Community Matters

The next generation of kernel hackers

dirk — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 10:16:00 +0000

Most every year, as we prepare for the kernel summit, this topic comes up. How do we ensure Linux doesn’t turn into the old boys club. How do we attract new developers and get them to grow into bigger roles into the developer community. It’s a typical application of the ten thousand hour rule. You [...]

Apple is the new AOL

dirk — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:48:42 +0000

This isn’t a new idea. Joe Wilcox has discussed this in his BetaNews article a couple of months ago. But spending a lot of time at OSCON last week made it clear to me how true this observation has become – with all its implications. The developers of Android and MeeGo are quite actively playing [...]

Finding a good picture

dirk — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:26:46 +0000

This may seem like a silly problem to have – but I tend to hate pictures of myself. But with Twitter and many other social media services (and blogs, and wikis where you are supposed to introduce yourself) it turns out that having a good picture of yourself is very useful – first impressions matter. [...]

MeeGo presentation at LinuxTag

dirk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:38:56 +0000

Today I had the pleasure of presenting about MeeGo in the mobile Linux track at LinuxTag 2010. The room was packed, thankfully I had a double slot so I had plenty of time to talk about the what and the why and the how of MeeGo. I talked about the origins of MeeGo and explained [...]

Froyo for Nexus One

dirk — Sat, 22 May 2010 23:58:25 +0000

Lots of posts and happiness about the unexpected early availability of Android 2.2 aka Froyo for the Nexus One. But sadly the update fails if you have the AT&T version of the phone as it has a different build number (EPE54B vs ERE27). So those of us on AT&T still have to wait with everyone [...]

Community distributions with corporate involvement

dirk — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:46:20 +0000

One of the hardest things for people to understand about MeeGo is the intersection between what wants to be a community distribution and what appears to be a distribution with a strong influence by its two major sponsors (Intel and Nokia). In a community distribution the maintainers make the decisions. Today, in MeeGo those maintainers [...]

Notmuch mail

dirk — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:46:27 +0000

So this is NOT the mail program I have written about before. It is (for now, at least), squarely targeting geeks. You want to know how geeky? The current user interface for Notmuch is Emacs. Yes, Emacs. Ok, if you stopped laughing, I’ll tell you why I am still quite excited. Notmuch is entirely search [...]

Fanless servers

dirk — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:18:28 +0000

I like the idea of little “servers” (and I use that term lightly) that are quiet and cool. I have replaced one of the Mac Minis that I used as a server at home with a fanless little system based on an Intel Atom Z530 CPU (a Portwell WEBS2120). 2Gigs of memory, a small SSD [...]

MeeGo

dirk — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:46:16 +0000

Look at that – there’s a new project out there, doing client Linux for devices, mobile and otherwise. With a focus on phones and netbooks and cool things like connected TVs and in vehicle infotainment (i.e., nav systems that can also play DVDs and surf the web – preferably not by the driver, while driving… [...]

My phone is the perfect way to read books

dirk — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:12:58 +0000

I know that most people will shake their heads and call me crazy. I mean, seriously – even the Nexus One (which has one of the bigger screens among phones) has only a 3.7″ display. Tiny. But stay with me for a moment. The reason I never bought an ebook reader is that I don’t [...]