FOSS Week in Review
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.
Posts published in “Community”
Larry the BSD Guy
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
FOSS Week in Review
Every month it seems like the Raspberry Pi Foundation keeps wowing us, and this November was no exception. As a matter-of-fact, this past month was jam packed with headlines, so much so that I’m eagerly waiting to see what the month of December will offer. Since there was so much that happened, here is a recap of the biggest stories that headlined the Raspberry Pi for the month of November.
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.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
–R. Buckminster Fuller
Let’s talk about the future, as understood by today’s children who will ultimately shape that future.
In the course of a normal day, for every adult with whom I speak, there are two kids who add to the day’s conversations. Sometimes they are 17 year’s old, sometimes they are anywhere from 9-12. Regardless of the “sometimes,” one thing remains a constant: These kids will shape the world in which they live, equaling and surpassing the accomplishments of their fathers or even their grandfathers, those fearful but heroic men who faced withering gunfire and certain death on foreign beaches, men who prematurely ended the Third Reich to insure those after them would not have to, and men who died so those approaching the land could advance.
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
FOSS Week in Review
The Thanksgiving holiday really put a damper on FOSS developments this week — but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to report. On the contrary. So without further adieu, and on the heels of Thanksgiving, help yourself to another slice of…
Pi Zero for $5: Our friends at Phoronix reported this week about the Pi Zero, the latest Raspberry Pi board, costing a grand total of $5 American.
On February 28th, 2012 at approximately 5:30 p.m., an emergency room ear, nose, throat doctor (ENT) who treated me for difficulty in breathing gathered my family around him. He reported that the throat cancer he found while inserting a trach tube was at stage 4 and that my prognosis was terminal. They were informed that the only thing they could do was to take me home and make me “comfortable.”
I don’t remember much. Diane, my youngest daughter Amanda, my ex-wife and others were at my bedside. I was heavily sedated and could barely speak. It was a carousel of faces and nurses, all in their own way, trying to bring me comfort. However, my life partner Diane wasn’t having any of the take-me-home-and-make-me-comfortable thing. She would have none of that. She demanded that an oncologist see me.
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