Photo credit: Nick Hopkins

I am a Panda lover. I work as a support engineer in an I.T company here in the United Kingdom. Most of my spare time is spent watching different Panda videos -- both old and new videos. Basically, it is my therapy; a 'stress release' for me. I find them to be adorable and precious creatures. As a matter of fact, I would like to volunteer to come to Sichuan. I want to experience and feel what it's like to be a Panda keeper, to be able to interact with them for real. The Panda is China's National Treasure, so it's a shame to watch the Panda videos from Beijing zoo, as the place is disgusting and not ideal for Pandas to live in (and for sure for all the rest of the animals who unfortunately got stuck in this prison cell).

The place looks like a ghost town. Lifeless and languished. Knowing that Pandas wear a thick fur on their body, can you imagine what it feels for them in 30C or 35C (summer temperature)? What it probably feels like all the time? Come on, if you really care, you must do something now, otherwise these Pandas will die. Please bring them back to their sanctuary where they really belong. █

Summary: We can now be found in Mastodon too

A FOSS and decentralised Twitter alternative has received plenty of media attention/traction lately, so Tux Machines belatedly joins in and we invite readers to follow us there if they wish to create an account. The popularity of the platform exploded (number of users quadrupled so far this month). █

Summary: Another milestone for Tux Machines, which will turn 15 in a couple of years

100,000 nodes in Tux Machines will have been published later tonight. This one will be assigned node ID/#99995. Earlier today someone anonymous told us, "I just wanted to say thank you for all the work you've done and new information updates at tuxmachines.org."

That's what we are here for -- to help spread information. We don't profit or gain anything from this site, but it's our way of giving back to the Free/Open Source software community.

On to 200,000 (this may take another decade or more). █

QUITE a few additional articles -- mostly puff pieces (below is a complete/exhaustive list) -- have been published since yesterday's blog post, which was followed by a short article from Techrights. There is a lot of Microsoft PR inside the news/media right now (more and more by the hour) and it's coordinated (sometimes in advance, based on what we learned yesterday) by Microsoft. Here is a quick rebuttal to the 4 strands of news:

1. The Linux Foundation joins Microsoft (not a slip): Microsoft paid half a million dollars for over a hundred puff pieces (in English alone) and lots of leverage over Linux, including a distraction from the patent wars it wages.
2. The GNU/Linux crowd gets a proprietary software database it neither wants nor needs: This might be useful when Microsoft tries to infiltrate GNU/Linux deployments like the one in Munich, later boasting better integration with Windows than with GNU/Linux (same for running Bash/Ubuntu under Windows 10).
3. Google and .NET: Microsoft accepts that it lost the mobile wars and also lost developers, so it tries ever more desperately to spread .NET and/or Mono.
4. Tizen/Samsung and .NET: As above.

That's about all it means. Below is the raw PR, which is intended to sometimes (it doesn't always work) mislead the reader, having misled the writers/journalists. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft demonstrates its commitment to open source by joining Linux Foundation [Ed: Microsoft advocacy sites (often paid-for nonsense) like to pretend to themselves that Microsoft is now a good citizen, not racketeer. iophk: “You’ve probably seen links about LF joining Microsoft so I won’t add them. It would have been news if Microsoft joined OIN.”]

2. Microsoft joins The Linux Foundation as a Platinum member [Ed: How MS advocacy sites put it; the larger payment (like political 'donation') was inevitable. To quote Benjamin Henrion, "Microsoft depends so much on taxing Linux via its dubious software patents that they have decided to join the Linux Foundation #corruption"]

3. Microsoft now a Platinum Member at Linux Foundation and .NET foundation has Google onboard

4. Microsoft joins the Linux foundation and blows everyone’s mind

5. Microsoft And Linux Working On Advance Open Source Project Development, SQL Server And Azure App Service

6. Microsoft and Linux Collaborates For Open-Source Game; As Rivals Unite, How Could Linux Benefit From This?

7. Microsoft joins Linux Foundation as it continues to embrace open source

8. Microsoft join hands with Linux Foundation as platinum member

9. Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member

10. Microsoft Becomes a Member of The Linux Foundation

11. Is Google crashing the Microsoft open source party?

12. Microsoft: SQL Server for Linux is the real deal

13. Microsoft doubles down on Linux love, joins foundation

14. Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, launches test build of Visual Studio for Mac

