Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 30/07/2009: FAA Uses GNU/Linux, Free Software Grows in East Asia



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Howto migrate to Linux
    Advantages of Linux

    * The company will spend less money in IT resources. Less license fees (free in most cases) and less hardware is needed to run the same services in Linux. * Technical Department will spend less time fixing problems and they will have more time to improve the company's IT services. Due to the open-source nature of Linux, the IT department will have unlimited control on the software it uses. * The employees of the company will have faster computers with less problems, so they will work more efficiently.


  • 10 Cool Unix/Linux Personalized License Plates
    Some people have taken their love for Unix and Linux on the streets literally by displaying their Unix/Linux-related personalized license plates. Though I haven't actually seen one in real life yet, I have collected several photos that will show some of these cool custom license plates in action, which I'm going to share with all of you.


  • Will I Go Back?
    I'm using the Linux distribution Ubuntu for over a year now – I hopped on the train with version 8.04 LTS. Although I still 'need' Windows for a number of things, like vector editing for example, – no vector drawing software in Linux satisfies my needs – I am more than pleased with this operating system.


  • Ubuntu Experiment – Part 1


  • On The FAA's Slow And Steady SWIM To Open Source
    "Before we awarded the contract to Progress last year, there were other FAA programs like TFM [Traffic Flow Management], our weather-monitoring programs, and a new terminal program, TDDS [Terminal Data Distribution System]. Those program are and have been using Linux. We had a total of five such programs in SWIM Segment 1, and now that we have FUSE in place, that's a total of seven."


  • Run your LiveCD on Windows with one click
    MobaLiveCD also lets you add a menu entry to the right-click menu of ISO images so that you can directly run the ISO image from the right-click menu. To set up the menu entry, click on the Right-click menu button in MobaLiveCD:

    Now when you right-click on an ISO image, you see the entry Test this with MobaLiveCD in the right-click menu. Select this if you want to start the ISO image in MobaLiveCD...




  • Desktop

    • Dell: New Ubuntu Desktop PC Launching Soon
      In recent weeks, Dell.com’s U.S. website has not offered Ubuntu Linux desktop PCs. But that situation could change the week of August 2. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

      Our resident blogger stirred up some market confusion on July 22, when he noticed Dell’s Ubuntu site (www.dell.com/ubuntu) only offered laptops and netbooks with Ubuntu installed. Alas, Dell apparently wasn’t offering Ubuntu on desktop PCs anymore.


    • Dell: New Ubuntu Desktop PC Within Days






  • Kernel Space

    • Nearly Two Dozen X.Org Drivers Get Updated
      In time for the X.Org 7.5 release (whenever that may come), David Airlie has put out new driver releases for nineteen of the X.Org video drivers. These aren't updates to the mainline ATI/AMD, Intel, or even NVIDIA drivers, but some of the drivers for less common graphics hardware.


    • Please Linus Torvalds. Don't go microsoft on us.
      If Linux starts going down that backwards compatibility path then I think it will be on a slippery slope down to bug kingdom and security black holes. Alan Cox quite clearly stated his reasons in terms of security for his patch. For Linus to dismiss that reasoning with such an arbitrary and thoughtless manner seems to me that his mind is less on the kernel and more on other matters.

      In the past when this sort of user land breakage happened, the user land programs were quickly fixed and life went on as before. It was no big deal and an expected part and parcel of dealing with rapidly changing open source software. It was what made Linux and open source great. To lock down the kernel in such a manner means that it will not advance and that means stagnation.


    • Dispute between Linux gurus Alan Cox and Linus Torvalds






  • Applications

    • Virt-manager 0.8.0 Released
      Virt-manager 0.8.0 release was officially annouced late last night. This latest release includes bug fixes and a couple of new features, my personal favourite being the Clone VM wizard that I briefly mentioned in here. The official announcement lists the following new features...






