Links 21/3/2012: Torvalds Secrets, Radeon HD 7000 Driver Now Free/Libre
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2012-03-22 00:15:30 UTC
- Modified: 2012-03-22 00:15:30 UTC
Contents
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Kernel Space
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To get the most out of your systems, you want detailed insight into what the operating system kernel is doing. A typical approach is to sample stack traces; however, the data collected can be time consuming to read or navigate. Flame Graphs are a new way to visualize sampled stack traces, and can be applied to the Linux kernel for some useful (and stunning!) visualizations.
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Graphics Stack
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Applications
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The TEA Text Editor is a very handy writing tool that delivers a much different user interface. For most computer users cranking out words or program code for digital consumption, text editors are often preferable to feature-bloated word processors. TEA pours on features yet keeps from getting too steamy.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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You may have heard a few days ago that Dear Esther, a game built upon Valve's Source Engine, would be ported to Linux and released in the coming months. Well, here's more details about that Source-based game is getting to Linux.
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Desktop Environments
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GNOME Desktop
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Users who choose between GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 are rarely making that decision on a purely rational basis. In my experience, users of GNOME 2 are often choosing what they know, while users of GNOME 3 are technophiles who enjoy anything that is new.
Neither is likely to go over the two generations of GNOME feature by feature. In many cases, the choice seems made before login.
But what happens when the two desktop environments are compared in general features? I'm a fan of neither GNOME 2 nor GNOME 3, but I decided to find out.
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New Releases
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Today sees the release of Legacy OS 4 Mini an Update / Replacement for TEENpup 2010 Mini Beta. Those updating from TEENpup 2010 Mini Beta will need to save any important documents, music etc to an external Hard Drive, USB stick etc as a full reinstall is required to update to this new version, sorry!
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Debian Family
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Spending a couple of days intensely running Linux Mint 12 on a very nice desktop PC sent to me for review by ZaReason (much more about that later), I probably shouldn't have been surprised by the annoying bugs in Mint that made me a lot less productive than I am in the Debian Squeeze system I've been running on my laptop since late 2010.
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In this interview, Luke Kanies, CEO and founder of Puppet Labs, explains why the Puppet configuration management tool is a huge hit with sys admins, and tells us what to expect next from the popular open source project.
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We got another reminder of how disruptive open source software is to mobile computing this week, when Linux and Android merged back together. This appears to be good news for a number of parties, but Android and Linux developers and users seem particularly likely to benefit. The inclusion of Android code in the Linux kernel and the ability for Linux developers to more easily work on the Android environment and applications also ties into some of the key topics we’ll be covering in a Webcast March 21 titled ‘Open Source, A Tale of Two Cities in the Mobile Enterprise,’ presented by 451 Research and Black Duck Software.
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Web Browsers
Chrome
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Ever since Google started working on its Chrome OS operating system, it has had a pronounced focus on allowing users to only work with cloud-based data and applications. This has drawn criticism from many users, and some from us here at OStatic, as seen in this post. With Chrome OS, Google placed a heavy bet on the idea that consumers and business users would have no problem storing data and using applications in the cloud, without working on the locally stored data/applications model that they're used to.
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CMS
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Licensing
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Are developers actually chasing down license violations?
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Openness/Sharing
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There are some pretty basic things that a researcher can do to make their work into an open content project. Here are a few.
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Programming
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Finance
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Censorship
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The Obama administration has condemned Iran for trying to take control of the Internet. In addition, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued guidance and licensing information to further support the free flow of information to citizens of Iran – a freedom the Iranian regime has consistently denied to its people.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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They're selling us out. Just weeks after Internet users from across the globe came together to to beat SOPA, the major ISPs are cutting a deal with Big Content to restrict web access for users who are accused of piracy.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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ACTA
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Concerned of the ACTA dossier many citizens contacted the press staffers of his colleague Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Commissioner Michel Barnier is right when he emphasized the need for better communications. Karel De Gucht had the opportunity to embrace the public attention to ACTA, and strengthen the institutional cohesion with the European public, help the transformation of the EU towards an “Europe of the citizens”. He didn’t exercise this opportunity, and it appears to me the reason is a fundamental disrespect to democratic principles, he doesn’t take the public seriously.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Campinos is a Lame Duck President This Year at the European Patent Office (EPO)
- The strikes are not ending. If anything, they intensify further.
- Links 29/04/2026: "Snowden Affair 13 Years Later" and "Landmark Data Center Pause"
- Links for the day
- IBM is Already Doing 'Voluntary' Layoffs This Year in Europe ('Buyouts' Ahead of Mass Layoffs)
- IBM's efforts to hide or belittle layoffs is noteworthy
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- SLAPP Censorship - Part 61 Out of 200: Garrett and Graveley Must Understand That Reporting Women's Issues in the United States of America (“the US”) is Not Impermissible
- when you cover Microsoft corruption and have real effect
- Weeks After Mass Layoffs of Red Hat Engineers We Learn of European "Buyouts" and Layoffs at IBM
- At Microsoft, they tell us there are merely "buyouts", but they don't tell us what happens if you say "no!"
