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Posts published in “Operating Systems”

FreeBSD, Variants Not Affected by Recent GNU Bug

By Larry Cafiero on February 18, 2016 |

News, Operating Systems and Security

FreeBSD, Variants Not Affected by Recent GNU BugBSD logo

Larry the BSD Guy

The glibc security vulnerability that Linux developers have been scrambling to patch does not affect *BSD.

Much has been made about a vulnerability in a function in the GNU C Library. And searching far and wide over the Internet, there was little — actually nothing — I could find regarding how this affected BSD variants.

However, you can rest easy, BSDers: Not our circus, not our monkeys.

Dag-Erling Smørgrav, a FreeBSD developer since 1998 and a former FreeBSD Security Officer, writes in his blog that “neither FreeBSD itself nor native FreeBSD applications are affected.”

Continue readingFreeBSD, Variants Not Affected by Recent GNU Bug
Manjaro Now Available for Raspberry PiManjaro Arm welcome

Manjaro Now Available for Raspberry Pi

By Isaac Carter on February 17, 2016 |

Distros and Operating Systems

The Raspberry Pi Report

The popular GNU/Linux distro Manjaro is now available in four flavors for the Raspberry Pi and other ARM devices.

While Manjaro Linux has been available for desktop Linux environments for a few years now, it has not been available for ARM devices. This past week marked a huge turning point for Raspberry Pi users, as the Manjaro Arm project marked its first alpha release. The reason this is such big news is that many Raspberry Pi users did not have a great entryway into Arch Linux prior to the Manjaro Arm Project. Arch has always been available for the Raspberry Pi, through either a direct download or using NOOBS, but neither is as user friendly as most other Raspberry Pi distros. This is where Manjaro Linux comes into the picture. Manjaro provides a more user-friendly approach to Arch with the goal of getting users into the Arch space who found either the installation or documentation a bit overwhelming.

Manjaro Arm welcome

With the Manjaro-Arm Project, Raspberry Pi users can now experience for themselves the simplicity of Arch Linux through several different editions. These featured editions are Media, Server, Base and Minimal.

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.

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Year of Linux Depends on How You Define LinuxAndroid mascot

Year of Linux Depends on How You Define Linux

By Ken Starks on February 16, 2016 |

Operating Systems

The Heart of Linux

It didn’t happen slowly. On the contrary, it was a thunderbolt…a deep, thrumming, resounding sense of being right, of being at the right place at the right time. A sense of finding something that you knew without doubt would be important in your life. There wasn’t any need to “think it through” or “evaluate the situation.” The moment I realized the power under my fingertips, even my self-identity changed. With that moment growing like a supernova inside of me, I fully took on that new identity. As that blazing power exploded from within me, I knew who I was. I was now a firebrand. It was six years ago this month that I knew who I was.

I was a Linux Advocate. I just opted out of the cape.

It didn’t take me long to realize the uphill trudge I had ahead of me. The battle between GNU Linux and just Linux was enough to confuse any convert-to-be in front of me. When it takes more than a few sentences to explain something to almost anyone, their interest wanes quickly. It doesn’t help that I was trying to sell subscriptions to a divided camp either.

Android mascotA helpful tip for those coming of age as a Linux Advocate: Temper your rhetoric when explaining just how much Microsoft sucks. It’s easy to come off as a wild-eyed zealot. These are lessons in advocacy learned rather quickly. And yeah…, that whole wide-eyed zealot thing? It didn’t work out so well for me. Nor will it for you.

As I did then, I still do.

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/
Continue readingYear of Linux Depends on How You Define Linux
OMG, Ubuntu Tablet Could Be a Mobile Game ChangerUbuntu tablet

OMG, Ubuntu Tablet Could Be a Mobile Game Changer

By Christine Hall on February 8, 2016 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, Mobile and Operating Systems

Will Canonical’s outside the box thinking redefine the mobile experience?

We’re finally going to see what Canonical can do with mobile. There’s good reason to be cautiously optimistic, as there are at least three potential game changers for the mobile world in the new Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet due to be released in March.

Ubuntu tablet

The BQ Ubuntu phone, the first of which was released about a year ago, has turned out to be only a tease of what is to come, especially here in the U.S. where the phone has been mostly a no show and not available for purchase. Even after it became available in the U.S., the device is a mostly a brick, offering only 2G connectivity and then only on certain carriers. But at least those who have one can walk around with GNU/Linux in their pocket — even if it’s only useful at home, McDonalds, Starbucks or someplace else with Wi-Fi.

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
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Microsoft Kidnaps Windows, Malware Everywhere & More…Windows 10 screen shot

Microsoft Kidnaps Windows, Malware Everywhere & More…

By Christine Hall on February 5, 2016 |

Distros, Mobile, News, Operating Systems and Security

FOSS Week in Review

The big Linux conference down in the land of Oz just completed and there are no really big shows on the agenda until Atlanta’s Great Wide Open opens its great doors wide in March. Everybody here in North Carolina, which I call home, is on the road, hanging out in Baghdad-by-the-Bay waiting to see how well the Panthers play in fog and trying to pretend to be old hats at having a pro home team worth the effort of a root or two.

You’d think it would be quiet around here, but it’s not. As always, it’s one thing after another, and as a coworker often often says, I’m getting too old for this. I could tell you stories, but I’m not. What I am going to tell you is the high points of this week in FOSS…

If you’re a Windows user, which most of you reading FOSS Force aren’t, then Microsoft wants to hijack your machine. It seems that the company that’s been spending millions — and has been buying into every free and open source conference it can find and a few it can’t — to get the word out that “Microsoft has changed,” hasn’t. If you happen to be unlucky enough to be using Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, you’re probably beginning to realize this right about now.

