Showing headlines posted by the_doctor

Publicly, Canonical Software's announcement that Ubuntu 16.04 will include the ZFS filesystem sounds like a potential violation of the second version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2).

Hardware vendor TP-Link says it will make changes to its routers so it would prevent US users from loading custom open source firmware on their devices, all in order to comply with current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation.

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is set to remove support for AMD’s Catalyst Linux driver, known as fglrx, when the operating system update releases next month. The new hybrid AMDGPU driver should be a great replacement—but it isn’t completely ready yet and isn’t compatible with older graphics hardware. The fglrx driver will be removed when you upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, if you’re using it.

By itself, Android is a fairly secure platform. But anything (and I do mean anything) connected to a network is no longer one hundred percent secure. This means the onus is on the end user to work with that device intelligently. Otherwise, you run the risk of handing over the keys to numerous kingdoms.

Before the KDE 4.1 release in 2008, Aaron Seigo announced the end of desktop icons. He was being provocative, because what he was really announcing was the end of being restricted to a single icon set. Instead, KDE Plasma began supporting multiple desktops, and with them several ways to swap sets of icons in and out. These changes have received little publicity, but they are ideal for quickly customizing a desktop for a specialized task.

The first reason is, because if you don't...I'm telling mom! Now that we have that bit of business out of the way, let's seriously talk about Ubuntu Unity...the much-maligned desktop interface introduced by Canonical in the Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook edition.

I'm a big openSUSE user. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I love it so much that I even sit on the openSUSE board. But that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the other, truly remarkable, Linux distributions. And one of my absolute favorites is elementary OS. What this group of people has accomplished over the last few years is nothing short of phenomenal.

Linux users are chastising Microsoft for not paying enough attention to its Skype software on their platform of choice. They're ticked off that Skype had gone without an update on Linux for over a year and a half, and that the the long overdue upgrade that was rolled out this past Monday broke the client.

I haven't written about using my Bluetooth devices on Linux in quite some time. That is good, because it means that they are all just working so there is not a lot to write about. But there have been some interesting and useful developments in Bluetooth support for various Linux distributions recently, so I think it will be useful to run through a survey of Bluetooth devices and Linux distributions.

As an alternative operating system, Linux has always found ways to co-exist with Windows. However, I realized recently that I had gone four years without any installation of Windows in the house. I had to wonder: is Windows support even necessary in 2016?

Over the years, I've heard some people claim that Linux is finally ready for the masses. I would suggest that outside of a completely locked down OS such as ChromeOS (which is Linux powered), no OS is genuinely ready for the masses. Instead, it has been my experience that the masses should stick to tablets and Chromebooks.

Twenty-five years after its inception, Linux remains the poster child for open source. And yet, ironically, Linux was never really intended to be open source, according to a recent TED interview with its creator, Linus Torvalds.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about people being confused because there are too many different kinds of breakfast cereal - and Linux - available. It's a good thing and here's why.

I'm always surprised when users wish that Microsoft Office or PhotoShop would be ported to Linux. Probably, some just want to be able to use standard industry software on their favorite operating system. But so far as I am concerned, applications like LibreOffice Writer or Krita are not just substitutions -- even without my ideals, I would choose them as the highest quality software available for my needs.

Certainly many Linux users think that Arch is the best rolling release distro, yet there are reasons that PCLinuxOS earns that title.

The good news is that open source has become the leader on the desktop. The bad news is that a single desktop is not the leader, and that leadership on the desktop may no longer matter.

Don't bother lugging around a standard laptop to administer your Linux servers. Considering Chrome OS is faster, less likely to flake out on you, and less expensive, a Chromebook makes for a great mobile admin tool for remote Linux servers.

This is a tricky, multi-layered question that needs to be asked. Before I dive into it, you must know that I have been using one form of Linux or another as my only OS since the late nineties. So, for me, the ability to use Linux is crucial. Why? Without Linux, getting my work done would not be nearly as easy, trouble-free, or cost effective.

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to try a lot of different Linux releases. As the time passed, I found myself gravitating more toward the Ubuntu-based Long Term Release model. Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages to using an LTS distro release. That said, when it comes to current software packages, control and speed – rolling releases are a solid option.

Open source software thrives in government and is in some ways a technical expression of democracy: engineers building common ground and forging a more open and free future for all.