Links 9/10/2011: Kororaa 15 “Squirt”, Android 4.0 Expected Soon
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2011-10-09 11:03:01 UTC
- Modified: 2011-10-09 11:03:01 UTC
Contents
-
Kernel Space
-
Graphics Stack
-
The Intel "i915" Gallium3D driver continues to advance thanks to love from Google. A new Intel employee is now even contributing to this unofficial driver too.
Over the summer we have seen a number of changes to the Intel Gallium3D driver that supports the older i915/i945 era hardware. This driver is not officially supported by Intel, but Google's after it for use in their Chromebooks as their netbooks can do better since this Gallium3D driver has faster CPU-based code generation of vertex shaders than the classic Intel DRI driver. The work has mostly been done by Stéphane Marchesin, the former Nouveau driver project lead who is now part of Google's Chromium team.
-
Applications
-
Proprietary
-
Today I found myself with Picasa for Linux (3.0 beta) not allowing me to login to web albums, even if I could login without problems from the web browser.
After googling a bit, it seems that Picasa 3.0 does not work anymore due to some Google+ related changes. On the other hand it looks like Picasa on Linux is abandoned ie: 3.0 vs 3.8 on Windows.
-
Instructionals/Technical
-
Desktop Environments
-
K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
-
The KDE project has released the second point update to version 4.7 of its KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). According to the developers, the maintenance update to the Linux and Unix desktop contains a variety of translation updates and bug fixes; as expected, no new features have been added.
-
GNOME Desktop
-
-
Red Hat Family
-
Red Hat has acquired Gluster, a company that uses software to tackle storage problems in a new way.
We had the opportunity to talk to Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, about the acquisition, how Gluster's product works, and what it means to be steering a company into the $1 billion revenue mark.
-
Fedora
-
I've been swamped these past couple weeks. I mean, I've been absolutely, completely, and totally bogged down by work. I had 4 problem sets to do, on top of my recently-started UROP and other work-study stuff I'm doing, so I seriously had no room to breathe, until now. I briefly thought about starting work for next week tonight, but then I realized that whatever sanity I had left at this point would go out the window if I worked any more. I needed a break, so what did I do instead of working? I wrote this review! (This is my pre-emptive excuse if some people may feel that this is not thorough enough, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, sue me.)
-
Debian Family
-
Derivatives
-
Canonical/Ubuntu
-
Ubuntu's YouTube channel has uploaded a new video introducing the latest version of Ubuntu which is 11.10. The video gives and overview of some of the new features of Ubuntu 11.10 but lacks the quality and professionalism. It doesn' show all the new features of Dash, which include refined search.
-
Flavours and Variants
-
Not only for Windows, but also for Linux the hour of truth comes near. October-November are months with new releases and upgrades. Let's forget about Windows 8 for now; it's still an early Beta. However Ubuntu 11.10 and Linux Mint 12 will come out soon. So are updated desktops: Gnome and KDE to name but two. It's no secret that I am still not convinced that the Gnome based Gnome 3 shell and Ubuntu's Unity desktops are matured enough to compete with either Windows 8 Beta or Apple's OSX. What's more, I still don't like either of the two. So do many more Linux-users. The one UI fails this here, the other is messy there, which isn't inspiring and inviting me to even test these releases. I am running Mint 11 for now and will continue to do so with its 'old', but for me far more productive, more flexible Gnome 2 desktop, better suited to run production software.
-
Zorin OS also comes with a Zorin Look Changer which allows easily changing the layout of the desktop to match the look of Windows XP and Linux GNOME in addition to this default Windows 7 look. In a Zorin OS video presentation I’ve also noticed Mac OS X, but it wasn’t present in my install. Perhaps it is available for install from repositories or as part of a Premium version.
-
-
iSign Media Solutions announced a Linux-based device designed to send out marketing messages via either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Including an integral web server and the ability to communicate with digital signage PCs, the "Smart Antenna" is an all-weather device that draws five Watts of power over an Ethernet cable, says the company.
