Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published by “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

How Do You Support Your Distro?

By Ken Starks on May 24, 2016 |

Community and Distros

How Do You Support Your Distro?Pinguy OS logo

The Heart of Linux

The lead developer of Pinguy Linux, Antoni Norman, has said he’s considering shutting the project down due to a lack of funds. This raises the question: How much do you give to the distro you use?

I think of them as our own little personal supernovas. There’s a brilliant flash when a Linux distro tosses in the towel and calls it quits. But whenever a distro goes away, it leaves behind the people who’ve used and worked with it on a daily basis. While there’s no formation of a black hole, there is a hole at the center of users’ work schedules and that disruption can do serious damage to those relying on the distro’s stability. And while getting a new distro installed and running isn’t the nightmare it used to be, it’s still a pain.

Continue readingHow Do You Support Your Distro?
A Truly Easy New User Linux Distro? Let’s Get SeriousDisk partitioning

A Truly Easy New User Linux Distro? Let’s Get Serious

By Ken Starks on May 10, 2016 |

Operating Systems

The Heart of Linux

Is disk partitioning a stumbling block to the new user installing Linux for the first time?

I remember it clearly. Well, as clearly as my teen-year chemically fueled indiscretions will allow. It was directly after the 2.27 kernel was released. Almost overnight, it went from “wireless sucks in Linux” to “holy crap, wireless works in Linux.” Yeah, there are still holdouts — I don’t want to mention any names but their first initial is Broadcom — and they still suck.

Disk partitioning

Desktop Linux has made some amazing strides in the past decade. Heck, it’s made huge strides in the past two years.

However, for those of us who use and advocate the use of desktop Linux to new users, there’s a but. A big ol’ in-your-face-can’t-sweep-it-under-the-rug “but.” Regardless of how smoothly your explanation of installing and using desktop Linux goes, that big ol’ but steps in your way. That pesky, clumsy pause as you try to figure out how to tell a new user how to partition a drive.

Continue readingA Truly Easy New User Linux Distro? Let’s Get Serious
The Sun Shines Through the Rain at the Linux WorkshopCeiling collapse

The Sun Shines Through the Rain at the Linux Workshop

By Ken Starks on May 3, 2016 |

Community

The Heart of Linux

Sometimes it’s downright easy to tell the difference between synchronicity and mere coincidence.

I grew up in the Illinois heartland. The place where soybeans, corn and hog futures were discussed in-depth while the Bay of Pigs raged on without notice. I grew up in a place where detasseling corn and getting the hay crop in was second only to treating our livestock for thrush. We were up at 4:30 a.m. and in bed by 9 p.m. Rarely was there an exception. Maybe when my mom was going into town on Saturday for supplies.

Ice covered barn
An ice covered barn, not unlike the one that was crushed in this story.
During the winter of 1967. Northeastern Illinois experienced one of the most destructive ice storms in that region’s history. Barns and out buildings collapsed under the tremendous weight of ice and snow. Many family dwellings suffered the same fate. Livestock had to be turned out into the cold for fear they would be crushed to death by the collapsing structure. We worked furiously against the subzero cold and wind to get weather breaks built. We used hay bales and timber, any resource at hand, in order for the livestock to have some shelter from the freezing winds. Some cattle froze to death while still standing, their backs turned to the frigid, driving wind.

Continue readingThe Sun Shines Through the Rain at the Linux Workshop
My Linux Desktop — Hither and YawnWindows computer exploding

My Linux Desktop — Hither and Yawn

By Ken Starks on April 26, 2016 |

Community and Operating Systems

The Heart of Linux

Reflections of a once upon a time everyday Windows user.

It’s hard to remember the span of time when I sat in front of my Windows computer on a daily basis. I sat comfortable in the understanding that using my computer came with some non-negotiable requirements, like the constant vigilance against malware threats and my system bogging down from the antivirus software helping me belay those threats. Who doesn’t remember the ever-popular monthly defragging, and for me at least, a complete wipe and reinstallation of Windows every six to eight months.

Windows computer explodingThese things I accepted as a necessary part of using a computer every day.

A few Windows folks will surely chime in, saying that they have used Windows since Captain Kangaroo was a corporal. They’ll say that they never had to reinstall their system due to it becoming unstable, sometimes rebooting for no reason at all and then booting into a black screen. A black screen that would eventually correct itself if you got up to fix a sandwich and take the dog out. A black screen that gave you no frickin’ idea of what it was, why it happened or how to fix it.

Continue readingMy Linux Desktop — Hither and Yawn
Getting FOSS Text-to-Speech App Ready for Prime TimeTypeTalk

Getting FOSS Text-to-Speech App Ready for Prime Time

By Ken Starks on April 19, 2016 |

Accessibility, Community, Interview and Software

The Heart of Linux

The lead developer of a new text-to-speech app based on MaryTTS talks about what’s been done and what remains to do.

