GNU/Linux Rising: Relevant News Items From March
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-19 19:12:45 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-19 19:12:45 UTC
Desktop
I'm sure there will be objections from people who want to define "the year of the Linux desktop" differently. There will be those fans of GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu who will object that the Linux Desktop has not arrived until we're all running KDE and Gnome. I fear those folks have a while to wait. Others will object because there are still so many copies of Windows and new PCs are still shipping with Windows. That's a fair point, but I believe even those users are actually Linux Desktop users. As I argued last year, Linux has already won on the Windows desktop.
Eurocom sent out a news release that beginning today they will be offering choices of operating systems in their line of GPU-upgradeable, high-performance, professional laptops. Besides the high-end laptop line-up, they will also be offering Linux options for their lightweight notebooks.
If your office runs 24/7, you'll have to do the migration in stages. You may have to migrate servers one at a time, and migrate departments group by group. So, some work gets paused, but most of your business will run during the entire migration process.
Linux has a reputation for being designed for geeks only, but that’s old history. Many modern Linux distributions exceed the user-friendliness of XP, and they’re free to download. If you don’t like the feel of one, you can easily switch to another. What’s more, each Linux distribution comes loaded with useful software such as productivity suites, modern browsers like Chrome or Firefox, and photo and music management apps.
"This is a subject very near and dear to me," Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone told Linux Girl over a fresh Tequila Tux down at the blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon.
Though Stone spent several years teaching "how to" computer courses for faculty and staff at a local university back in the 90s, "all those years barely prepared me for my greatest challenge: my own mother," he said.
To wit: After buying his parents a Windows 95 computer way back when, "I sat her down and showed her how to use the basic hardware," he explained. Yet "even after hours a day over the course of weeks, the computer was too much for her. Windows just had too many options, and she kept getting herself into places she couldn't get out of.
"I literally spent years looking for environments that would make her comfortable," Stone went on. "She went through the Windows OSes (95, 98, ME and finally XP) and some Linuxes -- Red Hat first and then a couple variations of Ubuntu. She always found ways to get herself into trouble."
I’ve been a computer user since around 1991, when we got our first PC, a Tandy from Radio Shack (almost $1,000), which came with Windows 3.1. Since then I’ve used each and every version of that operating system (OS), and still do. But at home and for personal use, it’s Linux for me. Why? Well that’s a question with many answers.
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The biggest driving factor for software developers to work together with open source is cost. It is much cheaper for them to cooperate through open source than it is to remain isolated with proprietary software, asserted Inktank VP of Product Management Neil Levine. "You can no longer rely on one particular vendor to provide everything you need with regard to technology."
After the Desktop
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QOOQ is a durable tablet designed for use in then kitchen. It's even got its very own Linux-based OS...
There was a time, back before smartphones and tablets, when most of us used, at most, only three operating systems.
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For months now David Herrmann has been working on a new project known as OpenWFD for open-source WiFi displays on Linux. OpenWFD is an open-source implementation of the WiFi Display Standard / Miracast. That work is now showing success and as part of that Herrmann has just announced Miraclecast as a component to providing open-source Miracast/WFD support on the Linux desktop.
Chromebook
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Chromebooks are making a big statement in the laptop world: NPD Group Inc. reported that Chromebook sales accounted for 21 percent of all notebook sales last year. For devices that are functionally little different from tablets — designed for basic tasks like checking email and web browsing — they're growing fast. Even as the tablet market continues to grow, capturing 22 percent of the entire personal computing market just last year, Chromebooks are giving people an alternative to rectangular touch screens.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- IBM Layoffs in India, More Coming Soon, Say Apparent Insiders
- Threads regarding IBM layoffs
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- Slopfarm: Firing 35,000 Employee is "Saving the Company"
- "Big Blue" is getting smaller all the time
- Slopfarms About the "Linux CEO" Linus Torvaldos [sic]
- nowadays NVIDIA builds and helps build a giant Ponzi scheme
- Vista 11 is "10" (Ten Percent)
- Some months ago Microsoft openly admitted that it had lost (shed off) hundreds of millions of Windows users
- Dealing With Online Pogroms
- lawfare funded by third parties
- The Year Apple Would Rather Forget
- We await further stumbles and falls from Apple (in 2026)
- "EU's reform agenda threatens to erase a decade of digital rights"
- This is really sad for those of us who spent decades promoting and boosting/advocating the EU
- Gemini Links 29/12/2025: Earlier "Happy New Year 2026" and "Dead Archivist Society"
- Links for the day
- Links 29/12/2025: Putin Critic Sergei Udaltsov Imprisoned, Cloudflare’s Outages Discussed
- Links for the day
- LLMs Are Inherently Parasitic, We Need to Treat Them Accordingly
- a maintenance burden for those who possess actual intelligence
- Links 29/12/2025: Bottled Water Considered Harmful, Cheetos Promoting Nazis in Europe
- Links for the day
- EPO People Power - Part XVIII - European Patent Office "Paints Itself as Progressive While Literally Being Represented by Cokeheads"
- To what length/s will German authorities and media (not just in Germany) go to protect the EPO's "precious image"?
