Links 9/9/2011: NASA and Linux, Samsung Not Buying MeeGo
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2011-09-10 00:20:57 UTC
- Modified: 2011-09-10 00:20:57 UTC
Contents
-
Desktop
-
I recently set out to get a new tablet/netbook combo. After reading many reviews about different models I settled on a Dell Inspiron Duo. One thing you will find most all of the Inspiron reviews have in common is that they mention the touch software layer running on Windows 7 is slow. If I said this surprised me it would be a lie. With this in mind I set out to get the Enlightenment desktop running on this device in a cool way. Below is a video of the Enlightenment desktop via Bodhi Linux 1.2.0 running on my Dell Duo:
-
Kernel Space
-
Applications
-
Being a developer, one of the tool that I use on a day-to-day basis is a text editor (or you can call it IDE). I used to love Dreamweaver, but I find that it is too heavy and doesn’t work well on Linux. Then I switched to Aptana (it was very resource intensive as well), followed by gEdit, and lastly Geany. In my opinion, Geany is one of the best lightweight text editor (for Linux) out there. Then Scribes comes along.
-
Instructionals/Technical
-
Games
-
Desktop Environments
-
GNOME Desktop
-
I know many of you cringe at the mere mention of GNOME Shell or Unity. I don't have any reservations like that. As a matter of fact, I really like Unity a lot. But what about GNOME foundation's official GNOME Shell? I have never really used it except for once when I reviewed an early release of GNOME Shell in Fedora 15. But not with Ubuntu yet, not until now.
-
-
Everyone has their favorite distro. I try to remain neutral, but in Linux it's hard to hide your true feelings sometimes. Of course, all rivalries are supposed to be in good humor. Needless to say, I've tried a lot of distros. Some I've used a lot longer. I've found there are a few basic characteristics that make some distros better than others.
-
New Releases
-
PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family
-
We're in the off-season for big distro releases, but that hasn't stopped Mandriva from releasing one of its most interesting variants to date. In a bold move to an exclusive KDE desktop, Mandriva 2011 looks to simplify its development and give people a straight-forward and highly polished offering. Let's check it out.
-
Debian Family
-
Enrico: Hi, I’m Enrico Zini, a DD from Italy. I’m 35 and I work as a freelance Free Software developer. One of my historical roles in Debian is taking care of Debtags, but that is not all I do: my paid work led me to write and maintain some weather forecast related software in Debian, and recently I gained a Front Desk hat, and then a DAM hat.
-
-
Phones
-
Android
-
JACK OF ALL TRADES Google is set to release the next version of its Android mobile operating system in October or November, according to executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
-
Web Browsers
-
Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
-
In our article from September 2nd on the Oracle/Google copyright issues, we included a number of declarations, including that of Prof. Owen Astrachan of Duke University. There were two exhibits identified in the Astrachan declaration, but neither of the exhibits were available at that time. Now Exhibit 3, Astrachan's Rebuttal Expert Report 391 [PDF] is available in redacted form, and we have reproduced it below.
-
Oracle's history with Sun's open source projects is one that did not start out well. The openSolaris project was killed off, Apache has left the executive committee of the Java Community Process and multiple projects have been forked including OpenOffice (with LibreOffice), Hudson (with Jenkins) and MySQL (with MariaDB). Oracle has also launched legal action against Google over Java in Android.
-
BSD
-
FreeBSD 9.0 Beta 2 was officially released yesterday, about one month's late, but it comes with several new features. One of the new features to FreeBSD 9.0 is a new installer (pc-sysinstall) for this BSD operating system, which the developers have requested that it be put through its paces.
-
Openness/Sharing
-
Unipro: Unipro is a small company with about 60-70 software engineers. The company expertise is focused on the following areas: compilers and low-level optimizations development, virtual machines development, quality testing, parallel and cloud-based computing.
-
Standards/Consortia
-
Google Docs is a popular tool for collaboration and web-based document creation: boasting compatibility with common file types including Microsoft Office and the Open Document Format, a generous helping of free storage space, and easy to use web-based tools, it's proving a tempting move for those unwilling to shell out for the latest iteration of Microsoft's offering.
-
Cablegate
-
Notorious ladies’ man and truth-pusher Julian Assange remains on mansion-arrest, stemming from allegations of consensual sex. Reporters are camped outside the Ellingham Hall estate he’s been confined to, hoping to catch a glimpse of what a real journalist looks like.
-
Finance
-
There were many factors that contributed to our recent financial bubble: deregulation, cheap money from the Fed, failure to enforce remaining regulations, crony capitalism, hubris, speculation, leverage, and fraud among other problems. While fraud wasn't the only issue, it was and is a significant contributor to the credit bubble. Restraining fraud is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a sound financial system. Congressional investigations in recent years have put ample evidence of fraud in the public domain.
-
Goldman Sachs isn’t the only bank to rip-off its clients and America. But because it is the best at what it does it is the most profitable bank in the world, for now.
