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Posts published in “Operating Systems”

Eelo: Gaël Duval’s Open Source, Privacy Respecting Android Phone Clone

The man behind the first user-friendly Linux distribution now seeks to produce a free-as-you-want-it-to-be Android phone that respects user rights.

eelo logo

Are you ready for a new operating system for your Android phone? An operating system that’s totally free and thats main purpose isn’t to get you to consume? How about an operating system that, although based on Android, brings to the table some of the best aspects of Linux — like (eventually) it’s own repository of apps? Well, get ready, Gaël Duval is working to bring eelo to the table.

I No Longer Hate Microsoft

Why should you let Microsoft ruin an otherwise perfect day?

microsoft windows blue screen of death bsod

Roblimo’s Hideaway

When I was younger, I got together with friends now and then for an evening of drinking beer and discussing the perfidy of Microsoft and just how bad Windows was technically, especially considering the endless amount of R&D money poured into it.

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

Imagine an Android Phone Without Linux Inside

Google has plans to replace Linux-based Android with its own built-from-scratch operating system, Fuchsia. Why? Mainly, it seems, to get away from the GPL.

Google Fuchsia logo

Roblimo’s Hideaway

Google Fuchsia first saw the light of day in the summer of 2016 as an unannounced bit of code posted on GitHub. Now, in May 2017, the word is being spread by so many tech news outlets that we don’t have room to list them all.

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

Linus Torvalds Talks to Debian Users

A little over two-and-a-half years ago, Linus Torvalds spent over an hour taking and answering questions from an audience of developers at DebConf14 in Portland, Oregon. Some of what he said is by now old news, but that’s interesting too, as it serves as a marker for where we’ve been.

Linux Torvalds Debian conference

The Screening Room

Usually when you see Linus Torvalds speaking at a conference, it’s in the form of an interview, with the interviewer more likely than not being his old friend Dirk Hohndel of VMware. Very famously, Torvalds “doesn’t do speeches.” However, back in August, 2014, he took another tack, which he sometimes does, and submitted himself to answering questions from the audience at the Debian developer conference, DebConf14, in Portland, Oregon.

Sex, Love & Software: History of Free Software, Linux and Open Source

Take a trip through the history of free software, Linux and open source, starting from the early days in the 1980s through 2001, when this film was made.

free software Linux open source

The Screening Room

A few weeks back, when we featured Brian Lunduke’s interview with Richard Stallman, we lamented the fact that most users who come to GNU/Linux these days seem to have little knowledge of the history of free software, Linux and open source. This is not good, for without a community of supporters, free tech cannot survive.

Stuart Keroff Receives Distinguished Humanitarian Award for Asian Penguins

Asian Penguins is another illustration of giving the gift of Linux to help cross the digital divide.

Asian Penguins

The Screening Room

Stuart Keroff, a visionary middle school teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently received a distinguished humanitarian award for his work in founding Asian Penguins computer club at the Community School of Excellence. This club refurbishes computers with Linux to be used both at the school itself and to deliver to the homes of students who don’t own a computer at home. View the video made by the Minnesota State University – Mankato Campus – to learn more about this award.

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.

It’s Windows Time in Linux Land Again

Using Windows. What a horrible thing to ask a Linux user to do.

Linux Tux smashing Windows

Every year at this time I have to scramble to boot into a Windows partition to do my taxes. I could do them online, safe and secure in my Linux comfort zone, but I do taxes for three people and all the online services want to charge extra for each and every return. If I download and install the software onto my own machine, there’s no extra charge. Trouble is, none of the big three tax programs supports Linux. Tax Act, the cheapo bottom of the barrel one that I use, doesn’t even support Mac.This means that every April I get a reminder of what a pain Windows can be.

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

The Future of Desktop Ubuntu

With all the changes happening at Canonical, you might wonder what this means for the future of desktop Ubuntu, besides the return to the GNOME desktop.

Ubuntu logo

There hasn’t been this much news about a single Linux distro in like forever. Well, maybe when Caldera, operating under the name SCO, sued IBM for a cool billion, but other than that…nada. One thing’s for sure, the announcements that have been coming out of the Isle of Man for the last couple of weeks mean that Canonical has forever changed its course.

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

The Linux Foundation: Not a Friend of Desktop Linux, the GPL, or Openness

After stirring up a ruckus by using words like “restrictive” and “virus” to describe the GPL in a Linux.com article, the Linux Foundation responds by quietly removing the post from the website.

Linux Foundation Linux.com screenshot

The Linux Foundation has no respect for FOSS. Nor does it seem care about any users of Linux who aren’t connected with the enterprise. It’s been that way since the beginning. It now appears that the Foundation also has little respect for the GPL…you know, Linux’s license. Nor does it appear to be much of a believer in the notion of transparency.

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

Four Things a New Linux User Should Know

When you move from “that other operating system” to Linux, you’re going to find that in most ways you’ll be in familiar territory. However, that’s not always the case. We sometimes do things a little differently around here.

Linux

If you’re making the move from Windows or Mac (or even from Android or iOS), welcome to our world.

These days, using Linux for doing everyday computer tasks isn’t that much different than using other operating systems — meaning the learning curve is only slight. In fact, my colleague Phil Shapiro works at a library that uses Linux on the computers its patrons use and says that hardly anyone even notices they’re not using Windows. It’s that easy.

However, there are some things about using Linux that are quite a bit different — and we think better — than with the other brands. Here’s a brief heads up on some things that might be good for you to know before you cross the bridge from you-don’t-realy-own-it Windows to free-open-and-yours Linux.

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

Back Yard Linux

It’s not as lonely being a Linux user as it once was. These days you’re liable to find people throughout your neighborhood using Linux.

Linux, supported around the world

My how times have changed.

It wasn’t long ago that Linux users couldn’t get any respect. People on the street had absolutely never even heard of Linux, and if you needed the services of technical support, like from your ISP, you might as well forget it. Back in the day, the help desk’s favorite thing to say was “we don’t support Linux.”

What they meant, of course, was that they had no clue on how to do anything in Linux. They were skilled at guiding users through arcane parts of Windows to determine whether the problem was with the company’s servers or with the customer’s computer. If the truth be known, they didn’t really know anything about Windows either, but they had a script.

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

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