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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 CEO and CFO Make It Hotter in the Kitchen
Who's gonna leave the kitchen while they cook the books?
Jim Zemlin's 'Linux' Foundation is the Real Link Between Linux and Pedophilia
It's about the deeds, not the words
Greenland Needs to Disconnect From United States Tech to Protect Its Independence
The more Greenland protects itself from Social Control Media, the more robust or resilient it'll be to regime change
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on Slop and Breach of Confidentiality
They should absolutely not ignore this
Almost 5,000 Known Gemini Capsules
It is now just 98 short of 5k
 
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Gemini Links 27/02/2026: Unlearning Literacy (Slop) and Firefox as Slop-ware
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It Looks Like Linux Chief Linus Torvalds Made a Good Call Regarding Kent 'Slop' Overstreet
Having never met or even chatted to Overstreet, I'm not in a position to judge him
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Please Report the European Patent Office (EPO) to Europol for Cocaine Abuse and Tampering With Witnesses and Media to Hide This Cocaine Abuse
there are already police reports connected to the matter
Like a Mafia: Kris De Neef and Nellie Simon, Who Help Campinos Cover Up Cocainegate at the EPO (Substance Abuse at the Highest Office), Are Bullying EPO Whistleblowers
They're all in this together [...] At this point, undoubtedly, the EPO is run like an organised crime operation. Nothing more, nothing less.
pulltheplug.uk Says the Internet Harms Us, Will March in London Tomorrow
Maybe the site is down due to high access demand
EPO Management Trying to Hide Cocainegate, Silence/Discredit Whistleblowers, and Probably in a Panic Due to the Strikes
At the moment, Johannes' mates are receiving over 100,000 euros as a reward for doing illegal drugs
The GNU Manifesto Turns 41 in March (Next Week)
And RMS turns 73 next month
The Sister Site is Still Improving the Static Site Generator (SSG) We Use in Techrights
We have a common mission and every week we make measurable advancements
Techrights is 100% Disconnected From Cheeto's America, the Problem is Hired Guns in London Helping Violent Americans Attack Us Domestically
Not a new problem, not limited to us
Open Source Endowment (OSE) Looking to Raise Money for Free Software, But It's Hard to Know who Runs the Open Source Endowment Foundation
Their Web site does not (easily) show who the Board of Directors includes
Apple Doesn't Want Anybody to Ask What Happened to Vision Pro
They lost a lot of money
If You Want More Verifiable (Auditable) Security, Use GNU Linux-Libre
GNU/Linux will never be 100% secure
Microsoft XBox Can't Stop Talking About Slop
Will we see more "prepared" (under embargo) Microsoft propaganda released simultaneously at 9PM tonight?
Rust Will Not Inherit the Earth, It Barely Deserves a Place on the Planet
Rust - like Haskell and many other short-lived fetishes - will come and go
Truth Versus Fiction: IBM's Collapse Due to Money Crunch, Not Slop Disguised as Code
core issue is financial
Priceless leaks found in crowdfunding campaign
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 26, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 26, 2026
[Video] "New RMS [Richard Stallman] Positive Media" Reaches Millions of Viewers This Week
Assuming 5+ million people will watch this on the first week, that's good publicity for the Free software movement
Another Quiet Slop Day Passes By
the number of slopfarms we can locate/track is fast decreasing
Gemini Links 26/02/2026: Sending a Thesis and Lupa/Onion ("Lupa now lists Gemini .onion addresses")
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Links 26/02/2026: Bcachefs Man Bonkers, "Seven Journalists Convicted for Taking Photos at Courtroom"
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If You Value Privacy, Follow the Likes of Eben Moglen, Phil Zimmermann, and Richard Stallman, Not Back Doors' Boosters Who Mislabel Themselves as Security Experts
Signal is not really secure
"Community" Site Deleted by Jeffrey Epstein-Connected 'Linux' Foundation Had Interview Where Eben Moglen Spoke of GPLv3 and of DRM, Back Doors Etc.
Deleting what happened or what was said two decades ago
Richard Stallman (Free Software Foundation) and Eben Moglen (Columbia Law School) Explained 25 Years Ago That Proprietary Software (and Proprietary Firmware) Would Lead to Back Doors
a fortnight after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US
Writer's Block is Not a Problem to Us, Only a Lack of Time
Or timewasting by aggressive militants who try to silence us [...] People who experience writer's block very often find it depressing (it feels unproductive) and sometimes come to the conclusion that perhaps writing isn't for them
Giving to the Community Versus Taking From the Community (or Worse, Attacking the Community)
some people bring no contributions, only harm
LLM Slop Will Try to 'Rewrite' History of UNIX and GNU/Linux
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March Plans for Techrights
next month we plan to start the series about how the SRA failed
Where Does the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Stand on Machine-Generated Legal Documents and Copy-pasting One Client's Lawsuit to Start Another (for American Serial Strangler)?
Now that many law firms cheat (copypasta, paper DOoS, LLM slop, breaches of rules, even defaming the other side) the SRA cannot keep up
Of Course Android is Not Free Software
That Android is not about freedom should not be so shocking
Talking About Blackboxes
Having just reposted a couple of articles from Alex Oliva
Microsoft Slop is Already Killing XBox
Microsoft will fail at alleviating such concerns
Two Weeks Have Passed and It Looks Like Conde Nast's Ars Sloppica Sacked "Senior" "AI" "Reporter" Benj Edwards But Did Not Remove All His LLM-Produced 'Articles'
the editorial standards at Conde Nast's Ars Sloppica are a joke
Alex Oliva (GNU Linux-Libre): Stricter is Less Popular
Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
Fraud and Crimes at Microsoft
A lot of these American companies simply cheat and even bribe
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IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 25, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 25, 2026
FSF's Alex Oliva on Hardware Black Boxes
Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
What Microsoft Hides Underneath
In recent years a lot of this shell game was played via "Open" "AI" [sic]
A Lot of Slopfarms Died, Google News Feeds the Few Which Survived and Still Target "Linux"
Many just simply died
Links 25/02/2026: Fifth Year of War in Ukraine, Dihydroxyacetone Man Looking to Start More Wars
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The Register MS Published a Ponzi Scheme-Boosting Fake Article This Morning. It Mentions "AI" 30 Times.
Will credibility be left after the bubble pops entirely?
They Try to Ruin Linux, Too ("Attestation" in GNU/Linux)
In the context of Web browsers, this isn't unprecedented and we wrote a lot about it
Mozzarella Company: All Our Cheese Comes With Mold Now, But You Can Ask the Seller to Remove the Mold
If you reject and oppose slop, do not download/use Firefox
Stallman Was Right About Back Doors
I had some conversations with Dr. Stallman about security and back doors
Australian Signals Directorate ex-employee sold back doors to Russia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
IBM Debt-Loading and Liability (Toxic Asset) Offloading
One can hope that IBM will be subjected to the same attention Kyndryl received, but this boils down to politics
Links 25/02/2026: 'Hybrid Warfare' and "Boycott the State of the Union"
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IBM (and Red Hat) Can Disappear in the Coming Years, Along With Kyndryl (Debt Twice as Big as Its 'Worth')
No wonder Red Hat workers tell us they hate IBM
Software Freedom is Science, But It Also Sustains Life
In some sense, Software Freedom can be explained in the context of nourishing people
“Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren’t the core AI business, is being sunsetted."
There has been a lot of narrative control lately, including at 9PM on a Friday
3,300 Capsules Known to Lupa and Currently Accessible
Gemini Protocol turns 7 this summer
When it Comes to Firmware, the FSF and Its Founder RMS Won the Argument (But Not the Fight, Yet)
The "whataboutism" tactics are physiological manipulation means of discouraging those who move in the correct direction
Austria Tackles Digital Weapon Disguised as "Social" and/or "Media"
Are we seeing the end days of Social Control Media?
Nothing Over the Horizon for XBox
XBox is not even being sold in many places anymore
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Contradicting Itself: You Can Use Slop to Cheat Clients, But You Can Also Face Disciplinary Actions Over Slop
Where does the SRA stand on the matter?
In Praise of Eben Moglen
Hopefully Professor Moglen will be with us for many decades to come and become an active speaker on issues such as Software Freedom
Sunsetting IBM (for the Benefit of Few Corrupt Officials and Wall Street Speculators)
IBM will not (and cannot) survive for much longer [...] The issue is bad leadership, not any particular nationality/race
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 24, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Gemini Links 25/02/2026: Rise of Solar in 2025 and Smallnet Protocols
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