Linux in the News: New RC, Steve Jobs' Offer to Torvalds Recalled, OpenDaylight Summit...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-18 09:46:04 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-18 09:46:04 UTC
Summary: Kernel-centric news items from the past few days
Kernel Space
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Linux kernel 3.14 RC3 includes several updated drivers (GPU, media, block, etc.), architecture updates (x86, ARM64, s390), filesystem improvements (Btrfs, VFS, NFS, OCFS, and kernfs fixes), as well as various mm and tooling (perf) improvements.
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Linus Torvalds, the man behind the wonderful project Linux and Git was offered job by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc. Torvalds never met Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft but he met Jobs in the year 2000 when he was working with Transmeta corporation, an American fabless semiconductor company. Jobs invited Torvalds to Cupertino Camps of Apple. Torvalds was offered thick salary and remarkable position within the organization and was supposed to do Non-Linux things at Apple. This was the point, Torvalds disagreed. Moreover Torvalds did not like the Mac Kernel, Mach.
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Earlier this month at the OpenDaylight Summit, the software defined networking project announced its first code release, called Hydrogen.
Their open source controller is now available for download, published for everyone to see and use. But the structure and culture that got the project to this point, about one year after its formation, isn't so readily available for outsiders to see and understand.
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As users everywhere begin to warm up to the benefits of running multiple operating systems in tandem, virtualization has become one of the hottest corners of the technology arena. Many open source tools are helping to drive this trend, and that is making the work of the Open Virtualization Alliance very important. The group has been up and running for years, and late last year it joined the Linux Foundation in an effort to integrate its efforts more closely with the Linux community.
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All of the code for kdbus is living within its own Git repository right now and also there's code within the systemd Git while a compile-time switch must be activated now within systemd. Developers are hoping kdbus will be reviewed and merged into the upstream Linux kernel this year. Lennart shared a couple of kdbus features out on the horizon include sandboxing support, yielding CPU time to destination, priority inheritance, and priority queues.
Graphics Stack
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This new multi-touch touch-pad implementation presents support for one / two / three finger tapping, two-finger scrolling, clickfinger, drag-n-drop on clickpads, and single-touch touch-pad support. There's also work underway in the clickpad software button support and better timeout handling. Other possible features include trackstick mode support, disable-while-tapping, pinch/rotation support, and other features.
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An SGI fan and Phoronix reader happened to have an old set of SGI tapes dating back to the 90's regarding "Tech Talk" and "KGSI Radio" on SGI wares. The Phoronix reader, Steven Hill, digitized these recordings and obtained permission to release them from SGI after formally being marked confidential.
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AMD has published a second version of their open-source Linux driver code for exposing the "VCE" video engine on modern Radeon GPUs under Linux via OpenMAX for accelerated H.264 video encoding.
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The Radeon R600 Gallium3D driver has picked up support for another OpenGL extension that's mandated by the OpenGL 4.1 specification.
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For those curious how AMD's Catalyst Linux performance is doing as we get 2014 underway with the first Catalyst 14.1 beta, here are benchmarks from nine different AMD Radeon graphics cards under Ubuntu Linux and running this latest publicly available driver when looking at both the OpenGL graphics and OpenCL compute performance.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- IBM May Well Be Laying Off Over 13,500 and Up to 27,000 Staff This Week When It Says "Single-Digit Percentage of Our Global Workforce"
- It's not yet possible to know how many people IBM gets rid of
- Early Unverified Figures About Scale of Latest IBM Layoffs
- the real scale of the RAs will remain elusive
- How Techrights Search Works
- Hopefully bots won't use it
- Techrights Became a Lot More Productive as a Result of Attacks on It
- By default, it's safe to assume anything on the Web is garbage, especially in social control media
- Unverified Rumours: IBM Cuts Will Continue Another ~10 Days, Managers Will Invite Those Impacted for 1-on-1 Meetings
- Right now IBM likes diversity because with adoption of low-paid demographies it gets to pay workers less for the same work
- analytics.usa.gov: Vista 11 Scarcely Used, GNU/Linux Increasingly Dominant (Microsoft Loses "Goodwill", Depletes Cash Equivalents, and Debt Soars)
- "Total current assets" fell by more than 2 billion dollars in the past 3 months
- Not Only Mass Layoffs at IBM But Complete Shutdowns "Amid A.I. Boom"
- apparently about 10,000 layoffs, not counting those who got pushed out by PIPs and other means
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- Slopwatch: linuxbsdos.com, Linux Journal, LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and WebProNews
- Either Google doesn't care about the integrity of Google News or it deems slop to be acceptable
- Gemini Links 05/11/2025: Affirmation, GnuPG, and While Loops
- Links for the day
- Links 05/11/2025: Economic Trouble in France and US Bombing All Over the World Without Declaration of War or Congress Approving
- Links for the day
- Red Hat Staff Also Impacted by Latest IBM Layoffs With Focus on North America and Software, Infrastructure
- After the bluewashing never expect to see news about "Red Hat layoffs", just as "Tivoli layoffs" aren't to be expected
- Coming Soon: Part 4 About the EPO's Substance Abuse (Breaking Laws to Fake 'Production' and Profiting From Unlawful Monopolies)
- Notice how quiet the EPO's management has been lately
- For the Record: We Never Named Staff of the Law Firm That's Attacking Us, Except the One the Firm is Named After!