15. Microsoft makes open source commitment with new partnerships involving Google, Linux, Samsung

16. Microsoft joins Linux Foundation as a Platinum Member

17. Microsoft joins Linux Foundation, Open-Source development to get major boost

18. Microsoft joins Linux Foundation at Platinum Partner

19. After OpenAI Partnership, Microsoft Joins The Linux Foundation To Dive Deeper Into Open-Source Code

20. Microsoft is joining the Linux Foundation

21. Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation, Bets on Open Cloud Computing

22. Microsoft Shows Linux Love by Joining the Linux Foundation

23. Loves spreads, new Microsoft SQL Server now previewed on Ubuntu

24. Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, no really

25. Linux Academy Partners with Microsoft Visual Studio Dev Essentials Program

26. Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member, The Last Leaf has Fallen

27. Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, confirms commitment to open source development

28. Microsoft has joined the Linux foundation

29. Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation, After Calling Linux a 'Cancer'

30. Microsoft Drops Tech Bombshell As It Joins Linux Foundation

31. Microsoft partners with the Linux Foundation

32. Microsoft and Google bury the hatchet in one small way

33. Microsoft Joins the Linux Foundation As Everyone Now Loves Open Source

34. Microsoft is the Platinum member of Linux Foundation

35. Linux Foundation Gets a Surprising New Member: Microsoft

36. SQL Server joins the Linux party, new preview comes to Linux and Docker

37. Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member, Google joins .Net community

38. Microsoft joins Linux Foundation that promotes open-source technology

39. Microsoft SQL Server Supports Linux

40. Cricket Australia to adopt Microsoft’s team and player performance platform

41. Microsoft announces association with Linux Foundation with Platinum membership

42. Microsoft joins The Linux Foundation at highest membership tier

43. Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation As Platinum Member And Releases Ports

44. Microsoft Embraces Open Source, Joins Linux Foundation

45. As Microsoft joins Linux, Google shakes hands with the .NET Foundation

46. Microsoft joined the Linux foundation as a platinum member because of Cloud Services

47. Microsoft, Google, and Samsung Bury the Hatchet with New Partnerships

48. Microsoft, Google, Samsung Team Up In Open Source Development

49. Microsoft surprises by joining Linux, 15 years after calling it a ‘cancer’

50. Microsoft joins Linux Foundation in another nod to open-source code

51. Microsoft officially joins the Linux league of open source contributors

52. After Microsoft joins Linux, Google Cloud joins .NET Foundation

53. Google signs on to the .NET Foundation

54. Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation

55. Microsoft’s .NET Foundation Now Includes Google

56. Microsoft Joins The Linux Foundation In Latest Open Source Commitment

57. Microsoft joins The Linux Foundation; takes on Oracle

58. Microsoft Joins The Linux Foundation to Boost Open Source Software Ecosystem

59. Microsoft has officially joined the Linux Foundation

I have covered Microsoft's interference with FOSS for over a decade and carefully studied even pertinent antitrust documents. I know the company's way of thinking when it comes to undermining their competition, based on internal communications and strategy papers. Even days ago we got this in the news.

The pattern of embrace and extend (to extinguish) -- all this while leveraging software patents to make Linux a Microsoft cash cow or compel OEMs to preinstall privacy-hostile Microsoft software/apps with proprietary formats (lockin) -- never ended. What I see in the Linux Foundation right now is what I saw in Nokia 5 years ago and in Novell 10 years ago -- the very thing that motivated me to start Boycott Novell, a site that has just turned 10 with nearly 22,000 blog posts.

It is a saddening day because it's a culmination, after years of Microsoft 'micro' payments to the Linux Foundation (e.g. event sponsorship in exchange for keynote positions), which will have Microsoft shoved down the throats of GNU/Linux proponents and give an illusion of peace when there is none, not just on the patent front but also other fronts (see what Microsoft's partner Accenture is doing in Munich right now). The links below are a complete list of the bad (in my view very bad) news. █

"We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger….If you’re going to kill someone, there isn’t much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. You just pull the trigger. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."

--Jim Allchin, Microsoft's Platform Group Vice President

In the news today:

• Microsoft Steps Up Its Commitment to Open Source

  Today The Linux Foundation is announcing that we’ve welcomed Microsoft as a Platinum member. I’m honored to join Scott Guthrie, executive VP of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, at the Connect(); developer event in New York and expect to be able to talk more in the coming months about how we’ll intensify our work together for the benefit of the open source community at large.

