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Links 1/4/2013: April First Headlines and More





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • DNA Is The Linux Of The Natural World
    DNA Is The Linux Of The Natural WorldWe probably all vaguely assume that computers will overthrow us someday, which may be why it's so unsettling to learn that computer code is evolving much like genetic code. By comparing bacterial genomes to Linux, researchers have found "survival of the fittest" acting in computer programming.


  • Bullseye from 1,000 yards: Shooting the $17,000 Linux-powered rifle
    My photographer, Steve, squints through a computerized scope squatting atop a big hunting rifle. We're outdoors at a range just north of Austin, Texas, and the wind is blowing like crazy—enough so that we're having to dial in more and more wind adjustment on the rifle's computer. The spotter and I monitor Steve's sight through an iPad linked to the rifle via Wi-Fi, and we can see exactly what he's seeing through the scope. Steve lines up on his target downrange—a gently swinging metal plate with a fluorescent orange circle painted at its center—and depresses a button to illuminate it with the rifle's laser.


  • What’s in a Name?
    Katherine Noyes over on the Linux Advocates site has resurrected the GNU/Linux vs Linux naming debate, once again. To the uninitiated, the debate centers around if we should refer to the operating system as “GNU-slash-Linux” or simply as “Linux”, with the Free Software Foundation claiming that referring to the operating system merely as Linux gives undue credit to the kernel, without proper attribution to the GNU tools that make up the majority of the OS. Personally, I find the debate to be a waste of time. It is unlikely that anyone outside of a very small group of dedicated loyalists will care about the distinction. However, it does bring up a more interesting point, what about going a layer higher? What happens when distributions stop referring to themselves as Linux derivatives, come to market only under their name?


  • Desktop

    • Chromebook Pixel: Spoiling me for other Chromebooks
      I have been using a Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook since picking it up last year. The Samsung is a great laptop that happens to run Chrome OS, something that works very well for me. I like everything about the Samsung. Then Google sent me a Chromebook Pixel and spoiled me.

      The Series 5 550 Chromebook works very well for me. It runs Chrome OS nicely and is a super work machine that meets my needs. There is not really anything I don't like about the Samsung, but it's no longer enough.






  • Kernel Space



    • Graphics Stack

      • Another OpenGL 4 Feature For Mesa Is Published
        Earlier this morning I wrote about Chris Forbes committing texture storage multi-sample support to mainline Mesa and the Intel DRI driver. This OpenGL 4.x extension is now accompanied by a new "RFC" patch-set for providing Mesa support for another GL4 feature.

        Chris Forbes' newly-published patches on Sunday morning are for ARB_texture_gather, a feature mandated by OpenGL 4.0 and previously not tackled within the Mesa/Gallium3D world.


      • "Substantial Progress" With Mesa Geometry Shaders
        Open-source Intel developers have advanced their OpenGL geometry shaders work for Mesa, namely for the Intel DRI driver, and call it "substantial progress and definitely a reason to celebrate." This important GL3 feature is nearing a working state but there's still some work ahead before it will be merged.


      • LLVM 3.3 Picks Up More Support For Intel AVX2
        Beyond LLVM 3.3 having performance optimizations, one of many other features coming to this next compiler infrastructure update is greater support for Intel's AVX2 instruction set extensions.

        AVX2 is the first major update to the Advanced Vector Extensions. AVX2 is also known as "Haswell New Instructions" and will be found in the Intel Haswell CPUs introduced in the coming months. AVX2 tacks in gather support, expands most integer AVX instructions to 256-bits, 3-operand FMA support, vector shifts, and other new functionality.


      • An OpenGL 4.x Feature Gets Crossed Off In Mesa
        Support for the OpenGL ARB_texture_storage_multisample extension is now implemented within Mesa and is exposed by the Intel DRI driver.




    • Benchmarks

      • Ivy Bridge Doesn't Change Much With Modern Kernels
        For those wondering whether Intel "Ivy Bridge" hardware is still being made faster with each succeeding Linux kernel release, here are benchmarks from an Intel Ultrabook looking at the Ivy Bridge performance on recent kernel releases going up to the yet-to-be-out Linux 3.9 kernel.

