Linux Unplugged

During a recent passionate speech Richard Stallman said users of proprietary software are victims, we’ll debate of that’s true & play other clips from his speech. Then we’ll look at the recent exodus of Mac developers, ponder if this a trend worth paying attention to & if Linux is ready to take advantage of it. Plus the pants debt comes due, your feedback & much more!

Our bold predictions for Linux & open source over 2015. Thought provoking, sometimes a bit inspired or maybe just plain wrong, this edition of Unplugged promises to entertain. Plus what goes into making a great & secure messaging system & more!

We look back on some of the rants and events of 2014. Wether it's systemd, mir, tox, ubuntu or anything else, we covered lots of major events this year!

Our virtual LUG reviews Fedora 21 & why we’ve just witnessed one of the most ambitious transformation of any Linux distro of 2014. Plus Dustin Kirkland from Canonical answers if Ubuntu Snappy could be the future of the entire Ubuntu project & what’s coming soon from the Xonotic project.

Fedora’s project lead joins us to discuss today’s Fedora 21 release, the possibility of the project switching to an Intel style Tick-Tock release & what Fedora 22 might look like. Plus what the Ubuntu Snappy Core announcement means, why it’s a big deal & why it could be amazing for the desktop one day. Then was 2014 the year Roku killed XMBC for us?

The founder of Purism Librem 15, a laptop that promises to respect your freedom and be the perfect Linux machine joins us to discuss the hardware, software & goals of the project & how he hopes to encourage manufacturers to free the entire stack. But are the goals of this project too ambitions? We’ll ask! Plus CoreOS announces Rocket, a new Docker competitor that we’re very excited about & more!

We’re joined by a classroom full of special guests, we talk with the students from Penn Manor School District, where they’ve given every high school student a Linux laptop & integrated the students into the help desk. We get the inside scope on the challenges, roadblocks & successes of this large desktop Linux deployment. Plus a preview of our upcoming interview with Mark Shuttleworth & his take on the recent criticism and exodus from Debian & getting started in a Linux career.

We recap the recent mini-exodus in the Debian project & discuss how the tone of discussion around systemd has had some terrible consequences. We follow that with some concrete ideas of what we can do to change that tone. Plus we take a stroll down fantasy lane and wave our magic wands and solve our top three Linux pain points, some great follow up & much more.

The crew took the Firefox challenge & we follow up, we reflect on 10 years of Firefox, their early Linux support & the growing competition from Webkit. Gnome raised money to defend it’s Trademark from Groupon, which has quickly raised the white flag. Is this instant groundswell of support the dawn of a new community attitude towards Gnome? Plus an exciting first live on the show, tons of great feedback & more!

We follow up on our review of openSUSE 13.2 & discuss how life on the rolling side has been going for some of our LUG members. Plus the hardware box that promises to replace your password manager & we say goodbye to the Linux Outlaws.

Our interviews from SeaGL 2014, a grassroots technical conference dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community and free/libre/open-source. Special guest Angela Fisher joins us to discuss getting women involved with Linux and technology general. Plus our fun stories from Ohio LinuxFest 2014, a few closing thoughts, your feedback & much more!

Is it time to fork Debian? Some Unix veterans do, and we discuss. The Linux Grandma joins us to discuss Kubuntu, KDE’s outreach, and Google Summer of Code. Plus Microsoft says they really love Linux, Steam’s secret weapon against Windows & much more!

We discuss how one software center for all distributions would work & which existing solutions are the closest. Plus looking forward to some new Ubuntu apps & how Linux bit Lightworks right in the memory manager.

The Linux community is at each others throats this week, from Lennart Poettering’s well intentioned rant, to the rage quit of GamingOnLinux’s lead writer. You’d think it was high school all over again. But what’s the larger ramifications of this public fight & what causes them? Plus can we put the blame at the feet of Linus Torvalds? Our thoughts on structuring a productive community, your emails & much more!

Today’s show is full of robust discussion as your hosts discuss the recent criticism over our coverage of Ubuntu 14.10, the general reaction to Shellshock & the Netflixification of Photoshop on Chromebooks. Plus picking the best distro for getting a job, a little more XFCE chat & much more!

Debian moves to make Gnome the default desktop, is XFCE going the way of the Dodo bird? Our living debate will try to get to the bottom of the big elephant in the room. Plus Red Hat announces its refocusing on the very thing Canonical makes all its money from & why we may be on the precipice of a massive new competition between the two companies.

Is the role of “Community Manager” a fraud perpetrated by companies trying to exploit the fruits for their community? We debate if things are really that black and white, and how a community advocate can make all the difference. Then we discuss your systemd follow up, the various desktops touch screen features, Microsoft buying Minecraft, and the recent purchase of openSUSE’s parent company Attachmate.

The majority of systemd hate appears to be coming from just two sources. At least that’s what we suspect & call them out. Plus a review of OpenMediaVault and how it compares to FreeNAS, a quick look at Tox & what the heck is Fedora’s DNF?

The systemd group has a proposal for universal software management scheme for all Linux distributions. We’ll share the technical details, debate the philosophical impact & explain why it’s all powered by btrfs. Plus some thoughts on the ultimate desktop manager, the true cost of a MacBook, and much more!

We’ve got exclusive interviews from LinuxCon 2014, learn about Linux in big networking, what the future holds for SUSE & much more. Plus, are you feeling a bit down? Maybe it’s because Linux users are being told to shut up about Desktop Linux & move on. We’ll discuss why this an absurdly short sighted idea.