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
- Trolls With LLM Slop Are Disrupting Communications About Mass Layoffs at IBM
- LLM slop to drown out the signal
- Bing Might Shut Down - Just Like Skype Did - Some Time in the Coming Months/Years (Parts of It Already Shut Down)
- they try to bring the losses under control
-
- The SLAPPs From Microsofters Distract From Serious Copyright Infringement by Microsoft and Apparent Business Crimes
- Aside from other issues, such as strangling women
- Enshittification is Everywhere: You Pay More, the Services Get Worse
- "Enshittification" is a term coined by an online friend; I increasingly use this term to describe what's happening even outside the realm of technology (which it was adopted to describe)
- Microsoft Reduces Office Space Ahead of More Waves of Mass Layoffs
- "The Gerstnerisation of Microsoft"
- Anti-Linux FUD Produced by Microsoft LLMs to Blame "Linux" for Microsoft's Own Failures
- We call out some of the worst culprits
- Gemini Links 16/05/2025: Hoking GPS, Grabovac, and Tanana
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 15, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 15, 2025
- Microsoft WARN Notices Proliferate in the United States
- From what we've seen, this wave was more than 3% (a lot more) and the next wave/s will be even bigger (possible as imminent as weeks from now), based on insider leaks
- Links 15/05/2025: Google Betrays Publishers Again, Openwashing by Sysdig
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Still Respected by Many in the Libre Graphics Community
- Richard Stallman and Professor Moglen never harmed anyone
- If You Read Techrights, Then You Probably Want to Read Tux Machines as Well
- That site is more active than this one
- Gemini Links 15/05/2025: Forced Music in Publicly Accessible Space and ~silv is Online
- Links for the day
- Links 15/05/2025: KOSA Censorship (USA Becomes More Like KSA) and More National Cuts
- Links for the day
- Your Real Ally Would Not Defend the Company of SLAPP and Strangling of Women
- who's left to tell us what's true?
- Breakdown of Microsoft Layoffs Shows It's About Cost, Not Performance or Hype (Like "AI")
- MSN (Microsoft) reposted this with some unnecessary spin
- The Lawyers Working for the Serial Strangler From Microsoft on SLAPPing Techrights Have Apparently Lost Their Voice
- the moment we mentioned that their media lawyer is leaving they went all quiet in social control media
- At IBM, Relocation Can be a Trick or a Trap (IBM Gets Rid of Staff Under the Guise of "Relo")
- IBM is not being honest with employees
- Microsoft Rumours: This Week's Scale of Layoffs "Higher Than Reported" and More Coming Soon ("A Lot More Severe" Than May's)
- The "3%" figure is false
- Slopwatch: Sloppy Brian, Brittany Slop, and General Observations
- Creative people don't need slop; there's just nothing good about it, slop appeals to lazy people careless about quality
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Beyond Mass Layoffs at Microsoft: Entire Units Shut Down for Good
- And it's far from over
- Links 15/05/2025: Crikvenica, Analog Computer, and Slop 'Hallucinations'
- Links for the day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 14, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 14, 2025
- Links 14/05/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) Harms Kids, Russia Refuses to Defuse
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/05/2025: Poseur Nerds and Mennonites
- Links for the day
- VS Code Is Not FOSS, And Neither Is the Site "It's FOSS"
- VS Code is proprietary spyware of Microsoft, yet this site keeps promoting it like it's FOSS
- No, Microsoft Didn't Lay Off So Many People Because of "AI" "Innovation" or "Efficiency" or "Era" or "Revolution" Etc.
- Debunking one very common lie
- What We Do When We Say "GNU/Linux" to People
- It talks about "Linux", "GNU", and what it means to say "GNU/Linux"
- Links 14/05/2025: Facebook And Instagram Risk Nationwide Bans, Microsoft Subsidiaries Have Mass Layoffs Too
- Links for the day
- Canonical Will Give You Money Only If You Work for Microsoft!
- Only if you are servicing (being a slave to) proprietary forges that Microsoft and the NSA control while violating the GPL will Canonical give you money
- If Microsoft Staff That Strangles Woman Pays You to Write Lies, It Will Not End Well
- The past couple of years were our most productive ever
- Gemini Links 14/05/2025: "Writing My Story with Inspiration from Notable Lives" and People Start Shovelling Up LLM Slop Onto Geminispace,
- Links for the day
- Microsoft is Very Highly Stressed About Adoption of GNU/Linux at Windows' Expense (on Former "Vista 10" PCs)
- What does this tell us?
- Slopwatch: BetaNoise (BetaNews), LinuxSecurity, and Slopfarms Still Promoted by Google News
- The primary goal is to demonstrate the problem persists
- Links 14/05/2025: Google Agrees to $1.3 Billion Settlement After Spying, China Tariffs Don't Work
- Links for the day
- There Are Also Loads of Microsoft LinkedIn Layoffs Today (Keep Track of the Subsidiaries They Keep Out of Headlines)
- Perhaps lost in the smokescreen
- There Are Bigger Rounds of Microsoft Layoffs Coming, a Cull of 10% Implemented in Waves (the "3%" Figure is Misleading, Face-Saving)
- Last night we said they might do the layoffs in three or at least two waves
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, May 13, 2025