  • Desktop Environments

    • GNOME 2.27.5 released!
      Wow, it's quite hot here. Sure, the temperature outside is high, but I guess it's also because of this computer who worked hard to understand some lines of code and to translate them into something that it can then use to make me happy. Yes. Because running GNOME makes me happy! And the 2.27.5 release is no exception there: it has this magic power on me. It's a good release to get a first feeling of what will be in GNOME 2.28, with the new modules now being integrated and new features popping here and there, in many differents modules. Ah, if only it could do something for the temperature ;-)








  • Distributions

    • Arch Linux 2009.02
      Arch Linux is a distro developed without assitance from any of the major distributions, and is targeted at experienced users of Linux. It is unique in the Linux world that it uses a ‘rc.conf’ file which is executed everytime upon start up, an idea borrowed from the BSD style systems.

      While this review is technically one of the 2009.02 release, Arch Linux uses a ‘rolling-release’ system, in which the actual system is constantly updated and then ’snapshots’ of the current packages are made into an ISO file and released every 6 months.


    • Omega: Fedora For The Rest of Us
      The Fedora Project is one of the most popular Linux distributions and has been ever since Red Hat announced its creation in 2003. It is a free and open source operating system which came about as a merger between some of their commercial products. It was to be a community driven project, built entirely on free software and would be a test bed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux offerings. Even though it remains a community distribution, numerous Red Hat employees are involved and help set the direction of the project.


    • Free Books For Approved LoCo Teams
      Prentice Hall are happy to send each and every approved LoCo team one free copy of The Official Ubuntu Book and one free copy of The Official Ubuntu Server book. To be entirely clear: this is one copy of each book per team. This will be a great addition to each team’s library of Ubuntu books!








  • Devices/Embedded

    • Waddling Past The Windows
      One of the great sources of frustration — and more than a few jokes — for geeks is the legendary instability of the Windows operating system. If you've ever had to rescue a box that's crashing more often than a demolition derby car, the latest offering out of Active Media Products may help you keep your cool.

      We all know that like a faithful Labrador, Linux is a geek's best friend. When it comes to recovering data from a crashed system, it's particularly friendly, providing the option to boot from a Live CD or other media and recover files. The good geeks at Active Media Products, however, have taken that one step further with the release of their new BLU — Bootable Linux USB.


    • Review of the System76 Starling Netbook
      I wanted a netbook for traveling. I plan to use it primarily for checking e-mail, browsing the Internet, writing documents, listening to music and watching movies. I may also at some point use it as an e-book reader and podcast player.

      I'm a moderately competent user of computers. I have a little -- but not much -- experience with Linux.








Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source adoption 'anomaly' in Philippines
    Like several economies in the region, open source adoption in the Philippines is gradually expanding as organizations to seek alternatives to expensive proprietary software. But, unlike some markets, early adopters in the country come from the private sector.

    [...]

    Miguel Paraz, an active advocate of OSS who now works for a local IT firm, noted that public consciousness of open source is only at "a superficial level", with the occasional mention of Linux in the mainstream business news.


  • How SpringSource is taking on Java Goliaths
    Some argue that open-source software can't innovate. In fact, one of the industry's former executives, Peter Yared, recently argued that "the only successful open-source companies sell commodities."

    Yared clearly hasn't heard of SpringSource, an open-source application platform provider that is redefining the J2EE application server and, quite possibly, the future of open source.


  • Success with FOSS
    Sometimes people open-source code because they want other people to help with the coding. For them, absolutely, they need a community that gets involved. But others just write the code for their own pleasure, because it scratches an itch, or because they want something that does exactly what they want and there's no such thing already. For them, a community is an irrelevance. It might even be a nuisance. They write the code for themselves, and they're nice enough to share it. FOSS is different things to different people, you can't apply one single standard to define what makes a project a success.


  • Mozilla starts preparing developers for Firefox 3.6
    Brace yourself for the vanishing menu bar because Mozilla has published an official feature list for Firefox 3.6 in the form of a guide for programmers who need to know about the changes.


