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Posts tagged as “Linux”

Windows Last Stand

By Christine Hall on April 6, 2015 |

Hardware and Operating Systems

Windows Last StandWindows XP

I have an ancient box with Windows XP as its only operating system gathering cobwebs in a space under my desk, right where it was the last time I used it. That was back in April of last year, on the day that Microsoft quit supporting XP. Up until then, it’d been used mainly to process credit card orders from an online store I manage. The bank’s required software for processing won’t run on anything but Windows, so I kept it around for that purpose.

Windows XP
A look at Windows systems use on my old machine, first as Firefox is loaded, then as Thunderbird loads. This is after AV had finished updating.
When I took it out of commission, I decided I was through with Windows for good. No more dual booting. No more keeping a Windows machine running all day just to process plastic. No more blue screens. No more rebooting for no apparent reason except that’s what Windows wants.

I cancelled my deal with the bank, switched the site to taking PayPal only and shut down the box for good.

Until today, that is.

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The Solus Evolution, Microsoft’s Linux Love & More…Evolve OS logo

The Solus Evolution, Microsoft’s Linux Love & More…

By Larry Cafiero on April 3, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

Yes, we all know the drill. Last October, Microsoft CEO Satya Natella — in his portrayal of the anti-Ballmer in a 180-degree bootleg turn of a statement — said that Microsoft loves Linux.

So, in our best Shakespeare, how doth Microsoft love thee, Linux? Let me count the ways…

Most recently, we have a report from PC World saying that as of the latest offering from Microsoft, Windows 10, hardware makers now have the green light to enable UEFI Secure Boot without giving you a manual kill switch, as they are required to do with Windows 8 systems.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingThe Solus Evolution, Microsoft’s Linux Love & More…
The Tears of a Linux ClownLinux CLown

The Tears of a Linux Clown

By Ken Starks on April 1, 2015 |

Community and Software

With Lots O’ LibrePlanet Pics!

It was like a roundhouse punch to the side of the head from the Good News Fairy — the news that Reglue was chosen for the Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) Award for Projects of Social Benefit to be handed-out in Cambridge at LibrePlanet.

At MIT, the conference venue, I was also surprised by the large attendance, but more than that, by the number of people who traveled across oceans to be there. Beforehand, I received emails from Venezuela, South Africa, all parts of the EU, and one from Georgia. And no, not the Georgia bordering Tennessee.

LibrePlanet serving room
The serving room at LibrePlanet where refreshments were served and a mingle hour was planned for everyone to spend some time together and to meet new friends.
From a world-wide standpoint, this award is probably regarded as a niche thing. I suppose that if you don’t have any concerns about who can do what through your computer, whenever they want, via various software programs, it is a niche thing and not a big deal. But in our world, a world that emphasizes and demands transparency in the software we install, it’s a big deal. A big, big deal. One congratulatory email stated that in our world, we had won the equivalent of an Academy Award for best movie.

Ken Starks

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

linuxlock.blogspot.com/
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Linux in the Old Homestead

By Larry Cafiero on April 1, 2015 |

Distros and Operating Systems

The temptation to write an April Fools’ Day column was overwhelming. I could have gone cheap and easy by writing about “Why I Use Ubuntu” or “The Campaign for Shuttleworth 2016,” or “Jono Bacon: The Red Hat Diaries,” but I resisted.

Achievement unlocked, and you’re welcome.

But instead, I’d rather talk about Linux in the home and how different distros can peacefully coexist. No, really — no April Fools’ Day prank here.

I live in a house in Felton, California — six miles northeast of Santa Cruz in what’s known as the San Lorenzo Valley (as in San Lorenzo River), but it’s really at the base of a ridge of rather tall hills that separates Silicon Valley from the sea. In this house, Linux essentially rules the roost.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

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The AT&T Mafia, LibraOffice Online & More…LibreOffice Online Logo 2011

The AT&T Mafia, LibraOffice Online & More…

By Christine Hall on March 27, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware, Internet, Operating Systems and Software

FOSS Week in Review

Larry Cafiero’s off doing some important Larry stuff and I was told I could avoid detention if I wrote the Week in Review for him, so here I am.

LibreOffice as SaaS

This from our “it’s about time but it ain’t time yet” department. The Document Foundation, those fine folks who bring us the LibreOffice productivity suite, announced on Wednesday the unveiling of an online SaaS version of the suite, complete with the catchy name LibreOffice Online or LOOL.

LibreOffice_OnlineWell, it wasn’t exactly an unveiling. It was more an announcement of things-we-are-working-on-and-are-really-really-sure-are-going-to-happen. According to the notice on the Document Foundation blog, LOOL isn’t scheduled to pull into the station just quite yet. According to the blog: “The availability of LibreOffice Online will be communicated at a later stage.”

