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Posts published in “Distros”

Ubuntu MATE: Giving Raspbian a Run for Its Money

When most people think about working with or trying out the Raspberry Pi, they are usually envisioning using Raspbian. This isn’t by default, but rather because Raspbian is the only OS available for the Raspberry Pi that comes equipped with the tools that we all hear about such as Scratch, Sonic Pi, and support for using the GPIO pins. That’s all changed now with the latest release of Ubuntu MATE for the Raspberry Pi 2.

Ubuntu Mate logoIn this latest release, Ubuntu MATE now comes equipped with everything under the hood that Raspbian has to offer and then some. I’ll review some of the best parts about Ubuntu MATE and show why you might want to install Ubuntu MATE instead of Raspbian.

Debian Live Dead, Linux Ransomware & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Larry’s away today, hiding beneath his tinfoil hat and hoping to escape the ravishes of Friday the thirteenth, so I was volunteered to write this week’s review. Sorry. Larry will return next week.

G’bye Debian Live: By now you’ve probably heard the news that evidently the Debian Live project is no more. This according to the project’s leader, Daniel Baumann, who posted An Abrupt End to Debian Live on the Debian website on Monday. According to him, the project was “hijacked by the Debian-cd and the Debian-installer teams.”

Debian LiveReading the post, you might be excused for thinking it’s not all wine and roses over in Debian-land. “Debian can be great,” Baumann wrote. “But depending on who you are, where you come from, and who your friends are, Debian can also be hateful and full of deceit.”

Christine Hall

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

Open APIs, Microsoft Loves Red Hat & More…

FOSS Week in Review

It has been a busy week in the FOSS world, with a lot of buzz about developments in the larger sectors of the FOSS realms. So let’s jump in, shall we?

Linux Foundation LogoLinux Foundation looks to Open APIs: After corralling the widely divergent world of containers, the Linux Foundation now sets its sights on the API economy and making application program interfaces, or APIs, easier to find, according to a report from InfoWorld. For the uninitiated, open APIs, sometimes called public APIs, describes an application program interface providing developers with programmatic access to a proprietary software application.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Release Dates: It’s On-Time When It’s Ready

Over the last week or two, several folks in the wider FOSS realm have taken the Fedora Project to task, mostly if not entirely on social media, for not releasing Fedora 23 on time.

Actually, the release of the next Fedora release is on time — tomorrow, if you want to go over to the Fedora Project site and give it a download — but even if it was released “late,” the standard by which a distribution is released on time depends on one thing and one thing only.

Fedora logo
Fedora is releasing Fedora 23 tomorrow — on time, as far as we’re concerned.
It depends on whether it is ready.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Solved: The Case of the Missing SteamOS Icons

Over the last week, many Linux users on Steam were left in a state of confusion when noticing that some Linux games have had their SteamOS icon removed. For those unaware, the SteamOS icon certifies that a title is playable on Linux, including SteamOS, and soon, on Steam Machines.

A reddit user, mykro76, took note of this in a post last week:

Hunter Banks

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

Ubucon Slated for SCALE 14X, Bassel Offered MIT Job & More…

FOSS Week in Review

I don’t say enough good things about Ubuntu, so when they give me reason to, I’m on it. I also don’t talk enough about openSUSE either; good, bad or indifferent. Not that I’m turning over a new leaf or anything, but this week’s wrap up contains two items about these distros, and more. Don’t just sit there: Read on&hellip.

Ubuntu logo
Ubucon, a series of Ubuntu-based conferences, brings its traveling salvation show to SCALE 14X in January.
Ubucon at SCALE 14X: SCALE 14X is pleased to announce that Ubucon, a network of conferences focusing on Ubuntu, will take place during the four-day expo at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Linux: When Uniformity is Good

We’ve been in this bid’ness for ten years now. The business of giving Linux-powered computers to kids who cannot afford this technology, or any technology for that matter. And so far so good. There have been some lessons learned along the way. Some of those lessons small but valuable. Some of those lessons so painful that we had no choice but to change the way we do things. And never doubt…there were uh, spirited discussions about this change. Yeah, we’ll stick to “spirited”. I’ve been to football matches in Great Britain and Germany that couldn’t come close to such levels of “spirit.” So which thing could bring about this measure of “spirited” discussion?

KDEThe Linux desktop environment. Environments such as Unity, KDE, Mate, Cinnamon, etc.

These environments all have their strengths and their weaknesses, just like any number of things you might put up for comparison. But this business of desktop environments, well…there are a lot of moving parts here. A lot of things to consider, and most importantly, the mechanics that lead us to our decision to use one environment over the other.

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

Linux Users, Start Your Engines

Unless you’re a motorhead to a varying degree — and an older one at that — you probably don’t know who John Cooper is. His contributions in racing circles — putting the engine behind the driver in his Cooper racing cars in the 1950s — would normally cement his place in automotive history, but he didn’t stop there.

The thing for which Cooper is more widely known is modifying the British Motor Corporation’s Mini in the 1960s, adding his name to make it the Mini Cooper while adding a higher degree of performance that won the little-car-that-could a warehouse full of rally trophies and Sports Car Club of America club racing victories.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Is Microsoft Wooing Canonical & Important Departures…

FOSS Week in Review

Ubuntu plus Microsoft
…sitting in a tree…?
It always makes for an interesting week when the first thing right off the bat, without reservation, comes a speculation piece from Linux Journal dealing with that company from the Isle of Man.

Grab some popcorn — make two bowls — and get comfortable.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Raspbian Jessie Lives Up to the Hype

Keeping in rhythm with using names from Toy Story characters, Raspbian Jessie was released this past week for Raspberry Pi users. This latest release marks many improvements and updates that Raspberry Pi users have been longing for. After using and experimenting with Raspbian Jessie for the past week, I have to say that I’m very pleased with the update.

Raspbian LogoWhat follows is a walk through of my first experiences with Raspbian Jessie and what I feel are the points that stand out the most. For this test, I used a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and a SanDisk 16g micro SD card.

Isaac Carter

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.

FOSS Hits & Misses on a Monday Morning

The day has changed, but the commentary remains the same: In a minor FOSS Force shuffle, I’ve moved from giving commentary on Wednesdays to giving it on Mondays. And while there is no one item that stands out in a grand way to start the week, there’s no reason we can’t begin the week with several smaller items, right?

LibreOffice_logoLibreOffice has won, get over it: Last week, I innocently posted an article on Facebook about LibreOffice’s fifth birthday — yes, it has been five years, surprisingly — and for some reason it ran into some resistance from one friend who isn’t exactly too fond of the name “LibreOffice” — “Libre isn’t English” (huh?) — and he seems to think that the remnants of OpenOffice are better served if the LibreOffice folks just fold up their tent and rejoin OpenOffice. Yeah, I laughed too. That’s not going to happen because, for all intents and purposes, OpenOffice was fatally poisoned as soon as Oracle got a hold of it, making the LibreOffice fork necessary. If anything, OpenOffice developers should drop OpenOffice and join LibreOffice. Anyway, happy 5th, LibreOffice.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

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