• Microsoft Joins The Linux Foundation As A Platinum Member

• Microsoft's Linux love affair leads it to join The Linux Foundation

  No, this isn't The Onion and it's not April Fool's Day. Microsoft has joined The Linux Foundation.

  Microsoft announced that it was joining forces with The Linux Foundation at the Microsoft Connect developer event in New York.

• Microsoft announces the next version SQL Server for Windows and Linux

• Microsoft joins The Linux Foundation as a Platinum member

• Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation

• Microsoft—yes, Microsoft—joins the Linux Foundation

• THE END TIMES ARE HERE: Microsoft embraces Google, Apple, Samsung and even Linux in one go

• Microsoft's open source love fest continues as it joins Linux Foundation

• Microsoft Goes Linux Platinum, Welcomes Google To .NET Foundation

• Microsoft joins Linux Foundation in another nod to open-source code

• Microsoft Is Joining the Linux Foundation

• Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation

• Microsoft joins Linux Foundation in another step toward greater openness

• Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, 15 years after Ballmer called it 'cancer'

• Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member, Google joins .Net community

• Microsoft is now a Linux Foundation Platinum Member

• That's an expensive Linux install! Microsoft gives the Linux foundation $550000

• Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation because 2016 isn't weird enough already

• Microsoft just got its Linux Foundation platinum card, becomes top level member

• 4 no-bull takeaways from Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation

• Microsoft announces the public preview of the next release of SQL Server on Linux and Windows

• Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation, Google Joins .NET Community

• Microsoft just joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member

• Linux has won, Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation

• Microsoft is joining the Linux foundation as a platinum member

• Microsoft joins Linux Foundation, Google added to .NET community

• Microsoft seeks to grow Azure platform with products, partnerships

• Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation As Platinum Member

• Microsoft Fortifies Commitment to Open Source, Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

• Microsoft contributes to open ecosystem by joining Linux Foundation and welcoming Google to the .NET community

• Linux Academy Partners with Microsoft Visual Studio Dev Essentials Program

• Microsoft Joins the Linux Foundation as the World Remains the Right Side Up

• Hell freezes over as Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation

• Microsoft Joins Linux Foundation as a Platinum Member

• Microsoft Connect: Visual Studio 2017, SQL Server v.Next for Windows and Linux and More

• SQL Server joins the Linux party, new preview comes to Linux and Docker

• Microsoft joins The Linux Foundation

• Google joins .Net Foundation

• Microsoft and Google bury the hatchet in one small way

• Google joins Microsoft's .NET Foundation

• Microsoft announces Visual Studio for Mac, preview of the next SQL Server with Linux and Docker support

• Microsoft's SQL Server Next for Linux, Windows hit public preview [Ed: Proprietary software with surveillance is not a gift]

• Google signs on to the .NET Foundation as Samsung brings .NET support to Tizen

  Microsoft is hosting its annual Connect(); developer event in New York today. With .NET being at the core of many of its efforts, including on the open-source side, it's no surprise that the event also featured a few .NET-centric announcements...

• Samsung launches Visual Studio Tools for Tizen preview, lets developers build apps with .NET

• Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, welcomes Google to .NET community

• Microsoft releases SQL Server Preview for Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• Microsoft says Linux is no longer 'cancer,' joining Foundation

Summary: Quick report about site traffic

Tux Machines has been enjoying growth in recent weeks, though it's hard to attribute it to anything in particular. The following are the past 4 weeks' logs (we delete all logs after 4 weeks, for privacy reasons, assuring no long-term retention).

-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 389699117 Oct  9 04:40 access.log-20161009
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 454715290 Oct 16 03:46 access.log-20161016
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 478747167 Oct 23 03:12 access.log-20161023
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 499911551 Oct 30 03:40 access.log-20161030

We recently quadrupled the servers' CPU capacity.

The above is not the complete picture. That's omitting all the Varnish activity, which handles the majority of the traffic but simply cannot cache all pages. We are still trying to reduce the frequency of spam incidents (some of the spamy submissions manage to inject JavaScript very briefly).

We'll soon reach the 100,000-node milestone of this Drupal site. █

I never thought I could win in a challenge of 3 events.

