Links 23/3/2012: Commodore Linux, Iceland Moves to Free Software
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2012-03-23 09:21:20 UTC
- Modified: 2012-03-23 09:21:20 UTC
Contents
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Commodore USA has released the new AMIGA mini and the VIC mini, two small form factor PCs with a bit of retro styling, but very new and powerful guts
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Kernel Space
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Graphics Stack
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The Gallium3D compute infrastructure, which is the underlying work for supporting OpenCL over this open-source graphics driver architecture, is on approach for landing in the very near future. This has been one damn good day for open-source Linux graphics drivers following the earlier Nouveau surprise announcements.
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Soon, the kernel will support several AMD graphics cores that are used in recent Radeon graphics cards and in various upcoming processors. In systems with Intel graphics, using hibernation can cause memory corruption. The development of Linux 3.4 has started.
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Applications
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Instructionals/Technical
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Wine
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
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Jonathan Riddell, the KDE developer, recently announced that Canonical stopping funding the Kubuntu project and reassigning him in a new role. Looking at Canonical's focus on Unity, that's not a surprising move. I don't know how Canonical works, but looking at the new challenges they set for themselves with every release, I do think they need all the hands they can get. The result of that hard work is evident - Unity is shaping up really well.
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Have an old computer lying around that you’d like to use for some light web surfing, document editing, and other tasks? I mean like a PC with a 1999-era Intel Pentium III processor? It turns out there’s an OS for that… and it’s not Windows 98.
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In my last blog about Linux Live Environments, I mentioned REMnux, an environment specifically built for malware analysis. I'd spent a little time with REMnux when it first came out, but decided to take the latest version (3.0) for a test drive.
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New Releases
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Debian Family
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Canonical’s next long-term support release of its flagship Linux distribution, Ubuntu 12.04 is in late beta. This next release, due out on April 26th, is in beta now. I’ve been using it for several weeks now and so far, so good.
Indeed, the new Ubuntu is good enough already that I’ve it on my default Ubuntu system: a 2009-era Gateway DX4710. This PC is powered by a 2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and has 6GBs of RAM and an Intel GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) 3100 for graphics. No, it’s not fast, but unlike Windows 8’s beta, you don’t need a fast computer for Ubuntu.
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From a pool of thousands, 15 photographic wallpapers have been chosen for inclusion in Ubuntu 12.04.
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With Ubuntu remaining uninterested in systemd, the Upstart init system continues to be developed. Released today was Upstart 1.5 with a few new features.
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However, while that beefed up version may be available at some point, costs and demand will likely hold it off for a while, the popular mini-computer's designer said.
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Phones
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Android
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NASA has made great efforts to get the public interested in their various projects and avenues of research using tools such as social media networks and their suite of mobile applications. Unfortunately, those applications have almost exclusively been iPhone exclusive. Of the over 20 mobile applications NASA has released, only a scant have made it over to everyone’s favorite open source mobile operating system.
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Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Android is open source and built on Linux. Fortunately for Android enthusiasts and independent developers, however, Sony has made life a little easier by releasing the open source archive for the Xperia S device. Of course, there are some catches. Read on for what this announcement means for the juncture of Android and free software.
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Sub-notebooks/Tablets
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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The Document Foundation (TDF), which produces the leading open source office software suite LibreOffice, is on schedule for the release of a cloud version of its software next month.
The team released the last update to its 3.4 build on Thursday and is now focused on developing version 3.5 further, but the group is now also ready to go live for cloud services in April. That said, the team reserves the right to hold off on launch until the last few software fixes come in, TDF spokesman Italo Vignoli told The Register.
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Project Releases
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Public Services/Government
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OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE is finding favour on the Icelandic government scene with the announcement that all of its public administration organisations will adopt it.
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Iceland's push to move its public sector to open-source software has made some headway, with most of the shift seeing Windows swapped for Linux.
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Security
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Some words just seem to go together: "bread" and "butter"; "trial" and "error"; "Microsoft" and "security breach." The MS12-020 Remote Desktop Protocol vulnerability revealed last week shows once again that when it comes to data security, Microsoft is its own worst enemy and any "secure" system can be compromised.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- 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
- 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
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part IX - Literature About Malignant Narcissists in America Silencing the Press
- There's a price for criticising abuses
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- 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
- 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
- Racism at Microsoft
- Microsoft tribalism has an element to it aside from corporate allegiance
- 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
- The Cyber Show on Plagiarism (BS Artists) and Fear of GNU/Linux Users
- Take a look at these articles
- "EVENTS" as Paid Spam (Marketing) at The Register MS
- Now that layoffs are "buyouts" and debt is "credit" (or "investment" in slop) why not call spam "event"?
- Just Jealous
- LLMs vs Developers
- The Need for Operating System Kernels That Forbid LLM Slop
- Not even OpenBSD is an alternative to Linux slop
- Gemini Links 28/10/2026: BaseFree Numerical System, Tolino Vision 2, and More
- Links for the day
- Links 27/10/2026: "Why My Dad Didn’t Have a Cell Phone" and Sudan Famine Risk
- Links for the day
- Links 27/10/2026: Google Increases Spying on Online Everything (Personal Files, Mail), Anthropic Takes Its Losses and Debt Public
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVIII - Microsoft is Not the Victim (It Was Never the Victim), It's Just DARVO
- "DARVO is now in the dictionary. That’s a win for abuse survivors"
- The British Economy Too Dependent on an American Slop Scheme
- United States Government debt will soon eclipse 40.5 trillion dollars
- We've Already Begun Work on the 20th Year of Techrights
- We'll do a yearlong endeavour of improvement instead of a one-day hurrah
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVII - The Relevance of Silent Layoffs at Microsoft
- "Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)"
- Volunteers or Unpaid Developers Won't Bother Interacting With Mindless LLMs That Pass Labour From Lazy Companies to Human Beings
- The people who run Debian are killing the will to do Free software
- Slop is Killing the Open Web
- The Web is a jungle and "open sites" (without restrictions or walls) are exposed to the 'feeding frenzy' of reckless plagiarists who call their "theft" something like "super intelligence" or "training"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, October 26, 2026
- As Microsoft Tells Close to 30% of Its Staff to Leave IBM Takes Notes
- IBM does the same with PIPs
- It's Perfectly Possible That Microsoft Has Just Told Most of Its American Workers to Leave
- A better news headline might focus on the US and give a figure like 50%, not "quarter"
- Richard Stallman Was Right About "Hey Hi"
- Now the chicken come home to roost
- Gemini Links 27/10/2026: "To Change or Not To Change?" and "Initial Planner Plans"
- Links for the day