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Links 16/3/2012: Wine 1.5.0, HP's webOS Community Release





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Server

    • Amazon EC2 cloud is made up of almost half-a-million Linux servers
      We know that Linux on servers is big and getting bigger. We also knew that Linux, thanks to open-source cloud programs like Eucalyptus and OpenStack, was growing fast on clouds. What he hadn’t know that Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), had close to half-a-million servers already running on a Red Hat Linux variant.






  • Kernel Space

    • Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - Benchmarking All The Linux File-Systems
      When running Linux file-system benchmarks at Phoronix it is most often a comparison of EXT4 vs. Btrfs, since they are the "hot" Linux file-systems at the moment. Sometimes others like ZFS, Reiser4, and XFS also join the party. In this article is a look at all of the Linux file-systems with install-time support under the forthcoming Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. When carrying out clean installations each time with changing out the root file-system and using the default mount options, ReiserFS, JFS, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, Btrfs, and XFS are all being compared in this article.


    • Can Linux Win in Cloud Computing?


    • Graphics Stack

      • Canonical Publishes Apple Hybrid Graphics Driver


        Seth Forshee, a kernel engineer at Canonical since last year, published the Apple GMUX driver to the kernel mailing list. From the commit message, "Apple laptops with hybrid graphics have a device named gmux that is used for switching between GPUs and backlight control. On many models this is the only reliable method for controlling the backlight. This series adds initial support for the gmux device, along with anciallary support for disabling apple_bl when the gmux device is detected. Initially only backlight control is supported."


      • X.Org Foundation Elects New Board Members
        They barely had enough members voting to meet the minimum 25% quorum to carry out an official election. Only 40 of 144 members voted this year, which comes in at just 27.77%.


      • Participating in Google Summer of Code 2012
        Hello, Wayland developers!

        It's high time to begin discussing application ideas with mentoring organizations.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Kubuntu Active To Run On Tablets
        The lead Kubuntu developer Jonathan Riddell has announced the activation of Kubuntu Active project targeted at tablets. The project has started creating daily builds. At the moment the builds are available only for the i386 architecture, but will soon be available for ARMv7.

        "The project is aimed at creating a Kubuntu version of the Plasma Active tablet interface," writes Fabian Scherschel on H-Online.






  • Distributions

    • Guadalinex 8 Screen Shots


    • New Releases



    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family



      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Here Comes The New Ubuntu Unity Spread Design
            Be prepared to be amazed because this is huge and would change the way you interact with multiple applications in Unity. The Compiz window manager has been around in Ubuntu for quite a long time, in fact I cannot think of a time when it wasn't present. The good old days where people in fact use Ubuntu because of the fancy cube effect and other effects. With Compiz, you have a huge list of Compiz plugins like Spread, Expo, Alt-Tab and many more etc. And this has remained the way it has for the past few years, sticking out like a sore thumb in light of the new modern, gorgeous Unity interface. Well, all that is about to change soon.

            John Lea, the lead designer of the Ayatana Team has just provided insights of the new Spread that has been designed. We will be covering the new design here but the detail he goes into is overwhelming. It gives an idea of how every minute thing is thought of during the design process. All right, enough with all this beating around the bush. Let's dive straight into it, shall we?


          • Sure It's Popular with Consumers, But Ubuntu Increasingly Means Business
            Most of us who follow Linux know that it has been a huge success at the server level, and powers much of the server infrastucture of the Internet. The fact is, many Internet and enterprise users don't even realize the extent to which they depend on Linux and related platform technology every day. In addition, Linux is playing a bigger part in business technology deployments, which companies like Canonical and Red Hat are extremely focused on. Now, Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth is out with some hard-hitting data that shows just how effectively Ubuntu is competing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Here are the details.


          • Flavours and Variants











  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Android Tablets Gain Market, Apple Loses
        According to a study by IDC Android tablets made some strong gains in fourth quarter of 2011. This growth can be attributed to Amazon which introduced its Kinde Fire tablet running cutom Android OS. Android tablets increased their market share from 32.3% in 3Q11 to 44.6% in 4Q11. This is an impressive 12.3% increase. On the contrary iOS slipped from 61.6% market share to 54.7%, losing around 7% market to Android.