        A few days back I carried out a Linux kernel performance comparison from an ASUS Ultrabook with Intel Core i3 3217U "Ivy Bridge" processor with 4GB of RAM, 500GB Hitachi HDD, and 24GB SanDisk SSD. Ubuntu 13.04 x86_64 was in use while the Linux 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9 (Git) mainline/vanilla kernels were tested.






  • Applications

    • New features in Cairo-Dock 3.2


    • Instructionals/Technical



    • Wine or Emulation



    • Games

      • A Thought on What Holds Linux Gaming Back
        All the talk nowadays if of "unification" or to paraphrase Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu the "availability of a single interface for all devices." And with all this talk I began to wonder why more gaming engine's aren't jumping on board.

        The recent release of Unity3d 4 was all the rage because it meant that an incredibly popular engine was coming to Linux, and thus all unity3d games developed with the new engine could in fact run on Linux (granted a Linux version was released). In my personal opinion, Unity3d is great, but when compared to the more AAA engines like the Unreal, FrostBite and CDProjectRed's RED Engine just to name a few, Unity3d falls a bit flat in my eyes.


      • Half-Life 4 added to the SteamDB for Linux!
        That's right, you heard it here first folks, Half-Life 4 has been added to the SteamDB! It includes hints of others things too.


      • Two from icculus now on Steam: Dungeon Defenders & Postal


      • New Racing Game for Linux


      • Serious Sam 3: BFE for Linux Gets Biggest Patch Since Launch
        Serious Sam 3: BFE is a very serious first-person shooter, as the name suggests, and it has just received a major update that greatly improves its performance.

        The Croteam studio has been hard at work and it is trying its best to make Serious Sam 3: BFE one of the best shooters for Linux.

        The latest update for the game has been promoted from the Beta to stable. It’s probably one of the largest patches launched so far and the number of Linux related fixes and improvements is quite impressive.


      • Humble Troubles Again, more platform specific bundles
        They have also just launched their Mobile Bundles which are for Android only, so no Windows, Mac or Linux (I know, I know Android is part Linux that's an argument for another day) versions, which makes me wonder just how the Windows crowd feels since they have been left out this time, too.


      • Mir, ARM & Valve Excite Linux Users This Month
        March 2013 was another interesting month for Linux users. The Mir Display Server, ARM on Linux advancements, and Valve's continued Linux game play continued to excite readers.

        This month on Phoronix at the time of publishing there were 242 original news articles and 11 multi-page featured articles. The number of news postings and articles is down from February when there was FOSDEM plus advertising campaigns on the site were more lucrative... Phoronix.com is almost entirely ad-driven so please view this site without AdBlock or other cruft. And/or please consider subscribing to Phoronix Premium for ad-free viewing as well as viewing multi-page articles on a single-page.


      • Valve Announces Half-Life 4 For Linux
        Valve has added Half-Life 4 to Steam and it will be a title for Linux without mentioning OS X or Windows support.

        As can be seen from SteamDB, Half-Life 4 was added today to Steam, well ahead of the Half-Life 3 debut. The Half-Life 4 entry also hints at binary support for the Steam Box, Valve's forthcoming console. The Half-Life 4 entry also notes use of "Source Engine 2" for the game.


      • Valve Releases Several New Linux Game Ports


      • There Isn't Too Much Progress On Unigine Linux Titles
        For those that have followed Phoronix over the years know that I am a big supporter of the Unigine game/3D engine. The engine delivers absolutely beautiful graphics and there is first-rate Linux support. The developers at Unigine Corp are very Linux-friendly. Unfortunately, games and other software based upon Unigine aren't too quick to come to the Linux gaming scene.


      • Valve Has Been Working Hard On Linux For One Year
        Today marks one year since an important milestone in the public history of Valve's Steam client and Source Engine coming to Linux.