I guess age is not an excuse for giving up... more so in physical fitness; as the saying goes, health is wealth.... consequently, I'll keep doing my routine and even yoga. It is extremely relaxing!

Motivation, hard work, discipline. By-product is triumph...

Summary: Today's party celebrating the release of GNOME 3.22

RIANNE AND I both attended today's GNOME release party in Manchester. It was a good opportunity to meet some geeky people, including a few from Codethink, which organised this event. █

The Linux Foundation recently added the Platform for Network Data Analytics (PNDA)

Summary: Network/traffic analytics for Tux Machines

ULTIMATELY, here in Tux Machines we strive to include every bit of relevant news (standalone pages for more important news, clusters of links for the rest, grouped by topic). We rarely blog although sometimes we add an opinion (marked "Ed", shorthand for "Editor").

It has been a long time since we last wrote about statistics. As readers may know by now, we only retain logs for up to 4 weeks (security/diagnostics purposes), then these get deleted for good so as to maintain privacy (we cannot be compelled to hand over data). Those logs show only direct hits, they don't include pages served through the cache^* (Varnish) and here is the latest, where the date stands for "week ending":

-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 224439408 Aug  7 03:17 access.log-20160807
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 310050330 Aug 14 03:22 access.log-20160814
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 343901488 Aug 21 03:17 access.log-20160821
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root 344256886 Aug 28 03:15 access.log-20160828

The above indicates that, judging by the back end (not cache), traffic continues to increase. Over the past week the site was sometimes unbearably slow if not inaccessible. In the worse case we'll upgrade the server for extra capacity, assuring decent speed. Worth noting is that in the latest log (ending August 28^th) less than 1,000 hits came from Edge, so very few among our visitors use the latest and 'greatest' from Microsoft. █
____
^* The cache server services several domains, notably Tux Machines and Techrights, and it averages at around 1.5 GB of traffic per hour.

THE past few weeks were exceptionally busy for the site as readership grew considerably and the site turned 12. Originally, the site did not share Linux news but had various other sections. Years later Susan Linton made it the success story it is today and in 2013-2014 we only modernised the theme and kept the old tradition, format, etc. We hope this pleases longtime readers of the site. Comments on how the site is run are always taken into account. █

There has been a system in place to help prevent SPAM since the last major SPAM incident, but sometimes we still overlook some SPAM which gets into the front page, taking advantage of our very liberal and open submissions system (to enable participation by the whole community of users). If any spam still manages to sneak into the front page (often with pesky JavaScript redirects), please get in contact with us ASAP so that we can take action. Thanks to Christine Hall for the latest headsup. █

FOR those who may be wondering, we didn't get compromised or anything. We never had any such incidents. What happened earlier is that some spammer, who had created an account before we limited account creation (due to spam), made the spam expandable to the whole screen, covering many of the pages with that spam (overlay). We are working on code to help prevent such spamming so that legitimate users can post comments etc. without spammers ruining the experience for everyone else. █

Summary: A 2-hour investigation reveals that Tux Machines is now the victim of an arrogant, out-of-control Baidu

TUX MACHINES has been mostly offline later this morning. It has evidently become the victim of Baidu's lawlessness, having fallen under huge dumps of requests from IP addresses which can be traced back to Baidu and whose requests say Baidu as well (we tried blocking these, but it's not easy to do by IP because they have so many). They don't obey robots.txt rules; not even close! It turns out that others suffer from this as well. These A-holes have been causing a lot of problems to the site as of late (slowdowns was one of those problems), including damage to the underlying framework. Should we report them? To who exactly? Looking around the Web, there are no contact details (in English anyway) by which to reach them.

Baidu can be very evil towards Web sites. Evil. Just remember that. █

Update: 3 major DDOS attacks (so far today) led to a lot of problems and they also revealed that not Baidu was at fault but botmasters who used "Baidu" to masquerade themselves, hiding among some real and legitimate requests from Baidu (with Baidu-owned IP addresses). We have changed our firewall accordingly. We don't know who's behind these attacks and what the motivations may be.

I love the KDE desktop—I really do. However… here are some grumbles.

