Bonum Certa Men Certa

Late October Links/News About Canonical, Ubuntu, and Derivatives





  • Canonical/Ubuntu



    • PHP Attacked, the Shuttleworth Tea Party & More…
      It seem that many of Ubuntu’s detractors became upset at the reference to “the Open Source Tea Party.” My gawd, it was just a joke–and to make sure everyone knew he was just kidding, he followed it with a winky emoticon.
    • GIMP 2.9 (2.10 Development Builds) Available In New PPA For Ubuntu 13.10
      Thorsten Stettin has created a new PPA for Ubuntu / Linux Mint users who want to use the latest GIMP 2.9 development builds.
    • Ubuntu 13.10 Finally Released, Big Yawner
      Ubuntu 13.10 is officially released. Of course, it's been in the news so much that the official announcement today feels like old news. But at least news of 14.04 will replace 13.10 next week. Until then, though, Ubuntu 13.10 is released for "Desktop, Server, Cloud, Phone, and Core products."
    • Why system76 always ships the newest ubuntu


    • Ubuntu races toward convergence
      Canonical is moving ahead toward the convergence of mobile phone and desktop operating systems with the launch of Ubuntu 13.10 on Thursday.
    • Convergence In The Cloud
      Many of you will have heard about Ubuntu’s convergence goals on the client side — running a single, consistent code-base and experience that adapts to phones, desktops, tablets, and TVs…but are you aware of our convergence on the cloud?
    • Interesting facts about Ubuntu Linux
      Since the first release nine years ago today, Ubuntu Linux has been powering millions of PCs around the world. Love it or hate it, the Ubuntu project has made a great stride for the overall betterment of Linux, and no one can deny that. As its founder Mark Shuttleworth puts it, Ubuntu is all about total commitment to everyday users, making things “just work” for them.

      Celebrating its 9th birthday today, I am going to share interesting facts and history behind Ubuntu Linux.


    • 10 best features of Ubuntu 13.10
      Jack Wallen lists the 10 features that make Saucy Salamander a more polished Ubuntu distribution.
    • Taking Saucy Salamander for a spin
      On Thursday 17 October last week the latest release of Ubuntu 13.10- christened Saucy Salamander was released. The distribution- especially this current release- has been rocked by several controversies and has since dropped to number 3 on distrowatch. It however remains a veritable force to reckon with in the Linuxsphere where it has spawned a host of derivative distros such as the number one ranked Linux Mint. Countless blogs have been written on how to install it. I am here to offer some local tweaks to those guides.
    • Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Opens For Development
      Things won’t get off to a rollicking start just yet. The early part of every development cycle is spent getting things up-to-date by syncing the latest versions of key development packages.


    • Happy Birthday, Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog
      The first version of Ubuntu 4.10, Warty Warthog, was released on October 20, 2004, nine years ago, marking the beginning of a great journey.
    • Reflections On Ubuntu 13.10


    • Flavours and Variants



      • Xubuntu 13.10
      • Ubuntu Studio 13.10
      • Q&A: Clement Lefebvre: The man behind Linux Mint
        I got a Masters in Computer Sciences from the University of South Paris in 2001. I was mostly interested in game development, but as it happened, I worked for banks, telecom and software companies in France and in Ireland. I had various job titles (web developer, IT engineer, software developer, J2EE architect), and in one company I was teaching rather than coding, but most of time my job was to design and to develop software or web applications.










Recent Techrights' Posts

Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
"the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade
Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').
It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware
Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
 
Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
When Nobody Else Covers the News
There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
Links for the day
Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
Links for the day
HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
"HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com)
The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism
Links for the day
The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends)
We'll say a bit more tomorrow
IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders)
For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
"Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies
Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
Windows fell by a lot
"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
For those who have not followed our story
Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
They know what's coming, they just don't know when
Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
Links for the day
"AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
gets paid to do this
People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
Links for the day