The first task any accomplished technical writer has to do is write for the audience. This task may sound simple, but when I thought about people living all over the world, I wondered: Can they read our documentation? Readability is something that has been studied for years, and what follows is a brief summary of what research shows. read more

This release fixes numerous security issues. All users must upgrade as soon as possible. You can now start Tails in offline mode to disable all networking for additional security. Doing so can be useful when working on sensitive documents. We added Icedove, a re-branded version of the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. Icedove is currently a technology preview. It is safe to use in the context of Tails but it will be better integrated in future versions until we remove Claws Mail. Users of Claws Mail should refer to our instructions to migrate their data from Claws Mail to Icedove.

EVERYBODY PANIC! The technology industry is running out of a fundamental finite resource. But the problem this time isn’t scarce chips or broken servers, and it certainly isn’t venture capital?—it’s words. Certain corners of the software world are starting to run short on unclaimed terminology, and as such it may soon no longer be possible to talk about tech coherently. That’s too bad, because it’s hard enough already!

Tails, a Live operating system that is built with the declared purpose of keeping users safe and anonymous while going online, has been updated to version 1.7. This is a major upgrade and users have been advised to make the switch as soon as possible.

Internet and social media companies will be banned from putting customer communications beyond their own reach under new laws to be unveiled on Wednesday.

(editor's note: Investigatory Powers Bill in the UK)

Red Hat Linux to be reference operating system for .NET Core Microsoft has announced a partnership with Red Hat to support Red Hat Linux in the Azure cloud.…

It’s (approximately) Halloween, so you know what that means — new Fedora! The Fedora 23 release is here, and it’s better than ever before. We’re pleased to bring you the latest incarnations of the three main Fedora editions — Fedora Workstation, Fedora Cloud, and Fedora Server, each built with love by the Fedora community to custom-fit your needs in different areas. Fedora 23 is also available in alternate desktop Spins, curated software Labs, and special images for the ARM processor architecture.

Fedora 23 has rolled out this week after six months (give or take) of hard work by the Fedora Project. Job done, right? Not exactly–we still need to tell the world that Fedora 23 exists, and why they should be... Continue Reading →

A London-based startup called “Starship,” launched by Skype co-founders, is developing a wheeled, Linux-based robot and service for package delivery. Former Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis announced the formation of a London-based robotics services company called Starship Technologies, “which aims to fundamentally improve local delivery of goods and groceries, making it almost free.” […]

Vivaldi, a web browser developed by one of the Opera founders and his team, has finally moved out of the initial stages of development and into Beta. It's a been a long road for Vivaldi, but the new browser is now taking shape, and we can get a better glimpse at what's to come.

t's been nearly ten years since we first wrote about the East Texas district court, based in Marshall, Texas, (and Tyler, Texas) and the fact that patent trolls have been flooding that court with cases. The trolls claimed they liked East Texas because the judges worked quickly and because they "understood" patent issues. The reality, of course, is that East Texas became notorious for a few judges who were insanely pro-patent troll, and ran their cases in a manner that helped out trolls immensely. It's become a cottage industry...

Fedora 23 Workstation is now released. It's a reliable, user-friendly, and powerful operating system aimed at home users, hobbyists, students, and software developers. Fedora 23 Workstation features the latest GNOME 3.18 release courtesy of the GNOME community.

With the Firefox 42 debut, Mozilla introduces a new tracking protection feature and provides patches for 17 security advisories.

IBM and Arca Noae to free 1990s operating system from its virtualized cage. A US software company has signed on with IBM to release a new native build of Big Blue's OS/2.

