GNU/Linux News: The Opportunities Amid XP EOL
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-15 14:51:01 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-15 14:51:01 UTC
Few people know just how pervasive Linux has become, and that is causing a big problem for companies that increasingly rely on it. "There is a shortage of software developers in the U.S. The employment rate for these jobs is down to 2.3 percent in the last quarter. The opportunity for jobs is now there for people who come in to get this training," said Dice President Shravan Goli.
A new book on open source education teaches school leaders and parents why kids need to see coding as more than cool. Energizing Education through Open Source: Using Open Source Software to Enhance Learning by Christopher Whittum makes a strong case for deploying the Linux OS and its academic software in schools.
For business, the same kind of trouble started when Linux and the Internet showed up in the mid-1990s. No matter how useful Linux and the Internet prove to be, business still has trouble getting its head around a virtual world composed of end points that are all autonomous, self-empowered and at zero functional distance from each other. The best geometric figure for that world is a giant hollow sphere composed of boundless smarts on its outside—the nodes of its network—and no controlling entity in the middle.
Linux has become the dominant operating system for internet sites, powering Google, Facebook, YouTube and many others. It is also the dominant operating system powering Android phones and tablets, televisions, home routers and many other devices.
Running various Linux distributions on my own computers has been a mixed blessing over the years. While I've experienced many successes, something I don't talk about as often are the areas that frustrate me. In this article, I'll highlight my top list of Linux frustrations that bug me to this very day.
Ubuntu and the suite of GNU tools in any robust Unix system. A good text editor (currently Gedit)—I keep all of my working files at .txts. A robust, highly configurable browser (Firefox/Firefox for Android). A fast RSS reader (presently Google Reader, likely to be Newsblur next). A tetherable mobile connection—I use EasyTether for Android to circumvent tether-blocking as deployed by some of the carriers I use around the world, especially Rogers in Canada. AirDroid for moving files on/off Android devices in my life.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIX - Undermining US Election While Engaging in Lawfare in England (BBC) Against Publishers That Cover Anti-Election Violence
- The elephant in the room is back doors in voting machines
- The Tower of Babel
- More is not better
- When Large American "Tech" Companies Can No Longer Complete Payroll
- In spite of several very large waves of Dell layoffs, which the media reported on, it seems like they are still experienceng payroll problems, maybe that's why money is being borrowed
- Writing for Good
- The Web has an abundance of junk
-
- Mass Layoffs at SUSE, Over 10% of Staff Gone
- Ignore their excuses
- When You're a Software Developer and They Tell You That Your Occupation is Dead or Dying in Order to Sell Dysfunctional Offerings Based on Hype (and Plagiarism)
- Disbelief is a strength when companies borrow trillions of dollars to sell a dud and construct a pyramid scheme
- Links 03/11/2026: Slop-Tied Debt is Becoming a Crisis (Lenders Panic), "Ukrainian Journalists Urge Global Media Not to Look Away From Russian Aggression"
- Links for the day
- Malaysia Seems to be Exploring Digital Independence With GNU/Linux and More
- not too bad
- Microsoft Windows is Crashing in Republic of South Korea
- Like in Japan, they seem to be shutting the lid on decades of Microsoft-isms
- Think Less, Aim for Less (When It Comes to Hardware)
- An abundance of hardware being wasted on a pyramid scheme will become a cautionary tale one day
- Gemini Links 03/11/2026: Stargazing, Linux-Powered Prism "Ambient Computer", and Abandoning Streaming Disservices
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux Made Big Strides in Portugal This Year
- Microsoft had many layoffs in Portugal in recent years
- GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured at 8% "Market Share"
- Argentina is known for exporting skilled footballers, not advanced technology, but it has a large population, which we can hope will dump Windows
- Microsoft is Borrowing Loads of Money While Telling 60,000 Workers to Take the "Offer" and Leave, Microsoft Wants Bailouts From the Dictator
- Vote in elections and also vote with your wallet
- Microsoft and Spoilt Food
- Some whistleblowers may be needed here
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, November 02, 2026
