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
- 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."
- 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."
- 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
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- 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."
- 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
- 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
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
- For those who have not followed our story
- Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
- They know what's coming, they just don't know when
- Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
- many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
- Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
- Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
- ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
- If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
- Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
- Links for the day
- "AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
- gets paid to do this
- People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
- As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
- Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
- Links for the day
- The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
- Lots more to come
- What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
- Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
- IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
- This is IBM policy
- IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
- Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
- In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
- In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
- IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
- For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
- Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
- Links for the day