Posts tagged as “Linux”

Old FOSS Friend & Foe Represents Sony in Hack

By Christine Hall on December 25, 2014 |

Browsers, Business, Copyright, Operating Systems and Politics

Old FOSS Friend & Foe Represents Sony in Hack

Folks who follow news about FOSS, OSS and Linux who also watch the “talking heads” shows the TV networks serve up on Sunday mornings might be excused for not noting that David Boies, the lawyer speaking for Sony on this week’s “Meet the Press,” has on several occasions been involved in news stories affecting Linux. Over the years, he’s played the role of both friend and foe, but it’s been a while since his and the FOSS world’s paths have crossed.

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Back in the days of the Clinton Administration, Boies became something of a hero to FOSS and Linux supporters when he represented the Justice Department in “United States vs. Microsoft,” which went to trial in May of 1998. This antitrust suit by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of twenty U.S. states, found Microsoft being accused of illegal and unfair competition. In October of the same year, the U.S. Department of Justice also sued Microsoft additionally for violating a 1994 consent decree by including Internet Explorer as part of Windows.

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

Teaching Linux in the Dark

Teaching Linux in the Dark

By Ken Starks on December 23, 2014 |

Community, Operating Systems and Software

I like living here. “Here” is a low-cost, no maintenance condo-type neighborhood for us folks who are 55 or older or have a disability. A good friend of mine, a bit older than me, told me that since I live here now, I need to start acting my age.

Well pass the Ensure and bingo cards Gladys …I’ll get right on that.

The same good friend also described me once as the oldest juvenile delinquent he has ever met.

But there’s really no getting away from the fact that I’ve reached the stage of life when grandchildren are finally accepted and I no longer wince when one of my grand babies address me as “grandpa.” Yeah, it took me almost a decade to be comfortable with the fact that I am indeed a grandpa.

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A medley of aches, pains and cramps often remind me that I can’t do stuff as fast and for as long as I used to. These days, my life consists of blazing my way through my work day then hobbling to my comfy sofa, moaning my regret for all that day’s blazing.

This is a nice place to which to come home. One of the great things about living here is how close the residents are…and not in just proximity. We lived in a fairly nice home prior to moving here and in the three years we stayed there I couldn’t tell you the last names of the people living next door or across the street from us. In less than a week here, almost every neighbor had stopped by to say “hi” or to bring various house warming baked goods.

This past Thanksgiving, Diane and I went to the pot luck community gathering at the community center. To be honest, I really didn’t want to go. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I had promised a computer to the kids of a single mom, but while installing it, gremlins found their way into the machine. The computer that worked perfectly on the workbench suddenly decided that a kernel panic was in order. I needed Thanksgiving evening to myself so I could get another system ready, but a long, chilly look from Diane was enough to forestall that mission…for a couple of hours anyway.

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/

Get Out the Vote for LinuxQuestions.org

By Larry Cafiero on December 17, 2014 |

Community, Distros and Mobile

Ken Starks — I love him like a brother, but I hate following him every Wednesday here at FOSS Force after his Tuesday column runs, because every time — week in and week out — his column is always a good one.

He knows what I’m talking about, too, because he got to experience the same kind of thing at Ohio Linux Fest when his keynote came after Jon ‘maddog’ Hall. While I wouldn’t characterize Ken’s situation there the same way he did in his keynote — like Tiny Tim following Aerosmith — I certainly can relate. If you haven’t given his latest post a read, go ahead, I’ll wait.

Be that as it may, it’s time to vote. Every year around this time, LinuxQuestions.org trots out its annual LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. The 2014 version, which ends in February, certainly does not disappoint.

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One great thing about this poll — probably the best thing about this poll — is that each of the categories has an extremely wide range of candidates, and there are programs in many of the categories that I’ve never heard of. Hearing about them for the first time, I get to try them out. So not only is it fun — yeah, I think voting is fun (so shoot me) — it’s also educational.

Here’s how we’ll do this: I’m not going to post every category, but I’ll post some of them and tell you my choice — vote with me or not, it’s entirely up to you — and then I’ll mention some of the programs new to me that I plan to try out. Conversely, you can post your own choices in the comments below.

