Links 21/3/2012: Torvalds Secrets, Radeon HD 7000 Driver Now Free/Libre
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2012-03-22 00:15:30 UTC
- Modified: 2012-03-22 00:15:30 UTC
Contents
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Kernel Space
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To get the most out of your systems, you want detailed insight into what the operating system kernel is doing. A typical approach is to sample stack traces; however, the data collected can be time consuming to read or navigate. Flame Graphs are a new way to visualize sampled stack traces, and can be applied to the Linux kernel for some useful (and stunning!) visualizations.
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Graphics Stack
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Applications
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The TEA Text Editor is a very handy writing tool that delivers a much different user interface. For most computer users cranking out words or program code for digital consumption, text editors are often preferable to feature-bloated word processors. TEA pours on features yet keeps from getting too steamy.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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You may have heard a few days ago that Dear Esther, a game built upon Valve's Source Engine, would be ported to Linux and released in the coming months. Well, here's more details about that Source-based game is getting to Linux.
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Desktop Environments
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GNOME Desktop
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Users who choose between GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 are rarely making that decision on a purely rational basis. In my experience, users of GNOME 2 are often choosing what they know, while users of GNOME 3 are technophiles who enjoy anything that is new.
Neither is likely to go over the two generations of GNOME feature by feature. In many cases, the choice seems made before login.
But what happens when the two desktop environments are compared in general features? I'm a fan of neither GNOME 2 nor GNOME 3, but I decided to find out.
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New Releases
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Today sees the release of Legacy OS 4 Mini an Update / Replacement for TEENpup 2010 Mini Beta. Those updating from TEENpup 2010 Mini Beta will need to save any important documents, music etc to an external Hard Drive, USB stick etc as a full reinstall is required to update to this new version, sorry!
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Debian Family
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Spending a couple of days intensely running Linux Mint 12 on a very nice desktop PC sent to me for review by ZaReason (much more about that later), I probably shouldn't have been surprised by the annoying bugs in Mint that made me a lot less productive than I am in the Debian Squeeze system I've been running on my laptop since late 2010.
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In this interview, Luke Kanies, CEO and founder of Puppet Labs, explains why the Puppet configuration management tool is a huge hit with sys admins, and tells us what to expect next from the popular open source project.
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We got another reminder of how disruptive open source software is to mobile computing this week, when Linux and Android merged back together. This appears to be good news for a number of parties, but Android and Linux developers and users seem particularly likely to benefit. The inclusion of Android code in the Linux kernel and the ability for Linux developers to more easily work on the Android environment and applications also ties into some of the key topics we’ll be covering in a Webcast March 21 titled ‘Open Source, A Tale of Two Cities in the Mobile Enterprise,’ presented by 451 Research and Black Duck Software.
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Web Browsers
Chrome
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Ever since Google started working on its Chrome OS operating system, it has had a pronounced focus on allowing users to only work with cloud-based data and applications. This has drawn criticism from many users, and some from us here at OStatic, as seen in this post. With Chrome OS, Google placed a heavy bet on the idea that consumers and business users would have no problem storing data and using applications in the cloud, without working on the locally stored data/applications model that they're used to.
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CMS
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Licensing
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Are developers actually chasing down license violations?
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Openness/Sharing
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There are some pretty basic things that a researcher can do to make their work into an open content project. Here are a few.
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Programming
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Finance
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Censorship
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The Obama administration has condemned Iran for trying to take control of the Internet. In addition, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued guidance and licensing information to further support the free flow of information to citizens of Iran – a freedom the Iranian regime has consistently denied to its people.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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They're selling us out. Just weeks after Internet users from across the globe came together to to beat SOPA, the major ISPs are cutting a deal with Big Content to restrict web access for users who are accused of piracy.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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ACTA
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Concerned of the ACTA dossier many citizens contacted the press staffers of his colleague Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Commissioner Michel Barnier is right when he emphasized the need for better communications. Karel De Gucht had the opportunity to embrace the public attention to ACTA, and strengthen the institutional cohesion with the European public, help the transformation of the EU towards an “Europe of the citizens”. He didn’t exercise this opportunity, and it appears to me the reason is a fundamental disrespect to democratic principles, he doesn’t take the public seriously.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Submit Your Suggestions for EU's Embrace of Software Freedom by Tomorrow
- Time to leave GAFAM (US) hegemony behind
- Slopless Weekend
- This is not sustainable
- IBM Misleads and Gaslights Investors With Slop Sold as "AI" (the Business is Waning, Mass Layoffs Continue)
- People who do this are dishonest. They should not be put in charge.