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
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KDE Tops PollKDE

KDE Tops Poll

By FOSS Force on March 27, 2015 |

Community, Desktops and Polls

It didn’t take nearly as long to count the votes for our desktop poll as it did for last week’s distro poll, mainly due to the fact that not as many of you voted, but also because there aren’t nearly as many desktop environments and window managers as their are Linux distros. Also, unlike the distro poll, there was a clear cut winner instead of a virtual tie.

KDEActually, of course, it’s not about winners and losers. It’s about what you like. It’s about preferences. After all, unless you’re a diehard command line person, the desktop is how you interact with your computer.

Again this year, KDE tops the list with a commanding lead, piling up over a quarter of the 617 votes cast. This is a huge drop from the 70 percent showing it made the last time we conducted a desktop poll, back in January and February of last year. In that poll, however, users were only given three desktop choices — KDE, GNOME 3 and Cinnamon. This year, voters were served up a menu that included eight popular desktops from which to choose. As in last year’s poll, voters could also opt to place write-in votes.

Why KDE? According to your comments, there were two major reasons: stability and configurability, with many of you saying, “It just works.” But there seemed to be some disagreement over whether KDE’s legendary configurability is as great as it once was.

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Poll Results: Ubuntu & Mint End in Near Tie

By FOSS Force on March 21, 2015 |

Distros, Operating Systems and Polls

The FOSS Force Linux Distro poll is now one for the record books. The poll, which ran for a week, finishing just before midnight on Wednesday, asked the simple question, “What Linux distro do you use most?”

We figured this would be a popular poll going in. What we didn’t know was exactly how popular. By the time the dust had settled, over twenty-five hundred of you had voted — more than double the previous FOSS Force poll record, set back in 2013 for the third and final round of our Best Personal Linux or FOSS Blog poll. Back then, a little over a thousand of you voted, leading us to think we’d crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Valhalla.

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Fedora Seeks Diversity AdvisorFedora logo

Fedora Seeks Diversity Advisor

By Larry Cafiero on March 20, 2015 |

Community, Distros, News and Operating Systems

In lieu of a weekly wrap-up which normally appears here at the end of the work week, I’m going to report on something I think deserves its own special mention.

The Fedora Project — mythically known as the “bleeding-edge distro” which only experienced users can use, but which in reality can be used easily by anyone from kids to grandmothers — understands the unique connection between diversity and open source. They are looking for a Diversity Advisor, and they’re seeking your help.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

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What’s Your Desktop Environment?

By FOSS Force on March 19, 2015 |

Desktops and Polls

The Linux distro poll is over and we’re crunching the numbers for an article to go up later today. However, first we want to introduce our second annual Desktop Environment poll.

It only seems fitting, somehow, that we would follow up our what’s-your-distro poll with a Linux desktop poll. After all, we see and interact with our desktop everyday — but we never “see” our operating systems — meaning most users actually have a better understanding of their desktop environment or window manager than they do with the underlying distro. So much so, that many users — especially outside of the *nix world, often think of their desktop environment as the operating system.

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The Ubuntu, Microsoft & SUSE (Bermuda) TriangleUbuntu plus Microsoft

The Ubuntu, Microsoft & SUSE (Bermuda) Triangle

By Christine Hall on March 16, 2015 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, News, Operating Systems and Patents

There’s little doubt that a few eyebrows were raised by the news on Friday, when Larry Cafiero reported on FOSS Force about Canonical’s partnership with Microsoft involving Microsoft’s OCS hardware and Ubuntu’s open source Metal-as-a-Service (MAAS) deployment product. Those with a little memory might wonder if this is a case of history repeating itself, as we’ve seen Microsoft court aspiring princess distros before, with SUSE, not long after the distro was purchased by Novell, a company with an uneven history.

Ubuntu plus Microsoft
A graphic from the Ubuntu web site, touting the distro’s partnership with Microsoft.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Utah based Novell, desperate to stem shrinking revenues, announced it’s intentions of becoming a major Linux and open source player. During the 1980s and 90s the company had flourished in the networking market with its NetWare operating system, a business that was by 2001 in rapid decline, mostly because Windows was now able to network out-of-the-box, and partly due to a customer relations fumble by CEO Eric Schmidt which resulted in the loss of much of the company’s installed base.

In 2003, to establish its open source cred, Novell went on a buying spree, which began in August when it spent an undisclosed amount to acquire Ximian, the open source company behind Evolution, Mono and Red Carpet, the later being an early attempt at an universal package manager for Linux, a precursor to Linspire’s Click & Run. In November, just three months later, Novell spent $210 million, partly financed by an investment from IBM, to purchase SUSE (then SuSE), which was at the time one of the top three Linux distros by most estimations.

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
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