Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 07/08/2009: KDE 4.3 and Linux Mint 7 (KDE) Reviews



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • As open source surges, Microsoft admits Linux threat
    The filing adds Linux distro vendors Canonical, the sponsor of Ubuntu, and Red Hat (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), to the list of competitors for Microsoft's Client division. Previously, Red Hat was listed only as a competitor for its Microsoft Business and Server & Tools divisions, writes Bishop.


  • Wear Your Love for Linux on Your Sleeve
    Ferguson goes on to say that to avoid copyright restrictions, he and the designers are only able to consider concepts and original slogans, not images or artwork. Once all the collaboration is over and design decisions are made, free t-shirts will be given to anyone who contributed a chosen design.


  • Digitalizing My Personal Finances on Linux
    So I looked at GNUcash, which I remember playing with back in my early induction into the Linux community. GNUcash is much more complex then HomeBank and would be an excellent alternative to proprietary paid financial managers.




  • Desktop

    • From Mac to Linux: A Musician Convert
      Now Peter Kirn has captured Cascone's conversion story on createdigitalmusic.com. Interesting about the article is not only the facts of Cascone's conversion, but the comments accompanying it that contain numerous tips and information on sound processing under Linux.








  • Applications

    • Top 24 Linux Apps
      Though Linux comes in many different flavors, there are a common string of favorite apps that seem to unite all users.

      These apps are high-quality, versatile, professional, reliable, and often available in many different packages (deb, rpm, etc). If you're new to the Linux game, or simply want a list of programs that have been re-verified as excellent by many hundreds of users, this article is for you. To download and install the apps, just go to your built-in package manager.


    • A look at the server GUI argument
      People who do use a GUI should do so knowing the risks of exploitations and security and try to keep a system updated and use the GUI only when needed.

      If you aren't actively sitting at the machine, stop the x server until you need to use it again. This will go a long way to improving overall resourcefulness and productivity.

      It doesn't need to be a fight. Use the system how it works best for you. Just make sure you know all the facts going in to be the best prepared as possible.








  • Desktop Environments

    • Free Desktop Communities come together at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit
      This year's Gran Canaria Desktop Summit represented the first time the GNOME and KDE communities have co-located their annual conferences in the same location. 852 free software advocates from 46 countries gathered together last month to discuss and enhance the free desktop experience at the first ever Gran Canaria Desktop Summit.


    • KDE 4.3 “Caizen” Review
      That probably covers the main features in the release especially the ones I’ve liked. Overall its is stable and the KDE developers themselves have said – “KDE 4.3 offers a more stable and complete product for the home and small office.” I think this was the release we were all waiting for in terms of stability and features as well.






  • Distributions

    • Tiny Core: The Little Distro That Could
      The way we use computers is changing, but Linux isn’t standing still. Tiny Core is a minimal Linux distribution that boots a complete live system for every day use. Its foundation and unique approach to the desktop helps it achieve certain goals like preventing system rot and ensuring your system is fresh every time it boots.

      [...]

      Although Tiny Core is a relatively new distro, it has a great deal of history behind it already. It is developing at a rapid pace and implementing new features along the way. It really can change the way you think about running Linux over a more traditional method. It’s an exciting project and really worth playing with. It’s lots of fun and it does deliver on its promises. Try it out and see how fast, stable, clean and fun a Linux system can be!


    • Slackware 13.0 RC2 Brings Updated X Server and Video Drivers
      A few hours ago Slackware's creator, Patrick Volkerding, announced that the second release candidate of the upcoming Slackware 13.0 Linux distribution was available for download. This update brings numerous new base packages, like the Linux kernel version 2.6.29.6, X.Org Server 1.6.3 and the K Desktop Environment 4.2.4. However, there are no official ISO builds for this release, but those interested in testing Slackware 13.0 RC2 can get it by using the link at the end of the article.


