Posts published by “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

Only FOSSers ‘Get’ FOSS

By Christine Hall on September 22, 2014 |

Community, Operating Systems and Software

Back on the first of September I wrote an article about Android, in which I pointed out that Google’s mobile operating system seems to be primarily designed to help sell things. This eventually led to a discussion thread on a subreddit devoted to Android. Needless to say, the fanbois and fangrrls over on Reddit didn’t cotton to my criticism and they devoted a lot of space complaining about how the article was poorly written.

They had me there; admittedly it wasn’t one of my better efforts.

The one comment that caught my attention, however, wasn’t complaining about me or my obviously misguided opinion. This commenter said something about how my article came from a FOSS site and made some snarky remark about how as open as Android is, it would never be open enough for those whiny FOSS people. This is the kind of remark we see all the time from tech people, user and developer alike, who think OSS is as free as it gets and don’t understand the distinction between open source and free and open source.

In other words, sometimes it’s the people who’re the closest to us in opinion who become our biggest ideological detractors.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

King Ellison Abdicates As Oracle CEO

King Ellison Abdicates As Oracle CEO

By Christine Hall on September 18, 2014 |

Business and Humor

Damn it! All of the colorful bad guys of proprietary tech are aging out, leaving in their place boring button down folk with all the charm expected from accountants.

You’ve no doubt already heard that Larry Ellison stepped down this afternoon as CEO of Oracle, though he’ll be sticking around for a while in his new position as executive chairman. In other words, he’s still the boss by way of being the boss’s boss – and by dint of the fact that he remains the company’s biggest shareholder with a 25% stake in the business.

Why is he quitting? Probably because he’s getting old and he can afford to retire; he turned 70 last month. Officially, according to him and the once and future king’s yes-men, it’s all part of carefully laid-out succession plans – meet-the-new-boss, the-king-is-dead and all that.

As much as I loathe Mr. Ellison, I really hate to see him go, especially that part of me that thinks I’m a writer — a FOSS writer. Who’s left for FOSS press brickbats?

You see, Larry Ellison is one of the last, maybe the last, really good and colorful bad guys left on the tech scene.

Who’s left to be the target for split infinitive armed verbal bombs from wanna be hotshot FOSS reporters? Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, Oracle’s co-presidents who’ve now been elevated to the status of co-CEOs? Meh. Not unless Hurd again decides he wants to dip his pen in the wrong inkwell and then use company money to clean up the mess — but I don’t think he’s going to do that. Not at Oracle. Ellison would break his legs if he did. Remember, even though Ellison’s gone, he’s not most sincerely gone.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Redefining the Public Library Using Open Source Ideas

Redefining the Public Library Using Open Source Ideas

By Christine Hall on September 18, 2014 |

Community and Politics

When I read that the Takoma Park Maryland Library has 28 workstations running Linux, I literally couldn’t believe it. Really? A library offering the public Linux? Whenever I go to a library, all I ever see are Windows machines or maybe a Mac or two. When I mention Linux as an alternative, and I sometimes do, I’m usually met with blank stares and the staff begins to think I’m nuts.

To check into this, I contacted Phil Shapiro, the library’s Public Geek. Yup. That’s right, he told me. They are running Linux. The decision was made by his supervisor, Rebecca Brown, some time ago.

“This town is quite diverse, with 92 nationalities, so we needed to find a good multilingual solution,” Shapiro explained. “Rebecca chose a Canandian Linux solutions provider, Userful, whose commercial product is built on top of Fedora Linux. Userful does multilingual very well.”

The Takoma Park Library takes advantage of the multiseat feature built into Fedora, which allows multiple monitors, keyboards and mice to be operated from a single desktop box. Shapiro has been so impressed with how well this set-up works that he’s made a YouTube video demonstrating Fedora’s implementation of multiseat running on an “obsolete” laptop with low specs.

Interestingly, the move to Linux was met with little push back from the patrons using the machines.

“The patrons are quite happy using Linux to get their work done,” Shapiro said. “Very few of them have any clue they’re not using Windows. They surf the web using Firefox and Chrome and use LibreOffice to compose and edit their word processing documents. In the nine years I’ve worked at this library, only one or two people have ever told me, ‘Hey, this isn’t Windows.'”

So much for the learning curve we read so much about — not surprising to those of us who use Linux. Nor are we surprised to hear that running Linux instead of Windows makes things easier on the library’s IT crew.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Hello World: Videos That Teach Linux To Kids

Hello World: Videos That Teach Linux To Kids

By Christine Hall on September 15, 2014 |

Business, Media, News and Operating Systems

The Hello World Program needs a few bucks to buy some new equipment to enable them to continue to keep on doing what they do. What they do is make videos that teach Linux and other computer tech subjects to kids, using sock puppets, robots and animation — sort of Kukla, Fran and Ollie for the 21st century. Or Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop in color and high def.

They don’t need much. $2,048 by their estimation will do just fine — a mere drop in the bucket in the overall scheme of things. They’ve been on Indiegogo since last Wednesday, where they’re making their case.

“We don’t have a proper studio to shoot video,” they wrote on their Indiegogo page, “the bulbs in our light kit are burned out, our cameras and lenses are dirty because we’ve been shooting in basements and (very cold) garages for the last year, our backdrop needs replacing, and our highly intelligent robot host requires an upgrade.”

