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Links 30/7/2010: KDE 4.5 Screenshot Tour, Canonical Responds to DeKoenigsberg



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • 10 reasons why your kids should be using Linux
      In this article, I will give you 10 good reasons why you should do just this. In the end, you can decide for yourself whether they’re reason enough to migrate those young users away from other operating systems.


    • Remember the year of the Linux desktop?
      For me the year of the Linux desktop was 2005. I started around 12/1998 and found distributions that I tried at the time still a bit rough and sometimes crash-prone, not really much better than Windows '95. The real problem though was my ISA Winmodem. I never managed to get it to work and was too cheap to buy an external one which would have solved the problem. That was my decision and I cannot blame Linux for it. Then W2K came along and worked well for many years after applying some registry hacks and tightening of security. It got a bit long in the tooth by 2003, but it took until 2005 for Ethernet broadband to arrive at my household. I decided to give Linux another look shortly after and haven't looked back since - VectorLinux, Debian Sarge, Ubuntu Breezy Badger (5.10). I was able to do everything I wanted and more. I would never have bothered to learn Vim on Windows although it is available. I would never have got into the capabilities of networking tools as much, or into protocols, NAS and file servers (due to not wanting to purchase Windows server licenses).








  • Applications



    • GLX-Dock 2.2 Enters Beta With Greater Usefulness
      The first beta release of GLX-Dock 2.2 is now available for those looking to add a Mac OS X-like dock to their Linux desktop. The GLX-Dock 2.2 release is focusing upon improving four core areas of this open-source application dock: being unobtrusive yet useful and simple while also introducing a new panel view.


    • Linux-based Hard Drive Data Recovery Tools
      Thankfully, there are tons of available Linux-based rescue tools that can get the job done quickly and easily.


    • Games

      • 211 free Wine-compatible Games in one download
        How does the thought of 211 completely free wine-compatible games available in one download, complete with slick launcher and per-game info, sound to you?


      • Alien Arena (latest release date July 29, 2010)
        Do you like fast paced deathmatch? How about rich, colorful, arcadelike atmospheres? How about...retro Sci Fi? Then you're going to love what Alien Arena has in store for you! This game combines some of the very best aspects of such games as Quake III and Unreal Tournament and wraps them up with a retro alien theme, while adding tons of original ideas to make the game quite unique.












  • Desktop Environments



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE 4.5 Screenshot Tour
        KDE 4.5 is coming out in August but I simply couldn’t wait to try it out a few days before the release. Hence, I got my hands on the Release Candidate v2 via kubuntu-beta ppa.Apart from some dazzling eye candy,KDE4 has matured a lot when it comes to stability.Here’s a screenshot tour and review of KDE 4.5 RC2 (click on each image to enlarge).

        1)The Desktop : As compared to the earlier KDE versions,the desktop looks more attractive with the Blur effect enabled.Also the system tray icons blend in with the theme.

        2)System Settings : The system settings menu has undergone a bit of shuffling along with some new additions.










  • Distributions

    • Sabayon 5.3 LXDE Screenshots
      I recently tried the new Sabayon 5.3 LXDE release and found it to be lightweight yet still hold up Sabayon’s feature packed, out-of-the-box way of doing things. The Sabayon 5.3 LXDE flavor is ideal for users who have lower hardware specs or prefer the speed of the lighter environment. Built on top of Sabayon “SpinBase” ISO images, this is said to be only a preview of upcoming spinoffs of the Sabayon project.


    • SystemRescueCD
      Yet another recovery OS has been updated this month. SystemRescueCD 1.5.8 is a minor update (the 2nd release in 3 weeks) to provide new standard kernels (2.6.32.16), alternative kernels (2.6.34.1) and a new version of the gparted package.




    • Red Hat Family

      • Friday Five: Red Hat’s Max McLaren
        Max McLaren has for the past five years been pushing the cause of open source software in Australia in his role as general manager of Red Hat in Australia and New Zealand. But he hasn’t always been — he used to work just as hard for proprietary software as a Lotus Notes stalwart. Max is this week’s guest on the Friday Five.