  • Distributions



    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family



    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat's fourth-quarter sales dropped
        Despite the growth of Linux adoption in enterprise and business use, Red Hat, the large company that sells Linux operating-system software fell after reporting fiscal fourth-quarter sales that missed estimates as some customers stopped purchasing, due to the current global economic situation.


      • Fedora





    • Debian Family



      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu



          • Smart Scopes Get Removed From Ubuntu 13.04
            It's been decided at the last minute that "smart scopes", a feature of the new Unity desktop, will not ship in Ubuntu 13.04.

            Smart Scopes were supposed to be an intelligent server-side service for deciding if a search query should be pushed through a particular scope, among other benefits. Smart scopes were said to be self-learning and aimed to provide more relevant results for users of the Unity desktop.


          • Ubuntu 13.04 will disable Dash online search by default: Mark Shuttleworth
            Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, has finally listened to critics and EFF and said that the much controversial online search feature of Dash will be disabled by default in Ubuntu 13.04, which will be released later this month. Canonical was working closely with EFF, FSF and the EU privacy advisors and found it in best interest of its users.

            "Users are our #1 priority and not our business interests," said Shuttleworth in a statement, "the foundation of Ubuntu is people and if some decisions were made which put user's privacy at risk, that would be very un-Ubuntu. We never shied away from trying out new things and we never hesitated in changing a decision for a greater good."


          • User Interaction with Ubuntu Components


          • Ubuntu Powered Promo Booth? You Bet [Ubuntu In The Wild]
            Every day we walk past and interact with machines that run Linux, without ever noticing.


          • Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) server, 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) desktop and 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) reaching End of Life on May 9 2013


          • End of life for three Ubuntu editions on 9 May


          • Monitor ‘Zeitgeist’ Logging Activities in Ubuntu using ‘Zeitgeist Explorer’
            ‘Zeitgeist‘ is a computer based user activity logging framework for the GNU/Linux operating system that keeps a track of your frequently opened files (text, audio, videos etc), visited web links, conversations that you had with others (through ‘Chat’ apps) etc.

            The database is a semantic one and so it makes it easy to identify patters, thus improves the ability to predict user activities. And since this database can be accessed by other applications (if they support ‘Zeitgeist’), they can predict or guess the user’s needs more accurately and thus improving the user experience.


          • Experimental Compiz, Unity Work Continues
            While the future is with Mir and Unity Next, work on the short-term includes more performance optimizations for the Unity desktop and Compiz window manager.

            While Sam Spilsbury no longer works at Canonical and has some dissenting views over the future direction of Ubuntu Linux, he has dabbled with some performance optimizations recently for Compiz/Nux.


          • issue 71


          • Flavours and Variants













  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



  • The Biggest Failure in Open Source Is…
    I have been a self-employed technical person for the past 38 years. I my living based solely on my output. Since 1998 a major secret weapon has been the use of SR. Certainly, you can get speech recognition from the Debian pool. While some good folks over in Japan have made some major advancements over the years, it is still a toy. This is inherent in the complexity of speech recognition software.

    In 1998 IBM had a Linux version of SR known as ViaVoice. It worked about as well as any other SR offering of the day. IBM dropped the product. At a conference I asked an IBM executive, Why? The answer was: “We did not get enough gross revenue to cover the cost of the box manufacturing to put the CD in it.”

    In my experience the Open Source community is its own worst enemy. Putting on the rose-colored glasses, and disappointing those who just want to ‘get something done’. Let’s look at a real world example.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • Funding

    • U.S. Defense Agency Feeds Python
      The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has given 3 million dollars to Texas-based software provider Continuum Analytics with a view to helping fund the improvement of the Python language's data processing and visualization power for big data tasks.




  • BSD

    • DragonFlyBSD 3.4 Coming Soon, Focuses On DPorts
      The DragonFlyBSD 3.4 release is anticipated for release in mid-April and one of the features to this next BSD operating system update is the formation of DPorts, a derivative of the FreeBSD ports collection.

      DPorts is DragonFly's derivative of FreeBSD Ports and will ultimately replace pkgsrc and the other pkg_* tools on the operating system. These older tools also reached an end-of-life state on FreeBSD.




