Robert A. Uhl

Fedora 11

Last night I upgraded to Fedora 11. I have to say that I’m impressed! It’s the first Fedora upgrade in a long time which went in quickly and cleanly, without any problems that had me tearing my hair out, which was a problem with past releases (if I — a professional developer, sysadmin and geek — had trouble then you know that normal people did). Overall, Fedora 11 looks more like a ‘polishing’ release than a feature release: for the most part, things look & behave the same, but they do it better, with fewer bugs. Read more →

Fedora 11

Last night I upgraded to Fedora 11. I have to say that I’m impressed! It’s the first Fedora upgrade in a long time which went in quickly and cleanly, without any problems that had me tearing my hair out, which was a problem with past releases (if I — a professional developer, sysadmin and geek — had trouble then you know that normal people did). Overall, Fedora 11 looks more like a ‘polishing’ release than a feature release: for the most part, things look & behave the same, but they do it better, with fewer bugs. Read more →

Why free software rocks

The Guardian uses lots of free software to run their website. Recently, they discovered a bug, tracked it down, fixed it and submitted the patch to the developers. Were it proprietary software, they would have discovered it, but would have been unable to track it down or fix it, and the odds are that their vendor would not have considered it a high priority. Free software rocks. Read more →

Why free software rocks

The Guardian uses lots of free software to run their website. Recently, they discovered a bug, tracked it down, fixed it and submitted the patch to the developers. Were it proprietary software, they would have discovered it, but would have been unable to track it down or fix it, and the odds are that their vendor would not have considered it a high priority. Free software rocks. Read more →

Mac Office users Microsoft’s guinea pigs

MacWorld UK reports that Microsoft used Macintosh Office users as guinea pigs for Office features; the company also considered killing the product entirely in order to damage Apple. This is what happens when one is beholden to proprietary software. After all, Apple can test features out on its users, too. The only way to be free is to use free software. Read more →

Mac Office users Microsoft’s guinea pigs

MacWorld UK reports that Microsoft used Macintosh Office users as guinea pigs for Office features; the company also considered killing the product entirely in order to damage Apple. This is what happens when one is beholden to proprietary software. After all, Apple can test features out on its users, too. The only way to be free is to use free software. Read more →

The problems of driver-downloaded firmware

Jem Matzan has an article regarding driver-downloaded firmware and the issues this causes for free operating systems. The root of the problem is that hardware vendors don’t just deal in hardware: they also write software for their products, and they don’t make this software free — this is a little absurd, since you’d think they’d want their products used as widely as possible. 06 February 2018: updated URL Read more →

The problems of driver-downloaded firmware

Jem Matzan has an article regarding driver-downloaded firmware and the issues this causes for free operating systems. The root of the problem is that hardware vendors don’t just deal in hardware: they also write software for their products, and they don’t make this software free — this is a little absurd, since you’d think they’d want their products used as widely as possible. 06 February 2018: updated URL Read more →

gcc 4.1

The GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 has been released, with some exciting new changes. Given that gcc is at the heart of almost everything running on my system, it’s good to see the development is continuing and improvements are being made. And to think that once upon a time people charged huge sums for compilers! Read more →

gcc 4.1

The GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 has been released, with some exciting new changes. Given that gcc is at the heart of almost everything running on my system, it’s good to see the development is continuing and improvements are being made. And to think that once upon a time people charged huge sums for compilers! Read more →