I'm Michael, a systems administrator in Waterloo, Canada. I was interested in Ansible and tried to find some good articles or lectures on the internet, but unfortunately, most of them just explain all the functions and are hard for me to understand. When I read Shawn Powers' article in Linux Journal, it was really interesting and understandable and easy to understand. So, thank you for that.
—Michael
Note: if you're interested in Ansible, you can read Shawn Powers' series on our website: "Ansible: the Automation Framework That Thinks Like a Sysadmin", "Ansible: Making Things Happen", "Ansible, Part III: Playbooks" and "Ansible, Part IV: Putting It All Together".—Ed.
Doc Searls' editorials, Kyle Rankin's "Hack and /" and Dave Taylor's "Work the Shell"
keep me subscribing to LJ. Sure the specialty articles are great, but I am a
power user, not a sysadmin or "IT guy". Keep feeding me tips on how to get
more from the Linux command line! Catching up on the January issue, I particularly
appreciated seeing the options on sort and uniq that
had escaped my notice (see Kyle Rankin's "Back to
Basics: sort and uniq".)
Nice work...all!
—Richard
According to my friend, Robert Wachtel, Dave Taylor's article from the April 2019 issue "Back in the Day: UNIX, Minix and Linux" contains some inaccuracies. Specifically:
Interesting but inaccurate regarding PARC and Doug Engelbart. Engelbart and his group at SRI created the mouse and windows before PARC was founded.
See The Mother of All Demos and PARC (company), on Wikipedia.
—Roger
Dave Taylor replies: Entirely possible I mis-remembered my timeline, but I do know that Engelbart was working at SRI when we met, and I heard him talk about his "mouse". If I suggested that he was at PARC, that was my mistake, although the PARC systems definitely utilized that mouse device!
I have recently subscribed to LJ. When LJ first come into being, I was
unable to subscribe, literally; I was a teacher on an undeveloped island,
with an embarrassingly low salary. I actually began to use GNU/Linux
because I could not afford to buy Multiedit, which would have granted
access to the documentation. I needed to be able to type diacritics, and
without access to the documentation, I couldn't figure out how to do so. I
wrote a request letter to the Free Software Foundation, begging for a free
text editor. Little would I have suspected how their gift to me—13
3-1/2" diskettes of GNU software ported to Windows—would change my life.
Emacs is the self-documenting editor, and the documentation is at one's
fingertips at all times. My project was a lexicon; text tools like
grep, a
functioning sort, and ptx were extremely useful.
I started out on the wrong side of the Free Beer vs. Freedom divide. Maybe not, though, because the availability of tools is extremely important in the struggle for freedom, at all levels. I was a science teacher, so this was critically important to me. I started reading the GNU's Bulletin, wearing out each issue as they arrived when I was able to travel to a less remote island. I learned of two free operating systems through GNU's Bulletin: FreeBSD and "Linux". It came to pass that I was able to download a copy of Slackware and started using it. I never looked back.
I tell this tale to accentuate the liberating nature of Free Software. The tool-lending library in my city makes a range of useful hardware available to anyone with a library card, without charge. I cannot explain the passion that these developments awaken within me.
I grew up in a relatively well-to-do environment, at almost every level. Yet, I ended up living on an island, on which cash has a minimal importance except to buy those things that were introduced by the benevolent other-world empire. I bring this up because I now am living back in my own "world" where I am constantly being reminded of the preeminence of money.
Linux Journal represented to me an attempt to grow a business for profit through association with an ecosystem that is free—not only in the "open source" manner of thinking, but as something that could be used even by those who were unable to afford, say, a copy of Word or Word Perfect costing several hundred dollars—not to mention the superior quality of the tools that Free Software has made available.
Yet I have scoured every Linux Journal I could get hold of. They were sold in some bookshops, and I occasionally could allocate a few dollars to purchase a copy. I did subscribe, but could not pay.
I do not and would not resent the efforts of another to feed himself and his family through publishing. I get it that Linux Journal was not a hugely successful capitalistic enterprise. I don't mind paying for a subscription for a year. (Heck, even the libraries around here do not carry it.) LJ is still the best of the Linux magazines. But something has happened, and that something—whatever it is—is reflected in the manner of content that is offered within its covers.
Today, I am writing because I just spent borrowed money to purchase a printer. It is one of the new breed that promises (and to some extent seems to deliver) a new paradigm—ink tanks. My old printer was still on warranty, but I have been using unblessed ink, and to take it to the repair shop for promised repair at the authorized service center will probably require me to purchase a full set of ink cartridges. The cheapest I have found costs about 60.00. I have been able to print for less than 20.00 a year in ink with oversize ink cartridges made in China, with quality that is good enough, if not absolutely matched in color. Now I have received an error message: "Ink Absorber Pad Full". The service department had advised me over the phone to purge the cartridges, emptying them of ink. I'll say this, the drivers were easy to install on an Arch Linux system, or Manjaro.
Cutting to the chase, this new printer is a different beast. The drivers are more difficult to install, and the scanner does not work as it should. The settings in CUPS are few, compared with the many I have seen in the pictures of Windows' settings windows. It does interesting things. It is a new model, and the manufacturer has provided it with an email address: all I need is to send a document to that email address, and it will be printed. We'll see. I have access to it from my Android phone, and presumably a tablet, including nozzle cleaning and etc.
It's on me for not shopping more specifically for a Linux-friendly printer. Are there any? Really? But the real reason for this letter comes from my realization—in seeking online help—that the Linux Documentation Project is dead, and that the Linuxprinting.org project—now taken over by open printing, I think—is far from functioning well. Linux has been transformed into containers and embedded systems. These and other such projects were the heart and soul of the Free Software movement, and I do not want for them to be gone!
The spirit of free software is under threat in this perilous time. Microsoft is now embracing Linux like a giant anaconda, seeking to squeeze more profit.
I don't know what to suggest, but I would like to see more sensitivity to those people who are still floundering, confused about installing printers, or unable—like my good friend who has for years struggled to install and use Linux has recently experienced—to get Secure Boot turned off on a Windows 10 laptop, several years old, to install some distro of Linux.
Is there some contribution that Linux Journal can make to the community of users who are being worn down by the corporate flim flam? I have tried for years to advocate for GNU/Linux (with an affectionate, gentle touch on "GNU/"). GNU/Linux has changed my life. I have failed to convince those teachers around me—in schools where Windows and Apple software are provided for by federal grants. A few students picked it up. There is some really important work still to be done.
This all being said, I look forward to scouring every issue of LJ over the coming year. I appreciate the new and enthusiastic leadership of Doc Searls and also Bryan Lunduke's wild bits. There are still some of us who actually are down here on Earth, storing our bits on our own hardware, and struggling with the efforts of the corporate world not only to ruin our political lives and steal our eyeballs, but also to force us to buy the bill of goods they are wont to sell.
—Alan Davis
Doc Searls replies: Thanks, Alan. Your letter hit home for me in a big way, and I've answered with my From the Editor column this month.
Regarding Doc Searls' article "The Kids Take Over" in the April 2019 issue, I wish I was eight again and in school with that KidOYO program. That educational program is stunning. And the part I like the most is no one is left behind. Thank you for finding and sharing it. We need more people to think the way those folks in New York are thinking.
—Bob Getsla
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