-
Phones
-
Android
-
India is one of the champions of making cheap stuff. Tata's Nano, the world's cheapest car, is now dethroned by Aakash, one of the cheapest Android tablets. India created quite a buzz with the launch of $35 Android tablet which had the backing of the Indian government.
The HRD minister of India Kapil Sibal is now aiming at $10 tablet. The minister has reportedly invited companies to make a cheaper Android tablet. With low income a majority of Indians can't buy expensive $500 tablets, thus being left behind. Given India's next to chaotic power outage situation where you don't even get electricity for 24 hours a day, a tablet may keep users well connected.
-
Apple is not the only champion of creating hype about its products before they are launched. Unfortunately, iPhone 4S release was a major disaster as hype-mongering sites were calling it the iPhone 5 and some even said it had a bigger screen. Lesson: don't listen to the hype created by Apple fans, it's mostly vapor.
-
Android apps will now be able to run on Apple's iPad and a host of other non-Android devices, courtesy of new software from the crew at Myriad Group.
-
Sub-notebooks/Tablets
-
E-Fun announced the sixth, highest-end member of its Nextbook family of Android tablets. Running Android 2.3 on a Rockchips RK2918 Cortex-A8 processor, the $300 Nextbook Premium 8 offers an eight-inch, 800 x 480 capacitive display, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, and a front-facing camera, and a Kobo eBook Store app, says the company.
-
AMAZON'S Kindle Fire was always going to set the tablet world ablaze. Even before it starts shipping in November, though, it has managed to reignite the debate over the relative merits of open versus closed software. Supporters of openness trumpet it as a way to promote ideas and competition, leading to greater consumer satisfaction and optimal prices. Closed systems, goes the argument, remove choice and ramp up prices. If only it were that simple.
For a start, the distinction between open and closed is fuzzy. The Fire, for example, relies on Google's Android operating system (not the latest, tablet-spec version 3, but an earlier one designed for smartphones). Android is open—in the sense that anyone may view, modify and employ the source code in free or commercial applications without a license (other than that which comes at no cost with the code). Modifications to the code may have to be distributed publicly, depending on the specific license in question. (Android is a melange of code from many open-source projects and licensing terms for the ingredients vary.)
-
While Oracle Solaris has Intel KMS/DRI2 support, the Solaris port of this Intel Linux driver code isn't yet part of the open-source Solaris distributions.
-
Events
-
Web Browsers
-
Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
-
Java has long been a hit with enterprise developers, with Java EE powering the back ends of enterprise applications in data centers around the world, while Java application servers and servlet containers enable countless Web applications.
For client-side development, however, Java hasn't fared nearly as well. There have always been Java technologies aimed squarely at the client: Java applets debuted with the first release of the platform, and Java ME was an early hit with cellphone vendors. Various toolkits and frameworks have been released over the years for building rich, GUI-based Java applications for the desktop.
-
Programming
-
Copyrights
-
If you went through a publisher and agent, assuming you could find a publisher and agent willing to talk to you, you’d only earn $1,875.00. Why would you give away $6,875.00 to someone else when you could do it yourself, including hiring a cover artist, an editor, etc. There are places that charge a flat rate of less than $100.00 to do this for you if you can’t do it…
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Microsoft's Bing Falls to Fourth in the Europe/Asia-Based Turkey, Share Halved Since LLM Hype, Now Only 1% (Sometimes Less)
- Turkey (Eurasia) is another example of Microsoft failing with LLM hype and just burning a lot of energy in vain (investment without returns)
- Backlash and Negative Press After Microsoft Tells Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) People to DIE
- Follow-up stories
- Censorship as Signal of Opportunity for Reform
- It remains sad and ironic that Wikileaks outsourced so much of its official communications to Twitter (now X)
- The World Wide Web Has Been Rotting for Years (Quality, Accuracy, and Depth Consistently Decreasing)
- In the past people said that the Web had both "good" and "bad" and that the good outweighed the bad
- Comoros: Windows Plunges to Record Low of About 6% in Country of a Million People (in 2010 Windows Was 100%)
- Many of these people earn a few dollars a day; they don't care for Microsoft's "Hey Hi PC" hype
- The Mail (MX) Server Survey for July 2024 Shows Microsoft Collapsing to Only 689 Servers or 0.17% of the Whole (It Used to be About 25%)
- Microsoft became so insignificant and the most astounding thing is how the media deliberate ignores it or refuses to cover it
- Windows Down From 98.5% to 22.9% in Hungary
- Android is up because more people buy smaller mobile devices than laptops
- Microsoft Windows in Algeria: From 100% to Less Than 15%
- Notice that not too long ago Windows was measured at 100%. Now? Not even 15%.