  • Project Releases



  • Licensing

    • Russians Selectively Blocking Internet
      The Russian government in recent weeks has been making use of a new law that gives it the power to block Internet content that it deems illegal or harmful to children.




  • Openness/Sharing

    • Will Ford's open-source car API drive us to distraction?
      That's perhaps why it wasn't all that surprising that Ford's EVP of Global Marketing, James Farley, didn't use his keynote address at the opening day of the New York International Auto Show to announce some line extension or new braking system, but rather to introduce a mobile app competition.


    • Urban activists hack their way toward open government
      OAKLAND, CA—Four years ago, Code For America (CFA) was founded with the mission to "help governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the Web." Within two years, the San Francisco-based nonprofit set up a fellowship program, inviting American cities to receive a team of three young motivated developers, activists, and policy planners. The Washington Post's description captured what everyone was already thinking: CFA is the “technology world’s equivalent of the Peace Corps or Teach for America.”


    • Open Access/Content





  • Standards/Consortia

    • Making WebRTC Simple with conversat.io
      WebRTC is awesome, but it’s a bit unapproachable. Last week, my colleagues and I at &yet released a couple of tools we hope will help make it more tinkerable and pose a real risk of actually being useful.






Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event
Investigative Journalism Protects Society From Corruption, Crimes Against Women, Assaults on Civil Society
"what is the point of men doing military practice to defend a system that is so rotten?"
Swiss pimp usurping reputation of legendary Tissot boss Francois Thiébaud from France (BaselWorld, SWATCH Group SA)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Paris 'Love Nest' & Debian Outreachy: from Lycée Lakanal to ENS Cachan, Cr@ns, nepotism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk in 3 Hours, Then in the Technical University of Munich (Germany) Next Week
Richard Stallman at TUM on 21.10.2025 18:00, MW2001
Leaks and Whistleblowers: Our Plan for Today
Society simply cannot advance when too many people self-censor
 