    • Debian Family





      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • My Motivation for Doing Opensource
          When I was the maintainer for the Linux Test Project , while my initial reason for doing it was because my employer requested me to, the reason why I stuck with it for so long (even when my job and employer changed) was because I knew people needed it. It felt good to know that I was helping to improve the “reliability, robustness, and stability of Linux”…it felt good to know that I was helping Red Hat, Novell, Terrasoft, and God knows how many other distros test their releases…it felt good to know I was helping IBM, Intel, HP, and loads of other technology companies test their hardware against Linux…it simply felt good. Hell, I even created the infamous crash test tux logo over a weekend because I thought it would give the project more of an identity…which lead to shirts being printed…banners being made…and me sitting for hours in a 2 person booth in the “dot org” pavilion at too many Linux World Expos to mention. As a project, we were always happy to receive testcases, bug fixes, and improvements from our users and others looking to help, and not once did I ever point the finger at someone using the test suite to improve their for-sale product and say, “you’re not giving enough!”….because I wasn’t doing the work for that reason. Now I’ll admit not participating as much as I should since passing on maintainership, but it’s not because I switched jobs, companies, or career paths…it’s because I got married, bought a house, and had 2 kids…and even got a dog…so


        • Red Hat, Canonical and GNOME Contributions
          I think the GNOME Census report is excellent, and it provides some excellent visibility into contributions in GNOME, but it only takes into account upstream contributions to GNOME itself. What the report doesn’t take into account are upstream contributions that are built on the GNOME platform but (a) not part of official GNOME modules, and (b) hosted and developed elsewhere, such as Launchpad. As such, while the report is accurate for showing code and contributions accepted into GNOME, there are also many projects built on GNOME technology that are not taken into account due to non-inclusion in GNOME modules or being developed outside of GNOME infrastructure.


        • What’s new in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat
          Compiz There are minor changes in default set of animations for Compiz which makes the desktop experience better.

          Since Maverick is still undergoing heavy development, certain elements might be changed. I will keep you updated about the changes.


        • Ubuntu 10.04: A Second Look
          After I review an operating system or Linux distribution, it’s always fun to go back and try out the product again, with all updates, and see how it’s improved. Ubuntu 10.04 was something I thought was pretty decent, but not decent enough to steal me away from Arch. However, I know others that are Ubuntu users and my wife is a big fan as well, so I still continued to have exposure to it even after having reviewed it. Here are my thoughts on Ubuntu 10.04 and how it stands today.














  • Devices/Embedded





    • Android

      • uTorrent Web Now Available on iPad and Android
        After adding support for the iPhone last month, BitTorrent Inc. has now made the remote access ‘Web’ feature of its uTorrent Falcon client compatible with the iPad and Android devices. uTorrent users can now remotely control their downloads from wherever they are on their favorite mobile device.


      • Android wallpaper app that takes your data was downloaded by millions
        That means that apps that seem good but are really stealing your personal information are a big risk at a time when mobile apps are exploding on smartphones, said John Hering, chief executive, and Kevin MaHaffey, chief technology officer at Lookout, in their talk at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas today.












Free Software/Open Source



  • Could open source tools make Facebook the next AOL?
    Open-source social, or "open social," networking services are not new. StatusNet has been running an open source implementation of its Twitter-like microblogging service for several years, called Indenti.ca. But no open-source service has gained Facebook- or Twitter-proportioned success.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • RMS AMA
      1. corevette: If you could have one proprietary package/software released as Free Software, which would it be and why?

      RMS: I have not made an effort to study the possible candidates, since unless a genie offers me a wish of that kind, the results wouldn't enable me do anything constructive. Thus, I can only respond based on the few proprietary programs I happen by chance to know about.

      Of the programs I know of, I think freeing Autocad would give the biggest boost to the free software community. It is used in a wide range of activities, and our CAD software lags quite a bit,








  • Openness/Sharing

    • $20 Wikipedia Reader Uses 8-Bit Computing Power
      In all, it can hold the equivalent of 5,000 books, including an offline version of Wikipedia, and requires no internet connection. The Reader will cost $20 when 10,000 or more of it are manufactured. Without that kind of volume, the each Reader will cost about $35.








  • Programming







Leftovers





  • Security/Aggression

    • WikiLeaks Secret Records Dump Stays in Legal Clear: Ann Woolner
      With his prematurely white hair and his Australia-tinged English, 39-year-old Julian Assange has become the face and voice of what is surely the most massive leak of U.S. classified documents in history.

      His online organization, WikiLeaks, devotes itself to government and corporate whistle-blowers and the documents they offer. It stands as a buffer between them and whomever had the secrets being bared, whether documents on Cayman Islands bank accounts, video showing Americans firing on civilians in Baghdad or Sarah Palin’s e-mail.


    • Wikileaks war logs revelations will be far-reaching, say MPs
      The portrait of a chaotic and failing war revealed in the secret military files casts serious doubts on the government's policy in Afghanistan and its plans to withdraw British troops by 2015, politicians said today.


    • Wikileaks: Q&A with Jacob Appelbaum on "The Afghan War Diaries"
      Jacob Appelbaum: The 15,000 documents are part of the set of Afghanistan documents. They are being redacted for harm-minimizing purposes as requested by our source, and will be made available as is applicable with respect to the relevant security concerns.








