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
- Father of XBox Says What Microsoft Does Not Want to Hear About XBox (They All Know It's Dead)
- Microsoft just worried shareholders will find out Sharma is "just a face" and an undertaker
- France Needs to Focus on Software Freedom, Not Flags
- We need more SIP advocacy!
- Combatting Censorship in the "Civilised World": The Media Blackout Surrounding EPO Strikes and Other Large-Scale Actions
- We - collectively speaking - cannot afford to keep the Office in the hands of a "Mafia"
- EPO Strike Actions and Other Industrial Actions Are Effective When Management Fears the Staff and Staff No Longer Fears Any Managers
- 'António the unready' should get ready to be ousted
- IBM Did Not Fall Because of COBOL Vapourware, IBM Still Collapses Because It's Worthless, Way Overvalued, and Very Likely Cooks the Books
- language-to-language conversion (in the context of programming) is nothing new
- Quitting Reddit (Social Control Media Controlled by Conde Nast)
- There is a new post in Reddit
- Links 24/02/2026: Telephone Turns 150, Political News Catchup, and Rearmament
- Links for the day
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- HR Blunder at IBM or IBM Struggling With Money?
- Weird for such an allegedly rich company to be so stingy
- Gemini Links 24/02/2026: x86 Computer In-Browser and Administration
- Links for the day
- Envy is the #1 Enemy of Richard Stallman
- Whenever you see someone mocking Richard Stallman, ask yourself: does this person have a reason to be jealous of Richard Stallman?
- Life is Sweeter When Less Means More
- People need to think "small", not "big" (as in capital)
- Championing a Cause
- Probably over 100 million GNU/Linux users on laptops/desktops
- Balmoral rape cult & Debian suicide cluster indifference, community
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Can Much Longer Can the Financial 'Press' (Pump-n-Dump Megaphone) Cheer for IBM's Accounting Enigma?
- IBM has fallen almost 25%
- Religious or Not, Consider Quitting Social Control Networks (All of Them) This Season
- Lent is a good time to quit addiction such as social control media
- Liberating the Self From the Invisible Prison of Plutocrats-Controlled Media and Social Control Media
- Can you always see the full picture or does something (someone powerful) obstruct it?
- Links 24/02/2026: Drug Cartel Decapitated, Jeffrey Epstein-Connected 'Linux' Foundation Promotes Slop and Buzzwords at MWC Barcelona 2026
- Links for the day
- 2023: Layoffs Are Because of "AI". 2024: Shares Up Owing to "AI". 2025: Shares Recently Fell Due to "AI". 2026 Forbes (Paid by IBM): Shares Falling is Good!
- "AI" is smoke and mirrors
- Bitcoin: Code of Conduct stifled open source concerns
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Slop Boosters and 'Hype Agents' Render Themselves Irrelevant and the General Public Becomes Incredulous Due to "Bros Who Cry Wolf!"
- It won't age well
- "Half-baked Vibe Code Shipped Full of Errors"
- Seems timely after our latest article
- Links 24/02/2026: Copyright Litigation Over Anne Frank’s Diary, "Arrogance of Developers"
- Links for the day
- Another New Low for Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA): Authorising Slop Disguised as "Legal Advice"
- SRA is a lapdog - not a watchdog - of the "litigation industry"
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part IV - "Many Jobs Were Given to Spanish Employees for No Related Skills At All"
- The EPO's fate might be similar to that of the XBox
- Gemini Links 24/02/2026: Hardware Tinkering and Slop Bots Attacking the "Small Web"
- Links for the day
- IBM is the World Champion at Layoffs and There Are Reportedly More Layoffs in IBM This Month (EU)
- IBM fired 60,000 in 1993
- Free Software is for Everyone
- Young and old, rich and poor etc.
- Gemini Links 24/02/2026: Voltage Divider on Slide Rule and Many Raspberry Pi Projects
- Links for the day
- Asha Sharma "a Palliative Care Doctor Who Slides Xbox Gently Into the Night"
- 2026 will probably be the last year of XBox
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 23, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, February 23, 2026
- Probably IBM's Worst Day in Wall Street in Well Over a Decade
- They try to blame some Anthropic slop, but that's just a distraction from IBM having nothing to offer
- The Monday After the 9PM-on-Friday Prepared Puff Pieces-Under-Embargo Microsoft Strategy for XBox Collapse
- There are more layoffs ahead at Microsoft's XBox
- Kyndryl Also in a Freefall Today, James Kavanaugh's Accounting Skills Seem to be Based on Pumping and Dumping
- What is the real value of Kyndryl when its debt is about twice its alleged "worth"?
- Not Much Left to "Pump" in This Slop Bubble
- let's hope that by the end of the year the whole bubble fully implodes
- IBM Common Stock Crashes Hard (Almost $100 Below the Levels of February's Beginning)
- Another Kyndryl?
- Links 23/02/2026: Withdrawal From Slop and Ukraine Invasion Enters Fifth Year
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/02/2026: Moving to Gentoo, Wake-on-LAN Script
- Links for the day
- Kyndryl Fell by About 50% in One Day, IBM Fell 23% in 20 Days
- the IBM Titanic
- Security and blobs, by Alex Oliva (GNU Linux-Libre)
- Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
- Trusting the Evil Maids
- Don't listen to liars and frauds
- Aaron Swartz Has Already Explained What Reddit/Conde Nast Meant to Him and Why We Should All Avoid Reddit If We Value Software Freedom
- Aaron Swartz did not start Reddit
- Valnet's Good Legacy of GNU/Linux Advocacy in Journalism Form
- Let's hope they carry on like this
- Techrights Thanks Every Single EPO Worker Who Went on Strike Today
- We have so much in common
- Coders and Thinkers
- I used to be a hyper-productive coder; these days I do more thinking and writing
- Slop (So-called 'genAI') is Not a Skill, Slop Gets You Suspended or Even Sacked, It Can Eventually End Your Career
- Benj Edwards, a so-called 'Senior' so-called 'AI' so-called 'Reporter'
- There is No Such Thing as "AI Skills", "AI Competency", "AI Fluency" Etc.
