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Posts published in “Hardware”

The Positives and Negatives of Arduino

By Isaac Carter on August 17, 2016 |

Business, Hardware and News

The Positives and Negatives of ArduinoArduino logo

The big news in the single board computer realm recently hasn’t been with the Raspberry Pi, but with actions centering around Arduino…or should we say Arduinos?

The Raspberry Pi Report

My introduction to the world of single board computers started with the Raspberry Pi and an attempt to spin up a media server. Once the media server was established, the GPIO pins began to peek my interest and other projects were born. As I learned more about GPIO and electronics, I discovered there existed boards other than the Raspberry Pi that I could program to take my projects to another level.

Arduino logoTwo boards I began to work with were the Arduino and the BeagleBone Black. While I do like the BeagleBone Black, it’s the Arduino that has really honed my skills with electronics. The Raspberry Pi is all the rave of the tech world currently, but I thought I would take a moment to talk about some recent interesting stories about the board that everyone seems to have forgotten.

Continue readingThe Positives and Negatives of Arduino
How to Install Ubuntu on a Chromebook PixelChromebook Pixel with Ubuntu

How to Install Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel

By Phil Shapiro on August 16, 2016 |

Distros, Hardware, Tutorial and Video

Chromebooks are really nice laptops, except for one tiny problem which is…well, Chrome OS. This week, our contributing video editor found an easy to follow step-by-step guide for installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel. Problem solved.

The Video Screening Room

The Chromebook Pixel of 2013 is a lovely computer. Want to make it even lovelier? Install Ubuntu on it. This well-done tutorial video shows and explains all the steps.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Girn7mgoRco?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

In three years time, the Chromebook Pixels of 2013 will be six years old and you’ll be able to buy one quite affordably on eBay.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingHow to Install Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel
$5 Omega2 SBC Beats $300K Stretch GoalOmega2 SBC

$5 Omega2 SBC Beats $300K Stretch Goal

By Phil Shapiro on August 12, 2016 |

Hardware, Operating Systems and Video

The Omega2 is a quarter of the size of a credit card with a 580MH processor, 64MB RAM, 16MB flash, built-in Wi-Fi, a $5 price and with Linux preinstalled. What’s not to like about that?

The Video Screening Room

The most exciting developments in maker movement electronics is happening with low-cost Linux devices. In case you might not have heard of it, the Omega2 is a very small, very low-cost IoT Linux computer that you can program using many of the programming languages you already know. Check out the compelling Kickstarter video here.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue reading$5 Omega2 SBC Beats $300K Stretch Goal
IBM’s Linux Birthday, Oliver Stone’s ‘Snowden’ PSA & More…Wi-Fi

IBM’s Linux Birthday, Oliver Stone’s ‘Snowden’ PSA & More…

By Christine Hall on August 5, 2016 |

Desktops, Distros, Hardware, Media, News and Software

Also included: FCC requires TP-Link to allow users to install open source firmware on routers, five new distro releases, new releases of LibreOffice and KDE Plasma, and Microsoft releases Skype 1.3 Alpha for Linux.

FOSS Week in Review

Maybe because we’re in the last 30 days or so of real summer — as opposed to calendar summer — or perhaps because most ‘Mericans are glued to their TVs as the Clinton/Trump heavyweight bout gets underway in earnest, but this has been a slow news week in the FOSS world. However, there are some notable items worth mentioning.

Wi-FiFCC supports open source Wi-Fi firmware. For the last several months many open sourcers have been up in arms because it looked as if the door was being closed on open source on Wi-Fi routers after the agency changed it’s rules around radio interference on the 5 GHz band, making it difficult for router makers to allow users to install open source firmware on their routers. All along, the FCC claimed that shutting out open source use wasn’t part of the game plan, but we FOSSers are a suspicious lot and we weren’t buying it.

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
Continue readingIBM’s Linux Birthday, Oliver Stone’s ‘Snowden’ PSA & More…
A Review of the Pocket CHIP ComputerPocket CHIP computer

A Review of the Pocket CHIP Computer

By Phil Shapiro on August 2, 2016 |

Hardware, Reviews and Video

The CHIP computer, a SBC that runs on Debian and is billed as “the world’s first $9 computer,” has been released. This video review of the Pocket CHIP offers a good preview of what it’s about.

