Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 27/11/2009: New GNU/Linux Releases, Wikipedia Hit by FUD



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • How to Fix Your Relatives' Terrible Computer
    Ubuntu Live CD or Knoppix Live CD: Both are Linux distributions, but we're just using them because they run on most kinds of hardware without installing, and can transfer the files you need to your backup media. Ubuntu should work; if it doesn't, give Knoppix a go. You can use the free tool UNetBootin to transfer the ISO you downloaded to a thumb drive, which is necessary if you're backing up to DVDs, and recommended in any case to speed things up.




  • Google

    • First Look at Google Chrome OS — Extensions, Options and More
      As far as the first question, Chrome OS is for someone like me — someone who spends 98% of their day in a browser. Or it could be for everyone else, provided they use it in the manner intended. Is it meant to replace a daily operating system for most people? No more so than a netbook would be a replacement for a high-powered workstation. It’s simply not that kind of tool. Chrome OS is intended for quick access to the web on a portable notebook-like companion device. Think of it as the environment and device you’d go to when you don’t want to boot up a full OS but you want a larger screen and keyboard than your smartphone has.


    • Let's explore a little more: home clouds
      Google's Chrome OS is stirring up a lot of discussion and last time we talked, I looked at it from the public cloud end. This time, what are the possibilities with home clouds?


    • Epiphany, take a seat. Chromium, you’re up.
      There’s also one killer feature to Chrome’s add-ons. You don’t need to close Chrome to get the benefits of an extension. Yep, you can use a new extension as soon as it’s installed. The same goes for enabling/disabling an add-on. I seem to remember hearing that other browsers can do that (I know Epiphany can), but Chrome/Chromium kicks Firefox’s tail on this count.






  • Kernel Space

    • Kernel Log: Coming in 2.6.32 (Part 5) - Architecture code, memory management, virtualisation and tracing
      The forthcoming kernel version will support Intel's Moorestown platform, SFI - the alternative to ACPI, and the Trusted Execution Technology, which used to be called "LaGrande Technology". If required, the new KSM can now reduce memory loads by combining identical memory content in virtual machines. The new kernel also includes Timechart, a new tool for visualising what's going on in the system and kernel.


    • Again, Linux is not an OS
      This brings me back to something I wrote earlier this year: Linux is not an OS. Besides the typical point that Linux is just the kernel my basic point was that what we typically call "Linux" is not really a single coherent operating system, but rather a framework for developing them or an ecosystem which spawns them. I instead opt to call specific distributions as operating systems rather than all of Linux, whatever that may include.








  • Applications







  • Desktop Environments

    • We Don’t Really Want Innovation
      I can see how it is very frustrating for a developers out there. The public clamors for innovation, but when you give it to them, they balk at the differences from what they’re used to. I think this is why the word innovation is beginning to lose its meaning from overuse in marketing materials. We claim to want one thing, but want another. It’d be easier if we just said what we wanted, but I don’t think most people realize they don’t want innovation until they are faced with it and want to crawl back to the familiar. I’m hoping the Gnome developers can have the resolve to see their innovation through. They should do their best and people should give it a shot. If there truly aren’t any benefits and if it truly sucks – we can go back to the old style. Otherwise maybe we’ll be the next thing Microsoft and Apple copy.








  • Distributions

    • Linux Text Processing using Damn Small Linux
      Damn Small Linux can be an excellent tool for learning Linux commands and running the Linux operating system. But what if you are not interested in becoming a computer nerd; can this software still be useful to regular people? The answer is a resounding yes; you can make use of this tiny operating system whether or not you want to learn the sometimes gruesome details of operating systems. This article introduces the text editors that come with your free Damn Small Linux that runs on even obsolete Windows computers. You can use these applications to compose simple text or programs of any level of complexity.


