Linux in the News: New RC, Steve Jobs' Offer to Torvalds Recalled, OpenDaylight Summit...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-18 09:46:04 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-18 09:46:04 UTC
Summary: Kernel-centric news items from the past few days
Kernel Space
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Linux kernel 3.14 RC3 includes several updated drivers (GPU, media, block, etc.), architecture updates (x86, ARM64, s390), filesystem improvements (Btrfs, VFS, NFS, OCFS, and kernfs fixes), as well as various mm and tooling (perf) improvements.
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Linus Torvalds, the man behind the wonderful project Linux and Git was offered job by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc. Torvalds never met Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft but he met Jobs in the year 2000 when he was working with Transmeta corporation, an American fabless semiconductor company. Jobs invited Torvalds to Cupertino Camps of Apple. Torvalds was offered thick salary and remarkable position within the organization and was supposed to do Non-Linux things at Apple. This was the point, Torvalds disagreed. Moreover Torvalds did not like the Mac Kernel, Mach.
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Earlier this month at the OpenDaylight Summit, the software defined networking project announced its first code release, called Hydrogen.
Their open source controller is now available for download, published for everyone to see and use. But the structure and culture that got the project to this point, about one year after its formation, isn't so readily available for outsiders to see and understand.
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As users everywhere begin to warm up to the benefits of running multiple operating systems in tandem, virtualization has become one of the hottest corners of the technology arena. Many open source tools are helping to drive this trend, and that is making the work of the Open Virtualization Alliance very important. The group has been up and running for years, and late last year it joined the Linux Foundation in an effort to integrate its efforts more closely with the Linux community.
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All of the code for kdbus is living within its own Git repository right now and also there's code within the systemd Git while a compile-time switch must be activated now within systemd. Developers are hoping kdbus will be reviewed and merged into the upstream Linux kernel this year. Lennart shared a couple of kdbus features out on the horizon include sandboxing support, yielding CPU time to destination, priority inheritance, and priority queues.
Graphics Stack
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This new multi-touch touch-pad implementation presents support for one / two / three finger tapping, two-finger scrolling, clickfinger, drag-n-drop on clickpads, and single-touch touch-pad support. There's also work underway in the clickpad software button support and better timeout handling. Other possible features include trackstick mode support, disable-while-tapping, pinch/rotation support, and other features.
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An SGI fan and Phoronix reader happened to have an old set of SGI tapes dating back to the 90's regarding "Tech Talk" and "KGSI Radio" on SGI wares. The Phoronix reader, Steven Hill, digitized these recordings and obtained permission to release them from SGI after formally being marked confidential.
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AMD has published a second version of their open-source Linux driver code for exposing the "VCE" video engine on modern Radeon GPUs under Linux via OpenMAX for accelerated H.264 video encoding.
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The Radeon R600 Gallium3D driver has picked up support for another OpenGL extension that's mandated by the OpenGL 4.1 specification.
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For those curious how AMD's Catalyst Linux performance is doing as we get 2014 underway with the first Catalyst 14.1 beta, here are benchmarks from nine different AMD Radeon graphics cards under Ubuntu Linux and running this latest publicly available driver when looking at both the OpenGL graphics and OpenCL compute performance.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- IBM is "Making an Exit". Only the Executives Will Get Rich.
- failure disguised as success
- 2026 is the Year of Blockchains, Says IBM's CEO a Decade Ago?
- "falling upwards"
- Most Coders Used to be Women, Not Men (and Men Who Dropped Out of College Now Plunder Everything They Can)
- "Ethics For Hackers"
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- [AGemini Links 06/06/2026: "Competing" With LLMs and "Automation of Any Kind"
- Links for the day
- 50% of the 'Gains' Made by "Quantum" Hype Already Evaporated
- "It was all hype about quantum nonsense. Heading back to reality now. Expect sub-$220 after earnings release next month."
- Heap of Trash Online, Not Just the Fault of LLM Slop But Enabled by Slop
- Google News has just promoted a pair of prolific slopfarms
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, June 05, 2026
- Links 05/06/2026: Lawyers in Trouble for Citing Cases That Don't Exist (Slop Too Bad to Justify Costs; Even It It Did Work, It Would Still be Far Too Expensive)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/06/2026: Bears in the Streets, WWII Revisionism, and Westworld
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's LinkedIn Called "Dying Platform" by One Who Worked There
- The co-founder of LinkedIn has just stepped down too
- GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) Layoffs Are Due to Surging Debt, or About 120 Billion Dollars Borrowed in One Year Alone
- It's well above 150 billion dollars if one adds Oracle
- After One Jeffrey Epstein Associate 'Leaves' Microsoft's Board Another Jeffrey Epstein Associate Steps Down, Workers Concerned About the Mass Layoffs
- How many more loans can Microsoft receive? Those loans are becoming increasingly risky.
- IBM Exploits Overambitious, Hungry Young Men to Help the "Great Quantum Hype Campaign" (Pumping the Stock Based on Deliberate Misinformation or Outright Disinformation)
- The boot-licking campaign is live...
- What Will Likely Happen When the Slop Bubble Pops (and When It'll be Widely Accepted That It Popped)
- all the "most successful" slop companies are so deep in debt
- The Register MS is Part of the Problem, It's Publishing "AI" SPAM Because it's Paid by Chinese Military-Connected Firms
- Given that The Register MS is run by a Microsofter (since last summer), destruction seems inevitable
- IBM's CEO Does Not Use GNU/Linux, So Why Did He Suggest Buying Red Hat Only to Lay Off Its Workers, Market Slop Instead of Linux, and Sack UNIX Professionals?
