Posts published in “Operating Systems”

Why Jeff Hoogland Returned to Bodhi

By Christine Hall on January 22, 2015 |

On Tuesday morning I awoke to find in my inbox a cryptic message, sent during the wee hours of the morning, from Jeff Hoogland.

Shortly after our interview I made a liar out of myself and got bit by the Bodhi bug again.

The interview, of course, referenced the one published here on FOSS Force on the Monday before last, in which we discussed his leaving Bodhi for greener fields or Python or something. Hoogland finished Tuesday morning’s message with a link to a page on his Thoughts on Technology blog, where he was announcing his return to Bodhi Linux in his original role as project manager and lead developer.

Really? He was going back?

In the FOSS world, this was pretty big news. I got to work writing a story right away, taking time out to dash off a quick message to Hoogland.

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

Fedora 23: 64-bit Only?

By Larry Cafiero on January 21, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware and Operating Systems

So let’s see how this flies in the wide world of FOSS….

Stephen Smoogen blogs recently that he’s pitching a proposal for a 64-bit only Fedora starting with Fedora 23 — that’s not the next one, but the one after that; maybe Fedora 24, if it is not possible by Fedora 23.

For those of you keeping score at home, Smoogen is a long-time Fedora contributor who now serves on Fedora’s EPEL Steering Committee. And EPEL? That’s what’s commonly known as Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux, “a Fedora Special Interest Group that creates, maintains, and manages a high quality set of additional packages for Enterprise Linux, including, but not limited to, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS and Scientific Linux (SL), Oracle Linux (OL),” according to their wiki.

Fedora 23: 32-bit users need not apply?

Smoogen writes in introducing his self-described “Devil’s Proposal” the following: “I am going to make the uncomfortable and ugly proposal to drop 32 bit in Fedora 23 and only look at 64 bit architectures as primary architectures.”

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

Jeff Hoogland’s Back at Bodhi

By Christine Hall on January 20, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

Here’s some news that should make Bodhi Linux users happy. Jeff Hoogland has returned to Bodhi in his former position as project manager/lead developer.

If you’ll remember, Hoogland stepped down from the position back in September, stating on his blog that he was leaving his post “for a variety of reasons.”

In an interview with Hoogland a couple of weeks back, I learned that despite stepping down as lead developer, Hoogland has continued to be involved in Bodhi development, primarily by helping the new development team get on track. “The build process for Bodhi was largely handled by myself previously and much of my process was contained in my head and not in documentation,” he said. “That is changing.”

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Saying Goodbye to Java the Hard Way

Saying Goodbye to Java the Hard Way

By Ken Starks on January 20, 2015 |

Browsers, Community and Operating Systems

The Best of Ken Starks

We were fortunate enough to have a donated space in the expo hall at Texas Linux Fest this year. Carolyn Hulsey, who is one of our directors, manned the Reglue booth for us on Friday. She jokingly asked if I wanted her to be our “booth babe” this year. She was, indeed, all of that.

What was truly humbling was the number of people who recognized us without introduction. When someone approached, I stood and extended my hand in greeting. More often than I would have thought, the person shook my hand and told me, “I know who you are.”

Wow…just wow.

It was one of these people who later pursued a three day email discussion with me on free-as-in-beer software. And yeah…we all know the benefits. But what of the negatives?

His take on Linux distributions?

“Anyone paying for a Linux distribution is putting their money down the drain. What they should be doing is putting that money into the hands of a free distro developer so (s)he can make their distribution better.”

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/

Microsoft Can’t Sell Laptops or Phones

Microsoft Can’t Sell Laptops or Phones

By Christine Hall on January 19, 2015 |

Business, Hardware, Mobile and Operating Systems

Microsoft continues its slide into irrelevance, as least as far as consumer tech is concerned. Even the company’s successes, like the Surface Pro, are only relative successes. No matter how hopeful sales figures for the Pro may look, the device is still roadblocked by Redmond’s lack of apps for its mobile devices. Evidently, the holiday shopping season was dismal for Redmond, even in some areas where it would be expected to dominate as usual.

Take laptops, for instance, where Windows sales performance was laughable.

On Friday, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols posted a story on Computerworld illustrating just how low Windows has fallen. He points out that according to Amazon’s sales figures for the holidays, the top three best selling laptops were all running Chrome OS (with Linux inside), with nary a Windows machine in sight.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Linux Distros We’ll Never See

Linux Distros We’ll Never See

By Larry Cafiero on January 14, 2015 |

Distros, Humor and Operating Systems

A few days ago, I was cleaning my desk in the lab and happened upon a printout of a fake distro called Chuck Norris Linux — more commonly known as CHUX — which casually mentions that “…if Chuck Norris wrote Linux, you couldn’t boot it, it would boot you.”

It reminded me of the yes-it-really-happened Hannah Montana Linux, based on Kubuntu, which to my knowledge is still in existence, at least on Github. Following the logic that if these two can exist, even though one is fake and the other real, I started thinking about other distros based on other cultural icons which would never (thank God) see the light of day. Like…

Larry Cafiero

When the Greatest Generation Can Use Our Help

When the Greatest Generation Can Use Our Help

By Ken Starks on January 13, 2015 |

Hardware and Operating Systems

The Greatest Generation. Those who blitzed the beaches of Normandy and faced their own death with nothing but the rifles they carried and the cast-in-stone conviction that they were our last hope to save the world. They embodied the heroism of a generation who protected us from the most vile of villains: Jack-booted thugs who would force their ideas of a perfect world upon us.

Those rifles and convictions ultimately saved our way of life.

That kind of bravery can’t be quantified or even verbally expressed. They were our moms and dads, our aunts and uncles, and our grandfathers and grandmothers. The Greatest Generation lived their lives based on ultimate truths and values. A handshake was a bond and the guy on the radio or TV was to be believed.