Regular, old everyday trading is the key to Goldman’s success.What does that mean? I’m not talking about Goldman’s “big short” and how it bet massively against the subprime mortgage market while simultaneously selling huge quantities of designed-to-fail mortgage securities to its own customers.
-
Privacy
-
File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed. It now appears that the lawsuits are coming to Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has paved the way for the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who are alleged to have copied the movie. Late last month the court ordered the three ISPs to disclose the names and addresses of subscribers linked to IP addresses alleged to have copied the movie. The ISPs were given two weeks to respond and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses. In reaching its decision, the court cited the BMG Canada v. Doe case, the last major Canadian case involving peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits. That case opened the door to further lawsuits, though it established some privacy safeguards. In this instance, the court cited PIPEDA as evidence that the personal information can be disclosed as well as federal court rules for the legitimacy of the claim and the necessity of acquiring the information for the lawsuit to proceed. There is no indication that the ISPs challenged the order or that there was an opportunity for a public interest intervention as was the case in the earlier CRIA lawsuits.
-
Intellectual Monopolies
-
Copyrights
-
Hyper-vigilant Internet Law Prof Michael Geist seems to be the first to have combed through the latest batch of WikiLeaks diplomatic cables, searching for any document containing the words “Canada” and “copyright.”
-
Heritage Minister James Moore says he's hoping for long-languishing amendments to the Copyright Act to pass by Christmas, but the Supreme Court of Canada could wind up forcing more tinkering with the law.
Canada's top court said Thursday it will rule on five separate intellectual property cases together as a bundle, and what it decides could directly impact the Act or at least its interpretation.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Gemini Links 07/10/2026: Nostalgia, Neutral Map, and Shorthanding
- Links for the day
- Slop is Plagiarism
- Plagiarism is not "theft" and copyright infringement is not "piracy"
-
- Microsoft's XBox CEO Asha Sharma Tells Staff That Many Thousands of Layoffs Are in Fact "Return to Growth"
- Get it? Layoffs are "growth".
- Gemini Links 07/10/2026: On Feeling Guilty Leaving the US, Multinet, and Limiting Net Usage
- Links for the day
- The Cyber Show Explains the Concept of "Data Rape"
- a metaphor some might find crude
- FREE BEER is Still Online, But Barely Active
- 25 years ago or even 20 years ago many spoke of open/free beer (or "COLA")
- Syria: GNU/Linux Has Surged to 8% "Market Share"
- I don't have a convincing explanation for this
- IBM Dimming Down the Lights on IBM Consulting, No Knowledge or Experience Required
- They just "ride" the (old) brand, that's all
- Statement on American SLAPP
- Crossposted from schestowitz.com
- Today The Register MS Published "SPONSORED FEATURE" and "SPONSORED POST" With "AI" 31 Times in Them
- This isn't a "Reality" or "Era of AI", it's a paid-for spam campaign
- Links 07/10/2026: Unrest in France and Rumours of Plague in Russia
- Links for the day
- Brigading Against Women - Part XXII - The Lozza Problem (in Length)
- Garrett's case was a waste of the Court's money
- JavaScript in Richard Stallman's Web Site
- For search he is using CGI, not JavaScript
- EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) Plans Presentation Next Week (Coinciding With Apparent Coronation of 'Cocaine King' Campinos)
- They've outsourced this session to the dictator's spying eye
- The GNOME Foundation's Code of Conduct Has Been Misused to Hide Corruption
- People who value free speech and freedom of expression won't touch social control media with a 10-foot bargepole
- Voting for Freedom of the Press
- American elections happen every 4 years
- What Brett Wilson LLP and Matt Garrett Don't Want People to See/Read
- Book-burning is counterproductive
- Book-Burning Mindset Does Not Work
- It makes the suppressed voices more widely known
- Microsoft's XBox in 'Freefall'
- XBox is practically finished
- IBM is Almost Defunct
- IBM is doomed. It just tries to test how much more patience the shareholders have.
- Criminalisation of Journalism
- "Journalist Derya Okatan arrested in Turkey for allegedly possessing classified material"
- Brigading Against Women - Part XXI - Hiding Behind the Veil of "Privacy" After Telling Nazi Things in IRC Channels of Techrights and Physically Threatening People
- To merely explain an abuse (or crime) requires naming people; that's a fundamental tenet of reporting
- Links 07/10/2026: Quitting Smartphone and "Meta's Muse Is Spying on All Your Friends and Family"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/10/2026: Greed, In Praise of Zotero, and The de-Google Path
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 06, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 06, 2026
- Microsoft Hiring Only on the Cheap
- Much of the same can be said about GAFAM and IBM
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Nightfall Express, Shorthanding, and Raspberry Pi Desktop Gets a Debian Trixie Refresh
- Links for the day
- 20th Anniversary Next Month
- We are currently trying to agree on a plan for next month's celebrations
- Taking Photos With Richard Stallman (RMS)
- What's the point?
