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
- GNU/Linux Rises to 6% in Mexico
- Did the soccer (football) matches have some impact or just the "unknowns" being deciphered (or omitted) by statCounter?
- The Slop Presumption Rule
- Tainting oneself can take one day
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- IBM's August 2026 Promotions (Annual Ritual) Can Turn Into a "Bloodbath" (RAs, Layoffs)
- IBM Common Stock is set to open in the red (minus) on Monday
- Microsoft Culture Explained by People Who Work at Microsoft
- "Be ready for politicking and working over time and weekends."
- Codes of Conduct Attract Hoarders and Sociopaths, They Are Intolerant Towards Good People
- Codes of Conduct (CoCs) are also promoted using violence
- XBox is in Trouble, Sunday News Shows How Serious a Problem It Now Faces
- it seems impossible to resuscitate at this point
- statCounter Observes GNU/Linux at 10% in Libya
- this month statCounter finally sees GNU/Linux approaching "double-figures" there
- Thailand: GNU/Linux Approaching 15%, Windows in a Freefall
- It makes perfect sense for Thailand to adopt GNU/Linux for technical reasons, not just political reasons
- GNU/Linux in Bulgaria Back Up
- part of a trend in Europe
- Cuba Sees Leap in GNU/Linux Usage, as Reported by statCounter
- For the ordinary Cuban it makes sense to reduce a dependence on GAFAM
- Gemini Links 02/08/2026: Drift, Crawlers in Gopher Space, Purpose, and Python
- Links for the day
- Links 02/08/2026: Some Large Slop Investors "Crumbling", Russia Intensifies Bombing of Kiev
- Links for the day
- IBMers Discuss Who Killed IBM (It Impacts Red Hat)
- Fedora is fast becoming like another CentOS
- GNU/Linux Leaps to 8% in Asia
- In Asia, is it a bit higher because of GAFAM distrust? Maybe some other factor/s?
- Clownflare Web Usage Survey: About 10% in North America Use GNU/Linux, Worldwide 6.7%
- surveyors that showed GNU/Linux growth
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 137 Out of 200: Discovering That Spending a Million British Pounds (1,348,250.01 United States Dollars) on Lawyers Cannot Take Down One's Critics
- just outright bullying and criminality
- Steam Survey, analytics.usa.gov, and statCounter All Point to GNU/Linux Gains (Again)
- This must be very annoying to Microsoft
- GNU/Linux Exceeds 6% in Spain
- In recent years the "market share" steadily grew from 3% to over 6%
- Brazil: GNU/Linux Record High, 5%
- On average, GNU/Linux has evidence of growth in many countries this summer
- Amid 2026 Bing Layoffs Microsoft Share in Search Collapses
- How much longer before Microsoft throws in the towel or rebrands again?
- United Kingdom: GNU/Linux up to 7%, ChromeOS Another 5% (Total 12%)
- further significant gains for GNU/Linux this month
- Links 02/08/2026: Cheeto "Blurted Out Vile Plot to Censor ABC"; New York Times Fights 'Intimidation'
- Links for the day
- Why Techrights Will Still be Active a Decade From Now
- Techrights will carry on for many years to come
- We Are Witnessing the End of IBM
- IBM cannot find growth by moving downwards, by lowering standards
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, August 01, 2026
- Gemini Links 02/08/2026: Older Books, Esperanto Music History, and Slop Making Things Worse
- Links for the day
- Sharing and Empathy
- Be more like Stallman, not Linus
- August 2026 Microsoft Layoffs Are "Secret Layoffs" or "Silent Layoffs"
- It's all about secrecy, isn't it?
- Fedora 'Community' Became 100% IBM Staff, Drawing Up Policies Like CoC and CoI (Where the IBM is Excepted From Conflict of Interest Policies)
- IBM has in effect killed Fedora
- Gemini Links 01/08/2026: Planner Season is Upon Us, Slop "Apocalypse", and USENET
- Links for the day
- Cuts at IBM, Allegedly More Shutdowns to Come, CEO Visits Complicit Media to Promote Lies and Products That Will Never Exist (Misleading Shareholders)
- IBM is collapsing
- Links 01/08/2026: GAFAM Falling Deep Into Trillion in (Secret) Debt to Keep the Slop Bubble From Popping Already, Anger Over "FIFA’s World Cup Privatisation Plan"
- Links for the day
- Newer Not Better: Treadmill Updates Cause Problems
- after 2 years the un-updated machines still fine
- The Cyber Show on the Slop Bubble
- new article about the implosion of the slop bubble
- Links 01/08/2026: New York Times Trying to Inflate the Slop Pyramid Scheme (at Cost to Its Own Reputation) and "Iran Appears to Be Blasting Amazon Data Centers Off the Map"
- Links for the day
- Positive Political Momentum
- Daniel Pocock is taken seriously by many people who contact us privately
- Google "AI" is Plagiarism, the Case of Richard Stallman (RMS)
- Why would anyone choose LLM slop over the originals, curated and fact-checked by domain experts?
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 136 Out of 200: Lawyers That Get Paid to Mess About
- They were already outnumbered and understaffed
- Explaining That Software Patents Are Neither Legal Nor Desirable
- Many of our readers work in the legal sector
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 31, 2026
- Gemini Links 01/08/2026: Retirement, Bike Trips, Quake Stuff, Usenet Reborn
- Links for the day
- Links 31/07/2026: Microsoft Now Says Slop is Bad (LinkedIn Cracks Down on It), LinkedIn Narrows Down Size (No Expansion)
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: From Alicante to Munich: Another Smooth Ride
- Campinos is intent on transforming what was originally envisaged as a temporary public office into his own permanent personal feather-bed
- Daniel Pocock and the Important Observation About Threats of Cult-Like Behaviours (No Rationality, No Reason, Just "Mob Rule")
- It's a threat to Europe's sovereignty
- The "PIP Parade" of IBM's Lousy Management, Which Said "Blockchain" Was the Future
- In a healthy company such a CEO would be punished for utterly wrong visions and predictions. Not at IBM...
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 135 Out of 200: Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) That Does Not Disclose Financial Activities Before August
- It certainly looks like they keep losing the remaining women that still exist in the firm
- Links 31/07/2026: "Climate Cover-Up Continues" and Pesticides "Cook the Planet"
- Links for the day
- Datacentre 'Boom' Sceptics Aren't Luddites, They Recognise a Threat to Human Survival (Not Limited to Climate Change)
- Archaeologists very well know that no species will survive forever
- Microsoft's Claims Are Based on a Big Lie
- the bubble is coming to its hard limits
- Don't Lose Sight of the Impact of "End of 10" (Vista 10)
- GNU/Linux has taken off fast
- Microsoft's Debt Continues to Steadily Increase, Not Counting Hundreds of Billions in Secret/Hidden Debt
- The mass layoffs will carry on, maybe labelled LITE
- IBM is Circling Down the Drain, the 'Growth' Comes From Beancounting Tricks and Salary Cuts
- IBM was down 2.17% yesterday
- Microsoft's "Headcount" Distracts From How Big a Cull It Had This Month
- It also speaks of numbers "[a]s of June 30" though the "buyouts" were effective July 1 and since then well over 10,000 workers have vanished
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 30, 2026
- Gemini Links 31/07/2026: Music, Journaling, and Longing
- Links for the day