“Summer of the Linux desktop”

rowth of GNU/Linux has accelerated this summer and tomorrow at around 10AM statCounter will produce more evidence of that.

I plan to stay home around that time to check the latest data. I also to examine trends in Cloudflare Rader.

reat interview with Richard Stallman published yesterday.

Stallman on LLMs: “The reason LLMs so often generate text whose meaning refers to false supposed facts is that they never really understand the text; they don’t work with meanings or facts in the domain of discussion. The terms they merit are “pretend intelligence” and “bullshit generators.”

“To avoid being lured into supporting the marketing hype based on “AI,” please join me in reserving the word “intelligence” for systems that qualify for it.

“I surely didn’t say anything about whether LLMs are “open,” because, as I’ve explained, I do not advocate making software “open” or “open source.” Those terms are depoliticized substitutes for “free” and “libre,” and were coined to win the support of businesses by avoiding the issues of freedom and justice (for the users of software) that might lead to criticizing businesses on moral grounds. Since those are the crucial issues in my view, the question I always ask about a program is whether it is free or libre.

“The LLMs that people mostly hear about are not released as free software. In fact, mostly they are not released at all: copies are not available. They can be used only as “online services” — meaning that the program a user directs a question to is running on some company’s computer, and under the developer’s total control. Even to modify it by patching the binary is impossible.

“Entrusting your own computing activity to software running on someone else’s server inherently subjugates you, because you can’t possibly modify that copy — even if it is a copy of a free program. We call that scenario SaaSS, for “Service as a Software Substitute” and we reject it.

“Since January I’ve heard of one LLM which seems to be released with freedom, including the training inputs. If that checks out, we would describe it as “free.”

“Alas, that doesn’t make it “intelligence.””

hese days I use two media players to play my CDs (mostly 1990s albums and collections). One is KDE’s Dragon Player (because it’s based on Qt), the other is VLC. The latter has a lot more functionality but higher RAM footprint. In the past I used even leaner applications to achieve the same functionality. Those are no longer compatible with this setup (a lot changes in 20+ years in this sector).

I might write a detailed analysis about this some time in the future in a more Linux-centric site, but I need a unique and useful angle. I don’t have that at the moment.

remember starting my Ph.D. in 2003 when GNU/Linux was small and many challenges persisted (e.g. a Web that expected MSIE everywhere). We now look at around 10% market share for GNU/Linux – something many of us have dreamed of for decades.

Now a major goal is to teach people about Software Freedom, not just “Linux”.

HAVE just reproduced the latest long post from Pocock.

The election is tomorrow.

“Daniel Pocock wins the award for the person who has travelled the longest distance to take part in this circus,” someone wrote some hours ago, he “as he gives an address in Australia.”

So what?

There is another Australian in there.

HE world is getting worse in many ways. But there are also hopeful developments.

GNU/Linux is on its way to become “top dog” in desktops and laptops. I am super-happy that now, in 2026, we’re having those sorts of debates.

However, will the philosophical battle for Freedom be won too?

This is not a given.

Because “the politics like Daniel and you are fighting will worsen for a while,” as it was put to me. “Here there is a problem because there is not a single place (AFAIK) to learn even the smallest amount of ICT anywhere in the entire nation,” someone told me. “All have been replaced by Microsoft resellers [...] The digital sovereignty question is not a technical matter, but one of politics and specifically about how to purge the Microsoft resellers from their entrenched positions where they block teaching and learning of ICT across the EU…”

Consider for example what they do in schools (paywalled article). “Teachers talking about GenAI [sic] in schools more trouble than it is worth? [...] we are beginning to see signs that GenAI is starting to lose its lustre.”

Why did this nonsense manage to (or was allowed to) enter schools in the first place? What were they teaching and why? Who for?

“Is Microsoft in schools more trouble than it is worth?”

“Yes. It is,” I was told. “Are Microsoft cults in school administrations more trouble than they are worth? Yes, they are.”

We need to oppose not only proprietary software but also social control media and chatbots. They have no inherent value, they’re mostly instruments of indoctrination and “population control” or “social control” (the latter is less loaded a term).

Crossposted from Tux Machines

2 days ago: Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It’s Turning Out to be a Total Disaster

5 hours ago:

2022: GNOME (IBM/Red Hat Staff) Promoting Microsoft’s ‘Security’ Scam With the ‘Secure’ Boot Sham (this developer now publicly complains that IBM forces him to paste in slop instead of code)

2024 (‘Secure’ Boot sabotages dual-booting): Good Reason to Delete Windows, Not Dual-Boot, and Call Out the Microsofters Who Worked to Impose ‘Secure’ Boot, Undermining Antitrust Complaints

Last week (FUD against dual-booting): Poor Piece From Valnet: Microsoft Keeps Sabotaging GNU/Linux, So You Should Quit Using GNU/Linux

ou want to use GNU/Linux? To join 7.7% of the world? Why would you want to do that? Use Windows. Try WSL.

That is what they are trying to tell us and the companies that employ us. GNU/Linux is “dangerous”, “untrusted”, and “unreliable”.