Tag Archives: Linus Torvalds

Linux

Standing up against verbal abuse

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Seriously, Linus?

Kernel hacker Sarah Sharp has stood up against the way of communication common on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. I have quite a few thoughts about this, and I thought I’d share them here. Quoting Sarah:

I’m standing up against verbal abuse on LKML. I will happily stand alone, however you can also support this cause. Please speak up, either here on Google+ by resharing this post, or commenting on this post with words of support. If you dare, you can also reply to my lkml email.

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2

Thanks for posting this, Sarah. You’re bringing up an important topic here, which is avoided all too often.

Sarah are completely right, and entitled to demand an abuse-free working environment. Thank you for making this explicit, and standing up against those that think it’s not necessary. You’re speaking for a silent crowd, that is now not so silent anymore.

If people really think they can only be productive when using abusive language, they need a reality check and grow up, especially if these people are highly regarded personalities such as Linus Torvalds. What they do is settings a bad example at best, and being actively harmful and divisive at worst.

I wouldn’t care much if that this abusive behavior were happening in their private living room, but in a public place that is not acceptable. It harms our whole community. It cultivates a macho culture of fat white men, while what we really need is diversity.

Within KDE, we have created a culture of friendliness and mutual respect. We have codified this in a code of conduct, and it has grown into the baseline for making work and leisure in the community more fun and less stressful. It also allows us to grow beyond an in-bred bunch of geeks, and become a diverse team, with the skills needed to not just create Free Software, but to contribute to Free Culture (which I think Free software is part of).

Food for thought: If we want Asian hardware manufacturers to work with us on, e.g. drivers for their hardware, and do it upstream, it simply won’t happen in a rude atmosphere that is entirely incompatible with Asian culture (where critique has to be much more subtile). Of course it’s a general problem with cultural diversity.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet KDE

Computers

Review: Google Chromebook Pixel is an expensive curiosity

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Google’s Chromebook Pixel is an idea. It describes Google’s vision of a high-end laptop for citizens of a future world, freed from the encumbrances of old-style computer operating systems, existing entirely on the Web.

The Chromebook Pixel is also a product, starting at $1299 (I reviewed the $1449 version, with 4G networking). It’s as solidly built and generously appointed as any laptop you’ll find, but it runs only the Chrome web browser, not Apple’s Mac OS X or Microsoft’s Windows.

Reigniting the Chromebook debate

As an idea sprung from Google’s view of the future of technology, the Chromebook Pixel is intriguing, even intoxicating. But it’s hard to fathom how it works as a real-world product.

If nothing else, it’s reignited the Chromebook debate. Within the editorial team here, some editors wonder what the Chromebook’s point is, while others say that Chromebook’s critics are missing the point. Meanwhile, tech legend Linus Torvalds came out in favor of the Chromebook Pixel. Reasonable people are disagreeing, and thanks to the Pixel, Chromebooks are suddenly getting a lot of attention again.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

News, Politics, Government

Linux Founder Linus Torvalds Blasts PC Industry, Praises Google's Chromebook Pixel

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By Jason Evangelho, Contributor

Linux founder Linus Torvalds recently picked up a Google Chromebook Pixel, and the hardware left such a positive impression that he posed the question “Why do PC manufacturers even bother any more?” on his Google Plus page. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Computers

The Chromebook Pixel gets a thumbs-up from Linus Torvalds

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Reactions to Google’s new Chromebook Pixel may have been mixed so far, but at least one high-profile figure in the world of IT can’t seem to say enough good things about the device.

“I’ve joined all the cool kids in having one of the new Google ‘Pixel’ laptops (aka Chromebooks),” wrote Linux creator Linus Torvalds in a Google+ post on Tuesday. “And it is a beautiful screen, to the point where I suspect I’ll make this my primary laptop.”

Despite believing that laptops should generally weigh 1kg or less—the Pixel tops that by 50 percent—Torvalds added that he’s willing to make the sacrifice “because the screen really is that nice.”

‘A lot of polish’

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Linux

Cinnamon proposed to replace GNOME Shell as default DE on Fedora 19

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By finid

It was lobbying by the GNOME devs that made GNOME 3 the default on Fedora, but now it seems that somebody has had enough. That somebody has proposed making the Cinnamon the default desktop environment on Fedora 19.

I don’t blame him.

I’ve always been of the opinion that as far a desktop computing goes, and how people interface or interact with their desktop, that there’s something fundamentally wrong with GNOME Shell. It sits atop beautiful technology, but that UI just doesn’t compute. And the problem is that the GNOME devs are not willing to accept that simple fact.

But if this proposal is accepted, they will lose a major distro and, hopefully, will be forced to rethink the GNOME Shell.

According to Eric Smith, the guy behind this proposal:

The Gnome 3 interface is substantially different that the traditional desktop interfaces on both Linux and Windows. While it is good that there is research into new user interface concepts, many users prefer to have a traditional interface that they are accustomed to. … I’m not trying to start (or continue) a flame war here, so I won’t state any of my own criticisms of Gnome Shell here, but I will observe that a number of very high profile people in the Linux community, such as Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, have publicly announce that due to problems with Gnome Shell they are switching to a different desktop and/or Linux distribution.

I submit the proposition that it is easier for a user doing a new Fedora install to start with a traditional desktop, and switch to the Gnome Shell if they prefer that, than to start with Gnome Shell and switch to a traditional desktop.

His proposal gets my vote.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at LinuxBSDos