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

HP’s ‘The Machine’ & the Future of Linux

HP’s ‘The Machine’ & the Future of Linux

By Christine Hall on December 15, 2014 |

Hardware, News and Operating Systems

If all goes according to plan, in June of 2015 HP plans to release a new operating system they’re calling Linux++. Before we start jumping up and down and putting on our party hats, we should know that this is not a new Linux distro being designed by HP to be featured on a new line of laptops. Although based on Linux and Android, this won’t even be an operating system at all in the sense that mortals such as I generally use the term. Most of us won’t be downloading and installing it. If we do, we won’t be using it as a drop-in replacement for Mint, Fedora or any of our other favorite desktop distros.

Linux++ will mainly be used by developers who want to get their software projects ready for The Machine, a completely new type of computer which HP hopes to introduce to the large scale server market sometime in 2018. This computer will have such a radically new design that, in many ways, it’ll be a completely different animal from the machines we’ve been using since days when the word “computer” pretty much meant “IBM mainframe.”

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So what is The Machine? Julie Bort with Business Insider on Thursday called it “a computer so radical and so powerful that it will reduce today’s data center down to the size of a refrigerator.” If it lives up to its hype, it promises to turn today’s computers into horse and buggies by comparison.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Fedora 21 Raves & DRM Happiness

Fedora 21 Raves & DRM Happiness

By Larry Cafiero on December 12, 2014 |

FOSS Week in Review

It’s raining, finally, in California. After a couple of years of painfully dry weather, we’re getting the kind of rain that causes animals to march two-by-two into a large wooden boat. One might think this would be cause for a damp and sullen report to end the week, but actually that’s not the case, because…

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The reviews are in: The tech media has given multiple thumbs-up to the new release of Fedora 21, released earlier this week to a server-jammed public (if you tried and couldn’t get it earlier, I think the rush is over now). For example, a couple of Stevens — Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of ZDNet and Steven Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Daily News’ Click blog — put in their proverbial two cents each in generally positive articles.

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

Linux Distros: What’s in a Name?

By Larry Cafiero on December 10, 2014 |

Community, Distros and Operating Systems

Yesterday, the Fedora Project released Fedora 21, and with it the tech media got on its proverbial horse and started reports and reviews of the latest release. While it’s a good release and we won’t be reviewing it here — I already gave it a shakedown during the alpha and found it to be fantastic and completely worth the wait — there’s one thing that’s missing from Fedora 21 that I find rather disheartening.

Namely, Fedora 21 is missing a release name.

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It’s quirky, perhaps, but release names are a favorite item of mine in the FOSS realm. While completely useless in the scope of the software itself, it does actually reflect a degree of creativity within the respective communities. Depending on the how it’s done, the decision process ranges from a spirited event to a tried-and-true yawner.

Until Fedora 21, the Fedora Project used to have a process for release names in which knock-down drag-out brawls would break out, rhetorically speaking, in the debate and community-wide voting for the name. Arguably, Fedora 17 “Beefy Miracle” wobbled the process from the rails, and while the rest of the names were noble — my favorite was Fedora 19 “Schrodinger’s Cat” — the formula was fairly simple: Names had to meet a “is-a” test. For example, “Schnozz is a ____, and so is Keister.” Taking the example of naming Fedora 14 “Laughlin,” the Fedora Project took the name of Fedora 13 “Goddard” and, though the miracle of the “is-a” test, had a list of candidates, of which Laughlin won. So the formula is as follows: “Robert H. Goddard was a professor of physics, and so was Robert Laughlin.” To see this in action, you can look at the Fedora Release Name History.

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

Of Distros & Donnybrooks

By Ken Starks on December 9, 2014 |

Community, Distros and Operating Systems

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in a slightly different form on The Blog of Helios on Monday, October 25, 2010.

We’re all aware of the Distro Wars. Some of us are bloodied warriors…Others sit on the sidelines experiencing mixed degrees of amusement. I’ve been both, but more the latter these days.

Arguments over who’s distro is best have subsided over the past few years. Many of us realize that arguing over which distro is best is an exercise in futility. It’s akin to arguing over religion or politics. Nothing I say will change your mind and the same can be said for any arguments you may present Still, there are those who want to carry the war forward.

