December 4, 2025
Keeping tech free
One of the drawbacks of having to work a show like SCALE is that I don’t get to go to enough sessions while I’m here. As the traffic cop at the intersection of old and new media, it’s my job to marshal the publicity team’s forces into taking the information happening at the show and then processing it for the wider public consumption.
Admin, Community, Distros, News and Operating Systems
Starting today, the Southern California Linux Expo — SCALE 14X in this year’s 14th annual iteration — moves from being hotel-based event busting at the seams to hold all the exhibitors and sessions to being a full-fledged, freewheeling convention center-based event with wide-open spaces and widespread talks.
The setup is done for today, with exhibitors readying their booths for the opening of the floor tomorrow after Cory Doctorow gives his Friday keynote. But let’s not get ahead of the story for Thursday.
The schedule is posted online, if you’re at the event. If not, you can still follow along at the link.
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
It’s been maybe two years ago, maybe three; that I was involved in a community discussion of charitable works. It stemmed from a topic I covered on my Blog of Helios and while we discussed the various means that we could be of service to others not so fortunate, one individual sought to find a way out of the discussion. “Well, I don’t know any poor people.”
Huh. He doesn’t know any poor people he says. Well “what a coincidence”, I told him. “Neither did I until I started looking for them.” That was the last I saw or heard from said person, and it’s all for the better. We didn’t seem to have much in common.
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
The voting is all done for the second round of our poll to decide which GNU/Linux distro our readers would choose to receive our “Reader’s Choice Best Linux Distro” award for 2015. As in round one, Arch Linux won the day. The poll results are considered to be more a measure of a distro’s community support than any indication of a distro’s technical merits.
The first round of our poll was a qualifying round, which Arch won as well, racking up 1,376 votes. The second round of voting was “winner take all,” and with the voting lighter than in the first round, Arch still managed to put together 592 votes. In all, 2,625 votes were cast in round two, which was active for seven days.
First things first: Were I to give an award for Best Presentation Title for SCALE 14X, it would clearly go to iX Systems’ Community Manager (and all-around BSD documentation queen) Dru Lavigne for “Doc Like an Egyptian” — she wins hands down, without question. Dru speaks at SCALE on Saturday, Jan. 23, at 3 p.m.
Speaking of SCALE, the first-of-the-year Linux/FOSS event for 2016 starts next week on Thursday and runs through Sunday. Next to the Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses Parade, both of which took place on New Year’s Day, SCALE is the third largest event in Pasadena this month.
BSD variants and a BSD certification exam highlight the presence of the Unix family at SCALE.
Are you an enthusiastic individual that is interested in using the Raspberry Pi in the classroom and in community education programs? Then get ready to fill out your application for Raspberry Picademy USA! This will be the first time ever that the Raspberry Pi Foundation will be offering a Picademy in the United States. If you haven’t ever heard of Picademy, or have and are looking to participate, then I’ll answer some basic questions for you on the ins and outs of Raspberry Picademy USA.
What is Picademy? Picademy is a two day series of classes taught by certified Raspberry Pi educators. These classes involve learning all hardware and software aspects of the Raspberry Pi. You will also be learning from some of the brightest minds that make up the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
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.
Sure you go to Linux expos such as SCALE to sharpen your coding skills and to learn about how to get your hands dirty going under the hood with you favorite open source applications. You might even go to learn a little bit about the business of open source. But you have to admit that an added attraction is just getting to see presentations from FOSS rock stars, the well known movers and shakers who have taken a big part in shaping the past, present and future of free and open source software. These are people whose presentations you’ll be tempted to attend no matter what the subject because…well, just because. Some of these are legends; some are not. But they’re all rock stars. And as usual, there’ll be an abundance of them at SCALE.
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
The voting is over in the first round of our annual GNU/Linux distro poll, which sought an answer to the simple question, “What Linux distro do you currently use most?” The result was a complete surprise, at least to us. By a decisive margin, you voted for Arch Linux. The poll was certainly one for the record books. By the time it was closed to voting, a total of 5,784 of you had cast votes, more than double from any previous FOSS Force poll. The poll was online for approximately one week.
Wow. It certainly didn’t take long after the holidays for the FOSS news wire to heat up again. It’s like all the newsmakers have been chomping at the bit to get back to work doing what they do best, which would be, well, making news. Let’s start with some breaking news concerning a well known FOSS personality…
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
