Posts published in “Reviews”

Four Alternatives to Raspbian and Ubuntu MATE

By Isaac Carter on July 20, 2016 |

Four Alternatives to Raspbian and Ubuntu MATE

While Raspbian and Ubuntu MATE remain the go-to distros for many Raspberry Pi users, our Pi guy reminds us that there are others, and offers us a look at four alternatives.

The Raspberry Pi Report

It seems like every article one reads about the Raspberry Pi always makes a reference to Raspbian. If not, then the writer will probably write about how wonderful Ubuntu MATE is on the Raspberry Pi. Which begs the question: Are there any other OS options for the Raspberry Pi? While there’s nothing wrong with either distro, we should remember that the main appeal of using Linux is the freedom and amount of choice that is offered to the user. With that being said, here are four other distros that offer a great user experience on the Raspberry Pi.

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.

Putting Together a Video Book Review

Putting Together a Video Book Review

By Phil Shapiro on June 21, 2016 |

Community, Internet, Media, Reviews and Video

Some things are easier than you might think. For example, here our contributing video editor gives you an example of a way that you can give thanks to a favorite author in a useful way with nothing more than a laptop, some freely available software and a YouTube account.

The Video Screening Room

If you encounter an excellent new book and you want to thank the author, your first inclination might be to track down the author’s email address and send them a thank-you message. A more meaningful step, though, is to write a short book review on Amazon (or elsewhere) explaining why others might also like the book. You can go one step further, too, and create a video book review that can be shared via social media.

To show other people what is possible, here is a screencast-style video book review I recently created on my Linux laptop. The book I’m reviewing is titled “NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity,” a history of autism published in 2015.

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.

Tiny Core Linux 7.1: Big Where It Counts

Tiny Core Linux 7.1: Big Where It Counts

By FOSS Force Guest Writer on June 6, 2016 |

Distros, Operating Systems and Reviews

Jesse Smith

There’s an old cliché that promises “big things come in small packages.” Our reviewer takes a look at Tiny Core Linux and finds a lot of wallop in its 16MB size.

Most software grows and expands, taking on new features over time. While this can make software applications more useful, it also means more resources are required to run our programs. However, there are some software projects which strive to become ever more lean, more efficient and use fewer resources. One such project is Tiny Core Linux, a minimalist distribution which packs a lot of functionality into a very small system. The project’s website states:

Kicking the Tires on Arch Based Antergos

Kicking the Tires on Arch Based Antergos

By Christine Hall on May 30, 2016 |

Distros, Operating Systems and Reviews

We decided to take the Arch Linux based distribution Antergos out for a test drive. Here’s how it handled, out in traffic and on the track.

A few months back, a fellow tech writer mentioned in an email exchange that I might try using the Arch Linux based Antergos distro as a way to grab the latest and greatest versions of popular software titles for review. Mainly because of Arch’s community repositories, in which users suggest and vote on packages to be included, many popular software titles are available within days after a new release. And since Antergos is a simple install compared to Arch, it would be easy to quickly throw up an installation on a test machine just to look at the latest and greatest from LibreOffice, GIMP and the like.

Antergos Cnchi — The first screen you’ll see when booting the live version of Antergos.
Photo courtesy Antergos

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

Bodhi Linux 3.2.1 With Moksha: Another Path to Enlightenment

By Christine Hall on May 19, 2016 |

Desktops, Distros and Reviews

Thursday morning we published a video interview with Jeff Hoogland, the founder and lead developer of Bodhi Linux. What better time, we figured, to take a look at the distro’s latest and greatest, which was just released last weekend.

Bodhi Linux was the first distro I ever loved.

Actually, I suppose I loved Mandrake first, which I installed back in ’02 and used, like. forever. But at that time it wasn’t the distro I loved so much as GNU/Linux. I had no experience with other distros, even though I knew about them, so Mandrake represented, by proxy, all of Linux. Such is the way it goes with new Linux users.

Around 2008, when Mandrake/Mandriva’s future became uncertain, I moved on to distro hop for a while, not finding anything that really tripped my trigger. However, PCLOS came close, not surprisingly given its Mandrake roots, and became the distro I used for a number of years. Then an install failure, followed by an inability to login or open an account on the distro’s forum, prompted me to move on.

