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
- No Allure in Omarchy, the Political Hyenas Only Give it More Free Publicity
- To me, Omarchy seems like a weak project because of the slop (an HR problem)
- Don't Let Bastards and Haters Grind You Down
- They say "jealousy is the sincerest form of flattery"
- Goodbye, Dolly
- This week we say "goodbye, Dolly."
- How Many Web Requests From "Linux"...
- If one was to assert that "Linux == Android" or "Android == Linux" (it's not that simple), then "Linux" already accounts for about 30% of Web requests
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- The Register MS Has New Fake Article ("SPONSORED FEATURE") With "AI" 21 Times In It
- The Register MS is one among many culprits
- Gemini Links 26/08/2026: “Doomsday Clock”, Rwanda Genocide, and Boasting About Using LLMs Instead of Writing Code (Due to Employer's Pressure)
- Links for the day
- Twitter is Not an API or a Communication Site, It's a Really Bad Site That Forces You to be Enslaved by Its Algorithm (Amplifying Its Owner's Worldviews)
- the crackdown on Nitter means we should all avoid accessing or linking to x.com (Twitter)
- GNU/Linux Rose in Caribbean Islands
- combined population is measured at 44,182,048
- IBM's Quantum Computing Lies Explained Again by Sabine Hossenfelder
- To become a CEO at IBM one must lie
- Controlling Culture and Social Behaviour by Digital Locks
- if you don't fully control the technology in your possession, then you're not using that technology, this technology covertly uses you
- Links 26/08/2026: Election Bribery (aka Vote-Buying) Deemed "OK" in the US, "Nitter is Shutting Down After a Cease and Desist Letter" by MElon
- Links for the day
- Analogue So Much Better and Faster
- From what we can gather, the tram ticketing system does not use Windows; we never saw it crashing or rebooting (or showing some Windows logo) in decades, so we assume it runs some kind of Linux
- Linux Today Dumped All Social Control Media Last December
- Linux Today seems to have concluded that all Social Control Media is just a waste of time
- Don't Say X.com is OK Because People Can Access It by Alternative Means
- Can Mozilla please clarify who inside Mozilla greenlit a return to X.com?
- The Reach of techrights.org Is Increasing
- We are on the side of women victims
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 162 Out of 200: An Outline of Events
- An outline of events
- Pushed to Live
- We still have some other work - stuff related to the editing of pages - which is work in progress and has been subjected to testing for many months
- GNU/Linux Measured at 10% in Germany, Based on Cloudflare
- It's peaking late at night
- Richard Stallman's GNU Project Began 42 Years Ago With GNU Emacs and More
- GNU Project announced almost 43 years ago (next month it's the anniversary)
- Fake Articles "Sponsored by HPE" Published in The Register MS
- Selling proprietary products as 'alternatives' to other proprietary products
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 25, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, August 25, 2026
- Gemini Links 26/08/2026: Journal Plans and Extending Finger Protocol
- Links for the day
- An Explainer About Injunctions Done Wrong - Part I - Saving Money Where Money Cannot be Saved
- Of course Garrett not being able to afford his own case is a key factor here
- Links 25/08/2026: "U.S. Marines Cancel Drill With South Korea", "UK Prime Minister Burnham Arrives in Ukraine"
- Links for the day
- Not for the First Time This Week, Site Called "It's FOSS" is Promoting Software That is NOT FOSS (And It Knows It)
- Is this an editorial choice? Advertising? What is it?
- Gemini Links 25/08/2026: Geometry and FidoNet History, "Goodbye I2P and Yggdrasil, Welcome Telnet!"
- Links for the day
- Links 25/08/2026: Microsoft Salaries Leaked Again, "Oasis Photograph Sparks Copyright Lawsuit"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Trots Out Its Propaganda Agent Preston Gralla to Make It Sound Like Microsoft Breaks Up With China (Reality: Microsoft Got Dumped by China)
- This discredits any publisher that plays along
- GNU/Linux Did Not Start in 1991 and America Wasn't Discovered by Europeans
- it'll be 43 next month
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 161 Out of 200: Low Standards in Defamation Cases Just Muddy the Waters and Distract From Legitimate Cases
- The judge at the trial said that Garrett's case was a waste of the court's money
- Rolling Out Some Changes Soon
- To the regular reader no change will be seen
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, August 24, 2026
- Gemini Links 25/08/2026: Separated by Plexiglass, Low-Tech Information Networks, Jörg Rippel Comes to Geminispace
- Links for the day
- The Tragedy of Software Developers Making Up Narratives and Making Excuses for Plagiarism (of Their Own Work, Too)
- one lingering issue is that many who vote in Debian GRs receive money from slop companies
- Evri Makes Us Optimistic About the Collapse of the Slop Pyramid Scheme (Bubble)
- Do not be seduced by false promises of "automation" or "intelligence" where only automation may exist but no intelligence at all
- Congrats to Linux.org for Adopting or Getting Back to IRC
- This is the way the Net ought to work and was originally designed to work [...] IRC as a protocol turns 38 this month
- Links 24/08/2026: "Journalism Can Help Expose Bad Science And Trigger Real-World Change"; Further Suppression and Censorship in China/HK
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/08/2026: Soul Mentality, Words to Live by, Mozz.us Gemlog Resumes, Smol Conversations
- Links for the day
- Today The Register MS Published Greenwashing Spam for the Slop Pyramid Scheme, It Mentions "AI" 29 Times
- More people need to talk about the role of the media in this pyramid scheme
- Slop Plagiarism and Chatbots Are Killing Evri (They Infuriate and Insult Clients)
- Slop destroys companies and leads to misery (miserable clients, time-wasting)
- Links 24/08/2026: Re-defining the IndieWeb and "Data Center Backlash Bursts Into the Midterms"
- Links for the day
- The Issue With Omarchy is the Slop, the Politics Are a Side Issue
- Those corporations do not oppose slop, they participate in it
- In South Korea, Steady Increases for GNU/Linux
- authorities said they would migrate to GNU/Linux or consider moving in that direction
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 160 Out of 200: In Astounding Repetition of Last Year, Brett Wilson LLP Deliberately Ignores Holidays of People It is Attacking and Crushes Principles of Access to Justice
- Disconnected from the law
- Links 24/08/2026: Vision and Skill, Doing Good, Chiperia Project
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 23, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, August 23, 2026