Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 08/04/2009: Glimpse at Mandriva 2009.1 RC2; GNU IceCat 3.0.8-g1 Released





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • 8 Reasons You Should Switch to Linux
    # It's Free – most Linux distributions, like Ubuntu and Fedora, come absolutely free of charge to install, distribute, reinstall, and modify without worrying about breaking any copyright or pirating laws.

    # Free Software – there are thousands of programs that can help you do almost anything you need. There are Office alternatives, web browsers, instant messaging programs, media players, email programs, a great Photoshop alternative, and even software where you can run a lot of your favourite Windows programs. Most of these free alternatives are available for Windows (and Mac OS X), too!

    # It's Fast – out of the box, the most popular distributions require less hardware to run than Windows or Mac OS X. There are also versions that can run on very little hardware, like Xubuntu or Damn Small Linux, so you can bring those old computers in the basement back to life.


  • Logitech G19 Keyboard Review
    Logitech's G19 gaming keyboard—which borders on ludicrous with its embedded Linux mini-computer and full-blown LCD monitor—is the best one they've made yet, even if it doesn't quite reach its full mind-blowing potential.




  • Kernel Space

    • NVIDIA's Open-Source Driver Gets Updated
      The ill-maintained, feature-limited, and obfuscated driver known as xf86-video-nv driver has a new release out. This is the first open-source NVIDIA X.Org driver update in several months, but its change-log is rather limited. The xf86-video-nv 2.1.13 release was pushed out by Red Hat's Adam Jackson, and not even NVIDIA.


    • Gallium3D-Capable Mesa 7.5 Release This Week!
      It was just three months ago that Mesa 7.3 was released and then work on stabilizing this graphics stack to form Mesa 7.4 began. When the development began on Mesa 7.5, the Gallium3D architecture was merged to master. This work soon will appear in a released version of Mesa.






  • Applications

    • Google 'Chromium' pre-alpha available for Ubuntu users
      Google's Chrome browser has quickly become very popular since its release on September 2, 2008, but one issue many have is that it's currently Windows only. Well, it appears that this will all change sometime in the hopefully-not-too-distant future, as Google's 'Chromium' browser is now available as a pre-alpha for Ubuntu users. As you may have noticed, the browser is called Chromium at the moment, as Google's Chrome is a browser based on the Chromium project. Once this has been officially released, it will be called Google Chrome.


    • 10 must-have Linux Web-based tools
      Linux is an outstanding operating system for serving up applications. And there are a ton of possibilities. From content management systems to Web portal creation tools, Linux has just about everything you need. Among those thousands of tools, a select few stand out as the best of the best. Listed below you will find my top 10 must-haves for Linux server/Web/cloud-based tools.


    • Radical Breeze releases easy to use personal desktop automation software for Linux.






  • Desktop Environments





  • Distributions

    • Back to the Future
      Yeah. That's Linux, specifically Linux Mint 5 (Elyssa) based on Ubuntu 8.04. Running from the Mint 5 Live CD. After reading about the troubles another user had with Mint 6 and his move from Mint 6 back to Mint 5, I decided to download the Mint 5 ISO and boot europa with it.

      And it's amazing. Everything. Just. Bloody. Works. Everything.




    • Mandriva

      • Testing Mandriva Spring
        French Linux specialist, Mandriva, has released version RC2 (codenamed Estephe) of their Linux 2009 Spring.


      • Mandriva 2009.1 RC2 Screenshot Tour
        Mandriva announced last night the immediate availability of Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2. Once again, we thought it would be nice to please our readers and offer them a visual tour of this second release candidate of the upcoming Mandriva 2009 Spring.

        What's new in Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2? Well, the most obvious thing is the new artwork, which consists of new wallpapers for both One and Free editions and a new theme called ia_ora, for KDE. Moreover, Mandriva and the KDE team successfully ported the popular K3b CD/DVD burning application to KDE4.






    • Red Hat

      • Bianor Extends Its Partnership with Red Hat, Inc
        Bianor extends its collaboration with Red Hat by starting a partnership with Mobicents - Open Source JSLEE 1.0 and SIP Servlets 1.1 certified VoIP Platform.


      • WCED Launches New Video Series “Raleigh-Wake County Business Showcase”
        Videos Will Feature Local Companies That Continue to Grow During Current Economic Slowdown

        [...]

        The first video profile for WCED will feature the Raleigh-based company Red Hat, Inc. Founded in 1993, Red Hat (www.redhat.com) is the world's leading provider of open source solutions and is one of the most recognized open source brands. Headquartered in Raleigh and with more than 65 offices across the globe, Red Hat serves global enterprises with open source technology and services. Solutions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Enterprise Middleware and a range of related management tools. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide.


      • Dell, Red Hat Partner Up On JBoss Middleware
        Sources say the Dell-Red Hat luncheon is part of a larger go-to-market strategy that will accelerate Dell’s push beyond Red Hat Enterprise Linux into JBoss middleware.


      • Sun, Red Hat Back OASIS Health Care Privacy Standards
        OASIS demonstrates health care IT privacy standards in a multivendor interoperability demo at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in Chicago.












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Wrist-mounted computer runs Linux
      Glacier Computer has announced a wearable computer that runs Linux and includes built-in WiFi along with GPS and Bluetooth options. The wrist-mounted "Ridgeline W200" has a 3.5-inch touchscreen display, backlit keys, a hot-swappable battery pack, and an electronic compass, the company says.


