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
-
Kernel Space
-
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.
-
Graphics Stack
-
Applications
-
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.
-
Instructionals/Technical
-
Games
-
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.
-
Desktop Environments
-
GNOME Desktop
-
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.
-
-
New Releases
-
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!
-
Debian Family
-
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.
-
-
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.
-
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.
-
Web Browsers
Chrome
-
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.
-
CMS
-
Licensing
-
Are developers actually chasing down license violations?
-
Openness/Sharing
-
There are some pretty basic things that a researcher can do to make their work into an open content project. Here are a few.
-
Programming
-
Finance
-
Censorship
-
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.
-
Internet/Net Neutrality
-
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.
-
Intellectual Monopolies
-
Copyrights
-
ACTA
-
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
- Microsoft Windows Falls to All-Time Low of ~60% in Switzerland, GNU/Linux Among Top Gainers
- What will it take for mainstream media (not just geeks' site) to cover it?
-
- Culture of Harassment Inside Microsoft, Says Former Director at Microsoft
- listen to Microsoft insiders
- Drone Strikes on Amazon (GAFAM) Datacentres Highlight Azure's Miniscule Share
- Azure is failing
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 35 Out of 200: How to Make ~10,000 Pound Sterling (13,220.50 United States Dollars) by Copy-Pasting and Editing 10 Pages
- Today it's Easter Sunday, so we'll keep this part relatively short
- Gemini Links 05/04/2026: Artemis II Mission Tracker, Meditation on Copyright, Alhena 5.5.5, "Gemini as the Final Frontier of Human Cognition"
- Links for the day
- Mainstream Media on "Practical Survivalism"
- Suffice to say, panic buying begets more panic and price surges
- Cloud Computing as a Cloud of Smoke (Your Hosting Provider is a "Legitimate" Military Target)
- When a French datacentre went up in flames people joked that the "cloud" meant a cloud of smoke
- Andreas Tille Congratulates Sruthi Chandran Before the Election for Debian Project Leader (DPL) is Even Over
- Andreas Tille, the current Debian Project Leader (DPL) who has been in this role for nearly 24 months
- When You Try to Change the World for the Better and Somehow They Find a Way to Say You Are the Villain
- Don't be a fool. Don't fall for inversions of narratives.
- Slop Was a Flop and Energy Crisis Will be Slop's Final Blow
- Today we see no slopfarms in Google News
- Links 05/04/2026: "Taiwanese Airlines to Hike Fuel Surcharges 157%" and Openly Racist Voter Suppression Starts in the US
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/04/2026: Playing with Hyprland and Migrating Antenna Filters
- Links for the day
- Links 05/04/2026: "Confidential Computing" as Proprietary Bundle of False Promises and "The Web Is an Antitrust Wedge"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, April 04, 2026
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 34 Out of 200: The Necessity of Transparency, Illuminating Garrett's and Graveley's 'Tag-Team' Act, Misusing the British Docket (From Far Away in America) in Efforts to Hide Bad Behaviour
- Transparency is paramount
- Red Tape at Red Hat (IBM)
- Now the guiding principles are the whims and moods of people who peddle buzzwords to manipulate IBM's share prices
- The So-called 'AI' (Slop) Companies Will Have the Plug Pulled
- It can vastly accelerate this bubble's implosion
- Dr. Andy Farnell on a "Technology Plan B"
- based around Free software
- Windows Lows Across the Mediterranean
- Judging by this month's data from statCounter
- The Future of the Net is 'in Space'
- Gemini Protocol is growing and GemText remains the same, so it's made to endure
- Linux Foundation Profits From Scams, Fraud, and Grifting
- Don't be misled by the name "Linux Foundation"
- Too Hard for IBM to Keep Everybody Silent About How the Company Has Gone South
- IBM is busy trying to keep disgruntled or ex workers silent using NDAs
- Microsoft Transmits Malware and Back Doors to GNU/Linux Servers, Media Points the Finger at Everyone But Microsoft's Servers
- Is Microsoft too poor to vet and check what it hosts and transmits?
- Gemini Links 04/04/2026: "Fuzz Guy", "Reusing Old Computers with Arch Linux and DWM", and Bubble v10.0 Released
- Links for the day
- Links 04/04/2026: eBay Scam, "Music Publishers’ X Copyright Lawsuit Officially on Pause"
- Links for the day
- Links 04/04/2026: Social Control Media Verdict and Bans, Whistleblower (Axel Rietschin) Explains How "Microsoft Vaporized a Trillion Dollars"
- Links for the day
- Reaching the End/Event Horizon of LLM Slop
- Are we moving towards a post-LLMs world?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, April 03, 2026
- Gemini Links 04/04/2026: STXGE and Computer Relationships
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 33 Out of 200: Garrett Sued by My Wife and I, Then His Microsoft Acquaintance Files Another Lawsuit and Our Webhost Receives Legal Threats Too
- Today we also show how our solicitor Mark Lewis responded to it
- Good Friday, Leaving IBM for Good
- Even on holidays
- Links 03/04/2026: Rejection of More Software Patents and Social Control Media in Several Continents
- Links for the day
- Malware in Proprietary Software - Latest Additions by Rob Musial
- Original published yesterday in gnu.org
- Visual Evidence/Documentation of IBM Dying Like the Dinosaurs
- IBM has many of these giant white elephants lying around, with some getting demolished
- Links 03/04/2026: USPTO’s Latest Greenwashing and Internet Blackouts Impact Journalists in War Zones
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 32 Out of 200: Garrett Made Spurious Requests (Later Withdrawn) the Same Week Someone He Later Spoke to by E-mail Sent Threats to Our Webhost
- The "plot thickens" because there's a multi-party tag-team act, as confirmed by Garrett after he had sworn on the Bible
- IBM is a Dying Company, Nowadays It Kills Red Hat With Slop
- when your last day is a national holiday in IBM's country
- "Independence Drives" and Community-Run Sites
- Independence in reporting is a much-valued trait
- When Charlatans Are Only Good at Losing Money and Storytelling (e.g. About Investment in Them)
- Wait till a a barrel of oil costs $300
- What Apple Fans Are Missing
- Apple is a bad company
- The "Pale Blue Dot" Moment Had Returned
- To many people, the "bitter-sweet" observation of how small we are
- Saudi Arabia Does Not Rely Much on Microsoft/Windows
- Putting aside politics, this is good for Free software
- Almost 12 Years of Exposing Corruption in Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- The "unready" President is now an abandoned President
- Easter Moon Mission and Its Reminder of IBM's Demise
- A lot of NASA operations now rely on GNU/Linux
- When Power is Scarce and GNU/Linux Has Power
- In Cuba, GNU/Linux has long enjoyed high adoption rates
- Don't Totally Dismiss the 'Survivalists'
- 'Survivalists' or similar terms are used to describe a particular mindset of people who prepare for some really awful scenarios
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, April 02, 2026
- A Much Better Use of Fuel Than Slop
- Something positive for a change
- Hoping for Peace
- There are still many things to be enjoyed, including nature and kind people
- Gemini Links 03/04/2026: "Slide Rule Triple Multiplication" and End of "Picture Pages"
- Links for the day
- Rumours of Microsoft Layoffs This Season
- Just how much trouble is Microsoft in at this point?
- GNU/Linux Measured at All-Time High in Sweden
- Can 'influencers' have played a role