Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 27/1/2012: GlusterFS Becomes Truly Open Source, Tablets Become Linuxed



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • ZaReason Alto 3880 Review: Fastest $1000 14″ Laptop
      At first glance, the Alto 3880 will not strike envy into the hearts of any. Like any standard PC laptop, it’s dressed in glossy, molded plastic pieces. The design decisions here are almost certainly OEM driven as the laptop takes a 3-tone neutral color scheme that presents itself in a bit of an awkward way. The lid emulates a brushed metal look with an attractive ZaReason screen-print right in the center. This is the first of a couple nice touches on ZaReason’s behalf. If this unit is closed on your coffee table, your guests will probably ask you, “What’s a ZaReason?”. In this respect, I think it’s quite effective. The brushed metal look for laptop lids is a little dated now, so this will not trend well in the vanity department.






  • Kernel Space

    • The quiet colossus
      A day in the life of the Linux kernel starts just a few microseconds after midnight. The kernel, a thin layer of software that provides a consistent interface between the hardware of a computer and the systems library, is hard at work at stock exchanges in the US, where it has almost completely supplanted other alternatives. Because the kernel's licence encourages copying and modifying, the financial industry has done just that, tweaking it to perform at the utmost speed without breaking. Linux handles billions of transactions every second, passing information between processes, and managing multitasking environments for the world's financial markets. Linux is the most portable piece of software in the world. Despite being over six million lines of code, it has been ported to more hardware platforms than anything else. Its size belies its organisation, though. The functions that any kernel must provide – switching between processes, memory management, access to hardware resources and networking – are clearly separated out, with only the really low-level hardware-dependent functions differing by platform.


    • Graphics Stack

      • Unity Desktop, Nux Get Upstream OpenGL ES 2.0
        The OpenGL ES 2.0 work is part of this Launchpad Blueprint. For a while now the Linaro and Ubuntu developers have been after upstream OpenGL ES 2.0 support for their Unity (non-2D) desktop, and it looks like the goal will be realized in time for the Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" LTS release in April and the Linaro releases shortly thereafter.



      • Announcing The Lima Open-Source GPU Driver
        There's still one week until the work will be officially announced, but the open-source "Lima" open-source graphics driver project has surfaced.

        The Lima driver? This is going to be the open-source driver built for ARM's Mali graphics processors. Lima is what the project's being called for the story Phoronix exclusively broke last week, An Open-Source, Reverse-Engineered Mali GPU Driver.


      • Interlaced Support For Intel's Linux Graphics Driver






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



  • Distributions

    • The Best Linux Distributions For Every User
      On this page, we feature 20 of the best Linux distributions, with a short but extremely detailed description, a link (so you know where to download it from) and our review of the distribution. The distributions are categorised according to their purpose. We hope that our Best Linux Distributions will help you decide which flavour of Linux you’d like to run on your computer.


    • Red Hat Family

      • GlusterFS advisory board established
        A few months after its acquisition of Gluster, Red Hat has established the GlusterFS Advisory Board to oversee and promote the technical development of GlusterFS, the filesystem that is the basis of Red Hat's Storage Software Appliance. The board includes Anand Babu, a co-founder of GlusterFS, and open source experts from Red Hat, Facebook, Citrix and Eucalyptus. The nine board members do not represent their employers, instead serving on the board as individuals.


      • Red Hat RHEVS Virtualization


      • Red Hat Taking Gluster from Open Core to Open Source
        Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) wants to return the Gluster filesystem to its open source roots. Red Hat acquired Gluster for $136 million in October 2011 and is now moving to help further accelerate its innovation.


      • Fedora

        • The Grand /usr-fication of Linux
          The Fedora Project is currently mounting a concerted effort to merge Linux filesystem directories into a more organized structure, an effort known as /usr merge.


        • Fedora 17 Moves Forward With Unified File-System
          Fedora 17 is moving forward with plans whereby the entire base operating system will live within /usr by condensing several common directories that have been long-standing to Linux distributions.

          Directories such as /bin, /sbin, /lib, and /lib64 are now being moved to their respective locations within the /usr directory as trying to unify the Fedora file-system. However, as to not break compatibility, symlinks will be in place for redirecting from the old locations. Solaris was actually the first operating system to begin migrating everything into /usr, with the transition having been completed last year with the release of Solaris 11.