They’re already a third of the way there, with $680 raised so far. But crowdfunding campaigns sometimes stall after getting off to a good start. It happens — ask Mark Shuttleworth. It’s not time to relax yet.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Google, Browsers & DRM

By Christine Hall on September 8, 2014 |

Browsers, Business and Internet

A recent brouhaha concerning Google comes from an item that made the rounds in the last week or so regarding older browsers and Google search. It seems that some users of older browsers have been receiving an outdated version of Google’s homepage when attempting to make a search. Evidently, Google searches made using these browsers returned results just fine, using Google’s current results page, but users needed to return to the search engine’s homepage to conduct another search. The browsers affected are primarily older versions of Opera and Safari.

This led to a discussion on the Google Product Forums, which prompted a reply from a Google employee using the name nealem:

“I want to assure you this isn’t a bug, it’s working as intended.

“We’re continually making improvements to Search, so we can only provide limited support for some outdated browsers. We encourage everyone to make the free upgrade to modern browsers — they’re more secure and provide a better web experience overall.”

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Tux Machines Ten Months Later

By Christine Hall on September 4, 2014 |

Internet and Media

On a Monday last October, Tennessee based publisher and writer Susan Linton decided her plate was too full and put the website Tux Machines up for sale. That Friday, October 28, she announced that she’d found a buyer in Roy Schestowitz, known in FOSS circles as the publisher of TechRights, a site which focuses on the political side of free tech.

For nine years, Tux Machines had been a place to read about Linux and FOSS, mainly from links to what others were writing on other sites. But it was also just a cool place to hang out and meet up with other Linux users. Certainly there were and are other sites doing almost the same thing — but Linton’s Tux Machines was different. It was kick-your-shoes-off-and-visit-a-spell homey. It was comfortable.

Tux Machines logo

It wasn’t a big surprise when Linton announced her intention to sell the site. For a while it had been obvious she wasn’t putting the time into it she once had. Since the site had started in 2004, it had been constantly maintained, with links to other sites being posted daily, if not more often. Recently, it had lost that dependability. Days, sometimes weeks, would go by without the site being updated.

“I’m just getting too old and tired to keep the site up the way it and its loyal visitors deserve,” she wrote. “It may get better next spring, but this fall I’ll end up losing all my visitors I’m afraid.”

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

How Many Linux Distros Are On the Top Ten?

By Christine Hall on September 3, 2014 |

Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the number of GNU/Linux distros there are out in the wild. This is nothing new, as this has been an ongoing discussion among Linux users for at least as long as I’ve been using Linux.

In a nutshell, in case you’re new to the Linux world, some say that the overabundance of Linux distros is overkill, that it weakens the development by spreading developers out on the various distros when they could be focused on just one or two key distros. Those in this camp also claim that the huge number of distros also confuses the public, thereby acting as a roadblock to desktop Linux’s growth.

On the other side of the fence, there are people who claim that the choices offered by the numerous distros are actually good for Linux, that the plethora of distros means that users can find an implementation of Linux that’s just right for them.

I’m in the latter camp, but that’s neither here nor there. No matter which side of the fence you sit, there’s actually not nearly so many distros as there may seem.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

The Trouble With Android

By Christine Hall on September 1, 2014 |

Business, Mobile and Operating Systems

I hope there are no marketers in heaven, who create demand for profit while claiming they’re only “giving the public what they want.”

What would you do if you were offered a choice between a carrot or a bar of candy? I don’t know about you, but I’m taking the candy, even though I definitely really, really need the carrot’s vitamins, roughage and other goodness and don’t need the candy at all. But if you were to sit a carrot next to me, it probably wouldn’t get eaten — ever. Set a candy bar down next to me, however, and I’ll resist it for all of five minutes.

So why wouldn’t I eat the carrot? Because candy bars are too easy to come by. So are burgers, fries and shakes. They all feed unhealthy addictions and creating addictions, then feeding them, is central to our economy and is what keeps the fat cats fat. Even though I know this, I’ll grab the candy bar, the Little Debbie’s Zebra Cake or the “all the way” cheeseburger when what I really need is a pear or an apple.

Again, given the choice between a carrot or candy, a nice gooey chocolate bar perhaps, which would you choose? I’m betting that most of you are like me.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Did Red Hat’s CTO Walk – Or Was He Pushed?

By Christine Hall on August 29, 2014 |

Business, Distros and News

Brian Stevens formerly of Red Hat It’s hard to believe the official story coming out of Raleigh, that CTO Brian Stevens abruptly resigned his position at Red Hat on Wednesday “to pursue another opportunity.” The company is being mainly mum on the subject, only offering a terse three sentence announcement on their website.

Red Hat seems to want us to believe Stevens left on his own in pursuit of the American dream. Maybe, maybe not. From the way the story has unfolded, it seems highly unlikely that Stevens’ decision to leave was entirely his.

ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a North Carolina resident who usually has a pretty good idea of the happenings within Red Hat’s Raleigh headquarters. In his initial report on this story, he seems to have been as surprised by this move as anyone else.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

It’s All Linux Under the Hood

It’s All Linux Under the Hood

By Christine Hall on August 28, 2014 |

Desktops, Operating Systems and Software

The user base for Linux has changed dramatically over the past five years or so, which is yet another sign that the OS is gaining traction on the desktop.

Twelve years ago, when I first started using Linux, about the only people firing up the penguin to accomplish day to day chores were hard core technological geeks. The command line ruled, so much so that many Linux users knew more bash commands than words in their native languages.

Back then, most Linux users were drawn to the operating system precisely because it wasn’t dumbed down and because it put incredible power and stability at their fingertips. Linux was first and foremost a command line operating system. Even a newbie friendly distro such as Mandrake was going to require the occasional opening of a terminal to do some down and dirty work on a text screen.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com