  • Environment



    • Met Office report: global warming evidence is 'unmistakable'
      A new climate change report from the Met Office and its US equivalent has provided the "greatest evidence we have ever had" that the world is warming.


    • Global warming signs unmistakable: report
      A new report by 300 scientists has flagged the past decade as the hottest on record and compiled 10 "unmistakable" indicators that the world is getting warmer.

      But the scientists mostly stayed away from discussions about the cause.


    • Rising sea temperatures linked to decline in food chain
      Sea temperatures are rising, but what effect that might have is up for discussion.

      A study published in Nature today finds a strong link between higher sea surface temperatures and a major decline in phytoplankton or ocean algae, which forms the base of the marine food chain.


    • Climate check-up 'screams world is warming'
      A report on the world's climate has confirmed that 2009 was one of Australia's hottest years on record and provides more evidence of global warming.

      Three hundred scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association compiled the report, which the association's data centre chief Deke Arndt says paints a compelling picture.

      [...]

      The list of last year's extreme weather events includes a flood in Brazil that left 376,000 people homeless, heavy rainfall in England that damaged 1,500 properties and three intense heat waves in Australia, one of them coinciding with the Victorian bushfires that killed 173 people.


    • Tata to sue Greenpeace over turtle game
      Greenpeace India launched the game at the start of June, the latest step in its seven-year campaign against Dhamra port, which is due to open this summer at Bhadrak in Orissa, a state on India's eastern coast. The environmental group alleges that the development will endanger local turtles. Turtle Vs. Tata, which is still live online and has been played by nearly 25,000 people, places a turtle in the role of Pac-Man battling against Tata logos in the place of ghosts.


    • Hackers shut down EU carbon-trading website






  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying







  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity
      The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.


    • China jails writer for 15 years for 'endangering state security'
      Human rights groups have attacked the heavy sentence a Chinese court has imposed on a Uighur writer who posted critical articles online and spoke to foreign journalists after last year's riots in Xinjiang.


    • CNN anchors attack the scourge of anonymity
      CNN's Kyra Phillips and John Roberts spent a good five minutes yesterday expressing serious concern over what they called "the dark side" of the Internet: the plague of "anonymous bloggers" who are "a bunch of cowards" for not putting their names on what they say, and who use this anonymity to spread "conspiracy," "lunacy," "extremism" and false accusations (video below). The segment included excerpts from an interview with Andrew Keene, author of Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture, who explained that the Real Media must serve as "gatekeepers" to safeguard the public against the dangers of anonymity on the Internet. Roberts demanded that bloggers should "have the courage at the very least to put your name on it," while Phillips announced: "something is going to have to be done legally. . . . these people have to be held accountable, they're a bunch of cowards."








  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Sometimes It's OK To Steal My Games
      Sometimes This blog post is about the bright side of software piracy. It's about the times when not only is it OK to steal my games, but, in fact, I get something out of it. Perhaps an unusual topic for a blog post from a game developer.

      [...]

      Because, when I'm being honest with myself, which happens sometimes, I have to admit that piracy is not an absolute evil. That I do get things out of it, even when I'm the one being ripped off.








Clip of the Day



Copyright vs. Community - Richard Stallman



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Recent Techrights' Posts

"A single witness shall not rise up against a person regarding any wrongdoing or any sin that he commits; on the testimony of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed." (Deuteronomy 19-21)
The spouse of Garrett repeatedly points out that Garrett can barely code or can only do so very poorly
Rust People Sabotage Stability for the Sake of a Falsely-Promised 'Security'
Set aside severe performance issues, poor handling of "edge cases", general bugs, lack of compatibility, and even crashes
Huge Strike at the European Patent Office (EPO) This Coming Friday (May 1st)
International Worker’s day
Dr. Andy Farnell on Why Calling Slop or Chaff "Hey Hi" (AI) Harm Us All, Except for "Ten or Twenty Rich Industrialists"
"words to avoid"
Internet Trolls Likely Trying to Distract From the Demise of IBM, Problems With Red Hat
there seems to be trolling online aimed at suppressing discussion
Debian Upgrade Coming Up (Soon)
Yesterday we contacted the datacentre staff about it
 
