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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
- Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
- 'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
- The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
- The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
- Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
- Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
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- [Video] Dr. Richard Stallman at Technické Univerzitě v Liberci
- New/via libre-liberec.cz
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal (Slashdot Media), UbuntuPIT, and Google News (Noise)
- egregious plagiarism
- Links 17/10/2025: Better Answers Sought After Air Crashes, "China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War With U.S. Heats Up"
- Links for the day
- Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
- Links for the day
- The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
- it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
- Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
- Links for the day
- Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
- Very ethical company...
- Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
- We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
- Links 17/10/2025: Nestlé Crisis, Canada Post Versus 'Gig Economy' [sic] and Vista 11 Breaks Itself
- Links for the day
- Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
- In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
- Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
- Some more 'wiring' work
- What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
- Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
- Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
- Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
- End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
- It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
- Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
- We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
- Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
- Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
- coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
- International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
- message from Akira Urushibata
- The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
- These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
- Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
- Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
- 'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
- Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
- Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
- Links for the day
- EPO Staff Representation Lacks Social Dialogue With Relevant Management, Controversial and Sometimes Illegal Policies Implemented Without Necessary Input
- "In this open letter, the CSC requests that the President submits an agenda item in the next available General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting on setting up regular meetings between the CSC and the higher management of DG1."
- Links 16/10/2025: Political Leftovers and Gemini Protocol Links
- Links for the day
- Lies Need to be Corrected
- the Court never invited us
- Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
- Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
- Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
- Links for the day
- SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
- Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
- Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
- "AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
- IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
- Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
- Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
- Links for the day
- MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
- "the news" today
- Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
- Links for the day
- The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
- "...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
- Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
- It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
- Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
- A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
- Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
- Links for the day
- Links 15/10/2025: Qantas Airways Loses Control of Sensitive Data and Software Patents Are Being Thrown Out
- Links for the day
- Vista 10 is 'Dead', Here's Why People Should Move to GNU/Linux (or the BSDs)
- Today we try to make an outline of reasons move away from Windows to GNU/Linux
- Our Sites Continue to Improve
- LLM slop has had no noticeable impact on us
- Gemini Links 15/10/2025: Neovim, Helix Compared and Gemlog.blue Now Closed
- Links for the day
- Links 15/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon, OneDrive Spyware Revved Up, More 'Gen Z Protests'
- Links for the day
- The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
- "[W]e have received reports that, following the previous survey, teams with negative responses were reproached or questioned about their answers..."
- The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
- This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
- Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
- Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
- [Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
- We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
- Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
- A week ago they offered to settle with us
- Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
- Nothing lasts forever
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
- Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
- Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
- The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
- Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
- Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock