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
- "AGI" is Decades Old and It Never Found a Viable Business Model or Real, Actually Useful Use Cases
- I keep reminding people of local firms (right here in Manchester) doing the same thing the media now calls "AGI"...
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 158 Out of 200: Making Alliances With Men Arrested for Strangling Women Was Always a Terrible Strategy
- They work for American slop companies
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- Links 23/08/2026: Slop "Children's Stories Contain Bizarre Patterns" and "Butterflies at the One Garden"
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 159 Out of 200: Telling Courts False Information and Spoon-feeding Them Insults, Hoping or Expecting Them to Repeat These Insults
- When lawyers trick courts into repeating something false
- Microsoft is in Double Trouble in Singapore
- Android+GNU/Linux+ChromeOS are near 20%
- The Slop Industry Bribed the Media to Pretend It Has Something New and Revolutionary. Now It Bribes Politicians Too. Anything to Avoid Scrutiny and Regulation.
- borrowed money has long been used to bribe the media
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, August 22, 2026
- Microsoft to Its Workers in April-May: You're Too Old, Go Away. Microsoft in August: Young People, Go Away.
- What does this company even sell anymore?
- Clownflare Data US-Centric
- We are assuming that for national security reasons not many sites in Chinese (or based in China) outsource their traffic to Clownflare
- Gemini Links 22/08/2026: Broken Car, Devuan, and Thundermail
- Links for the day
- Links 22/08/2026: Prince Harry, Elton John and Others Pay High Price for Frivolous Litigation in the UK
- Links for the day
- 'Voluntary' Mass Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
- IBM does not want people to notice what truly goes on there
- Another Round of GAFAM Layoffs, This Time Apple
- Now Apple "is shutting down an entire Vision Pro team focused on developing gaming features for the mixed-reality headset."
- Gemini Links 22/08/2026: The Bodyguard (1992), Minimalism, Backups, and IPFS
- Links for the day
- Links 22/08/2026: TikTok Settles With Feds, Harms Caused by Social Control Media Gaining Attention
- Links for the day
- New Data Shows Microsoft's XBox is Really Dying
- XBox is a "burning platform"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, August 21, 2026
- Sources-First Publication
- Thank you for keeping us on track
- Ubuntu is Not Linux
- I was one of the first users of Ubuntu
- Links 21/08/2026: Outrage Over Politicians Who Support Slop-Feeding Data Centres, "America Is About to Get More Expensive"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/08/2026: Rain Coming Back and "Small Internet"
- Links for the day
- Mass Layoffs at IBM, But Mostly in Secret (PIPs and 'Voluntary' Redundancies)
- Gerstner laid off a record number of people; Krishna tries to find 'innovative' new ways to cause workers to leave
- Slop-ware: Nobody Knows What Code Goes Into Linux and Most Developers Cannot Understand the Rust Code (Even If They Tried)
- So nobody is in charge
- The Slop Pyramid Scheme (Not Boon!) Isn't Good for GNU/Linux, Even If the Plagiarism Engines (Framed as "Training" or "Intelligence") Almost Always Run GNU/Linux
- We need the slop pop - we need the bubble to pop
- North America: GNU/Linux Measured at 13%-15% Every Night
- many (north) Americans use GNU/Linux at home and are using it to access the Web in the small hours of the morning
- Links 21/08/2026: "Silicon Valley’s Billionaire Cults Are Coming for Democracy" and "Who’s Raking it in as the National Debt Explodes?"
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 157 Out of 200: What is a 'Defamation Troll'?
- "Defamation Mill" also
- Northern Europe Leads the Pack in Abandoning Windows After Threats Made to Greenland (Says Clownflare Data)
- Clownflare has a vast trove of data, so it cannot be easily dismissed as pure nonsense
- Clownflare: In Past 12 Months Microsoft Windows Fell From ~80% to ~75% on Desktops/Laptops in Asia
- Microsoft is deep in debt
- Secret Layoffs at Microsoft, Apparently More Sites Will Shut Down Entirely
- vindicates us and serves to affirm what we've said for over a month
- The State of Slopfarms About "Linux" in August 2026
- The Web needs serious cleanup, which curation can help deliver
- IBM Offers Workers Some Money to Fire Themselves, It's Called "Next Step" and It's Allegedly 'Extended' (Not Enough Fools Have Fired Themselves)
- Will IBM executives - including the CEO - ever be held accountable?
- £5 Million Unsolicited/Undisclosed Bribes and What That Means to British Politics
- It still remains unknown (disclosure denied) who helps fund the £1 million lawfare against us
- [Satire] Pocock, Binface & nobodies vs Farage: defamation before UK High Court
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- The IBM Censorship Team, PIPs (Silent Layoffs) in IBM Europe
- There seem to be many de facto layoffs going on at IBM right there
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 156 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP Becoming Wilson FC
- Now acting almost like one-person shop (lots of staff has fled this past year)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, August 20, 2026
- Gemini Links 21/08/2026: "Ensmallening the BigWeb", "Rust Dependencies"
- Links for the day