- OS Upgrade Tentatively Scheduled for Tomorrow
- We have some contingencies in case the upgrade goes wrong
- Links 29/04/2026: LLM Chatbot Usage Goes Down Sharply (as Do Stocks Associated With Them), Microsoft's Circular Financing Accounting Fraud at Risk
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 29/04/2026: Returning to an Exodus and Farewell APU
- Links for the day
- Slop Has a Long Way to Go Before It Gets Basic Facts Right
- Please do not rely on slop for anything
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part IX - European Patents That Are Illegal (But Serve Non-European Monopolists in Exchange for 'Quick Cash')
- People who shamelessly violate the European Patent Convention (EPC) have the audacity to lecture workers on "ethics"
- Canonical is Selling You, Ubuntu is a Data-Collecting Platform
- Canonical is looking for money in the wrong places
- Seems Like Only Techrights Covered IBM Laying Off About 33% of Confluent Staff
- How can such a large round of layoffs evade today's media?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 28, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, April 28, 2026
- Gemini Links 29/04/2026: Bad Diet, New Middle Ages, and Temperature Model
- Links for the day
- Tracing Back the Misuse of the Word "Buyout" to Describe Merciless Mass Layoffs
- So we can assume very large Microsoft layoffs are on the way, this time not spun as "buyouts"
- Growing the List of Sites That Are Rogue
- It's very important to raise and spread awareness of which ones are fake
- Links 28/04/2026: Uganda Criminalising ‘Foreign Agents’ and China’s Economy "Starts to Show Cracks"
- Links for the day
- Anthropic and Claude Are National Security Risks Not Because of Politics But False Marketing and Vandalism, Plagiarism Sold as Innovation
- The slop hype is causing severe damage
- Like GAFAM, US Telecom Industry Has Severe Debt Problem
- Maybe their real problem is true profitability
- Gemini Links 28/04/2026: Misfin, ELPiS, and Developing Another Gemini Client
- Links for the day
- US Government Sites See More Traffic From Apple Devices Than Microsoft Windows PCs
- Keep this in mind when Microsoft talks about mass layoffs while calling these "buyouts"
- Layoffs Versus Buyouts
- Microsoft has mass layoffs and those target the most experienced people in one of the best-paid locations
- Latest Example of False Marketing by Anthropic
- Like Scam Altman, they're better at buying publicity (paying for hype) than they are at delivering something of genuine value [...] That has the full make-up of fake news and a publicity stunt
- IBM: From RAs to "Workforce Re-balancing" (New Names for Mass Layoffs)
- Well, "workforce re-balancing" means "RAs", which is a misleading acronym IBM has devised to soften if not hide mass layoffs.
- Aaron Hillel Swartz Would Have Turned 40 This Year
- Aaron Swartz killed himself in 2013
- The Trumps Are Making Jimmy Kimmel More Famous and Popular
- Comedy has long been "controversial", but trying to get people sacked for the 'wrong' joke results in having no comedians or only pseudo-comedians who are the dictator's jester/joker
- Microsoft's Grip Has Slipped, Market Share Steadily Declining
- This is why Microsoft is having financial issue
- Links 28/04/2026: Microsoft's GitHub Upselling After Two Leaders Jumped Ship (Losses Pile Up), "Inflation Jumps," and More
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 60 Out of 200: Talking About Corruption at Microsoft and Arrest for Strangulation is "Malice"
- At the moment Brett Wilson LLP has no new clients
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part VIII - "Red Line" When the European Patent Office (EPO) President Sleeps With Sister of "Cocaine Communication Manager" (Whom He Unconditionally Protects)
- If only management took its own words (idealistic pontification) seriously
- IBM Laying Off Thousands of Workers Again, Based on Q1 Earnings Call
- under the guise of "workforce rebalancing" we are again seeing that IBM plans to pay people (severance) to leave
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 27, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, April 27, 2026
- Gemini Links 28/04/2026: Good Sunrise Viewing and Self-hosting from Home
- Links for the day[1;5C
- Microsoft Insiders: If You Don't Take the Lousy Severance-Like Offer, They'll PIP You Out (Microsoft Signals to People Over 40 That They'd Better Vacate the Place)
- Microsoft targets its most experienced (read: expensive) workers
- "AI" 16 Times in One 'Article'. The Register MS Got Paid to Post This Spammy, Promotional Piece of Slop.
- Pay closer attention to who pays and who gets paid
- Links 27/04/2026: Chernobyl Disaster at 40, "Heartbreaking" Decline of Australia
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/04/2026: Gopher Catchup, MNT Reform, and Injuries
- Links for the day
- Red Hat Circling Down the Slop Drain
- IBM, governed by slop fanatics, is going to do a lot of damage
- Slop is an Addiction, Its Users Find It Addictive
- please do not tolerate people who slop
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part VII - Secrecy at the EPO (Regarding Cocaine and Nepotism) Has Undermined Trust in Management
- If Europe's second-largest institution is run by the "Alicante Mafia", does this mean that other key European institutions are "Mafia"?
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 59 Out of 200: Mentioning the Fact Alex Graveley Arrested and Charged for Strangulation in Texas is "Reckless" and "Malicious", According to His 'Hired Guns' in London
- it was framed as "malicious"
- Links 27/04/2026: Strikes, Corruption in Spain (Spanish PM Sanchez' Wife), and YouTuber Faces Jail Time
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/04/2026: Gopher Catch-up, Year of Contentment, and Path to Freedom
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, April 26, 2026