      • Spark Linux tablet renamed Vivaldi








Free Software/Open Source



  • NYSE Opens Up About Giving Up Control
    We also had the opportunity to talk to NYSE Technologies' Head of Global Alliances Feargal O'Sullivan. He will be a keynote presenter at the Collaboration Summit and will be talking about "Open Middleware Standards for the Capital Markets and Beyond."


  • Cool, Free Open Source Tools for Producing Music
    Music-making technology has improved dramatically in recent years, and software and hardware tools even play a bigger role in the production processes of huge bands ranging from Coldplay to Metallica. Free and open source music making and production technologies have also become very sophisticated, and are worth looking into. If you play and produce music here are some must-have free tools that you can leverage.


  • Zytronic encourages creativity with open-source driver for touch sensors
    In order to increase the depth of support it can deliver to the market, Zytronic has introduced the first in a series of new software drivers for use with its range of Projected Capacitive Technology (PCT) touch sensors and touch controller products. Designed to work with Zytronic’s latest ZXY100 touch controller series, the initial drivers will support the increasingly popular Linux operating system, and for industrial users Microsoft Windows CE . The Linux drivers are supported on both Ubuntu 10.04 and Debian 6.01/6.02 distributions.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS

    • Eucalyptus refocuses on open source values
      Even as its competitors generate the headlines and talk more than a little smack, Eucalyptus Systems has been quietly and carefully re-aligning its business practices, while steadily growing. Now the cloud computing company is ready to take on the sector with less quiet and more open source attitude: including a radical shift in how it will deploy its main product.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS

    • Magnolia CMS 4.5 improves usability
      Magnolia International has announced the release of version 4.5 of its enterprise content management system (CMS). According to the developers, this update to the Java-based CMS – available as an Enterprise Edition or an open source Community Edition – is the "largest upgrade to date", improving usability and adding a number of new features.




  • Project Releases



  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Data

      • OpenStreetMap completing move to Open Database Licence
        The OpenStreetMap project is preparing to delete data from its database on 1 April if data contributors have not agreed to licence their data under the Open Database Licence (ODbL) or assign it to the public domain. The move is the culmination of a near two-year long process to switch the licensing for the data behind the popular mapping project.








Leftovers



  • Security



    • Study analyses ten years of security holes
      Since 2001, S21sec has collected all major software companies' known security holes in a database, including those of Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. The "Vulnera Database" is fed from 36 sources, among them well-known contributors such as CVE, Bugtraq and Secunia. It currently lists more than 22,000 products and over 74,000 security holes in total.


    • Exploit code published for RDP worm hole; Does Microsoft have a leak?
      Chinese hackers have released proof-of-concept code that provides a roadmap to exploit a dangerous RDP (remote desktop protocol) vulnerability that was patched by Microsoft earlier this week.

      The publication of the code on a Chinese language forum heightens the urgency to apply Microsoft’s MS12-020 update, which addresses a remote, pre-authentication, network-accessible code execution vulnerability in Microsoft’s implementation of the RDP protocol.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Understanding the New Price of Oil
      In the Spring of 2011, when Libyan oil production — over 1 million barrels a day (mpd) — was suddenly taken offline, the world received its first real-time test of the global pricing system for oil since the crash lows of 2009.

      Oil prices, already at the $85 level for WTIC, bolted above $100, and eventually hit a high near $115 over the following two months.

      More importantly, however, is that — save for a brief eight week period in the autumn — oil prices have stubbornly remained over the $85 pre-Libya level ever since. Even as the debt crisis in Europe has flared.






  • Finance

    • Public Rebuke of Culture at Goldman Opens Debate
      Until early Wednesday morning, Greg Smith was a largely anonymous 33-year-old midlevel executive at Goldman Sachs in London.

      Now everyone at the firm — and on Wall Street — knows his name.

      Mr. Smith resigned in an e-mail message to his bosses at 6:40 a.m. London time, laying out concerns that Goldman’s culture had gone haywire, putting its own interests ahead of its clients.


    • Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • New Toxic Sludge PR and Lobbying Effort Gets Underway
      A trade association known for using the terms "compost," "organic," and "biosolids" to describe sewage sludge is investing in a new public relations campaign to influence policymakers and the public. The US Composting Council (USCC), which was founded by the disposable diaper industry, will be expanding its long-standing efforts to "rebrand" sewage sludge, which is increasingly disposed of on agriculture crops and through garden centers without telling the public that their food is being grown in medical, industrial, and human waste.




