Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 27/9/2011:Tinycore 4.0, Android Most Popular





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Linux users, start your engines
    Unless you’re a motorhead to a varying degree — and an older one at that — you probably don’t know who John Cooper is. His contributions in racing circles — putting the engine behind the driver in his Cooper Formula 1 cars in the late 1950s — would normally cement his place in automotive history, but he didn’t stop there.


  • Audiocasts/Shows





  • Kernel Space

    • Kernel.org Still Struggles To Return
      Accessing Kernel.org will simply result in a "Down for maintenance" message. It's also in a similar manner for Linux.com, which was exploited earlier this month. LinuxFoundation.org is at least back online.


    • Linus Torvalds’s Lessons on Software Development Management
      If anyone knows the joys and sorrows of managing software development projects, it would be Linus Torvalds, creator of the world's most popular open-source software program: the Linux operating system. For more than 20 years, Torvalds has been directing thousands of developers to improve the open source OS. He and I sat down to talk about effective techniques in running large-scale distributed programming teams – and the things that don’t work, too.




  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments

    • Fighting the Schism of Free Software
      Over a decade ago an event happened which is still influencing our life in free software. Instead of one, two projects emerged to bring a fully free desktop to Linux based systems. Back then we failed to see the advantages of having multiple available desktop environments and we basically created a schism between the KDE and the GNOME world.

      The Schism is still in place!


    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Still hating Kde4/cups
        Overall KDE4 doesn’t limit my working overly compared to KDE 3.5 (although, so far as I can remember, it doesn’t improve it). One area where it particularly falls down is in printing. I have remarked earlier on the absence of kprinter.


      • KDE’s Infrastructure.
        During KDE’s (one of the largest open source communities around, with about 2500 active developer accounts with direct write access to many millions of lines of code across dozens of products, and large numbers of external contributors) ongoing migration from SVN to Git, GitHub was never considered as an option because the community considers it unacceptable for an open source community to throw their weight behind a proprietary solution.


      • [Artwork]: 10 Ksplash Screen Themes For KDE 4.x
        A great Ksplash theme collection for KDE 4.x featuring many Linux distributions. Innovative themes designed to be suitable to many users who would like to customize the default Ksplash theme.




    • GNOME Desktop





  • Distributions

    • Hello again, Chakra
      Given the short time that has gone by since I last tried Chakra, I'm impressed with its progress.


    • The Air Force's secure Linux distribution
      Outside of the U.S., there are several “national” Linux distributions. These include China’s Red Flag Linux; Turkey’s Pardus, and the Philippines’ Bayahnian. Other countries, like Russia, are on their way to moving their entire IT infrastructure to Linux and open-source software. In the U.S., the government, especially the military, makes use of Linux all the time. Indeed, Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), the most popular software set for hardening Linux against Linux is sponsored by the National Security Agency. But, there hasn’t been a national American Linux desktop distribution… until now.


    • New Releases



      • A Bundle of Updates Give 10 Linux Distributions a Boost
        With so many Linux distributions to choose from, it can be difficult to keep tabs on them all. Over the past few weeks I've written about Bodhi Linux--a lesser-known but nice (and increasingly popular) flavor of Linux--as well as Arch Linux and Mandriva. But today I'd like to round up other distributions of the free and open source operating system that have released key updates recently.


      • Tinycore 4.0 released
        Yesterday has been released the version 4.0 of Tinycore linux, one of the smallest linux distribution around. You can find the detailed changelog in their official forum, among many updates some are:

        * Updated kernel to 3.0.3 * Updated udev to 173 * Updated glibc to eglibc-2.13 * Updated e2fsprogs base libs to 1.41.14 * Updated gcc base libs to 4.6.1 * Updated util-linux base libs to 2.19.1 * Updated eglibc for 486/586 support. * Updated base Xlibs (microcore users need to get new Xlibs.tcz) * Updated all the custom core utilities to use the new repository area. * New loadcpufreq to handle module loading.




    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family



    • Red Hat Family



      • Fedora

        • Anaconda Whiteboards
          David Lehman and Will Woods are in the Boston area this week so along with Chris Lumens, Peter Jones, and David Cantrell we’ve all been whiteboarding away, planning and refinement on the upcoming Anaconda UI redesign that is scheduled to land in Fedora 17.






    • Debian Family



      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu



          • Ubuntu 11.04 Gets Positive Review On Indian News Station CNN-IBN
            Ubuntu bagged itself some mainstream media exposure this weekend when it was reviewed on Indian news channel ‘CNN-IBN’.

            As part of the stations 25 minute technology segment, ‘Tech Toyz‘, the English language news network featured a short review of Ubuntu 11.04.


          • Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 Beta Released | Introduce Plugin Management System
            Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 has been released. Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 will introduce some new features and new user interface design kinda looks suitable to the upcoming release Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. Now it’s available to install for tester and developer through Launchpad PPA.


          • Five topnotch replacements for GNOME 3 or Ubuntu Unity
            You’ve heard the talk, the complaints, and the scathing reviews. Both GNOME 3 and Ubuntu Unity have been met with a hailstorm of bad publicity — so much so that people are turning away from adopting Linux — at least Linux that uses either of these two desktops. So if you want to switch to Linux but you don’t want to use either of these desktops, what can you do? Well, I’ll give you five what-to-do’s that will ease the troubled Linux desktop selection.


          • Ubuntu Development Update
            Sticking exactly to the plan, we are quickly moving towards the release of 11.10, and it’s only three weeks until then. If you like partying, start organising your local release party soon! Beta 2 was released yesterday, so give it all the testing love you can. You won’t be disappointed, there’s something great and new in there for everybody.


          • A Tale of Two Betas (almost)
            I don't often write about pre-release versions of Linux distributions any more - I did for a while, but the amount of negative feedback I got compared to the benefit I felt it was providing became too great. I've decided to make an exception this time, though, because there are two particularly interesting new releases coming up - Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, and openSuSE 12.1. I was thinking that I would have the added incentive of both Beta releases coming out on the same day, but openSuSE decided to push theirs back because they are still working on some difficult conversions to systemd, so I just downloaded Daily Build 301 instead of the actual Beta release. They say that the final release date (10 Nov) will not be changed as a result of this delay, though. The screen shot below was made on my HP dm1-3105ez, after installing Ubuntu 11.10 Beta-2.


          • Series: Introduction to Ubuntu Development – Part 6
            This is the sixth article in a series to explain the basics of Ubuntu Development in a way that does not require huge amounts of background and goes through concepts, tools, processes and infrastructure step by step. If you like the article or have questions or found bugs, please leave a comment.


          • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 234
            Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #234 for the week September 19 – 25, 2011, and the full version is available here.


          • Ubuntu 11.04 vs. Ubuntu 11.10 Benchmarks
            At the request of many Phoronix readers, here are some benchmarks comparing the 64-bit performance of Ubuntu 11.04 versus a recent development build of Ubuntu 11.10. Six different systems were benchmarked for this comparison.


          • Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site
            I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a significant milestone in the ongoing effort of making Ubuntu a target for app developers: the new Ubuntu App Developer site.


          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint Computer Case Stickers... For Europe?
              Linux Mint is said to be gaining ground on Ubuntu's popularity dominance lately. This means more folks are using Linux Mint than ever before. These users are bound to be distributed throughout the world - granted with a large concentration in Europe. But there are sure to be users in the USA, Asia, Australia, and South America too.


            • AriOS 3.0 - Not as good as its predecessor
              Now, AriOS 3.0 is out there. As a potential candidate to becoming a complete, truly successful Ubuntu derivative, an accolade which has so far been reserved to only Linux Mint, I took the distro for a spin, with high spirits and higher expectations. Tested: the 32-bit version, on my T60p experimentation rig. There's a 64-bit version, too.


            • Why I chose Zorin OS 5 Ultimate as my go-to distribution


              I changed my Ubuntu workstation from an Ubuntu Ultimate Edition distro to Zorin OS 5 Core. After a week or so I liked it so much I upgraded to Zorin OS 5 Ultimate and installed Zorin Core (the free version) on my other machines. The reason for the changes was quite simple. Zorin OS 5 Ultimate gave my workstation the baseline Ubuntu 11.04 plus the Gnome desktop with features that keep the UI very straightforward and clean. The other machines are kept busy doing distributed processing work for BOINC projects like SETI, Einstein and LHC so their OS and UI needs are minimal. Zorin Core provides the same UI but the distro installs with fewer extra programs to update and maintain.


            • Muon Package Management Suite












  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



      • Android

        • Samsung signals HD smartphones with supersize screens
          Samsung had its hands full today, launching several phones, including this refreshed Galaxy S II with a large HD screen.

          The Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE - which was announced in Korean this morning - sports a 4.65in OLED display with a resolution of 1280 x 720. The handset is apparently the first with an OLED display to feature a higher pixel density than 300ppi, rocking in at 316 pixels per inch.

          Other features include 16GB of storage, an 8Mp camera with 1080p video recording, NFC support and a large, 1850mAh battery.


        • Android 'most popular' with smartphone buyers


        • Survey says: Innovators prefer Android
          About 40 percent of U.S. mobile phone users over age 18 now have smartphones, and Google’s Android OS runs on over 40 percent of them, says Nielsen.










