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
- Red Hat is Phased Out of Existence This Month Onwards
- Within a few years we'll probably not see many redhat.com addresses anymore; many became ibm.* last week
- NVIDIA Buys the Media With Companies It Sponsors to Pretend to be Customers (Circular Funding Scheme)
- The media crisis worsens
- Brigading Against Women - Part IXX - Overreaction From Young Female Professional After Invalid Threats Made and Sent From an Incel in Another Continent
- Cowards who send threats after committing crimes online
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- Brigading Against Women - Part XX - Attempts by Lozza to Deplatform Techrights and Tux Machines Only Days After I Sued Garrett and My Wife Also Sued Garrett (Shortly Before the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Joined)
- in 2024
- Links 06/10/2026: A Year Since "NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Released From Prison", World Tries to Deal With El Niño
- Links for the day
- "SIRIUS CORPORATION LIMITED" as Evidence of the Financial Shell Games in the UK
- Rianne and I still have some fond memories of the time the ex-wife of the CEO treated us like human beings
- Lots of Silent Layoffs at IBM Last Week, Employees Explain Patterns of Those Impacted
- It wasn't just gossip, it actually happened even if the media chose to look the other way (as usual)
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Fighting for Purpose, Gemlogs, and Gemtext
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, October 05, 2026
- Finland's GNU/Linux Share Measured at 12%
- Last month GNU/Linux was measured at about 10% in Finland
- UK Layoffs and Closures by Microsoft. In Expected Blow, Microsoft Likely Shuts Down Another Studio.
- Microsoft's layoffs are never-ending, they just try to keep them all secret.
- Discussion About Potential Sale of EPO Buildings and Enshittification of Europe's Largest Patent Office
- It's noteworthy that only one hour (or 70 minutes) was devoted to so many topics
- Stonewalling by Bots
- We'll now turn our attention back to EPO and other matters
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: "Posthumanism", Cardputer, and More
- Links for the day
- Links 05/10/2026: “I’m Embarrassed on Behalf of the Tech Industry” and Slop Scammers "Lobbying the Vatican"
- Links for the day
- SIRIUS OPEN SOURCE LTD Officially Insolvent, Is Reform UK Next?
- Sirius no more
- Links 05/10/2026: "Congress Must Investigate War Profiteers Once Again" and Update on Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence
- Links for the day
- libera.chat is an Agenda-Peddling Platform Run by Agenda-Peddling Individuals
- The volunteers of libera.chat ("staff") aren't working for free, they work towards an agenda
- Nobel Season is Plutocracy Week
- Later this week the billionaires will give a fake "Nobel" (in "Economics") to someone who parrots their preferred narrative and those same billionaires will use "Nobel" to bless the promoter of their latest pyramid scheme/buzzword
- GNU/Linux Market Share in North America 13% This Past Weekend
- It is perhaps not shocking that adoption of GNU/Linux is very high there
- When Did Europe Begin to Side With White-Collar Criminals (or Participate in Suppressing People Who Oppose Them)?
- How much corruption can we tolerate before the European Union becomes another Russian Federation?
- Libera Chat's "Level of Control Might Make Sense for a Corporate Platform"
- IRC is not centralised
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVIII - Turning Censorship Attempts (Articles About Matthew Garrett) Into Mild Redactions
- What Lozza did two years ago
- Greenland Needs Digital Sovereignty
- the large icy island isn't moving to GNU/Linux as quickly as the rest of Europe
- Tracker of Internet Relay Chat Networks Out of Service (But Not Down) Since Thursday
- We should note that the number of unique networks they track has grown since we last checked
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: NixOS, Guix, Codeberg Banning Slop, and "Gopher Apps on Android"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 04, 2026
- Secret Microsoft Layoffs and Maybe Another "Voluntary Exit Program at Microsoft in October"
- there's a morale crisis at Microsoft
- MIT Technology Review (MTR) Reinforces MIT's Role in Promoting Slop (Pyramid Scheme) in Exchange for Money
- MIT is a poster boy (or child) of institutional corruption, perverts, and corporate takeover
- Many Topics to Cover
- Drops in a big ocean
- Proving Wrong Those Slop Maximalists and Boosters, GAFAM Says Slop is a Nuisance and Bans/Hides the Slop Submissions
- People who say slop in projects is inevitable or even desirable are usually cheaters with self-guilt
- Links 04/10/2026: “AI Torture Chamber” and "Aggressive Push to Integrate Hey Hi (AI) Slop Into Schools Is Turning Into a Disaster"
- Links for the day
- How Microsoft Hides Massive Layoffs From the Media (as Explained by Microsofters)
- "rewards" are not exactly rewarding
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVII - The Appeal
- more to be known towards the end of the year
- Gemini Links 04/10/2026: Peace in Outage, Pen Pals, and deGoogling
- Links for the day
- Links 04/10/2026: Fires Rage in Borneo and Mass Layoffs at Disney
- Links for the day
- Garrett's Litigation Partner is Unemployed Again
- losing one's job
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 03, 2026