Reglue and our project before it,The HeliOS Project; has been a long-time user of Mint…and not for any other reason than it fits our needs. As my friend Eric Johnson says:

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“Operating Systems are tools, not religions.”

It wouldn’t take me long to drill down into any given Microsoft eula and find points to disagree with Eric, but the truth is, most “average” computer users don’t care about their “freedom”…and when we preach to them, many of us come off as fanatics. The concept of “free software” is foreign to them. To them, “freedom” means they don’t have to pay for it. So yeah, we can come off as fanatics.

Trust me, I know. I was a long time card-carrying member of Fanatics-R-Us.

Ken Starks

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

A Devuan and A-two…

By Larry Cafiero on December 3, 2014 |

Community, Distros and Operating Systems

And the beat goes on…

By now, much of the news and commentary is already out there about a fork of Debian called Devuan — pronounced Dev-One (sharp, folks) — and what it means to the newly minted systemd/anti-systemd rift in the FOSS world. I can’t add anything to the news part, but leave it to me to add to the commentary.

** If our coverage matters to you, please consider supporting our work through our FOSS Force Independence 2026 fundraiser. **

Forking is commonplace in the FOSS world, a part of its natural process. Someone thinks they can do something better — or it may be a group of folks of like mind thinking they can do something better — and they do it for reasons ranging from rational improvement to unabashed ragequit.

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

Friendship & the Linux Community

Friendship & the Linux Community

By Ken Starks on December 2, 2014 |

Community and Internet

friend

noun
1. A person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
2. A person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.
3. A person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?

It would seem a simple thing, defining who and what a friend is. Deciding who is your friend is a fairly simple process.

Do I like that person?

Yes.

Does that person like me?

Allegedly.

Do we enjoy each other’s company?

Mostly.

Okay…then, I think we can safely assume that the two people cited above are friends.

Friendships have been forged since man decided to get up off his haunches and walk on two legs. Of course, back then deciding who was your friend had more to do with the amount of trust in mutuality. Could you go to sleep knowing that person will remain awake and alert to danger? Will that person share his food when you have none? Will that person help or protect you in times you are not able to help or protect yourself?

Those were weighty considerations and friendships were born more out of the ability to survive another sunset rather than if they made a good Spades partner.

People have become friends basically the same way for hundreds or thousands of years. But that all changed not too long ago. The method by which many people became friends happened with the flip of a switch…the switch that turned on the Internet.

Ken Starks

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

32-bit Man in a 64-bit World

32-bit Man in a 64-bit World

By Larry Cafiero on November 26, 2014 |

Distros, Hardware and Operating Systems

We’re going to go off the beaten path a little bit here and start with Joe Walsh — the musician, not the politician — of all people.

In his latest album, Joe proclaims he’s an “Analog Man.” He’s an analog man in a digital world, and that’s something to which I can clearly relate. Here’s why: Until yesterday, all of my non-Macintosh hardware in the “Jungle Room” — I call it a lab because it’s filled with hardware, though I really don’t do anything in this room that remotely resembles research-and-development — is of 32-bit vintage.

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In comes a castoff ThinkPad T500 from a friend in Seattle and I’m now in the 64-bit club.

I get the advantages of the better/faster/stronger processor capacity, obviously: From Computers 101, say it with me, “The number of bits in a processor refers to the size of the data types that it handles as well as the size of its registry. A 64-bit processor is capable of storing 264 computational values, including memory addresses. This makes it capable of accessing over four billion times as much physical memory than a 32-bit processor.”

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

Richard Stallman Lecture: Free Software vs Malware and the Need for Reverse Engineering

All Things Open Meetup — June 2026

AlmaLinux Day: Los Angeles

Open Source Monitoring Conference

Posts tagged as “Linux”

Old FOSS Friend & Foe Represents Sony in Hack

Teaching Linux in the Dark

Get Out the Vote for LinuxQuestions.org

HP’s ‘The Machine’ & the Future of Linux

Fedora 21 Raves & DRM Happiness

FOSS Week in Review

Linux Distros: What’s in a Name?

Of Distros & Donnybrooks

A Devuan and A-two…

Friendship & the Linux Community

32-bit Man in a 64-bit World