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.
-
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
-
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.
-
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
-
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
- Links 01/11/2026: Digital Minimalism and "Palantir Cofounder Announces Cruel Plan to Breed Thousands of Lab Monkeys for Medical Experiments"
- Links for the day
-
- Microsoft Wants 60,000 Employees Gone (One Way or Another)
- At IBM, 15% of staff got marked as candidates for removal; at Microsoft it's almost 30%
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, November 01, 2026
- Jean-Claude Van Linus
- Claude talking?
- Gemini Links 01/11/2026: OpenBSD, Broken MicroHDMI, Nextcloud, and More
- Links for the day
- IBM Vapourware on a Budget (to Grab Bailouts From US Taxpayers)
- Anderon is the sort of thing that makes IBMers uncomfortable
- Microsoft Accenture in Trouble, Accenture’s Debt Skyrockets
- Seeing a wave of adoption of Free software in Europe, it's not exactly shocking that "consultants" from Microsoft Accenture are no longer in demand
- Microsoft Says Its "Goodwill" Value Has Been Declining for Years, But It Also Claimed That Doubled in One Year
- Wall Street deserves far more criticism or scepticism (at the very least)
- SkyChatz: From Nothing to #2 in IRC (in Less Than a Year)
- Second only to Libera.Chat
- Making Up Words or Inventing a Vocabulary
- Or why Large Language Models are useless
- Assange on What Lula Means to Free Press
- Here in the UK we've also found our 'Lulas'
- GNU/Linux is No Underdog (But There Are Attempts to Put It "To Sleep")
- There's a moral imperative
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVI - The "Law and Order" Candidate Who Crushes Both Law and Order and Even Rejects Election Outcomes (Insurrection Follows)
- A world without real technical security is a world void of democracy, justice, and human rights
- Links 01/11/2026: Malaysian Media Perishing, France Belatedly Identifies Social Control Media as Weaponised Yellow Press
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 01/11/2026: "Trick-or-Treating seems to be dead, at least in our neighborhood"; BaseFree Numerical System and Human Emacs
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 31, 2026
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: MangoWM, Qutebrowser and Codeberg, Plugh
- Links for the day
- Massive Cuts Inside Microsoft (the Media Does Not Talk About That)
- It is in many ways like IBM a decade ago
- In US Government Sites, GNU/Linux Measured at New All-Time High of 7% (or About 10% Across Desktops/Laptops Alone)
- There's no doubt GNU/Linux is growing
- Intel Has Just Lost in One Single Day Over 150 Billion Dollars in 'Value' (Market Cap), Intel is Also Over 50 Billion Dollars in Debt
- This really says a lot about Wall Street and the slop bubble, doesn't it?
- They Hate Him Because He's Effective
- Effective voices invite more aggressive censorship attempts
- Audience Growing in Spite of the Deluge of Webslop
- We probably benefit from the rejection of LLM slop
- The Munich FUD Tactics (Microsoft Modus Operandi): Microsoft-Connected Sites Claim Denmark Failed With Free Software, But That's Not What Actually Happened
- With Microsoft, it almost always boils down to politics
- Links 31/10/2026: John Romero Comeback After Being Shafted by Microsoft, Google Faces Criminal Probe Over Deforestation in Finland
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Rambling on Self-hosting and Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money
- Links for the day
- Can't Trust Big Banks, Let's Try 'Bros' Instead?
- But let's blame "North Korea"
- IRC's Growing Popularity in 2026
- No company controls or profits from IRC, it is in the Commons
- "AI" as Surrogate for Debt and Distraction From Computing (Bots Described as "Agents" and/or Any Form of "Intelligence" is More Like a Religion)
- We're letting people without even college degrees game the "market" (Wall Street) by lying to it
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXV - Election Integrity at a Time of Back Doors and Very Severe Bugs in UEFI
- How dare British media comment on insurrection following a US election?
- "The Judge Accepted That Mrs Schestowitz Had Been the Subject of a Vicious Campaign of Online Harassment"
- That's consistent with how they men treat women
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Hallowe'en and "Thinking About People"
- Links for the day
- Links 31/10/2026: The Hinge on Apple's Constantly Breaking New Foldable iPhone Was "Built With Slop", Slop Causes Cash Squeeze GAFAM
- Links for the day
- Amazon's Debt Skyrockets by Almost 100 Billion Dollars in 9 Months
- On top of that there is additional (secret, kept stealth by accounting tricks) debt
- Google Illegally Destroyed a Quarter Million Trees Without a Permit for a Hypothetical Project That Might be Cancelled, Debt Has Soared by 30 Billion Dollars in 3 Months ($10 Billions Borrowed Per Month)
- Google is bleeding from slop
- Slavery at Microsoft
- illegal if true
- Many People "Left" Red Hat This Month, Including Yesterday
- We already saw this with SUSE
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: "Where I Draw the Line With" Slop Plagiarism and "Nobody Cares That You're Leaving Proton" (Over Slop)
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, October 30, 2026