Rob “drtorq” Reilly Combining steampunk with Linux and single board computers like the Raspberry Pi automatically seems like an idea fraught with cool possibilities. So…
Posts published in “Software”
Also included: FCC requires TP-Link to allow users to install open source firmware on routers, five new distro releases, new releases of LibreOffice and KDE Plasma, and Microsoft releases Skype 1.3 Alpha for Linux.
FOSS Week in Review
Maybe because we’re in the last 30 days or so of real summer — as opposed to calendar summer — or perhaps because most ‘Mericans are glued to their TVs as the Clinton/Trump heavyweight bout gets underway in earnest, but this has been a slow news week in the FOSS world. However, there are some notable items worth mentioning.
FCC supports open source Wi-Fi firmware. For the last several months many open sourcers have been up in arms because it looked as if the door was being closed on open source on Wi-Fi routers after the agency changed it’s rules around radio interference on the 5 GHz band, making it difficult for router makers to allow users to install open source firmware on their routers. All along, the FCC claimed that shutting out open source use wasn’t part of the game plan, but we FOSSers are a suspicious lot and we weren’t buying it.
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
Want to learn more about big data? This video by Brenden Matthews on running Hadoop on Mesos will be a good start.
The Video Screening Room
Apache Hadoop is open source software for handling large data sets using distributed computing. This engaging video by Airbnb engineer Brenden Matthews explains Hadoop in historical context. I found it useful for familiarizing myself with general Hadoop terminology and concepts.
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.
Also included: Canonical joins The Document Foundations advisory board, Chromium coming to Fedora, OpenVZ now a complete Linux distro and GNU Linux-libre Kernel 4.7 released.
FOSS Week in Review
It’s not FOSS, but I reckon the biggest story in tech this week, ignoring claims of Russia hacking for Trump, is the sale of Yahoo to Verizon for $4.8 billion. Considering that traffic watcher Alexa says the site is the fifth most visited address on the web, that seems like something of a bargain to me. Add to that Yahoo’s prime Silicon Valley real estate and the price seems to be in the “it fell of the truck” category. The sale puts Verizon in control of both America Online and Yahoo, so I suspect we’ll be seeing Verizon trying to compete with Google and Bing for a share of the search advertising market.
Meanwhile in the world of FOSS…
LibreOffice has been in the news this week. The big story, which we first heard on Tuesday, is that Canonical has joined The Document Foundation’s advisory board. In case you’re new in town, TDF is the nonprofit that controls the development of LibreOffice.
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
After whetting his appetite at this year’s Comic-Con, our resident Linux newbie discovers free and open source apps for reading digital comics, as well as a treasure trove of available sources for free comics online.
The Linux Gadabout
San Diego Comic-Con 2016 has come to a close and baby, I got the blues. On one hand, I really don’t like crowds. On the other hand, there’s something inspiring about experiencing more than 130,000 geeks — many of them dressed like superheroes, supervillains, and other denizens from the realm of science fiction and fantasy — annually invading downtown San Diego for the better part of a week. So even during the years I don’t attend the convention itself, I usually make it to the general vicinity of the convention center to behold the chaotic spectacle of it all.
“Bob” Fogarty was the editor-in-chief at Chris Pirillo’s LockerGnome.com for nearly 12 years, and has written for ReadWrite.com and TheArtofCharm.com. He lives in San Diego with his wife and a medium-sized menagerie of beasties great and small. Follow him on Twitter: @Fogarty
The OpenShot Video Editor has had over a million downloads and might seem like the work of a large corporation. In reality, the founder, CEO and lead developer of the project works out of his home in rural Texas.
The Heart of Linux
One of the main benefits of having a booth at a conference like Texas Linux Fest is having the opportunity to hobnob with the people behind or inside some fairly impressive organizations. This year I had the good fortune to meet Jonathan Thomas, who has provided the world with OpenShot, a premiere video editing tool available for Linux, Mac and Windows.
The meeting came about because Reglue’s booth was right across the aisle from OpenShot’s booth. and their display caught my eye immediately. I’ve worked with many video editing tools over the years, and frankly, I’ve usually ended up paying someone to do the work for me because I found the level of complexity and the learning curve to be insurmountable. So being placed this closely to the OpenShot Studios booth rang out as a golden opportunity, which indeed it was.
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
Open source organizations find the methodology behind open source software development also works well in other areas of the organization as well. The Video Screening…
In this week’s installment, our resident Linux newb goes on the prowl with one thought in mind: To find the best-of-breed FOSS music player for GNU/Linux.
The Linux Gadabout
I’ve decided to take a break from swimming upstream. Sure, I enjoy the puzzles presented by limited RAM and weird popcorn sounds that happen when caging Ubuntu MATE in a rickety Sony Vaio laptop that’s more than a decade old. I love the creative solutions the FOSS Force community shares in a concerted effort to get me back in the saddle and on my way. But I think Christine Hall summed it up best when commenting on my last column via Facebook:
“Bob” Fogarty was the editor-in-chief at Chris Pirillo’s LockerGnome.com for nearly 12 years, and has written for ReadWrite.com and TheArtofCharm.com. He lives in San Diego with his wife and a medium-sized menagerie of beasties great and small. Follow him on Twitter: @Fogarty
The proprietary software used by most libraries is incredibly expensive, and comes with support costs that can be even higher. Projects like Koha bring the option of a free and open source solution into play.
The Video Screening Room
Randal Schwartz, from TWiT.tv’s “FLOSS Weekly,” interviews Nicole Engard and Brendan Gallagher, about the open source Koha Integrated Library System (ILS), which originated in New Zealand in 1999. Along with being a web developer, Nicole is a prolific blogger on Opensource.com and last year was recognized by Red Hat for her significant contributions to open source advocacy.
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.
Also included: Microsoft shows love of Linux with gift of Skype and Torvalds continues to be Torvalds.
FOSS Week in Review
The biggest Linux story this week by mainstream tech sites’ standards was Skype working to include Linux users in its installed base by releasing a new Linux client to replace obsolete software that hadn’t been updated in at least two years. According to many of the comments on FOSS Force’s coverage, Skype might consider itself a day late and a dollar short.
The big problem, of course, is Skype’s ownership by Microsoft, whose love of Linux is so far unrequited. Add to that the fact that Skype, like Microsoft, doesn’t have the monopoly it once had and the result is a less than enthusiastic response. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ubuntu doesn’t start installing the Skype client by default once it comes out of beta.
Now on to some news that’s really newsworthy…
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