Which led me to Bodhi, a resource sipping Ubuntu based distro using the Enlightenment desktop version 17, or E17, which at the time was the most elegant and configurable of the lightweight desktops available.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

PayPal’s Failure an Opportunity for FOSS Money Apps?

PayPal’s Failure an Opportunity for FOSS Money Apps?

By Christine Hall on May 16, 2016 |

Business, Operating Systems, Reviews and Software

What started off as a quest to evaluate FOSS money management apps ended up revealing an issue with PayPal that plagues even highly funded proprietary money management programs running on that other operating system.

This is both a review and a complaint, which often seems to go hand in hand in the tech world.

I’ve been looking for a financial management app recently. Since I closed a bricks and mortar store back in 2012 — after eight years it became yet another victim of the 2007 recession — I’ve been letting my business and personal bank accounts, along with my PayPal account, sort themselves out separately. Business has improved a bit recently, and the time has come to once again put all of my accounting eggs in the same basket, so to speak.

My plan was supposed to be easy, but you know what they say about well laid plans.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

A Down and Dirty Look at Xubuntu 16.04

A Down and Dirty Look at Xubuntu 16.04

By Christine Hall on May 2, 2016 |

Distros, Operating Systems and Reviews

In our look at Xubuntu 16.04, we find it to be stable, quick and intuitive. It’s a distro that makes our short list of recommendations for those wishing to move from Windows to GNU/Linux.

For a look at Ubuntu’s new LTS release, 16.04 or Xenial Xerus, I decided to forgo “Ubuntu prime” in favor of one of the officially sanctioned “baby *buntus,” choosing Xubuntu, the distro’s Xfce implementation. We use Xfce on Mint on nearly all of the computers here at FOSS Force’s office, so I figured this would put me in familiar territory, especially since Mint is also a Ubuntu based distro.

Xubuntu 16.04 default — Xubuntu 16.04 out-of-the-box.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Thumbs Up for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 for the Raspberry Pi

By Isaac Carter on April 27, 2016 |

Distros, Hardware and Reviews

The Raspberry Pi Report Our Pi guy finds a lot to like as he gets down and dirty with Ubuntu MATE’s latest and greatest release…

Our First Look at the Raspberry Pi 3

Our First Look at the Raspberry Pi 3

By Isaac Carter on March 16, 2016 |

Hardware and Reviews

The Raspberry Pi Report After putting the new Raspberry Pi 3 through its paces, the device gets a big thumbs up from our reviewer. When…

Ubuntu MATE: Giving Raspbian a Run for Its Money

By Isaac Carter on November 18, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware, Operating Systems and Reviews

When most people think about working with or trying out the Raspberry Pi, they are usually envisioning using Raspbian. This isn’t by default, but rather because Raspbian is the only OS available for the Raspberry Pi that comes equipped with the tools that we all hear about such as Scratch, Sonic Pi, and support for using the GPIO pins. That’s all changed now with the latest release of Ubuntu MATE for the Raspberry Pi 2.

In this latest release, Ubuntu MATE now comes equipped with everything under the hood that Raspbian has to offer and then some. I’ll review some of the best parts about Ubuntu MATE and show why you might want to install Ubuntu MATE instead of Raspbian.

Isaac Carter

Running Linux Mint 17.2 Xfce

By Christine Hall on August 31, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros, Operating Systems, Reviews and Tutorial

Linux Mint Logo The good guys and gals at Linux Mint are on a roll, with three long-term support (LTS) releases in a row. It all started back in May of last year, with the release of 17.0, called Qiana, followed in January by 17.1, Rebecca. At that point it looked as if we’d hit the jackpot and could sit back and relax for at least a couple of years until the next LTS release, but the Mint folks had other plans and introduced yet another LTS, 17.2, Rafaela, this summer.

Although Rafaela with the “official” Cinnamon and MATE desktops came out at the end of June, those who prefer KDE or Xfce had to wait until the end of July for Mint to get those editions polished and ready for prime time. That’s okay. The Mint folks don’t like to release versions that still need work, which is one of the reasons why the distro remains the most popular desktop version of Linux on the planet.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com