    • From Ubuntu… to Gentoo..? No, to Debian!
      Instead of moving to Gentoo, I will move to Debian, which I’m already familiar with, but with an interesting idea. My idea is to compile my kernel (get the latest stable release from Kernel.org), then I would like to compile my Desktop Environment, which will be XFCE. If I do all of this, I should have then an efficient system. What happens with the applications? Easy, if I see that I need special good performance on a program, then I shall go and compile it from the sources. What if not? Then use “apt-get”, as always.


    • Mandriva 2010 - I mean ... Wow!
      Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere is a happy time. Lots of fresh Linux distribution releases coming out, all ready for plucking and testing. Mandriva 2010 is one of those. Debuting two weeks ago, it has drawn many, mainly positive reviews, sparking intrigue and a desire to take it for a spin. The previous version, Mandriva 2009 was a decent distro, with some small issues here and there; overall it behaved nicely and gave the average desktop user a solid, unique package. So the big question for me is, what does Mandriva 2010 bring to the table?

      [...]

      It does not have the openSUSE corporate-leaning class or the Ubuntu userbase, but for the desktop user like you and me, it's everything you could ask for. I'm genuinely pleased and surprised. Mandriva 2010 is a keeper.




    • New Releases





    • Red Hat Family

      • Ubuntu User on Fedora 12: Using It and Liking It
        I find Fedora 12 fast and responsive. It loads quickly and after it is set up it seems stable. I can find most of the applications that I use and there are many online resources to assist me with setting up my system. So far, I have installed KDE 4 and GNOME and like the look and feel of both. The community has been helpful but quite a bit smaller than what I am used to. I expect to write more about Fedora in the future.








    • Debian Family

      • Less blogging about Ubuntu - (Funny) Howto
        The story for the first article is “I bought a SSD and Ubuntu is faster on it”. Good for you. Now, on Linux you can really alter the system to take advantage of a peculiar device, so I suggested three things to try: disabling the readahead service, any re-ordering IO scheduler and try some filesystem that has optimizations for flash memory, in a one-line comment. The day after the guy has a whole new post about optimizations for a SSD. Hilarious. Also, since the filesystem suggestion required too much effort, he puts in the evergreen noatime mount option instead. That’s less than 24 hours of condensed experience for the world! Clearly the tweakings suggested are done in the worst possible way and upgrades will undo them.

        Surely there is a lot of this kind of blogging and the magic word seems to be “Ubuntu“, possibly the latest release.










Free Software/Open Source



  • Apache

    • Apache Incubator: Extraordinary Made Ordinary, the Subversion case
      Few days ago Subversion has been submitted to the Apache Incubator, a move praised by many as the natural fit for both projects, both for technical reasons (Apache projects use Subversion, Subversion relies on many Apache projects) and a shared vision about IP (same license) and community governance (same voting process).








  • Freedom

    • I was afraid of worms, Roxanne!
      A word like “freedom” has a fairly short dictionary definition, but you can see that much has been written on different meanings of freedom. That is, as a word it has a wide coverage, which then needs a great deal of talking about to pin down again. Consider Wikipedia’s freedom (philosophy) and freedom (political). Those articles are actually fairly short. I wonder why? And of course we know that “the Four Freedoms” can mean only one thing. Oh, wait .. it doesn’t. I never knew there was a disambiguation page even for that.


    • Open letter to Nexon
      Nexon having developed in part “Counter-Strike: Online”, have knowledge of the GoldSrc engine, which is based on id Software’s Quake engine. With this recent history of gaming engines, the developers must be aware of the decision by id Software to license the Quake engine under the GNU GPL. I am proposing the developers and those in charge of licensing consider making the same decision. As Combat Arms licensed under the GNU GPL would benefit Nexon greatly in the long term.






  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla Jetpack Design Challenge Extended
      Jetpacks are basically add-ons for Mozilla Firefox that are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. They're meant to be easier to write and deploy for Web designers than standard Firefox extensions that can involve needing to know Mozilla's XUL, too. While Mozilla has tons of people writing add-ons for Firefox, the group of people who know standard Web development is far larger than the group that know (or want to learn) XUL.








