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Getting Started With the Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi Report

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.

Raspberry Pi treeWhat 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.

Getting LibreOffice to Do the Write Thing

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.

no changes in LibreOfficeThe problem is just One Little Thing…something so infinitesimal that it would be easy to gloss over and wave one’s hand in dismissal.

Ubuntu’s Magical Abacus, New Linux Releases & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Ubuntu's abacusThere 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.

FOSS ‘Age of Empires,’ AMD Goes Open Source & Gaming at SCALE

Gaming on Linux

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:

Training Girls Away From Technical Careers

World of Goo posterFor 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.

Linux Predictions 2016, FreeNAS Logo Contest & More…

FOSS Week in Review

FreeNAS logo
Artists, can you improve on this? Get on it, then…
This week’s wrap-up needs no introduction, with an art contest to redesign a logo for a BSD-based OS, predictions for 2016, a new release from CentOS, shenanigans from our friends in the Isle of Man, and multiple reasons to use FOSS.

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.

Plotting Out the BSD Year

Larry the BSD Guy

FreeBSD's Beastie BSDFirst 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.

Ubuntu Bugs That Won’t Go Away

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.

Linux Foundation’s Deal With the Devil

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.”

Linux Foundation LogoWe 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.”

FOSS & Education: It’s Deeper than Ones and Zeros

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.

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