Posts published in “Distros”

Mea Culpas & Cranky Patients Named Ken

By Larry Cafiero on January 23, 2015 |

Community, Distros, Hardware, News, Operating Systems and Site News

FOSS Week in Review

One of the most discussed items of the week, arriving with much fanfare, comes from our friends at Canonical/Ubuntu, who brought you Ubuntu TV and Ubuntu Edge — oh wait, they said they’d bring them but never actually delivered — and who now wants to be the operating system behind the nebulously termed “Internet of Things.”

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols starts with a mea culpa in his ZDNet article for assuming that Ubuntu Core — Canonical’s entry in the Internet of Things operating systems — was “a pure server play.” The article, of course, outlines the plan, with details provided by Mark Shuttleworth himself. It’s definitely worth a read.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Why Jeff Hoogland Returned to Bodhi

Why Jeff Hoogland Returned to Bodhi

By Christine Hall on January 22, 2015 |

Distros, News and Operating Systems

On Tuesday morning I awoke to find in my inbox a cryptic message, sent during the wee hours of the morning, from Jeff Hoogland.

Shortly after our interview I made a liar out of myself and got bit by the Bodhi bug again.

The interview, of course, referenced the one published here on FOSS Force on the Monday before last, in which we discussed his leaving Bodhi for greener fields or Python or something. Hoogland finished Tuesday morning’s message with a link to a page on his Thoughts on Technology blog, where he was announcing his return to Bodhi Linux in his original role as project manager and lead developer.

Really? He was going back?

In the FOSS world, this was pretty big news. I got to work writing a story right away, taking time out to dash off a quick message to Hoogland.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com

Fedora 23: 64-bit Only?

By Larry Cafiero on January 21, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware and Operating Systems

So let’s see how this flies in the wide world of FOSS….

Stephen Smoogen blogs recently that he’s pitching a proposal for a 64-bit only Fedora starting with Fedora 23 — that’s not the next one, but the one after that; maybe Fedora 24, if it is not possible by Fedora 23.

For those of you keeping score at home, Smoogen is a long-time Fedora contributor who now serves on Fedora’s EPEL Steering Committee. And EPEL? That’s what’s commonly known as Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux, “a Fedora Special Interest Group that creates, maintains, and manages a high quality set of additional packages for Enterprise Linux, including, but not limited to, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS and Scientific Linux (SL), Oracle Linux (OL),” according to their wiki.

Fedora 23: 32-bit users need not apply?

Smoogen writes in introducing his self-described “Devil’s Proposal” the following: “I am going to make the uncomfortable and ugly proposal to drop 32 bit in Fedora 23 and only look at 64 bit architectures as primary architectures.”

Larry Cafiero

Jeff Hoogland’s Back at Bodhi

By Christine Hall on January 20, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

Here’s some news that should make Bodhi Linux users happy. Jeff Hoogland has returned to Bodhi in his former position as project manager/lead developer.

If you’ll remember, Hoogland stepped down from the position back in September, stating on his blog that he was leaving his post “for a variety of reasons.”

In an interview with Hoogland a couple of weeks back, I learned that despite stepping down as lead developer, Hoogland has continued to be involved in Bodhi development, primarily by helping the new development team get on track. “The build process for Bodhi was largely handled by myself previously and much of my process was contained in my head and not in documentation,” he said. “That is changing.”

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Linux Distros We’ll Never See

Linux Distros We’ll Never See

By Larry Cafiero on January 14, 2015 |

Distros, Humor and Operating Systems

A few days ago, I was cleaning my desk in the lab and happened upon a printout of a fake distro called Chuck Norris Linux — more commonly known as CHUX — which casually mentions that “…if Chuck Norris wrote Linux, you couldn’t boot it, it would boot you.”