- Links 02/11/2026: Bracing for US Election and New Zealand Has November 7 Election
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 02/11/2026: Beginning With Gemini Protocol, Looking for CoCs, and Slop for Local Data
- Links for the day
- NDA-Compatible PIPs and RAs at IBM Red Hat
- We welcome Red Hat whistleblowers who can share with us the NDA/s passed their way
- GNU/Linux Rises in African's Largest Population
- 15% in Nigeria [...] A country with over 200 million people
- The Register MS Has Just Published a Fake Article With "AI" 28 Times in the Page (Communist Party of China Entity Paid for That)
- In IRC, someone has just pointed out that an article at The Register MS repeats Microsoft's lies about its financial situation
- Windows Down to All-Time Low, Says statCounter, While Microsoft Tells 60,000 Workers They're No Longer Necessary
- Microsoft must be feeling "salty" right now
- A British Uphill Battle to Eliminate Microsoft and Its American Back Doors
- There are places of work and homes where GNU/Linux is installed and regularly used, not as a mere hobby but as a hyper-productive, practical tool
- Technical Coverage of US Elections
- When elections are done by computers and decided by computers it becomes a tech issue
- By Killing the "Linux News Section" in Softpedia (the Most Popular Section, Based on Its Editor) Softpedia Killed Itself
- Enjoy Ballmer
- Linkspam in "It's FOSS" Today (and It's Not Even FOSS)
- free-to-access ad for some dodgy companies and the URLs are 'tampered' for cashback
- Links 02/11/2026: Slop Destroying Mathematics and "Democracy is Not on the Ballot" (in US)
- Links for the day
- Celebrating Photography, Celebrating Life, Celebrating Magnificent Humanity, Not Plagiarism Disservices
- Any time we adopt or spread slop imagery we are participating in the problem
- Year-Long Celebration Starts on Saturday
- This coming Saturday we turn 20
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVIII - Microsoft Doesn't Want People to Speak About Microsoft-Controlled Restricted ('Secure') Boot, a Silent Injustice and Back Door/Kill Switch
- Can we please stop treating this as normal or acceptable?
- On Desktops/Laptops, Clownflare Sees Windows at Under 60% and GNU/Linux at 15% This Past Weekend
- Impressive if accurate
- Microsoft Lunduke is Slop
- Microsoft Lunduke is just trying to stir up hatred
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVII - Shooting the Messengers (People Who Oppose Microsoft Back Doors), Even Across the Atlantic
- Keep this in mind later this week when a dictator either discredits the voting or covertly tampers with the voting process
- Microsoft Wants 60,000 Employees Gone (One Way or Another)
- At IBM, 15% of staff got marked as candidates for removal; at Microsoft it's almost 30%
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, November 01, 2026
- Jean-Claude Van Linus
- Claude talking?
- Gemini Links 01/11/2026: OpenBSD, Broken MicroHDMI, Nextcloud, and More
- Links for the day
- IBM Vapourware on a Budget (to Grab Bailouts From US Taxpayers)
- Anderon is the sort of thing that makes IBMers uncomfortable
- Links 01/11/2026: Digital Minimalism and "Palantir Cofounder Announces Cruel Plan to Breed Thousands of Lab Monkeys for Medical Experiments"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Accenture in Trouble, Accenture’s Debt Skyrockets
- Seeing a wave of adoption of Free software in Europe, it's not exactly shocking that "consultants" from Microsoft Accenture are no longer in demand
- Microsoft Says Its "Goodwill" Value Has Been Declining for Years, But It Also Claimed That Doubled in One Year
- Wall Street deserves far more criticism or scepticism (at the very least)
- SkyChatz: From Nothing to #2 in IRC (in Less Than a Year)
- Second only to Libera.Chat
- Making Up Words or Inventing a Vocabulary
- Or why Large Language Models are useless
- Assange on What Lula Means to Free Press
- Here in the UK we've also found our 'Lulas'
- GNU/Linux is No Underdog (But There Are Attempts to Put It "To Sleep")
- There's a moral imperative
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVI - The "Law and Order" Candidate Who Crushes Both Law and Order and Even Rejects Election Outcomes (Insurrection Follows)
- A world without real technical security is a world void of democracy, justice, and human rights
- Links 01/11/2026: Malaysian Media Perishing, France Belatedly Identifies Social Control Media as Weaponised Yellow Press
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 01/11/2026: "Trick-or-Treating seems to be dead, at least in our neighborhood"; BaseFree Numerical System and Human Emacs
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 31, 2026