Posts published in “Hardware”

A FOSS Wish List for 2015

By Christine Hall on January 1, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware, Humor, Mobile and Software

First my FOSS predictions for 2015: cloud, systemd, vulnerabilities, containers, and Linus uses the “F” word.

Let’s forget predictions; they’re boring. They’re either too obvious or they’re not likely to happen. So is my wish list, with two major exceptions. First, wishes are much more subjective, making them much more fun for the wisher. Second, when predictions don’t happen, they’re wrong. When I wish for things and they don’t happen, they’re still things I wish for, so they’re not wrong, they’re just not happening. Caution must be exercised, however. Remember the old proverb ascribed to the Chinese about the possibility of wishes coming true…

Oh, one last thing about how I wish. Sometimes I wish in very great detail. My friends who believe in magic tell me this is good, that it will help bring my wishes to fruition. Time will tell. Stay tuned…

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

FOSSForce.com

Welcome to the Pre-Post-PC Era

By Larry Cafiero on December 24, 2014 |

Hardware, Humor and Mobile

And the hits just keep on coming…

Today’s float on the parade of the PC-is-dead prognostications comes from The Register, which says, “At the very moment that Linux desktops seem to be reaching new levels of sophistication, polish and ‘just works’ ease-of-use, the entire future of the desktop computer (by which I also mean laptop) feels in doubt.”

The only thing that’s in doubt is whether that sentence is anywhere near remotely accurate. But let’s put that aside for a moment and assume we can see the future of how we deal with our digital lives.

Sure, you can see a Post-PC future from here all right. Of course, you’re going to need the Hubble to do so.

Naturally, there are things that you can do with your Post-PC apparatus, like surf the web, watch videos and all those important digital activities. But bear in mind that you’re not going to be using Blender on your smartphone.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

HP’s ‘The Machine’ & the Future of Linux

HP’s ‘The Machine’ & the Future of Linux

By Christine Hall on December 15, 2014 |

Hardware, News and Operating Systems

If all goes according to plan, in June of 2015 HP plans to release a new operating system they’re calling Linux++. Before we start jumping up and down and putting on our party hats, we should know that this is not a new Linux distro being designed by HP to be featured on a new line of laptops. Although based on Linux and Android, this won’t even be an operating system at all in the sense that mortals such as I generally use the term. Most of us won’t be downloading and installing it. If we do, we won’t be using it as a drop-in replacement for Mint, Fedora or any of our other favorite desktop distros.

Linux++ will mainly be used by developers who want to get their software projects ready for The Machine, a completely new type of computer which HP hopes to introduce to the large scale server market sometime in 2018. This computer will have such a radically new design that, in many ways, it’ll be a completely different animal from the machines we’ve been using since days when the word “computer” pretty much meant “IBM mainframe.”

So what is The Machine? Julie Bort with Business Insider on Thursday called it “a computer so radical and so powerful that it will reduce today’s data center down to the size of a refrigerator.” If it lives up to its hype, it promises to turn today’s computers into horse and buggies by comparison.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

32-bit Man in a 64-bit World

32-bit Man in a 64-bit World

By Larry Cafiero on November 26, 2014 |

Distros, Hardware and Operating Systems

We’re going to go off the beaten path a little bit here and start with Joe Walsh — the musician, not the politician — of all people.

In his latest album, Joe proclaims he’s an “Analog Man.” He’s an analog man in a digital world, and that’s something to which I can clearly relate. Here’s why: Until yesterday, all of my non-Macintosh hardware in the “Jungle Room” — I call it a lab because it’s filled with hardware, though I really don’t do anything in this room that remotely resembles research-and-development — is of 32-bit vintage.

In comes a castoff ThinkPad T500 from a friend in Seattle and I’m now in the 64-bit club.

I get the advantages of the better/faster/stronger processor capacity, obviously: From Computers 101, say it with me, “The number of bits in a processor refers to the size of the data types that it handles as well as the size of its registry. A 64-bit processor is capable of storing 264 computational values, including memory addresses. This makes it capable of accessing over four billion times as much physical memory than a 32-bit processor.”

Larry Cafiero

Video: Ken Starks’ & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

Video: Ken Starks’ & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

By FOSS Force on November 3, 2014 |

Community, Hardware, Operating Systems and Software

Here at FOSS Force we’re proud to be associated with Ken Starks. We’re proud because of the great articles he writes advocating Linux. We’re also extremely proud that he was chosen to be a keynote speaker at this year’s Ohio LinuxFest. But most of all, we’re proud because of his big heart, which he expresses through his work through Reglue, the nonprofit he founded in 2005 to give Linux computers, and training on how to use them, to financially disadvantaged school children in and around the Austin, Texas area where he lives.

Indeed, it’s this last aspect that was honored at Ohio LinuxFest, and the work Ken does with his “Reglue kids” was his focus during his time spent behind the podium. He called his presentation “Deleting The Digital Divide One Computer at a Time.”

Lucky for us, his friend Randy Noseworthy put together a video of the presentation, which we’re happy to be able to offer here. We’re certain you’ll find it as inspiring as we do.

Ubuntu Turns 10 & systemd Is Not Contagious

Ubuntu Turns 10 & systemd Is Not Contagious

By Larry Cafiero on October 24, 2014 |

Hardware and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

Everyone is either at Seattle GNU/Linux Conference, Ohio LinuxFest or All Things Open, so there’s no one around to bounce off some ideas regarding what’s happening this week. Besides, if you were at any of those three events –- and if not, why not? — you probably know more than I do at this point.

