The year 2012 may not yet be over, but here in the Linux community another kind of curtain was recently dropped for the last time. It’s the end of the line for Linux’s support of Intel’s 386 chip, specifically, and tears are being shed across the land — or not.

It was only a few weeks ago that the Linux blogosphere’s Punchy Penguin Saloon suffered its latest round of damage thanks to the recent skirmish over the GPL, but now the popular establishment of questionable repute is actually shut down for a week for repairs. The cause this time? Yet another blogosphere brawl, needless to say, focusing this time on Ubuntu and its newly installed “surveillance code.”

Well the year is rapidly drawing to a close, so naturally it’s time for the requisite stream of “looking back at 2012” and “looking ahead at 2013” story headlines on the news wires. The Linux blogosphere, needless to say, is no exception. Case in point: “Best Distro 2012” was the topic of a TuxRadar poll under way earlier this month, and now the results are in.