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
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXII - Running One's Mouth
- British Police told me "making a false complaint to police is a crime" in relation to Lozza
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- State of the (Linux) Slop, Late 2026 Edition
- Google News (Gulag Noise) is a plagiarism booster
- Year 21
- It's 5PM here
- Links 07/11/2026: "Flock Cameras Got Eviscerated by the Midterms" and Joshua Wong Shows China is Highly Repressive and Fully Controls Hong Kong
- Links for the day
- At The Register MS the Net Liabilities Doubled in One Year, Tangible Assets Down About 35% in One Year
- signed off in 2026
- Another 20 Years of Exposing Corruption
- We'll focus on carrying on what we do
- EPO Budget and Finance Committee (in Very Recent Meeting) Increases Bribes to People Who Vote on Campinos Reappointment ("Cooperation Activities")
- Buying 'elections' to protect the cocaine-stained regime in Europe's second-largest institution
- Links 07/11/2026: London's SLAPP Industry Now Targets Kirkenes (Northern Norway) at the Behest of Corrupt Thieves in Russia and Microsoft’s 'Buyout' Offer Crashes Microsoft Systems
- Links for the day
- Links 07/11/2026: "The Moon is Waning Crescent", Homeworlds, and "Can't Handle The AVIF!"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 06, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, November 06, 2026
- IBM Compels Workers - Even at Red Hat - to Become "Retired-ish"
- Who needs RAs (layoffs, which have been rebranded as "buyouts" like pink slips are generous "gifts") when workers can have their butts kicked every day and WARN Act reporting thresholds are never approached?
- Links 06/11/2026: "XBox Is Closer Than Ever to Being Sold Off" and "BuzzFeed Stock in Free Fall"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 06/11/2026: Dao and Dreams
- Links for the day
- 20 Years of Techrights
- Celebrating 2 decades of abuses of power being watched (and looking back at key changes)
- Linux (and Linus Torvalds) Sleepwalking Into a Binance-Level Catastrophe With Slop 'Code'
- Someone should ask Linus Torvalds or his boss (Linux Foundation) if they deem slop, which nobody audits, trustworthy enough to add to every computer out there running the Linux kernel
- Vitaly Orlov Weaponises Deep Pockets to Leverage High Court of Justice in London for Censorship and Punishment of Critics
- reproduced in full for more exposure and to make censorship harder
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXI - What I Told British Police About Lozza the Same Month Garrett Was Preparing His First Nastygram From 'Hired Guns' Brett Wilson LLP
- Lozza and Garrett
- Outsourcing at IBM
- Cheapening of the workforce is hardly a new problem
- The Register MS: Turnover Fell by Over a Million Pounds (About 20%) in One Year, Administrative Expenses Rose by Almost Half a Million Pounds, The Register MS Operates at a Loss
- This is not a (commercially) healthy publisher
- Links 06/11/2026: Slop "Companies Race to Lock Down Oil Clients" and Salon Shuts Down
- Links for the day
- Our Third Decade
- Our anniversary is tonight at midnight
- Freedom Is Not Free of Charge, Freedom Can be Very Expensive
- Being someone's "slave" is the "default" when no resistance exists
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXX - Swatting by Proxy
- Using imbeciles who lie to cops and then dox cops (and already have arrest record and court documents wherein they admit being stoned in front of the cops)
- Intel Craters at Taxpayers' Expense (Bailouts for Failing Companies Simple Don't Work)
- GOP, which did this, has lost many seats
- Mass Layoffs at IBM, Also Outsourcing to India
- What IBM does to itself it is doing to other entities as well
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, November 05, 2026
- During Strikes and Industrial Actions Lots of EPO Staff Organised Yesterday and Will Do the Same Next Week
- There really needs to be a genuine election, not a reappointment
- Gemini Links 06/11/2026: Hadestown and "Where Has the Electronics Shop Gone?"
- Links for the day
- Links 05/11/2026: Rule of Law Vanishing in Turkey, Joshua Wong Still Martyred by Chinese Regime
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/11/2026: Classical Music, Politics, and Seeed Studio
- Links for the day
- Like Almost Every Slopfarm, UbuntuBuzz Seems to Have Thrown in the Towel
- Linuxsecurity and Linuxiac (to some extent Linuxjournal) are still going, but for how much longer?
- EPO 'Midterm' Elections Should Oust the Dictator
- Tentatively a failure to secure another (unprecedented) reappointment before Christmas
- Secret IBM Layoffs and Increase in PIPs (Silent Layoffs)
- The media is failing to do its job
- Links 05/11/2026: "Voice is Underutilized" and How Data Centres Lost the Midterm Elections
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXIX - Crime Numbers Regarding GGG (Americans) and Why Those Still Matter
- Time does not undo the actions
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXVIII - Telling the Police About the Defamatory Blog Where Posts Targeted My Wife and I (From Across the Atlantic Ocean)
- Two years ago we spoke to cops a lot
- The Register MS is Losing Money Again, Based on The Register MS
- Selling out didn't pay off for very long
- There Are No "Layoffs" Anymore, Layoffs Got Rebranded
- We're entering bizarre times when layoffs are said to be "down" (according to the regime that suffered a 'bloodbath' in the election) because companies quit using the term "layoffs"
- Gemini Links 05/11/2026: Rivers of London, Soul Cakes, STMicroelectronics, and Slop
- Links for the day
- The Register MS Has Just Published Fake Article With "AI" 84 Times in the Page Because It Was Paid to Do This!
- Astounding number of mentions of "AI" (84 in total)
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, November 04, 2026