Tag: ubuntu

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

Full Disclosure: Thomas owns a fraction of a share of Microsoft via SoFI Invest. He was also a Walmart Associate until December of 2016.

In the past, Ubuntu’s Unity Desktop was designed to work on mobile devices and desktop computers. When Canonical changed plans and moved back to GNOME 3 as their desktop environment of choice, the mobile variant all but disappeared.

Thanks to UBports, however, Ubuntu Touch is still being developed and works on several mobile devices.

Their newest release includes but is not limited to:

• QtWebEngine 5.14: Now allows more flexible text selection and opening of multiple file types (PDF, MP3, images, text).
• Icon-based System Settings Menu.
• Newer backend components that will allow Ubuntu Touch to be based on Ubuntu 20.04.
• Revamps of Messages, Dialer, and Contacts
• Better compatibility with IPv6.

Their official release announcement can be read here.

It’s nice to be able to have progress without dealing with political theater, which TikTok has fallen victim to, according to media mogul Barry Diller.

“It has now morphed into a ludicrous game-match between tossing ownership here, control there. … Its original aims are out the window. It has just come a whole political mismash.”

–Barry Diller on CNBC’s Squawk Box

Microsoft was initially going to attempt a deal with ByteDance until China placed more export restrictions on computer-based algorithms. Now it’s Oracle and Walmart. World politics will continue to impact e-commerce in 2020, especially in the age of COVID-19.

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Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

As this is being written, the rain has been pounding the pavement in spurts. One moment, it’s a calm flow of droplets. Then comes the rapid torrent.

This week’s roundup has been like that with its various ups and downs.

Unix

With Canonical’s announcement of switching back to GNOME for Ubuntu’s default desktop, the question of how they would go about it remains. OMG Ubuntu sheds some light on this and even links to a survey asking for input.

Developers are considering some tweaks to ease the transition.

There’s some good news for the GNU GPL for the time being. Though it wasn’t meant to be treated as a contract, the license agreement itself appears to be enforceable as one for the time being.

The case revolved around Hancom and its use of Ghostscript without adhering to the GNU Affero General Public License.

To end this portion of our weekly roundup, here’s an interesting story about immigration policies possibly impacting free and open source software development. On the one hand, recent policies could impact the ability of the U.S. to bring in intelligent individuals who can lead the way in innovation.

On the other hand, the idea of promoting from within has been brought up assuming interest in the field of software development exists.

Time will tell the tale on that one.

Overlooked Pop Culture

There’s a reason many are either captivated and/or aggravated by politics. Though campaigns may portray otherwise, things are rarely black and white. Nothing demonstrates this more than with the firing of James Comey by President Trump.

Though there has been suspicion as to the President’s actual motivations, Trevor Aaronson of The intercept reminds readers that Comey himself did some things during his tenure as the head of the FBI that were questionable at best.

The aggravating portion of the political arena is why people seek an escape, even if it’s a virtual arena. An old escape may have a chance at a revival if Billy Corgan has his way after buying the rights to the National Wrestling Alliance.

He will own the rights to the trademarks as well as the NWA Championship belt.

Though the classic name in professional wrestling has waned over the years, the plan is a long term move, so nothing will change right away. Could this WCW 3.0?

Speaking of retro, 8-big video game music has been making a comeback… on vinyl that is! The LA Times has a fascinating piece on how boutique record labels have been combining the two niches together.

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

In the passing weeks, there have been a plethora of stories regarding Alex Jones and his “performance artist” defense used by his attorney during his divorce hearing. Since that defense was used, it was assumed by most corporate owned outlets that he doesn’t believe what he’s selling to others.

Once again, they’re way off the mark, and this is part of the reason why so much trust has been lost regarding these established outlets.

The issue at hand is that he uses certain shock jock tactics which are really not that different from that of Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern. He has an audience to build and maintain. The sense of urgency that he has always displayed has been a part of his viral marketing.

There’s a reason he kept encouraging his followers to copy his films and give them away for free.

That is also why I would be able to use his work for certain benchmarks in any future reviews. His discs aren’t region locked. That is a hallmark of viral marketing, and Canonical has also successfully used that tactic to make Ubuntu a house hold name.

Furthermore, when one actually looks into other venues that have covered him at length, a more complicated story appears.

However extreme and paranoid and downright cartoonish his unending stream of alarm can be, Jones believes every word he says and can prove it with a personal stash of food big enough to last three years. And if they bothered to look without prejudice, these righteous leftists would see that Jones covers issues like the drug war, the growing security state, and Monsanto’s genetic modification of food exactly the way they do, just as many of his themes were echoed by the Occupy movement. –John H Richardson for Esquire Magazine

Jones has since changed tone since Trump was elected as President of the United States, but he did cover a lot of points of view that the anti-war crowd would have agreed with during George W Bush’s time in office. As for further evidence that Jones believes what he says, look no further than Joe Rogan.

This isn’t to say that I entirely agree with Jones or his tactics that are used. What I find irritating is the mindless group think that keeps echoing each other when a misleading headline comes across the eyes of the masses.

If people are to oppose Jones and those similar to him, they need to have all their facts straight and be able to back up what is being argued.

Oh, and before anybody cheers for the ex-wife of Jones, you may want to listen to Jack Blood and what he has to say.

When one digs deeper, they find the story of an individual who doesn’t like competition and who may very well have sold out depending on the point of view. Those are points in which criticism would be valid as opposed to saying he doesn’t believe in what he’s selling.

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

This week has been an interesting one to say the least. Ubuntu continues to get noticed due to Canonical’s change in direction while other interesting developments in the land of make believe are on the horizon. Still, it’s time to get our nerd on.

