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
- Russian "Hybrid Attacks" Are Typically Microsoft TCO and/or Windows TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
- Information-related warfare relies a lot on computer systems
- It Seems Like IBM is Firing 'Everybody' (Anywhere, Any Age, No Matter What Team)
- Healthy companies would sack IBM's management (sacked by Board, bylaws etc.) but IBM is a sick company
- Latest Stallman Talk (Event in Argentina) Published
- Less than a day ago they released his talk
- LLM Slop Becoming Rarer
- Today we've found no LLM slop in our RSS feeds regarding "Linux"
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- Links 13/12/2025: Jimmy Lai and Media Freedom on Trial, "OpenAI Researcher Quits, Saying Company Hiding the Truth"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/12/2025: Extensive Catchup With Gopherholes
- Links for the day
- Deliberate Lies or Glaring Distortions
- Calling Torvalds anything "Soviet" or "Russian" would overlook the fact he comes from Finland and has Swedish roots
- Canonical and Ubuntu: Working for Microsoft, Promoting Proprietary Surveillance (Dis)Services
- Canonical started with a rich and overambitious Debian Developer. He wanted to become richer.
- EPO People Power - Part XI - The Media in Europe is Ill and Complicit in Ills
- We must all recognise that there's a problem here
- Running With Technology
- At least they always run Linux (all of them, since 2015)
- Dealing With "Tech Cults"
- If you think you identified a "Tech Cult", walk away
- GAFAM is a Financial Problem and Sovereignty Risk, a Policy-Level (National Level) Boycott is Needed
- Europe has plenty of skilled computer engineers
- 2026 Could Very Well be Last Year of XBox, Microsoft Dropped the Ball
- It would be shocking is XBox can stage any kind of comeback
- Links 13/12/2025: Social Control Media Bans and "Could Finland be Hiding a Blue Zone?"
- Links for the day
- Expecting Mass Layoffs, More Microsoft Workers Join Unions
- they see tough times ahead
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, December 12, 2025
- Links 12/12/2025: GAFAM Now Trying to Settle With Remaining News Sites It Plagiarised, "NATO's Rutte Says Alliance Is 'Russia's Next Target'"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/12/2025: Bad Joke, Western Union Blues, and More
- Links for the day
- Life Began at 40
- This is what I wanted to do all along
- To Linus Torvalds, the Microsoft Linux Foundation is Increasingly a Liability and Risk to the Brand
- If Torvalds is no longer in control or "in charge", then somebody else is
- EPO People Power - Part X - Together, We Can Fix the EPO
- every call for action matters
- IBM Layoffs in Europe as Well
- IBM is a collapsing, dying old brand
- EPO People Power - Part IX - Insiders Say the EPO's Chief Propagandist Effectively Ousted (on Fake 'Sick Leave') Because of Reporting by Techrights
- So the EPO is in effect rewarding a cocaine addict
- Litigation Transparency Until 2030 or 2031
- The ultimate goal is to 1) improve the British legal system and 2) raise awareness of how this system works
- Links 12/12/2025: Thunderbird Adds Proprietary Plug, "Catch-22 of Canadian Digital Sovereignty" Explained by Michael Geist (About GAFAM/US)
- Links for the day
- Developing Some New Software for the Sites
- Sites that are static are in more control over their future and present direction
- Julian Assange on Fake Activists in Silicon Valley
- Julian Assange on Fake Activists in Silicon Valley
- "In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice."
- ― Julian Assange
- EPO People Power - Part VIII - The Chipmunk on Cocaine, Now Deleting Videos
- video has been removed
- What If the Economy Isn't "Down" But Mostly Diverted? (While "AI" Fills a Gap for Capital That No Longer Exists in Tech)
- "AI" is an "Arms Race", because they need to be bailed out by taxpayers' money
- Techrights Site Search Was a Success After All
- A few hiccups dealt with, ironed out
- Valve's SteamOS, Microsoft Canonical's Ubuntu, and Other Platforms That Only Leverage Free Software (But Won't Protect It)
- Ubuntu "took off" not because it was very good or very easy. Ubuntu "took off" because of ShipIt, i.e. because of a multi-millionaire subsidising its mass distribution (at a personal cost).
- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Paid Respect to Its Founder This Year, Now It Wants You to Join
- We're glad to see the FSF paying respect to its founder in its Web site
- 2026 Guaranteed to Give Us Compromised Media Funded by "AI" Boosters to Promote "AI" and Sometimes be Composed by "AI" (Chatbots)
- follow the money of the Ponzi scheme
- Under IBM, Things Culminate at "AI-Equipped Customer Experience Transformation" at Red Hat
- Whatever that even means
- Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Now at the Wheel in Cybershow
- Cybershow (Cyber|Show) has very good blog posts and episodes
- Microsoft Trims More Jobs
- The worst layoff year in 20 years, by the numbers
- EPO People Power - Part VII - The Corporate Media and the Reference Sites (e.g. Wikipedia) Are Already Compromised and Complicit
- Looking back at the whole thing, it's clear to me that Europe does not really have free press
- EPO People Power - Part VI - Criticism Not Permitted, Media Subjected to Contempt by Cocaine Addicts Who Manage the Press for the EPO
- Why won't any large publisher in Europe cover this? What does that say about the state of journalism in Europe?
- "Smart" or "Intelligent" Agents and "Vibe Coding" Deletes Everything You Have
- A high price to pay, no?
- New Paper Shows That EPO "Growth" is Dictated From Above, Not Earned (More Monopolies Granted by Breaking Rules, Laws, Conventions)
- "Targets for 2026 are currently being handed down to individuals."
- EPO People Power - Part V - The European Media is Practically Dead When It Comes to Covering European Patent Office (EPO) Corruption
- That sort of sums up where European media/press stands
- Datacentre and Server Maintenance Next Week
- The last time we rebooted into the latest stable kernel was 96 days ago
- Afraid of Words, Not Afraid of Actions
- Those corporations want us to bicker over words, not their actions
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, December 11, 2025
- IBM Workers Still Blast IBM Management for Firing Loads of Workers While Overpaying to Buy Useless Companies
- IBM's CEO is killing the cow
- LLM Slop About Linux Still Seems Scarce
- LLMs aren't dead, but metrics published online say that their usage is fast declining
- Links 12/12/2025: Oracle Shares Collapse After Slop Bubble Inflated (Circular Funding/Financing One's Own 'Clients'), "Trials by Jury" in UK Considered
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 12/12/2025: 'Kinetic Energy' and Browsing Geminispace With a GUI, TUI, or CLI Client
- Links for the day
- Links 11/12/2025: Escalations Around Japan, Software Patents Found Invalid
- Links for the day
- Killing the IBM Cash Cow, Raising Massive Debt Instead
- In a healthy company, the CEO and CFO would get sacked on the spot for doing so. But IBM is not a healthy company, it's just a sick cow being milked to death.
- Links 11/12/2025: Dangerous Flukes by Slop and Bottled Water as 'Placebos'
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/12/2025: Repairs, Wisdom of the Crowds, and AC Explorations
- Links for the day
- Those of Us Who Grew Up Playing Doom Must Remember What Microsoft Did to Its Creator
- Doomed by Microsoft
- We Need Your EPO Insider Stories
- To date, the EPO and any other company/institution hasn't managed to remove even a single public page that we published
- Yes, IBM is Also Laying Off Indians (Even in India)
- that goes against the popular/hot narrative of "jobs moving to India"
- At The Register MS, Fake 'Articles' Sponsored by WIntel (Windows+Intel)
- We've meanwhile noticed that there's new sponsored spam in at The Register MS and it might be slop
- Microsoft-Sponsored Wikipedia Spam About "AI", Added by Microsoft Operatives
- When it comes to Wikipedia, follow the money (sponsors)
- Keep on Pushing, EPO Management is in a State of Panic This Week
- Contact your representatives today
- In Addition to National Delegates, Contact the French or Portuguese Governments (Politicians) Regarding António Campinos
- Someone needs to step into the EPO and open up all the closets
- EPO People Power - Part IV - Sexism, Chauvinism, and Lines of Cocaine at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- Recently, one reader told us about Berenguer, who made the "mistake" of using cocaine in the open market
- If You Want Freedom, Follow Richard M. Stallman (RMS)
- To be clear, I like Linux, I like its founder
- EPO People Power - Part III - Challenging Corruption
- The media - as in the national press - isn't interested in writing about it
- The Flawed Notion of Criticising for Criticism's Sake
- People who are highly critical of things are not "toxic"
- A Lot More Than Techrights
- you probably also want to follow the RSS feed of the sister site
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, December 10, 2025