«« :: 2008 Apr :: »»

# 2008 apr 25 (fri) 11:28 :: Ubuntu 8.04 released yesterday

FYI, the Ubuntu just released version 8.04 of their Linux distribution. I run Ubuntu on the servers and my desktop at work, and on my personal laptop, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. If you've heard that Linux is just for geeks, it's totally not true any more. Linux is a rock-solid operating system that runs well even on old computers, and the Ubuntu team have packaged it so that it's really easy to use and pretty easy to install.

I could go on about how Linux is free and open, and lets you monkey around with the source-code of your programs, and that's all true. But the best thing about Linux and other open-source projects is the people.

Open-source projects are collections of PEOPLE, not just faceless corporations. It's a folk history of people writing programs that they want to use and then sharing them with other people. Sometimes they do it for selfish reasons, but a lot of people in the community do it because they want to give something back, and to create a technology commons to benefit everyone.

PMC folks: If you're reading this because you checked out the blog after visiting the Jennifer & Kent site, Linux reflects a lot of good Anabaptist values. Ask me or Bob N or David C or Mark E about it sometime. Grace and peace to you.

UPDATE: Ubuntu's site is pretty swamped today with people downloading the new version. If you want to give something back, know how to use Bittorrent, and have a computer that you can leave plugged in for awhile, consider downloading Ubuntu using Bittorrent and then leaving it on for awhile. This will help Ubuntu and the other mirror servers handle the load.

# 2008 apr 25 (fri) 9:07 :: Wish we could get some of this going down here in Southern Cali...

Those folks up in PDX have really got it going on. I just ran across the web site for Free Geek, which is an organization that takes donations of computers and either recycles them responsibly (if they're too old) or refurbishes them, installs Linux, and then gives them away.

There's also the Personal Telco Project, another group of geeks up there who run a free wireless mesh network. They basically provide free wifi for a lot of places in Portland. WifiPDX offers a related service for finding free wifi hotspots with your cellphone. Between the two of them, laptop-people (and the geeks in Personal Telco) get free wifi and businesses get free advertising.

I enjoyed the service at a couple different places while I was in PDX last year for OSCON. The service had a lot of cool features, like lists of events around the wifi hotspot and other cool stuff, though I think you have to actually be in a PersonalTelco hotspot to see those features. The maintainance logs for Old Town Pizza were pretty funny (to a geek, anyway).

Aside from the tech stuff, it'd be nice to have some decent PDX-style microbrew down here too...