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Posts tagged as “Linux”

SUSE Vs Funny People Wearing Red Hats

Watching this video from SUSE, you might be excused for thinking you’re watching a trailer for a new Netflix original which looks suspiciously like “Game of Thrones.” To paraphrase an old Dodge commercial: “You can tell they’re bad guys because they all wear Red Hats.”

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SUSE

Okay, it’s a funny little five minute parody of House of Thrones. But it looks to me as if SUSE has thrown down the gauntlet and is challenging Red Hat…or a bunch of medieval guys wearing red hats…to who knows what. Are the gals and guys in Germany growing a little tired of being the perennial second fiddle — or now third fiddle now that Ubuntu is in server rooms everywhere, especially in Amazon’s cloud.

Wanted: GNU Project Maintainers — Part 2

Want to use your skills to aid in the development and maintenance of GNU projects? Here are four more projects that could use your help.

GNU XBoard
A screenshot from XBoard, an app for playing chess and other chess-like board games. (Photo credit: GNU.org)

Carter’s Corner

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This article is a continuation of my last article on GNU projects that are in current need of maintainers. When I first read about the projects GNU needed help with, I was drawn to Gnubik from my own personal love of Rubik’s Cube puzzles. I ended up liking the program and wanted to help so I reached out to the maintainer, who replied back asking about my background and letting me know where help was needed at if I was still interested. Since then, I’ve slowly been helping out where I could and enjoying learning more about the code behind the program. I’m hoping that by writing about these projects, someone will have the time and skill set to help out that wasn’t aware of these projects. I also hope that even if people can’t help out they will download the software, try them out and maybe end up like me.

Isaac Carter

In addition to hosting a Raspberry Pi meetup in Washington D.C., Isaac Carter is a co-host on mintCast. He’s also a software engineer who enjoys working with Java, JavaScript, and GNU/Linux. When he’s not coding, you can find him reading on any number of subjects or on the golf course.

An Ode to the Coming of the 4K Board

Our irrepressible Phil Shapiro thought you might like to hear something on the Fourth that isn’t a national anthem or the 1812 Overture. And who knew he could sing or play an instrument? We’re considering renaming his column, The Penguinista Minstrel.

gramophone
Pixabay

The Screening Room

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Every jump in computer resolution technology brings with it a cornucopia of new creative and business opportunities. When I noticed recently that an affordable 4K hobby computer board was being launched on Kickstarter, I felt moved to compose this song — Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the 4K Board.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Imagine an Android Phone Without Linux Inside

Google has plans to replace Linux-based Android with its own built-from-scratch operating system, Fuchsia. Why? Mainly, it seems, to get away from the GPL.

Google Fuchsia logo

Roblimo’s Hideaway

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Google Fuchsia first saw the light of day in the summer of 2016 as an unannounced bit of code posted on GitHub. Now, in May 2017, the word is being spread by so many tech news outlets that we don’t have room to list them all.

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

Linus Torvalds Talks to Debian Users

A little over two-and-a-half years ago, Linus Torvalds spent over an hour taking and answering questions from an audience of developers at DebConf14 in Portland, Oregon. Some of what he said is by now old news, but that’s interesting too, as it serves as a marker for where we’ve been.

Linux Torvalds Debian conference

The Screening Room

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Usually when you see Linus Torvalds speaking at a conference, it’s in the form of an interview, with the interviewer more likely than not being his old friend Dirk Hohndel of VMware. Very famously, Torvalds “doesn’t do speeches.” However, back in August, 2014, he took another tack, which he sometimes does, and submitted himself to answering questions from the audience at the Debian developer conference, DebConf14, in Portland, Oregon.

Red Hat’s Women in Open Source Award Winners, 2017

Last week, Red Hat’s DeLisa Alexander presented the third annual Women in Open Source Award to Avni Khatri and Jigyasa Grover at Red Hat Summit 2017.

Red Hat Summit Women in Open Source

The Screening Room

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Red Hat is a company that does many things right, including promoting women in tech. Learn about the two winners of this year’s Women in Open Source Award, announced at the Red Hat Summit conference in Boston last week.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Arch Linux Based Apricity OS Shuts Down

Apricity OS, another promising Linux distro has ceased development. “Lack of time” was cited as the major cause.

Apricity OS Linux

The Arch Linux based distribution, Apricity OS, has announced in an undated notice on its website that it’s shutting down. I learned the of news today when given a heads-up by a follower on Twitter.

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The announcement is short and sweet:

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

Sex, Love & Software: History of Free Software, Linux and Open Source

Take a trip through the history of free software, Linux and open source, starting from the early days in the 1980s through 2001, when this film was made.

free software Linux open source

The Screening Room

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A few weeks back, when we featured Brian Lunduke’s interview with Richard Stallman, we lamented the fact that most users who come to GNU/Linux these days seem to have little knowledge of the history of free software, Linux and open source. This is not good, for without a community of supporters, free tech cannot survive.

Stuart Keroff Receives Distinguished Humanitarian Award for Asian Penguins

Asian Penguins is another illustration of giving the gift of Linux to help cross the digital divide.

Asian Penguins

The Screening Room

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Stuart Keroff, a visionary middle school teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently received a distinguished humanitarian award for his work in founding Asian Penguins computer club at the Community School of Excellence. This club refurbishes computers with Linux to be used both at the school itself and to deliver to the homes of students who don’t own a computer at home. View the video made by the Minnesota State University – Mankato Campus – to learn more about this award.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Ostatic and Archphile Are Dead

OStatic ceased publication without warning or explanation in February. Archphile yesterday announced on Twitter that its “officially dead.”

Ostatic, the once popular website for news and information about Linux and open source, has disappeared from the face of the earth. Also gone, Archphile, an Arch Linux-based distro targeting audio playback quality for ARM devices.

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I’ve been meaning to write about the demise of Ostatic for a month or so now, but it’s not easy to put together an article when you have absolutely no facts. I first noticed the site was gone a month or so back, when an attempt to reach it turned up one of those “this site can’t be reached” error messages. With a little checking, I was able to verify that the site has indeed gone dark, with writers for the site evidently losing access to their content without notice. Other than that, I’ve been able to find out nothing.

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