GNU/Linux Rising: Relevant News Items From March
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-19 19:12:45 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-19 19:12:45 UTC
Desktop
I'm sure there will be objections from people who want to define "the year of the Linux desktop" differently. There will be those fans of GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu who will object that the Linux Desktop has not arrived until we're all running KDE and Gnome. I fear those folks have a while to wait. Others will object because there are still so many copies of Windows and new PCs are still shipping with Windows. That's a fair point, but I believe even those users are actually Linux Desktop users. As I argued last year, Linux has already won on the Windows desktop.
Eurocom sent out a news release that beginning today they will be offering choices of operating systems in their line of GPU-upgradeable, high-performance, professional laptops. Besides the high-end laptop line-up, they will also be offering Linux options for their lightweight notebooks.
If your office runs 24/7, you'll have to do the migration in stages. You may have to migrate servers one at a time, and migrate departments group by group. So, some work gets paused, but most of your business will run during the entire migration process.
Linux has a reputation for being designed for geeks only, but that’s old history. Many modern Linux distributions exceed the user-friendliness of XP, and they’re free to download. If you don’t like the feel of one, you can easily switch to another. What’s more, each Linux distribution comes loaded with useful software such as productivity suites, modern browsers like Chrome or Firefox, and photo and music management apps.
"This is a subject very near and dear to me," Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone told Linux Girl over a fresh Tequila Tux down at the blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon.
Though Stone spent several years teaching "how to" computer courses for faculty and staff at a local university back in the 90s, "all those years barely prepared me for my greatest challenge: my own mother," he said.
To wit: After buying his parents a Windows 95 computer way back when, "I sat her down and showed her how to use the basic hardware," he explained. Yet "even after hours a day over the course of weeks, the computer was too much for her. Windows just had too many options, and she kept getting herself into places she couldn't get out of.
"I literally spent years looking for environments that would make her comfortable," Stone went on. "She went through the Windows OSes (95, 98, ME and finally XP) and some Linuxes -- Red Hat first and then a couple variations of Ubuntu. She always found ways to get herself into trouble."
I’ve been a computer user since around 1991, when we got our first PC, a Tandy from Radio Shack (almost $1,000), which came with Windows 3.1. Since then I’ve used each and every version of that operating system (OS), and still do. But at home and for personal use, it’s Linux for me. Why? Well that’s a question with many answers.
-
The biggest driving factor for software developers to work together with open source is cost. It is much cheaper for them to cooperate through open source than it is to remain isolated with proprietary software, asserted Inktank VP of Product Management Neil Levine. "You can no longer rely on one particular vendor to provide everything you need with regard to technology."
After the Desktop
-
QOOQ is a durable tablet designed for use in then kitchen. It's even got its very own Linux-based OS...
There was a time, back before smartphones and tablets, when most of us used, at most, only three operating systems.
-
For months now David Herrmann has been working on a new project known as OpenWFD for open-source WiFi displays on Linux. OpenWFD is an open-source implementation of the WiFi Display Standard / Miracast. That work is now showing success and as part of that Herrmann has just announced Miraclecast as a component to providing open-source Miracast/WFD support on the Linux desktop.
Chromebook
-
Chromebooks are making a big statement in the laptop world: NPD Group Inc. reported that Chromebook sales accounted for 21 percent of all notebook sales last year. For devices that are functionally little different from tablets — designed for basic tasks like checking email and web browsing — they're growing fast. Even as the tablet market continues to grow, capturing 22 percent of the entire personal computing market just last year, Chromebooks are giving people an alternative to rectangular touch screens.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
- Links for the day
- The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
- We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
- “Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
- they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
-
- Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
- Links for the day
- PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
- let's just be patient
- Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
- a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
- IBM is Not Your Master
- IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
- Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
- A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
- good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
- Leadership in Free Software
- Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
- Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
- The Web is in a really bad state!
- COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
- A few months later we created our very own IRC network
- Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
- Links for the day
- Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
- Links for the day
- Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
- Links for the day
- How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
- Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
- Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
- "[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
- Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
- no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
- Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
- There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
- The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
- X.Org Server is alive and well
- Rewriting Things in Rust
- How far would you go?
- In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
- Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
- Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
- Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
- Monopolies and Scalping
- Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
- Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
- "August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
- What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
- You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
- Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
- LLM slop disguised as news
- Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
- Links for the day
- Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
- Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
- Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
- Via the GNU Web site this week
- Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
- Links for the day
- Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
- We'll write about this for a long time to come
- Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
- Slop videos aren't a new thing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
- The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
- There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
- What Digital Independence Means
- Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
- NVidia is a Bubble
- they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
- Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
- any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
- Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
- Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead