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Real Linux Coming to Tablets

Ever since I bought my roommate a second generation Nexus 7 tablet a few years back for Christmas, I’ve been intrigued by the possibilities the small form factor offers. The problem is that Android is geared almost solely to push e-commerce, and to that end wants to share information with practically everyone. Even worse, it’s not really free-as-in-freedom.

Jolla Tablet
The Jolla Tablet running Sailfish OS is now taking preorders in the U.S. and other countries.
That hasn’t kept roomie from loving hers, and spending hours with it daily. She’s even made herself something of an expert at using Android, which is amazing, given that she can’t use a Linux or Windows box for more than fifteen minutes without asking me how to do something or another.

Things are looking up for those of us who think we might like using a tablet if only we could find one with a real honest-to-goodness operating system like good ol’ GNU/Linux. There are a couple of Linux based tablets in the pipeline now — with one already taking preorders for a second-round limited production run and the other promising to take preorders any day now.

Happy Birthday Chrome, a New Elementary & More…

FOSS Week in Review

While Larry’s on the West Coast, where it’s never too hot nor too cold, on a brief educational sabbatical, burning the midnight oil while cramming to increase his Linux skills, I’m in North Carolina where it’s not often too cold — at least in my part of the state — but where in summer heat and humidity conspire to make life miserable for homo sapiens. Thankfully, September has arrived, so we’re hopeful that the temps and moisture will soon drop to tolerable levels.

elementary os logoMeanwhile, in the world of free tech…

Elementary OS steps up: Not quite four months after the release of version 0.3.0 Freya, the folks at elementary have announced the release of 0.3.1. Although this is officially a minor point release, it does come packed with changes that should make it a must-install for elementary users. Included in the update: Version 14.04.3 of Ubuntu’s Hardware Enablement stack, improvements to the interface in Files, and the latest and greatest version 0.5.11 of the Midori browser.

Hello, Columbus: Ohio LinuxFest Up Next Oct. 2-3

Ohio LinuxFest logoNext up on Brother FOSS’s Traveling Salvation Show — pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone go — brings the proverbial tent and revival show to Columbus, Ohio, at the beginning of next month.

The 13th annual Ohio LinuxFest will be held Oct. 2-3 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in downtown Columbus. Hosting authoritative speakers and a large expo hall, the OLF welcomes all free and open source software professionals, enthusiasts, and everyone interested in learning more about free and open source software.

‘Freedom Penguin’ Takes Flight, Distro Count & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Before we get rolling on the last FOSS Force item before the weekend, I’d like to welcome Hunter Banks to the FOSS Force team. Hunter is part of the FOSS-forward Banks family of Los Angeles — dad Phillip is a computer consultant and a long-time Southern California Linux Expo volunteer (along with brother Phillip Jr.), and sister Keila has been in both the FOSS and mainstream media on girls-in-tech issues — and he’s writing a Linux/FOSS gaming column.

Flying-penguinsWelcome to the team, Hunter!

Now, want to see something scary?

For Linux, It’s Another Day, Another File System

In case you weren’t paying attention, there’s a new Linux file system on the horizon, thanks to a former Google engineer.

That engineer in question, namely Kent Overstreet, posted a message on LKML.org last week promoting the progress of Bcache File System, or Bcachefs, the first Linux file system written specifically for solid state disks. The purpose of the new file system is to ramp up the speed in the way Linux stores data on servers.

File system“Yet another new filesystem? Why?” Overstreet asks in his post. And then he adeptly answers the age-old question.

“Well, years ago (going back to when I was still at Google), I and the other people working on bcache realized that what we were working on was, almost by accident, a good chunk of the functionality of a full blown filesystem — and there was a really clean and elegant design to be had there if we took it and ran with it,” Overstreet wrote. “And a fast one — the main goal of bcachefs to match ext4 and xfs on performance and reliability, but with the features of btrfs/zfs.”

