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While Facebook and Google work to better identify you by your typing skills and Red Hat counts the bucks from its best ever year, Ubuntu finally makes it possible to launch from the bottom.

When a group of talented people get together to create a Linux distribution optimized for use on Chromebooks, a suitable way of giving thanks is to install that operating system on a Chromebook and make a screencast showcasing the operating system at work. Back in December 2015, I did that with the outstanding GalliumOS distro.

While the entire BSD world has been buzzing over Ubuntu's BSD release, the FreeNAS project has been busy releasing version 9.10 as a major precursor to version 10.

We presented each tester a set of sample tasks, one task at a time. Throughout the test, we watched each volunteer as they completed the sample tasks, and noted any problems they had with the software. We asked the testers to speak aloud during the usability test, to describe what they were looking for; if they were looking for the “Print” button, they should say, “I’m looking for the ‘Print’ button.” After each set of tasks, we took a “comment break” so participants could share their thoughts about the software and the problems they encountered.

After two days, Matt had it working in a kinda, sorta way. There were too many variables. What worked on Ubuntu wouldn’t work on Fedora. What he built to work on Fedora, wouldn’t work on Arch. And so it goes….

Sometimes learning how to use software such as Inkscape only seems difficult because you don't have anyone to show you how it's done.

Dell has been quite successful recently selling a line of computers preinstalled with GNU/Linux. So much so that the company posted a blog on March 10 extolling the fact that Precision 5510, 3510, 7510 and 7710 mobile workstations are all available worldwide with Ubuntu preinstalled. What’s more, the company doesn’t hide Linux availability in the fine print or make potential customers find a special page to order from, which had once been its practice. Just go to the page for Precision laptops, find the one you want and tic the Ubuntu Linux option in the Operating System box in the Build My Dell section.

This week we heard news of a tax incentive program I can get behind: How about a tax break for the developers of open source software? It seems that a couple of state senators from the Empire State want to do exactly that. Senate Bill S161, sponsored by Senator Daniel Squadron (D-26th) and co-sponsored by Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-36th), provides a maximum $200 tax credit for taxpayer expenses associated with the development of open source and free software licensed programs.

On March 7, the FCC slapped a $1.35 million fine on Verizon in a privacy case, a move that’s being hailed as a victory by some privacy advocates. If so, it would seem to me to be a hollow victory. For starters, the fine is too low to be much of a deterrent against a company which last year had income of over $63 billion. But there is much more wrong with the agreement the carrier reached with the FCC than merely the price tag.

Sometimes you have to quit cleaning your code long enough to clean your room. The people at the FreeBSD Foundation have already been doing some spring cleaning. They've even called the decorator.

If there was ever an open source conference that doesn’t need any help from the press, it’s this year’s Great Wide Open in Atlanta. In spite of getting very little media attention, IT-oLogy, the nonprofit behind the event, was able to announce nearly two weeks ago that tickets to the second day of the two day conference were already sold out, with less than 200 remaining tickets for day one. Day one was Wednesday, and as logic would dictate, day two is today.

Some of the most visited sites on the Internet began delivering malware laden ads this weekend. The sites affected included The New York Times, the BBC, MSN, and AOL. Those who visited a site delivering the ads are not at risk unless they clicked on an infected ad. After clicking, users are taken to another website which attempts to infect them with either Cryptowall ransomware or a trojan that gives the attackers control of the infected computer. The good news for FOSS Force readers is that the malware seems to only works against Windows, so GNU/Linux users are considered safe.

When last we left, I had summarized an interview conducted by The Pi Podcast with Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton concerning the release of the Raspberry Pi 3. Since then, I was lucky enough to purchase one of the devices and spent the last several days getting to use it for the first time to see how well it lives up to the hype.

The fact of the matter is, I do not encourage Reglue kids to post in many of the forums. Some of you may remember that in 2007 I almost went to jail for calling someone out on a forum and maybe crossing the the line between civil discourse and threatening to drag him out to the street and whip his…uh, backside. The jerk had brought a 14-year-old girl to tears, calling her an inbred moron and suggesting she ought to wander up to her daddy's still and have a slash with her brother.

In 2006, Oracle began trying to abscond with RHEL's paying user base. On Thursday, Microsoft announced that it's now going to give Oracle a similar treatment. What's that they say about paybacks?

Two big open source conferences are coming up next week, while this week an automaker said it doesn't have to pay attention to the GPL and the man credited with inventing email passed.

A router designed to ease the use of multiple devices through a virtual private network is the latest hardware project to receive the Free Software Foundation's official blessing.

The Document Foundation today announced the release of LibreOffice 5.1.1, the first minor release of the LibreOffice 5.1 family, with a number of mostly bug fixes over the last major release, version 5.1.0 which was released on February 10.

The upcoming release of OpenBSD's latest and greatest comes with plenty of upgrades and improvements -- plus the sound of music….

Microsoft's use of open source continues to be a one-way street to drive business Redmond's way.