It’s been a while now since we talked about creating a front end GUI to the open source text-to-speech program, MaryTTS. I have a personal stake in this, as I lost my larynx, and thus my voice, due to throat cancer.

FOSS text-to-speech front end
The front end of the new user interface for MaryTTS, a text-to-speech solution.

The state of text-to-speech software in the Linuxsphere is horrible. Don’t get me wrong, the software is out there and much of it is fairly good. Where we fall down is that it requires using the command line to get much of it to work. Often TTS software in Linux comes in parts and pieces that have to be assembled in order to get it to work, and the terminal is where most of that work needs to be done.

Continue readingGetting FOSS Text-to-Speech App Ready for Prime Time
Teaching New Linux on Old HardwareThe Internet

Teaching New Linux on Old Hardware

By Ken Starks on April 12, 2016 |

Community, Hardware and Humor

The Heart of Linux

It seems, according to this, that the customer service offered by Reglue far exceeds that offered by any big box retail outlet — and the clients get preinstalled Linux to boot.

In 2005, I found myself at a career crossroad. A career-ending injury threw the biggest of monkey wrenches into the works for me. I owned my own business and business was good, but it was only good with a maximum of four employees, counting myself. I attempted to become a “gentleman” owner but I found that paying the extra man proved to be costly as well as difficult to administer. That injury led to me doing what I do now.

I give computers to kids who cannot afford one.

The decision I faced was life-changing either way I went. My inclination was to go back to school and get the certs I needed to work in the Linux administration field. I already had the base knowledge and experience; it was just a matter of jumping through the hoops to get a piece of paper saying I already knew what I was learning. Not that I wouldn’t learn a thing or two along the way.

Continue readingTeaching New Linux on Old Hardware
Maybe It’s Time to Trust Microsoft — Maybe NotFreedom from Microsoft

Maybe It’s Time to Trust Microsoft — Maybe Not

By Ken Starks on April 5, 2016 |

Business and Software

The Heart of Linux

In this story, Microsoft is the cunning spider and Linux the intended victim, the fly. Everyone knows how the story begins. ‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly.

The punishment needs to fit the crime, but in Microsoft’s case, it never has. The punishments that have been meted out to Redmond for their civil and criminal asshattery over the years have been almost laughable. From the ridiculously small punishment for obvious antitrust violations at the turn of the century when the company was convicted as a monopolist, to the law seemingly turning it’s blind eyes away from Microsoft for their blatant patent-slinging abuses.

What it all boils down to is Microsoft being fined millions while making billions.

If Penfield Jackson, the initial judge in the Microsoft antitrust case, hadn’t gotten himself thrown off the case for discussing it with the press, the Microsoft of today would look much different. The pieces of it anyway. Personally, I think I would like that Microsoft much better than the one today.

Continue readingMaybe It’s Time to Trust Microsoft — Maybe Not
The Great 2016 Dell Latitude MassacreReglue placing laptop

The Great 2016 Dell Latitude Massacre

By Ken Starks on March 29, 2016 |

Community and Hardware

The Heart of Linux

The story of a donation that should have happened, but didn’t.

That sinking feeling. The feeling you get in the microseconds after someone sneaks up from behind and scares the bejeebus out of you. The feeling you get when you pat your back pocket and discover your wallet isn’t there. The gut dropping three seconds directly after reading the email notifying you of imminent layoff. The feeling that something has taken place that is going to impact your life, and possibly the lives of others, in the most unpleasant of ways.

Reglue placing laptop
Not to be confused with Michael Stipe, that’s me in the corner handing over the Samsung paper thin laptop mentioned in this article to a deserving family.
I had one of those moments just last week. As much as I tell myself that I can’t erase the event or remind myself that suckification happens…it still nags at me like a tenacious ear ache or like a hangnail that induces the impulse to scream every time it’s brushed against something. It’s the feeling that washes over you when you find out you have lost something extremely important and there is no way in the real world that you will be able to reverse that loss.

Continue readingThe Great 2016 Dell Latitude Massacre
Oops! We Broke the DRM on This Blu-rayBlu-ray logo

Oops! We Broke the DRM on This Blu-ray

By Ken Starks on March 22, 2016 |

Copyright and Software

The Heart of Linux

Looking for a way to store a Blu-ray movie on a hard drive and finding it.

Most people who’ve read my work in the past 10 years can attest to the fact that I am not shy about pointing out less than acceptable performance or function within the Linuxsphere. Be it the code or coders, I’m gonna talk about what’s wrong and how I believe it might be fixed. I rarely criticize anyone or anything without offering some way to make it right.

Blu-ray logoIn between my articles here on FOSS Force and my Blog of Helios, I can be found most days popping in and out of my Google + stream where I engage in all manner of discourse. My stream includes, but isn’t restricted to, astrophysicists, hipsters, infantry brigade commanders, poets, slackers, delta force team members (not currently deployed), kernel contributors, distro creators, top 40 country western artists, local talk show hosts and just folks like you and me.

Continue readingOops! We Broke the DRM on This Blu-ray
Latest Articles