GNU/Linux Rising: Relevant News Items From March
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-19 19:12:45 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-19 19:12:45 UTC
Desktop
I'm sure there will be objections from people who want to define "the year of the Linux desktop" differently. There will be those fans of GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu who will object that the Linux Desktop has not arrived until we're all running KDE and Gnome. I fear those folks have a while to wait. Others will object because there are still so many copies of Windows and new PCs are still shipping with Windows. That's a fair point, but I believe even those users are actually Linux Desktop users. As I argued last year, Linux has already won on the Windows desktop.
Eurocom sent out a news release that beginning today they will be offering choices of operating systems in their line of GPU-upgradeable, high-performance, professional laptops. Besides the high-end laptop line-up, they will also be offering Linux options for their lightweight notebooks.
If your office runs 24/7, you'll have to do the migration in stages. You may have to migrate servers one at a time, and migrate departments group by group. So, some work gets paused, but most of your business will run during the entire migration process.
Linux has a reputation for being designed for geeks only, but that’s old history. Many modern Linux distributions exceed the user-friendliness of XP, and they’re free to download. If you don’t like the feel of one, you can easily switch to another. What’s more, each Linux distribution comes loaded with useful software such as productivity suites, modern browsers like Chrome or Firefox, and photo and music management apps.
"This is a subject very near and dear to me," Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone told Linux Girl over a fresh Tequila Tux down at the blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon.
Though Stone spent several years teaching "how to" computer courses for faculty and staff at a local university back in the 90s, "all those years barely prepared me for my greatest challenge: my own mother," he said.
To wit: After buying his parents a Windows 95 computer way back when, "I sat her down and showed her how to use the basic hardware," he explained. Yet "even after hours a day over the course of weeks, the computer was too much for her. Windows just had too many options, and she kept getting herself into places she couldn't get out of.
"I literally spent years looking for environments that would make her comfortable," Stone went on. "She went through the Windows OSes (95, 98, ME and finally XP) and some Linuxes -- Red Hat first and then a couple variations of Ubuntu. She always found ways to get herself into trouble."
I’ve been a computer user since around 1991, when we got our first PC, a Tandy from Radio Shack (almost $1,000), which came with Windows 3.1. Since then I’ve used each and every version of that operating system (OS), and still do. But at home and for personal use, it’s Linux for me. Why? Well that’s a question with many answers.
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The biggest driving factor for software developers to work together with open source is cost. It is much cheaper for them to cooperate through open source than it is to remain isolated with proprietary software, asserted Inktank VP of Product Management Neil Levine. "You can no longer rely on one particular vendor to provide everything you need with regard to technology."
After the Desktop
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QOOQ is a durable tablet designed for use in then kitchen. It's even got its very own Linux-based OS...
There was a time, back before smartphones and tablets, when most of us used, at most, only three operating systems.
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For months now David Herrmann has been working on a new project known as OpenWFD for open-source WiFi displays on Linux. OpenWFD is an open-source implementation of the WiFi Display Standard / Miracast. That work is now showing success and as part of that Herrmann has just announced Miraclecast as a component to providing open-source Miracast/WFD support on the Linux desktop.
Chromebook
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Chromebooks are making a big statement in the laptop world: NPD Group Inc. reported that Chromebook sales accounted for 21 percent of all notebook sales last year. For devices that are functionally little different from tablets — designed for basic tasks like checking email and web browsing — they're growing fast. Even as the tablet market continues to grow, capturing 22 percent of the entire personal computing market just last year, Chromebooks are giving people an alternative to rectangular touch screens.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
- What many IRC users lost sight of
- Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
- In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
- Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
- a rather sensitive matter
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- Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
- perpetrators of harassment
- For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
- "Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
- GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
- Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
- Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
- From a Microsoft media operative
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
- Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
- Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
- The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
- So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
- When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
- Integrity matters
- "Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
- We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
- We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
- Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
- Links for the day
- Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
- Links for the day
- Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
- Links for the day
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
- When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025
- Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, Planet Ubuntu, Anti-Linux FUD, and Microsoft SPAM
- It's not easy to altogether avoid take articles these days
- Gemini Links 06/06/2025: "MBA Tear" and Slop ('AI') as Plagiarism
- Links for the day
- Links 06/06/2025: "Convicted Felon and MElon Trade Insults" and Europe Snubbed by US Again
- Links for the day
- Links 06/06/2025: Microsoft XBox Bracing For More Mass Layoffs, Climate Disaster, Fake 'Money' Tokens From US President
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 06/06/2025: Vanishing Cultures and MElon Implosion
- Links for the day
- Extortion is a Crime, Even If You're Based in Another Continent and Work for Microsoft
- reported to British authorities
- We're in 6/6 Now, Almost Halfway in 2025
- 2025 was probably the best year for us
- South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
- We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
- Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
- Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025