Getting Aggressive Suggestive of Loss - Part IV - Shutting Down My Existence
Would anyone out there tolerate such messages sent from burner accounts?
Gemini Links 26/04/2026: Gemini Movie Database (or GeminiMDB) and Star Trek III
Links for the day
Weeks Before Linux Removed Over 100,000 Lines of Code Due to Slop 'Bug Reports' Microsoft Paid 'Linux' Foundation to Advance Slop in the Name of 'Security'
What can possible go wrong? Both for security and for stability.
Tracking Ages of People
To stay "safe" tell us your age
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 25, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, April 25, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 57 Out of 200: 5RB and Brett Wilson LLP Made the Garrett and Graveley Particulars of Claims a Lot Like Photocopies!
They seem very much irritated that I speak about this
Links 25/04/2026: Nokia Wins Embargo in Kangaroo Court Where Judges Are Salaried Nokia Staff (UPC), Allison Pearson Defamation Case (UK) Succeeds, Smokey Robinson and "Puff Daddy" (US) Fail
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Gemini Links 25/04/2026: Weekly Echoes, Gemtext Tables, and Using Offpunk
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Corporate Media Did Not Specify What Microsoft Means by "Buyouts" (Layoffs), It May Be Hardly Different From Severance
Time will tell, but investigative journalism hardly exists anymore, so we won't hold our breath
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part V - "Diversity" and "Inclusion" at EPO Means Sleeping With Sister of "Cocaine Communication Manager" and Making Them Millionaires
Remember that top applicants or key stakeholders of the EPO are already complaining about a lack of quality
Links 25/04/2026: Fake GAFAM Valuations (Gripping the Market Based on False Accounting), "Evidence Isn't Just for Research", and "Putin Defends Mobile Internet Outages"
Links for the day
Getting Aggressive Suggestive of Loss - Part III - Threats From Burner Accounts Formally Treated as a Crime
Countries that cannot preserve freedom from self-censorship are countries where free press ultimately cannot prevail
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 24, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, April 24, 2026
Gemini Links 25/04/2026: 3.4k+ Capsules, Microsoft Layoffs, Call for Nuclear Disarmament, "Internet is Sad and Lonely"
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Links 24/04/2026: Zelenskyy Says Ukraine's War Position "Most Stable", Samsung Workers on Strike Due to Pay
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Recent Happenings at IBM Reaffirm Rumours About the CEO; He Might be Resigning (or Pushed Out) Soon
If the rumours are true (no, we did not check those tax records for ourselves), it's not unthinkable that IBM is already doing what Apple did months ago
Gemini Links 24/04/2026: Public Reticulum Gateway Node, Smol Computers, and Old E-mail
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2026: Intel Abandoning Computer Freedom (Even Further), Iran Reports That American Software and Hardware Remotely Sabotaged/Hijacked During War
Links for the day
24/7 Wall St. Editor-In-Chief and CEO Calls IBM Is "America’s Worst Big Tech Company", Talent is Leaving, Supposedly Strategic Units Culled
21 hours ago by Douglas A. McIntyre
The Great Wonders of Slop "Efficiency"
Thankfully nothing was lost in the transmission and lots of work (datacentre emissions) got "done"
IBM's Debt Increased Over $5 Billion in 3 Months While IBM Laid Off Many in Europe, US, Confluent, HashiCorp, and Red Hat
An increase of $5,000,000,000+ in debt in just 3 months!
IBMers Expect Another Giant Wave of Layoffs, Talk (and Sing) About the PIPs
The media won't be covering the key facts
Drama at the European Patent Office (EPO) This Week
We'll be covering the EPO quite a lot this weekend and next week
As We Predicted, Francophonie Countries in the EU and Outside the EU Dumping Microsoft for National Security Reasons
We expected Belgium or some other Francophonie place to do so next
Even to Microsoft Insiders It Seems Like XBox Has Already Died or Surrendered to the Japanese Companies
Now the Microsoft layoffs are evident for people to see
EPO Cocainegate Escalates - Part VI - The Strikes Go On and On (Major Strike Today)
We'll be covering this later today in relation to what the Office dubs "ethics"
Absolutely Terrible Journalism About Microsoft Layoffs This Week
7 hours ago by Leila Sheridan
SLAPP Censorship - Part 56 Out of 200: 5RB and Brett Wilson LLP's Copy-Paste Machination for Garrett and Graveley
Here is another straightforward example of their junior barrister overusing copy-paste on his Mac
Getting Aggressive Suggestive of Loss - Part II - Lawyers Are Not "Hired Guns" (and Should Never Act Like Ones)
The matter is being investigated
Nadella is Killing Microsoft. Slop Kills It Even Faster.
A decade from now we'll look back at slop like we look back at skateboards
Huge Microsoft Layoffs Coming Shortly (With Financial Report)
There will be lots of slop layoffs. Be ready. It's a bubble.
Gemini Links 24/04/2026: Data Breaches and Unofficial Gemini Protocol Specification Archive
Links for the day
Microsoft Offers About 10,000 of Its Senior American (Read: Expensive) Workers to be Laid Off
How many slopfarms and media parrots play along?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 23, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, April 23, 2026