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Posts published by “Larry Cafiero”

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Linux Foundation Scales, Raspberry Music Pi & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Back to school, back to work, back to just about everything else free and open source this week: The temperatures could be a little cooler in California, but there’s a modicum of cool to go with the heat.

Like the following items in this week’s wrap…

Tipping the Scales for Linux: Sean Michael Kerner over at Datamation wrote an article accompanying a video interview with Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin, who says, among other things, why the foundation is just going to keep growing.

Looking Ahead to New Linux/FOSS Promotional Events

While the FOSS/Linux expo season is winding down – Ohio Linux Fest, All Things Open and the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference (SeaGL) next month, and Fossetcon in November in sunny Florida, before we ramp up for the first-of-the-year 2016 event at SCALE 14x in January – thoughts wander to other events that could possibly take place sometime in the future, with a little imagination.

Back in 2008 when Ken Starks and I put together Lindependence to bring Linux to Felton, California, one of the things that I had hoped would come of it would be more Linux events. Not to say the current crop of Linux/FOSS events are lacking — on the contrary, espcially in the face of individual FOSS programs spinning off their own events, like PuppetConf and NGINX among a myriad of others — but the idea behind Lindependence was to not only get Linux in the hands of Feltoners, but also to hopefully inspire others to dream big in the day-to-day-use-of-Linux promotion arena.

A couple of events I’d like to see sometime in the future – near or distant – include:

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Hello, Columbus: Ohio LinuxFest Up Next Oct. 2-3

Ohio LinuxFest logoNext up on Brother FOSS’s Traveling Salvation Show — pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone go — brings the proverbial tent and revival show to Columbus, Ohio, at the beginning of next month.

The 13th annual Ohio LinuxFest will be held Oct. 2-3 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in downtown Columbus. Hosting authoritative speakers and a large expo hall, the OLF welcomes all free and open source software professionals, enthusiasts, and everyone interested in learning more about free and open source software.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

‘Freedom Penguin’ Takes Flight, Distro Count & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Before we get rolling on the last FOSS Force item before the weekend, I’d like to welcome Hunter Banks to the FOSS Force team. Hunter is part of the FOSS-forward Banks family of Los Angeles — dad Phillip is a computer consultant and a long-time Southern California Linux Expo volunteer (along with brother Phillip Jr.), and sister Keila has been in both the FOSS and mainstream media on girls-in-tech issues — and he’s writing a Linux/FOSS gaming column.

Flying-penguinsWelcome to the team, Hunter!

Now, want to see something scary?

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

For Linux, It’s Another Day, Another File System

In case you weren’t paying attention, there’s a new Linux file system on the horizon, thanks to a former Google engineer.

That engineer in question, namely Kent Overstreet, posted a message on LKML.org last week promoting the progress of Bcache File System, or Bcachefs, the first Linux file system written specifically for solid state disks. The purpose of the new file system is to ramp up the speed in the way Linux stores data on servers.

File system“Yet another new filesystem? Why?” Overstreet asks in his post. And then he adeptly answers the age-old question.

“Well, years ago (going back to when I was still at Google), I and the other people working on bcache realized that what we were working on was, almost by accident, a good chunk of the functionality of a full blown filesystem — and there was a really clean and elegant design to be had there if we took it and ran with it,” Overstreet wrote. “And a fast one — the main goal of bcachefs to match ext4 and xfs on performance and reliability, but with the features of btrfs/zfs.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Everywhere a Linux Fest, Linux Gaming Good to Go & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Steam logoFirst things first: When the sun comes up on a sleepy little town down around San Antone, it’ll mark the start of Texas Linux Fest, the sixth annual two-day Linux/FOSS hoedown deep in the heart of the Lone Star State, this year about halfway between Austin and San Antonio. Lots of great speakers with lots of great sponsors give this show a more local feel than the one earlier this week in the Pacific Northwest, so if you’re in the neighborhood, you should give the fest a visit.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Deep in the Heart of Texas Linux Fest 2015

While the rest of FOSS Nation oooohs and ahhhhs with all the developments currently coming out of LinuxCon in Seattle, the end of the week’s attention — and attendance — shifts to San Marcos, Texas.

San Marcos is an exciting, historic community in the heart of Central Texas midway between Austin and San Antonio. It is home to Texas State University (the alma mater of Lyndon Johnson), and — as the Chamber of Commerce likes to boast — home of the famous San Marcos outlet malls, the largest in the Southwest.

Texas Linux Fest LogoThis year, San Marcos is home to Texas Linux Fest 2015, which is being held Friday and Saturday of this week at the San Marcos Conference Center.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Good News, Bad News for Canonical & More…

FOSS Week in Review

It’s been a busy week on the Isle of Man, and elsewhere, so let’s not tarry and dive in, shall we?

Canonical Opens Ubuntu One: After dropping its Ubuntu One cloud storage service a year ago, Ars Techinca reports Canonical this week released the system’s file-syncing code under the Affero General Public License Version 3.

Ubuntu One logo“The code we’re releasing is the server side of what desktop clients connected to when syncing local or remote changes,” said Martin Albisetti, Canonical’s Director of Online Services, in a post on the Ubuntu site. “This is code where most of the innovation and hard work went throughout the years, where we faced most of the scaling challenges and the basis on which other components were built upon.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Is Bassel Nearer to Freedom?

Last October, FOSS Force published a story on the 2012 imprisonment — without charges — by the Syrian government of Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil, a 31-year-old Palestinian-Syrian computer engineer specializing in open source software development. Bassel has become known worldwide for his strong commitment to the open source paradigm, teaching others about technology, and contributing his experience freely to help the world.

Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil
Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil has been under arrest in Syria since March 2012. (Photo: Joi Ito, CC-BY-2.0)
Earlier this year and up to a fortnight ago, the Syrian government has been systematically releasing hundreds of prisoners. However, so far Bassel hasn’t been one of them.

Jon Phillips, a digital activist living in the U.S. who has collaborated with Bassel on projects in the past and is currently working to help free Bassel, took a few minutes with FOSS Force to update Bassel’s plight.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Lenovo Announces New ThinkPad P50, P70 ‘Mobile Workstation’

ThinkPad aficionados, are you ready?

While both bending the language and changing definitions of hardware on the fly, Lenovo announced on Tuesday the Lenovo ThinkPad P50 and P70, the new ThinkPad hardware to be available in Q4.

But first, let’s set things straight: The ThinkPad is no longer a laptop, according to the Lenovo press release. The first paragraph of the press release says the company “unveiled the beginning of a new family of mobile workstation innovations.” So I guess that’s what we’re calling them now – mobile workstations.

P70
The Lenovo ThinkPad P70 should be out later this year.
Fine.

Anyway, the new ThinkPad P70 comes with the most memory and storage ever found in a laptop…sorry, a mobile workstation. Namely, maxing out at 64GB of DDR4 ECC memory and with the ability to handle up to four storage devices and up to a terabyte of SSD storage. It also utilizes the latest PCIe technology for speeds up to five times faster than current SATA technology. But wait, there’s more: The ThinkPad P70 “comes with two Intel ThunderboltTM 3 ports for ultra-fast connectivity and a 4K UHD display or optional FHD touch,” according to the release.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

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