It reminded me of the yes-it-really-happened Hannah Montana Linux, based on Kubuntu, which to my knowledge is still in existence, at least on Github. Following the logic that if these two can exist, even though one is fake and the other real, I started thinking about other distros based on other cultural icons which would never (thank God) see the light of day. Like…

Larry Cafiero

Jeff Hoogland On the Future of & Life After Bodhi

By Christine Hall on January 12, 2015 |

Community, Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

The FOSS Force Interview

Jeff Hoogland comes by the respect he has within the Linux community the old fashioned way; he’s earned it. He’s done so, in large part, by creating the Bodhi Linux distro, which is not only very popular with a large and loyal user base, it’s rock solid, stable and even elegant. It’s also not a “cookie cutter distro” by any stretch of the imagination — there’s nothing else like it on the DistroWatch’s list. He also likes to share his ideas with the community, which he does through his blog, Thoughts on Technology.

Unlike many Linux developers, he doesn’t earn his living in the software business — not entirely anyway. He’s a mathematician by trade, who pays his room and board as an adjunct faculty member teaching mathematics at ITT Technical Institute in Springfield, Illinois.

In his free time, he’s a gamer. Oddly, his game of choice isn’t played with a joystick hooked-up to a computer, but something a little more retro — the 1990s fantasy trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Evidently, he’s quite good at it.

Oh yes, he’s also a family man, but more on that later…

It’s been exactly four months since Hoogland steped down as lead developer for Bodhi Linux, a move that naturally caused some concern among the distro’s users. Wondering myself about the future of Bodhi and Hoogland’s personnel plans, last week I sent him a message, asking if he’d be interested in doing an email interview with FOSS Force, which he quickly agreed to do. Not wanting to take too much of his time, I kept the interview short, at only a dozen questions.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

CES: Smart TVs on Linux; SCALE prep underway

By Larry Cafiero on January 9, 2015 |

Community, Distros, Hardware, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

First things first: Thanks to Christine Hall for standing in for me last Friday for the weekly wrap-up. As some of you know, I was pretty much in the dark for the first five days of the year after a fire in my building (nowhere near me) early on New Year’s Day morning caused the power to be shut down.

As we start 2015, with the Consumer Electronic Show in full swing in Lost Wages (more on this in a bit), let’s take a look at some of the happenings in the FOSS realm.

SCALE 13x in the starting blocks: The team organizing the Southern California Linux Expo’s 13th edition, more commonly known as SCALE 13x, has begun to ramp up preparations for the show. This year, SCALE 13x adds a day to become a four-day event running from Thursday, February 19 through Sunday, February 22 at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport hotel. The speakers have been chosen and the SCALE Team is in the process of sending out acceptances and rejections — so if you’ve heard you’re in, congratulations. If you haven’t heard either way, you will soon.

Larry Cafiero

A FOSS Wish List for 2015

By Christine Hall on January 1, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware, Humor, Mobile and Software

First my FOSS predictions for 2015: cloud, systemd, vulnerabilities, containers, and Linus uses the “F” word.

Let’s forget predictions; they’re boring. They’re either too obvious or they’re not likely to happen. So is my wish list, with two major exceptions. First, wishes are much more subjective, making them much more fun for the wisher. Second, when predictions don’t happen, they’re wrong. When I wish for things and they don’t happen, they’re still things I wish for, so they’re not wrong, they’re just not happening. Caution must be exercised, however. Remember the old proverb ascribed to the Chinese about the possibility of wishes coming true…

Oh, one last thing about how I wish. Sometimes I wish in very great detail. My friends who believe in magic tell me this is good, that it will help bring my wishes to fruition. Time will tell. Stay tuned…

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

2014’s Five Biggest Stories Affecting FOSS

By Christine Hall on December 30, 2014 |

Business, Community, Distros, Internet, News, Operating Systems, Patents, Politics and Security

Another year has come and gone, and as you might have guessed, 2014 still wasn’t the year of the Linux desktop.

Covering FOSS and Linux isn’t nearly as exciting as it was a decade or so ago — but that’s a good thing. Back then, we were at war with nearly every proprietary software vendor on the planet and faced threats from all directions, including up and down. To be sure, we didn’t start the wars we were fighting, as PROFAL (the People’s Republic of FOSS and Linux) only wished for peaceful coexistence.