- Why Microsoft Accenture Has So Many Layoffs in Recent Years
- The debt of Accenture doubled a year ago
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- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part II - Racism, Cocaine Use and White-Collar Corruption
- When you hire people illegally, to work for cocaine users and keep quite about the cocaine use, what will be the impact on the reputation of an institution?
- A Can of WORMS - Part II - Darkening the Name of RMS, Associating It With Crime
- Beware projection tactics
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, February 01, 2026
- Gemini Links 01/02/2026: Fossil Heating Installations and Some FOSDEM Coverage
- Links for the day
- The State of Memory Leaks in GNU/Linux
- The issue won't be solved by adding more memory
- Links 01/02/2026: Nvidia's Jensen Talks Down Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' and Britain's Starmer Makes Friends With China, Japan
- Links for the day
- Links 01/02/2026: Public TV Gutted by Cheeto, Billionaires Fund a Cheeto Propaganda Movie in 'Documentary' Clothing
- Links for the day
- The New Site ("New Techrights", SSG Since 2023) Exceeds the Old Site in Requests
- The "New Techrights" gets about twice as many requests as the "old" (WordPress) "Techrights", the site of 2006-2023
- 20 Years Ago
- Some time soon all this slop frenzy will become like yesterday's "blockchain" or "metaverse"
- Gemini Links 01/02/2026: Zdzisław Beksiński and Disconnected Git Workflow
- Links for the day
- Talks About Nadella's Microsoft Exit After Chatter About Tim Crook Leaving Apple (Years Ahead of Retirement Age)
- Mass layoffs and record debt do not represent a company's health.
- We Still Cover the Same Problems We Spoke of 20 Years Ago
- We're not easily seduced by "novelty" (new things), we try to judge them critically
- Patents Standing in the Way
- They also cause environmental harm
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, January 31, 2026
- IBM, a Microsoft Company
- Microsoft and IBM as a pair go a long way back
- A Lot Less GAFAM in Scandinavia
- Are they reacting to geopolitics and risks from the US?
- IBM Kills Companies It Bought (Neudesic Seems Like Latest Casualty)
- Why isn't even a single publisher investigating those things?
- Fake "Linux" Articles
- Just because some platform has "Linux" in the domain name and/or site name does not imply that it is a news/Linux site
- Gemini Links 31/01/2026: "Proof Without Content" and "Technology Connections"
- Links for the day
- Links 31/01/2026: Microsoft "OpenAI Representatives Are Going to Critics’ Houses With Threats and Demands", Its Proprietary Chaffbot Faces More Lawsuits
- Links for the day
- Links 31/01/2026: "Introducing Encrypt It Already" and "Huge Cache of Epstein"
- Links for the day
- A Can of WORMS - Part I - Trying to Throw RMS Under the Bus at MIT and Everywhere Else
- This series won't give air to online 'trolls'
- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part I - An Introduction
- When the series ends, some time around the second or third EPO strike of this year, we'll contact the relevant authorities and plead for intervention
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part I - Who Regulates This Regulator? (Only Itself!)
- We won't self-censor or prematurely terminate this series
- Norway Almost Trusts Russia More Than the Bill Gates (Sleeping With Young Russian Girls) Company, Microsoft
- Microsoft represents crime
- Riddle Us This... (Jim Zemlin and Bill Gates)
- Do these people even understand the literal meaning of "safe space"?
- Is "Nobel Prize for Peace" a Sick Person's 'Code Word' for Gangbanging Now? Ask Bill Gates.
- Watch all the Gates apologists getting all silenced/silent
- BBC Gaslights Women Sexually Exploited (Many Under Legal Age) for Its Rich Sponsor, Bill Epsteingate (Gates)
- Is this a national broadcaster or a propaganda tool "For Rent"?
- Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' Reportedly About to Become Bankrupt, Seeking Emergency Cash Infusion (Loans)
- the money promised to Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' failed to arrive
- Gemini Links 31/01/2026: Deep Ice and Slide Rules
- Links for the day
- Writing About Abuse
- Never ever allow misogynists to get their way if you strive to live in a decent society
- MIT DEDP MicroMasters online learner's blog post about cover-up linked to resignation of Swiss financial regulator
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Salary Erosion Procedure (SAP) as the Primary Reason for EPO Strikes
- They focus on financials, as the corruption aspects are un-sayable or unspeakable, except in private
- IBM Bluewashing: Feels Like IBM is Scuttling Neudesic (and Some of Red Hat)
- We recently saw some Red Hat staff joining a Microsoft proxy
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, January 30, 2026
- Microsoft Stock Collapsing Due to the Slop Bubble and Microsoft is Hiding Budget 'Black Holes'
- Microsoft does not perform like it tells "the media" and "the market"