    • Linux Mint 7 (KDE)
      Suitable For: Beginner, intermediate or advanced Linux users. Highly recommended for beginners. Summary: A terrific alternative to the Gnome version of Linux Mint 7 for KDE users. Rating: 4/5




    • Red Hat

      • Whole Foods Recognized for Innovative Deployment of Linux Solutions
        Whole Foods Market was named a finalist in open-source solution provider Red Hat’s Third Annual Innovation Awards, which recognize the outstanding use, innovation and extension of Red Hat and JBoss solutions by Red Hat customers, partners and the open-source community.












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Real-time technology gains user conference
      Denx announced the first Xenomai User Meeting, which will co-locate with OSADL's Eleventh Real Time Linux Workshop (RTLWS11) in Dresden, Germany, on Sep. 28-30. The Xenomai meeting will showcase this major real-time Linux extension alternative to PREEMPT RT -- and maybe help make peace between the warring camps.




    • Phones

      • T-Mobile Android phone ships, garners endorsement
        The MyTouch 3G (pictured at right) is the first Android phone to ship out of the box with the new and much improved Android 1.5 "cupcake" release of the Linux/Java mobile platform. T-Mobile has also added its own additional apps and UI elements on top of Android, although the additions are not nearly as extensive as those offered in the Sense UI made available on HTC's upcoming Hero phone.


      • Android to get Opera Mobile
        Opera Mini is available for Android now, and the Android browser itself is pretty darn good. Opera Mobile is a nice browser, and it works with the Opera servers to make mobile browsing lightning fast.








    • Sub-notebooks

      • Netscape redux: Google's Chrome browser now an OS
        At its core, Google's new desktop, netbook, smartphone OS is built around Google's just introduced Chrome browser and will debut by the second half of 2010.

        It will initially be targeted at the low-cost netbook market, although it will eventually migrate to the PC segment, an area long dominated by Microsoft, which is planning to roll out the latest version of its Windows OS later this year.


      • Interview: Clutter maintainer Emmanuele Bassi
        We already experimented with WebKit in the past, but moved to Gecko because of the better integration with most of the sites out there; Aaron is using Clutter inside "Cubano", a media player based on the Banshee framework and mostly targeted at platforms like netbooks.

        The GNOME Shell project, which is considered one of the major new features of the future GNOME 3.0 release, is using Clutter for the UI and as part of the window manager, just like the Moblin netbook user experience is. GNOME Shell alone would expose something between hundreds of thousands and millions of users to Clutter.












Free Software/Open Source

  • Fourth Annual Open Source CMS Award Launched
    The 2009 Open Source CMS Award was launched today, inviting people to visit www.PacktPub.com and submit nominations for their favorite Open Source Content Management Systems. Now in its fourth year, the Award has helped to support a variety of Content Management Systems gain recognition in a crowded and high quality marketplace.


  • Another step forward for open source video
    An amazing Open Video Conference in New York earlier this year brought together video creators, technology hackers, entrepreneurs, and others to address the crossroads of open source/open content/open society and the facts of digital media technologies, file formats, standards, and the legal/regulatory climate. At the same time, the amazing Mozilla project demonstrated their support for the <video> tag. Companies like SpectSoft are creating amazing, high-spec VTRs and DDRs (running Linux, natch), and now Blackmagic Design announces Linux SDKs for several video interface products. Finally, video is becoming a technology that sits where mainstream hackers can play!


  • Firefox Director Talks Firefox 3.6, Tasks, and Competing with Chrome
    We were eager to know what's happening with Firefox. Mike Beltzner, the open-source browser's director, was glad to tell us. Here's what he had to say about future features, competition with Chrome, and keeping all of Firefox contributors in sync.


  • Thoughts about Dual-licensing Open Source software
    Note that releasing your code as BSD for a project that has or may have GPL code doesn't protect your code from being dual-licensed in an unfavorable way. The only way to ensure full freedom for others is to only donate your code under a contributor agreement with a clause as suggested below or to a project that has agreeable guidelines for how they license their code!

    To assure our users, contributors, and customers of how we at Monty Program Ab intend to re-license the code we produce or the code people donate to us, I have added the following note to our contributor agreement:

    "Monty Program Ab agrees that when it dual licenses code, it will not restrict the way the third party licensee uses the licensed copy of the code nor restrict how they use their own code."