- What IBM Will Do to Red Hat in the Coming Year or Years
- This won't end up well for GNU/Linux as a whole
- Not Turning in His Grave: When People Die, Their Corporate Destruction Becomes a "Turnaround"
- All he did was mass layoffs - a tradition that has not ended since then
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 28, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, December 28, 2025
- Louis Gerstner Has Died, His Legacy of Mass Layoffs at IBM Hasn't
- Hagiographies will follow. They will say he "saved" IBM.
- Links 29/12/2025: The Sunday Routine, Limits of Memory, and Gemini Vocabulary
- Links for the day
- Doxing is Illegal in the UK (Even If You're Based in the US)
- Somebody has just added my identity (name, mugshot etc.) to a "hitlist" site of a political nature, pandering to violent people
- Misunderstood Weapons of Censorship
- It's cruel world out there. One needs to be aware of these shady activities, including "censorship-as-a-service".
- Google Confidently Wrong, Nowadays Defaming People Too
- I can relate as people did this to me and to my wife
- What Happens When Americans Are Out of Office (Away From Work) for a Week? Vista 11 "Share" Falls to Just 10%.
- How's that for slow adoption?
- 2026 Will Have EPO Focus, People Will See What the EPO is Trying to Hide
- We certainly hope people will be held accountable
- EPO People Power - Part XVII - Drugged, Stoned, and Drunk at the Office During Working Hours (Campinos Friend and Propaganda Chief Has Long Done This)
- It's a total disgrace that press all over Europe is still trying to cover this up!
- Gemini Links 28/12/2025: Health Ordeals and Discontinued Pedals
- Links for the day
- Slop About "Linux" Came Only From One Slopfarm This Weekend
- Another day has passed with no LLM slop found in our RSS feeds
- Links 28/12/2025: 'Digital Detox' and Slop "Backlash Grew Massively in 2025"
- Links for the day
- Links 28/12/2025: "Mass Quitting Apple" and "Generative AI Industry is Fraudulent, Immoral and Dangerous"
- Links for the day
- Links 28/12/2025: Fascination, Holidays, and Mormonism
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's Weapon Against the Reality of XBox (the Console) Dying Seems to be LLM Slop
- XBox is dead/dying
- Raffles for the Immaterial: Unauthorised Bingo for Red Hat "Vouchers"
- This is IBM and some slop images
- Andy Farnell on Standing Up Against Technological Oppression
- some portions from it
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 27, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, December 27, 2025
- Once Again, GAFAM Deletes All Your Data, Only Corrects This After Millions of People Lead an Uproar Online ("Richard Stallman Warned Us About This")
- No lessons learned, eh?
- Linus Torvalds Blasts Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) for Attempting to 'Protect' Linux
- Like it 'protects' women
- New Record for GNU/Linux in Australia (at Microsoft's Expense)
- Windows is at an all-time low, GNU/Linux... all-time high
- Fighting Over Whose Pockets Are Deeper (or Who Borrows More Money)
- When processes favour those who are more wealthy (or more willing to go into infinite debt or steal money of other people) those processes match the attributes of lawfare rather than law
- You Know Your Critics Are Jealous and Have Inferiority Complex When...
- One day we'll write about all this in great depth
- Starting a Book With a Flawed Premise or Weak Hypothesis
- To me, Schneier is a sort of "RMS of sec"
- Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (30,000+ in 2025) Not About "AI", Just Business Failure
- "AI" is replacing... the old excuses for mass layoffs
- "But Corruption is Everywhere"
- "We'll always have Polio..."
- EPO People Power - Part XVI - Berenguer Does Not Speak German, So What Did He Tell German Police That Busted Him?
- based in Germany and does not speak the language
- Challenges for EPO Insiders to Try to Tackle in 2026
- Nothing will get solved as long as the circus that runs this show tries to keep the circus going
- Days Without Slop About "Linux"
- It's time to move on
- Links 27/12/2025: Canada Post Strike Called Off, Debate About Europeans "Working Over Christmas"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/12/2025: Household Appliances and Flight Fright
- Links for the day
- Links 27/12/2025: US Cracking Down on Whistleblowers, Expanding Bombardment Campaigns Worldwide
- Links for the day
- Resuming EPO Coverage Today, Can António Campinos 'Survive' Cocainegate?
- We said we'd continue in the weekend
- Links 27/12/2025: More Attacks on Media (Meduza Co-founder Sentenced to Prison in Absentia), "What Owning Music Means To Me"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/12/2025: geminiprotocol.net Downtime and Capsular Gemlog Manager
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, December 26, 2025