Everywhere a Linux Fest, Linux Gaming Good to Go & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Steam logoFirst things first: When the sun comes up on a sleepy little town down around San Antone, it’ll mark the start of Texas Linux Fest, the sixth annual two-day Linux/FOSS hoedown deep in the heart of the Lone Star State, this year about halfway between Austin and San Antonio. Lots of great speakers with lots of great sponsors give this show a more local feel than the one earlier this week in the Pacific Northwest, so if you’re in the neighborhood, you should give the fest a visit.

Good News, Bad News for Canonical & More…

FOSS Week in Review

It’s been a busy week on the Isle of Man, and elsewhere, so let’s not tarry and dive in, shall we?

Canonical Opens Ubuntu One: After dropping its Ubuntu One cloud storage service a year ago, Ars Techinca reports Canonical this week released the system’s file-syncing code under the Affero General Public License Version 3.

Ubuntu One logo“The code we’re releasing is the server side of what desktop clients connected to when syncing local or remote changes,” said Martin Albisetti, Canonical’s Director of Online Services, in a post on the Ubuntu site. “This is code where most of the innovation and hard work went throughout the years, where we faced most of the scaling challenges and the basis on which other components were built upon.”

Is Bassel Nearer to Freedom?

Last October, FOSS Force published a story on the 2012 imprisonment — without charges — by the Syrian government of Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil, a 31-year-old Palestinian-Syrian computer engineer specializing in open source software development. Bassel has become known worldwide for his strong commitment to the open source paradigm, teaching others about technology, and contributing his experience freely to help the world.

Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil
Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil has been under arrest in Syria since March 2012. (Photo: Joi Ito, CC-BY-2.0)
Earlier this year and up to a fortnight ago, the Syrian government has been systematically releasing hundreds of prisoners. However, so far Bassel hasn’t been one of them.

Jon Phillips, a digital activist living in the U.S. who has collaborated with Bassel on projects in the past and is currently working to help free Bassel, took a few minutes with FOSS Force to update Bassel’s plight.

Lenovo Announces New ThinkPad P50, P70 ‘Mobile Workstation’

ThinkPad aficionados, are you ready?

While both bending the language and changing definitions of hardware on the fly, Lenovo announced on Tuesday the Lenovo ThinkPad P50 and P70, the new ThinkPad hardware to be available in Q4.

But first, let’s set things straight: The ThinkPad is no longer a laptop, according to the Lenovo press release. The first paragraph of the press release says the company “unveiled the beginning of a new family of mobile workstation innovations.” So I guess that’s what we’re calling them now – mobile workstations.

P70
The Lenovo ThinkPad P70 should be out later this year.
Fine.

Anyway, the new ThinkPad P70 comes with the most memory and storage ever found in a laptop…sorry, a mobile workstation. Namely, maxing out at 64GB of DDR4 ECC memory and with the ability to handle up to four storage devices and up to a terabyte of SSD storage. It also utilizes the latest PCIe technology for speeds up to five times faster than current SATA technology. But wait, there’s more: The ThinkPad P70 “comes with two Intel ThunderboltTM 3 ports for ultra-fast connectivity and a 4K UHD display or optional FHD touch,” according to the release.

More Surprises for Windows 10 Users

Yup. Gordon Kelly at Forbes is right when he writes that Windows is Microsoft’s operating system and it’s free to do with it what it wants. It’s also true that the user base doesn’t have to like it, and as FOSS Force readers are fully aware, there are other options.

Since the release of Windows 10, both network and home users have been finding a few unexpected surprises — nothing big or overly important, but all pointing to what Windows users can expect going forward from the “new,” presumably kinder and gentler, Microsoft.

Windows logoWe’ll start with the home user.

Yesterday, Forbes’ Kelly wrote an article on little pieces that have gone missing in Redmond’s latest and greatest. Again, none of them are deal breakers for him (he’s evidently a happy Windows user), but they point to Microsoft’s much ballyhooed “new way” of doing things. He points to two apps that have been included for free in Windows like forever. Now, ya gotta download, and one way or another, pay for them.

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