Here’s this week’s Friday Roundup.

Unix

Canonical’s announcement of moving back to GNOME and no longer using Unity starting with the next LTS release has had some exploring their options. The conclusion of one blog post is that GNOME 3 can’t replace Unity and that there will definitely be a learning curve for those who aren’t used to it.

Luís de Sousa writes:

The take home message of this exercise is that Unity 7 and Gnome 3 are markedly different desktop environments, designed with different – sometimes almost antagonistic – goals. Gnome 3 is a low visual feedback environment, meant for a small number of workspaces and highly reliant on mouse input. In its turn, Unity 7 is far more open to keyboard interaction, embraces workspaces as a cornerstone of desktop interfacing and overall offers far more modes of interaction and features. Unity 7 comes across as a transparent environment, providing immediate visual feedback on what may be happening with each of the programmes it manages; by contrast Gnome 3 opts to hide many visual cues, preferring a clean desktop, focused entirely on the current foreground programme.

(Bolding added for emphasis)

With the switch to GNOME will come the obvious switch to Wayland as well. X11 is network oriented, while Wayland is focused on individual systems, thus cutting down on overhead and improving graphical performance.

Speaking of Ubuntu, System76 is now starting to move production and design in-house. Phase Three will be long term. Carl Richell writes:

We’re starting with desktops. There’s a lot to learn and the form factor is easiest to work with. Both design and CAD work are well along their way. We’re prototyping with acrylic and moving to metal soon. Our first in-house designed and manufactured desktops will ship next year. Laptops are more complex and will follow much later.

Last but not least by any means, Solus has a new release. In addition to the in house Budgie Desktop, MATE and GNOME editions are available. Their release notes are available here.

Overlooked Pop Culture

Apparently, there may be a mini version of the Nintendo Switch on the horizon, if analysts are correct. If true, one can only speculate what will happen to the DS line of portable consoles in the near future. In a surprising turn of events in WWE, Jinder Mahal has earned a number one contender spot for the WWE Champtionship.

Seeing as how the product is now less predictable, it may become more entertaining. Only time will tell.

In a piece that shows a lack of understanding, NBC is among the latest to pick up the story regarding Alex Jones and his performance artist defense. Jones is currently in a custody battle over his kids.

A note of correction: They claim he pushed that the moon landing was faked. That is not entirely true. There will be a future article regarding Jones and his custody battle to further explain this.

StarCraft fans have cause to celebrate this week as the original has been released for free in lieu of the Remastered Edition. Those who want to run into under Wine may be disappointed as it doesn’t work.

The good news is that the map editor still runs.

So if you’re a Windows or OS X user, you’ll be able to run this classic game and compete with your friends.

Cool Links of the Week

Lemonade is not your traditional renter’s insurance company. They operate to keep costs down and premiums low. Mozilla Thunderbird is also an amazing e-mail client, and they could use your help.

That wraps up this week’s interesting, weird, and cool news. We’ll see you next week.

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

This is the first in a weekly series that rounds up the week for those who were busy with the daily grind. Here’s what you missed over the week.

Unix

Open Source luminary Eric S Raymond along with Susan Sons have been blending concepts from martial arts and hacking. They are identifying what they call different Hacker Archetypes.

… Susan Sons reports having found it very effective for motivating young and newbie martial artists. “It gave them their first glimpse of what they were trying to become,” she reports, “They both knuckled down not just in the obvious physical parts of training, but in the mental aspects, far more than they had before and far more than their age/experience peers.”

So, Susan had the idea that it might be a good idea to develop a parallel gallery of hacker archetypes to help motivate newbies. We brainstormed this on IRC for a while. One thing that had been blocking Susan is that, by her own report, she sucks at naming things. I, on the other hand, am pretty good at that; I was able to come up with names that helped the archetypes develop more definition.

The different archetypes are listed and kept up to date on ESR’s blog.

System76 has recently updated their Galago Pro line of notebook computers. It’s extremely portable and can have as much as 32 GB of RAM. They are available for pre-order and they have an offer for $50 off.

Speaking of Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate Edition 17.04 has recently been released. Martin Wimpress had the following to say:

We’re totally over the bloody moon to announce Ubuntu MATE 17.04. This is our favourite release of Ubuntu MATE so far and, we believe, a real return to form. Ubuntu MATE 16.10 was a transitional release, in every sense, and 17.04 concludes the upheaval of migrating to GTK3+. This has been a release focused on refining the distro and sweating the details. As always, we’re never finished and eager to start work on 17.10 to bring you further improvements and refinement. But for now, we hope you enjoy Ubuntu MATE 17.04 as much as we’ve enjoyed making it for you.

Their release announcement has more details on updated features.

Overlooked Pop Culture

Tim Berners-Lee has been going back to the drawing board regarding the web. He argues that spying has taken place, while mean ideas have proliferated. Ironically, the only way to address the latter is to enable the former.

In spite of President Trump’s recent actions regarding the Middle East, Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet is still defending him.

Trump’s response to the alleged chemical weapons attack allowed him to look decisive and was a show of strength towards China and North Korea. It also served to temporarily silence the repeated accusations that he is in collusion with Russia.

Trump’s aim with the air strike was to destroy Syria’s remaining chemical weapons to make Assad follow through on the deal. If he didn’t act, Trump would have been eviscerated by his critics as being equally as weak as Obama.

Watson ends the article by claiming that if Trump were to manipulated by neo-conservatives that he would have a legacy equivalent to George W Bush’s.

To end the week with weird stuff, Tony Ortega has the latest on celebrities and their involvement with the Church of Scientology.

Have an excellent weekend and we’ll be back next Friday.