- Slop does not give anybody an advantage
- EPO Staff Union: The Strike Actions and Other Industrial Actions "Have Already Delivered Measurable Gains."
- SUEPO Munich has just issued a statement to staff
- Links 23/02/2026: "What Boston Will Cost Me" and Women as Hostages
- Links for the day
- IRC Usage Levels Seem to be Rebounding This Year
- it looks like the total count (tally) of users increased a lot lately
- Microsoft Tricked the Media Into Lying About Microsoft Layoffs in January. Now It Does the Same (in February).
- Microsoft has got the media by the wallet (or balls)
- Free Software Projects Become Slow Due to Slop
- It does not improve efficiency or productivity, it reduces both
- EPO Strike Has Begun (or Resumed)
- The EPO status quo is untenable
- Links 23/02/2026: US Surrenders to Climate Change (to Benefit Oil Companies and Slop), UK Court of Appeal to Hear Mazur
- Links for the day
- GAFAM Jobs No Longer Lucrative
- Those days are long gone
- Based on Insider Leaks, Asha Sharma's Job is to Kill XBox While Talking About "AI"
- They cite SneakerSO
- Germans Recognise the Contagion is Digital, Not Racial
- How to dismantle or neutralise those weapons? Turn them off
- Free Software (or Software Freedom) Ain't No Religion
- It's hardly surprising that some of the loudest opponents of Software Freedom and its luminaries also disregard or bend facts
- Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why the Slop Industry is Like Trespassers and Thieves
- interesting new article about robots.txt files
- The Demise of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Profession Based Around Bullying With SLAPPs and Empty Threats
- For press to survive and thrive in the UK we need the hired gun to be submerged
- Linux Kernel 7.0 Release Candidate Comes Out, Stallman Turns 73 in Three Weeks
- It predates Microsoft and Apple
- In Greenland, Firefox's Gecko and KHTML (KDE, But Bastardised by Apple) Bigger Than Chrome
- Are those Danes recognising the risk of monoculture?
- Gemini Links 23/02/2026: Imperfect Journal, Evil, and "Progress Goes Boing!"
- Links for the day
- “Power is a Thing of Perception. They Don't Need to be Able to Kill You. They Just Need You to Think They are Able to Kill You” ― Julian Assange
- When leadership becomes corrupt enough to lose a sense of authority its days are numbered; it'll be replaced
- IBM Has Already Admitted 2026 Mass Layoffs (in 4Q Earnings Call)
- We showed this earlier this month, but some people bring that up again
- Reasons to Go on Strike in the European Patent Office (EPO)
- If you live in Europe and don't work for the EPO, you can still help
- First speech of Chanellor Hitler, Andreas Tille & Debian denounce Branden Robinson
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, February 22, 2026
- IBM Layoffs Definitely Still Happening
- Contrary to what some apologists try to say
- More and More Projects Quit Microsoft GitHub This Year, XBox Will See the Same
- Microsoft GitHub's embrace of slop as "strategic" gives us a clue of what'll happen to XBox very soon
- Google "Intelligence": Despite Slam-Dunk or "Smoking Gun" Proof, Drug Abuse in EPO Leadership is "Unverified Allegations"
- Google's slop (so-called 'AI') lacks intelligence
- 8,000 Pages/Articles Per Year
- We're eager to maintain a good production/publication pace and illuminate the sinister attempts to interfere with Freedom of the Press in the UK
- Don't Use the Future Tense to Discuss the Slop Bubble
- Wall Street does not react to reality; it reacts to panic, which is related to expectations
- Gemini Links 22/02/2026: Okonomiyaki and Midcrunch Crisis
- Links for the day
- The Broken Window Industry and Its Ongoing Desires to Make Technology Less Dependable
- Reliable computing is becoming harder to find
- Freedom Means Accepting He or She Who is Different
- In the Debian community we're sadly seeing some authoritarian overreach this month
- New XBox CEO Typecast in Social Control Media
- Microsoft apologists will fall back on (or shuffle between) the "racist" and "sexist" angle
- Sites Without JavaScript Deserve Your Visits
- We're not arguing that the Web should be as simple or barebones like Gemini Protocol/GemText
- EPO Strikes Are Already Working
- Campinos is already going "into hiding"
- Microsoft Windows Falls to Another New All-Time Low in Guatemala, It is a Bottomless Pit
- Maybe users come to realise that Windows means back doors and those doors are open to a regime that ought not be trusted
- "XBox" Will Become Slop After Mass Layoffs
- When all else fails, "AI it"
- Links 22/02/2026: Hardware Price Hikes Across the Board, "Microsoft Issues Statement on Potential Layoffs"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft "Layoffs Incoming"
- This transition isn't about promoting games; it's about canning the console
- Links 22/02/2026: "Bloat of Modern Fitness Apps" and Wikipedia Deprecates Archive.today
- Links for the day
- Our IRC 5-Year Anniversary (for Self-Hosted) is Fast Approaching
- A week from now it's March already
- Gemini Links 22/02/2026: Dream Job Gone and Slop in Taskwarrior
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, February 21, 2026