In any case, besides two great stories this week by my colleagues, FOSS Force editor Christine Hall’s ATO coverage and Ken Starks’ pre-OLF piece, there were a few things of note that happened this week, like…

Ubuntu turns ten, releases 14.10: Many accolades were made, toasts were proposed and Ubuntu turns ten while releasing Ubuntu 14.10 –- all the way up to the letter U with Utopic Unicorn –- on Thursday.

Larry Cafiero

Open Source Women, Preinstalled Linux & the SF Giants

Open Source Women, Preinstalled Linux & the SF Giants

By Larry Cafiero on October 17, 2014 |

Community, Hardware and News

FOSS Week in Review

With another week coming to an end, let’s wrap it up on a somewhat balanced note.

Get out the Vote: Our friends at Red Hat are now taking votes for the Women in Open Source Awards. The first award of its kind, the prize shines a spotlight on women making important contributions to an open source project, to the open source community, or through the use of open source methodology.

Nominations are open through Nov. 21. Qualified judges from Red Hat will narrow down the nominees to a subset of finalists for both the Academic and Community awards. The public will vote to determine the winner from the finalists selected. Winners will be announced in June during an awards ceremony at next year’s Red Hat Summit in Boston.

Larry Cafiero

One Week: Three FOSS Expos

One Week: Three FOSS Expos

By Larry Cafiero on October 10, 2014 |

Business, Community and Hardware

The week after next the FOSS world will be brimming with opportunities to find out more about what’s going on in three separate shows around the country. If you are within a day’s drive of any of them — or if you are not adverse to flying — making it to one of them would be well worth the effort.

In the South, there’s All Things Open, which is being held midweek — Oct. 22-23 — in Raleigh, N.C. ATO is a conference exploring open source, open tech and the open web in the enterprise. Featuring 90 speakers and 100 sessions, ATO brings a lot of heavy hitters to the Research Triangle area. The price for admission might be considered steep by regular Linux show denizens — ranging from $25 for the Women in Tech/OS panel presentation to $229 for a two-day pass. Those who wish to check out the menu of options can go to the ATO registration page.

Larry Cafiero

Researchers Release USB Exploit & Incomplete Fix on GitHub

By FOSS Force on October 8, 2014 |

Hardware, News and Security

Now that a working exploit of the USB vulnerability that’s baked-in to the USB standard has been released, it might be a prudent move to no longer employ any USB devices that aren’t already under your control until this situation has been fixed.

The exploit was first made public two months ago at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas when Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell of Berlin based Security Research Labs (SRL) demonstrated an attack they called BadUSB to a standing-room-only crowd.

Breakthrough in Wireless Technology…Or Not

Breakthrough in Wireless Technology…Or Not

By Ken Starks on October 7, 2014 |

Hardware, Humor and Operating Systems

Exactly three weeks ago today I caught myself before hitting the “share” button on my Google Plus stream. My intent was to complain about some thing or another. I believe it was an out loud groan about a USB wireless device not working out of the box with Linux. I think I was going to triangulate on Broadcom’s insistence on making wireless a real headache.

And yeah, it doesn’t take that much to get a Broadcom chip working in most cases. Unless you are installing Linux at a friend’s house or another place that doesn’t have a wired connection. Then you’re pretty much sunk. The popup says that the wireless will work once you connect to the package manager. Uh, what if I am not located near a wired connection? That’s kinda why I wanted to connect to the web anyway you friggin’ ijit.

Let’s say it together…you’re pretty much sunk. Still. In 2014. Sunk.

There are a lot of other things that are deserving of our collective ire. Wireless shouldn’t have been one of them for me. I chastised myself for throwing my own little private snit concerning something so trivial. If you count back the years with me, the kernel update to 2.27 saw wireless go from “wireless sucks in Linux” to “holy crap, wireless works in Linux.” Or it did for the most part anyway. It was an important mile marker for desktop Linux.

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

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

Linux Tech Support & Time Warner

By Ken Starks on September 16, 2014 |

Hardware, Humor and Internet

I’ve spent my time in the tech support trenches…and someone else’s time as well. Please mark my dues paid in full. I’ve worked from the script-reader doing basic trouble-shooting, up to floor supervisor and level three support. My point? Not everybody who works support at a call center is an idiot, but some certainly are…

Since 2005, I have helped financially-disadvantaged kids get computers in their homes. While it’s become a cliché in the past few years, the “digital divide” most certainly exists. Since our early days of Komputers4Kids, The HeliOS Project and now Reglue, the gap between the tech haves and have-nots remains a problem.

Way more than many of us would think.

With that being established, I want to take a walk down memory lane…to let’s say 2005.

Back then, getting a Linux computer bolted-up to broadband internet was straight forward. Even nine years ago, the biggest challenge to getting Time Warner or eternal-hell-and-damnation Comcast routers online might have been to reboot the router.

Maybe. The majority of the time, not even that.

So imagine my surprise when I wasn’t able to get one of our established Reglue kids online. The oldest boy, Rex, had been using his Reglue computer for four years and it was time for an upgrade. I was working with a brand new Time Warner modem and wireless router, out of the box. I even went back in and made sure I was accessing the modem properly. I was. This task shouldn’t have taken ten minutes and I was now on minute thirty.

Ken Starks

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

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Posts published in “Hardware”

A FOSS Wish List for 2015

Welcome to the Pre-Post-PC Era

HP’s ‘The Machine’ & the Future of Linux

32-bit Man in a 64-bit World

Video: Ken Starks’ & Ruth Suehle’s Keynotes at OLF

Ubuntu Turns 10 & systemd Is Not Contagious

FOSS Week in Review

Open Source Women, Preinstalled Linux & the SF Giants

FOSS Week in Review

One Week: Three FOSS Expos

Researchers Release USB Exploit & Incomplete Fix on GitHub

Breakthrough in Wireless Technology…Or Not

Linux Tech Support & Time Warner