Dealing with SPAM

by Dietrich Schmitz Folks, I have no choice but to treat you like children instead of adults when the level of spam gets out of hand. Today, full moderation has been enabled and will remain so until further notice. That means, there will be delays in processing the pending DISQUS queue.  Your post is there.  Give me time to approve it. For those living in other far-reaching time zones, please know I like to sleep and so there will...

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Fedora 19 Schrodinger's Cat Feature Review

by Dietrich Schmitz There's much to be said about going with a Distro which provides true innovation and leading edge technology. So much so that today I have chosen to review Red Hat supported Fedora 19, aka Schrodinger's Cat, currently in its beta testing cycle.  I didn't waste time downloading it--this is my desktop on the Xfce spin: My Fedora 19 Schrodinger's Cat Desktop Almost reminds you of the good old days of early Ubuntu does...

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Fork Ubuntu to Preserve Community Participation

by Dietrich Schmitz Members of the Ubuntu community may have reacted negatively to my story Ubuntu is NOT a Community Project.  When they are done being upset and settle down, they can then realize what is happening. Things are not within your control?  Ask yourself what can be done to regain control: Fork Ubuntu and declare a jihad and move all Ubuntu community developers to an openUbuntu fork. (Image credit: colas.nahaboo.net) Does...

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Ubuntu is NOT a Community Project

by Dietrich Schmitz What is that?  Yes, you read that right.  Ubuntu is not a community project. I see an uprising in the peanut gallery forming in response.  Commentors will heckle and disparage and attempt to do their usual to insist that I am wrong.  Failing that, they will then try to disparage.  (Image credit: fox-lenz.com) This is nothing new.  I've been quite used to personal attacks for a long time.  When...

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Is Canonical Ltd. Financially Insolvent?

by Dietrich Schmitz I've put it out there.  I am not one of Mark Shuttleworth's blind devotees and have moved away from Canonical and Ubuntu a good while ago.  I think he is running a business into the ground.  And I think it's only a matter of time before we see a public statement that would confirm Canonical's tenuous financial condition. Today, I was looking around for financial information of any kind regarding Canonical...

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Moving Sideways

by Dietrich Schmitz Opinions are like colons; everybody has one.  And so do I.  Daily, I see changes on Distrowatch.com and ask myself: "What does it mean for the future of Linux?". (Image credit: netanimations.net) I wonder where it will be in five years.  Given the rapid pace of technology change, it's hard to fathom if things will even resemble what they are today. In my private LA community, we 'chew the fat' and often one...

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#!CrunchBang 11 "Waldorf": The Breakfast of Champions

by Dietrich Schmitz Some of you may have gotten the impression that I favor one particular Distro.  Well, I do.  But that doesn't mean there aren't other worthy candidates. Truly, there's only a handful which I really do think will be around in five years and while I talk about Pimping out the Desktop and extol the virtues of one package manager verses another, I had one indelible experience using one particularly unique speed demon--#!...

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Red Flag Privacy Warning: Google+ Hangout Has Gone Proprietary

by Dietrich Schmitz It is readily understood how Free and Open Source can be a really good thing. After all, isn't the notion of Free and having the ability to share worthwhile?  We see it every day in action, not just with FOSS and it is a human tendency to want to share and doing things which don't exact a cost also makes doing things possible that might not otherwise happen. The idea that FOSS is a good thing also pairs up with another...

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A Breach of Public Trust: Proprietary Google+ Hangouts

by Dietrich Schmitz By all accounts, Google I/O 2013 was a relative success, but with one exception: Google+ Hangouts. The battle cry for action was sounded on the announcement that Google will dismantle the much-praised Google Talk which runs on an open protocol Jabber/XMPP in favor of proprietary protocols all running under the branded label Hangouts. Even I was taken by surprise by the announcement, merely thinking that Google was being...

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A Failing Grade for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail From Dedoimedo

by Dietrich Schmitz I've been a regular reader of Dedoimedo and have to say, to the best of my recollection, my colleague's  review of Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail is the most candid one he has ever written. There have been times in the past when I disagreed with him in his assessment of various Distros, but this time, I have to take sides with him.  I mean, please, don't hold back on the reader's account.  LOL.  And no, hold...

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