April 29, 2025
Keeping tech free
When a group of talented people get together to create a Linux distribution optimized for use on Chromebooks, a suitable way of giving thanks is to install that operating system on a Chromebook and make a screencast showcasing the operating system at work. Back in December 2015, I did that with the outstanding GalliumOS distro.
Most of the attention this week has been around the release of UbuntuBSD, which in and of itself is a noble effort for those who want to escape from systemd, as the developers have dubbed it according to Phoronix. This manifestation joins Ubuntu 15.10 Wile E. Coyote — sorry, Wily Werewolf — to the Free BSD 10.1 kernel.
To its credit, UbuntuBSD uses Xfce as its default desktop. It also joins a list of other marriages between Linux distros and the BSD kernel: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, ArchBSD (now PacBSD), Gentoo/BSD and others along the FOSS highway. It’s worth a look and we’ll be giving it a test drive sometime soon.
But for now, there’s a more interesting and significant development in the BSD realm rising on the horizon.
Gina Dobrescu and Jim Hall
“Thou shalt make thy program’s purpose and structure clear … for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding.”
~ “The Ten Commandments for C Programmers” by Henry Spencer
How easily can you use your computer? Today, the graphical desktop is our primary way of doing things on our computers; we start there to run web browsers, music programs, video players, and even a command line terminal. If the desktop is too difficult to use, if it takes too many steps to do something, or if the cool functionality of the desktop is hidden so you can’t figure out how to use it, then the computer isn’t very useful to you. So it’s very important for the desktop to get it right. The desktop needs to be very easy for everyone to use.
Whenever we think of how easily you can use a program, we’re really talking about the usability of that program. Developers sometimes discount usability and think of usability as making things look nice instead of adding new, useful features. Other times, developers assume usability is too difficult, something that only experts can do. But usability is a very important part of software development.
Most people who’ve read my work in the past 10 years can attest to the fact that I am not shy about pointing out less than acceptable performance or function within the Linuxsphere. Be it the code or coders, I’m gonna talk about what’s wrong and how I believe it might be fixed. I rarely criticize anyone or anything without offering some way to make it right.
In between my articles here on FOSS Force and my Blog of Helios, I can be found most days popping in and out of my Google + stream where I engage in all manner of discourse. My stream includes, but isn’t restricted to, astrophysicists, hipsters, infantry brigade commanders, poets, slackers, delta force team members (not currently deployed), kernel contributors, distro creators, top 40 country western artists, local talk show hosts and just folks like you and me.
I’d like to kick off this column by spotlighting not one video, but 116 outstanding screencast videos giving tips and techniques for using Inkscape, the vector graphics program that is popular on Linux, Mac and Windows. Created by two friends several years ago, these videos are exceptionally well done. If you’re new to Inkscape, start off viewing the short Microsodes. I particularly love the Photo Popping Fun screencast:
Reglue, a nonprofit that supplies free refurbished computers to financially strapped families with school children in Southeast Texas, has announced that it needs donations of USB wireless adapters and speakers. The devices are needed for a project that will bring computers and Internet connectivity to all families with school aged children living in housing controlled by the Taylor [Texas] Housing Authority. The authority and Reglue have already reached an agreement with Time Warner to supply housing units with wireless connections, and the adapters are needed so that Reglue’s “kids” can take advantage of those connections.
In a March 14 post on the Reglue website, Ken Starks, the organization’s founder (full disclosure: Starks is also a writer at FOSS Force), explained that the shortfall is a result of the success of the program. “At first, we were informed that we could plan on doing about 40 [installations] in a year’s time…[but] we’re now looking at in the neighborhood of 125 machines.”
Dell has been quite successful recently selling a line of computers preinstalled with GNU/Linux. So much so that the company posted a blog on March 10 extolling the fact that Precision 5510, 3510, 7510 and 7710 mobile workstations are all available worldwide with Ubuntu preinstalled. What’s more, the company doesn’t hide Linux availability in the fine print or make potential customers find a special page to order from, which had once been its practice. Just go to the page for Precision laptops, find the one you want and tic the Ubuntu Linux option in the Operating System box in the Build My Dell section.
Here’s the big surprise, especially for those of you trying to stay on top of the Microsoft tax: Choosing Ubuntu over Windows comes with a $101.50 reduction in price. That’s quite a discount — much, much more than I remember back in 2007 when Dell made its first foray into offering Linux.
Dell isn’t targeting the everyday consumer with these offerings, but has its sights set on the developer set, which is fair enough given that many Linux users ply their trade in IT. Indeed, as Agam Shah pointed out Friday on CIO, the company sees its Linux line as an opening “for the open-source community to develop tools, drivers and software for laptops, tablets and other emerging form factors.”
It may be a digital world, but the weather is still analog.
Around my parts, this is the time of year when the weather can’t seem to decide whether to act like winter or spring. In other words, it’s a couple of days of tee shirts and shorts followed by a couple of days of dressing in layers and running the heat. Last week it was in the 80s, but next week they’re saying to expect frost and maybe freezing rain. I’m not complaining. This is still better than the dog days of summer.
We’ve already covered quite a bit of the FOSS news this week. Here’s some items left uncovered:
On March 7, the FCC slapped a $1.35 million fine on Verizon in a privacy case, a move that’s being hailed as a victory by some privacy advocates. If so, it would seem to be a hollow victory. For starters, the fine is too low to be much of a deterrent against a company which last year had annual gross income of over $63 billion. But there is much more wrong with the agreement the carrier reached with the FCC than merely the price tag.
The case revolves around Verizon’s use of a supercookie — a cookie that uses a variety of techniques to make it nearly impossible to remove or disable — which the carrier began placing on its customers’ phones in 2012. The cookie gathered information that combined a person’s Internet history — whether through browsers or apps — with their unique customer information. The company ran afoul of the law because of the way it shared the information it gleaned with third parties.
Drumroll, maestro…
There’s a new look at the FreeBSD Foundation, with a new logo and website. The changes are intended to highlight “the ongoing evolution of the Foundation identity and ability to better serve the FreeBSD Project,” according to the post announcing the changes.
Logo used with permission from the FreeBSD Foundation.
