Robert Ancell of Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution (which Bristol Wireless recommends for use by newcomers to Linux. Ed. ), has announced on the Ubuntu desktop mailing list that Canonical is forking the Gnome Control Centre. Robert’s email is reproduced in full below. Hi all, Ubuntu makes use of a heavily […]
Last week Bristol Wireless indulged in some internal training – something we haven’t done for a couple of years. Ably led by Ben Green and Julien Weston, Bristol Wireless volunteers are now more familiar with the ins and outs of Linux system administration, MySQL, the Puppet configuration management tool, vserver environments and web services, to […]
According to German technology news website Heise, news is emerging on discussion and support forums of graphics problems when updating from Ubuntu 13.04 to the latest version – Ubuntu 13.10. Users are reporting graphics problems in the form of a black screen. The problem most affects systems with AMD graphics cards if the proprietary AMD […]
Distro Astro is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu/Linux Mint which aims to cover the requirements of astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts. The project has announced the release of version 1.0.2 of its distribution, codenamed Ceres. Distro Astro has features for almost all astronomy uses — from observatories, planetariums – and for all users from professional […]
The release schedule for Ubuntu 14.04 – the next long term support (LTS) release of this popular Linux distribution – has been published on the Ubuntu wiki. According to the schedule, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS should be released in mid-April 2014 after going through the alpha, beta and release candidate stages. Bristol Wireless recommends Ubuntu as […]
This Saturday 15th June a Raspberry Pi boot camp will be taking place at At-Bristol, Anchor Road, Bristol BS1 5DB (map) from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm. Entry to the event is free, but does not include access to the exhibits of At-Bristol. The event aims to provide fun hands-on workshops for beginners through to […]
Next month on the weekend from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th, BarnCamp 2013 – a weekend of hacktivism, workshops, entertainment, politics and fun in the sun – will be taking place. BarnCamp is three days of workshops, discussions, demos and practical how-to sessions looking at how technology can be useful (and dangerous) for campaigners, community […]
On Saturday 1st June, UWE will be hosting the 2nd Bristol IT MegaMeet on its Frenchay Campus at Coldharbour Lane Bristol BS16 1QY (map). The event itself will be taking place in Rooms 2Q42 to 2Q50 in Q Block; more direction details and maps here. The event starts with a brew at 9.30 am, with […]
Laptops for crew use on the International Space Station (ISS) are being migrated from Windows to Linux, the Linux Foundation reports. The reason for the migration, given by Keith Chuvala of United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor deeply involved in Space Shuttle and ISS operations was as follows: We migrated key functions from Windows to […]
The GNOME Foundation started the Free & Open Source Software Outreach Programme for Women, otherwise known as OPW, in 2010. Many other FOSS organisations joined the programme in the January-April 2013 round. Bits from Debian, the official blog of the Debian Project, announced earlier today that Debian will also be joining in the next round […]
The email below has been posted today to the Hacktionlab mailing list. Hi All, I’m pleased to announce that the BarnCamp 2013 sign-up is now live and on-line: https://barncamp.org.uk/ More information about BarnCamp on that site and at: https://hacktionlab.org/barncamp/ You know what to do! 🙂
Reuters reports that Hispalinux, which has some 8,000 members in Spain who either use or develop for the Linux operating system, has filed a formal complaint against Microsoft with the EU Commission’s office in Madrid. Hispalinux’s complaint states that Windows 8 contains an “obstruction mechanism” called UEFI Secure Boot (news passim) which makes it difficult […]
According to a report yesterday on German IT news website Heise, the Chinese Ministry for Industry & Information Technology has selected Ubuntu as the basis for its reference architecture for operating systems. The China Software and Integrated Chip Promotions Centre (CSIP), part of the Industry & IT Ministry, Ubuntu manufacturer Canonical and the Chinese National […]
The words free (as in freedom. Ed.) and open are quite commonly associated with academia and education: free thought, open access to knowledge and such like. Indeed, these concepts are actually embodied in the names of some academic institutions, such as the UK’s Open University and Germany’s Free University of Berlin. However, there are signs […]
Some years ago, computer retailer Dell made an abortive, half-hearted effort to offer a limited range of machines – one entry level desktop system and a couple of laptops – running Ubuntu Linux (news passim). It’s now back with another Ubuntu offering in the UK and Germany, according to a report in the H Online. […]
If you run a Linux system using the RPM-based package management system, you might like to give your system a security check following news from the Internet Storm Center (ISC) of a SSHD rootkit affecting such distributions. To quote from the ISC article: The rootkit is actually a trojanized library that links with SSHD and […]
From France’s Gendarmerie Nationale (news passim) to an Irishman with 6 machines, using free and open source operating systems and software is saving businesses of all sizes money. The Irishman appears in a report in today’s Meath Chronicle of how an 11 year-old boy saved him €3,000. Sean Mullen’s 3 laptops and 3 desktop computers […]
Over the years, MySociety, an e-democracy project of the charity UK Citizens Online Democracy, whose aim is to build “socially focused tools with offline impacts”, has designed some great online tools. By way of an example, these include: TheyWorkForYou to enable electors to track the work of their constituency MPs; WriteToThem to help electors write […]
After a delay of 14 years since it was first released for proprietary operating systems, the first version of Half Life, one of the most popular and influential first person shooter games of recent times, has now been released for the Linux platform, according to Softpedia. Half Life is based on a heavily modified Quake […]
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) blog reports that the GNU/Linux Inside sticker pack is now being sold. The stickers are high-quality and durable; they won’t fade away or scratch off your computer, making it the ideal way to advocate your use of free software! They are perfect for replacing those *other* stickers that may come […]