Leftovers

  • Websense sharpens the axe as sales fall
    The move is a response to a slowdown in security spending during the recession. PC World reports that Websense plans to lay off 70 people from its worldwide workforce of 1,400.




  • Literature

    • Rupert Murdoch vs. Rupert Murdoch On Free vs. Paid News Websites
      Either way, given those statements, perhaps it's no surprise at all that Murdoch is now planning to put paywalls across all his online news properties in the relatively near future. Apparently the plan will be based on the WSJ model, meaning that some stories were be available for free, but there will be severe limits. Given how many old school newspaper guys have talked about putting up a paywall, this isn't much of a surprise (though, it is still odd given his comments from two years ago).


    • Internet Archive orders Google to delay culture grab
      In October, Google settled a lawsuit from the US Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over its Book Search project, which that seeks to digitize the works inside the world's libraries. Still awaiting court approval after an October hearing, it would - among other things - give the company a unique license to scan and sell and post ads against orphan works, titles whose rights holders can't be found.


    • Smithsonian Commons and Sustainable Content Usage Policies
      Congratulations to the Smithsonian for thinking about the future lives of their content in such a sustainable fashion. We’re very excited to see the future developments that the Smithsonian Commons brings to free culture on an institutional scale.








  • Imaginary Property Issues

    • Should You Really Need a License to Run a Video Arcade?
      In light of these concerns, I fail to see why Amherst or any other city should be in the business of licensing video arcades. And even if they are doing so for tax purposes, they shouldn’t be using that power to censor arcade games or shutting down businesses that offer such games.


    • What A Job: Making Sure No Brands Appear In A Movie
      What a stupendous waste of time, money and resources. But it shows what a ridiculous society we've created, where intellectual property law means that you can't have a McDonald's appear anywhere in the background in a movie. I'm sure that's exactly what our founding fathers were concerned about when they put in place the constitutional clause about "promoting the progress."


    • A Band That Knows Where the Money Comes From
      Chester French isn’t your typical rock band. Singer D.A. Wallach and multi-instrumentalist Max Drummey met as freshmen at Harvard, where lanky, longhaired Drummey majored in social anthropology and twee, preppy Wallach graduated as the top student in the school’s African-American Studies program. In the video for their best-known song, “She Loves Everybody,” a pretty girl punches the stuffing out of the two helpless weaklings, leaving them bloody-nosed among their broken guitars and drums.

      [....]

      Instead of giving interviews to reporters or dropping by radio stations, Wallach spends most of his time online, going through an average 100 to 200 e-mail messages a day. “We respond to every single e-mail we get,” he said. “I do an hour in the morning and an hour at night.








Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Luis Casas Luengo, Director of Extremadura's Fundecyt foundation 20 (2004)



Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
"On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
SRA is basically a waste of money
 
Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
Growing Focus on Publication
Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
"Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
Links for the day
Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop
Links 05/02/2026: EU Commission Gutting Net Neutrality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: NixOS Books and Monochrome Emojis
Links for the day
Links 05/02/2026: Canadian Government Uses US LLMs to Override Expert Opinions, NVIDIA Troubles Due to Enablement of Mass Plagiarism ('Piracy') Misleadingly Obscured as "Hey Hi"
Links for the day
Explaining the Letter From JUDGE SYKES FRIXOU, Threatening Me Around the Time GNOME's Nat Friedman Lost His CEO Job at Microsoft GitHub and His Best Friend Got Arrested for Strangulation
this letter (with annotation) is critical
Linuxiac Not Rehabilitated, It's Still Full of LLM Slop (Part of a Trend)
The Web as a resource/source of information is perishing
"Sponsored by Azul" to Write Fake 'Article' About Azul, Quoting Azul Itself
The "journalism" industry [sic] became so utterly corrupt
JuristGate is for sale: three billion Swiss francs for a domain name
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Like Microsoft and IBM, the 'Alicante Mafia'-Governed EPO Does PIPs Nowadays (at the EPO, It's "Professional Incompetence Procedure")
So "PIPs" are definitely in the EPO and we saw letters sent to staff
Time for Change, More New Articles, Less Curation
The oligarchy wants to gut the real press and replace media with slop and social control media (or social control media with slop in it, i.e. their own voices, mechanised)
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: Coercion, Antibiotics, and LVDT Project
Links for the day
Almost 1,600 EPO Employees Went on Strike Last Week
There is another strike coming 2.5 weeks from now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 04, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 04, 2026
Links 04/02/2026: Extreme Malice in Microsoft's Visual Studio Code on GNU/Linux, More Hey Hi (AI) Chaos
Links for the day
Sexism & GNOME: shaming men, hiding women, Sonny Piers update
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
You Know Microsoft's "Value" is 100% Fictional When in One Single "Trading" Day in Wall Street It Loses THREE TIMES More in "Value" Than It Was 'Worth' in 2009
Microsoft does not behave like a company riding trillions but like a company that struggles with payroll
Gemini Links 04/02/2026: Humanity and Animality, systemd (Controlled by Amutable, a Proxy of Microsoft) Moves on to "Extinguish" Phase
Links for the day
Better Outcomes When Facing the Discomfort of Conflict
Don't take the easy way out when the "hard way" is the right way and it can result in positive revelations
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Used to be Widely Used in Geminispace, Now It's Down to Just 0.2% of the Whole
Let's Encrypt is not your friend
What IBM Does Is Clearly Illegal in the US: Tying Severance Packages to NDAs (Non-Disparagement Agreement/Clause)
The NDAs make things worse; they keep people isolated and silent
Microsoft's Giant Snowball of Layoffs and PIPs (in 2026)
They would delay until March or April if they wanted to, but then we can expect numbers exceeding 10,000 layoffs (Microsoft always low-balls the real figure/s)
Mozilla Turned Firefox Into Shovelware, Adding 'Kill Switch' for Slop Still Means Mozilla is Participating in a Pyramid Scheme, Plagiarism, Grifting
Mozilla is still a slop pusher
Leaving the United States 3 Years Ago Was the Best Decision We Made
A lot of stuff is being consolidated
Links 04/02/2026: "Laws of Succession" and Microsoft's VS Code as Code-Stealing Malware
Links for the day
BillBC (BBC) Covered Up Pedophilia, Now It's Covering Up for Its Sponsor Bill Gates by Reprinting His Lies, Which His Own Wife Disputes
Is Bill Gates having orgies (group sex)?
Phoronix Swims With the Real Trolls, People Who Fancy Proprietary Software and Back Doors
If Larabel begins to actively participate in provocation with the "Microsoft GitHub fans club", what does this tell us about Phoronix?
They Know Microsoft Layoffs Are About to Hit Them Hard
The gaming division at Microsoft is a complete catastrophe, lots of money (debt) down the drain [...] Buying Activision was all about misleading shareholders or hiding the deep trouble/problems XBox was having
Red Hat is Not a Linux Company, It's IBM's Ponzi Scheme Enabler
Had we still been stuck in 2021, perhaps IBM would plaster "NFT" or "metaverse" all over RedHat.com
Keep Grinding
"Don't let the bastards grind you down"
Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part III - Who's Going to Pay for the EPO's Corruption? (Aside From European Citizens)
Some people inside the EPO reached out to us
"Investors Are Concerned About an AI Bubble" (That GAFAM and IBM Ride)
A few decades from now IBM will only be remembered in the same sense many so-called 'AI' companies will be remembered
EPO Staff Union: "Very High Strike Participation on Friday 30 January", Another Strike Starts 19 Days From Now
EPO management in a bit of a panic
Censorship/Free Speech and Social Control Media
It's important to have a grasp of how contemporary censorship works and how to tackle it
Google News as Slop Booster
this is what Google links to
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 03, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 03, 2026
Gemini Links 04/02/2026: "Raspberry Pi Relaxes the Rules for Its RP2040 Hacking Challenge" and "Long Web Society"
Links for the day