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
- Birss Replaces Vos in UK's High Court, LLM Slop Plagiarism a Contentious Issue
- Only days ago we mentioned Sir Geoffrey Vos in relation to lobbying for LLM slop
- Despite the Mass Layoffs Microsoft's Debt Soared by 5.1 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months
- This is why Microsoft asks 60,000 workers to leave
- What Linus Torvalds Told Me Two Decades Ago
- It seems like he was eager to distinguish himself from the "elders" of FSF [...] For anything "revolutionary" to happen in the sciences one must accept the risk of living in poverty like Tesla (the person, not the right-wing fanatics) and Torvalds isn't too old to "cause a stir"
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- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIV - It's an Inherently American Issue and American Elections Are at Risk From Restricted ('Secure') Boot and LLM Chatbots (Disinformation at Scale)
- We'll focus a lot on US elections in the coming days
- "Early Retirement" (Silent Layoffs) for Everybody Except the Executives
- Some will stick around even past 70
- Gemini Links 30/10/2026: Solar MiniBBS, Kubernetes With FreeBSD, "Sysadmin Day"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Layoffs Far Worse Than the Media Tells (Microsoft Spin Laundered as "Reporting")
- Some people are made to "retire" and sign an NDA to make it seem like a happy ending and mostly consensual retreat
- Links 30/10/2026: Google Crashes on Slop Disappointment and GAFAM's "Data Center Blitz Is Burning Through Cash and Scaring Wall St."
- Links for the day
- Fake 'Articles' in The Register MS Concerning "AI"
- We don't suppose The Register MS will be around for much longer after this bubble pops
- GNU/Linux as a Free Software Platform is More GNU (and GPL) Than Linux
- GNU predates Linux by nearly a decades and it was born to tackle injustices
- Who Or What Are Security Professionals/Experts?
- Companies like GAFAM are willing to tolerate cheaters because those companies themselves are cheats
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIII - What Garrett Did Puts Elections at Risk (Also in His Own Country, Where a Dictator Trusts Only Machines That 'Support' Him)
- UEFI 'security' is only as trustworthy as its ferocious boosters
- Gemini Links 30/10/2026: RIP Patrick Stewart and Amp Integration
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 29, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 29, 2026
- The Metric is Not the Mission
- "Passing Thoughts" by Andy
- More Than 5 Years Have Passed Since Official Release of Vista 11 and in the US It's Measured as Only 3 Times Bigger Than GNU/Linux on the Desktop/Laptop
- If mobile is culled from the statistics, then GNU/Linux is somewhere near 11%
- It's About Intention, Not Attrition, at Microsoft
- Microsoft does in fact aim to push many workers off the cliff
- The Next 50 Years of Emacs (and GNU)
- GNU's founder made the widely used editor, GNU Emacs
- Links 29/10/2026: Microsoft-Connected and Funded Openwashing at FOSDEM, Tragedy in Spain
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 29/10/2026: London, Worcestershire, and Robot Exclusion Protocol
- Links for the day
- The Register MS is Publishing Spam About "AI" for HP, Sponsored by HP, Even Composed by HP
- Or "HPE" as they choose to call themselves (with the hype of "enterprise")
- Links 29/10/2026: Anthropic Still Sued Over Copyright Infringement (Plagiarism Isn't "Training"), Elon Musk Openly Admits He Helps Putin Crush Ukraine
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXI - Techrights Was Right, So Why Was It Punished by Lawfare While the Culprits Walk Away Scot-free?
- Techrights did a public service, cautioning about real risks to the public, but the people who caused the problems walk away scot-free
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXII - Still "Radio Silence" From "Restricted Boot" Perpetrators (After Techrights Proven Right Again)
- Maybe when they sober up they'll say something...
- 'Secure' Boot Is Not Secure, Here Are News Reports About the Latest Evidence
- We'll be linking to this page in the future as evidence of the catastrophe
- No, Microsoft Isn't Doing Well (It Has Struggled for a Long Time)
- Microsoft isn't growing, the shares are a Ponzi scheme of sorts
- What Makes Techrights a Community
- Communities can accomplish a lot. They cannot be "bought" and "sold", they're based on trust, mutual respect, and shared ideology.
- Linux Links 29/10/2026: Refractor Stargazing and Making Better Use of RAM in Linux
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 28, 2026
- Project Glasswing and PHP2Shell vulnerability
- by Akira Urushibata
- Turning Point for the Slop Industrialists
- First, a lot of people who work on "hey hi" at Microsoft (no matter the buzzword or brand, e.g. "copilot") are impacted
- Links 28/10/2026: Slop Bubble Pops in China, Rocky Linux Creator Becomes Slopper, Openwashing by the Slop Pushers Explained
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/10/2026: Slop Plagiarism Considered a "Weapon", "Completely restored HTML interface to the Orbital Fox mailing list"
- Links for the day
- The Corrupted Corporate Media is Spinning Massive Microsoft Layoffs as "Investment in AI" Instead of Evidence That "AI" Nonsense is Catastrophic
- Microsoft asking 30% of its staff to leave is a sign of bubble
- Links 28/10/2026: "Rest of World Faces Prospect of Shutting Down" and Robert Reich Says "Musk Wants Me Imprisoned"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/10/2026: Cold Outside Again and Maths
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XX - Restricted and Moot, or How 'Secure Boot' Turns Out to be a Disaster (Again) This Week
- It already has a history of breaking/bricking servers
- 100 Years of IBM Racism
- GAFAM is not about "diversity" or "equity" or whatever. It's a greedy, money-making venture, even if they appoint CEOs of colour
- Racism at Microsoft
- Microsoft tribalism has an element to it aside from corporate allegiance
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part IX - Literature About Malignant Narcissists in America Silencing the Press
- There's a price for criticising abuses
- Compelling Examiners at the European Patent Office to Fake "Growth" (in Patent Monopolies) Using Slop and Sloppy Processes
- The agenda of management is likely illegal and the methods likewise
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 27, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 27, 2026