Letters from the Linux community
LIFE IN THE LUGS
Jon Masters begins a worthy chronicle of the global Linux community.
Linux has changed considerably since I first became involved with the Linux community a decade ago. Back then, I had just become the youngest University student in the UK and had gotten access to my first real UNIX box. Shortly thereafter, I discovered I could have my very own UNIX at home for a fraction of the cost of buying my own Sun server kit (which cost around US$ 10,000 new.) A copy of a single floppy disk Linux installation served as enough inspiration for me to spend the next two weeks downloading Slackware over the painfully slow JaNET UK national academic network. 200 floppy disks (and a few duds) later, I had a working installation of Slackware and absolutely no idea how to use or maintain it. It often seemed necessary to re-install the system, as various weird and wonderful error messages would appear every ten minutes or so. And it quickly became difficult to convince friends and family that this was a superior system of the future when the terse output of fsck on a power outage proved enough for another round of re-installation.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
News
-
Ubuntu 21.10 Released and Finally Includes GNOME 40
The most anticipated update to Ubuntu is finally here and the workflow couldn't be better.
-
Linux Can Now Run on Apple’s M1 Chipset
Linux users looking to take advantage of Apple Silicon are about to get their wish with the M1 chipset.
-
MX Linux 21 RC Candidate Available For Testing
The MX Linux development team has released the RC images for MX Linux 21 for testing purposes.
-
Fedora 35 is Shaping Up to Be an Impressive Release
Although the beta version of Fedora’s upcoming release is behind schedule, the Linux distribution is still slotted for October and will include numerous bug fixes and some exciting new features.
-
Canonical Extends Support For Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04
The company behind Ubuntu offered a much-needed lifeline to those who still depend on older versions of the open-source operating system.
-
GNOME 41 Has Arrived
The latest version of the GNOME desktop environment has been released with new functionality and plenty of improvements.
-
System76 Updates the 15" Pangolin with Ryzen
System76 announced they’re updating the Ryzen-powered Pangolin laptop to meet today’s need for more power.
-
KDE Plasma 5.23 Promises Plenty of Subtle Improvements
The next release of the KDE Plasma desktop includes new features, numerous improvements, and plenty of bug fixes.
-
GNOME 41 Beta is Now Available
The most popular open-source desktop environment is on the cusp of yet another new release, but don’t expect the massive changes found in the previous iteration.
-
Debian 11 “Bullseye” Now Available
The developers of Debian have released the latest version of the operating system so many distributions depend on.