- GAFAM Attack on FreeDesktop
- Now they push lots of LLM slop into Linux
- EPO Union Bemoans Lack of Social Dialogue as Dictator Wishes to Govern Forever (No Elections, No Rivals), Hide the Many Issues
- "Exchange of open letters"
- GNU/Linux Has Risen in France Since the Order to Adopt GNU/Linux (in Public Services)
- We can expect the same in countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and The Netherlands
- On Microsoft Hiring Freeze or No Permanent Jobs at Microsoft Anymore (Amid Many Silent Layoffs)
- Microsoft has changed what it can offer workers
- IBM Cannot Hide the Layoffs Forever
- we welcome whistleblower to tell us more and send us documents related to that
- EPO's Central Staff Committee Asking The Council to Get Rid of Corrupt Campinos
- We'll be covering EPO scandals around the time of that meeting
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: EU Kids Act, Practicality of Gemini, and Games
- Links for the day
- Links 06/10/2026: Data Breaches Epidemic and Turkey Blocking Journalists
- Links for the day
- The Whole Point of Computing is That Computers Are Deterministic (Speed With Predictable Accuracy)
- Unlike stochastic parrots that stochastically utter out lies
- It's Not a Linux Back Door If It's an Unpatched Device
- "Linux Backdoor" is a glaring misfit, a possibly 'obscene' term
- What is a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA)? When Law Firms Become the Litigants.
- And the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) needs to be more serious about tackling this
- Brigading Against Women - Part XX - Attempts by Lozza to Deplatform Techrights and Tux Machines Only Days After I Sued Garrett and My Wife Also Sued Garrett (Shortly Before the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Joined)
- in 2024
- Links 06/10/2026: A Year Since "NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Released From Prison", World Tries to Deal With El Niño
- Links for the day
- "SIRIUS CORPORATION LIMITED" as Evidence of the Financial Shell Games in the UK
- Rianne and I still have some fond memories of the time the ex-wife of the CEO treated us like human beings
- Lots of Silent Layoffs at IBM Last Week, Employees Explain Patterns of Those Impacted
- It wasn't just gossip, it actually happened even if the media chose to look the other way (as usual)
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Fighting for Purpose, Gemlogs, and Gemtext
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, October 05, 2026
- Red Hat is Phased Out of Existence This Month Onwards
- Within a few years we'll probably not see many redhat.com addresses anymore; many became ibm.* last week
- Finland's GNU/Linux Share Measured at 12%
- Last month GNU/Linux was measured at about 10% in Finland
- UK Layoffs and Closures by Microsoft. In Expected Blow, Microsoft Likely Shuts Down Another Studio.
- Microsoft's layoffs are never-ending, they just try to keep them all secret.
- NVIDIA Buys the Media With Companies It Sponsors to Pretend to be Customers (Circular Funding Scheme)
- The media crisis worsens
- Discussion About Potential Sale of EPO Buildings and Enshittification of Europe's Largest Patent Office
- It's noteworthy that only one hour (or 70 minutes) was devoted to so many topics
- Brigading Against Women - Part IXX - Overreaction From Young Female Professional After Invalid Threats Made and Sent From an Incel in Another Continent
- Cowards who send threats after committing crimes online
- Stonewalling by Bots
- We'll now turn our attention back to EPO and other matters
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: "Posthumanism", Cardputer, and More
- Links for the day
- Links 05/10/2026: “I’m Embarrassed on Behalf of the Tech Industry” and Slop Scammers "Lobbying the Vatican"
- Links for the day
- SIRIUS OPEN SOURCE LTD Officially Insolvent, Is Reform UK Next?
- Sirius no more
- Links 05/10/2026: "Congress Must Investigate War Profiteers Once Again" and Update on Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence
- Links for the day
- libera.chat is an Agenda-Peddling Platform Run by Agenda-Peddling Individuals
- The volunteers of libera.chat ("staff") aren't working for free, they work towards an agenda
- Nobel Season is Plutocracy Week
- Later this week the billionaires will give a fake "Nobel" (in "Economics") to someone who parrots their preferred narrative and those same billionaires will use "Nobel" to bless the promoter of their latest pyramid scheme/buzzword
- GNU/Linux Market Share in North America 13% This Past Weekend
- It is perhaps not shocking that adoption of GNU/Linux is very high there
- When Did Europe Begin to Side With White-Collar Criminals (or Participate in Suppressing People Who Oppose Them)?
- How much corruption can we tolerate before the European Union becomes another Russian Federation?
- Libera Chat's "Level of Control Might Make Sense for a Corporate Platform"
- IRC is not centralised
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVIII - Turning Censorship Attempts (Articles About Matthew Garrett) Into Mild Redactions
- What Lozza did two years ago
- Greenland Needs Digital Sovereignty
- the large icy island isn't moving to GNU/Linux as quickly as the rest of Europe
- Tracker of Internet Relay Chat Networks Out of Service (But Not Down) Since Thursday
- We should note that the number of unique networks they track has grown since we last checked
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: NixOS, Guix, Codeberg Banning Slop, and "Gopher Apps on Android"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 04, 2026