Free Software/Open Source



  • How open source got its groove back
    Portland’s lure lost some luster when the Great Recession hit.


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Does Mozilla's Response to Enterprises Focused on Firefox Go Far Enough?
        As we reported back in June, while many users applaud the rapid release cycle that Mozilla announced for the Firefox browser back in February, not all IT administrators are among the fans. It's easy for consumers to forget that businesses have much more stringent requirements for accepting new applications of all sorts, including browsers, into mainstream use. There are security concerns, compatibility concerns, and more. Mozilla officials have already announced that they take the protests from the IT community seriously, and have a working group focused on delivering Extended Support Releases (ESRs) specifically for businesses that want to use Firefox. Do these efforts from Mozilla go far enough, though?


      • Mozilla Addresses Problems with Add-Ons and Firefox Releases


      • Mozilla Firefox 7 Released
        With the rapid release cycle and all, we are seeing more releases of the Firefox browser than before. Mozilla just pushed Firefox 7 to the official ftp server to prepare for today’s release of the browser. Firefox 7 is actually the first version of the rapid release cycle that is showing big improvements over previous versions.


      • Firefox Memory Leaks Once Again Causing Frustrations
        Three and a half years after developers plugged “hundreds” of memory leaks in the Firefox browser that had slowed many PCs to a halt, memory leaks in Firefox 6.0.2 are apparently once again frustrating users.

        In a number of issues posted on Mozilla’s support message board over the past several weeks, users report repeated instances of Firefox eating more than 1 GB of memory during basic tasks. Some memory leaks have been tied to browser plug-ins, while other users insist they are doing nothing exotic to cause such significant memory use.






  • Databases

    • Oracle's Commercial Moves with MySQL are Drawing Scrutiny
      When Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun Microsystems, the very first question we asked was what would become of the open source MySQL database and Sun's record of openness with it. The general concensus around Oracle's plans was that the database giant would position MySQL as a way to onboard users to its commercial offerings. (Oracle offers an Enterprise edition.) There is now debate about the extent to which that is happening, especially because Oracle has just released three commercial extensions for MySQL.


    • MySQL at the core of commercial open source
      Oracle last week quietely announced the addition of new extended capabilities in MySQL Enterprise Edition, confirming the adoption of the open core licensing strategy, as we reported last November.


    • MySQL.com Hacked to Serve Malware




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice





Leftovers





  • Finance

    • Solyndra Failure Hits Goldman’s Reputation: William D. Cohan
      Since the financial crisis hit, investment banks have been rightly criticized for their tendency to be more concerned with their own trading profits than the well-being of their customers. Sometimes, however, an investment bank can take the whole client service thing a bit too far.

      Take, for instance, the case of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and its client Solyndra LLC, the California-based solar-panel maker that filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 6 and dismissed its 1,100 employees.


    • 80 'Occupy Wall Street' Protesters Arrested
      Dozens of demonstrators who have vowed to "occupy" Wall Street were arrested Saturday on the seventh day of a social media-fueled protest against U.S. banking institutions, according to protest organizers.


    • Is the Eurozone Market About to Collapse?
      That’s what Wall Street trader Alessio Rastani says in this extraordinarily candid interview on the BBC. “This economic crisis is like a cancer,” he tells the host. “If you just wait and wait hoping it is going to go away, just like a cancer it is going to grow and it will be too late.”






Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
 
SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
For those who have not followed our story
Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
They know what's coming, they just don't know when
Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
Links for the day
"AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
gets paid to do this
People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 15 Out of 200: Background and Particulars of Truth Regarding Techrights and Tux Machines
the basic facts (this has aged well, except the times/ages/numbers)
A Slopfarms Survey for Today (linuxteck.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com)
Not only did Google news link to a slopfarm; it linked to three run by the same team!
Links 18/03/2026: "Venture Capitalist Warns That It’s All About to Come Crashing Down" Due to Slop Bubble, "Birdwatching for Fun and no Profit"
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat is Still Promoting Restricted Boot Which Restricts Users' Control Over Their Computers
Red Hat under IBM is a total catastrophe
Arvind Says... Something Something "Hey Hi" (the State of Today's Media)
Look for news about IBM and most likely it'll boil down to some sound bites from an executive and nothing else
New Post Has Just Explained How IBM Gets Robbed by the People Who Fail IBM
Their plan for IBM is a personal plan
Slop-Spewing GAFAM LLM That Knows Nothing and Understands Nothing, It's a Stochastic Parrot That Cannot Even Figure Out Tux Machines is a Community That Started in Tennessee 22 Years Ago
RMS rightly calls those things "bullshit generators"
Cusdeb Makes New Presentation About Where GNU Hurd (Still a Possible Linux Replacement) Stands in 2026
coming from a generally RMS-friendly account
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Librarians, Phone Anxiety, Growing 'Small' Net, and Slop Versus Software Engineering
Links for the day
Estimates That IBM to Lay Off Close to 10,000 Workers in 2026 (Not Counting People Pushed Out)
There's still chatter about Confluent mass layoffs
Smug Threat by Garrett to Put My Family and I in Prison Doesn't Prove We Did Anything Wrong, It Only Proves He's Truly Desperate to Stop Further Publications That Embarrass Him
his reputation is poor in the United States
systemd Increasingly Microsoft Project, Controlled by Microsoft and Slopware
Cannot allow choice
What IBM Meant to Red Hat: "Proprietary Bundling, Restricted Source Access"
Anyone or anything that joins IBM likely shortens its lifespan
IBM Thrashing Confluent Upon Arrival, Based on Rumours
We deem it a bigger issue that investigative journalism perished, not that one must rely on hearsay online or mere "rumours"
Slop Is Plagiarism, Not (Vibe) Coding, and It's Not Automated, It Doesn't Save Money
Reject misnomers, explain what's actually happening
UPC is Still Illegal and Unconstitutional (Kangaroo Court for Patents, Manned by Corporate Staff), Federal Court of Justice of Germany Receives Belated Complaint About It
What is happening to Europe???
EPO Demonstration Happening Right Now, Later This Week Things Will Only Escalate Further
The SUEPO The Hague Committee wrote to staff this morning
Sophie Brun, Raphael Hertzog & Debian sexual conflicts of interest
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2026: Commodore's Hedley Davis Dies, Apple Not Good Enough, Cheeto "Floats Treason Charges for Iran War Coverage"
Links for the day
A Step Close to Shutting Down the European Patent Office (EPO)
Not going to work all month long
EPO Staff Demonstration Today
The demonstration will be live-streamed for those thousands of colleagues who don't live in Munich
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Brazilian SYN Attacks and BGP
Links for the day
LibreLocal Also Coming to Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Spain
It helps raise awareness of Software Freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 17, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 14 Out of 200: Men Who Strangle Women (and Worse) Trying to Force Us to Write Public Apologies to These Men
For those who never before saw a SLAPP, they basically make many demands
Instant Bluewashing at Confluent: Mass Layoffs Alleged at IBM
So the main question is, did IBM just fire 800 people?
"Vibe-forking" and Why It'll Ultimately Fail (Hype on Top of Hype)
Code made with LLMs sucks; converting solid, human-tested code into slop only complicates matters and increases risk
Updates About Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation
After all those years (a decade) and in spite of phony scandals many people out there still respect him
LLM Slop With "Linux" in the Domain Names
This is becoming a pain and a problem also in the arts and in software engineering
The EFF Has a Bug, Fixing This Bug is Likely Not Possible Anymore
"the EFF's continued existence impairs the arrival of a replacement organization, one which will actually champion digital rights."
Links 17/03/2026: Microsoft Windows Broken by Samsung, Afghanistan-Pakistan War Escalation
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/03/2026: Newcomers and False-Positive 'Slop'
Links for the day
Héctor Orón Martínez & Debian shadow candidate pressure on Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 17/03/2026: American Fentanylware (TikTok) Investors Implicated in Kickbacks, "Big Oil Knew It Was Wrecking Louisiana’s Coast"
Links for the day
For Third Time in a Week The Register MS Runs Google SPAM That Paints Google as an Ally of Women (Which is False, They're Womanisers)
What does that make The Register MS to women?
British Justice Minister Sarah Sackman Blasts Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The "legal industry" is due for "some reckoning"
GAFAM Deprecating Old Videos ("Content") by Removing the Support for Their Format for No Good Reason
"Security" is not a valid excuse
Credit/Debit Cards Have Long Been Called Plastics, Over Time They're Becoming More Like Pure Plastics
They cost less than a dollar to manufacture
The European Patent Office (EPO) Holds a Public Demonstration Tomorrow and It'll be Live-streamed
The EPO's workforce was meant to be capable of speaking many languages and have extensive experience in the sciences
People Who Attacked Techrights Also Attacked My Mother
Picking on old ladies because you don't like Free software advocates is never OK
Little Community Element Left in CentOS
CentOS, unlike Fedora, was meant to be long supported and solid
Social Control Media is Cancel Culture (Companies Like Facebook Also Punish/Ban Accounts for Mentioning "Linux" and Lobby for Anti-Linux Legislation)
The masters of Social Control Media decide what ideas can and cannot be expressed
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 16, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 16, 2026