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
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: London Calling...
- EPO Vice-President in charge of the "Patent Granting Process" is likely to have been a pay-off for the support which the UK gave to Campinos in 2017
- Faking Productivity With Slop and Wasting Money on Faking 'Productivity': A Microsoft Story
- If the quality of everything at Microsoft goes down
- Wikipedia - Like Some Free Software Projects Infiltrated and Bribed - Bans Its Own Founder
- Over the years we've named (not shamed) some projects and organisations that got corrupted by money and ended up banning their own founders
- The “Aktion T4” at the European Patent Office (EPO) Saves Money for the President's Own Purse
- Call for parents of children with special needs
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- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, June 24, 2026
- Don the Con Meets the Conman From IBM, Shares of IBM Continue Sliding Some More
- The "Quantum" hype did not last long [...] PIPs are the new layoffs
- Retaliatory Whistleblowing Expected at Microsoft During or After the Mass Layoffs
- Retaliatory behaviour by Microsoft will backfire
- Gemini Links 24/06/2026: Heatwave, Steam Next Fest, and Year of Buying Guitar Pedals
- Links for the day
- Links 24/06/2026: China Tops "TOP500", Impact of Microsoft’s Massive Layoffs Extends Further, Internet Society's Community Snapshot
- Links for the day
- While Thousands at IBM Lose Their Jobs ("Silent Layoffs") IBM's CEO Goes Begging the Dictator for Bailouts, Based on Deliberate Lies About "Quantum"
- Many who claim to be retiring are only in their 40s and 50s. They're too proud to publicly admit what IBM did to them.
- IBM Sends Workers 'Packing', Sometimes With the "Low Performer" Label That Imperils Their Future
- To many people out there, IBM correlates with deceit
- Links 24/06/2026: Four-Day Workweeks, GM Cut 1,000 Workers at Its EV Plant, 21,000+ Oracle Layoffs
- Links for the day
- A Step in the Right Direction (EU) in the Fight Against LLM Slop From GAFAM (US)
- We've already mentioned this in Daily Links, but let's discuss this a little further
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 117 Out of 200: Libel Tourism or Defamation Forum-Shopping in the United Kingdom Condemned by the European Union (EU)
- Last week we reminded readers that the EU had criticised UK defamation law
- Demonstration Next Week at the European Patent Office (EPO), Administrative Council Seen as Complicit
- Corruption in Europe hurts all of us
- IBM is Now Hinged on False Accounting and False Promises
- This is the legacy of the current CEO
- "PARTNER CONTENT" or 'Content Farms' That Promote Slop and Misinformation (The Register MS)
- The Register MS represents a big part of the problem we all face
- Turn Off the Slop, It's Wasting Energy and Destroying the Planet (the Only Planet We Have)
- Right now we see lots of headlines about energy shortages and drained-up reserves
- Lessons From Almost 30 Years of Site-Building Activities
- We still strive to become faster and lighter
- Do Not Outsource (the Seductive Mirage)
- Abandoning so-called 'conventional wisdom'
- Media Complicit in IBM Fraud Meant to Prop Up the Share Price Based on Lies, Fabrications
- Even IBM insiders are fuming at this
- In Some Countries, Windows Has Lost Its Monopoly
- Windows fell to an all-time low globally this month
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 23, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, June 23, 2026
- Gemini Links 24/06/2026: Motivation, PostScript Printer, and Why Hyperscalers and the Smolnet are Compatible
- Links for the day
- The Media's "Satya Says" Syndrome Distracts From Grim Reality
- how insiders see Microsoft slop
- Oracle's Collapse Has Nothing to do With Slop, It's About Its Debt Exploding by Almost 50% in Just 12 Months
- How are people meant to trust the media?
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 116 Out of 200: 5 Years of Multiparty Lawfare Against Techrights, Funded by Americans and Also by Third Parties (Including Microsoft Salaries)
- The public and our government will be informed in full
- Now... a Word From Our Sponsor
- Powerade
- Links 23/06/2026: Microsoft Studio Closures and Journalism Subjected to Further Cuts
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/06/2026: Gardens, Basketball, Blocking Hyperscaler, and New Commodore Phone
- Links for the day
- Links 23/06/2026: Apple Price Hikes and Technical Debt in Slop
- Links for the day
- After IBM's Shares Collapsed the CEO is Trying the "Quantum" Trick Again, Bolstered by a Demented Dictator in the White House
- from what we can gather IBM's CEO is trying to get the US government to participate in the scam
- Greece Ought to Curb the Threat of Social Control Media
- its national discourse seems to be run by an American company called Facebook
- State of the GNU/Linux Desktop (and Laptop)
- The time to advocate GNU/Linux is now
- The 'XBox Narrative' Distracts From Destructive Cuts Across the Whole of Microsoft
- Microsoft is preparing to lay off a likely record-breaking number of people [...] this isn't just an XBox problem
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 115 Out of 200: Spending the Next Decade Writing About SLAPPs and Trying to Fix the System
- It's the same industry that got paid by corrupt EPO officials to try to cover up the corruption
- Microsoft's Stock Fell Nearly $200, But the Real Problems Are Just About to Begin
- if they dump slop, what will they tell shareholders?
- The Cyber Show on Starmer and Software Freedom
- The Cyber Show's Andy has just explained why our departing national leader wasn't all bad
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, June 22, 2026
- Gemini Links 23/06/2026: Girlrotting, Homeworlds at BGA, Slop Ruins Sites
- Links for the day