QUIETLY but surely, last week marked an important milestone, with traffic at the back end (not the cache layer^*) exceeding 1.8 million hits, thus establishing a new record. So far this week it looks as though we are going to break this record again. We hope that the new format, which places emphasis on high importance links (as standalone nodes) and puts less important links in topical groups (grouping like games or howtos), makes reading the site more convenient and makes keeping abreast of the news easier, without getting overloaded in a way that is not somewhat manageable (links inside groups are typically less important, as intended). We're open to any suggestions readers may have to ensure we remain a leading syndicator of GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source software news. Any feedback can improve the site. █

_____
^* It is difficult to measure what happens at the Varnish layer as it's shared among several domains, including Techrights.

IN CASE it's not already obvious, we have been posting fewer links since the 14th of this month because we are both away and we catch up with some news only when time permits. Today's hot day (38 degrees) will probably allow us to stay indoors more time than usual and therefore post some more links (from Rianne's laptop), but a week for now is when we'll properly catch up with everything that was missed and gradually get back to normal, hopefully for a long time to come.

Please bear with us while we enjoy our last chance to have a summer vacation. It's already cold back home in Manchester. █

Earlier this month my husband and I needed a replacement for the Chromebook that I had installed Linux on after Christmas because the keyboard developed a fault. This was a good opportunity to get an upgrade and to connect the 28-inch monitor to it, allowing us to watch Wimbledon over the Internet (we don't watch TV).

Unboxing photos:

Setting up the machine:

It comes with Chrome OS, but I don't want that:

Switch to developer mode:

Setting it up to not be so locked down:

With Roy's help, installing Ubuntu LTS:

Nearly done:

Running KDE/Plasma (my favourite):

Running XFCE:

Running Unity (which I still try to use on a daily basis after using KDE for years):

We have since then bought a cabinet for the external screen and Roy finished building it 2 days ago, so now we can watch shows while we work (4 screen combined using Synergy). █

Summary: Some numbers to show what goes on in sites that do not share information about their visitors (unlike Windows-centric sites which target non-technical audiences)

THE common perception of GNU/Linux is that it is scarcely used, based on statistics gathered from privacy-hostile Web sites that share (or sell) access log data, embed spyware in all of their pages, and so on. Our sites are inherently different because of a reasonable -- if not sometimes fanatic -- appreciation of privacy at both ends (server and client). People who read technical sites know how to block ads, impede spurious scripts etc. These sites also actively avoid anything which is privacy-infringing, such as interactive 'social' media buttons (these let third parties spy on all visitors in all pages).

Techrights and Tux Machines attract the lion's share our traffic (and server capacity). They both have dedicated servers. These are truly popular and some of the leaders in their respective areas. Techrights deals with threats to software freedom, whereas Tux Machines is about real-time news discovery and organisation (pertaining to Free software and GNU/Linux).

The Varnish layer, which protects both of these large sites (nearly 100,000 pages in each, necessitating a very large cache pool), handles somewhere between a gigabyte to 2.5 gigabytes of data per hour (depending on the time of day, usually somewhere in the middle of this range, on average).

The Apache layer, which now boasts 32 GB of RAM and sports many CPU cores, handled 1,324,232 hits for Techrights (ranked 6636^th for traffic in Netcraft) in this past week and 1,065,606 for Tux Machines (ranked 6214^th for traffic in Netcraft).

Based on VISITORS Web Log Analyzer, this is what we've had in Techrights:

Windows: (36.2%)
Linux: (31.8%)
Unknown: (e.g. bots/spiders): (23.0%)
Macintosh: (8.8%)
FreeBSD: (0.1%)

As a graph (charted with LibreOffice):

Tux Machines reveals a somewhat different pattern. Based on grepping/filtering the of past month's log at the Apache back end (not Varnish, which would have been a more sensible but harder thing to do), presenting the top 3 only:

One month is as far as retention goes, so it's not possible to show long-term trends (as before, based on Susan's summary of data). Logs older than that are automatically deleted, as promised, for both sites -- forever! We just need a small tail of data (temporarily) for DDOS prevention. █

TUX MACHINES has been having some issues with the spam filter, so people who regularly submit material, including comments, may have struggled to do so over the past fortnight of so. If that's the case, please re-attempt and report any issue you encounter to us (feedback button on the right). █

Tux Machines traffic has been increasing during spring. The DDOS attacks are behind us thankfully, the latest problem is just a lot of spam, which we are deleting as soon as we can. █