- Microsoft Windows "Market Share" in New Zealand Plunges to 25%
- Android rising
- SUSE Goes Aryan: You May Not Use the Germanic Brand Anymore (It's Monopolised by the Corporation)
- Worse than grammar Nazis
- Gratis But Not Free as in Freedom: How Let's Encrypt is Dying in Geminispace
- Let's Encrypt is somewhat of a dying breed where the misguided CA model is shunned
-
- Fedora Week of Diversity (FWD) 2024 Attracting 0.01% of the IBM Staff "Was a Success"
- They expect volunteers (unpaid slaves) to do the PR for them...
- African's Largest Population (Nigeria) Approaching 80% Android "Market Share" Amid Steady Monthly Increases While Microsoft Has Mass Layoffs in Nigeria
- Microsoft- and Apple-sponsored Western (or English-speaking) media chooses to ignore that or treat it as irrelevant (a racist disposition in its own right)
- [Meme] The Warlord's Catspaw
- Thugs that troll us
- Microsoft Misogyny Will be the Fall of Microsoft (Covering Up for Misogynists is a Huge Mistake and Highly Misguided Short-term Strategy)
- Microsoft's undoing may in fact be its attitude towards women
- Red Hat Keeps Behaving Like a Microsoft Reseller (for Proprietary Stuff!), Microsoft Employees as Authors in redhat.com
- In some ways this reminds us of Novell
- UEFI 'Secure Boot' Once Again Bricking PCs and Fake Security Models Are Perishing in Geminispace
- Let's Encrypt has just fallen again
- Links 17/07/2024: New Attacks on the Press, European Patents Squashed Even at Kangaroo Court (UPC)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/07/2024: Proponents of Censorship and New Arrivals at Gemini
- Links for the day
- Links 17/07/2024: School Budget Meltdown and Modern Cars as Tracking Nightmares
- Links for the day
- This Should Certainly be Illegal, But the Person Who Helped Microsoft Do This is Still Attacking the Critics of It
- perhaps time for an "I told you so post"
- [Meme] A Computer With an Extra Key on the Keyboard Isn't Everyone's Priority
- (so your telling me meme)
- Africa as an Important Reminder That Eradicating Microsoft Doesn't Go Far Enough
- Ideally, if our top goal is bigger than "get rid of Microsoft", we need to teach people to choose and use devices that obey them, not GAFAM
- Billions of Computers Run Linux and Many Use Debian (or a Derivative of It)
- many devices never get updated or even communicate with the Net, so exhaustive tallies are infeasible
- [Meme] Microsoft is Firing
- Don't worry, Microsoft will have some new vapourware coming soon
- More DEI (or Similar) Layoffs on the Way, According to Microsoft Team Leader
- What happened shortly before Independence Day wasn't the end of it, apparently
- [Meme] Many Volunteers Now Realise the "Open" in "OpenSUSE" or "openSUSE" Was Labour-Mining
- Back to coding, packaging and testing, slaves
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
- [Meme] Ein Factory
- A choice between "masters" (or "master race") is a false choice that results in mass exploitation and ultimately eradication (when there's little left to exploit)
- Links 17/07/2024: Open Source Initiative Lies and Dark Net Thoughts
- Links for the day
- Media Distorting Truth to Promote Ignorance
- online media is rapidly collapsing
- Android Rises to New Highs of Almost 80% in Cameroon
- How many dozens of nations will see Windows at under 10% this coming winter?