Slop Poisons Everything
Imagine wanting to find what Torvalds has just said or what has just been released
Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
interest in Software Freedom must have grown
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
Links for the day
The EPO's War on Techrights Was a Massive Mistake
The EPO started the SLAPPs after we had published a few hundreds of articles; we've since then published close to 6,000 because the attacks on us emboldened insiders to help us
General-Purpose Computers to Become Growing Area of Coverage
Without them, we have little left for controlling our lives
"They missed a great opportunity to shut up." -Jacques Chirac
Brett Wilson LLP has been trying to cheat the legal system many times
Harassment evidence: Switzerland, overcrowded fitness and yoga centers, incompetence and racism in accident response
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Vincent Danjean & Debian NXIVM collateral, blackmail risks
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
In Sweden This Past Friday Richard Stallman Explained Why Copyleft is Important
And he didn't have to 'bash' BSDs, either
Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
It's good to see him attracting vast audiences
IBM Layoffs Due to a Lack of Money and Company Debt Rising by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in 6 Months
IBM didn't buy Red Hat for any ideological reasons; it was a fast "cash grab" for revenue
Forbes Already Stopped Being a News Sites. Now It's a Spam and Propaganda Platform for "Paying Partners" (Companies).
news from Forbes became very scarce
Is the Second-Largest Institution in Europe (EPO) Gradually Becoming More Like a Sweatshop?
Underpaid, unqualified, inexperienced and incompatible people are already recruited to replace veteran examiners
The Register MS Has No FOSS Coverage Anymore
The Editor in Chief is like a Microsoft plant
Links 13/10/2025: "Toasty Subwoofer" and WiFi Speakers "Are About To Go Dumb"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: iNaturalist and Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea
Links for the day
Microsoft Does Not Deny That Large Retailers Like Walmart, Costco and Target Are Giving Up on XBox (and Not Stocking It)
No doubt XBox is in trouble and rumours suggest that more mass layoffs are imminent
We'll Encourage Richard Stallman to Talk About Software Patents at the EPO Next Week When He Visits Munich (EPO Headquarters)
Go listen to Richard Stahlmann
Arnaud Parreaux lost case defending rogue employer
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Mathieu Elias Parreaux declared bankrupt in Switzerland
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Breakdown of the Rule of Law and Patent Law in the European Union (EU)
The EPO cannot recruit suitably qualified patent examiners this way, let alone retain them
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Good Films, Wizard of Earthsea, Upgrading the Steam Controller's Stick
Links for the day
It's Not Justice When One Side Denies the Other Side the Ability to Even Speak
At this stage, Brett Wilson LLP is in my humble opinion acting in contempt of the Court
Links 13/10/2025: Australian Catholic University Uses Slop to Libel Students, Canada Threatens to Kill Beluga Whales
Links for the day
How Not to Silence Tux Machines (It'll Only Backfire, Badly)
defending Microsoft while attacking this site
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT and Google News
It seems abundantly clear that Google News and Google in general participates in the slop epidemic
Vincent Danjean (not INTERPOL), Claire Bardel & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Christmas lynchings: Martin Krafft (madduck), Penny Leach (mjollnir) & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Birthdays and "Committee Unable to Contact Nobel Prize Winner"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 12, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 12, 2025
The Same People Who Attacked Richard Stallman (RMS) Are Attacking Daniel Pocock to Discourage People From Listening to His Information
Pocock is being demonised for the same reasons and by the same people who attack RMS
Your Typical Anti-Richard Stallman (RMS) Cancellist
"About the RMS cancellation"
Richard Stallman (RMS) Has Announced His Talk in Rome Less Than 20 Hours in Advance (and on a Sunday)
Why did he wait until the night before?
We Are Safe in a Modern "Tech" Society, Right?
People are safer if they control their own computing
GNU Tools Cauldron Event in Portugal: Videos Now Available via Invidious
Go have a look
The Way Things Are Going, They May Soon Stop Saying "Web Address" and Instead Say "Chrome Address"
The Web isn't built or based around open Web standards anymore. It's centered around user-agent.
Microsoft as a Golden Cage
"I was laid off by Microsoft and can't find a job. I'm weeks away from giving up my apartment and moving across the country to live with family."
Weekend Discussion About How IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Will Cause "Enshittification" for Users
"I worked at a software company that was acquired by IBM so I knew it was game over for RedHat the day they were acquired"
Brett Wilson LLP Getting Sued by Its Very Own Clients, a Legal Story That Has Made the Mainstream News (Law360)
Law360 or Law.com are about as mainstream as one can get in that "sector" (litigation 'industry')
Slopwatch: GNU/Linux Sites That Became Slopfarms and Spamfarms
The Web is a mess and "Linux" or "Ubuntu" sites became part of the problem
Richard Stallman's Talk 25 Hours Away, Aula Magna Palazzo del Rettorato (CU001), Sapienza Università di Roma (Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5)
The talk is 25 hours away and we see some QR code for it
Gemini Links 12/10/2025: Watches, the Depression of 2026, Gamboling with Odds
Links for the day
Links 12/10/2025: 'False' DMCA Claims and Slop Facing Perils Again (the Hype Wears Off)
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Just Lost Privacy Case in Austria and Its Latest Moves Make a Complete Ban Seem Imperative
Microsoft is not a software company, it's a spying agency that uses software to collect data
The Register MS: Microsoft is the Security Expert, Not the Prime Culprit, So Buy More Microsoft
This front page feature is devoid of any actual substance, it's just Microsoft copypasta
Stefano Zacchiroli (Zack) & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Lucas Nussbaum & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 12/10/2025: "Palm Computering", Further Exploration of Slide Rules, and Key Takeaways from The Well-Grounded Rubyist
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 11, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 11, 2025
Tomorrow: Founder of the Free Software Foundation and of GNU/Linux, Richard Stallman, Speaks in Roma (Rome), Italy at 4PM
GNU/Linux is more important than ever in this dystopian world
Microsoft and Apple Are Rare Topics in Geminispace
in Geminispace it's rather safe to assume everyone is into BSD, GNU/Linux, and sometimes retro