Well, I’ve been running Slackware 13.1 for a while now, and I have nothing but good things to report! With Slackware there is not too much to say, not because of any shortcomings, but because it is exactly what it strives to be.
Slackware 13.1 is just as rock solid and stable as ever. With the latest KDE and XFCE desktops, along with Fluxbox, there is no shortage of choice. You could also install the latest Gnome Slackbuild, which i highly recommend.
Slackware is not like most Linux distros where you have to tear it down and then build it up again to make it how you want it. Instead, you build it from the ground up and end up with a configuration that is customized with your exact preferences.
If you have never tried Slackware before, I urge you to download it and try it out. It is really not as scary as people make it out to be. Some people complain that there is no package manager, but there is: you! With the Slackbuild website and the Sbopkg program that Ches Griffin has contributed to the Slackware community, installing additional software into Slackware is easy. The Sbopkg software has been a great addition to Slackware (although it is officially unsupported); it works great. With Sbopkg you can install software with easy command line arguments just like “apt-get”, or even “yum.” So, if you want to run an absolutely stable and robust distro, and at the same time truly “learn” Linux, give Slackware a try!
Recently I interviewed the project leader of Peppermint OS Kendall Weaver. You can find the interview at http://www.frostbitemedia.libsyn.com/rss/frostcastmp3
Peppermint OS is a light weight Linux operating system. It’s built off of Lubuntu, which is Ubuntu, using the LXDE desktop. I don’t want to label it as a cloud computing operating system, because it’s really more than that. Granted, if you want to do cloud computing with it, you can, but you are not limited to just that. You can also use programs and store your files locally, so you really have the best of both worlds. The default selection of programs are great, like Dropbox, Hulu Desktop, and Youtube.
Peppermint OS is extremely fast too because because it requires very little system resources to run (like only 192 mb RAM!) Overall, I’d say it’s a perfect OS for any netbook.
Give a listen to the interview and check out Peppermint OS at http://www.peppermintos.com
There’s a new open source voice recognation program that looks really impressive, called Vedics. It is compatible with Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04.
Check out some demos of it here (you’ll need flash since it’s a youtube video):
1.Accessing the gnome menu and applications
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrVaJXtv0WU
2. Changing the theme and background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRgX94qGj3g
3. Navigating directories and playing songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVQwAoeIavk
4. Running a slide show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtzA8TFwvuI
5. Running default applications and window operations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCEANbu8p50
6. Stopping and starting vedics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLFtdrlt3lM
7. Creating and deleting files:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3CFAl22h2o
8. Navigating links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AufBaaJazKU
This could be a great addition to open source accessibility, and I hope it will be added into a default gnome installation like Orca already is. Although this project is stil young, it has made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Thanks to the orca project and screen magnification, along with the voice recognition software Vedics, the disabled community will soon be able to have accessible techology without paying exhorbitant costs. I would love to see the Vinux project implement this technology into their distribution. I’m pretty pleased with the progress that accessibility is making in the open source world. Hopefully in the next few years there will be no need for closed accessiblity solutions at all.
Ready for some exciting news? Frostbite Systems would like to announce the launch of our sister site, Frostbite Media which is located at http://www.frostbitemedia.org.
Frostbite Media is a site dedicated to educating and empowering the Linux community. We currently have three different shows. The first one is called Frostcast. This podcast interviews project leaders of Linux or BSD operating systems, along with developers other open source software. We want to give opportunities for these projects to inform the community about what their operating system or software is built for, and who might enjoy it. We also want to create an interest to get people involved or with the different projects.
The second podcast is called Orcacast which is all about the Orca screen reader. We will have tutorials on how to use orca, as well interviews with throughout the Orca community, and bringing you the latest news and development within Orca.
The third podcast, This Week In Fedora we will be interviewing people in the Fedora community and discussing the latest development in Fedora and other news in the community.
In the future, we will be working on other podcasts, so stay tuned! If you have any suggestions about a podcast you think would be interesting, please email us at feedback@frostbitemedia.org.
Linux mint 9 is out and looking good.
It is based on the LTS Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. After installing the release candidate, I noticed that Orca was still not installed by default. No big deal, I just went into Synaptic and installed Orca. Then I was up and running. At first, I noticed that the performance in Mint was faster than in Ubuntu, which I thought was not going to be possible this time, because Ubuntu’s performance was actually better than past releases. I moved the panel that is on the bottom back to the top to see if this would change my performance in Orca.
In my previous Linux Mint review, Orca would just stop working for no reason and I would have to reboot for Orca to come back up. well, I don’t know if changing the panels fixed my problem, but Orca did not quit at all for me this time. The only problem I had was that every time I booted into Mint, I would have a hard time getting Orca focused on the desktop to start maneuvering around the desktop. Sometimes it would take a minute or two of messing around with the buttons for Orca to focus, but once it was focused, it was all set.
Mint implemented a new package installer with over 30,000 packages to install. The cool thing about this is that they give ratings on the packages, so people new to Linux can make a better decision on what to install. Also the new backup tool looks pretty cool. I guess it will restore packages that may have been upgraded but have broken, and it allows you to roll back and fix packages that have broken.
Overall a solid release and great work from the Linux Mint community, as usual. If you’ve not tried out Linux Mint, I recommend that you do.
Microsoft has recently asked cell phone manufacture HTC to pay license fees on the Android based phones they have made. Many people are asking what these fees are for? The problem is, nobody really knows. All we can do is speculate on what the fees are for. People have said that when Microsoft goes after these small companies, it is because Linux can read and write to the Fat file system. But after the Tom Tom case, the kernel team made changes to the kernel so that this would no longer be a problem.