  • MySQL startup targets SSDs
    Start-up Hexagram 49 has unveiled an engine dubbed RethinkDB. The company says it's optimized for SSDs, claiming it can deliver performance ten times faster than existing databases.


  • The not-so-intuitive Intuition of Intuit
    Glyn Moody says is an attempt to plug into the power of openness without really engaging with it, Matt Asay explains how openness will help the company to enrich its partner experience. Savio Rodrigues also thinks that is a win-win, adding that the goal could have been achieved even by releasing the code under a closed source license. Last but not least he argues that the EPL would have been a better choice, now that the OSI has moved the CPL to inactive (for the records, Intuit is hearing hints and reacting).


  • Open-source Project Aims to Makes Secure DNS Easier
    The software, called OpenDNSSEC, automates many tasks associated with implementing DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions), which is a set a set of protocols that allows DNS (Domain Name System) records to carry a digital signature, said John A. Dickinson, a DNS consultant working on the project.


  • Internet Systems Consortium using Drupal
    Internet Systems Consortium, also known as ISC, is using Drupal on their website at http://isc.org. ISC was founded by three internet pioneers Rick Adams, Carl Malamud and Paul Vixie to support BIND and other software that helps power the internet.




  • Business

    • Open Source Pricing Incentives and Business Strategies: the GroundWork case
      I asked David Dennis, senior director of product marketing at Groundwork, to keep me updated about the initiative, below some answers on the topic of GroundWork Monitor Starter Edition.


    • Post-OSCON roundup
      A lot’s happened in the few days since my keynote at OSCON and I think it’s time I did a round-up of women-in-open-source-related stuff from the conference itself and the not-quite-a-week since.

      Some wins for the conference:

      * Gina Blaber from O’Reilly tells me that female attendance is up, and it looked that way to me. I’d guess around 5%, which of course is still kind of appalling, but I think a bit higher than last year. * Proportion of female speakers is up to 8.9% (from 8.36% last year). That’s just based on actual numbers of people, not the talks they gave; it might be a smidge higher based on number of talks. A small improvement, but any improvement is good at this point.






  • Openness

    • Communal Webcasting platform to beef up campus's popular educational content
      As a growing number of worldwide learners log on, free of charge, to video and podcast lectures and events at the University of California, Berkeley, the campus is leading an international effort to build a communal Webcasting platform to more easily record and distribute its popular educational content.


    • AP Launches Open Source Ascribenation Project
      Meanwhile, a small suggestion to the AP: Get your legal department's footprints off your home page (where the top item is "Protecting AP's Intellectual Property"). In fact, push them to the nether regions of the website. It's not friendly stuff.








Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Luis Casas Luengo, Director of Extremadura's Fundecyt foundation 09 (2004)



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

Recent Techrights' Posts

When (Almost) One-Man Operations Are Disguised as Medium-Sized Companies
the CEO hides in the US (hiding from his ex-wives, 4 daughters from those wives, and Sirius staff that he defrauded)
Microsoft Actually in Trouble, Microsofters Unable to Obey Judges' Orders
For the second time in a week, Microsofters are unable to obey orders
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Microsoft's Debt Exploded by 15.4 Billion Dollars in the Past 9 Months Alone (Despite All the Layoffs)
As of minutes ago, at 6PM on a Friday, the numbers are made public
 