  • Government

    • NICTA Speech: Government 2.0 – Co-designing A Better Democracy
      Open source software as an example of another, often less thought of opportunity for open and transparent government is through the tools we choose to use. Software underpins almost everything we do, whether it be for work, play or creative endeavour. To be able to scrutinise software – to see the human readable instructions and trust it has, if you will – becomes almost a democratic issue, for many in the technology community.

      [...]

      So we consider that the time is now right to build on our record of fairness and achievement and to take further positive action to ensure that Open Source products are fully and fairly considered throughout government IT; to ensure that we specify our requirements and publish our data in terms of Open Standards; and that we seek the same degree of flexibility in our commercial relationships with proprietary software suppliers as are inherent in the open source world.


    • SE: Losing vendor dependence helps Swedish police save 20 million
      The Swedish National Police Board (SNPB) estimates to save about 20 million euro in the next five years by switching to open source application servers, open source database servers and standard computer server hardware, according to a case study published by the Open Source Observatory and Repository.






  • Openness

    • Why not open flu data?
      In interesting thread keeps popping up in The Globe's reporting on H1N1. As you examine the efforts of the federal and provincial governments to co-ordinate their response to the crisis only one thing appears to be more rare than the vaccine itself: information.

      For example, on Nov. 11, Patrick Brethour reported that “The premiers resolved to press the federal government to give them more timely information on vaccine supplies during their own conference call last Friday. Health officials across Canada have expressed frustration that Ottawa has been slow to inform them about how much vaccine provinces and territories will get each week.”


    • Cfree Takes an Open Source Approach to Telescope Development
      The components of a standard reflecting telescope haven't changed much since Issac Newton built the first one more than 300 years ago -- it's still essentially mirrors in a tube. As the technology behind telescope development and construction advances, however, so does the expense of building them. Cfree is a new project aimed at using open source principles to make reflector technology more accessible to -- and less expensive for -- the scientific community.


    • Wither Wikipedia?
      Putting aside all criticism, I do have this bit of advice. The Wikimedia Foundation ought to post a few snapshot copies of Wikipedia from the last few years, warts and all. If Wikipedia’s quality declines, at least the world will still have some “not too bad” Wikipedia articles to view. I have always maintained that Wikipedia is tremendously useful, and it would be a shame if there were not some “canonical” versions of the resource that we could consult.


    • Wikipedia denies mass exodus of editors
      Wikipedia has disputed claims that it has lost a huge number of editors that help maintain the online encyclopaedia.


    • How To Organize A Mapping Party
      We had a mapping party at NIT Calicut recently. After the first day of the event I shared some ideas to make such mapping parties better with GeoHackers team.

      [...]

      Maps are created at this stage. The data we have mined are ordered, analyzed, and tagged. We need to make sure that all the team follows a naming convention or comment. The coordinator should watch for over marking / mis-marking of the same location. Once the data is properly tagged, it is time to upload it to the OSM server.








Leftovers

  • Cell is no longer HPC material
    Notwithstanding all of this, the future of the Cell processor is uncertain. It hasn't made a hit with consumer electronics devices as Toshiba and Sony had promised, and the encroachment of GPGPU processing definitely throws a spanner in the works.




  • Police State







  • UK Surveillance Society

    • Alan Johnson on DNA retention - a quick fisk
      The Home Secretary Alan Johnson has today written a short defence of the practice of retaining innocent DNA on the national database for six years. You can read the article in full on the Guardian Comment is Free, but we thought we'd pick out a few choice cuts and show why his reasoning is faulty, unreferenced and internally inconsistent.
      "The most recent research supports the case for the retention of DNA profiles of those arrested but not convicted. It also shows that, after six years, the probability of re-arrest is no higher than for the rest of the population."
      [...]

      The Minister quotes several cases in which the DNA evidence was critical in securing convictions, but we all know that the police frequently solve crimes committed by people who have never given a sample. Yet again this is a policy driven by political expediency, research we can't read and the desire to be 'seen to be doing something' with little consideration of the wider consequences.


