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
- Your Site Should Implement Its Own Search (Before It's Too Late)
- GAFAM was never trustworthy
- Maintenance Reminder
- We'll carry on publishing
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff
- that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
- Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs
- "just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
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- Links 22/03/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' in Legal Trouble (Plagiarism, Distortion, Misrepresentation); Facebook/Meta Kills Off "Horizon Worlds"
- Links for the day
- Racism Dressed Up as "Choice"
- Racism is rampant at IBM
- Probably an All-Time Record
- Our investment in our own SSG is paying off
- Gemini Links 22/03/2026: LLM Slop Attacks USENET, Announcing Pig (New Game in Gemini Protocol)
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, March 21, 2026
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 18 Out of 200: Third Parties Funding Attacks on the Messengers, Lawsuits Against GAFAM-Critical Voices That Uphold Real National Security
- Women are like kryptonite to them
- Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.
- We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
- No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members
- Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
- Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities
- Many companies fake their health and their size
- Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails
- PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
- Techrights Was Always a Community Site
- The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
- Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month
- In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
- Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs)
- Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
- Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential
- Remember what happened to Skype last year
- Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
- many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
- Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
- if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
- When Nobody Else Covers the News
- There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
- Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
- Links for the day
- Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
- Links for the day
- HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
- "HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
- Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
- "the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
- A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade
- Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
- Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com)
- The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
- Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism
- Links for the day
- The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends)
- We'll say a bit more tomorrow
- IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders)
- For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
- Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').
- It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
- Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware
- Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
- Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
- Links for the day
- SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
- 5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
- Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
- hearsay in Social Control Media
- Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
- Starting 9PM
- None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
- Links for the day
- Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
- "Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
- Inaction Helps Your Enemies
- Without freedom, there's nothing else left
- Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
- Windows fell by a lot
- "systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
- Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
- Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
- For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
- The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
- Is IBM another Enron?
- "IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
- continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
- Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026