  • Censorship

    • Court Orders SOPA-style Blackout of 100+ Music Sites
      Every single ISP in India has been ordered to block 104 sites offering unauthorized music. A total of 387 ISPs must block the sites immediately via DNS and IP address blocking, backed up with Deep Packet Inspection. While the IFPI praised the action, their Indian counterparts are singing are more interesting tune – they don’t want to destroy their opponents, but bring them into the business.

      “Content theft is a global problem and we must have a global commitment to solving it. This is an important opportunity for the Indian government to move forward with strong protections against online theft,” MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd told the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry conference this week in Mumbai.




  • Civil Rights



  • Intellectual Monopolies





Recent Techrights' Posts

Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
 
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
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Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
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Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
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If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
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Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
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EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
Microsoft is in effect collapsing
Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
we're on the right track
Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
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Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
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Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
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Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
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The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
"Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
Abuse of Process
5RB is employing people who help violent men
What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
"Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
Unable to find a business model
GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
Wayland is Bad for the Planet
If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
Microsoft is a very malicious company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
On Microsoft Layoffs
we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
Links for the day
Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.
Tomorrow is the Last Day of the Fund-Raising Campaign of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
They will probably extend the date, as usual
Fixing Patents in Europe, Little by Little (by Transparency and Reporting of Suppressed Facts)
Tomorrow and throughout the weekend we shall focus some more on the EPO
The Two Lies Microsoft is Telling in "the News" This Week (to Distract From Layoffs and Decreased Interest in Slop/Chaff)
Microsoft is run by liars and frauds who SLAPP critics
Tux Machines Already Destroyed SLAPPs
Attacks on the mere publication of GNU/Linux news won't be tolerated
PCLinuxOS is Available for Download Again
PCLinuxOS is important to us also because its founder, back then the partner of Susan, helped create Tux Machines more than 21 years ago
Links 10/07/2025: Microsoft E-mail 'Services' Collapse Again, "Yet Another Strava Privacy Leak"
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Gemini Links 10/07/2025: Automating Git Repo Updates and Small Web 'Zine'
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GNU/Linux Leftovers
mostly Linux stuff
Audiocasts/Shows: Going Linux, FLOSS Weekly, and RHEL Clones
3 new picks
We Are Already Fighting - With Considerable Success - SLAPPs in the UK
we intend to tell the full story
Bullies With Pens and Papers (or Apple Macs With Templates)
Not all barristers are evil, but there are perhaps "rotten apples"
Slopwatch: webpronews.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com
a pile of trash disguised as 'articles'
Links 10/07/2025: Linda Yaccarino Divorces MElonazi Site, Wildfires Hit Syria
Links for the day
The History and the Policy of the EPO's Stance on Breastfeeding (Corporate Monopolies Versus Babies' Health)
"The Case for Introducing a Breastfeeding Policy at the EPO"
Gemini Links 10/07/2025: Inventing Chords and "Nightmare Boss"
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Igor Ljubuncic Once Again Shows That for Technical Reasons Wayland Still Sucks, Performs Considerably Worse Than What Existed for Decades
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Links 10/07/2025: "Apple Vs The Law" and Twitter Became Full Nazi Bar
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Unable to Find Anyone to Work as Their Media Lawyer, Brett Wilson LLP Will Continue Losing Female Staff
What sort of sick person would wish to join Brett Wilson LLP to carry this baton?
Microsoft-Sponsored Propaganda Site Has Removed False 'Hit Piece' About Dr. Stallman (With Fake and Misrepresented Imagery) But Only After 4 Years
So they only removed that page some time around 2025, i.e. about 4 years after it had been published
Always Check Your Inputs
Garbage in, garbage out. Or wrong assumptions, wrong corollary.
Dan Neidle Said That Tax Evasion Facilitator Mr Zahawi (Working to Silence Bloggers Through Brett Wilson LLP) Targeted Not Only Him (But The Others Kept Quiet)
"Mr Neidle said after repelling Mr Zahawi he was contacted by bloggers and tweeters who had received similar threats. They deleted their work “and in most cases never commented publicly on anything again”."
SLAPP Funding Transparency Urgently Needed in the UK and Elsewhere (in Practice, Not Just in Theory)
Writing about crime - including Microsoft crime - is not a crime
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things