Windows users might be well advised to think about unplugging their computers from the Internet when they’re not around to keep an eye on things or they’re likely to wake-up in the morning, or return home from work, to find they’re running Windows 10 instead of whatever version they know and love.

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 readingMicrosoft Kidnaps Windows, Malware Everywhere & More…
Readers Say ‘No’ to Antivirus on LinuxSecurity lock

Readers Say ‘No’ to Antivirus on Linux

By FOSS Force on February 5, 2016 |

Operating Systems, Polls and Security

The FOSS Force Poll

A few weeks back when Ken Starks wrote an anecdotal column on an experience with a false positive from Avast antivirus on GNU/Linux, we started thinking. We run antivirus on our LAMP servers with the intent of protecting poor suckers on Windows, but on our Linux desktops and laptops? Pretty much, no. Some of us had tried the open source ClamAV at one time or another, mainly out of curiosity, but none of us had stuck with it. To our knowledge, until Starks wrote his column none of us even knew anybody who had ever run proprietary AV on Linux boxes.

antivirus can be picked like a lock
By Rudolf Simon [CC BY 3.0 ]
That was a far cry from our Windows days — and it would be a fair assumption to say that everyone here at one time or another relied on Windows as their primary operating system. In those days, the first thing we’d do with a new or new used box was download and install AVG, Avast or Symantec, and maybe even throw in a third party firewall such as Zone Alarm, just to be on the safer side.

Did any of it work? Who knows? But as an old friend of ours used to say, “We have to do something, even if it’s wrong.”

Continue readingReaders Say ‘No’ to Antivirus on Linux
Ubuntu Tablet to Be Available — Even in the U.S. — in MarchUbuntu tablet

Ubuntu Tablet to Be Available — Even in the U.S. — in March

By Christine Hall on February 4, 2016 |

Distros, Hardware, Media, News and Operating Systems

Ubuntu today announced the launch of a tablet running its “converged” operating system which will be available in March.

If you’ve been waiting for a tablet offering the full GNU/Linux experience, your wait is almost over. Ubuntu announced today that a tablet offering the full “convergence” experience will be available to the public in March. The 10 inch device, dubbed the Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition, will be built by the Spanish company BQ, which currently manufactures two Ubuntu phones, and will be sold through BQ’s online store. So far, no information on pricing seems to be available.

Ubuntu tabletThe device will be the first fully functional mobile device running Ubuntu’s mobile platform available in the U.S. Although BQ has made Ubuntu phones available to U.S. customers for some time now, they’re not compatible with U.S. carriers’ systems and offer, at best, 2G capability. The tablet is a Wi-Fi device with no cellular conductivity and so won’t be hampered in any way when used in the U.S.

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 readingUbuntu Tablet to Be Available — Even in the U.S. — in March
VIMAGE Coming Soon to FreeBSDFreeBSD logo

VIMAGE Coming Soon to FreeBSD

By Larry Cafiero on February 4, 2016 |

News and Operating Systems

Larry the BSD Guy

I have to confess that I am still tying up loose ends from SCALE14X — the expo doesn’t end when the doors close for those of us who work the show. However, one interesting development popped up on my BSD radar this week that bears mentioning.

Ed Maste gives a detailed report on it in the FreeBSD Foundation’s newsletter, reporting that Bjoern Zeeb gets the nod for a project grant “to finalize and integrate the work done to make the VIMAGE network stack virtualization production 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

Continue readingVIMAGE Coming Soon to FreeBSD
Redmond Admits Using Microsoft Supported Windows Is ‘Risky’Microsoft Windows 7 warning

Redmond Admits Using Microsoft Supported Windows Is ‘Risky’

By Ken Starks on February 2, 2016 |

Operating Systems

The Heart of Linux

I’ve mentioned often on these pages and others that, as a rule, us older folks tend to have severe allergic reactions to technology and tech devices. I believe I’ve successfully made my case, just by talking about the folks in my own neighborhood retirement community.

I am the anomaly. I’m an “old guy” who gets tech. Mostly anyway. Just don’t lean too heavily for my networking skills or you’ll fall down, busting your butt and getting nasty paper cuts from all of those antiquated certs. And sure, we can tick off names here of the folks who know what both an IDE and Gertitol are, but mostly we older people resemble “The Walking Dead” as we wander around Fry’s Electronics or Best Buy.

Best Buy, of course, is the place where many of us older people go to seek help in what it is we need in a computer. The sales reps there can be so nice. What they suggest is almost always twice the cost of what we really need, but hey, the Best Buy geek said this is the one to buy. Sales bonus for an extended warranty plan anyone?

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/
Continue readingRedmond Admits Using Microsoft Supported Windows Is ‘Risky’

BSD at SCALE 14x

By Larry Cafiero on January 28, 2016 |

Community and Operating Systems

Larry the BSD Guy

As I may have mentioned during the SCALE 14x coverage, one of the disadvantages of the glorious burden of working for a great event such as SCALE is that I don’t get out of the media room enough. The fact is, I can’t — herding the cats known as the tech media and processing various social media posts around the event keeps me in the room.

But I do get to go fix things occasionally, and that’s when I make the rounds on the expo floor.

BSD had itself its own row of booths in the expanded expo hall — FreeBSD, the FreeBSD Foundation, and OpenBSD were all neighbors on the exhibit floor. As is common for all the conferences we attend, Dru Lavigne and I — she moreso than me — got to catch up on things, and I took the time to drop in on her “Doc Like and Egyptian” presentation (though, burdened with a radio, I was called away to put out a minor “fire,” rhetorically speaking, in the press room).

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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