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Over at Tux Machines...

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 21, 2024

Beautiful Mountain Lake In Portillo

Updated This Past Day

  1. Mozilla: Hey Hi (AI) Nonsense, Thunderbird Update, Plunder by the Executives, Surveillance, and Financial Interferences
    Bad and meh from Mozilla... company gone astray

    New

  2. today's leftovers
    GNU/Linux, Free software, and more
  3. today's howtos
    3 howtos for now
  4. Games: SteamOS, Godot, and More
    3 picks for now
  5. FRAME sockets added to OpenBSD and NetBSD 10.1 available
    some BSD news
  6. Red Hat Leftovers
    DNF, CentOS, and More
  7. Open Hardware: Raspberry Pi, ESP32, and More
    Hardware picks
  8. Debian-Based Grml 2024.12 Linux Distro Is Out with Support for 64-Bit ARM CPUs
    Grml, a live bootable Linux distro based on Debian GNU/Linux and designed for system administrators and users of text tools, has been updated today to version 2024.12, a release that extends hardware support and brings updated components.
  9. Applications: Kodi, Virtual Data Room (VDR), Quick Web Apps, GNOME Maps
    Some Free software news
  10. WordPress: Holiday Break
    I hope to find the time, energy, and money to reopen all of this sometime in the new year
  11. today's howtos
    Instructionals/Technical articles
  12. Want to save your old computer? Try these 6 Linux distros
    Here's how to save money, reduce e-waste, and extend the life of your old hardware at the same time
  13. Calibre 7.23 Brings Cover Preview and Tag Browser Updates
    Calibre 7.23 update: Manage book data files, expanded Tag browser, template import/export
  14. today's leftovers
    Debian, Canonical, IBM, and more
  15. Hardware: OpenWrt, Raspberry Pi, Armv9, and More
    Open Hardware focus
  16. FSF, Fake 'FSF' (FSFE, Sponsored by Microsoft), and Openwashing
    Some Free and nonfree picks
  17. Programming Leftovers
    Development picks
  18. DXVK 2.5.2 Improves Support for Alpha Protocol, Borderlands 2, and Other Games
    DXVK 2.5.2 is out today as the second maintenance update to the DXVK 2.5 series for this Vulkan-based implementation of D3D9, D3D10, and D3D11 for Linux / Wine.
  19. Windows TCO, Security, and CISA
    incidents and more
  20. Games: Godot, FromSoftware, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and New Steam Games with Native GNU/Linux Clients
    4 new stories
  21. Mobile testing in libadwaita
    Lately I’ve been working on touch controls overlays in Highscore
  22. Android Leftovers
    Google Keep making users ‘reload’ notes, rounds corners on Android
  23. These 6 Linux myths you still believe simply aren't true
    Linux is everywhere. It's on the majority of servers, powers the Steam Deck handheld gaming device
  24. Best Free and Open Source Software
    We recommend the best free and open source software
  25. New: the Fast Sketch Plugin for Krita
    Together with Intel, we have been working a new plugin for Krita
  26. Luckfox Reveals First Boards Featuring Rockchip RK3506G2 Triple-Core Processors with Linux Support
    Luckfox indicates on their Wiki pages that the Lyra series supports operating systems such as Buildroot and Ubuntu 22.04
  27. Stable kernels: Linux 6.12.6, Linux 6.6.67, Linux 6.1.121, Linux 5.15.175, Linux 5.10.232, and Linux 5.4.288
    I'm announcing the release of the 6.12.6 kernel
  28. Fedora Server User Survey: Your Cattle or Your Pets
    Your answers will help us focus our efforts to improve Fedora Server and provide better support for your use cases
  29. Today in Techrights
    Some of the latest articles
    The corresponding text-only bulletin for Friday contains all the text.

    Top-read articles (excluding bot/crawler visits):

    Span from 2024-12-14 to 2024-12-20
    951 /n/2024/12/15/Xfce_4_20_Desktop_Environment_Released_with_Experimental_Waylan.shtml
    721 /n/2024/12/15/Wine_10_0_rc2.shtml
    703 /n/2024/12/17/Kali_Linux_2024_4_Released_with_Linux_Kernel_6_11_GNOME_47_and_.shtml
    611 /n/2024/12/10/The_Shepherd_1_0_0_released.shtml
    597 /n/2024/12/16/Linux_6_13_rc3.shtml
    576 /n/2024/12/17/Fedora_Asahi_Remix_41_Released_for_Apple_Silicon_Macs_with_KDE_.shtml

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

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
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
 
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
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