And that’s the problem. The Greatest Generation ultimately fell victim to their own honor and social beliefs.

Ken Starks

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

Jeff Hoogland On the Future of & Life After Bodhi

By Christine Hall on January 12, 2015 |

Community, Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

The FOSS Force Interview

Jeff Hoogland comes by the respect he has within the Linux community the old fashioned way; he’s earned it. He’s done so, in large part, by creating the Bodhi Linux distro, which is not only very popular with a large and loyal user base, it’s rock solid, stable and even elegant. It’s also not a “cookie cutter distro” by any stretch of the imagination — there’s nothing else like it on the DistroWatch’s list. He also likes to share his ideas with the community, which he does through his blog, Thoughts on Technology.

Unlike many Linux developers, he doesn’t earn his living in the software business — not entirely anyway. He’s a mathematician by trade, who pays his room and board as an adjunct faculty member teaching mathematics at ITT Technical Institute in Springfield, Illinois.

In his free time, he’s a gamer. Oddly, his game of choice isn’t played with a joystick hooked-up to a computer, but something a little more retro — the 1990s fantasy trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Evidently, he’s quite good at it.

Oh yes, he’s also a family man, but more on that later…

It’s been exactly four months since Hoogland steped down as lead developer for Bodhi Linux, a move that naturally caused some concern among the distro’s users. Wondering myself about the future of Bodhi and Hoogland’s personnel plans, last week I sent him a message, asking if he’d be interested in doing an email interview with FOSS Force, which he quickly agreed to do. Not wanting to take too much of his time, I kept the interview short, at only a dozen questions.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

CES: Smart TVs on Linux; SCALE prep underway

By Larry Cafiero on January 9, 2015 |

Community, Distros, Hardware, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

First things first: Thanks to Christine Hall for standing in for me last Friday for the weekly wrap-up. As some of you know, I was pretty much in the dark for the first five days of the year after a fire in my building (nowhere near me) early on New Year’s Day morning caused the power to be shut down.

As we start 2015, with the Consumer Electronic Show in full swing in Lost Wages (more on this in a bit), let’s take a look at some of the happenings in the FOSS realm.

SCALE 13x in the starting blocks: The team organizing the Southern California Linux Expo’s 13th edition, more commonly known as SCALE 13x, has begun to ramp up preparations for the show. This year, SCALE 13x adds a day to become a four-day event running from Thursday, February 19 through Sunday, February 22 at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport hotel. The speakers have been chosen and the SCALE Team is in the process of sending out acceptances and rejections — so if you’ve heard you’re in, congratulations. If you haven’t heard either way, you will soon.

Larry Cafiero

Firefox OS: It’s Not You, It’s Me

By Larry Cafiero on January 7, 2015 |

Hardware, Mobile and Operating Systems

I hate breakups. Even when they’re for the best, breakups have a tendency never to go well when executed — a difficult but apt word for it — and there’s always some heartbreak involved.

So it breaks my heart to tell everyone that Firefox OS and I must go our separate ways.

It’s not you, Firefox OS. It’s me. While I know you’ll go on to thrive and find digital happiness without me in the wider FOSS world, I am sorry I’m not going to be a part of your future.

For the last year, you and I have been pals joined at the hip — the hip pocket, at least — as the OS on my ZTE Open phone. You know I’m not very demanding; the ZTE with Firefox OS did what was expected of it when it comes to my very limited use of mobile devices. To me, using mobile means taking calls, making calls, and texting. That’s really it. We’ve discussed this before, and the limited-albeit-growing selection of software for Firefox OS phones and tablets is a testament to your predicted longevity and bright future.

Firefox OS, it’s just that I need a little more dependability. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Larry Cafiero

When ‘Release Early, Release Often’ Is a Problem

When ‘Release Early, Release Often’ Is a Problem

By Christine Hall on January 5, 2015 |

Desktops, Operating Systems and Software

Last Wednesday, when Larry Cafiero published his story negating the rumors of Xfce’s demise, a few snarky commenters on Reddit said the rumor might as well be true, given the snail’s pace of development at Xfce. I paid these comments little mind. Over the years, I’ve learned to expect Reddit readers to be glad to find fault with software projects, almost without exception.

Here on FOSS Force, the comments were a bit more thoughtful and a lot more mixed. Most of our readers agreed that the development process at Xfce is slow, but most seemed to think that despite the mantra “release early, release often,” sometimes a slow release cycle is a good thing.

A reader calling himself “woolie” maybe put it best:

“hey, chill off people, Xfce is perfect as is today, why would one add stuff that is not necessary? just to prove to some insecure, unstable person, that it is ‘still in development’?… preposterous!”

Woolie, I concur 100 percent.

Continued development on a project for the sake of continued development is often counterproductive. Sometimes a project arrives at a point where it’s time to take a rest and just concentrate on fixing bugs and staying on top of security issues for a while.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Everything Open 2025 – Australia

FOSDEM 2025

ATO RTP Meetup – Speaker John Willis

International FOSS Hackathon

SCALE 22x (Southern California Linux Expo)

Posts published in “Operating Systems”

Why Jeff Hoogland Returned to Bodhi

Fedora 23: 64-bit Only?

Jeff Hoogland’s Back at Bodhi

Saying Goodbye to Java the Hard Way

The Best of Ken Starks

Microsoft Can’t Sell Laptops or Phones

Linux Distros We’ll Never See

When the Greatest Generation Can Use Our Help

Jeff Hoogland On the Future of & Life After Bodhi

The FOSS Force Interview

CES: Smart TVs on Linux; SCALE prep underway

FOSS Week in Review

Firefox OS: It’s Not You, It’s Me

When ‘Release Early, Release Often’ Is a Problem