GNU/Linux News: The Opportunities Amid XP EOL
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-15 14:51:01 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-15 14:51:01 UTC
Few people know just how pervasive Linux has become, and that is causing a big problem for companies that increasingly rely on it. "There is a shortage of software developers in the U.S. The employment rate for these jobs is down to 2.3 percent in the last quarter. The opportunity for jobs is now there for people who come in to get this training," said Dice President Shravan Goli.
A new book on open source education teaches school leaders and parents why kids need to see coding as more than cool. Energizing Education through Open Source: Using Open Source Software to Enhance Learning by Christopher Whittum makes a strong case for deploying the Linux OS and its academic software in schools.
For business, the same kind of trouble started when Linux and the Internet showed up in the mid-1990s. No matter how useful Linux and the Internet prove to be, business still has trouble getting its head around a virtual world composed of end points that are all autonomous, self-empowered and at zero functional distance from each other. The best geometric figure for that world is a giant hollow sphere composed of boundless smarts on its outside—the nodes of its network—and no controlling entity in the middle.
Linux has become the dominant operating system for internet sites, powering Google, Facebook, YouTube and many others. It is also the dominant operating system powering Android phones and tablets, televisions, home routers and many other devices.
Running various Linux distributions on my own computers has been a mixed blessing over the years. While I've experienced many successes, something I don't talk about as often are the areas that frustrate me. In this article, I'll highlight my top list of Linux frustrations that bug me to this very day.
Ubuntu and the suite of GNU tools in any robust Unix system. A good text editor (currently Gedit)—I keep all of my working files at .txts. A robust, highly configurable browser (Firefox/Firefox for Android). A fast RSS reader (presently Google Reader, likely to be Newsblur next). A tetherable mobile connection—I use EasyTether for Android to circumvent tether-blocking as deployed by some of the carriers I use around the world, especially Rogers in Canada. AirDroid for moving files on/off Android devices in my life.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- "systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
- Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
- Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
- Links for the day
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- None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
- Links for the day
- Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
- "Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
- Inaction Helps Your Enemies
- Without freedom, there's nothing else left
- Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
- Windows fell by a lot
- Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
- For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
- The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
- Is IBM another Enron?
- "IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
- continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026
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- For those who have not followed our story
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- 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
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- 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".
- 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"
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
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- 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!
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- 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"
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- Reject misnomers, explain what's actually happening
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- What is happening to Europe???
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- 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
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- Links for the day
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- 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
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- Links for the day
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- It helps raise awareness of Software Freedom
- Over at Tux Machines...
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