- Just to affirm and be sure, I've used our new search facility
- Links 05/11/2025: Medicare Privatisation and "Breaker Box Economy"
- Links for the day
- Techrights Search Will Come Early
- Maybe tomorrow
- It Seems Like GNOME/IBM Don't Like Women and When Budget is Limited Only Women Take the Fall
- Seems like a very patriarchal, GAFAM-controlled Foundation
- "Last Day" as in "IBM Sacked Me" (Cruel Euphemisms)
- "The entire design and research technical leadership at IBM was laid off in the past year, including this round"
- Shadow Crew and Ads Disguised as Articles
- That The Register MS runs articles that are paid-for fluff isn't unprecedented
- Vista 11 "Market Share" Has Fallen This Month, Based on statCounter
- The US government's own data shows the same thing this month
- This is How Mainstream Media, Boosted or Parroted by Slopfarms, Spins IBM's Commercial Failure and Mass Layoffs as "AI"
- Some say "software focus", but most just resort to buzzwords and blame-shifting hype
- Resisting Misogynists
- Rianne has already added close to 100,000 pages to this site
- Starting November on a Strong Note
- All in all, this month started well for us as we have good, accurate publications with considerable impact
- Fake Retirements Help IBM Keep the Layoff Figures Down
- Yesterday we read that it was quite cruel how IBM (or Red Hat) compelled staff to pretend to be happily leaving or "retiring" when the reality was, they had been pushed out with some "package"
- Cocaine at the European Patent Office Now a Subject in YouTube, Media Will Revisit the Topic
- "The Cocaine Patent Office" is no joking matter
- Gemini Links 05/11/2025: "Wuthering Heights" and "Winter is Coming"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 04, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, November 04, 2025
- 2 Days Until Site Anniversary Party, Search Likely to Launch Same Day
- We're now just two days away from the nineteenth anniversary of the site
- Richard Stallman's 2005 Article on Why Patents on Software Should be Denied
- If patent law had been applied to novels in the 1880s, great books would not have been written. If the EU applies it to software, every computer user will be restricted, says Richard Stallman
- "Last Day" at IBM and Red Hat as "Stealth Layoffs" (They Force People to Pretend It's Wilful)
- So the real extent of the layoffs is being kept 'undercover'
- Slopwatch: The WebProNews Slopfarm and the Serial Slopper
- The Web is ill
- Links 04/11/2025: Tensions Around Belarus Grow, Turkey’s Hype-inflation Continues
- Links for the day
- Corporate Media That Fails to Report Cocaine at EPO is Totally Failing to Report Mass Layoffs at IBM
- How come nobody anywhere writes about this week's RAs?
- Search @ Techrights: Almost There Now (Maybe an Anniversary Gift)
- Just to be very clear, search would not be unprecedented at Techrights
- At IBM, Layoffs Start at 1AM (at Night)
- not a single English-speaking site covers the news about the layoffs
- Links 04/11/2025: Google Cloud Account Engages in Censorship of the Innocent, arXiv Spammed by LLM Slop
- Links for the day
- EPO Cocaine Chronicles: Our Aim Will be to Ensure This Becomes a Mainstream Media Topic, Not a Suppressed Scandal (Which the German State Deems Embarrassing and Detrimental to Its Pan-European Patent Franchise)
- At the EPO, and perhaps in German media as well, people "fall upwards" (they get rewarded for bad things)
- Envy Makes People Do Self-Harming Things (and Harm to Others)
- Online communities that can be deemed successful are built around trust, mutual respect, and collective accomplishment
- Static Site Generators (SSGs) Made Techrights Better, Faster, Easier to Manage
- Consider adopting SSGs if you still use a CMS such as WordPress
- But he Was Born in Manchester! (Origin Stories)
- Borussia Dortmund does not exist!
