Our old friend John Palfrey has emailed us with an update and picture of his Linux Lounge bus, which is gradually coming together as a showcase for open source IT and green energy technologies. The bus is a 1984 MCW Mk11 Metrobus, 9.5m in length and is powered by a 10.5L 6 cylinder Gardner engine. […]
Are you doing or have just done your A Levels and want to do practical technical computing? As we previously reported (news passim), Bristol’s University of the West of England is staging its Linux Boot Camp from Monday 29th June to Wednesday 1st July. The event will involve two and a half days of technical […]
I had an email from fellow Bristol Wireless volunteer Mike last night asking if I could fiddle with the order of posts on the site to bring the last post on Hacktionlab (news passim) to the top of the BW news page. After some thought, I decided to write this post instead. For those who […]
Being on a low income it’s virtually impossible to find the money needed to gain access to the latest computer operating systems and software. Many times I’ve found myself angry at being denied access to software simply because of my economic status. I was therefore presented with two options: the first being to use pirated […]
Sitting on the desk before your correspondent is page 15 from Linux Format edition 119 for June 2009. This is a page entitled ‘Events radar’ and features Linux & open source events from around the world. Looking at June there’s one in particular that caught my eye – Bristol Wireless Linux Bootcamp, Bristol UK, particularly […]
If any one is interested in trying out a bit of digital Djing I would highly recommend Mixxx. I stumbled across it a few months ago whilst having a browse through the Synaptic package manager and to be honest with you, I love IT. It’s quite a simple application to use and the graphical features […]
At 6 pm on Friday 3rd April, Bristol Wireless is jointly hosting a talk entitled Nowtopia at St Werburghs Community Centre (map here) in conjunction with our friends from Bristol Radical History Group and Bristol Anarchist Bookfair. The event will be of interest to radical historians and futurists, permaculturalists, free-skillers, open sourcerers, class warriors, transition […]
On 24th March (next Tuesday) the Arnolfini is hosting a talk entitled ‘The Art and Politics of P2P. It’s free, starts at 7 pm and the speakers are Michel Bauwens, Matthew Fuller and Olga Goriunova. The presentation introduces the work of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives – a clearing house for open/free, participatory/p2p and commons-oriented […]
Opening my inbox this morning revealed the arrival of news from Europe (Not Brussels though; no need to shudder and fear the worst! Ed.😉 ). Yesterday, 11th March, saw the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) celebrating its 2^3 (eighth) birthday. Over that time, the FSFE has been working for basic rights and freedoms in a […]
OSOR reports that the French Gendarmerie‘s gradual migration to a completely open source desktop and web applications has saved millions of euro. “This year the IT budget will be reduced by 70 per cent. This will not affect our IT systems,” says Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard. This Thursday, Guimard gave a presentation in Utrecht in the […]
Earlier today Bristol Wireless volunteer Sam alerted the co-op to the launch of Whitehall’s action plan for open source, including support for ODF. The action plan has a foreword by Digital Engagement Minister Tom Watson MP, which starts: Open Source has been one of the most significant cultural developments in IT and beyond over the […]
Ben, our server admin, has just announced the update of the Bristol Wireless Debian repositories. As a preface, Ben wrote: Debian 5.0 “Lenny” was released on Valentine’s Day, how sweet. I suspect that this has caused many break-ups as enthusiastic Debian Sys Admins rushed from candle-lit dinners to attend to their servers.* Anyway, Ben informs […]
Pete, the Chair of Bristol Wireless, has posted details to our daily mailing list of a petition on the 10 Downing Street website, requesting the British Prime Minister to promote greater use of open source software in UK schools. At present, use of free and open source software in schools is very much a minor […]
After taking a well earned break in January, the first Dorkbot Bristol meeting of 2009 will be on the Tuesday, 17th February 2009 at the Pervasive Media Studio, Anchor Square (above the Firehouse Restaurant) from 7pm until 10pm. It’s a free event with donations accepted for refreshments. It’ll be a ‘Show & Tell‘, an open […]
Users of open source and free software are very familiar with open licences such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). Indeed all the content of this site is available under it (we’re still on version 2; the GPL itself is on 3.0 now. Damn techies. Ed.). One piece of news that may have been […]
BBC Technology reports that Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is preparing a paper on the use of open source software for the new US administration. “It’s intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software,” he said, adding, “Open source does not require you to pay a penny to […]
This coming Tuesday 20th January is Penguin Awareness Day (hat tip: Kerry McCarthy). Why is a tech news site so concerned about aquatic, flightless birds you may ask? Anybody familiar with Linux will be aware of the existence of a character called Tux, the mascot of the Linux kernel and a penguin to boot (should […]
When I saw that as the subject line in an email we’ve received, I thought it was a great way to open a testimonial to Linux. Last week we had a visitor in the lab who bought one of our splendid £30 computers. Normally, we don’t hear from our customers: the machines just keep running […]
The sad plight of our dear friends the Internet Explorer user base has come to our attention. Apparently a serious security flaw in version 7 of their flagship web browser and according to the BBC, the seriousness of the problem means that security experts are advising users to switch to another browser until the issue […]
The time: first thing on Monday morning this week (Groan! Ed.). The place: outside the Watershed by Bristol’s historic docks, where Rich Higgs and yer ‘umble scribe found ourselves unloading a car full of stuff – a refurbished £30 computer, the Bristol Wireless banner, blank CDs, literature, etc. – to haul inside for the South […]