    • Debian Family



      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu



          • Ubuntu's HUD: Why It's A Great Idea


          • Ubuntu 12.04 to replace traditional menus with new HUD


          • HUD = How Ubuntu Disappoints?


          • A first look at Ubuntu Linux's Head-Up Display (Gallery)


          • Ubuntu Unleashed 2012 Edition


          • Canonical previews voice driven Heads-Up Display for Ubuntu


          • How Ubuntu 12.04 Is Trying To Drop Power Usage
            After illustrating Linux power regressions and other problems for months, with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS developers at Canonical are finally taking a serious look at Linux power management and how it can be bettered.

            Going back to the last Ubuntu Developer Summit they began working out ways to improve the energy efficiency of Ubuntu Linux. They're work isn't really about contributing upstream improvements and optimizations to better the Linux power management situation, but determining what options can be safely enabled or better tuned to drop the Ubuntu power usage for primarily mobile systems. (Separately, they're finally getting back to looking at the regressing boot performance state.)


          • 10 of the Best Unity Lenses & Scopes for Ubuntu
            It’s somewhat apt that Ubuntu’s ‘Lenses’ feature has brought Unity into clearer focus for many of its initial critics.

            The search-orientated display windows – called ‘Lenses’ – make finding specific files, apps or information easy to do thanks to their tuned ‘search backends’ – called Scopes’.


          • Yup, Ubuntu again. Number 11.10.
            Notice how the eleven comes before the ten. This does signify that eleven is, indeed, louder than ten. Everyone loves hating Unity. It's new. It's different. It's pretty. It's everything that Linux typically isn't. People also love hating Ubuntu in general. While people struggle to make their Linux desktops look and feel more like OSX every day and there are over 9000 different OSX-like docks out there, people apparently really hate having something that looks and acts like an OSX desktop. It's very odd.

            I decided to try Ubuntu 11.10 and make my own judgement. I have to admit that I was loathe to do so, but felt it only fair. So, I downloaded Ubuntu 11.10 Desktop 64. I burned it to a disc. I put in my DVD drive. I rebooted, hit f8, chose the DVD drive, and off I went. Soon, I was at a menu telling me to choose "Try" or "Install". I was feeling risky so I chose to install.


          • Flavours and Variants

            • Video Review: Xubuntu 11.10 – Elegant, Simple XFCE
              Short video on Ubuntu‘s little brother/sister Xubuntu 11.10 with it’s XFCE Desktop Manager. Fast and Simple is what I feel Xubuntu 11.10 is. Fast to load and simple to use. Runs well on a VM if thats all you have. Enjoy and download it free today!












  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



  • Open source: the default choice
    When it comes to open source software, the question that needs to be asked today is not which businesses are using open source – but rather which businesses are not.

    So says Obsidian Systems‘ Muggie van Staden, a 17-year veteran of the open source world, who says that for many businesses today, open source software is the default choice for backend systems.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 12 will feature long-awaited New Tab Page and Home Tab
        After a long gestation period, it now appears that Firefox 12 — which moves to the Aurora channel at the end of the month — will feature the long-awaited New Tab Page and Home Tab. The new tab page is very like Chrome’s feature of the same name. The home tab builds off the new tab page popularized by Chrome and Opera, but then throws in ton of Firefox-unique functionality.






  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Merged executive committee proposed for the JCP
      The Java Community Process (JCP) standardisation body is taking the next step in its reorganisation. The recently proposed JSR 355 (JCP Executive Committee Merge) would combine the currently separate executive committees for Java SE/Java EE (Java Standard Edition/Java Enterprise Edition) and Java ME (Java Micro Edition) development. The reasoning behind this is that "Since Java is One Platform, it ought to be overseen by a single Executive Committee".


    • Oracle proposal would create single committee to oversee Java specs




  • Project Releases



  • Openness/Sharing



  • Standards/Consortia





Leftovers





  • Finance



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • ACTA

        • Ryan Heath twitter propaganda or counter-noise
          I guess this is how Parliament would like it to be but they know it’s not. The European Commission is no Government, they are not elected but appointed, and speak with a single voice. Article 17 EU Treaty explains it all.

          I think it is a real pity that the Concours was abolished and replaced by logic riddle testing from the United States. You would expect a person working for the Commission to be better informed about the institutions he speaks for.










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