These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of April, 2016. 1. Five Linux Distros that Break the Mold by…
FOSS Force
FOSS Week in Review
Also: Ubuntu gets ready for Yakkety Yak (don’t talk back), Tails has a new release with an updated TOR browser and Android apps are coming to a Chromebook near you.
Here in the Tar Heel State, MerleFest, featuring performances by John Prine and John Oates sans Daryl Hall, dominates the news. That’s mainly because there are no college hoops being played now that this year’s NCAA March Madness thing has been entered into the record books.
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There’s not much talk about this year’s NCAA tourney around here anymore, as “we’re number two” just doesn’t have the proper ring to it. So we talk about other things instead, with how fast the grass is growing topping most people’s list and MerleFest a close second.
Me? I talk about FOSS, and there’s plenty to talk about this week…
The Video Screening Room
You don’t have to invest a fortune to get started learning a programming or scripting language. Don’t believe it? Take a look at this free and easy to understand tutorial for learning Perl.
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The search engine that works to protect your privacy is looking for some Linux “Instant Answers” for programmers. Would they like some answers to everyday Linux questions as well?
DuckDuckGo, the search engine centered around privacy, is asking for the community’s help in improving its results for Linux related searches. On Wednesday, “Bill” with the Philidelphia based search engine company posted to the Linux subreddit asking for help from the community.
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“DuckDuckGo’s focus is to become the best search engine for programmers,” Bill wrote, “and we’d love your help improving our open-source Linux Instant Answers. There’s currently a couple of cheat sheets here and here. We want to get some great feedback from the Reddit community for the developer, crashrane.”
We interrupt this weather report with a very important announcement. Despite our best efforts, your local TV station has not yet upgraded to Windows 10. We warned them that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
We absolutely had to share this with you.
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On Wednesday morning on KCCI, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa, meterologist Metinka Slater was in the middle of giving her weather forecast when her onscreen computer suddenly presented one of those upgrade-to-Windows-10 nag screens we’ve been hearing so much about.
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…
The Mozilla Foundation has hired Simon Phipps to examine and evaluate options for the Thunderbird desktop client, which is seeking a new home. His initial report was made public on Monday.
On Monday, Mozilla’s executive director Mark Surman posted an update on Mozilla’s efforts to find a new home for its Thunderbird email client on his personal blog. In early December, Mozilla announced that it wanted to shed itself of Thunderbird, a project that’s been associated with Mozilla since the start of the foundation.
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In a nutshell, the Mozilla Foundation finds that continuing to maintain and development Thunderbird distracts from its current focus of getting Firefox back on track. Thunderbird is a huge project, requiring much in the way of resources, but has a user base that’s been in decline since 2012, as many users are turning away from desktop email clients in favor of web based email services.
The Video Screening Room
When Pennsylvania’s Penn Manor High School launched the state’s largest free software learning program, they did it a little differently than most schools. As click-baity ads on FaceBook like to proclaim: You won’t believe what happened next.
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The Heart of Linux
Reflections of a once upon a time everyday Windows user.
It’s hard to remember the span of time when I sat in front of my Windows computer on a daily basis. I sat comfortable in the understanding that using my computer came with some non-negotiable requirements, like the constant vigilance against malware threats and my system bogging down from the antivirus software helping me belay those threats. Who doesn’t remember the ever-popular monthly defragging, and for me at least, a complete wipe and reinstallation of Windows every six to eight months.
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These things I accepted as a necessary part of using a computer every day.
A few Windows folks will surely chime in, saying that they have used Windows since Captain Kangaroo was a corporal. They’ll say that they never had to reinstall their system due to it becoming unstable, sometimes rebooting for no reason at all and then booting into a black screen. A black screen that would eventually correct itself if you got up to fix a sandwich and take the dog out. A black screen that gave you no frickin’ idea of what it was, why it happened or how to fix it.
Newly discovered Windows security hole bypasses AppLocker and lets apps run without admin rights. Proof-of-concept code published.
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This is one of those “look what I found while looking for something else” sort of stories. Casey Smith was trying to solve a problem and accidentally discovered a security vulnerability that affects business and server editions of Windows 7 and up.