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
- Nearly 1,000 People at EPO 'Met' to Plan Further Strikes and Impending Action to Dethrone Corrupt Leadership
- Exploring the purchasing "power" of EPO leadership (buying elections while doing cocaine in public)
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 196 Out of 200: Sending Someone to Our Doorstep to Ship Approximately 5 KG of Legal Papers (Instead of to Our Representatives)
- it is not about law, this is lawfare
- Same Name/Brand, Not the Same Project/Product
- What is Linux becoming?
- Germany, Like Switzerland, Will Dump Microsoft's Proprietary Software and Disservices, Then Dump Windows for GNU/Linux
- This impacts not only the Windows revenue; this corrodes any "rents" Microsoft was getting from "subscriptions"
- There Are Likely Over a Thousand Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Networks Online, Net Gain of 16 Seen This Month by Andreas Gelhausen's netsplit.de
- It's good that they're still tracking that sort of stuff
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- IBM Grapevine: Development Outsourced to LLM Slop and It Results in Many Bugs
- IBM is circling down the drain and every insider knows it
- Microsoft Gives Many People the 'Booty' This Week, Not Counting PIPs (Silent Layoffs and 'Voluntary' Layoffs)
- Microsoft PIPs allegedly target "20-25% in some teams."
- Links 23/09/2026: Pax Silica Hub Ruins a Country for a Pyramid Scheme (Slop), Convicted Felon's Press Block Resembles Iran, Russia, China
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/09/2026: Stuck, Gambling, Fury Road, IPFS, and More
- Links for the day
- The Register Got Paid Today to Spew Out "AI" Almost 50 Times (Keeping the Pyramid Scheme Buzzing in Headlines)
- paid-for spam
- IBM's Anderon Already Smells Like a Fraud and IBM Insiders Heckle the Lies From the Management
- Sabine Hossenfelder recently made some videos which explain in simple terms why IBM is lying and has already lied about this for years
- Links 23/09/2026: Mass-Surveillance by Clownflare and "Data Centre" Crunch Commences
- Links for the day
- 3 Years Divorced From Americans
- Next year we plan to pursue the UK's Court of Appeal
- The Register MS Uses Slop About Slop (in Images)
- Months ago we caught The Register MS using slop for text as well
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 195 Out of 200: Two Years Since Garrett, Graveley and Lozza Worked in Parallel to Censor Techrights
- It began in September 2024, shortly after we had sued Garrett
- Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 8 - In Conclusion
- this can invite more SCO-like problems in the future
- Microsoft Shuts Down More Studios, Morale Low, More Mass Layoffs Ahead of Reports
- They pretend it's not happening or that it's a lot smaller than it actually is
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 22, 2026
- Gemini Links 23/09/2026: Ljubljana, Poetry, and FORTRAN
- Links for the day
- The EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Shows Job Insecurity at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- Who would want to join a company with such low job security?
- There Are Thousands More Microsoft Layoffs (Including Silent Layoffs), Not Hundreds
- Microsoft does have layoffs and today is no exception (except Microsoft talks about it)
- Gemini Links 22/09/2026: Disability Studies, Slop Boosters, and TkInter
- Links for the day
- Links 22/09/2026: Flock is Collapsing Amid Mass Backlash and Internet Society Collaborates With the 'Epstein Class' (Trafficking of Women)
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 194 Out of 200: The Court Needs to Also Look Into Microsoft-Controlled Restricted Boot Advanced by An American (Garrett) to Promote Monopoly and Back Doors Everywhere
- Kill switch sold as 'security' is like euthanasia sold as a cure
- Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 7 - Infested With or Plagued by Bot-Generated Slop, Committed by Microsofters
- Slop is a security threat; even the person committing slop to Linux might not be aware that there's a back/bug door in the code
- Raspberry Pi Has Microsoft Secrets Inside, Now DRM
- now we deal with SBCs that have DRM in them, put there for commercial reasons
- Edward Snowden Lost His Voice, Then His Leaks Lost Exposure (Access Denied)
- When states want to deny people access to some information they have many tools at hand
- 2 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Page That Says "AI" 42 Times Because It Was Paid to Do So
- Still inflating the bubble for money
- Gemini Links 22/09/2026: Scout Night, Cybernetic Capitalism, and Thoughts on Companies Forcing People to Adopt Plagiarism Engines
- Links for the day
- Links 22/09/2026: "An Arsenal of Surveillance" and Slop Bots Suggest Starting Wars
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 193 Out of 200: Breaks GNU and Linux, Tries to Silence Critics, Loses All Money, Looks for Microsoft Allies and Sponsors
- The latest emotional knee-jerk reactions serve to confirm what we have long said
- Things Will Only Get Better (as We Go Backwards)
- It only gets better. If you go back in time.
- UK High Court Shows SRA is Totally Useless in Curbing SLAPPs, This Has Impact on Our Reporting on the SRA Next Week
- We'll carry on our coverage and soon finish the current series that so we can get on with more time-sensitive ones
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, September 21, 2026
- Links 21/09/2026: "Lies of the Hey Hi (AI) Industry" and Solar Power Is Getting Cheap
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/09/2026: Equinox and Beginner's Guide to Gemini
- Links for the day
- Links 21/09/2026: "Back On My Bicycle" and American Regime's War on Media Escalates Further
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 192 Out of 200: The Hired Guns of Garrett and Graveley Sent Us USB Sticks (One to Me, One to My Wife) Showing Lozza Talking to Garrett About Censoring/Deplatforming Techrights the Same Time Graveley Was Copy-Pasting Garrett's Lawsuit
- Next year we plan to bring this matter to the Court of Appeal
- Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 6 - Seeing Who Contaminates Linux With Slop (And Also Admits It)
- Today we begin looking at some culprits
- 2026: The Year Galleries Realised the Need to Flag or Cull Slop Images
- Society needs to shun slopfarms, people who use LLM slop (for anything at all), companies that use bots (which they dub "agents"), and so-called 'coders' who volley garbage into project and software hubs
- Software Freedom Day Celebrated in 5 or 6 Continent
- Software Freedom Day (SFD) 2026 was big this year
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 191 Out of 200: Garrett, Graveley and Lozza
- They talk to and coordinate with one another
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, September 20, 2026
- Gemini Links 21/09/2026: Digital Hoarder, GTD, Minimalism vs Digital Minimalism, Rejection of LLMs
- Links for the day