    • Linux-based PLC
      Systec Electronics (distributed in Australia by Embedded Logic Solutions) has released the PLCmodule-C32, an all-rounder for industrial control tasks. A Linux-based Compact PLC, the device is programmable in C/C++ and in IEC 61131-3. The IEC 61131-3 runtime kernel includes a fully functional CANopen manager and function blocks for accessing on-board peripherals.


    • Glacier’s rugged wrist PC is no Pip-Boy 3000
      You’ll also get support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS modules. It comes with Windows CE or Linux, sporting features like tilt and silent reckoning for putting the device in standby.




    • Phones

      • More Android devices tipped
        T-Mobile is planning to launch several non-handset devices that run the Android stack next year, says a New York Times story. Meanwhile, Samsung will ship two U.S.-targeted Android phone models this year in addition to a previously announced smartphone scheduled for a June release, says Forbes.








    • Sub-notebooks

      • Windows Is Not on 96% of Netbooks
        The point: Brandon stated a number that may be true for U.S. retail for one month of sales, February. But how true is it really if some of those Windows XP netbooks also ship with Linux? Again, Brandon didn't misstate the facts, but there is also much unsaid. He can be excused for accepting NPD's numbers without looking at the greater context. After all, he works for a U.S. company and his job is to promote Windows and its benefits.












Free Software/Open Source

  • My OpenExpo talk: “The Intersection of Ideas in Open Source and Open Standards”
    Here’s a video of the talk I gave last week in Bern, Switzerland, at the OpenExpo conference.


  • The true cost of migrating to open source
    If you work with real free software, not neo-proprietary versions, the worst-case peak cost of migration is no greater than the proprietary-to-proprietary kind.

    If you also look beyond the migration window defined by the proprietarists, you will see that the really substantial savings accrue over time. So, project return on investment is better than proprietary-to-proprietary, with long-term sustainable cost reductions across the whole infrastructure.

    That simple fact is why, despite propaganda to the contrary, free-software migrations are accelerating in the current economy.




  • Firefox





  • Programming

    • PHP Middleware Debuts With Zend Server
      PHP is one of the most popular languages for Web development and is a critical component of the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) (define) stack. Now PHP is getting a stack of its own, thanks to the new Zend Server, which packages PHP for Web application deployment and monitoring.






Leftovers

  • Censorship/Web Abuse

    • Bill Lets Obama Turn Off the Internet
      Two bills introduced giving the President the power to deem a private network part of the nation’s critical infrastructure and shut it down for cybersecurity reasons also gives the Commerce Secretary the power to access network data outside of oversight.


    • All your email are belong to us
      As of April 6th 2009 the same goes for your email conversations and Internet telephony calls. Courtesy of the introduction of The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 the date, time, duration and recipients will be logged by ISPs and have to be available for 12 months.


    • EDF Goes Nuclear on Greenpeace
      An executive with the French government-owned energy company EDF "has been charged on suspicion of spying on the environmental group Greenpeace." The executive, "who previously worked as a police commander, is being investigated for conspiring to hack into Greenpeace France's computer system."


    • Canada's ACTA Briefing, Part One: ACTA Is A Response to WIPO Gridlock
      The Canadian government provided its first major briefing on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement this morning. There were attendees from all sides of the issue as well as an (unlisted) representative from the U.S. Embassy. The meeting started with a bang as Don Stephenson, an Assistant Deputy Minister at DFAIT, noted the two sources of ACTA.








  • Copyrights

    • President Obama Backs RIAA In Online File-Sharing Case
      President Obama’s US Department of Justice (DOJ) recently filed a legal brief in support of damages sought by an affiliate of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), prompting some observers to speculate on the Obama administration’s impartiality in the RIAA’s file-sharing litigation campaign.


    • Pop star union demands new kind of copyright extension
      “The UK music sector has lived up to its commitments by reaching an agreement, as demanded by Ministers, that will deliver real benefits to musicians in an extended term. In continuing to hold out for further changes, the government has not heeded the repeated pleas of the very musicians it claims to support, who strongly encouraged it to vote for the proposal today," it said.


    • Court: Congress can't put public domain back into copyright
      A federal court ruled on Friday that Congress overstepped its authority back in 1994 when it put some public domain foreign works back under copyright protection. Such a move changes the "traditional contours of copyright" in the US, even if done to bring the country in line with its treaty obligations.


    • AP Attempts to Shut Bloggers Out
      For a while now, the AP has had been fighting this insane war against bloggers who quote and use snippets of their articles in blog posts. About a year or so ago the AP decided they would try to charge bloggers and other sites $2.50 cents per word and threatened to sue anyone who did not comply with their dumb “copyright” scheme. The latest bright idea down at Dinosaurs ‘R Us is to try to create a copyrighted search engine like system for copyrighted works in order to some how track what is out there.


    • Google Insists It’s a Friend to Newspapers


    • Google CEO advises newspapers to innovate
      In order to move forward, he said, newspapers will have to get used to the idea that they are not just generators of trusted, professional content, but also aggregators of the new kinds of content the Web has enabled.


    • Amazon, Wal-Mart Follow Apple, Raise Prices On Some Top-Selling Tracks
      Well, that didn’t take long. Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) have both quietly followed Apple’s lead and will now charge more for some top-selling tracks in their MP3 stores. Some songs will now sell for $1.29 at Amazon’s MP3 store, up from 99 cents, while Wal-Mart is now charging $1.24 for top tracks, up from 94 cents. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) introduced variable pricing to its iTunes music store Tuesday, by charging 69 cents for older tracks, 99 cents for recent songs and $1.29 for new hits, instead of the previous 99 cents for any track.






Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Nat Friedman 16

Ogg Theora





Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025