Fedora 23 Workstation is now released. It’s a reliable, user-friendly, and powerful operating system aimed at home users, hobbyists, students, and software developers. Fedora 23 Workstation features the latest GNOME 3.18 release courtesy of the GNOME community. This release of... Continue Reading →

And Windows 10 will be injected into your box by Redmond's mad doctors Microsoft will stop all sales of Windows 7 Pro to PC makers on Halloween 2016.…

Aaeon’s rugged, Linux-ready “Boxer-6404” industrial controller offers quad- or dual-core Bay Trail SoCs, plus four GbE ports and -20 to 60?C operation. The Boxer-6404 shares some of the specs of Aaeon’s Boxer-6403 industrial PC, but is for the most part a more entry-level system. Yet this more purely industrial-focused system offers twice the number of […]

SUSECon 2015 kicked off today in Amsterdam. One of the biggest highlights of the keynote was SUSE's entry into the platform as a service (PaaS) landscape: the company is joining the Cloud Foundry Foundation.

Today’s hacker isn’t the script kiddie of old. Again, hacking for the sake of hacking isn’t as prevalent as it once was. Today’s hacker is mainly focused on the money to be made by wearing the black hat. Stories in the past week or so have revealed that ransomware from one operation was netting $30 million per year. If you think that couldn’t happen to you, think again.

This tutorial shows how to install an Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) server (with Apache2, BIND, Dovecot) for the installation of ISPConfig 3, and how to install ISPConfig 3. ISPConfig 3 is a webhosting control panel that allows you to configure the following services through a web browser: Apache or nginx web server, Postfix mail server, Courier or Dovecot IMAP/POP3 server, MySQL, BIND or MyDNS nameserver, PureFTPd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more. This setup covers the installation of Apache (instead of nginx), BIND (instead of MyDNS), and Dovecot (instead of Courier).

Are you a mentor? Or, maybe you're someone who identifies as a bridge builder, just looking for the right opportunity to help someone out—because working in tech can, well, be hard sometimes. read more

New security holes are discovered everyday, but sadly there are no instant patches available. If you are a firefox user, this problem is worse, as it lacks the sandbox feature like chromium or google-chrome browser. Here’s how to protect yourself from such threats by running firefox in sandbox environment with firejail.

As with every Fedora release, almost every component has a new version, with improvements across the board. Of particular note, Fedora Workstation includes the GNOME 3.18 desktop environment and the LibreOffice 5.0 office suite. Fedora 23 also has important under-the-hood security improvements, with increased hardening for all compiled software and with insecure SSL3 and RC4 protocols disabled. We've also updated all of the software installed by default in Fedora Cloud Base Image and Fedora Workstation to use Python version 3, and the Mono .NET compatible framework is now at version 4. Perhaps most importantly, Unicode 8.0 support now enables the crucial U1F32D character.

We’re releasing a powerful new feature in Firefox Private Browsing called Tracking Protection. We created this feature because we believe in giving you more choice and control over your Web experience. With the release of Tracking Protection in Firefox Private … Continue reading

Editor's Note: Shawn will be revisiting his birdcam in the December issue of Linux Journal, so here's the original article in the series to refresh your memory.

Fedora 23 is now hitting the streets and has been officially released. You’ll likely want to upgrade your system. If you’ve upgraded from past Fedora releases, you’re likely familiar with the fedup tool. However, Fedora 23 features a new release method using some... Continue Reading →

Will your car be controlled by open source software one day? Ericsson Research is taking this question seriously, with the help of the open source Restlet Framework project, where a simple text message can turn on the air conditioning before you walk back to your car. read more

In today's open source roundup: Linus loses it in an epic rant about kernel code. Plus: Lenovo 100S Chromebook review. And Google says Chrome OS is here to stay.

Linus Torvalds announced the stable release of Linux Kernel 4.3, the kernel includes some unique things including 20.6 million lines of code. It's amazing development. The million lines of code was contributed by several companies including, Red Hat and Intel. Linux Kernel 4.3 has some impressive changes and improvements and to be seen in coming distros releases.

Business problems today are too big for any one person to solve. Agile teams are much more effective at solving problems than are lone geniuses. So why do we still reward the smartest people in the room more so than those who excel at working with others? You know who I'm talking about: the people who brazenly take over meetings by showing off how much they know or how witty they can be at the expense of any other voice in the room—and who often end up getting all of the boss's attention. read more