April 30, 2026
Keeping tech free
In Part One we learned that installing Debian 7 definitely isn’t rocket science–anybody can do it! Now that we have our Debian system installed and our computer is booting into the world of Debian Linux, let’s take a look and discover our new computing environment.
Today I found this really cool FOSS site. I mean really cool. The people who run the site want to do things for the FOSS community. They’re looking for community involvement. They’re a bona fide nonprofit; they’re not looking to use their site to make their car payments or put their children through college. Their site isn’t cluttered with ads like, say, FOSS Force.
Editor’s note: Part Two of the Debian Guide is now online.
First of all you need an installation image (ISO file) which you can download from www.debian.org. I recommend the small network install image. After downloading the file, copy it to a blank CD, DVD or USB memory-stick. For information on creating a bootable USB memory stick, see the article Create a Bootable Live USB Thumb Drive or Rescue Drive Using UNetbootin.
Most of us come to GNU/Linux and FOSS for reasons other than the GPL. Some, perhaps, first installed Linux only as a way of tinkering or just to have a look at a PC running something other than Windows. Others, maybe, grew tired of Microsoft or constantly dealing with the “blue screen of death.” The need to breathe new life into a computer that had grown obsolete by Redmond’s standards brought others to discover Linux. Then there are those who came for the free beer.
Texas stands up for email rights
Texas? Did you really say Texas? The state that leads the world in the number of executions–that Texas? Well, la-di-da, who would’ve ever thought the folks down there in the Lone Star State would be the first to stand up and protect our inboxes? Does this mean that the spirits of Ann Richards and Maury Maverick, Jr. are looking over the Texas legislators?
It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that Microsoft topped the list in our “Who Don’t You Trust” poll. That’s the poll, launched on May 27th and closed on June 20th, in which we asked the question, “What tech company would you least trust to manage a FOSS project?” 411 people took the poll, which might be characterized by it’s lack of surprising results. In fact, we have to go to nearly the bottom of the list to find some small surprises.
According to a story posted by Phillip Molnar at the Monterey County Herald, the U.S. Army is blocking access to parts of The Guardian, the UK based news website which broke the story about the NSA’s surreptitious data collection programs. When the Herald’s story was first posted last night, it was unknown how widespread the outage was or who was behind it, only that employees at the Presidio of Monterey, California were unable to connect with certain pages of the UK website:
I don’t think there are very many people my age who’ve ever expected much in the way of privacy online.
Oh, maybe in the very early days some might’ve naively figured that if they didn’t actually interact with a site, like if they just went to the New York Times to read an article or something, they were pretty private, but they soon learned about tracking cookies and hackers with keystroke logging tools and right away understood that everything done online might possibly be being observed.
The iron is hot. Microsoft has been caught. This time I think it’s going to cost them dearly. Several years back they might have been…
I’m a sucker for every kind of “Top Five” (or Top 10 or Top 20) list there is. I love reading them and I enjoy…
