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
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
KDE Plasma 5.27 Beta is Ready for Testing
The latest beta iteration of the KDE Plasma desktop is now available and includes some important additions and fixes.
-
Netrunner OS 23 Is Now Available
The latest version of this Linux distribution is now based on Debian Bullseye and is ready for installation and finally hits the KDE 5.20 branch of the desktop.
-
New Linux Distribution Built for Gamers
With a Gnome desktop that offers different layouts and a custom kernel, PikaOS is a great option for gamers of all types.
-
System76 Beefs Up Popular Pangolin Laptop
The darling of open-source-powered laptops and desktops will soon drop a new AMD Ryzen 7-powered version of their popular Pangolin laptop.
-
Nobara Project Is a Modified Version of Fedora with User-Friendly Fixes
If you're looking for a version of Fedora that includes third-party and proprietary packages, look no further than the Nobara Project.
-
Gnome 44 Now Has a Release Date
Gnome 44 will be officially released on March 22, 2023.
-
Nitrux 2.6 Available with Kernel 6.1 and a Major Change
The developers of Nitrux have officially released version 2.6 of their Linux distribution with plenty of new features to excite users.
-
Vanilla OS Initial Release Is Now Available
A stock GNOME experience with on-demand immutability finally sees its first production release.
-
Critical Linux Vulnerability Found to Impact SMB Servers
A Linux vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10 has been found to affect SMB servers and can lead to remote code execution.
-
Linux Mint 21.1 Now Available with Plenty of Look and Feel Changes
Vera has arrived and although it is still using kernel 5.15, there are plenty of improvements sure to please everyone.