The dust settled long ago and it appears as if we won most of these wars we didn’t start. Even our old arch enemy Microsoft is now waving the flag of peace and is seeking to normalize relations with us. And our old arch-arch enemy, SCO, doesn’t even exist any more — at least not in any form that we would recognize as the SCO of old. May Caldera rest in peace.

That doesn’t mean there’s not still news to be covered in the FOSS world. There is — and plenty of it. But these days, it’s mostly about advancements in technology, new start-ups and new alliances. We still face threats, to be sure, from crackers, spooks, politicians, the RIAA and the MPAA, but these forces threaten all of computerdom, not just FOSS, so we’ve been able to nurture some new strange bedfellows to join us in our struggles.

As years go, 2014 wasn’t the most boring year in the history of the free software movement, but it also wasn’t overly exciting. Again, that’s a good thing as it means there was no battening down the hatches and stuff. Still, there were many trends in the news this year which directly affect the purveyors and users of FOSS.

Here’s my top five list:

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Whether Online or Off: Be Nice to Each Other

Whether Online or Off: Be Nice to Each Other

By Ken Starks on December 30, 2014 |

Community, Distros and Internet

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
–Mark Twain

We’ve talked about this before.

A while back I was an observer during an extremely short span of time. An instant when a choice was going to be made and that decision was going to be life-changing. I want to share that specific moment with you, as well as how that one short space in time changed one person’s life forever.

We learned a social rule early on in school. Those of us who were part of a Kindergarten curriculum were taught it when we were what…five or six years old?

“Be nice to each other.”

It’s a simple thing really. Not as much of a rule as it is a tool for successful social interaction. Being a jerk or an aggressive asshat is only effective in the short-term. Continuous expression of said asshattery will eventually brand you as outside of the herd…the social herd as it were.

You can see it daily if you look for it. The jerk who isn’t invited for drinks and fun after work. The mouthy bully who ends up being the last one to go home because no one wants to help him finish up. I’ve also seen it in horrible circumstances. Nightmare circumstances where castigation from the group can be hot-metal-projectiles-ripping-into-your-body-and-rending-you-assunder deadly. I don’t want to specifically talk about it. Just look up the term “military frag” and you’ll understand.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

Punching Out the Week on Boxing Day

By Larry Cafiero on December 26, 2014 |

Business, Distros, Internet and News

FOSS Week in Review

So much joy abounds on Christmas morning, unless of course you’re trying to set up your new XBox or your new PlayStation (See? You should have waited for the Steam box…). But you can’t blame the North Koreans for that — blame is being heaped upon your friends at the Lizard Squad which, according to an article in USA Today (Tomorrow, the World!), is taking credit for the takedown (not their first try at this — they have previously claimed credit for attacks earlier this year on the PlayStation Network, World of Warcraft, and League of Legends).

So the gaming may have to wait.

But now that it’s Boxing Day, let’s punch out the week with a couple of tidbits from the week that was, as 2014 is winding down and 2015 is in our sights.

Marriott Boycott? Manic geek Jim Lynch — his self-description, not mine — opines on his blog post on Christmas Day that we should maybe not stay at hotels like Marriott or others that attempt to force guests to pay for wireless connectivity by blocking networks other than that provided by the hotel. But wait, there’s more: Marriott is asking the Federal Communications Commission for the government’s blessing to do this.

Larry Cafiero

Penguicon 2024

LinuxFest Northwest

LibrePlanet 2024

All Things Open 2024

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2024

Posts published in “Distros”

Mea Culpas & Cranky Patients Named Ken

FOSS Week in Review

Why Jeff Hoogland Returned to Bodhi

Fedora 23: 64-bit Only?

Jeff Hoogland’s Back at Bodhi

Linux Distros We’ll Never See

Jeff Hoogland On the Future of & Life After Bodhi

The FOSS Force Interview

CES: Smart TVs on Linux; SCALE prep underway

FOSS Week in Review

A FOSS Wish List for 2015

2014’s Five Biggest Stories Affecting FOSS

Whether Online or Off: Be Nice to Each Other

Punching Out the Week on Boxing Day

FOSS Week in Review