Links 02/08/2025: Blaugust 2025 and "Russia Declares Navalny Memoir ‘Extremist’"
Links for the day
Free Software is Not a Business Model
Go ahead, ask your friend, "how do you plan to monetise your children?"
LLM Slop Harms Real Literature, Real Web Sites, Real Journalism
LLM slop is a parasite and it'll run out of legitimate outputs
Upcoming OSI Scandal Series
The OSI is a rogue actor because it serves Microsoft in exchange for money
Slopwatch: The Issue Persists, But the Consensus in the Media Changes as Google Enrages It With LLM Plagiarism
We've meanwhile assessed the latest output from Linuxiac
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 01, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 01, 2025
Links 02/08/2025: İstanbul Retail Inflation Reaches 42.48%, US FBI Opens Office in New Zealand
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/08/2025: ZFS, LLM Hype, and Fake Modules
Links for the day
Links 01/08/2025: Health, Conflict, and Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Meeting (Webchat) With Maria Arranz Gomez, Florian Grundies, Jürgen Janda and Konstantinos Kortsaris Confronts EPO Management About Breaking Promises and Crushing Workers
The lack of consistent messages suggests plans other than what's advertised and the lack of consultation (secrecy) likewise
Links 01/08/2025: "The Great British Firewall" and U.S. Army Sponsors Palantir
Links for the day
For Second Day in a Row, Top Story in The Register MS is "Microsoft Says"
The editor in chief exercises control over everybody else
LLMs as Attack Method Against Free Software and Programming
DDoS in "hey hi" (slop) clothing
Stability and Reliability, Backward Compatibility
I don't fancy relying on social control media as "sources"
What "the News" Looks Like in 2025
The "says" (or "sez") phenomenon
History Will Be Distorted, Sometimes Intentionally, Under the Guise of Intelligence (Manipulated/Curated Slop)
Militarised misinformation or military-grade chaff is a national security threat, even domestically
Financial Engineering Companies: A Company Worth 4 Trillion Dollars Would Not Borrow 100+ Billion Dollars at Interest Rates Like Today's
Many headlines perpetuate the lie Microsoft had just 2 waves of layoffs
Microsoft is Googlebombing "Linux" While Paying Former News Sites to Publish SPAM
How much lower will IDG sink?
Google as a 'Bullshit Generator' Disguised as Intelligence
It'll probably cause Google to get sued a lot, both by individuals and companies
As Expected, Google in the UK Now Experiments With Slop Instead of Web Search
At this point more people ought to stop and think: Does Google's search engine deserve trust?
The Data You Don't Give Away is Your Advantage
stop sharing data that does not need to be shared
Being Obedient or Doing the Right Thing
The world always changes for the better because of people who think "Outside the Box", not the cogs
Gemini Links 01/08/2025: Happy Hacking Keyboards and New Gemini Arrivals
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 31, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 31, 2025
Sabotaging Linux on Behalf of Microsoft With UEFI 'Secure' Boot (De Facto Remote 'Kill Switch'), Then Defaming, Stalking and Harassing Critics of 'Secure' Boot for 12 Years, Then SLAPPing Their Spouses and Them
The sorts of stubborn lunatics we've been dealing with
Moving on in Techrights, Geeks Gonna Geek
In the coming weeks we plan to focus (as we explained last week) on patents, GNU/Linux issues, and the occasional philosophical essays
Slopwatch: Google News Has Lost the Plot
Almost the majority of articles returned for "Linux" are fakes
Links 31/07/2025: Australia Restricts YouTube Access, Personal Privacy at Risk
Links for the day
Links 31/07/2025: Spotify Collapses and Spotify Now Forcing Some Users to Undergo Face-Scanning
Links for the day
A Lot of Supposedly "Successful" Businesses Are Just Debt-Racking Vessels Without Any Prospects of Financial Sustainability
The probability of bankruptcy of any business is more than 0%
theregister.com: The Voice of Microsoft US?
It basically sold out
Yes, You Can Love and Adore Things Whilst Also Criticising Them
Is society being divided and groomed/primed to be resistant to constructive criticism?
Links 31/07/2025: War in Ukraine, Security News, and Cyberattacks Against Journalists on the Rise
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/07/2025: Fake Money and Gemini Diaries
Links for the day
An Illusion and Cult Worship of Magnitude (Ubiquity as "Victory")
GNU has been around for over 40 years and it'll likely continue to exist for another 40 (in some form)
Google: From Pointing to Relevant Sites to Pointing to Social Control Media to Actually Parroting Social Control Media as "Facts"
Google has become a misinformation company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 30, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 30, 2025