really bad things in the digital realm does not imply "AI" or follow from "AI"
- Discrimination and Prejudice Against Female Journalists
- we can shame people who attack a reporter on the grounds of gender
- An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part II - Trying to Put People in Prison for Committing the Act of Journalism
- This is abuse of process
- Attack on Copyright and Copyleft by Code Conversion Is Nothing New, It Predates Slop (Code Produced by LLMs) by Several Decades
- Even back in the 90s many people converted programs from one language to another. That could invalidate copyleft (and copyright), which already existed
- Almost a Slopless Weekend for "Linux"
- Let's hope slop will come to an end or sites will cease linking to slop
- Insiders Explain Why IBM is Dying and the Inherent Culture Problem
- There are many ways to shave this IBM cat
- Links 08/03/2026: Microsoft Lost $400 Million on "Project Blackbird" and Half the States Sue Over Illegal Tariffs
- Links for the day
- Links 08/03/2026: Cisco Holes Again and "Blatant Problem With OpenAI That Endangers Kids"
- Links for the day
- Activism/Journalism in Our Blood
- one must fight for one's principles
- Gemini Protocol in Its Prime
- What's particularly neat about Gemini Protocol is that it's fast and cheap
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 6 Out of 200: Intentionally Misnaming Women, People Who Offered to Testify That They Too Had Been Subjected to Similar Abuse
- Today it is International Women's Day
- Even Fedora Leadership Cannot Figure Out the Microsoft Kill Switch/Back Door, 'Secure' Boot
- It does not actually enhance security
- Bruce Perens: Richard Stallman "Has Achieved His Goal"
- Stallman's next talk is tomorrow
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 07, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, March 07, 2026