The Video Screening Room

The runaway Kickstarter success CHIP computer is now shipping, both the computer motherboard itself and the neat Pocket CHIP handheld device. A thorough video review of the device was created by gadget reviewer Lon Seidman.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnDbB6YlPvo?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

To remind you what the CHIP Kickstarter campaign looked like on its first day, here is a screencast I made showing the contributions coming in on the first evening. This 30 second video is sped up to show several hours of Kickstarter contributions.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingA Review of the Pocket CHIP Computer
Ghosts in the Voting MachinesVoting Machine

Ghosts in the Voting Machines

By Christine Hall on August 2, 2016 |

Hardware, Politics and Security

Whether or not foreign governments are planning on manipulating our election results in November, it’s past time we started taking the security of electronic voting seriously.

Op-ed

Even if it turns out that the FBI’s suspicions that Russian government forces are behind the hacking of the Democratic party turn out to be untrue, the fact our government is willing to publicly speculate on the possibility should be cause for some alarm. While it’s true that from a hacking sense the Democrats’ computers were probably low lying fruit and easy pickings, so are many of the voting machines that will be called into service in November’s general election.

Voting Machine
Joebeone at en.wikipedia [GNU Free Documentation License]
For decades we’ve known that many voting machines are subject to tampering, and many reasonable people are suspicious that tampering on the state level has already affected the outcome of some elections. This year we can double down on those concerns. In an era when politically motivated officials have been putting in place draconian voter restrictions in order to quell largely unproven fraud by a handful of individual voters, we’ve connected our voting machines to the Internet, which is an open invitation to foreign governments that might have a reason to want to have control over who governs us. In light of the recent allegations against Russia, that should be worrisome.

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
Continue readingGhosts in the Voting Machines
Facebook Surround 360 Plans Released to GitHubFacebook Surround 360

Facebook Surround 360 Plans Released to GitHub

By Phil Shapiro on July 29, 2016 |

Hardware and Video

Facebook’s open sourced plans for the Facebook Surround 360 camera system isn’t destined to be a boom for DIY enthusiasts, as it’s estimated that the cost to build one will weigh in at about 30 grand.

The Video Screening Room

Open source does not necessarily mean free or cheap. This week Facebook open sourced plans for an immersive 360 video camera system, Facebook Surround 360, whose component parts cost about $30,000. The plans for the camera are free, though. See the video here and the news story on TechCrunch.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingFacebook Surround 360 Plans Released to GitHub
Ubuntu MATE, Pithos and the Sounds of PopcornPopcorn noises running Pithos in Linux?

Ubuntu MATE, Pithos and the Sounds of Popcorn

By Robert Glen Fogarty on July 14, 2016 |

Hardware

Our resident Linux newbie finds another hardware problem, akin to popcorn in the machine, in his quest to give new life to an old Sony Vaio by using Linux.

The Linux Gadabout

My trusty old Sony Vaio laptop has been saddled up with Ubuntu MATE for a little over a month now. For the most part, it’s running just as smoothly as it ever did on Windows XP — and definitely better than it ran with the lovingly installed bloatware that came included with it shiny and new from the factory.

Robert Glen Fogarty

“Bob” Fogarty was the editor-in-chief at Chris Pirillo’s LockerGnome.com for nearly 12 years, and has written for ReadWrite.com and TheArtofCharm.com. He lives in San Diego with his wife and a medium-sized menagerie of beasties great and small. Follow him on Twitter: @Fogarty

Continue readingUbuntu MATE, Pithos and the Sounds of Popcorn
Is 32-bit Nearing End-of-Life at Some Linux Distros?32-bit computer

Is 32-bit Nearing End-of-Life at Some Linux Distros?

By Christine Hall on July 11, 2016 |

Distros and Hardware

At least three Linux distros have already quit releasing 32-bit versions, and Ubuntu seems to be standing in line to do the same. Is the end at hand for 32-bit mainstream distros?

News Analysis

We have three computers that see regular duty here at FOSS Force. Two are 64-bit laptops, one which is primarily reserved for out-of-the-office trips and the other used exclusively to test distros and software for reviews. The heavy lifting is done by our old 32-bit HP desktop.

In a month or so, when the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 18, otherwise known as “Sarah,” is released, we’ll be backing up our data and doing a clean install on the desktop. This will probably be the last operating system upgrade this computer will ever see. Sarah will be supported until 2021, and by then, this old computer will most likely have already given up the ghost. Even if it’s still running, however, it’s doubtful there will be a 32-bit version of Mint to run on it, as Canonical will probably have ceased development of the 32-bit version of its distro by then.

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
Continue readingIs 32-bit Nearing End-of-Life at Some Linux Distros?
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