February 24, 2025
Keeping tech free
Now that we’ve put 2015 to bed — and not a moment too soon — we’ll take one more look at the week that was and send everyone off rolling into 2016.
Linux Mint Readies for the New Year: Clem Lefebvre didn’t waste any time outlining what he, and Linux Mint, have planned for 2016 in his latest blog post.
Some of you might have received a Raspberry Pi for Christmas or know of a family member or friend who received one. While some of us know exactly what to do with the devices and what peripherals to buy, that does not hold true for a majority of non-technical people. This article, focused on the Raspberry Pi 2 B, will help serve as a guide to answer questions you or someone you know might have.
What equipment do I need? If you did give or receive a Raspberry for Christmas, hopefully it was part of a kit where all the necessary parts are included. If not, you may be asking what you need to get started.
In addition to hosting a Raspberry Pi meetup in Washington D.C., Isaac Carter is a co-host on mintCast. He’s also a software engineer who enjoys working with Java, JavaScript, and GNU/Linux. When he’s not coding, you can find him reading on any number of subjects or on the golf course.
It can be difficult…coming before a large number of people, in person as well as on the Web. It can be even more difficult to bring forward a problem, when the problem may be perceived as just so much crybaby noise. But as long as the problem is important enough to merit premium black pixels on a white background, all the crybaby labels in the ‘verse are worth it.
The problem is just One Little Thing…something so infinitesimal that it would be easy to gloss over and wave one’s hand in dismissal.
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
There was a time, back when FOSS Force was young, when we called the weekly round-up Friday FOSS Week in Review. Sometimes we’d get so far behind in our work that the Friday column wouldn’t get published until Saturday, sometimes late in the afternoon. To solve the problem that caused with the column’s title, we pulled a page from an old ABC playbook, from when they owned the Monday Night Football franchise, and called these late roundups “Friday FOSS Week in Review — Special Saturday Edition.” We didn’t change the header, but always made the “Saturday edition” mention in the text of the column, just as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
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
Bad news first: Psynoix’s Rocket League will not be out for Linux this year after all. Earlier this month the community manager for Rocket League, username Dirkened, said the game would be released for Linux before the end of December. However, since then Psynoix CEO Dave Hagewood told a fan of the game in an email that there will be a delay but it will still be coming out. A Valve representative with the reddit username Plagman issued an apology to the community on behalf of Psyonix, taking the blame for the delay:
Hunter Banks has been a part of the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) Family for the past 13 years. When not writing about open source gaming, he’s working on creating his own games. Follow him on Twitter @SilvrChariot
For a while they seemed to come almost in a measured release. They ranged from polite, insightful and informative, to a collateral-damage-be-damned raging and slashing diatribe. Some I would read; some I would not. No one takes a spitting, enraged person seriously unless they bear a weapon. Spitting, angry people tend to come forward with an obvious emotional outburst, most times presenting only the emotional aspect of what they have to say. Facts can be either few or “facts” from that writer’s point of view. Not a lot of us pay attention to someone presenting themselves in such a way. Maybe in a Donald-Trump-train-wreck sort of way, but as serious or meaningful presentations, that just doesn’t happen.
Nothing I’ve read in the past five years can match the emotional intensity of this topic: Women in the technology field. Or often: Linux women in the technology field.
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
Oops.
FreeNAS Logo Contest: Okay, artists, get those colored pencils sharpened, those brushes cleaned and ready, because you have an assignment — that logo isn’t going to design itself.
First things first: Remember when I said I didn’t have access to Michael Larabel’s fine set of Phoronix tools to do diagnostic hardware comparisons? Well, while looking around for something else in BSD’s very cool AppCafe, I found them — Phoronix tools available for BSD users. So while I go sit in the corner with a pointy hat, I will apologize for that error.
I grew up on a farm and ranch up until I was fourteen. It’s a tough life, best suited for tough people who can beat their environment into submission and produce the results needed to thrive. Should I ever have displayed the poor judgement to complain about something within earshot of my dad, I would get the same advice every time.
“If you’re bitching about something, then you ain’t doin’ nothin’ to fix it.”
Wise words from a man with hands as rough as raw leather and a broad back made for ten hour days of hard work. That work began for him on the Montana prairie at the age of eleven, the age when he could saddle his own horse and accurately fire his Marlin 35 varmint rifle. It’s been 38 years that he’s been gone, but every time I find myself pissed off and griping about this or that, I can hear him as clearly in my head as I could then from inside the tack shed.
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
Last week when Microsoft and the Linux Foundation separately announced a partnership that would see Redmond issuing a Linux certification called Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate Linux (MCSA), Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols felt the need to add the words “not a typo” to the headline of his coverage on ZDNet. A couple of days later, when the story made the pages of The Register the headline included, “Do not adjust your set. This is not an error.”
We were just as surprised here at FOSS Force, and Larry Cafiero pulled no punches when breaking the story in Friday’s Week in Review. “There’s the argument that because Microsoft ‘loves’ Linux…we should be more inclusive,” he wrote, “but this is the company that considered Linux a cancer and has fought FOSS for decades. Rather than throw the Microsoft that is treading water a life preserver, I still think throwing it an anchor would be more fitting.”
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
I stared at a blinking cursor when confronted with the question, “Your profession and position?”
It can be difficult to define the entire spectrum of my role at Reglue. Yeah, I am founder and executive director, but outside of that, in the real world where people are identified by their professional roles, how do I answer such a question?
A head scratching session ensued. The longer I looked at the blinking cursor, the more frustrated I became.
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