- Links 16/07/2024: TikTok Ban in Europe and Yandex Split
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/07/2024: On Packrafting and on Trump Shot
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Firefox Users Who Think They Know Better Than Mozilla
- Enjoy Firebook
- Firefox Used to Have About Half the Market in Switzerland, But It Doesn't Stand a Chance Anymore (Chrome Surging This Summer)
- Mozilla has managed to alienate some of the biggest fans of Firefox
- Microsoft's Biggest Losses Are in Europe This Summer
- Microsoft's ability to milk a relatively rich Europe is fast diminishing
- How to Make Software Suck and Discriminate Against People at the Same Time
- ageism glorified
- Bing Was at 2.6% in Russia When LLM Hype Started. Now It's Down to 0.8% (for 3 Months in a Row Already)
- The sharp fall of Bing may mean that exiting the Russian market won't matter to anybody
- [Meme] Microsoft Seems to be Failing to Comply With WARN Act (by Refusing to Announce Mass Layoffs as They Happen)
- since when does Microsoft obey the law anyway?
- Microsoft Layoffs Are Still Too Frequent to Keep Abreast of and Properly (or Exhaustively) Classify
- The "HR" department knows what's happening, but whistleblowers from there are rare
- Bahamas Joined the "5% Windows" Club
- statCounter only traces back about 1 in 20 Web requests to Windows
- Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
- Links for the day
- Antenna Abuse and Gemini Abuse (Self-hosting Perils)
- Perhaps all this junk is a sign of Gemini growing up
- Possibly Worse Than Bribes: US Politicians and Lawmakers Who Are Microsoft Shareholders
- They will keep bailing out Microsoft to bail themselves out
- The Software Freedom Conservancy Folks Don't Even Believe in Free Speech and They Act As Imposters (Also in the Trademark Arena/Sense)
- Software Freedom Conservancy was already establishing a reputation for itself as a G(I)AFAM censor/gatekeeper
- Djibouti Enters the Windows "10% Club" (Windows Was 99% in 2010)
- In Africa in general Microsoft lost control
- GNU/Linux Share Doubled in the United States of America (USA) in the Past 12 Months
- Or so says statCounter
- Even in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Of Korea) Google Said to Dominate, Microsoft Around 1%
- Google at 93.26%
- [Meme] The Red Bait (Embrace... Extinguish)
- They set centos on fire, then offer a (de facto) proprietary substitute for a fee
- Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message
- segment of a Noam Chomsky talk
- [Video] Boston Area Assange Defense (Yesterday)
- It was published only hours ago
- Guinea: Windows Down From 99.3% to 2.7% 'Market Share'
- Guinea is not a small country
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 15, 2024
- IRC logs for Monday, July 15, 2024
- What's Meant by "Antenna Abuse" (Gemini)
- syndication is not a monopoly in Gemini and if one doesn't condone political censorship, then one can create one's own syndication service/capsule
- Microsoft Layoffs and Entire Unit Termination: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- What an announcement to make just before Independence Day
- Links 16/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and One Page Dungeon Contest
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Falls Further and Closer Towards 10% (Windows "Market Share") in Kuwait
- more countries entering the "single-digit Windows" (under 10%) club
- Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Antenna's Pro-Hamas Bias Revisited and Old Computer Challenge
- Links for the day
- [Video] Julian Assange, Over One Decade Ago, Cautioning About What the Internet Had Truly Become
- video is not new
- Homage to Malta
- Malta is probably easy for Microsoft to bribe
- IRC at 16
- Logging has been used for us and against us
- In Malta, Android/Linux Has Overtaken Microsoft Windows (According to statCounter)
- statCounter milestone?
- Links 15/07/2024: China’s Economic Problems, Boeing Under Fire
- Links for the day
- 500 Days' Uptime Very Soon
- Good luck doing that with Windows...
- Windows Falls Below 20% in Tunisia
- A month ago we wrote about GNU/Linux in Tunisia
- Links 15/07/2024: Google Wants Wiz and Why "Sports Ruin Everything"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and Sending Files via NNCP
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 14, 2024
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 14, 2024