- Shortly after IBM had bought Red Hat and there were mass layoffs we pointed out that Red Hat's CEO was not using GNU/Linux
- If You're Not Focusing on Software Freedom, All You'll Get is Slopware and Buzzwords
- If you're not focusing on attaining Software Freedom (and remember "Linux" is just a brand), then you're losing sight of the goals that actually matter
- Red Hat/IBM: Microsoft is Our Partner of the Year
- Red Hat is a really bad gravy
- Gemini Links 05/06/2026: Enshittification of Institutes for Project Management, Codebases Contaminated With Slop, Personal Stories
- Links for the day
- Communicating With Freedom - Part II - Quibble Breathing New Life Into LibreJS
- Notice how work on one thing led to thousands of lines of code added to a mostly dormant (but nevertheless important) project
- Slop Has no ROI, an Economy Built on False Assumptions of Slop is Doomed
- we're all going to suffer from this Ponzi scheme
- Links 05/06/2026: More GAFAM Layoffs, Google Faces Regulatory Crackdown in UK Over Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing
- Links for the day
- Rumour That Layoffs at Microsoft Will Kick Off on July 1st, 2026 (Impacting 10,000 or More Workers)
- this is what the rumour mill or the word through the grapevine is
- Mission:Libre, Which Teaches Young People Free Software Ideals, Needs Financial Backing
- plea for assistance with Mission:Libre
- The Slop Ponzi Scheme is a Problem and Threat to All of Us (Even Those Who Don't Invest in or Use Slop at All)
- This problem is systemic, not contained
- "Blind Justice" Examines the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Turning a Blind Eye to Abuse by British Solicitors
- We have some jaw-dropping examples of how the SRA does not do actual regulation - to the point where its staff does not actual work and does not look into any evidence at all!
- 7 Days From Now the FSF's Founder Gives a Talk in Bern, the FSF Has Just Advertised This
- Meanwhile the FSF (or GNU) processes and uploads many recent talks by RMS
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Down But Not Out – Costa's Comeback
- he managed to secure a top-level EU position in June 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, June 04, 2026
- Links 04/06/2026: Self-hosting Remotely and GemText Emphasis
- Links for the day
- Links 04/06/2026: Ukraine’s Daily Moment of Silence and Uber Lays off 23% of HR
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 98 Out of 200: Microsoft Threatening Real Security Researcher With Criminal Investigation for Talking About Microsoft's Bug Doors/Back Doors
- The crime should be the back doors (deliberate attack on every user's data protection), not talking about those back doors
- Microsoft Would Get Away Even With Pedophilia
- "Microsoft should never be above the law"
- Journalists Should be Ashamed for Parroting False Claims From IBM Management About "Quantum Computing", Say IBM Insiders Who Work on "Quantum Computing"
- IBM is a buzzwords vendor. International Buzzwords Machines.
- Free Software is Nourishment to Software Users, Unlike Proprietary Software
- Quit treating "mere users" of software "like animals"
- The "Peanut Gallery" of GAFAM Has Infiltrated Free Software Projects or Disrupts Free Software Communities
- They contribute nearly nothing and do substantial damage; they're freeloaders who attack the most productive members of projects
- Coding is Not a Quantity Game (It Never Was!)
- "less is more"
- Exposing Corruption Using a Highly Resilient Platform
- Growing levels of trust, based on our track record, help us attract whistleblowers
- Mass Layoffs Expected at Microsoft in July 2026
- They're preparing more "lists" of people
- Reflection on EPO Leadership That Harbours Cocaine, IBM Leadership That Pumps-and-Dumps the Shares, and More
- ManCity replaced Manuel Pellegrini with a more famous manager it didn't envision winning 20 titles in 10 years (it could only hope) [...] Team-building is something that "Pep" seemed to be good at, as was Jürgen Klopp
- Pump and Dump by IBM Insider Traders: Nickle LaMoreaux, Gary Cohn, James Kavanaugh, Arvind Krishna, Robert Thomas, and Others
- the shares are already collapsing
- FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) Has Weakened If Not Ruined What's Left of Big Media
- Many things that have existed for decades are now being rebranded as "AI"
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 97 Out of 200: Garrett in Hiding (From the Simple Observable Fact He's Closely Connected to the Microsofter Who Strangles Women, Tells Women to Kill Themselves, and Worse)
- They use one another; they are coordinating this via the SLAPP industry in another continent
- Links 04/06/2026: Microsoft Threatening Security Researcher for Naming Back Doors in BitLocker, "Demand is Booming for" Old Tech
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/06/2026: "Word Vomit", Slop", and Moving to Gopher/Gemini
- Links for the day
- Rust Outsources its Financing (or Financial Control) to Microsoft
- How long before the third "E"?
- "Format Sovereignty" Can Only be Accomplished With LaTeX or OpenDocument Format (ODF) or Vendor-Neutral Standards for Editable Documents
- Microsoft is, in effect, above the law
- IBM's Shares Fell Nearly 13% in One Day (Including After Hours)
- its main product is false promises
- The Cyber Show on the Importance of Software Freedom and Why GNU/Linux Could Not be Stopped
- an excellent article
- Drew DeVault Can Still Redeem His Reputation. Revisiting His Attacks (and Attack Site) on Richard Stallman Might be a Good Start.
- DeVault has openly apologised (this past spring)
- The Register MS is Publishing Paid SPAM; Some of It is Designed to Prop Up the "AI" Pyramid Scheme
- The Register MS participates in scams
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: "Operation Influencer"
- Costa's political career was far from finished
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, June 03, 2026