So if this is the case, what can they be possibly collecting the license fees for? Unfortunately, each time Microsoft goes after these companies, they do not allow anyone to disclose what the fees are for. So I guess Microssoft will be getting a hold of Dell next, since they are due to release some Android based phones and tablets.
Or bettter yet, why don’t they go after the creator of Android to collect these license fees? Simple, Microsoft doesn’t want to go after Google because they actually have money to defend themselves if they don’t want to pay for these fees and challenge them in court. This is why Microsoft will go after the smaller companies and either crush them in court and bury them with paperwork, or collect the fees from the companies who just agree to settle. I would also like to know why Microsoft chooses the companies that they choose to go after, because if Linux supposedly infringes on some patent, then why stop at HTC? They might as well go after Redhat, Canonical, and even Oracle.
If there truly is a patent violation, then sure, it must be corrected. However, if there is not a legitimate patent violation, then Microsoft is just being that bully in the schoolyard picking on the kids who can’t defend themselves. They don’t want to fight with the kids their size because they are afraid of losing the fight. Maybe the reason why they don’t want people to know what the patten violation is (if there is even really one at all) is because since Linux is open source, we could just fix it so there would be no need to pay for a fee of the technology because we would no longer be using it. Microsoft would rather have us pay for a license fee than not, so they will keep going after the small guys who will just say uncle.
Have you ever been to the website http://www.jamendo.com? I have heard about this site for a while but never had bothered to check it out. Well I have gone there recently, and I have to say, it is really pretty cool. For those of you that may have never heard of this site, it is a place for musicians to upload their recordings for free and are licensed under Creative Commons. When you download music, Jamendo will ask you if you want to sign up and give your email to get news on the band that you are downloading. It also gives you the opportunity to donate to the band or musician, which is pretty cool.
Once I downloaded some music, I found out that a lot of the bands that are on here are really good, and the sound quality of most of the recordings is fantastic. Of course, you will get the occasional recording that sounds like it was recorded with a four track, but that’s fine. The genre of music is quite diverse and impressive. There’s definitely something for everyone here. I highly recommend checking out jamendo.com; you will not be disappointed.
Slackware 13.1 is out! Everyone must run, not walk to the nearest mirror and download it to try it out.
I downloaded it, but I actually haven’t installed it yet. I need to wait for the Gnome Slack Build project to have the Gnome Slack Build ready for 13.1, but I can’t wait to get it installed and run it.
Slackware is the oldest running distro and still standing. Slackware is known for its stability and security and rightfully so. If you have never tried out Slackware, I highly recommend that you do. People say that slackware is to hard to use, due to it not having a Package Manager, but there is one made by Ches Griffin called SBOPKG, which makes installing software into slackware very easy, just as if you were using Synaptic or Package Kit. It Rsyncs up to the Slackbuild website, and you can install packages through a GUI interface, or through the command line. It does not handle dependency resolution for you, but it makes it easy to do so.
I will be writing a review once I get it installed. So give Slackware 13.1 a try. If you really want to learn Linux, this is the distro to install and use.
http://www.slackware.com/getslack
Recently there has been some talk about the changes that Ubuntu has been making to their desktop. Some people are not happy with the changes as others are happy with them and think Ubuntu is going in the right direction. Some people that have been complaining about the buttons and colors, or that it looks to much like a Mac.
I understand they might not be happy with the direction Ubuntu is going. That’s fine; we are all free to have our own opinions. But this is the great thing about Linux: if you don’t like it, you are free to use something else. Just don’t complain about it and continue to use it. It can’t be that bad if people are still using it.
Dave Yates from the Lotta Linux Links Oggcast on his last episode #124 announced that he was going to Debian for good. He went into great detail about why he felt like he had to leave Ubuntu for good and go to Debian. He made a strong case for why you would want to go to Debian and possibly leave Ubuntu also. He went on to say that he understood why Ubuntu was doing the things that they were doing and that it just wasn’t for him. If you have never heard the Lotta Linux Links Oggcast you should give it a listen at: http://lottalinuxlinks.com
Have you heard the news? Steam is coming to Gnu/Linux! This is a great addition to the Gnu/Linux platform. The one thing that seemed like a hurdle to more
people adopting Gnu/Linux is now gone. There won’t be many titles avalible right away, but hopefully the linux users will make a big impact on Steam and
they will start porting over more and more games.
Recently, there was a bundle of games like World of Goo and other titles bundled for sale called the Humble Indie Bumble and the people came up with what I think is a pretty clever idea: although the games were valued at $80, The people over at Humble Indie Bumble let the buyer decide how much they would pay….like, literally. People could pay $5, they could pay $1, they could pay $100, or even NOTHING.
(Pretty brave, huh?)
Anyhow, they clearly knew what they were doing because so far, they have made over $1 Million on these games. The average amount that people paid was broken down into three catogories: Windows users, Mac users and Linux users. You will never guess which of these paid the most on average for the games (or maybe you will, cause I obviously wouldn’t be blogging this if it wasn’t about Linux)…. That’s right, Linux users gave the largest voluntary contribution for a product! On average, Linux users paid about $15 for the games, while Windows users averaged around $8.
I really hope this helps dispell the popular myth that Linux users are cheap and only want things that are free. Just because we like our source code free doesn’t mean we won’t pay for software.
Steam said by the end of summer, the client for Linux should be ready. At Frostbite Systems, we are preparing to have some gaming systems ready!