- What Julian Darley Wrote About the Stallman Talk Regarding "AI" in Oxford (2025)
- From LinkedIn (Microsoft)
- GNU/Linux is American, Not Finnish
- It started in Boston, not in Helsinki
- 'Hacker' 'News' Makes Dumb Assertions Against Smart People
- A logical fallacy
- We Turned Down Every Settlement Offer Because Truths Aren't Determined in Bank Accounts
- Without free press, there won't be free society
- "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei
- This site is educational
- Why I'm Always Proud of the Site I've Devoted My Life to
- As a graffiti around the corner from our home says, "be a better person"
- Standing Up or Standing for What's True But Inconvenient
- Bad actors need to be called out
- Many People Have Said That They "Leave" IBM in Recent Days (Ahead of Mass Layoffs)
- So the real extent of layoffs is greater than what's publicly stated (there are silent layoffs) [...] Whatever IBM says about the scope, scale, or magnitude of the "RAs", it doesn't tell the full story
- Media Coverage Regarding IBM is Vapourware and LLM Slop
- With slop images, too
- statCounter Says GNU/Linux Rose to 4% in the Russian Federation
- Adoption of Vista 11 has been embarrassingly weak
- Corruption is Not a Joke
- we'll try to limit our use of humour to avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations
- The Slopfarm WebProNews is Overwhelming "linux" Results in Google News
- Google News is slop
- The Fall of IBM: What Happened?
- Just like the EPO continues riding some old reputation acquired in the 1970s IBM relies on old myths like, "nobody gets fired for buying IBM."
- IBM's CEO Already Has the Excuse for the Latest Wave of Mass Layoffs
- Only days ago the CEO told a bunch of nonsense
- Links 04/11/2025: Conflicts, Politics, and IPv6 at Home
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/11/2025: Entering WiFi Passwords and Programming Rambles
- Links for the day
- Arch Linux Seems Like the New Debian
- Arch users (btw!) are growing in relative and absolute share
- Analytics From US Government Affirm a Trend: Microsoft's "Market Share" in Search is Falling
- the data set is large
- Holding Institutions Such as the EPO Accountable Through Public Information
- Speaking truth to power is never easy
- Techrights Will Contact German Media About the EPO's Substance Abuse
- This scandal won't "go to waste"
- EPO Staff Losing Holidays, as Usual, as the Office Increases Profits by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents While Reducing Salaries
- How much more can the staff endure and generally tolerate?
- Free Software Does Not Always Speak for Itself, It Needs Advocates
- Legal matters that relate to sharing of code will be discussed
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 03, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, November 03, 2025
- The Register MS Continues Looking for Money in Promotion of the "AI" Ponzi Scheme
- That The Register MS participates in this deceit rather than tackle/debunk it says a lot about The Register MS
- IBM Layoffs in "Software", This Likely Impacts Red Hat as Well
- Many people say "software" people are impacted
- Escaping Proprietary Software, Not Just Escaping Microsoft
- To take control of your life adopt GNU/Linux
- A Lot of Fake News About Microsoft Headcount (Also: Microsoft's Debt Rose by About 24 Billion Dollars in Past 12 Months)
- If you see some headline about Microsoft's CEO making claims about hirings, look away
- Techrights Turns 19 in Three Days
- It would be nice to meet for a chat
- Akira Urushibata on How Grokipedia Fails to Work
- The Grokipedia article gives the wrong character for the "Ko" on "Koan"
- Links 03/11/2025: Data Breaches, Wars, and Digital Censorship
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Poetry, Old Androids and Small Shells
- Links for the day
- The Rumour Was True, Mass Layoffs at IBM Today
- How widespread the layoffs are (or how they're disguised, e.g. PIPs) is hard to assess
- Links 03/11/2025: Internet Anniversary
- Links for the day
- Two Years of Uptime
- Reboots are seldom involuntary
- Richard Stallman is Giving Another Talk in Less Than a Fortnight
- in two weeks' time (13 days from now)
- Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
- Many people choose to leave Windows altogether
- Microsoft's Search Business Falls to Lowest Point in 2 Years, Based on statCounter
- what can Microsoft sell other than shares in Microsoft?
- Evidence Regarding Layoffs at Red Hat
- Seems like IBM layoffs
- Microsoft: Our "Goodwill" Value Grew More Than Tenfold Since 2011
- Hallmark of pseudo-economics
- GNU/Linux as a Boarding Pass
- being mostly analogue is still feasible
- Links 03/11/2025: Lack of Trust in LLMs and Windows TCO at Jaguar
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Books in October and Change
- Links for the day
- Mozilla Firefox Won't Survive and Many Sites Don't Work With It (Compatibility Abandoned)
- The Web has become monocultural
- Debian is Non-Free
- Devuan might be worth looking into
- Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli and LinuxSecurity
- This is a real problem and most certainly a big problem because when people try to find real information about security and GNU/Linux they instead read "word salads" made by bots
- Four Reasons to Party With Us in Four Days, Celebrating the Four Freedoms
- Today we expect to be back to a more-or-less regular publication pace
- Links 03/11/2025: The "Smartphone Panopticon" and Belarus' Hybrid Attacks on EU Intensify
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 02, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, November 02, 2025