    • Street Artist Cautioned and DNA taken
      Prolific and talented street artist Nathan Bowen was formally cautioned by the City of London police on 17th November for causing €£100 worth of "damage" to building boards in the City of London. He spent two hours at Snowhill police station being cautioned and having his DNA taken.


    • A Proportionate Response to "Proportionate"
      It's the ultimate argument-killer when people raise the big issues like liberty to defend themselves from ever-more intrusive "security" legislation - which strangely always turns out to be "surveillance" of the little people like you and me. Yes, it seems to say, you're right, this *is* a tricky one, but we must find a compromise "to balance all these factors", as Alan Johnson puts it. And the way we do that is by making a *proportionate* response.


    • IAB and Pinsent Masons try to confuse the public over new cookie rules
      IAB and Struan Robertson from Pinsent Masons (among others with a vested interest) are all over the press today claiming that the ammendments to Article 5(3) of Directive 2002/58/EC allow companies to continue to use Opt-Out. But today they have stooped to new levels of delivering misinformation.

      They claim that the new rules state that cookie management can be done through the browser (such as Firefox or Internet Explorer) and hark this as a triumph both for industry and consumers. Unfortunately for them, their claims are utter rubbish and Commissioner Reding has been quick to issue a clarifying statement to the press this morning


    • The Emperor's Codes: The Breaking of Japan's Secret Ciphers
      lso, just like in today's GSM (A5/1) crypto attacks, even back then the importance of known plaintext could not be underestimated. The verbosity of Japanese soldiers addressing a superior officer and the stereotypical nature of reports on weather or troop movements gave the cryptographers plenty of known plaintext for many of their intercepted message.

      What was also new to me is the fact that the British even back then demanded that Cable+Wireless provides copies of all telegraphs through their network. And that's some 70-80 years before data retention on communications networks becomes a big topic ;)








  • Environment

    • World Oil Production Forecast - Update November 2009
      World oil production peaked in July 2008 at 74.74 million barrels/day (mbd) and now has fallen to about 72 mbd. It is expected that oil production will decline at about 2.2 mbd per year as shown below in the chart. The forecasts from the IEA WEO 2008 and 2009 are shown for comparison. The IEA 2009 forecast has dropped significantly lower than the 2008 forecast. The IEA 2009 forecast also shows a slight decline from 2009 to 2012 implying that the IEA possibly agrees that world oil peaked in July 2008.


    • Because As We All Know, The Green Party Runs the World.
      Now. In what can hardly be a coincidence, just a few weeks before the Copenhagen summit the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia got hacked. The sixty-odd megabytes of confidential e-mails that ended up littering the whole damn internet either a) blew the lid off a global conspiracy to fake the global warming crisis, or b) lay there in a big sludgy pile of boring communications about birthdays, conference meet-ups, and whether or not Poindexter over at Cal State was going to be allowed into the tree fort this year. Judging by the criteria I described at the top of the post, I should just stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly until the current shitstorm abates.


    • Statement from Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research
      The publication of a selection of the emails and data stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has led to some questioning of the climate science research published by CRU and others. There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation. CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity.








  • Finance

    • What was really behind last year's market crash?
      There was, however, another factor that played an important role: the enormous incentive packages that many traders and senior executives on Wall Street received. Once the credit bubble got started, the men who ran the biggest financial institutions in America were determined to surf it, regardless of the risks involved. Because from where they sat, and given the financial incentives they faced, pursuing any other strategy would have been irrational.


    • Tibet thrown under the bus
      First, because of the American debt to Beijing, they have the power to force the issue. Up to this point, American presidents had artfully dodged the issue. In 1986, President Reagan signed a piece of minor trade legislation he might not have read that included the acknowledgement of Beijing's rights to Tibet. But no American president, until now, had been forced to walk the plank in public.










Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Michael Shaw, community reporter for Assigment Zero 03 (2007)

[an error occurred while processing this directive]



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

Recent Techrights' Posts

Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web